Lumber Sayings Quotes

My kids are starting to notice I'm a little different from the other dads. "Why don't you have a straight job like everyone else?" they asked me the other day. I told them this story: In the forest, there was a crooked tree and a straight tree. Every day, the straight tree would say to the crooked tree, "Look at me...I'm tall, and I'm straight, and I'm handsome. Look at you...you're all crooked and bent over. No one wants to look at you." And they grew up in that forest together. And then one day the loggers came, and they saw the crooked tree and the straight tree, and they said, "Just cut the straight trees and leave the rest." So the loggers turned all the straight trees into lumber and toothpicks and paper. And the crooked tree is still there, growing stronger and stranger every day.

One farmer says to me, 'You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones with;' and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying his system with the raw material of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plow along in spite of every obstacle.

Well," he said, "I say, now, as I said then, that a man should keep his little brain-attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in the lumber-room of this library, where he can get it if he wants it.

The italian nanny was attempting to answer the teachers latest question when the moroccan student interupted, shouting "Excuse me, What is an easter?" it would seem that depsite having grown up in a muslim country, she would have heard it mentioned once or twice, but no. "I mean it," She said. " I have no idea what you people are talking about." The teacher called upon the rest of us to explain. The poles led the charge to the best of their ability. It is," said one, "a party for the little boy of god who call his self jesus and... oh shit." She faltered and her fellow country man came to her aid. He call his self Jesus and then he die one day on two... morsels of... lumber." The rest of the class jumped in, offering bits of information that would have given the pope an aneurysm. he die one day and then he go above of my head to live with your father." he weared of himself the long hair and after he die. the first day he come back here for to say hello to the peoples." he Nice the jesus." he make the good things, and on the easter we be sad because somebody makes him dead today.

One might fancy that day, the London day, was just beginning. Like a woman who had slipped off her print dress and white apron to array herself in blue and pearls, the day changed, put off stuff, took gauze, changed to evening, and with the same sigh of exhilaration that a woman breathes, tumbling petticoats on the floor, it too shed dust, heat, colour; the traffic thinned; motor cars, tinkling, darting, succeeded the lumber of vans; and here and there among the thick foliage of the squares an intense light hung. I resign, the evening seemed to say, as it paled and faded above the battlements and prominences, moulded, pointed, of hotel, flat, and block of shops, I fade, she was beginning. I disappear, but London would have none of it, and rushed her bayonets into the sky, pinioned her, constrained her to partnership in her revelry.

That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth traveled round the sun appeared to me to be such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it. ‘You appear to be astonished,’ he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. ‘Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it.’ ‘To forget it!’ ‘You see,’ he explained, ‘I consider that a man’s brain is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.’ ‘But the Solar System!’ I protested. ‘What the deuce is it to me?’ he interrupted impatiently: ‘you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.

Mr. Haverbink bowed deeply, muscles rippling all up and down his back, and lumbered from the room. Miss Hisselpenny sighed and fluttered her fan. "Ah, for the countryside, what scenery there abides..., " quoth she. Miss Tarabotti giggled. "Ivy, what a positively wicked thing to say. Bravo.

I find a grin spreading across my face. I don't know what I'm doing, how I'm doing it, or what will happen when it's done, but at the very bottom of this rising siege-ladder, I at least know I'm going to see Julie again. I know I'm not going to say goodbye. And if these staggering refugees want to help, if they think they see something bigger here than a boy chasing a girl, then they can help, and we'll see what happens when we say Yes while this rigor mortis world screams No. We start lumbering north on the southbound freeway, and the thunder drifts away towards the mountains as if it's scared of us. Here we are on the road. We must be going somewhere.

There’s a beat, and then Garrett surprises me by hauling me in for a hug. Not a macho side hug or quick chest bump, but a real hug, with both his arms around me, gripping me tight. I hug him back. “I’m sorry, man. About the house. The drinking. Just everything.” “I know,” he says for the third time. A door creaks open. “Is this a private homoerotic moment? Or can anyone join in?” I laugh weakly as Logan lumbers toward us. Garrett releases me, and Logan takes his place. His hug is briefer, but no less comforting.

Impulsively, I lumbered aboard, bought a ticket, and took a seat toward the back. The trick of successful walking, I always say, is knowing when to stop.

Suddenly William loomed over him, scowling, snarling and bloody, his suit dirt-stained and ripped. “Do you know. How many strands. Of hair I lost. On my way down?” Whatever. “Math was never my thing, but I’m gonna say you lost…a lot.” Electric-blues glittered with menace. “You are a cruel, sadistic bastard. My hair needs TLC and you…you… Damn you! I’ve gutted men for less.” “I know. I’ve watched you.” Paris lumbered to his feet and scanned the rocky bank they stood upon, the crimson ocean lapping and bubbling in every direction. The drawbridge was only a fifty-yard dash away. “Don’t kill the messenger, but I’m thinking you should change your dating profile to balding.” Masculine cheeks went scarlet as the big bad warrior struggled for a comeback. … “One of these days you’re going to wake up,” William finally said, “and I will have shaved you. Everywhere.” “Won’t make a difference. Women will still want me. But you know what else? What I did to you wasn’t cruel, Willy.” He offered the warrior a white-flag grin. A trick. A lie. “This, however, is.” He grabbed William by the wrist, swung the man around and around before at last releasing him and hurling his body directly onto the bridge.

She's a woman. Like a chameleon does, a woman quietly blends into all the parts of her life. Sometimes you can hardly tell she's there, she's so quiet going on about her business. Feed the baby. Muck the stables. Make soup from stones. Make a sheet into a dress. She doesn't count on destiny for anything. She knows its her own hands, her own arms, her own thighs and breasts that have to do the work. Destiny is bigger in men's lives. Destiny is a welcome guest in a man's house. She barely knocks and he's there to open the door. "Yes, yes. You do it," he says to destiny and lumbers back to his chair.

His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it. "You appear to be astonished," he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. "Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it." "To forget it!" "You see," he explained, "I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones." "But the Solar System!" I protested. "What the deuce is it to me?" he interrupted impatiently; "you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.

I say now, as I said then, that a man should keep his little brain-attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in the lumber-room of his library, where he can get it if he wants it.

Throw the lumber over, man! Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need - a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing.

I have to own up and say that, much as I love my PowerBook, which now does about 97.8 percent of what I used to use the lumbering old desktop dinosaurs for, I’ve given up trying to use it on planes. Yes, yes, I know that there are sorts of power-user strategies you can use to extend your battery life—dimming modes, RAM disks, processor-resting, and so on—but the point is that I really can’t be bothered. I’m perfectly capable of just reading the in-flight magazine if I want to be irritated.

To: Anna Oliphant From: Etienne St. Clair Subject: Uncommon Prostitues I have nothing to say about prostitues (other than you'd make a terrible prostitute,the profession is much too unclean), I only wanted to type that. Isn't it odd we both have to spend Christmas with our fathers? Speaking of unpleasant matters,have you spoken with Bridge yet? I'm taking the bus to the hospital now.I expect a full breakdown of your Christmas dinner when I return. So far today,I've had a bowl of muesli. How does Mum eat that rubbish? I feel as if I've been gnawing on lumber. To: Etienne St. Clair From: Anna Oliphant Subject: Christmas Dinner MUESLY? It's Christmas,and you're eating CEREAL?? I'm mentally sending you a plate from my house. The turkey is in the oven,the gravy's on the stovetop,and the mashed potatoes and casseroles are being prepared as I type this. Wait. I bet you eat bread pudding and mince pies or something,don't you? Well, I'm mentally sending you bread pudding. Whatever that is. No, I haven't talked to Bridgette.Mom keeps bugging me to answer her calls,but winter break sucks enough already. (WHY is my dad here? SERIOUSLY. MAKE HIM LEAVE. He's wearing this giant white cable-knit sweater,and he looks like a pompous snowman,and he keeps rearranging the stuff on our kitchen cabinets. Mom is about to kill him. WHICH IS WHY SHE SHOULDN'T INVITE HIM OVER FOR HOLIDAYS). Anyway.I'd rather not add to the drama. P.S. I hope your mom is doing better. I'm so sorry you have to spend today in a hospital. I really do wish I could send you both a plate of turkey. To: Anna Oliphant From: Etienne St. Clair Subject: Re: Christmas Dinner YOU feel sorry for ME? I am not the one who has never tasted bread pudding. The hospital was the same. I won't bore you with the details. Though I had to wait an hour to catch the bus back,and it started raining.Now that I'm at the flat, my father has left for the hospital. We're each making stellar work of pretending the other doesn't exist. P.S. Mum says to tell you "Merry Christmas." So Merry Christmas from my mum, but Happy Christmas from me. To: Etienne St. Clair From: Anna Oliphant Subject: SAVE ME Worst.Dinner.Ever.It took less than five minutes for things to explode. My dad tried to force Seany to eat the green bean casserole, and when he wouldn't, Dad accused Mom of not feeding my brother enough vegetables. So she threw down her fork,and said that Dad had no right to tell her how to raise her children. And then he brought out the "I'm their father" crap, and she brought out the "You abandoned them" crap,and meanwhile, the WHOLE TIME my half-dead Nanna is shouting, "WHERE'S THE SALT! I CAN'T TASTE THE CASSEROLE! PASS THE SALT!" And then Granddad complained that Mom's turkey was "a wee dry," and she lost it. I mean,Mom just started screaming. And it freaked Seany out,and he ran to his room crying, and when I checked on him, he was UNWRAPPING A CANDY CANE!! I have no idea where it came from. He knows he can't eat Red Dye #40! So I grabbed it from him,and he cried harder, and Mom ran in and yelled at ME, like I'd given him the stupid thing. Not, "Thank you for saving my only son's life,Anna." And then Dad came in and the fighting resumed,and they didn't even notice that Seany was still sobbing. So I took him outside and fed him cookies,and now he's running aruond in circles,and my grandparents are still at the table, as if we're all going to sit back down and finish our meal. WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY FAMILY? And now Dad is knocking on my door. Great. Can this stupid holiday get any worse??

One farmer says to me, "You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones with"; and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying his system with the raw material of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plow along in spite of every obstacle.

These things matter to me, Daniel, says the man with six days to live. They are sitting on the porch in the last light. These things matter to me, son. The way the hawks huddle their shoulders angrily against hissing snow. Wrens whirring in the bare bones of bushes in winter. The way swallows and swifts veer and whirl and swim and slice and carve and curve and swerve. The way that frozen dew outlines every blade of grass. Salmonberries thimbleberries cloudberries snowberries elderberries salalberries gooseberries. My children learning to read. My wife's voice velvet in my ear at night in the dark under the covers. Her hair in my nose as we slept curled like spoons. The sinuous pace of rivers and minks and cats. Fresh bread with too much butter. My children's hands when they cup my face in their hands. Toys. Exuberance. Mowing the lawn. Tiny wrenches and screwdrivers. Tears of sorrow, which are the salt sea of the heart. Sleep in every form from doze to bone-weary. Pay stubs. Trains. The shivering ache of a saxophone and the yearning of a soprano. Folding laundry hot from the dryer. A spotless kitchen floor. The sound of bagpipes. The way horses smell in spring. Red wines. Furnaces. Stone walls. Sweat. Postcards on which the sender has written so much that he or she can barely squeeze in the signature. Opera on the radio. Bathrobes, back rubs. Potatoes. Mink oil on boots. The bands at wedding receptions. Box-elder bugs. The postman's grin. Linen table napkins. Tent flaps. The green sifting powdery snow of cedar pollen on my porch every year. Raccoons. The way a heron labors through the sky with such a vast elderly dignity. The cheerful ears of dogs. Smoked fish and the smokehouses where fish are smoked. The way barbers sweep up circles of hair after a haircut. Handkerchiefs. Poems read aloud by poets. Cigar-scissors. Book marginalia written with the lightest possible pencil as if the reader is whispering to the writer. People who keep dead languages alive. Fresh-mown lawns. First-basemen's mitts. Dish-racks. My wife's breasts. Lumber. Newspapers folded under arms. Hats. The way my children smelled after their baths when they were little. Sneakers. The way my father's face shone right after he shaved. Pants that fit. Soap half gone. Weeds forcing their way through sidewalks. Worms. The sound of ice shaken in drinks. Nutcrackers. Boxing matches. Diapers. Rain in every form from mist to sluice. The sound of my daughters typing their papers for school. My wife's eyes, as blue and green and gray as the sea. The sea, as blue and green and gray as her eyes. Her eyes. Her.

Self-consciousness, however, does hinder the experience of the present. It is the one instrument that unplugs all the rest. So long as I lose myself in a tree, say, I can scent its leafy breath or estimate its board feet of lumber, I can draw its fruits or boil tea on its branches, and the tree stays tree. But the second I become aware of myself at any of these activities -- looking over my own shoulder, as it were -- the tree vanishes, uprooted from the spot and flung out of sight as if it had never grown. And time, which had flowed down into the tree bearing new revelations like floating leaves at ever moment, ceases. It dams, stills, stagnates. (Harper Perennial Edition 82)

think that the rare Englishmen who have this gesture are never of the heavy type— for fear of any lumbering instance to the contrary, I will say, hardly ever; they have usually a fine temperament and much tolerance towards the smaller errors of men (themselves inclusive). The

The sawdust flew. A slightly sweet fragrance floated in the immediate area. It was a sweet but subtle aroma, neither the scent of pine nor willow, but one from the past that had been forgotten, only to reappear now after all these years, fresher than ever. The workmen occasionally scooped up a handful of sawdust, which they put into their mouths and swallowed. Before that they had chewed on pieces of green bark that they had stripped from the cut wood. It had the same fragrance and it freshened their mouths, so at first that was what they had used. Now even though they were no longer chewing the bark with which they felt such a bond, the stack of corded wood was a very appealing sight. From time to time they gave the logs a friendly slap or kick. Each time they sawed off a section, which rolled to the ground from the sawhorse, they would say: 'Off with you - go over there and lie down where you belong.' What they were thinking was that big pieces of lumber like this should be used to make tables or chairs or to repair a house or make window frames; wood like this was hard to find. But now they were cutting it into kindling to be burned in stoves, a sad ending for good wood like this. They could see a comparison with their own lives, and this was a saddening thought. ("North China")

I don’t know if you’ve spent time in the Catskills. From a distance, say, the parking lot of the old Caldor’s (which became an Ames that became a Stop ‘N’ Shop) in Huguenot, they’ve always made me think of a herd of giant animals, all standing grazing on the horizon. Up close, when you’re driving among them with the early morning light breaking over their round peaks, they seem incredibly present, more real than real, these huge solid heaps of rock that wear their trees like mile-long scarves. You glance at them, trying to keep your eyes on the road, which is already pretty busy with people driving up for a weekend getaway, and somehow you wouldn’t be surprised if the mountain closest to you were to cast off its trees in one titanic shrug and start to lumber away, a vast, unimaginable beast. When you turn off onto whatever secondary road you need to take, and you’re following its twists and turns back into the mountains, and the ground is steep to either side of you, opening every now and then on a meadow, or an old house, you think, Here, there are secret places. Well,

One farmer says to me, “You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones with”; and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying his system with the raw material of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plow along in spite of every obstacle.

One farmer says to me, “You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones with;” and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying his system with the raw material of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plough along in spite of every obstacle.

[Look at] the chair you are lounging in. . . . Could you have made it for yourself? . . . How [would you] get, say, the wood? Go and fell a tree? But only after first making the tools for that, and putting together some kind of vehicle to haul the wood, and constructing a mill to do the lumber and roads to drive on from place to place? In short, a lifetime or two to make one chair! . . . If we . . . worked not forty but one-hundred-forty hours per week we couldn’t make ourselves from scratch even a fraction of all the goods and services that we call our own. [Our] paycheck turns out to buy us the use of far more than we could possibly make for ourselves in the time it takes us to earn the check. . . . Work . . . yields far more in return upon our efforts than our particular jobs put in. . . .

lumber from the Black Hills National Forest. We have plenty of spare metal laying around in the junkyard, so we can build this with no problems,” “Uh, won’t the Sioux get kinda mad about us taking trees?” “I had to talk with the Sioux leader, John Running Elk, and he was fine with it as long as the lumber company stayed away from the Crazy Horse Memorial and the lands around it. They too have been preparing for the eventual crazy days ahead if the U.S. government does actually collapse, since it is apparent that Collins doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, in spite of Wall Street crashing and the military openly saying they want to get rid of him. Next question,

His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it. “You appear to be astonished,” he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. “Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it.” “To forget it!” “You see,” he explained, “I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.” “But the Solar System!” I protested. “What the deuce is it to me?” he interrupted impatiently; “you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.” I was on the point of asking him what that work might be, but something in his manner showed me that the question would be an unwelcome one. I pondered over our short conversation, however, and endeavoured to draw my deductions from it. He said that he would acquire no knowledge which did not bear upon his object. Therefore all the knowledge which he possessed was such as would be useful to him. I enumerated in my own mind all the various points upon which he had shown me that he was exceptionally well-informed. I even took a pencil and jotted them down. I could not help smiling at the document when I had completed it. It ran in this way— SHERLOCK HOLMES—his limits. 1. Knowledge of Literature.—Nil. 2. Philosophy.—Nil. 3. Astronomy.—Nil. 4. Politics.—Feeble. 5. Botany.—Variable. Well up in belladonna, opium, and poisons generally. Knows nothing of practical gardening. 6. Geology.—Practical, but limited. Tells at a glance different soils from each other. After walks has shown me splashes upon his trousers, and told me by their colour and consistence in what part of London he had received them. 7. Chemistry.—Profound. 8. Anatomy.—Accurate, but unsystematic. 9. Sensational Literature.—Immense. He appears to know every detail of every horror perpetrated in the century. 10. Plays the violin well. 11. Is an expert singlestick player, boxer, and swordsman. 12. Has a good practical knowledge of British law.

One might fancy that day, the London day, was just beginning. Like a woman who had slipped off her print dress and white apron to array herself in blue and pearls, the day changed, put off stuff, took gauze, changed to evening, and with the same sigh of exhilaration that a woman breathes, tumbling petticoats on the floor, it too shed dust, heat, colour; the traffic thinned; motor cars, tinkling, darting, succeeded the lumber of vans; and here and there among the thick foliage of the squares an intense light hung. I resign, the evening seemed to say, as it paled and faded above the battlements and prominences, moulded, pointed, of hotel, flat, and block of shops. I fade, she was beginning, I disappear, but London would have none of it, and rushed her bayonets into the sky, pinioned her, constrained her to partnership in her revelry.

The snow had ceased, but it caked the ground deeply now and the sleek ground car advanced through the deserted streets with lumbering effort. The murky gray light of incipient dawn was cold not only in the poetical sense but also in a very literal way—and even in the then turbulent state of the Foundation’s politics, no one, whether Actionist or pro-Hardin, found his spirits sufficiently ardent to begin street activity that early. Yohan Lee did not like that and his grumblings grew audible. “It’s going to look bad, Hardin. They’re going to say you sneaked away.” “Let them say it if they wish. I’ve got to get to Anacreon and I want to do it without trouble. Now that’s enough, Lee.” Hardin leaned back into the cushioned seat and shivered slightly. It wasn’t cold inside the well-heated car, but there was something frigid about a snow-covered world, even through glass, that annoyed him. He said, reflectively, “Some day when we get around

You must be tired,” he says, still holding my hand. “And you haven’t eaten much today.” I let out a slow breath. Griffin’s hand warms mine, making me realize just how cold with worry I’d been. “I’m not hungry. But I do want to wash and lie down,” I say. Griffin nods, helping me up. To my everlasting humiliation, I lumber to my feet with a groan. Not long ago, I was walking through fire, riding snakes, and climbing a Cyclops. Today, I suppose I proved I can still move fast when I really want to. Otherwise, it feels like I keep doubling my body weight every time I sit down. “Gods, Little Bean. You weigh a ton,” I murmur, stretching my aching back. She must already take after her father—big and solid. Griffin’s mouth quirks up, the small smile bringing some familiar and welcome lightness back into his otherwise drawn features. “I’m assuming I’m not Little Bean in this conversation.” I snort, taking a shuffling step. My body seems to loosen up once I start moving again—thank the Gods. “You’re Big Bean. Look at you… You’re huge.

Eriku opens the door. Momo-chan drops from the car and lumbers forward. And oh my God, she is so cute I could die. Tamagotchi breaks from the leash and rushes toward her. I close my eyes. I should have put the imperial vet on standby. But then... it's quiet. I pop open an eye, then the other, ready to see carnage. Tamagotchi has rolled onto his back, and Momo-chan is sniffing his belly. Her thick tongue darts out, and she licks him. Licks him. Tamagotchi shudders, his body convulsing in what I can only describe as pure ecstasy. "Well, now I've seen it all," Reina says, then wanders off. Eriku smiles. "I think they like each other." What an understatement. Momo-chan collapses onto the ground, and Tamagotchi curls up next to her. "I have mentally and emotionally subscribed to Momo-chan's fan club," I say, walking toward the dogs. Momo-chan rolls to her side. Tamagotchi adjusts too, lying in between her legs, his back curved against her belly. Just so many wishes fulfilled in one magical moment. I always thought I was a one dog kind of woman, but Tamagotchi and Momo-chan----sign me the eff up.

Suddenly, a loud popping and banging shattered the quiet. Almost hidden in a cloud of dust, a car roared along the road below us. Cattle lumbered to their feet, horses raised their heads and galloped away, a flock of chickens scattered in all directions. Hannah gasped. “Oh, my Lord, it’s John Larkin in his father’s motorcar. If he catches me looking like this, he’ll think I’m a common hoyden.” Her bare foot plunged toward me. The tree swayed violently, my head swam. Afraid to move, I clung to a branch. “For heaven’s sake, Andrew, hurry. He’ll be here any moment!” With Hannah pushing me, I slid from limb to limb, down, down, faster and faster. By the time I hit the ground, my legs were shaking so hard I could barley stand. Without so much as a thought for me, Hannah grabbed her shoes and ran across the lawn. Her feet were bare, her shirtwaist untucked, her skirt dusty. Twigs and leaves clung to her hair. As quick as she was, the Model T was quicker. Pursued by Buster, it rolled to a noisy stop under a tree. Without pausing to say hello, Hannah darted past John, scurried up the steps, and vanished into the house.

Silas nods and turns to back the car up, accidently brushing a hand against my shoulders as he does so. “Sorry,” he says under his breath, like he’s whispering in church. I shake my head as Scarlett settles her long arms and legs in the backseat and uses her cloak as a blanket. Still trying to lean somewhere between the door of death and Silas’s shoulder, I stare out the window as we lumber out of town. The road is smooth, hypnotic, with the dotted lines vanishing rhythmically before us. I glance back at my sister. She’s fallen asleep, and Screwtape is casting her dark looks, as if she’s to blame for his predicament. I looked toward Silas, trying to appear as if I’m just glancing out his window. Really, I want to study him intensely. He’s wearing one of his many nearly threadbare T-shirts, jeans that are soft from washing, wavy hair . . . Everything about him begs to be touched . . . “You’re nervous,” Silas says suddenly. “What? No!” I answer sharply. Am I that obvious? Silas raises an eyebrow and laughs. “It makes sense. I mean, you and Lett have lived in Ellison forever.” Right . . . right. He’s talking about the trip, not my resisting the temptation to fall on him. We’re silent for a moment, nearly tangible awkwardness floating around the front seats. Silas drums his fingers on the steering wheel.

Nope. Look. The Raft is a media event. But in a much more profound, general sense than you can possibly imagine." "Huh?" "It's created by the media in that without the media, people wouldn't know it was here, Refus wouldn't come out and glom onto it the way they do. And it sustains the media. It creates a lot of information flow-movies, news reports - - you know." "So you're creating your own news event to make money off the information flow that it creates?" says the journalist, desperately trying to follow. His tone of voice says that this is all a waste of videotape. His weary attitude suggests that this is not the first time Rife has flown off on a bizarre tangent. "Partly. But that's only a very crude explanation. It really goes a lot deeper than that. You've probably heard the expression that the Industry feeds off of biomass, like a whale straining krill from the ocean." "I've heard the expression, yes." "That's my expression. I made it up. An expression like that is just like a virus, you know -- it's a piece of information -- data -- that spreads from one person to the next. Well, the function of the Raft is to bring more biomass. To renew America. Most countries are static, all they need to do is keep having babies. But America's like this big old clanking, smoking machine that just lumbers across the landscape scooping up and eating everything in sight. Leaves behind a trail of garbage a mile wide. Always needs more fuel... "Now I have a different perspective on it. America must look, to those poor little buggers down there, about the same as Crete looked to those poor Greek suckers. Except that there's no coercion involved. Those people down there give up their children willingly. Send them into the labyrinth by the millions to be eaten up. The Industry feeds on them and spits back images, sends out movies and TV programs, over my networks, images of wealth and exotic things beyond their wildest dreams, back to those people, and it gives them something to dream about, something to aspire to. And that is the function of the Raft. It's just a big old krill carrier." Finally the journalist gives up on being a journalist, just starts to slag L. Bob Rife openly. He's had it with this guy. "That's disgusting. I can't believe you can think about people that way." "Shit, boy, get down off your high horse. Nobody really gets eaten. It's just a figure of speech. They come here, they get decent jobs, find Christ, buy a Weber grill, and live happily ever after. What's wrong with that?

Office and Classroom Tools—Have the child cut with scissors; use a stapler and hole puncher; draw with crayons and chalk; paint with brushes, feathers, sticks, and eyedroppers; squeeze glue onto paper in letters or designs, sprinkle sparkles on the glue, and shake off the excess; and wrap boxes with brown paper, tape, and string. MOTOR PLANNING Jumping from a Table—Place a gym mat beside a low table and encourage the child to jump. After each landing, stick tape on the mat to mark the spot. Encourage the child to jump farther each time. Walking Like Animals—Encourage the child to lumber like a bear, on all fours; a crab, from side to side on all fours; a turtle, creeping; a snake, crawling; an inchworm, by stretching flat and pulling her knees toward her chest; an ostrich, while grasping her ankles; a duck, squatting; a frog, squatting and jumping; a kangaroo or bunny, jumping; a lame dog, with an “injured” leg; a gorilla, bending her knees; a horse, galloping. Playground Games—Remember Simon Says, Ring-Around-the-Rosy, The Hokey-Pokey, London Bridge, Shoo Fly, and Mother, May I? Insy-Outsy—Teach the child to get in and out of clothes, the front door, and the car. With a little help, the child may become able to perform these tasks independently, even if it takes a long time!

At the level of economic theory, the great fallacy in the logic of David Ricardo, the father of free-trade theory, was to view the gains and losses of trade in a static fashion, as a snapshot at a single point in time. In Ricardo’s theory, whose variants are espoused by free-market economists to this day, if nineteenth-century Britain offered better and cheaper manufactured goods, the US should buy them and export something where it could compete—say, raw cotton and lumber—even if that meant the US never developed an industrial economy. By the same token, if twentieth-century America made the best cars, machine tools, and steel, Japan and Korea should import those, and continue to export cheap toys and rice. And if other nations subsidized US industries, Americans, rather than being fearful of displacement, should accept the “gift.” What Ricardo missed—and what leaders from Alexander Hamilton and Abraham Lincoln to Teddy Roosevelt grasped (likewise statesmen in nations from Japan to Brazil), as well as dissenting economists like the German Friedrich List and the Americans Paul Krugman and Dani Rodrik—was that the dynamic gains of economic development over time far surpass the static gains at a single point in time. Economic advantage is not something bestowed by nature. Advantage can be deliberately created—an insight for which Krugman won a Nobel Prize. Policies of economic development often required an active role for the state, in violation of laissez-faire.

Max caught the rapidly melting ice cream on his tongue. With his mouth half full, he said in a deliberately casual tone: "I'm going to write children's books. I've got a couple of ideas." [...] Max pulled his notebook from his back pocket and read aloud: "The old master magician was wondering when a brave girl might finally come along and dig him up from the garden where he had lain forgotten under the strawberries for a century and a half..." "Or the story of the little cow [...] the holy cow that always has to take the blame. I imagine that even the holy cow used to be a young calf once, before people started saying, 'holy cow, what did you say you want to be? A writer?' " Max grinned. "And another one about Claire, a girl who swaps bodies with her kitty cat." [...] "... and the one where little Bruno complains to the guardians of heaven about the family they lumbered him with... " [...] "... and when people's shadows go back to straighten their owners' childhoods out a bit..." Wonderful, thought Jean. I'll send my shadow back in time to straighten my life out. How tempting. How sadly impossible.

He says anyone who raises the child of another, raises a child of mine.” Relief poured through Autumn.

Actually I've never seen a cycle-maintenance problem complex enough really to require full-scale formal scientific method. Repair problems are not that hard. When I think of formal scientific method an image sometimes comes to mind of an enormous juggernaut, a huge bulldozer-slow, tedious, lumbering, laborious, but invincible. It takes twice as long, five times as long, maybe a dozen times as long as informal mechanic's techniques, but you know in the end you're going to get it. There's no fault isolation problem in motorcycle maintenance that can stand up to it. When you've hit a really tough one, tried everything, racked your brain and nothing works, and you know that this time Nature has really decided to be difficult, you say, "Okay, Nature, that's the end of the nice guy," and you crank up the formal scientific method.

Harmless and huge, Fire saw when she emerged from her tent. His fiddle was like a toy in his hands; this man’s sword must look like a butter knife when he swung it. But the face that sat above his tree trunk of a body was quiet and thoughtful and mild. He lowered his eyes before her and held the fiddle out to her. Fire shook her head. “You’re very generous,” she said, “but I don’t like to take it from you.” The man’s voice was so deep it sounded like it came from the earth. “We all know the story of what you did at Queen Roen’s fortress months back, Lady. You saved the life of our commander.” “Well,” Fire said, because he seemed to expect her to say something. “Nonetheless.” “The men cannot stop talking about it,” he continued, bowing, then pushing the fiddle into her small hands with his enormous ones. “And besides, you’re the better fiddler.” Fire watched the man lumber away, touched, immensely comforted by his voice, by the huge gentle feeling of him.

THE SUMMER BEFORE COLLEGE Mick drove trucks for the Coke plant, big lumbering GMCs with slide-up side doors from which he pulled down wooden cases of bottles and slung back cases of empties, delivering to corner markets, restaurants and grocery stores in Rockland County. He loved the hard labor and the changing scenes and people, the sun hot on his face through the GMC’s big windshield and on his arm through the open window full of all the scents of summer – spicy fresh-mown alfalfa, sun-warm bark of beeches and birches, black-furrowed soil, the redolent pastures of cattle and sheep, the cool moist air when the road went over a stream. Wherever he sold, people upped their orders. “What I like,” one corner grocer said, “is you never let me down. You always come when you say you will.” Mick shrugged it off but smiled, “Isn’t everybody like that?” “The way you work, you’re gonna make somethin’ of yourself some day.” He drove on, one arm out the window, shoulder warm in the sun, wind cooling his face, in the friendly grease, diesel and sun-hot plastic smell of the truck. Of course you worked hard, everybody should. It made you happy. How could you not work when your family needed it? Tara waiting tables full-time at Primo’s Café on Main Street, Troy running the farm all by himself and delivering papers at four every morning; Dad’s salary at the plastic factory had gone

When the club’s face looks to the right of the direction in which the head is traveling, the ball spins around an equator tilted from left to right and thus curves to the right during flight. I’ll do you a favor and not tell you about every stroke. Or any stroke at all. Though I got off some very nice drives. True, they didn’t land on the correct fairway, but that was due to wind. And I will stand mute on the subject of technique except to say I learned that many chip shots are best played with a sharp kick from the toe of a golf shoe. And if you cut a hole in your pants pocket you can drop a ball down your trouser leg and “discover” that your shot landed remarkably close to the green. And putting, for a person of my socioeconomic background, is best done by envisioning the cup as being behind a little windmill or inside the mouth of a cement whale. I also found out that all the important lessons of life are contained in the three rules for achieving a perfect golf swing: 1. Keep your head down. 2. Follow through. 3. Be born with money. There’s a fine camaraderie on a golf course—lumbering around with your fellow Republicans, encompassed by a massive waste of space and cash, bearing witness to prolific use of lawn chemicals, and countenancing an exploitative wage scale for the maintenance employees. Golf is the

One farmer says to me, “You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones with;” and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying his system with the raw material of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable- made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plough along in spite of every obstacle.

These New World practices (enslavement and genocide) formed another secret link with the anti-human animus of mechanical industry after the sixteenth century, when the workers were no longer protected either by feudal custom or by the self-governing guild. The degradations undergone by child laborers or women during the early nineteenth century in England's 'satanic mills' and mines only reflected those that took place during the territorial expansion of Western man. In Tasmania, for example, British colonists organized 'hunting parties' for pleasure, to slaughter the surviving natives: a people more primitive, scholars believe, than the Australian natives, who should have been preserved, so to say, under glass, for the benefit of later anthropologists. So commonplace were these practices, so plainly were the aborigines regarded as predestined victims, that even the benign and morally sensitive Emerson could say resignedly in an early poem, 1827: "Alas red men are few, red men are feeble, They are few and feeble and must pass away." As a result Western man not merely blighted in some degree every culture that he touched, whether 'primitive' or advanced, but he also robbed his own descendants of countless gifts of art and craftsmanship, as well as precious knowledge passed on only by word of mouth that disappeared with the dying languages of dying peoples. With this extirpation of earlier cultures went a vast loss of botanical and medical lore, representing many thousands of years of watchful observation and empirical experiment whose extraordinary discoveries-such as the American Indian's use of snakeroot (reserpine) as a tranquilizer in mental illness-modern medicine has now, all too belatedly, begun to appreciate. For the better part of four centuries the cultural riches of the entire world lay at the feet of Western man; and to his shame, and likewise to his gross self-deprivation and impoverishment, his main concern was to appropriate only the gold and silver and diamonds, the lumber and pelts, and such new foods (maize and potatoes) as would enable him to feed larger populations.

I don’t suppose you’d care to explain the we-don’t-have-a-choice aspect to Naomi?” Javier rejoined sarcastically. “Why bother? She’s bound and determined to fight her beast and in turn, her shifter nature. I say let her.” Incredulity marked Javier’s expression. “Isn’t that counterproductive to your, make that our, goal?” “No, it is simple biology,” Ethan explained. “She will eventually come to us. Keep in mind, the longer she denies the pull to mate, the harder the desire to claim us will ride her.” “That sounds kind of callous,” Javier remarked. “I’m surprised. I expected more of you.” “You didn’t let me explain what my plan was while she fought her nature. I plan to stay glued to her side, apart from practices and games, of course. I will get to know her, and in turn, she will come to know me. Befriend her, in other words, and if I’m lucky, perhaps she’ll even come to love me. I know I’m already half way there.” A romantic like his father, Ethan believed in love at first sight despite his more pragmatic friend’s comments. Javier snorted. “Gods, don’t let the opposing team ever hear you yapping like a woman. For a giant bear, you’re awfully sentimental.” A dark look shot Javier’s way made his feline friend grin. Ethan growled. “You are lucky I am holding her, or I’d make you swallow your words.” “Down Smokey,” Javier joked. “Actually, your plan is a good one. She is most definitely intriguing, and if we’re going to spend the rest of our lives with her, then I guess becoming her friend before her lover is a good start. But I warn you, if she insists on sex, I will sacrifice myself for the greater good to please her.” “Whatever,” Ethan scoffed. “You might be the oral master, but I will still always have the bigger cock.” And with that parting shot, Ethan stood with his precious burden and lumbered upstairs to find her bedroom.

Now as Daly said, man-made capital and natural capital are not substitutable. This is obvious, but since most economists say they are substitutable, it has to be insisted on. Put simply, you can't substitute more sawmills for fewer forests. If you're building a house you can juggle the number of power saws and carpenters, which means they're substitutable, but you can't build it with half the amount of lumber, no matter how many saws or carpenters you have. Try it and you have a house of air. And that's where we live now.

We’re all subject to the condom talk. He brought one to me in bed one time when he realized he didn’t see me go to the drawer.” “And thank God for that,” Paul bites out. “Because if you’d gotten April pregnant, where would you be now?” Matt sobers. “I’d be a fucking father. Which is something I’ll never be.” He lumbers to his feet. “I’m going to bed now,” he says. I can feel the weight of his heavy sigh as it settles around the room. “Damn, now you make me wish I’d let you get her pregnant,” Paul says.

He can’t stay here.” I’m putting my foot down. I won’t allow this to happen. “I’ll leave, Dad. I swear to God, if you try to make me do this, I’ll disappear again.” Dad sits back, looking smug. “You know, I got a call from Matt’s doctor the other day.” Dad stares direct at Logan. “They said your brother is ready for phase two of the treatment. And they asked if I would be providing the funds.” Logan’s arm falls from around my waist, and he lumbers to his feet very slowly. He looks down at me and presses a finger to my lips. His finger trembles. “Mr. Madison,” he says. He nods at my dad, and then at my mom. “Mrs. Madison. It was wonderful to meet you. I will say good-bye now.” He starts toward the door. “And as far as the treatment is concerned, if Emily’s freedom is the price, you can take your money and shove it up your ass.” He stops at the door. I’m latched onto his arm like a Velcro monkey. “Please don’t walk out,” I beg. “Not like this. I can fix this.” He peels me off of his arm. “I know you can.” He kisses my forehead, his lips lingering there as he breathes in deeply, his eyes closed. Then he pushes me back from him. “I need to go,” he says. His voice is hoarse. “I’ll talk to you later.” “I’m going to deal with this, and then I’ll come find you. I promise.” He nods. Then he steps out the door and closes it softly behind him. There’s a thud on the other side of the wall and I know Logan waited until he got outside to smash something.

Shit,” he grunts as he lumbers to his feet. “Ten bucks says you’re the daughter.” I close my eyes for a second and try to control my breaths. I have wanted to talk to this man for almost two and a half years. But he looks at me like he doesn’t know me. “And there go my nuts.” My gaze slices to meet his. His eyes twinkle. He jerks his thumb toward my father. “He was serious about the hatchet, wasn’t he?” He looks so worried that I feel a bubble of laughter building within me, replacing the hurt that came with him not recognizing me. “’Fraid so,” I say, biting back a grin. “Figures,” he mumbles, and he walks toward his cabin, shaking his head.

Paul,” I say quietly. “What?” he whispers back. “Are you going to break my heart?” I look into his eyes because I think I might find the truth there, if there is such a thing. “No,” he says. His voice is strong and clear. I hear a voice through the crack in the door say, “Ask him if he promises!” “What the fuck?” Paul says, tossing his head back. He opens the door, and Pete and Sam fall into the room. They land on top of one another. “Don’t you have better things to do?” Paul asks, staring down at the two of them in a heap. They look at one another. “Not really.” They start to lumber to their feet, and Paul walks out of the room. Sam wraps his arm around my shoulders. “Ask him if he promises,” he says. “What does that even mean?” “When Mom died, we asked Paul if it would all be all right and he promised it would. It was,” Sam says. Pete goes on to say, “And when Dad left, we asked again if it was going to be all right, if we’d make it by ourselves. And we did…because Paul promised we could.” Fuck. My gut clenches. “I wouldn’t want him to waste a promise on me.” I try to laugh it off, but they don’t think it’s funny. “Sometimes, all you need is a promise so you can keep going,” Sam says. “If you need a promise, ask for it. He’ll say yes or no.” “I don’t need a promise.” “Yes, you do.” Sam stares at me.

They say that behind every great man is a great woman. But it seems that behind every trailblazing female constable is a lumbering male nanny!

The teacher called upon the rest of us to explain (Easter). The Poles led the charge to the best of their ability. “It is,” said one, “a party for the little boy of God who call his self Jesus and … oh, shit.” She faltered and her fellow countryman came to her aid. “He call his self Jesus and then he be die one day on two … morsels of … lumber.” The rest of the class jumped in, offering bits of information that would have given the pope an aneurysm. “He die one day and then he go above of my head to live with your father.” “He weared of himself the long hair and after he die, the first day he come back here for to say hello to the peoples. “He nice, the Jesus.” “He make the good things, and on the Easter we be sad because somebody makes him dead today.

Companies don't want anyone telling them how to deal with their workers  -- they never have; they never will. Stores don't want anyone telling them how to design their entrances; how many steps they can have (or can't have); how heavy their doors can be. Yet they accept their city's building and fire codes, dictating to them how many people they can have in their restaurants, based on square footage, so that the place will not be a fire hazard. They accept that the city can inspect their electrical wiring to ensure that it "meets code" before they open for business. Yet they chafe if an individual wants an accommodation. Because, it seems, it is seen as "special for the handicapped," most of whom likely don't deserve it. Accommodation is fought doubly hard when it is seen to be a way of letting "the disabled" have a part of what we believe is for "normal" people. Although no access code, anywhere, requires them, automatic doors remain the one thing, besides flat or ramped entrances, that one hears about most from people with mobility problems: they need automatic doors as well as flat entrances. Yet no code, anywhere, includes them; mandating them would be "going too far"; giving the disabled more than they have a right to. A ramp is OK. An automatic door? That isn't reasonable. At least that's what the building lobby says. Few disability rights groups, anywhere, have tried to push for that accommodation. Some wheelchair activists are now pressing for "basic, minimal access" in all new single-family housing, so, they say, they can visit friends and attend gatherings in others' homes. This means at least one flat entrance and a bathroom they can get into. De-medicalization No large grocery or hotel firm, no home-and-garden discount supply center would consider designing an entrance that did not include automatic doors. They are standard in hotels and discount warehouses. Not, of course, for the people who literally can not open doors by themselves  -- for such people are "the disabled": them, not us. Firms that operate hotels, groceries and building supply stores fight regulations that require they accommodate "the disabled." Automatic doors that go in uncomplainingly are meant for us, the fit, the nondisabled, to ensure that we will continue to shop at the grocery or building supply center; to make it easy for us to get our grocery carts out, our lumber dollies to our truck loaded with Sheetrock for the weekend project. So the bellhops can get the luggage in and out of the hotel easily. When it is for "them," it is resisted; when it is for "us," however, it is seen as a design improvement. Same item; different purpose

And I’m thinking of marrying a couple friends of mine, see.” I had to pause for a moment there. “Plural friends?” “Yeah, good business match it would be.We’ve been close since we were kids. “Perhaps my Nuryeven isn’t as good as I thought. When you say marry, you mean joining your households together and producing hiers, yes?” It wasn’t that the concept was alien to me, it’s just that I hadn’t expected such an arrangement to be commonplace in Nuryevet. Well, no, I’ll be honest, iots that I hadn’t spent even a blink of time thinking about their practices, and if you’d asked me at that time I probably would have told you that all Nuryevens lumber along like they're made of stone. Not a drop of hot blood in their bodies and no interest whatsoever in romance, and that they acquired children by filing paperwork in quintuplicate and being assigned one by an advocate. My new friend Ilias said, “Iy that’s right, though I don't think that Anya and Micket will care to manage it themselves. Heirs are cheap though. You can scrape together half a dozen of them right off the street. So longs you've got flxible standards” I shook my head, “Is this a common thing in these parts?” “Ey? Oh, iy, common enough. I’ve seen marriages with more partners than that.” He pulled his chair to face me fully. “The Oomack only ever have two partner marriages, did you know that? And it's not about business. They don't even seem to care about their assets at all!” “Well, no, the Oomack marry for love and sex.” “Is that right? That seems messy. Lots of feelings involved if you combine sex and business.” Ilias had certain opinions, shall we say which may have not been representative of the general Nuryeven philosophy. Marriage here is a great amalgamation of every kind legal partnership. They get married when they are going into business together. They get married when they want to own property jointly. They get married when they're in love. Some of these arrangements do involve a physical element or the biological production of heirs, as they do elsewhere. Some, as Ilia mentioned before, simply involve formally adopting half a dozen heirs off the street. Some are a mere legal formality. Like many things in Nuryevet , you can do as you please so long as you’ve got your paperwork in order. I didn’t quite understand all this at the time. It took me a while to glean the intricacies of it, or rather, the lack of intricacies. At the time, I only asked Ilia if he had a separate lover. “Not right now. I hire a private contractor for that.” “A prostitute you mean??” “No, a contractor. Prostitutes are, well you’re foreign, you wouldn't know. We don't have those here. Prostitutes just stand on the street and don't have a license or pay taxes, right? They juits have sex with whoever in an ally.” “Oh… some of them, in some places. In other places.” I waved vaguely, “ higher status.” “Meaning what?” “Meaning they’re more expensive. Meaning they do other things besides the act. In some places they're priests and priestesses. In some places they're popular society figures with property and businesses, patrons of the arts and so forth.” “Here you hire one of them like you’d hire a doctor or a tailor or someone to build a house for you, and you wouldn’t graba just anybody off the street for that would you. They show you their l;icence and you sign a contract together and so on. It's a good system.” “What about those who don't have a licence?” “Arrested! Just like a doctor practicing without a license would be.

But I know one thing. I used to say, fear nothing. That was my motto.” “And what’s your motto now?” “Now it’s, fear nothing, except for God.

he didn’t get cross. Why, why, why couldn’t my mum have found herself a bloke like him? Why did she have to lumber herself with Jason? Miss Lovejoy says there