Patio Time Quotes

It was around that time that I started to believe that friendships could be written in the stars. “If there are all different types of soul mates,” I told Harry one afternoon, when the two of us were sitting out on the patio with Connor, “then you are one of mine.

believe that you've had most of your important memories by the time you're thirty. After that, memory becomes water overflowing into an already full cup. New experiences just don't register in the same way or with the same impact. I could be shooting heroin with the Princess of Wales, naked in a crashing jet, and the experience still couldn't compare to the time the cops chased us after we threw the Taylors' patio furniture into their pool in eleventh grade.

You think maybe if you just work harder and faster, you can hold off the chaos, but then one day you’re changing a patio light bulb with a five-year life span and you realize how you’ll only be changing this light maybe ten more times before you’ll be dead.

Vadim smiled. “I’m not meeting him. We’ll be friends.” Dan still didn’t say anything, just nodded, the smile still there, then turned and walked through the living room and onto the patio, all the way through the French windows. Looking out over the old orchard and the mountains when Vadim got to his side, reaching over to take Dan’s hand. Worth it. A thousand times. Any sacrifice, from the small ones to the big ones, and Dan turns his head, looking fully at him, while the smile grew. He didn’t need to say anything, didn’t have to voice the “I love you”. It was there, unsaid, yet outspoken. Fourteen years, they didn’t come cheap.

Breakfast! My favorite meal- and you can be so creative. I think of bowls of sparkling berries and fresh cream, baskets of Popovers and freshly squeezed orange juice, thick country bacon, hot maple syrup, panckes and French toast - even the nutty flavor of Irish oatmeal with brown sugar and cream. Breaksfast is the place I splurge with calories, then I spend the rest of the day getting them off! I love to use my prettiest table settings - crocheted placemats with lace-edged napkins and old hammered silver. And whether you are inside in front of a fire, candles burning brightly on a wintery day - or outside on a patio enjoying the morning sun - whether you are having a group of friends and family, a quiet little brunch for two, or an even quieter little brunch just for yourself, breakfast can set the mood and pace of the whole day. And Sunday is my day. Sometimes I think we get caught up in the hectic happenings of the weeks and months and we forget to take time out to relax. So one Sunday morning I decided to do things differently - now it's gotten to be a sort of ritual! This is what I do: at around 8:30 am I pull myself from my warm cocoon, fluff up the pillows and blankets and put some classical music on the stereo. Then I'm off to the kitchen, where I very calmly (so as not to wake myself up too much!) prepare my breakfast, seomthing extra nice - last week I had fresh pineapple slices wrapped in bacon and broiled, a warm croissant, hot chocolate with marshmallows and orange juice. I put it all on a tray with a cloth napkin, my book-of-the-moment and the "Travel" section of the Boston Globe and take it back to bed with me. There I spend the next two hours reading, eating and dreaming while the snowflakes swirl through the treetops outside my bedroom window. The inspiring music of Back or Vivaldi adds an exquisite elegance to the otherwise unruly scene, and I am in heaven. I found time to get in touch with myself and my life and i think this just might be a necessity! Please try it for yourself, and someone you love.

Halfway through his reclusion, Arredondo experienced more than once that almost timeless time. In the first of the house’s three patios there was cistern with a frog in it. It never occurred to Arredondo to think that the frog’s time, which borders on eternity, was what he himself sought.

After dinner, I went upstairs and found Ren standing on the veranda again, looking at the sunset. I approached him shyly and stood behind him. “Hello, Ren.” He turned and openly studied my appearance. His gaze drifted ever so slowly down my body. The longer he looked, the wider his smile got. Eventually, his eyes worked their way back up to my bright red face. He sighed and bowed deeply. “Sundari. I was standing here thinking nothing could be more beautiful than this sunset tonight, but I was mistaken. You standing here in the setting sun with your hair and skin aglow is almost more than a man can…fully appreciate.” I tried to change the subject. “What does sundari mean?” “It means ‘most beautiful.’” I blushed again, which made him laugh. He took my hand, tucked it under his arm, and led me to the patio chairs. Just then, the sun dipped below the trees leaving its tangerine glow in the sky for just a few more moments. We sat again, but this time he sat next to me on the swinging patio seat and kept my hand in his. I ventured shyly, “I hope you don’t mind, but I explored your house today, including your room.” “I don’t mind. I’m sure you found my room the least interesting.” “Actually, I was curious about the note I found. Did you write it?” “A note? Ah, yes. I just scribbled a few notes to help me remember what Phet had said. It just says seek Durga’s prophecy, the Cave of Kanheri, Kelsey is Durga’s favored one, that sort of thing.” “Oh. I…also noticed a ribbon. Is it mine?” “Yes. If you’d like it back, you can take it.” “Why would you want it?” He shrugged, looking embarrassed. “I wanted a memento, a token from the girl who saved my life.” “A token? Like a fair maiden giving her handkerchief to a knight in shining armor?” He grinned. “Exactly.” I jested wryly, “Too bad you didn’t wait for Cathleen to get a little older. She’s going to be very pretty.” He frowned. “Cathleen from the circus?” He shook his head. “You were the chosen one, Kelsey. And if I had the option of choosing the girl to save me, I still would have picked you.” “Why?” “A number of reasons. I liked you. You are interesting. I enjoyed listening to your voice. I felt like you saw through the tiger skin to the person underneath. When you spoke, it felt like you were saying exactly the things I needed to hear. You’re smart. You like poetry, and you’re very pretty.” I laughed at his statement. Me, pretty? He can’t be serious. I was average in so many ways. I didn’t really concern myself with current makeup, hairstyles, or fashionable, but uncomfortable, clothes like other teenagers. My complexion was pale, and my eyes were so brown that they were almost black. By far, my best feature was my smile, which my parents paid dearly for and so did I-with three years of metal braces. Still, I was flattered. “Okay, Prince Charming, you can keep your memento.” I hesitated, and then said softly, “I wear those ribbons in memory of my mom. She used to brush out my hair and braid ribbons through it while we talked.” Ren smiled understandingly. “Then it means even more to me.

Tell me your power," she said. This time he answered. "I heal". She laughed, loud enough that one or two students glanced over from tables across the patio. "No wonder you have a wicked sense of entitlement". "What do you mean?" "Well, your gift doesn't impact anyone else. It's reflexive. So in your mind you're not a threat. But the rest of us are.

A small wax and sawdust log burned on the grate. A carton of five more sat ready on the hearth. He got up from the sofa and put them all in the fireplace. He watched until they flamed. Then he finished his soda and made for the patio door. On the way, he saw the pies lined up on the sideboard. He stacked them in his arms, all six, one for every ten times she had ever betrayed him.

I’m drunk,” she mutters. “I can already feel the hangover.” “Thraxa’s good at making it feel like a moral obligation to keep pace.” “Ten credits says we have to scrape Sevro off the patio tomorrow.” “Poor Goblin. All spirit, no body mass.” She laughs. “I put him and Victra in the west wing so we can actually get some sleep. Last time, I woke up in the middle of the night thinking a coyote was caught in the air recycler. I swear, at the pace they’re going they’ll be able to single-handedly populate Pluto in a few years.

I only meant, you know, you shouldn’t be wasting your time on imbeciles. I know how hard it is to find the right person, but that’s no reason to exhaustively work your way through all the wrong people. You seem to be living your romantic life by some kind of process of elimination. It’s like matching a Louis Quatorze armchair with one of those plastic patio tables. It simply doesn’t work.” “Oh, I see,” Bel said. “I’m an armchair, is that it?” “A Louis Quatorze armchair,” I qualified. “And my boyfriends are patio tables.” “Actually,” I remembered, “this one’s more like one of those self-assembly Swedish wardrobes.

I knew that I was losing him, and yet we all had the courage to draw closer, to weave tighter, even all the way into the end. Fred worked in the study, under the glow of yellow light, like an angel-we could see him in there, through the glass doors-while the rest of us sat or lay on the patio under the sky and the stars. Sometimes Grandfather would reach down, searching for my hand, find it, and squeeze it. The last bloodline of my mother, I would think, holding his hand-my last, strongest blood-connection to her-and perhaps he was thinking the same, at those times. Father and Omar intent upon the game. Grandfather and I intent upon eternity.

It’s very difficult to cut the throat of some creature with which you’ve established a personal relationship, as we could attest from the time my grandfather brought home a young goat to fatten in the patio of our house and roast on his birthday. That goat died of old age. And as it turned out, it wasn’t a nanny but a male, and as soon as it grew horns, it attacked us at will.

You look at Menéndez as though you’re seeing him for the first time, and you understand that the sound of the naked, toothless body belonging to the filthy old man that he was, the sound of him breaking on the blue tiles of your patio, encased you in anarchy, in the chaos originating in the neighbors who look at you with feigned pity and a certain cordial disdain, in the police who talk to you with words that are imperative, broken, mechanical, in the world that’s oppressively civilized and atrocious.

For example, suppose you intend to clean your home. You normally need five hours to make it appear spotless. This allows for vacuuming and mopping the floors, cleaning the countertops, washing the dishes, dusting and polishing the furniture, cleaning the appliances, washing the windows, sweeping the patio, and more. Now, impose a challenging time limit upon yourself. For instance, rather than allowing yourself five hours, give yourself two hours. Then, get as much cleaning done as possible in those two hours.

That still did not invalidate their purity in his eyes, so long as they continued to live the way they lived: sitting on the floor, eating with their fingers, cooking and sleeping first in one room, then in another, or in the vast patio with its fountains, or on the roof, leading the existence of nomads inside the beautiful shell which was the house. If he had felt that they were capable of discarding their utter preoccupation with the present, in order to consider the time not yet arrived, he would straightway have lost interest in them and condemned them as corrupt.

With Tommy by his side but Anthony Jr. nowhere to be seen, Anthony cranks out an old 8mm projector, and soon choppy black- and-white images appear on the cream wall capturing a few snapshots from the canyon of their life—that tell nothing, and yet somehow everything. They watch old movies, from 1963, 1952, 1948, 1947—the older, the more raucous the children and parents becoming. This year, because Ingrid isn’t here, Anthony shows them something new. It’s from 1963. A birthday party, this one with happy sound, cake, unlit candles. Anthony is turning twenty. Tatiana is very pregnant with Janie. (“Mommy, look, that’s you in Grammy’s belly!” exclaims Vicky.) Harry toddling around, pursued loudly and relentlessly by Pasha—oh, how in 1999 six children love to see their fathers wild like them, how Mary and Amy love to see their precious husbands small. The delight in the den is abundant. Anthony sits on the patio, bare chested, in swimshorts, one leg draped over the other, playing his guitar, “playing Happy Birthday to myself,” he says now, except it’s not “Happy Birthday.” The joy dims slightly at the sight of their brother, their father so beautiful and whole he hurts their united hearts—and suddenly into the frame, in a mini-dress, walks a tall dark striking woman with endless legs and comes to stand close to Anthony. The camera remains on him because Anthony is singing, while she flicks on her lighter and ignites the candles on his cake; one by one she lights them as he strums his guitar and sings the number one hit of the day, falling into a burning “Ring of Fire ... ” The woman doesn’t look at Anthony, he doesn’t look at her, but in the frame you can see her bare thigh flush against the sole of his bare foot the whole time she lights his twenty candles plus one to grow on. And it burns, burns, burns . . . And when she is done, the camera—which never lies—catches just one microsecond of an exchanged glance before she walks away, just one gram of neutral matter exploding into an equivalent of 20,000 pounds of TNT. The reel ends. Next. The budding novelist Rebecca says, “Dad, who was that? Was that Grammy’s friend Vikki?” “Yes,” says Anthony. “That was Grammy’s friend Vikki.” Tak zhivya, bez radosti/bez muki/pomniu ya ushedshiye goda/i tvoi serebryannyiye ruki/v troike yeletevshey navsegda . . . So I live—remembering with sadness all the happy years now gone by, remembering your long and silver arms, forever in the troika that flew by . . . Back

by have a home in the first place? Good question! When I have a tea party for my grandchildren, I'm passing on to them the things my mama passed on to me-the value of manners and the joy of spending quiet time together. When Bob reads a Bible story to those little ones, he's passing along his deep faith. When we watch videos together, play games, work on projects-we're building a chain of memories for the future. These aren't lessons that can be taught in lecture form. They're taught through the way we live. What we teach our children-or any child who shares our lives-they will teach to their children. What we share with our children, they will share with generations to come. friend of mine loves the water, the out doors, and the California sunshine. She says they're a constant reminder of God's incredible creativity. Do you may have a patio or a deck or a small balcony? Bob and I have never regretted the time and expense of creating outdoor areas to spend time in. And when we sit outside, we enhance our experience with a cool salad of homegrown tomatoes and lettuce, a tall glass of lemonade, and beautiful flowers in a basket. Use this wonderful time to contemplate all God is doing in your life. ecome an answer to prayer! • Call and encourage someone today.

Inside a wool jacket the man had made a pocket for the treasure and from time to time he would jiggle the pocket, just to make sure that it was still there. And when on the train he rode to work he would jiggle it there also, but he would disguise his jiggling of the treasure on the train by devising a distraction. For example, the man would pretend to be profoundly interested in something outside the train, such as the little girl who seemed to be jumping high up on a trampoline, just high enough so that she could spy the man on the train, and in this way he really did become quite interested in what occurred outside the train, although he would still jiggle the treasure, if only out of habit. Also on the train he'd do a crossword puzzle and check his watch by rolling up his sleeve; when he did so he almost fell asleep. Antoine often felt his life to be more tedious with this treasure, because in order not to be overly noticed he had deemed it wise to fall into as much a routine as possible and do everything as casually as possible, and so, as a consequence, despite the fact that he hated his wife and daughter, he didn't leave them, he came home to them every night and he ate the creamed chicken that his wife would prepare for him, he would accept the large, fleshy hand that would push him around while he sat around in his house in an attempt to read or watch the weather, he took out the trash, he got up on time every morning and took a quick, cold shower, he shaved, he accepted the cold eggs and orange juice and coffee, he picked the newspaper off the patio and took it inside with him to read her the top headlines, and of course he went to the job.

No one ever understood what got into us that year, or why we hated so intensely the crust of dead bugs over our lives. Suddenly, however, we couldn't bear the fish flies carpeting our swimming pools, filling our mailboxes, blotting out stars on our flags. The collective action of digging the trench led to cooperative sweeping, bag-carting, patio-hosing. A score of brooms kept time in all directions as the pale ghosts of fish flies dropped from walls like ash. We examined their tiny wizards' faces, rubbing them between our fingers until they gave off the scent of carp. We tried to light them but they wouldn't burn (which made the fish flies seem deader than anything). We hit bushes, beat rugs, turned on windshield wipers full blast. Fish flies clogged sewer grates so that we had to stuff them down with sticks. Crouching over sewers, we could hear the river under the city flowing away. We dropped rocks and listened for the splash

Jack took two steps towards the couch and then heard his daughter’s distressed wails, wincing. “Oh, right. The munchkin.” He instead turned and headed for the stairs, yawning and scratching his messy brown hair, calling out, “Hang on, chubby monkey, Daddy’s coming.” Jack reached the top of the stairs. And stopped dead. There was a dragon standing in the darkened hallway. At first, Jack swore he was still asleep. He had to be. He couldn’t possibly be seeing correctly. And yet the icy fear slipping down his spine said differently. The dragon stood at roughly five feet tall once its head rose upon sighting Jack at the other end of the hallway. It was lean and had dirty brown scales with an off-white belly. Its black, hooked claws kneaded the carpet as its yellow eyes stared out at Jack, its pupils dilating to drink him in from head to toe. Its wings rustled along its back on either side of the sharp spines protruding down its body to the thin, whip-like tail. A single horn glinted sharp and deadly under the small, motion-activated hallway light. The only thing more noticeable than that were the many long, jagged scars scored across the creature’s stomach, limbs, and neck. It had been hunted recently. Judging from the depth and extent of the scars, it had certainly killed a hunter or two to have survived with so many marks. “Okay,” Jack whispered hoarsely. “Five bucks says you’re not the Easter Bunny.” The dragon’s nostrils flared. It adjusted its body, feet apart, lips sliding away from sharp, gleaming white teeth in a warning hiss. Mercifully, Naila had quieted and no longer drew the creature’s attention. Jack swallowed hard and held out one hand, bending slightly so his six-foot-two-inch frame was less threatening. “Look at me, buddy. Just keep looking at me. It’s alright. I’m not going to hurt you. Why don’t you just come this way, huh?” He took a single step down and the creature crept forward towards him, hissing louder. “That’s right. This way. Come on.” Jack eased backwards one stair at a time. The dragon let out a warning bark and followed him, its saliva leaving damp patches on the cream-colored carpet. Along the way, Jack had slipped his phone out of his pocket and dialed 9-1-1, hoping he had just enough seconds left in the reptile’s waning patience. “9-1-1, what’s your emergency?” “Listen to me carefully,” Jack said, not letting his eyes stray from the dragon as he fumbled behind him for the handle to the sliding glass door. He then quickly gave her his address before continuing. “There is an Appalachian forest dragon in my house. Get someone over here as fast as you can.” “We’re contacting a retrieval team now, sir. Please stay calm and try not to make any loud noises or sudden movements–“ Jack had one barefoot on the cool stone of his patio when his daughter Naila cried for him again. The dragon’s head turned towards the direction of upstairs. Jack dropped his cell phone, grabbed a patio chair, and slammed it down on top of the dragon’s head as hard as he could.

Then a thought hit me like a ton of slag. Arlene wouldn’t bother taking time in this hellhole to scribble her mark unless she had a damned good reason. Not just to point out the sphere—if she knew it was there, she’d have used it herself like a good soldier. The only logical conclusion was that the arrow pointed the way out of the nuclear plant—the way Arlene Sanders had already gone. Like Arne Saknussen, she marked her own trail for all who followed. So why hadn’t I found it? Same way Arlene missed the patio door: there had to be another hidden door nearby that I had missed. Third time’s the charm. The damned door couldn’t have been more than five feet from the one I had found. One good push and it was open, leading to a beautiful piece of straight, well-lit corridor that reached its end with a clean, massive metal door that had printed on it the welcome letters EXIT—obviously a holdover from the plant’s mundane days as a hangout for humans. Feeling bold and unstoppable, I walked right up to that door and discovered that it required a computer key card before it would bless the lonely traveler with an open sesame. Great. Now I could be miserable again.

During this time my father was in a labor camp, for the crime of wanting to leave the country, and my mother struggled to care for us, alone and with few provisions. One day she went out to the back patio to do the wash and saw a cute little frog sitting by the door to the kitchen. My mother has always liked frogs, and this frog by the kitchen door gave her an idea. She began to spin wonderful stories about a crazy, adventurous frog named Antonica who would overcome great odds with her daring and creativity. Antonica helped us dream of freedom and possibilities. These exciting tales were reserved for mealtime. We ate until our bowls were empty, distracted from the bland food by the flavor of Antonica’s world. Mamina knew her children were well nourished, comforted, and prepared for the challenges and adventures to come. In 2007, I was preparing to host a TV show on a local station and was struggling with self-doubt. With encouragement and coaching from a friend, I finally realized that I had been preparing for this opportunity most of my life. All I needed was confidence in myself, the kind of confidence Antonica had taught me about, way back in Cuba. Through this process of self-discovery, the idea came to me to start cooking with my mother. We all loved my Mamina’s cooking, but I had never been interested in learning to cook like her. I began to write down her recipes and take pictures of her delicious food. I also started to write down the stories I had heard from my parents, of our lives in Cuba and coming to the United States. At some point I realized I had ninety recipes. This is a significant number to Cuban exiles, as there are ninety miles between Cuba and Key West, Florida. A relatively short distance, but oh, so far! My effort to grow closer to my mother through cooking became another dream waiting to be fulfilled, through a book called 90 Miles 90 Recipes: My Journey to Understanding. My mother now seemed as significant as our journey to the United States. While learning how she orchestrated these flavors, I began to understand my mother as a woman with many gifts. Through cooking together, my appreciation for her has grown. I’ve come to realize why feeding everyone was so important to her. Nourishing the body is part of nurturing the soul. My mother is doing very poorly now. Most of my time in the last few months has been dedicated to caring for her. Though our book has not yet been published, it has already proven valuable. It has taught me about dreams from a different perspective—helping me recognize that the lives my sisters and I enjoy are the realization of my parents’ dream of freedom and opportunity for them, and especially for us.

Madrid. It was that time, the story of Don Zana 'The Marionette,' he with the hair of cream-colored string, he with the large and empty laugh like a slice of watermelon, the one of the Tra-kay, tra-kay, tra-kay, tra-kay, tra-kay, tra on the tables, on the coffins. It was when there were geraniums on the balconies, sunflower-seed stands in the Moncloa, herds of yearling sheep in the vacant lots of the Guindalera. They were dragging their heavy wool, eating the grass among the rubbish, bleating to the neighborhood. Sometimes they stole into the patios; they ate up the parsley, a little green sprig of parsley, in the summer, in the watered shade of the patios, in the cool windows of the basements at foot level. Or they stepped on the spread-out sheets, undershirts, or pink chemises clinging to the ground like the gay shadow of a handsome young girl. Then, then was the story of Don Zana 'The Marionette.' Don Zana was a good-looking, smiling man, thin, with wide angular shoulders. His chest was a trapezoid. He wore a white shirt, a jacket of green flannel, a bow tie, light trousers, and shoes of Corinthian red on his little dancing feet. This was Don Zana 'The Marionette,' the one who used to dance on the tables and the coffins. He awoke one morning, hanging in the dusty storeroom of a theater, next to a lady of the eighteenth century, with many white ringlets and a cornucopia of a face. Don Zana broke the flower pots with his hand and he laughed at everything. He had a disagreeable voice, like the breaking of dry reeds; he talked more than anyone, and he got drunk at the little tables in the taverns. He would throw the cards into the air when he lost, and he didn't stoop over to pick them up. Many felt his dry, wooden slap; many listened to his odious songs, and all saw him dance on the tables. He liked to argue, to go visiting in houses. He would dance in the elevators and on the landings, spill ink wells, beat on pianos with his rigid little gloved hands. The fruitseller's daughter fell in love with him and gave him apricots and plums. Don Zana kept the pits to make her believe he loved her. The girl cried when days passed without Don Zana's going by her street. One day he took her out for a walk. The fruitseller's daughter, with her quince-lips, still bloodless, ingenuously kissed that slice-of-watermelon laugh. She returned home crying and, without saying anything to anyone, died of bitterness. Don Zana used to walk through the outskirts of Madrid and catch small dirty fish in the Manzanares. Then he would light a fire of dry leaves and fry them. He slept in a pension where no one else stayed. Every morning he would put on his bright red shoes and have them cleaned. He would breakfast on a large cup of chocolate and he would not return until night or dawn.

morning to pour out the sugar and substitute salt, thinking it so hilarious until our father lost his temper and spanked us both. The two of us dancing on the Eden patio in my mother’s cast-off nightgowns. Playing mermaid on the beach or fairies on the bluffs. Later, all three of us moving like a school of fish, Josie and Dylan and me, swimming in the cove or making a bonfire or practicing calligraphy with fountain pens my mother brought back from some trip she took with my father during one of their happy stints, an interest bolstered by Dylan’s passion for all things Chinese. Like so many boys of the era, he’d fallen hard for Kwai Chang Caine in the Kung Fu television series. I adored them both, but my sister was first. Worshipped the very air she breathed. I would have done anything she told me—chased down bandits, built a ladder to the moon. In turn, she brought me sand dollars to examine and Pop-Tarts she stole from the pantry in the house kitchen, and she kept her arms around me all night. It was Dylan who introduced surfing. He taught us when I was seven and Josie nine. It gave us both a sense of power and relief, a way to escape our crumbling family life and explore the sea—and, of course, it was our bond with Dylan himself. Josie. Thinking of her in the times before she turned into the later version of herself, the aloof, promiscuous addict, makes me ache with longing. I miss my sister with every molecule

Bob Dylan The only time Jobs can ever recall being tongue-tied was in the presence of Bob Dylan. He was playing near Palo Alto in October 2004, and Jobs was recovering from his first cancer surgery. Dylan was not a gregarious man, not a Bono or a Bowie. He was never Jobs’s friend, nor did he care to be. He did, however, invite Jobs to visit him at his hotel before the concert. Jobs recalled: We sat on the patio outside his room and talked for two hours. I was really nervous, because he was one of my heroes. And I was also afraid that he wouldn’t be really smart anymore, that he’d be a caricature of himself, like happens to a lot of people. But I was delighted. He was as sharp as a tack. He was everything I’d hoped. He was really open and honest. He was just telling me about his life and about writing his songs. He said, “They just came through me, it wasn’t like I was having to compose them. That doesn’t happen anymore, I just can’t write them that way anymore.” Then he paused and said to me with his raspy voice and little smile, “But I still can sing them.” The next time Dylan played nearby, he invited Jobs to drop by his tricked-up tour bus just before the concert. When Dylan asked what his favorite song was, Jobs said “One Too Many Mornings.” So Dylan sang it that night. After the concert, as Jobs was walking out the back, the tour bus came by and screeched to a stop. The door flipped open. “So, did you hear my song

lived in the house. There were aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and friends. A grill was set up on the patio, and delicious smells wafted from platters of burgers on picnic tables in the yard. It was the perfect sort of day for Munchy to get her fill of people blood. Who would have thought that giving a person one tiny bite could result in such a delightful snack? Munchy was aware that most people thought she was a pest. They tried to swat her whenever she got near, but Munchy was fast and an expert at dodging humans’ flailing fingers. I don’t want to hurt anyone, Munchy thought. But a mosquito bite just takes a second, and then I fly off to find the next person. Satisfied at last, Munchy buzzed back to the garden where she lived with her best friends Wiggly Worm, Rattles Snake, and Snarky Snail. “I’m full!” she announced. “I don’t think I’ll eat for a week!” “There’s some kind of celebration going on over there,” remarked Wiggly, who was playing in the dirt. “I know!” smiled Munchy. “The family has so many guests over—so many guests with delicious blood.” Snarky made a face. “I think it’s the Fourth of July or something—but, Munchy, do you really have to do that to people? Mosquito bites make them awfully uncomfortable.” “Only for a second,” Munchy replied. “It’s just an itty-bitty sting.” “No, it isn’t,” protested Snarky, who ventured into the backyard more than any of his friends. “Mosquito bites are itchy and uncomfortable for a long time—sometimes several days. I’ve seen those two little kids scratching and complaining about bites you’ve given them.” “I think that’s true,” agreed Rattles, who also went into the yard more often, now that the humans knew he was a friendly rattlesnake. “Oh, no,” murmured Munchy. Mosquito bites hadn’t seemed like a big deal before—but they did now. She didn’t want to be responsible for making people feel itchy all the time! With a sigh, Munchy said, “I guess I’ve got to quit. From now on, I’ll stick to sugar-water shakes at the Garden Town soda fountain—but it isn’t going to be easy!” With some help from her friends, Munchy was able to stop biting people once and for all. And, when the other mosquitoes that lived in the garden heard about her new lifestyle, they decided to give it a shot, as well. In no time, the backyard was practically a mosquito-safe zone! The kids and their friends could now play in the yard for hours with no worries about being bitten. They had no more itchy skin and no more discomfort. Munchy felt like she had done a wonderful thing. And no one ever tried to swat her away again! Just for Fun Activity Make itty-bitty bugs using circles of Fun Foam for bodies, tissue paper cut-outs for wings, googly eyes (you can find them at craft stores), and shortened pipe cleaners for long, skinny noses and legs. Have fun!

I’d known him just ten days, and it had just left his mouth in an unexpected whisper. It had been purely instinctive, it seemed--something entirely unplanned. He clearly hadn’t planned to say those words to me that night; that wasn’t the way he operated. He was a man who had a thought and acted on it immediately, as evidenced by his sweet, whispery phone calls right after our dates. He spent no time at all calculating moves; he had better things to do with his time. When we held each other on that chilly spring night and his feelings had come rushing to the surface, he’d felt no need to slap a filter over his mouth. It had come out in a breath: I love you. It was as if he had to say it, in the same way air has to escape a person’s longs. It was involuntary. Necessary. Natural. But as beautiful and warm a moment as it was, I froze on the spot. Once I realized it had been real--that he’d actually said the words--it seemed too late to respond; the window had closed, the shutters had clapped shut. I responded in the only way my cowardice would allow: by holding him tighter, burying my face deeper into his neck, feeling equal parts stupid and awkward. What is your problem? I asked myself. I was in the midst of what was possibly the most romantic, emotionally charged moment of my life, in the embrace of a man who embodied not only everything I’d ever understood about the textbook definition of lust, but everything I’d ever dreamed about in a man. He was a specimen--tall, strong, masculine, quiet. But it was much more than that. He was honest. Real. And affectionate and accessible, quite unlike J and most of the men I’d casually dated since I’d returned home from Los Angeles months earlier. I was in a foreign land. I didn’t know what to do. I love you. He’d said it. And I knew his words had been sincere. I knew, because I felt it, too, even though I couldn’t say it. Marlboro Man continued to hold me tightly on that patio chair, undeterred by my silence, likely resting easily in the knowledge that at least he’d been able to say what he felt. “I’d better go home,” I whispered, suddenly feeling pulled away by some imaginary force. Marlboro Man nodded, helping me to my feet. Holding hands, we walked around his house to my car, where we stopped for a final hug and a kiss or two. Or eight. “Thanks for having me over,” I managed. Man, I was smooth. “Any time,” he replied, locking his arms around my waist during the final kiss. This was the stuff that dreams were made of. I was glad my eyes were closed, because they were rolled all the way into the back of my head. It wouldn’t have been an attractive sight. He opened the door to my car, and I climbed inside. As I backed out of his driveway, he walked toward his front door and turned around, giving me his characteristic wave in his characteristic Wranglers. Driving away, I felt strange, flushed, tingly. Burdened. Confused. Tortured. Thirty minutes into my drive home, he called. I’d almost grown to need it. “Hey,” he said. His voice. Help me. “Oh, hi,” I replied, pretending to be surprised. Even though I wasn’t. “Hey, I…,” Marlboro Man began. “I really don’t want you to go.” I giggled. How cute. “Well…I’m already halfway home!” I replied, a playful lilt to my voice. A long pause followed. Then, his voice serious, he continued, “That’s not what I’m talking about.

The lights went out in the dining room and Owen entered the kitchen, stopping several feet away. She leaned on her hands, her head bent nearly to her chest. She could only see his feet and legs. “Claire, you’re exhausted. Why didn’t you just go up to bed?” “The meds kicked in. Too tired to move.” Unexpected and exciting, he plucked her right off the counter and settled her in his arms and against his broad, hard chest. Too tired to make a fuss and exert her independence, she gave in to something else entirely and snuggled closer, nestling her face in his neck and settling her head on his strong shoulder. His chest rumbled with a laugh. “You’re like a contented cat, snuggling in for the night.” “Deep down, I’m fine on my own. The meds have made me mushy and weak.” “Not weak. After the night you’ve had, you just need a hug.” He squeezed her to his chest. She tried to hide the wince of pain, but he felt her stiffen in his arms. “Sorry, overstepped.” They reached the top of the stairs, and he stopped. “No, you didn’t. I didn’t realize how banged up I got. I feel like I got hit by a car,” she joked. “The meds are helping out considerably. My room’s on the right.” Owen walked down the hall and entered her room, stopping just inside and looking around. “Wow. It’s like another house in here.” “I moved in over a year ago, but I spent all my time opening the shop and running it. A couple of months ago, I started on the house. I spend so much time at the shop, the most time I spend here is sleeping, so I redid the master bedroom first. I’ve upgraded the bathroom, but I still need to add the finishing touches.” “You added the flower pots on the back patio with the lounge and table set.” “I like to drink my coffee out there in the morning when the weather is nice.” “You spend a lot of time working, so spending the morning outside is relaxing.” “Yes. Sounds like the same is true for you, too.” He nodded. “I spend most evenings outside reading over briefs and preparing for court. I take care of the horses and barn cats. It gets me out of my head.” “You can put me down now.” “I knew you’d say that.” She laughed, and he set her on her bed. -Owen & Claire

oday so many children aren't involved in their families' lives. Let's change that! Get them active in your family. Start by creating times for sharing and conversation.. .at the dinner table. Turn off the TV, all phones (including cells), and any other distractions. Toward the end of the meal, ask everyone this question: "What's the best thing that happened to you today?" Make dinnertime fun. Find out what's happening in your children's hearts and lives, and let them know what's happening in yours. Honor jobs well done, good grades, and positive contributions to the family and community. love having family pictures all over the house. It's a great way to promote family identity. Do team sports together. Have a family night out every now and then. The apostle Paul says, "If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ. . .then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose" (Philippians 2:1-2). hen was the last time you did something really special to say "I love you" to your husband or boyfriend? In the morning, tell your husband, "Honey, tonight is a special evening-just for the two of us." Then get busy. Set up a card table on your patio or deck-or even in the living room. Get out a beautiful tablecloth, your best napkins, flowers, and candles! Fix him his favorite meal and your best dessert, put on some soft romantic music, give yourself enough time to look your best, and you're all set for when he gets home. He'll feel like a king and know he's a top priority in your life.

lowered the finger she'd been gnawing and frowned. On the other hand, Robby had said things: about their absent father, about Dean's own youth spent shunted away in boarding schools, and about the endless stream of stepmothers. She could almost see why Dean behaved the way he did. He practically didn't have a choice. If no one had treated him with warmth, how could he know how to treat anyone else with warmth? She'd noticed his abruptness when he'd met them out on the patio the other evening. It had been as if he'd wanted to join in, but had no idea how. As if, maybe, he were shy. Kelly combed her hair back with one hand. Heck, maybe a part of 'her' Dean was inside there, trapped. With her hand in her hair, Kelly halted. She blinked at the colorful array of her clothes. Whoa! No. Stop. Maybe Dean had suffered a lonely childhood, maybe no one had ever showed him they cared. Maybe that made him wall himself away, in self-defense. But more likely he was just a cold fish. Slowly, she finished combing her hand through her hair. She had a habit of making up virtuous qualities in a man to support her attraction. She couldn't do that this time. She had to keep her eyes open, her judgment clear. She had to see the man for who he truly was, and not who she wished he would be. 'Her' Dean, trapped inside. Kelly shook her head at herself. Not likely. The real Dean was utterly self-contained, an island unto himself, and happy to be so. He wasn't needy. She'd see that crystal clear after spending five hours at the opera with him. She pursed her lips and reached out to toy with a cerise silk number. That's right. She could get rid of her ridiculously romantic vision of 'Dean' trapped inside of Dean by the end of the evening. She'd see that her husband

...an unlikely group pieced together these past few weeks from parties and family references, friend-of-friend happenstance, and (in one case, just now being introduced) sheer, scarcely tolerable intrusiveness-five people who, in normal life back home, would have been satisfied never to have known one another. Five young expatriates hunch around an undersized cafe table: a moment of total insignificance, and not without a powerful whiff of cliche. Unless you were one of them. Then this meaningless, overdrawn moment may (then or later) seem to be somehow the summation of both an era and your own youth, your undeniably defining afternoon (though you can hardly say that aloud without making a joke of it). Somehow this one game of Sincerity becomes the distilled recollection of a much longer series of events. It persistantly rises to the surface of your memory-that afternoon when you fell in love with a person or a place or a mood, when you savored the power of fooling everyone, when you discovered some great truth about the world, when (like a baby duck glimpsing your quacking mother's waddling rear for the first time) an indelible brand was seared into your heart, which is, of course, a finate space with limited room for searing. Despite its insignificance, there was this moment, this hour or two, this spring afternoon blurring into evening on a cafe patio in a Central European capital in the opening weeks of its post-Communist era. The glasses of liqueur. The diamond dapples of light between oval, leaf-shaped shadows, like optical illusions. The trellised curve of the cast-iron fence seperating the patio from its surrounding city square. The uncomfortable chair. Someday this too will represent someone's receding, cruelly unattainable golden age. (4-5)

I’m not doing it all. Who could? I can’t. You can’t. I decided what tricks belonged on my beam and dropped the rest or figured out a way to delegate. I love to write but hate web management. Off the beam. I could not juggle weekend travel, weeknight activities (times five kids . . . be near, Jesus), and a weekly small group, so as much as I love our church people, we aren’t in a group right now. (And I am the pastor’s wife, so let that speak freedom over your shoulds.) Off the beam. Cooking and sit-down dinners? Life-giving for me. On the beam. Coffee with everyone who wants to “pick my brain”? I simply can’t. Off the beam. After-hours with our best friends on the patio? Must. On the beam. Classroom Mom? I don’t have the skill set. Off the beam. You get to do this too. You have permission to examine all the tricks and decide what should stay. What parts do you love? What are you good at? What brings you life? What has to stay during this season? Don’t look sideways for these answers. Don’t transplant someone else’s keepers onto your beam.

Sensations were completely different. Like the night she had run free as the wolf, Savannah now had the senses of a bird of prey. Her vision was sharp and clear, her eyes enormously wide. She spread her wings experimentally, then flapped them in the light drizzle. They were much bigger than she had anticipated. It delighted her, and she flapped them harder so she could create a wind, causing waves in the water standing in the patio. Are you having fun? Gregori’s voice held a hint of laughter. This is so cool, lifemate, she answered. Her rapidly beating wings lifted her into the air. The light mist was already passing overhead. The air was warm and heavy with the promise of moisture, but she soared high, reveling in her ability to do so. Gregori’s larger, stronger body dropped over hers, close and protective, guiding her in the direction of the bayou. As high up as they were, the sharp eyes of the raptor could spot the smallest of movements below. Details were vivid and clear. Even colors were different. Infrared vision, heat sensors— Savannah wasn’t certain what it was exactly, but the way she perceived the world was a different and unique experience. She dipped beneath Gregori and soared away from him, turning sideways and circling high above him. In her mind she could hear him swearing. As always he sounded arrogant, elegant, Old World, completely in command. Laughing, she caught a thermal and rode it up over the river. The male dropped down to cover her with his huge wings, fencing her in. Spoilsport! she accused him, her touch in his mind a whisper of lightness, of invitation to join in her fun. You are in a great deal of trouble, ma femme. He knew the threat was empty when he made it; he would give her the world. But why did she have to be such a little dare-devil all the time? Anyone choosing to live with you would have to have a sense of adventure, don’t you think? Her soft laughter played over his skin like music, like the gentle breeze blowing from the mountains in their homeland. Even within the bird’s body, he stirred to life, need and hunger rising to become a part of him. Relentless. Demanding. Savage in its intensity. It was more than simple lust. More than hunger. More than need. It was all of it merged together with a tenderness he had never conceived he could feel. When she was at her most outrageous, her most defiant, that was when his heart melted.

wait … are you saying that Aunt Tillie curses you whenever she feels you’re being disrespectful?” Three hours later Clove and I remained in the garden, work was mostly forgotten. We sat on the small patio’s pavers, drinking from water bottles as she regaled me with a series of hilarious family stories that boggled the mind. “Aunt Tillie has cursed me so many times I’ve lost count,” Clove confirmed. “I need examples,” I said. “I can’t picture this. Are

Never mind. Let’s get right to the heart of this thing. You see, about twenty - four hours ago we were sitting in the Polo Lounge of the Beverly Hills Hotel - in the patio section, of course - and we were just sitting there under a palm tree when this uniformed dwarf came up to me with a pink telephone and said, ‘This must be the call you’ve been waiting for all this time, sir.’” I laughed and ripped open a beer can that

As I turned around to head back to the outdoor patio, my elbow poked the guy next to me. Unlike Daniel, this guy had a higher squish-to-muscle ratio. "I'm sorry," I squeaked as I maneuvered around him. "Watch where you're going," he grumbled while looking me up and down. As I walked away, he muttered, "Stuck-up bitch." My mouth fell open, searching for words. The alcohol clouded my brain, making it hard to know how to respond. "The only stuck-up bitch here is you," Daniel said and walked closer to the aggressor. "She said she was sorry. I believe you owe her an apology." "I don't owe her shit. You and your girlfriend can get the fuck outta my face." He turned to his entourage and made a face that made them laugh. Why that seemed like the best time to jump into the conversation, I don't know, but it did. "Look, you walking Dockers pants model, I said I was sorry. And you're a fucking asshole to talk to someone that way----ANY human that way---in the holiest, Dolly-est place on earth, well, second to Dollywood." I wagged my index finger in his face. "I have another apology for you. I'm sorry you took an innocent bump of an elbow into your beer pooch and tried to turn it into a personal attack. And I'm sorry to your friends for having a loser who drags down their social circle.

Spanish is the lovin’ tongue, Soft as music, light as spray. ’Twas a girl I learnt it from, Livin’ down Sonora way. I don’t look much like a lover, Yet I say her love words over, Often when I’m all alone— “Mi amor, mi corazon.” Nights when she knew where I’d ride, She would listen for my spurs, Throw the big door open wide, Raise them laughin’ eyes of hers. And my heart would nigh stop beatin' When I heard her tender greeting, Whispered soft for me alone— “Mi amor! mi corazon!” Moonlight in the patio, Old señora noddin’ near, Me and Juana talkin’ low So the Madre couldn’t hear— How those hours would go a-flyin’! And too soon I’d hear her sighin’ In her little sorry tone— “Adios, mi corazon!” But one time I had to fly For a foolish gamblin’ fight, And we said a swift goodbye In that black, unlucky night. When I’d loosed her arms from clingin’ With her words the hoofs kep’ ringin’ As I galloped north alone— “Adios, mi corazon!” Never seen her since that night. I kaint cross the Line, you know. She was Mex and I was white; Like as not, it’s better so. Yet I’ve always sort of missed her Since that last, wild night I kissed her, Left her heart and lost my own— “Adios, mi corazon!

I remember sitting out on our rooftop patio, looking southward, and realizing that Celia, Harry, John, and I weren’t alone. It seems silly to say now, but I was so . . . self-involved, so singularly focused, that I rarely took time to think of the people out there like myself.

Unhappiness grows slowly. It lingers inside you, silently, surreptitiously. You nourish it, feeding it scraps of yourself every day—it is the dog kept locked away in the back patio that will bite your hand off if you let it. Unhappiness takes time, but eventually it takes over completely.

By the time Church and I head out to the patio, so I can sit in his lap and watch the sunrise, my feet hurt, and my heart is full.

The wilderness is not necessarily a desolate place. It has its own unique beauty, and that beauty is enough. It does not need us. It does not ask for our participation. This may be one reason why wilderness wandering is such a harsh experience, but this is certainly one reason why time in the wilderness is a gift. Our cultivation and our care are not required. God himself plants trees in that place; God himself draws water from dry rocks. The gift of the wilderness is that this is the place we go simply to receive. This is the place we go to listen. In the wilderness, we are given the opportunity to lay down the burden of our desire to make and remake so that when some other place invites our participation and our creative efforts, we are ready to offer those things with humility. The trees—even in the wilderness—are singing a song, but if we plunge ahead in accompaniment without first stopping to listen, and without letting ourselves be changed by the song, we may find ourselves leaving not beauty but crooked patios and poison ivy and heartbroken tears in our wake.

What’s perhaps strange to say is that I’m not sure I would have gotten there without the period of enforced stillness and the steadiness I found inside of knitting. I’d had to go small in order to think big again. Shaken by the enormity of everything that was happening, I’d needed my hands to reintroduce me to what was good, simple, and accomplishable. And that turned out to be a lot. I now knit while talking to my mom on the phone, during Zoom meetings with my team from the office, and on summer afternoons when friends come to sit on our back patio. Knitting has made watching the evening news a little less stressful. It has made certain hours of the day less lonely, and it’s helped me think more reasonably about the future. I’m not here to tell you that knitting is a cure for anything. It won’t end racism or demolish a virus or vanquish depression. It won’t create a just world or slow climate change or heal anything big that’s broken. It’s too small for that. It’s so small that it hardly seems to matter. And this is part of my point. I’ve come to understand that sometimes the big stuff becomes easier to handle when you deliberately put something small alongside it. When everything starts to feel big and therefore scary and insurmountable, when I hit a point of feeling or thinking or seeing too much, I’ve learned to make the choice to go toward the small. On days when my brain apprehends nothing but monolithic catastrophe and doom, when I feel paralyzed by not-enoughness and my agitation begins to stir, I pick up the knitting needles and give my hands a chance to take over, to quietly click us out of that hard place. In knitting, when you create the first stitch of a new project, you cast on. When an item is finished, you bind off. Both of these actions, I’ve found, are incredibly satisfying—the bookends of something manageable and finite. They give me a sense of completion in a world that will always and forever feel chaotic and incomplete.

could have been a second or thousands of years. . . . I was happy. I blurred the “door” with my hand and it “disappeared.” I ran with my secret and my joy as far as the furthermost corner of the patio of my house, and always in the same place under a cedar tree, I cried out and laughed, surprised at being alone with my great happiness and with the so vivid memory of the little girl. Thirty-four years have passed since I experienced this magic friendship and every time that I remember it, it revives and becomes larger and larger inside of my world.

had to buy Ava a second bookshelf to house all of them, she was keeping a portion of the books in storage containers, we had to stop that. Since moving into the apartment I completely transformed the balcony into a reader’s paradise because that’s where Ava spent most of her waking hours when I was away. I installed a fan that was pointed directly at her wicker hanging loveseat. It was big enough to fit two people so her petite frame fit in the chair perfectly. It was black and turquoise, her favorite colors and that was probably her favorite piece of furniture. I also added waterproof blackout curtains to provide privacy or shade when Ava wanted it. There were two other patio chairs and a glass table for times when I sat outside with her. She placed her turquoise tassel bookmark in the book to save her position and peered up at me, clearly comfortable in her position.

As time went on we were being routed over least-populated areas because of growing complaints about sonic booms. One of them came straight from Nixon. One of our airplanes boomed him while he was reading on the patio of his estate at San Clemente. He got on the horn to the chief of staff and said, “Goddam it, you’re disturbing people.” One little community named Susanville, in California, sat right in a valley and was in the path of our return route to Beale. The sonic boom would echo off the hills and crack windows and plaster. We had the townspeople in, showed them the airplane, appealed to their patriotism, and told them the boom was “the sound of freedom.” They lapped it up.

there, she pushes herself to her feet. Hoisting her school bag onto her shoulder, she walks across the stones to the boardwalk, waiting for a mother with a pushchair to pass by before crossing over it and heading for the gate in their wall. As she lets herself onto the patio, closing the gate behind her, she looks up. Through the fronds of the palm, she sees her mum as she has many times before. Standing in her studio, her brush to the painting in front of her. Kitty in a bouncy chair beside her. Megan studies her, wondering what it is that causes her mother to press the front of her forearm to her forehead. What she’s painted on that flat white surface. More sea, she presumes. More boring sky. It’s hard to see clearly, as the sunlight’s shining on the glass, but, as Megan watches, her mum stands back from the canvas, covering her face with the palms of both hands. As though unable to stand the sight of what’s in front of her. Megan turns away, not wanting to see. Apart from that time after Kitty was born, she’d always thought of her mum as strong. Now the vulnerability she’s shown recently scares her… leaves her wondering where that leaves her. What’s clear is she can never tell her mum what she’s done. Not unless she wants to make things worse. Alex will have to remain her secret. Her mum drops her hands, and Megan steps back into the shadows of the oleander, not wanting to be seen. As she waits for her mum to move away from the sliding doors, she sees that the fat buds in the leaves that hide her from view have produced their first flower. It’s something her mum would celebrate, seeing as how, every year in November, she and Sean have to drag it, in its giant pot, into the sunroom so the winter frosts don’t get it. She wonders whether she’s seen it, but, from the look of her mum now, it’s clearly the last thing on her mind.

It wasn’t even about the wonky kitchen cabinet doors or the number of times over the years she’d asked him to paint the kitchen or fix the broken step on the stairs. It wasn’t about mowing the lawn every Saturday morning or the fact that they’d never gotten round to laying the patio, even though the bricks had been lined up at the side of the house for over a decade.

Notice to Appear It goes doorbell (two beats) then knocking (three or more beats) or knocking (five beats) then doorbell (three times, two beats each). The very first beat disappears the front door. We abrupt. We. Any way possible, silence. Beat beat then beat beat beat beat. We crawl to Mother and Father’s closet staying close to the grout. Together we have four pairs of legs. I am short and young enough already not to be seen and Brother is taller and growing. Beat beat beat beat beat beat beat beat beat beat beat. Our hearts (four) are summoned into this beating, so the sound of heavy listening (Mother heavy listens best). Our hearts (four) are so impressionable, our ears (eight) are so airless and impressionable. Beat beat. In the closet we crouch on top of each other (Father’s disappearance that close) and look like more legs. Beat beat beat beat beat. The house black and whites. Brother and I heavy listen to Mother looking at Father as though he is her husband only. Our impressionable hearts (two), our airless ears (four). Beat beat beat beat beat beat beat beat beat beat beat. On the property’s perimeter, legs (two) with large feet in boots on the patio. That sound. That close.

But apparently, they don’t spend much time out here, because all the patio furniture has a thick layer of dust on it.

Oh! We just got a new patio set, you’ll both have to come over for drinks and dinner. Khash likes to pretend that he single-handedly wrestled down a mastodon every time he turns on the grill; it’ll be great.

Forty minutes later, Ned and Mariel gathered their guests on the back patio by the pool. Uncle Nathan yelled at everyone to be quiet. “We have gathered here today for the wedding of Edward Jonah Prager the Third and Mariel Betty Stenerud,” he announced, staring right at Ned’s dad as he spoke, and then turned to Ned. Several of their friends gasped. “What’s going on?” Ned’s dad shouted. “Edward, do you take Mariel to be your lawfully wedded wife, to love, to honor, and to cherish, from this day forward?” “I do,” Ned said. Uncle Nathan grinned and nodded. “Mariel, do you take Edward to be your lawfully wedded husband, to love, to honor, and to cherish, from this day forward?” “I do,” Mariel said. “You got rings?” Uncle Nathan asked. “Well, now’s the time.” Ned slid his ring onto Mariel’s finger first, and then she moved a gold ring onto his. He felt her warm hand trembling as she did it. “What just happened?” Ned’s dad asked. “What’s going on?” Uncle Nathan, noticing Edward, couldn’t stop smiling. “Then, in front of these assembled witnesses, by the power vested in me by the state of Minnesota, I hereby pronounce you husband and wife.” Ned had tears streaming down his face. He looked at his wife—his wife!—and she was weeping too. He wanted to kiss her so terribly, but he thought he was supposed to wait for an order. “Is that all?” Ned asked his uncle. “That’s the minimum legal requirement,” Uncle Nathan said, and noticed the spread on the outdoor table. “Are those Doritos?” “Aren’t you supposed to say, ‘You can kiss the bride’?” “Sure, do what you want. Kiss the bride. Just keep it decent.” They kissed while their friends cheered and then stopped cheering, and kissed until they began cheering again. Ned would often think of the joy of this moment in the years to come. Soon, almost everyone around him would change, and the grace and wonder in the world would be beyond his grasp. If it weren’t for these memories he could replay in his head like old songs, he wouldn’t have believed that his heart had ever been capable of such happiness.

That was always our solution, to go back in time. We discussed it the way others spoke of bone marrow transplants and radiation. [...] The dial was ours, and she would be at our mercy, just as she had always been, only this time we would pay attention and keep her safe. [...] We hoped that by preparing ourselves for the worst, we might be able to endure the inevitable with some degree of courage or grace. [...] Our mother was back in her room and very much alive, probably watching a detective program on television. Maybe that was her light in the window, her figure stepping out onto the patio to light a cigarette. We told ourselves she probably wanted to be left alone, that's how stoned we were. We'd think of this later, each in our own separate way. I myself tend to dwell on the stupidity of pacing a cemetery while she sat, frightened and alone, staring at the tip of her cigarette and envisioning her self, clearly now, in ashes.

People engage in a lot of self-deception,” she said with a firm grip on his arm to keep her balance. “They have this need to write books and get a PhD and become professors and noted intellectuals. But almost everyone’s mediocre. They’re intelligent enough to recognize genius and excellence, and with a bit of luck they may achieve something above average themselves. But the vast majority of people are middling. And they don’t want to accept that. Instead, they buy houses and build patios and have children, which serves as a watertight alibi. I never got to write that book, they say. Because I have the house and the patio and the children to take care of. And besides, they like it just fine at work. Next summer, they’re going on an extended vacation to France. They say they love to read, but how much do they really read? A book a month, if that. They say they wish they had more time to read. They say they wish they had more time to write. That they would love to write that book, but time. There’s not enough time.

I sat on my patio watching the wispy clouds until the sky turned a soft shade of magenta and the sun dropped below the horizon. Over those hours, my mind let go of the day, which provided space for an unexpected message to be heard. ​The message was:  Embrace the journey. Embrace all of it, even the good and bad. You may not have chosen this journey, but it is, and forever will be, yours. I sat in silence a little longer, taking in the revelation. ​It's true. I didn’t choose cancer; cancer chose me. As much as I was desperate to skip past the chemo, surgery, radiation, and everything else that comes with a diagnosis, I needed to experience the lessons that would unfold along the way. I had to embrace it all to become a better version of myself. It was time to “embrace the journey” instead of resisting it.  ​I didn’t know if I could, but I’d try.

The truth is, what I wanted just then was the fantasy version of Hawaii. Rather than schlepping the few miles back to South Beretania Street for a no-frills dinner with the grandparents in front of the evening news, rather than watching Barack sit up late helping Maya figure out her tuition payment plan or talking with his mother about her perpetually-behind-schedule doctoral dissertation about the economics of blacksmithing in rural Indonesia, I would have loved to have sat, just the two of us, unhitched from all obligations in the velvet evening air on the patio of a nearby restaurant, drinking mai tais as the sky over the Pacific went from pink to purple to black. I would have loved, finally, to have tripped off a little giddily to some top-floor honeymoon suite in a hotel. That was how I’d dreamed about Hawaii, back in my office in Chicago as I’d submitted my request to take these precious vacation days off from work. That was what I was trying not to pout about as Barack rolled up the rattan mat and we began the long walk

How many times had he thought, "I want to be just like him"? The way he'd told Gaspar while they rode in the car, you always have to respectful with girls, even if you're not interested in them. The way, after he got mad about something and raised his voice and shouted, he always gave into a joke and laughed and shook his head. The twins were going to forget him, they would miss out: the permission to do their homework on the patio, the races down the dirt road, the grilled fish at the beach, the What you wrote is really good, that teacher must be kind of dumb, she doesn't have to understand everything, but it's a shame she didn't understand this because it's so well written, and long! and the words you use! They were going to miss out on having him always accept them even when they messed up, even if they had ridiculous mental emotional psychiatric problems, they'd miss out on knowing there was someone who would never abandon them, would never back down, could beat their heads against the wall until they broke their heads and the wall, and he would be right behind them, arms crossed, saying, Well then, shall we start by fixing your skull, your anger, or the bricks? you choose?

He knew he was not making enough of an effort. Margaret, with her news, her reports and small jokes, her flying starts at conversation, was trying so much harder. Every evening she had some disastrous item to offer up. Tonight the dog, but often it was a story from the news online: “Did you hear about—?” a tornado carrying away a trailer park in Nebraska, pirates kidnapping a family off their sailboat, the stoning of schoolgirls in Kabul, as if to say, “See? What’s happening to us is not so bad.” Then again she might offer something she’d heard on the radio while making dinner, a little mystery explained, how habits are formed or why people applaud after theater performances. She was trying, he realized with a stab of grief, to be interesting. Candles on the table, a vase of flowers, something baked for dessert. It was graceful of her, it was valiant. And all he wanted was for her to stop. The lawn mower from down the street quit and he could hear the cricket again. Margaret was gazing up at the oak trees, leaves dark now but trunks banded with gold. “You know”—he stood up to collect their glasses—“I was thinking I might mow the grass tonight. I might really enjoy something like that.” “Oh, I wish I’d known, Bill. It’s already done. The landscape guys were here yesterday. I got them to put more mulch around the hydrangeas.” Mulch. That explained the smell. Another fusillade of acorns hit car roofs along the street. This time Margaret had her hand on Binx’s collar, holding him back as he lunged forward, toenails scratching the patio slates.

I pulled my hair up in a messy ponytail upon leaving the bedroom and didn’t change from my blue and white shorts and red tank top I wore to bed the night before (Go, USA!). The shirt is tight and the shorts are short, but I'm completely comfortable. Graham is presently glaring at me like he doesn’t like me too much, so I'm thinking he is not comfortable with my outfit—or he still isn't over last night. I don't think he's ever been so angry with me before—well, except for maybe that time I accidentally put salt in his girlfriend's coffee instead of sugar. I pour myself a cup of coffee, showing him my back. And I wait. He doesn't make me wait long. His voice is brittle as he snaps, “Do you have to dress like that?” “I always dress like this. You never seemed to care before.” I give my behind an extra wiggle just to irritate him. I know I've succeeded when something thumps loudly against the tabletop. “I think you should dress like that more often,” Blake immediately replies. “Did anyone ask you?” is Graham's hotheaded comeback. “In fact, I think you’re wearing too many clothes. You should remove some.” A low growl leaves Graham. When I finally face the Malone boys, it is to find them staring one another down from across the small table. Graham’s wearing a white t-shirt and black shorts; his brother is in jeans and a brown shirt. Their coloring is so different, as are their features, but they are both striking in appearance, and their expressions currently mimic one another’s. “Graham, you're being an ass,” I calmly inform him. He grabs a piece of toast off his plate and whips it at me. I duck and it lands in the sink. To say I’m surprised would be an understatement. Toast throwing now? This is what our friendship has resorted to? “I will not live with someone who throws toast at me in anger,” I announce, setting my untouched cup of coffee on the counter. Blake snorts, covering his mouth with the back of his hand as he turns his attention to the world beyond the sliding glass patio doors. Graham blinks at me, like he doesn’t understand what I just said or maybe he doesn’t understand what he just did. Either way, I grab my mug and stride out of the room and down the hall to my bedroom. I’ll drink my coffee in peace, away from the toast throwing. Only peace is not to be mine. The door immediately opens after I close it, and there is Graham, staring at me, his head cocked, his expression unnamable. “This coffee is hot,” I warn, holding the white mug out. “You wanna be a toast thrower then I can be a coffee thrower. Just saying.” “Put the coffee down.” “No.” He takes a step toward me. “Come on. Please.” “You threw toast at me,” I point out, in case he forgot. “I don’t know why I did that,” he mumbles, looking down. When he lifts his eyes to me, they are pleading. “Please?” With a sigh, I comply. I am putty in his hands—or I could be. I keep the mug within reach on the dresser, should I need it as backup. As soon as I let the cup go, I’m pulled against his hard chest, his strong arms wrapping around me, his chin on the crown of my head. His scent cocoons me; a mixture of soap and Graham, and I inwardly sigh. He should throw toast more often if this is the end result. “I’m sorry—for last night, for the toast.

You should probably go now.” He lifted his head and saw Brie standing in the open patio doors, wearing the same clothes she had worn home from the hospital. “Brie,” he said, rising. “I’ve talked to the detectives several times. Jerome Powell, the rapist, was tracked as far as New Mexico, then the trail was lost,” she said, very businesslike. “I can tell you from experience, the odds are at least ninety-five percent he’s gone—pulled a territorial. I’m going to start counseling and group therapy right away—and I’ve decided not to go back to work for a while. Jack and Mel insist on staying the rest of the week, but you should go. Visit your family.” “Would you like to come and sit with me?” he asked. She shook her head. “I’ll talk to the D.A. every day, see if he turns up anything new. Of course I’m staying here. If I need any assistance in the police department, I have an ex-husband who’s feeling very guilty. And very helpful.” She took a breath. “I wanted to say goodbye. And to thank you for trying to help.” “Brie,” he said, taking a step toward her, his arms open. She held up a hand, and the look that came into her eyes stopped him where he was. She shook her head, kept her hand raised against him. “You understand,” she said, warning him not to get too close, not to touch her. “Of course,” he said. “Drive carefully,” she said, disappearing into the house.

Masters are under no cosmic compulsion to limit their residence.” My companion glanced at me quizzically. “The Himalayas in India and Tibet have no monopoly on saints. What one does not trouble to find within will not be discovered by transporting the body hither and yon. As soon as the devotee is willing to go even to the ends of the earth for spiritual enlightenment, his guru appears nearby.” I silently agreed, recalling my prayer in the Benares hermitage, followed by the meeting with Sri Yukteswar in a crowded lane. “Are you able to have a little room where you can close the door and be alone?” “Yes.” I reflected that this saint descended from the general to the particular with disconcerting speed. “That is your cave.” The yogi bestowed on me a gaze of illumination which I have never forgotten. “That is your sacred mountain. That is where you will find the kingdom of God.” His simple words instantaneously banished my life-long obsession for the Himalayas. In a burning paddy field I awoke from the monticolous dreams of eternal snows. “Young sir, your divine thirst is laudable. I feel great love for you.” Ram Gopal took my hand and led me to a quaint hamlet. The adobe houses were covered with coconut leaves and adorned with rustic entrances. The saint seated me on the umbrageous bamboo platform of his small cottage. After giving me sweetened lime juice and a piece of rock candy, he entered his patio and assumed the lotus posture. In about four hours, I opened my meditative eyes and saw that the moonlit figure of the yogi was still motionless. As I was sternly reminding my stomach that man does not live by bread alone, Ram Gopal approached me. “I see you are famished; food will be ready soon.” A fire was kindled under a clay oven on the patio; rice and dal were quickly served on large banana leaves. My host courteously refused my aid in all cooking chores. ‘The guest is God,’ a Hindu proverb, has commanded devout observance from time immemorial. In my later world travels, I was charmed to see that a similar respect for visitors is manifested in rural sections of many countries. The city dweller finds the keen edge of hospitality blunted by superabundance of strange faces.

I’d catch her crossing through the patio room, or see her sitting on the couch to watch TV with her parents. Other times I would find her in her bedroom, her shadow flitting back and forth behind the curtains of the French doors. Sometimes the curtains would be open and I could watch her sitting inside, talking on the phone, moving in and out of her powder room. She always closed the curtains before going to bed at night, however—evidence, I thought, of a certain polite modesty that must’ve been taught to well-bred girls like her. Or maybe, I thought, she suspected me; maybe she knew I was watching.

A memory of her father flitted through her consciousness. The time he played a slow, melodic tune on the saxophone in the misty rain of the yard on a summer’s night, surrounded by the patio’s twinkling lights. She remembered peering out the window and feeling like she was catching a glimpse of another world. One that was timeless and majestic. She touched his saxophone after that as if she were touching the hand of God, wishing to hold onto that feeling forever.

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Dinner on Kitt Peak wrapped up in time for everyone to head outside and watch the sunset together before scattering to the telescope, a time-honored tradition of astronomers everywhere. If asked, we would all supply some good practical scientific reasoning behind the habit - you get a glimpse of what sort of night it's going to be, a sense of upcoming weather, the sky quality, and so on - but the basic reason remains that it's simply beautiful. Standing on a remote mountain with the earth stretching out into the distance and slowly spinning away from our nearest star, it's a wonderful quiet moment to enjoy the vastness and stillness and colors as the night begins. On any given evening, I can promise you that scattered across the planet are a few small groups of astronomers, standing on dome catwalks or dining hall patios or even just a stretch of hard-packed earth and pausing in their work for a few moments to admire the simple beauty of the sky.

I’d head to the Taurus, the only bar in the Grove that’s older than I am. It’s a brew-and-burger place in a quiche-and-cappuccino world, and I like it there. I’d have a couple of drafts, shoot some blow darts on the patio, tell harmless lies to various women, all the time wondering just what the hell was going on.

It was around that time that I started to believe that friendships could be written in the stars. “If there are all different types of soul mates,” I told Harry one afternoon, when the two of us were sitting out on the patio with Connor, “then you are one of mine.

It was as if I had stepped outside something of which I had always, unconsciously, been a part of and was seeing it for the first time – this stream of life, this cycle of ordinary living that goes on within and around us all the time. I knew that in a moment, when I went through my parents’ door, I would become a part of it again and lose this acute sense of being a witness, alone and completely with myself and my own thoughts. I knew I would be swept up in the hugs and exclamations of surprise and greetings, the sharing of news and the sounds and smells of bacon and eggs and coffee – the irresistible tide of living in the world. But for this moment, I was with the world, watching it but somehow not in it. I was alone with myself. I paused on the patio outside the back door, prolonging the moment. I was alone, lost to everyone and yet not lost but there, on the doorstep. I knew that home was as much in the slow walk alone through the quiet streets as it was in the arrival at the store. Home was in the taste of being with myself, walking next to what was familiar, toward what was cherished. Then I open the door, cross the threshold with conscious deliberation, and called out, “Isn’t anyone in here up yet?” As my mother came into the kitchen, I glanced back outside, and in my mind’s eye I saw that other young woman standing there - backpack on, watching us and grinning at me. I knew I would get back to her. I had met myself walking home in the dawn, and I liked the company I kept in those empty moments. Tell me, have you met yourself? Have you been able to step outside the business of life for just one moment and look in from the outside, feeling yourself whole and separate and yet with the world?

Brian took her hand a final time, then turned and walked away. Lise sat at the table a while longer. The cooling air from the patio was pleasant. The stars were coming out. Mahmud poured coffee from a silver carafe. What we cannot remember, we must rediscover. “I’m sorry—did you say something?” “I said, it’s getting dark.” Mahmud smiled. “It’s these sunsets. Seems like they go on forever.

tip. I always try to catch a moment when I just stand back and quietly watch my family and friends enjoying themselves and each other. Let that moment wash over you so you can store it up for the times when life gets stressful. Those moments are like precious treasures we can pause to look at again and again. You might even keep a hospitality journal—a book to record the memories of your time together. Or, like we have, a guest book by the front door for our friends to sign so we remember our time together. Entries can be short and sweet, just enough to jog your memory: ice cream sandwiches on the patio with family and friends, game night with the grandparents, pizza party with the neighbors. You might write down what was on the menu, who attended, any details that you cherished—twinkly lights on the porch, the smell of homemade brownies baking, or jokes you laughed at, stories you shared. There

No doubt his assistant had altered his travel arrangements a million times, trips with girlfriends canceled last minute. Trips back home never booked. Work always took precedence over fun and family. That laid-back, affectionate guy at Christmas was simply a disposable costume, tried on and discarded. Too bad; I had really liked that guy. Across the table, Jacob smiled at me a little crookedly, a little uncertainly, as if dumbfounded by this step he had taken, inviting me to Huangzhou. Even so, his eyes were so warm, they made fondue of my thoughts until I saw Merc sidle a glance from Jacob to me, wistfully. Maybe Merc had been afraid of the guy he became when he was with Elisa — looser, freer, like intimate chats on a patio compared to staid dining room small talk. I knew how hard it was to reveal myself, each admission of my secrets and dreams making me vulnerable because they could become weapons to scoff at me. To echo the doubts so stubbornly lodged in my head. As I suspected, Merc returned to his BlackBerry once more, his face setting like hardening cement into its normal, dispassionate business mask. Work was as good a shield as any to protect against intimacy that could scrub someone raw.

something new every time.” The sound of forest insects comes from the phone. Then the screen lights up with the green sweep of my backyard. Even from the kitchen counter, I can see Jet’s naked body sitting astride mine on the patio steamer chair. “That didn’t come off Pornhub,” Paul says. “That’s the real deal.

You know what I’m gonna do? A lot of obscene and illegal stuff, I’d wager. He said, I’m gonna fix this Lincoln up and drive it back to Leechfield. My senior year ride. No more Mama’s Torino. Like you will, I said. Like I won’t. My brain was starting to melt and soften again around an old image of Daddy from childhood. How he’d come home at dawn in his denim shirt, and I’d be the only one up, peering out the back drapes till he walked across the patio. Lots of times, he’d come in and lie on his stomach on the bare boards of our yet-to-be-carpeted floor, and I’d walk barefoot along his spine. I’d have to hold on to the bookcase to keep from sliding off the sloping muscles of his back, but I’d work my toes under his scapular bones, and he’d ask, You feel my wings growing under there, Pokey? And I’d allege that I did. He claimed it always helped him get to sleep in the daylight. It was maybe the only time I felt like a contributor to the household, somehow useful in our small economy.

As they passed by the marshes, Dr. Urbino recognized their oppressive weight, their ominous silence, their suffocating gases, which on so many insomniac dawns had risen to his bedroom, blending with the fragrance of jasmine from the patio, and which he felt pass by him like a wind out of yesterday that had nothing to do with his life. But that pestilence so frequently idealized by nostalgia became an unbearable reality when the carriage began to lurch through the quagmire of the streets where buzzards fought over the slaughterhouse offal as it was swept along by the receding tide.

Café Amelie, a patio style restaurant with great New Orleans/Southern-style food and is probably my favorite place to get brunch in the city.

Card currently lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, with his wife, Kristine Allen Card, where his primary activities are writing a review column for the local Rhinoceros Times and feeding birds, squirrels, chipmunks, possums, and raccoons on the patio.

Dak had a song he didn’t often sing for crowds, but saved for late nights around dying fires, when only the restless and bleary-eyed stuck around to listen. Enid had only heard it a couple of times, but she remembered it and sat up when he played it now. The chorus was about dust in the wind, and how everything would eventually blow away and come to naught. The melody was sad and haunting, a rain of notes plucked on the strings until they faded out, just a lingering vibration through the wood of the guitar. The sound seemed to carry, even after the song ended. “That was really sad,” one of the half dozen left on the patio said, and the words seemed rude somehow. Like after that they should have all just vanished without a word, melting into the night. “I learned it from an old man when I was just a little kid. He said it came from a place called Kansas.” Enid said, “I’ve seen Kansas on a map.” A crinkled atlas in the Haven library had the continent marked up into regions that didn’t mean much these days. “It’s over a thousand miles east of here.

No, you're not passing up on A good glorious kitchen gadget. You're passing up on THE glorious kitchen appliance. The key is to get one which has 3 knobs: temperature, mode (bake/toast/broil), and time. Instead of easily making toast, I love to butter the bakery first and obtain it properly caramelized under the broiler. Merely today I warmed up some leftover biscuits and waffles; instead of coming out just a little soggy and rubbery in the microwave they turn out just simply because crisp and very good as if they were new. Pizza tastes 100x better rewarmed in a toaster oven than a microwave; cheese is definitely nice and melty rather than scorching warm and rubbery (like in a microwave). We generate garlic bread all the time; utilize it on bake for some minutes then zap it on broil until stuff are browned. Jalapeno poppers happen to be another prevalent thing I take advantage of it for when simply producing them for a 1-2 people. Roasted garlic, quesadillas, baked broccoli, stuffed mushrooms... all sorts of things that work effectively in it. We guess it creates more impression for smaller sized households, but we use ours many times a day time (family of 3). It's easily our most-applied counter top appliance. In 15 years I've never needed a normal toaster, and I take in an unhealthy volume of toast. Overall, just super versatile and significantly better for reheating anything baked, or doing little baking batches and never have to heat the oven.

If I were in this patio shade sail business, a method I would do it is to head out to the setting up resource enterprise and ask some of the guys behind the workplace about personnel who conduct your size job - they sure as heck not necessarily going to recommend technicians who not necessarily paying their bills and that will be a lifesaver there as well. It's impossible those men at the setting up source would become obtaining kickbacks from companies. Some of those men will not recommend contractors, but some will. Get four or five advice. We prepare subcontractor deals for our Standard Builder construction organization and just before preparing the arrangements, often check with the state office that gives away builder contractor licenses to make certain they're listed under the trade they state to get proficient in and find if there are any complaints filed. I also contact the talk about organization commission to see if they're posted now there and how lengthy they've been in business, and then have got their insurance agent to send us a copy of their insurance certificate showing that they have general liability and worker's compensation insurance (and make sure the name of their company on the contract matches the builder's license, the listed corporate entity, and insurance). And, you definitely want to make sure your contract has start and finish dates with liquidated damages for failure to finish on time, that the contractor supplies all materials and labor, that if the contractor breaches the contract that the contractor will be in charge of your legal fees, progress payments with lien waivers, as well as many other clauses AND a very detailed scope of work. It is important to specify the manufacturer and the exact type/quality & color of shingle, the underlayment brand and quality, the valleys' ice and water shield, tear-off or not of the existing shingles, how much will be charged if the sheathing is rotten per sheet for labor and material and type that it is to be replaced with, disposal of all construction debris, protection of your landscaping and personal property below the roof. I also attach a copy of the manufacturer's installation instructions and state that the product will be installed according to them. I prepare our contract and attach the subcontractor's contract to ours as an addendum (and our clauses supersede theirs). You want to get your scope of work ready to give to contractors to bid on so everyone is bidding on the same thing. When I first started, I would get several bids and cobble together a scope of work and then ask people to rework their bids based on it if their bids didn't include my new scope of work. So, this is going to be a large, important expense for you, and you probably want a good attorney, experienced in contracts, to review your contract. It will be worth the couple hundred extra dollars. (Ask how much the charge is up front.)