Polka Dot Quotes

Knowledge is the key that unlocks all the doors. You can be green-skinned with yellow polka dots and come from Mars, but if you have knowledge that people need instead of beating you, they'll beat a path to your door.

Polka dots can't stay alone. When we obliterate nature and our bodies with polka dots we become part of the unity of our environments.

Rae Layton, I’ve loved you since the very first day I set eyes on you and your pink polka dot knickers, you are my world. I know we’re young, but I love you Gia, I want to make beautiful babies with you. I know people are going to be against this but they don’t know what we know, they don’t feel what we feel, I want to grow old with you G, I want to marry you. Please, would you do the honour of becoming my Wife?

How You Doing, Little Lucy?” His bright tone and mild expression indicates we’re playing a game we almost never play. It’s a game called How You Doing? and it basically starts off like we don’t hate each other. We act like normal colleagues who don’t want to swirl their hands in each other’s blood. It’s disturbing. “Great, thanks, Big Josh. How You Doing?” “Super. Gonna go get coffee. Can I get you some tea?” He has his heavy black mug in his hand. I hate his mug. I look down; my hand is already holding my red polka-dot mug. He’d spit in anything he made me. Does he think I’m crazy? “I think I’ll join you.” We march purposefully toward the kitchen with identical footfalls, left, right, left, right, like prosecutors walking toward the camera in the opening credits of Law & Order. It requires me to almost double my stride. Colleagues break off conversations and look at us with speculative expressions. Joshua and I look at each other and bare our teeth. Time to act civil. Like executives. “Ah-ha-ha,” we say to each other genially at some pretend joke. “Ah-ha-ha.” We sweep around a corner. Annabelle turns from the photocopier and almost drops her papers. “What’s happening?” Joshua and I nod at her and continue striding, unified in our endless game of one-upmanship. My short striped dress flaps from the g-force. “Mommy and Daddy love you very much, kids,” Joshua says quietly so only I can hear him. To the casual onlooker he is politely chatting. A few meerkat heads have popped up over cubicle walls. It seems we’re the stuff of legend. “Sometimes we get excited and argue. But don’t be scared. Even when we’re arguing, it’s not your fault.” “It’s just grown-up stuff,” I softly explain to the apprehensive faces we pass. “Sometimes Daddy sleeps on the couch, but it’s okay. We still love you.

I realized all prisons were not buildings of gray rock bordered by guard towers and barbed wire. Some prisons were houses whose closed blinds let no sunlight enter. Some prisons were cages of fragile bones, and some prisons had bars of red polka dots. In fact, you could never tell what might be a prison until you’d had a glimpse of what was seized and bound inside.

Her entire body quivered. "What is it about me that you're attracted to?" "For starters, the sexy underwear you put on beneath your clothes." "You've only seen my underwear once." "Twice," he said. "I looked down your top at the pier." "You did not." "Pink-and-white polka-dot bra." "Oh my God." "That's what I was thinking." -Mallory and Ty

one day my best friend said to me 'Jess, you rock a lot of polka dots' and that was the deal breaker, now we're mortal enemies

Pierce truly was a black witch. He had tried to kill with magic. It didn’t matter if the charm was white, black, or polka dotted with silver sparkles.

Daemon poked me in the back with his pen. Lesa’s brows arched, but she wisely said nothing as I twisted around. “Yes?” His half grin was all too familiar. “Reindeer socks today?” “No. Polka dots.” “Sock mittens?” “Regular”, I said, fighting a stupid grin. “I’m not sure how I feel about that.” He tapped his pen on the edge of his desk. “Regular socks just seem so boring after seeing the reindeer socks.” Lesa cleared her throar. “Reindeer socks?” “She has these socks that have reindeers on them and are kind of like mitten for the toes.” He explained. “Oh, I have a pair like that,” Carissa said, grinning. “But mine have stripes on them. Love them in the winter.” I passed Daemon a smug look. My socks were cool. “Am I the only person who is wondering how you saw her socks”? Lesa asked. Carissa punched her on the arm. “We live next door to each other,” he reminded her. “I see lots of things.” I shook my head frantically. “No, he doesn’t. He hardly sees anything.” “Blushing,” he said, pointing at my cheeks with the blue cap of his pen.

She played upon her music-box a fancy air by chance, And straightway all her polka-dots Began a lively dance.

Do you remember that old song? 'She wore an itsy bitsy, teeny weeny, yellow polka dot bikini...

If you draw, if you dance, if you like poetry, if you like spoken word, whatever, if you like polka dots—use who you are, who you really are, as a positive. That’s your superpower. Wendy

He came up behind her and laid his hands on her shoulders; bending low, he put his lips close to the nape of her neck. “How about a kiss for your jailbird brother?” he said. She turned halfway, as if to touch her lips to his cheek but he slid a palm down her back and tipped her face up to his and kissed her full on the mouth—not a brotherly kiss, there was no mistaking it for that, but a long, slow, greedy kiss, messy and voluptuous. His bathrobe fell slightly open as his left hand sank from her chin to neck, collarbone, base of throat, his fingertips just inside the edge of her thin polka-dot shirt and trembling over the warm skin there.

I am what became of your child. I found an old baby picture of me. And it was somebody else, not me. It was somebody pink and fat who never heard of sick or lonely, somebody who cried and got fed,, and reached up and got held and kicked but didn't hurt anybody, and slept whenever she wanted to, just by closing her eyes. Somebody who mainly just laid there and laughed at the colors waving around over her head and chewed on a polka-dot whale and woke up knowing some new trick nearly every day and rolled over and drooled on the sheet and felt your hand pulling my quilt back up over me. That's who I started out and this is who is left. That's what this is about. It's somebody I lost, all right, it's my own self. Who I never was. Or who I tried to be and never got there. Somebody I waited for who never came. And never will. So, see, it doesn't much matter what else happens in the world or in this house, even. I'm what was worth waiting for and I didn't make it. Me...who might have made a difference to me...I'm not going to show up, so there's no reason to stay, except to keep you company, and that's...not reason enough because I'm not...very good company. Am I.

I could see why the discovery of a six-foot-tall white girl in a polka-dot dress in the corner of a cave filled with skulls would be an Instagrammable moment.

Zebras dream of polka-dots

I've been thinking a lot about the word "everything." Whenever something horrible happens, you hear people say they "lost everything." They lost their house or their car or their stuff or whatever, and to them it feels like everything. But they have no idea what it's like to lose everything. I thought I knew, but now I realize even I haven't lost everything, because I still have that polka-dot swimsuit in my memory. I still have those ice cream nights and the scorpion that scared Marin and the Barking Bulldogs sweatshirt and the robins-egg-blue nail polish. Somehow having those things makes the other things matter less. I'm wondering if it's even possible to lose "everything" or if you just have to keep redefining what "everything" is.

The important thing to realize is the males in most species will breed with any female who stays still long enough. It's the females who are selective. What they desire has a huge effect. If all the female walruses got together one day to decide they wanted polka dots, within a few generations the males would have polka dots. The female's wish made physical on the male's body.

When I take my hand out of this blanket," he thought, "my nail will be grown back, my hands will be clean. My body will be clean. I'll have on clean shorts, clean undershirt, a white shirt. A blue polka-dot tie. A gray suit with a stripe, and I'll be home, and I'll bolt the door. I'll put some coffee on the stove, some records on the phonograph, and I'll bolt the door. I'll read my books and I'll drink coffee and I'll listen to music, and I'll bolt the door. I'll open the window, I'll let in a nice, quiet girl--not Frances, not anyone I've ever known--and I'll bolt the door. I'll ask her to read some Emily Dickinson to me--that one about being chartless--and I'll ask her to read some William Blake to me--that one about the little lamb that made thee--and I'll bolt the door. She'll have an American voice, and she won't ask me if I have any chewing gum or bonbons, and I'll bolt the door.

Nice polka dots,” I say. He smiles. “Nice Labradors.” I mean, he’s cute, so I’ll let it slide, but the dogs on my pants are clearly golden retrievers.

I was a big believer in bags-within-bags. So, I had a blue pouch for pens, a pink pouch for emergency meds and band-aids, an orange polka dot pouch for cereal bars and chewing gum…

AND i WAS FED UP WitH NOt HAViNG (PiNK POlKA DOT) FUllY FASHiONED GlAMOUR StOlKiNGS!

I had experienced God first hand. In my polka dot pyjamas.

Had he always found polka dots so instantly, intensely erotic?

For those two years of my ass being pinched I finally got a job that had some decency and my beautiful buttock returned from purple polka dots to its natural creamy hue.

You're a fucking menace in polka dots, sister

The scale of her belly and breasts was not unlike early fertility goddesses found in Greece around 6000 BC, except they did not wear polka-dot aprons. Did they suffer from hypochondria? Hysteria? Were they bold? Lame? Too full of the milk of human kindness?

We could just chill if you want." Emma raises a brow at Rachel. Rachel shrugs her innocence. "Nuh-uh. Don't look at me. I didn't teach him that." "Picked it up all on my own," he says, retrieving his pencil from the floor. "Figures," Emma sneers. "Aww, don't hate on me, boo." "Okay, I'm drawing the line at 'boo.' And don't call me 'shorty' either," Emma says. He laughs. "That was next." "No doubt. So, did anyone explain how you chill?" Galen shrugs. "As far as I can tell, chillin' is the equivalent of being in a coma, only awake." "That's about right." "Yeah. Doesn't sound that appealing. Are all humans lazy?" "Don't push it, Highness." But she's smirking. "If I'm Highness, then you're 'boo.' Period." Emma growls, but it doesn't sound as fierce as she intends. In fact, it's adorable. "Jeez! I won't call you Majesty either. And you Will. Not. Ever Call me 'boo' again." His grin feels like it reaches all the way to his ears as he nods. "Did...did I just win an argument?" She rolls her eyes. "Don't be stupid. We tied." He laughs. "If you say I won, I'll let you open your present." She glances at the gift bag and bites her lip-also adorable. She looks back at him. "Maybe I don't care about the present." "Oh, you definitely care," he says, confident. "No. I definitely do NOT," she says, crossing her arms. He runs a hand through his hair. If she makes it any more difficult, he'll have to tell her where they're going. He gives his best nonchalant shrug. "That changes everything. I just figured since you like history...Anyway, just forget it. I won't bother you about it anymore." He stands and walks over to the bag, fingering the polka-dot tissue paper Rachel engorged it with. "Even if I say you win, it's still a lie, you know." Emma huffs. Galen won't take the bait. Not today. "Fine. It's a lie. I just want to hear you say it." With an expression mixing surprise and suspicion in equal parts, she says it. And it sounds so sweet coming from those lips. "You won.

Those legs were covered in black mesh tights, see-through but for the areas where the fabric was thicker, creating a polka-dot pattern. The corner of my mouth curled in amusement when those tights ended at the hem of a black skirt with a cat nose and whiskers stitched into the front.

Like all of my important memories, it has a potency that has influenced the pocket of time that holds it, so I can remember that particular Saturday afternoon, even though in many ways it was no different from any other. I can remember, for example, what van der Glick was wearing as she stepped out of the elevator, which was a dress covered with clownish polka dots. Rainie would make these heartbreaking stabs at femininity; indeed, she still does. It's not that she doesn't possess a woman's body now, and didn't posses a girl's body then. But clothes never seemed to fit her correctly, and the more girlish they were, the worse they would hang.

Biju stepped out of the airport into the Calcutta night, warm, mammalian. His feet sank into dust winnowed to softness at his feet, ad he felt an unbearable feeling, sad and tender, old and sweet like the memory of falling asleep, a baby on his mother's lap. Thousands of people were out though it was almost eleven. He saw a pair of elegant bearded goats in a rickshaw, riding to slaughter. A conference of old men with elegant goat faces, smoking bidis. A mosque and minarets lit magic green in the night with a group of women rushing by in burkas, bangles clinking under the black and a big psychedelic mess of colour from a sweet shop. Rotis flew through the air as in a juggling act, polka-dotting the sky high over a restaurant that bore the slogan "Good food makes good mood". Biju stood there in that dusty tepid soft sari night. Sweet drabness of home - he felt everything shifting and clicking into place around him, felt himself slowly shrink back to size, the enormous anxiety of being a foreigner ebbing - that unbearable arrogance and shame of the immigrant. Nobody paid attention to him here, and if they said anything at all, their words were easy, unconcerned. He looked about and for the first time in God knows how long, his vision unblurred and he found that he could see clearly.

From the race’s conception, the press viewed it with skepticism. Sportswriters argued that the rich event was a farce arranged to pad Seabiscuit’s bankroll. Del Mar, conscious of the potential conflict of interest for the Howards and Smiths, barred public wagering on the race. But the press’s distrust and the absence of gambling did nothing to cool the enthusiasm of racing fans. On the sweltering race day, special trains and buses poured in from San Diego and Los Angeles, filling the track with well over twenty thousand people, many more than the track’s official capacity. Lin plastered a twenty-foot LIGAROTI sign on the wall behind the “I’m for Ligaroti” section, and scores of Crosby’s movie friends, including Clark Gable and Carole Lombard, Spencer Tracy and Ray Milland, took up their cerise and white pennants and filed in. “Is there anyone left in Hollywood?” wondered a spectator. Dave Butler led a chorus of Ligaroti cheers, and the crowd grew boisterous. Crosby perched on the roof with Oscar Otis, who would call the race for a national radio broadcast. In the jockeys’ room, Woolf suited up to man the helm on Seabiscuit while Richardson slipped on Ligaroti’s polka dots. Just before the race, Woolf and Richardson made a deal. No matter who won, they would “save,” or split, the purse between them.

Megan stepping back let her glance switch from Alma to Isabel and return to Alma. No doubt about it, thought Megan. Created as much alike as any sisters ever had been, their resemblance started with their matching red-and-white polka dot blouses. Since she was a young girl, she had matched their eye colors to their different personalities.

Every time I saw Lacey, she'd gained five more pounds. She was turning into the kind of obese girl who does her hair like a forties pinup and wears bright red lipstick, a blue polka-dot dress with a white doily collar, colorful tattoos across her huge, smushed cleavage, as if these considerations would distract us from how fat and miserable she'd become.

And last week, when he finally began to erase it, he noticed something very strange: the accent on the letter E was actually formed from a piece of materiel. We all watched as he stared at the letter E for a very long time. Then he slowly unpeeled the rolled-up cloth fro the blackboard and unfurled the biggest pair of polka dot panties anyone in the room had ever seen.

There was a diet center that sported a plywood cutout of a pink pig wearing a brick-red polka-dot dress. The bubble coming from the pig’s mouth held this phrase: A New Way To Lose Weight Without Starving To Death.

In my dreams, I was back in Hades’ garden. The Lord of the Dead paced up and down, holding his ears while Nico followed him, waving his arms. ‘You have to!’ Nico insisted. Demeter and Persephone sat behind them at the breakfast table. Both of the goddesses looked bored. Demeter poured shredded wheat into four huge bowls. Persephone was magically changing the flower arrangement on the table, turning the blossoms from red to yellow to polka-dotted. ‘I don’t have to do anything!’ Hades’ eyes blazed. ‘I’m a god!’ ‘Father,’ Nico said, ‘if Olympus falls, your own palace’s safety doesn’t matter. You’ll fade, too.’ ‘I am not an Olympian!’ he growled. ‘My family has made that quite clear.’ ‘You are,’ Nico said. ‘Whether you like it or not.’ ‘You saw what they did to your mother,’ Hades said. ‘Zeus killed her. And you would have me help them? They deserve what they get!

Skinny as Mum was, she'd always had a good appetite, so when she couldn't eat her roast potatoes I knew the end must be nigh. [...] We opened our presents and Mum put a polka-dot shower cap on her head and let us take pictures of her in it, which was most unlike her, she liked to be a bit dignified about things. This was another indication that she knew she was dying. Other signs to look out for are when an elderly person starts giving away their things – usually about two or three years before they die – and if they insist, rather aggressively, on returning anything they've borrowed or get annoyed if you give them gifts – they don't want any more clutter.

I wore my suit and the polka-dot tie. As soon as I spotted Malta Kano, I tried to walk in her direction, but the crowd kept getting in my way. By the time I reached the bar, she was gone. The tropical drink stood there on the bar, in front of her now empty stool. I took the next seat at the bar and ordered a scotch on the rocks. The bartender asked me what kind of scotch I'd like, and I answered Cutty Sark. I really didn't care which brand of scotch he served me, but Cutty Sark was the first thing that came to mind.

An AI shown a sheep with polka dots or tractors painted on its sides will report seeing the sheep but will not report anything unusual about it. When you show it a sheep-shaped chair with two heads, or a sheep with too many legs, or with too many eyes, the algorithm will also merely report a sheep. Why are AIs so oblivious to these monstrosities? Sometimes it’s because they don’t have a way to express them. Some AIs can only answer by outputting a category name—like “sheep”—and aren’t given an option for expressing that yes, it is a sheep, but something is very, very wrong.

After school, Peter and I are lying on the couch; his feet are hanging off the end. He’s still in his costume, but I’ve changed into my regular clothes. “You always have the cutest socks,” he says, lifting up my right foot. These ones are gray with white polka dots and yellow bear faces. Proudly I say, “My great-aunt sends them from Korea. Korea has the cutest stuff, you know.” “Can you ask her to send me some too? Not bears, but maybe, like, tigers. Tigers are cool.” “Your feet are too big for socks as cute as these. Your toes would pop right out. You know what, I bet I could find you some socks that fit at…um, the zoo.” Peter sits up and starts tickling me. I gasp out, “I bet the--pandas or gorillas have to--keep their feet warm somehow…in the winter. Maybe they have some kind of deodorized sock technology as well.” I burst into giggles. “Stop…stop tickling me!” “Then stop being mean about my feet!” I’ve got my hand burrowed under his arm, and I am tickling him ferociously. But by doing so, I have opened myself up to more attacks. I yell, “Okay, okay, truce!” He stops, and I pretend to stop, but sneak a tickle under his arm, and he lets out a high-pitched un-Peter-like shriek. “You said truce!” he accuses. We both nod and lie back down, out of breath. “Do you really think my feet smell?” I don’t. I love the way he smells after a lacrosse game--like sweat and grass and him. But I love to tease, to see that unsure look cross his face for just half a beat. “Well, I mean, on game days…” I say. Then Peter attacks me again, and we’re wrestling around, laughing, when Kitty walks in, balancing a tray with a cheese sandwich and a glass of orange juice. “Take it upstairs,” she says, sitting down on the floor. “This is a public area.

I go into the depths of the shed, where the keel curves down to the pointed prow, and there it is, the pencil drawing I made when I was four, the three of us in an upside-down boat surrounded by moons and stars. I'm wearing my favourite red-and-white polka dot dress. Dad calls it my cave painting, created in a distant past, at the very birth of the world. I coloured it in with crayons and it was very bright, almost luminous. I trace it with my fingers. I brush away some dust. Each year it's there, but each year a little more dull, more faded. How old will I be when at last it’s gone?

Many years ago there were no lions in Northwood. There were no black lions, nor golden-brown ones (which is the more usual color). There were no pink lions, green lions, or purple polka-dotted lions. No lions at all. But now there are lions. Nobody knows how many, but they are there, all right.

Her kiss is hungry, as if long deprived. As if they didn’t already spend the morning doing just exactly this, making up for the lost time they were apart. Triton’s trident, I could do this all day. Then he catches himself. No, I couldn’t. Not without wanting more. Which is why we need to stop. Instead, he entwines his hands in her hair, and she teases his lips with her tongue, trying to get him to fully open his mouth to her. He gladly complies. Her fingers sneak their way under his shirt, up his stomach, sending a trail of fire to his chest. He is about to lose his shirt altogether. Until Antonis’s voice booms from the doorway. “Extract yourself from Prince Galen, Emma,” he says. “You two are not mated. This behavior is inappropriate for any Syrena, let alone a Royal.” Emma’s eyes go round as sand dollars. He can tell she’s not sure what to think about her grandfather telling her what to do. Or maybe she’s caught off guard that he called her a Royal. Either way, like most people, Emma decides to obey. Galen does, too. They stand up side by side, not daring to be close enough to touch. They behold King Antonis in a polka-dot bathrobe, and though he’s the one who looks silly, they are the ones who look shamed. Galen feels like a fingerling again. “I apologize, Highness,” he says. It seems like all he does lately is apologize to the Poseidon king. “It was my fault.” Antonis gives him a reproving look. “I like you, young prince. But you well know the law. Do not disappoint me, Galen. My granddaughter is deserving of a proper mating ceremony.” Galen can’t meet his eyes. He’s right. I shouldn’t be flirting with temptation like this. With the Archives on their way-or possibly here already-there is a distant but small chance that he and Emma can still live within the confines of the law. That they can still live as mates under the Syrena tradition. And he almost just blew it. What if it had gone too far? Then his mating with Emma would forever be blemished by breaking the law. “It won’t happen again, Highness.” Not until we’re mated, anyway. “Um. Did you just promise not to kiss me ever again?” Emma whispers. “Can we talk about this later? The Archives are obviously here, angelfish.” She’s on the verge of a fit, he can tell. “He’s just looking out for us,” Galen says quickly. “I agree, we need to respect the law-“ At this her fit subsides as if it was never there. She smiles wide at him. He can’t decide if it’s genuine, or if it’s the kind of smile she gives him when he’ll pay for something later. “Okay, Galen.” “Galen, Emma,” Nalia calls from the dining room, saving him from making a fool of himself. “Everyone is here.” Emma gives him a look that clearly says, “We’re so not done with this conversation.” Then she turns and walks away. Galen takes a second to regain a little bit of composure-which kissing Emma tends to steal from him. Then there’s the mortification of being interrupted by-Get it together, idiot.

I unknot his tie and offer him a cold sandwich. He raps my backside, paying attention to the bounce. I walk around him as though he were a Maypole, kissing as I go. “I lost my cuff link, goddamnit” he says, and drops to the floor to look for it. I go down too on my knees, but I know he never had a cuff link in his life. Still I would do a lot for him. “Got you off you feet that time,” he says, laughing. “Oh yes, I did.” And before I can even make myself half comfortable on that polka-dotted linoleum, he got onto me right where we were, and the truth is, we were so happy, we forgot the precautions.

A Letter To Say, "I'll See You Later" I remember just like it was yesterday the grapevine, clothesline, lilacs and peonies. I remember the secret hiding place for 50-cent pieces. I remember just like it was yesterday the color wheel Christmas Tree, The Honeymooner’s, The Dukes of Hazzard and Jeopardy! I remember just like it was yesterday the house was full of children, but I was your only and your favorite. You always made time for me, even when I deserved the fly swatter. I remember just like it was yesterday falling asleep to the scent of Dove soap on your pillow, you lying for me so I wouldn’t be abused again. I remember just like it was yesterday your big “Black Cat” and the late, dark nights driving to IFP and knowing there was “No Place Like Home.” I remember just like it was yesterday the “horns” in your ‘do and the smell of Raffinee wafting through the house and Listerine in the bathroom. I remember your bows and polka dots and “just a few fries.” I remember the green blanket. I remember just like it was yesterday the way it felt to sit on your lap and have you sing “She’s Grandma’s Little Baby.” I remember just like it was yesterday the day you told me I could “Shit in the sugar bowl.” I remember just like it was yesterday telling you that you were going to be a great-grandma…for the first time. I remember just like it was yesterday the 1st time you held him in your arms; you helped me raise him. Your house was always our home. I remember just like it was yesterday having my heart broken but you helped me mend it. I remember just like it was yesterday asking for your help when I couldn’t do it on my own; you’ve always been my rock. I remember just like it was yesterday confiding my secrets to you – you were the first to know another baby was on the way, this time a girl. I remember just like it was yesterday the joy they brought to your life; they were the reason you didn’t give up. I remember just like it was yesterday saying words I never meant, not spending more time with you because my life got in the way. I remember just like it was yesterday you loving on me, your strength and vitality, your faith, hope and kindness. I remember just like it was yesterday wishing for more tomorrows so I could tell you that I love you another time. I remember just like it was yesterday having you tell me you love me, “more than anyone will ever know.” I remember just like it was yesterday you taught me to never say good-bye, just say “I’ll see you later.

It took me a little while to understand why confetti, polka dots, and stripes have such an outsize effect. The reason is deceptively simple: small things repeated many times create a burst of joy much bigger than each individual piece could. Think about it this way: Each confetto (yes, that’s the singular of “confetti”) is just a speck of paper. If you saw one on your shoe, you’d probably pick it off without another thought. But multiply that confetto a thousand times and you have a handful of one of the most potent joymakers in the world, a pocket-sized jubilee. Glitter, sprinkles, a strand of Christmas lights: all derive their joyful power from this simple act of repetition.

Sometimes kids at school called her mean. She wasn’t mean. She just saw reality clearly, and she shared it without dusting it in sugar and rainbows first. One day, when Anna was in first grade, she’d come home crying after her best friend had suddenly refused to sit with her at lunch. Her mother had tried to comfort her. “When someone asks you if you like their dress, say yes,” she said. Anna had sniffed, tears rolling down her face, and said, “But I didn’t like it! Why should I lie?” And her mother had sighed. “Because it’s what we do, to be nice.” Anna had decided, at that moment, that honest was more important than nice when it came to purple polka dots. She’d been fighting the world ever since.

Just then a lady with a poufy blonde wig and a disheveled polka-dot blouse walked up to us. “Have you seen my teeth?” she asked. “I think I left them on the side table here.” My mouth dropped open, but Josephine pointed at the woman in the maroon dress who was now sitting in a chair watching the television, which wasn’t on. “I think Betty over there has them.

Owen felt his mouth curve into a grin as he heard the familiar clap, clap, clap behind him. That was one of his favorite sounds—high heels on the wooden dock of the Boys of the Bayou swamp boat tour company. He took his time turning and once he did, he started at the shoes. They were black and showed off bright red toenails. The straps wrapped sexily around trim ankles and led the eye right up to smooth, toned calves. The heels matched the black polka dots on the white skirt that thankfully didn’t start until mid-thigh, and showed off more tanned skin. He straightened from his kneeling position in one of the boats as his eyes kept moving up past the skirt to the bright red belt that accentuated a narrow waist and then to the silky black tank that molded to a pair of perfect breasts. He was fully anticipating her lips being bright red to go with that belt and her toenail polish. God, he loved red lipstick. And high heels. In any color. But before he could get to those lips, she used them, to say, “Oh, dammit, it’s you.” Owen’s gaze bypassed her mouth to fly to her eyes. Because he’d know that voice anywhere. Madison Allain was home. A day early. Not that an extra day would have helped him prepare. He’d been thinking about her visit for a week and was still as wound tight about it as he’d been when Sawyer, his business partner and cousin, had told him that she was coming home. For a month. Owen stood just watching her, fighting back all of the first words that he was tempted to say. Like, “Damn, you’re even more gorgeous than the last time I saw you.” Or, “I haven’t put anyone in the hospital lately.” Or, “I’ve missed you so fucking much.” Just for instance.

I was still walking behind Mrs. Haze through the dining room when, beyond it, there came a sudden burst of greenery – “the piazza," sang out my leader, and then, without the least warning, a blue sea-wave swelled under my heart and, from a mat in a pool of sun, half-naked, kneeling, turning about on her knees, there was my Riviera love peering at me over dark glasses. It was the same child-the same frail, honey-hued shoulders, the same silky supple bare back, the same chestnut head of hair. A polka-dotted black kerchief tied around her chest hid from my aging ape eyes, but not from the gaze of young memory, the juvenile breasts I had fondled one immortal day. And, as if I were the fairy-tale nurse of some little princess (lost, kidnapped, discovered in gypsy rags through which her nakedness smiled at the king and his hounds), I recognized the tiny dark-brown mole on her side. With awe and delight (the king crying for joy, the trumpets blaring, the nurse drunk) I saw again her lovely indrawn abdomen where my southbound mouth had briefly paused; and those puerile hips on which I had kissed the crenulated imprint left by the band of her shorts – that last mad immortal day behind the "Roches Roses." The twenty-five years I had lived since then, tapered to a palpitating point, and vanished.

Next, wearing a dark-green dress with white polka dots, Michael’s mother, Ethel, entered the room. As she reached the chair, she turned and embraced the matron, who choked up and left the room. The guards dropped the leather mask over her face. The first of the three standard shocks was applied at 8:11. “She seemed to fight death,” The New York Times reported. “She strained hard against the straps and her neck turned red. A thin column of grayish smoke rose from the upper side of her head. Her hands, lying limp, were now clenched like a fighter’s.” After the standard three shocks of electricity, one short and two long, doctors approached to check her heartbeat and discovered that Ethel was still alive. Her straps were readjusted and a fourth shock was applied. Once more, she strained against the straps. A fifth current was required before the doctors pronounced her dead.

No matter who you are, life will present you similar opportunities where you can prove to be uncommon. There are people in all walks of life who relish those moments, and when I see them I recognize them immediately because they are usually that motherfucker who’s all by himself. It’s the suit who’s still at the office at midnight while everyone else is at the bar, or the badass who hits the gym directly after coming off a forty-eight-hour op. She’s the wildland firefighter who instead of hitting her bedroll, sharpens her chainsaw after working a fire for twenty-four hours. That mentality is there for all of us. Man, woman, straight, gay, black, white, or purple fucking polka dot. All of us can be the person who flies all day and night only to arrive home to a filthy house, and instead of blaming family or roommates, cleans it up right then because they refuse to ignore duties undone.

Devin was the most gorgeous, unique creature Kate had ever known. She'd come out of the womb an individual, refusing to be defined by anyone. She didn't even look like anyone on either side of their families. Matt's family was so proud of their dark hair, a blue-black that had been the envy of generations, the way it caught the sun like a spiderweb. From Kate's own side of the family, there was a gene that made their eyes so green that they could trick people into thinking that even the most unattractive Morris woman was pretty. And yet here was Devin, with fine cotton-yellow hair and light blue eyes, the left of which was a lazy eye. She'd had to wear an eye patch when she was three. And she'd loved it. She loved her knotted yellow hair. She loved wearing stripes with polka dots, and tutus, and pink and green socks with orange patent-leather shoes. Devin could care less what other people thought about her.

You're beautiful." The words dropped from his lips before he could stop them. She was wearing a cherry red dress with white polka dots that hugged all her curves and dipped low at the top, giving him a delicious glimpse of the soft swell of her breasts. "Thank you." Her gaze dropped and she pulled her phone out of a small red purse that matched her shoes. Liam had never thought much about a woman's shoes before, but Daisy's shoes demanded to be noticed. Curvy and round with bows on top and a big, graceful heel that made his mouth water, they were sweet and sexy all at once---the kind of shoes a man could admire when his lover was bent over his table in her fancy dress, skirt flipped up, and... fuck, why had he locked his helmet to his bike? Shrugging off his leather jacket, he held it discreetly in front of him and forced his mind back to the conversation because, holy hell, when had he ever let his Daisy fantasies get this out of control?

I tell you, I know what it is.” “What is it? What is it? Is it hard or soft? Harry. Is it blue? Is it red? Does it have polka dots?” It hits Rabbit depressingly that he really wants to be told. Underneath all this I-know-more-about-it-than-you heresies-of-the-early-Church business he really wants to be told about it, wants to be told that it is there, that he’s not lying to all those people every Sunday. As if it’s not enough to be trying to get some sense out of this crazy game you have to carry around this madman trying to swallow your soul. The hot strap of the bag gnaws at his shoulder. “The truth is,” Eccles tells him with womanish excitement, in a voice embarrassed but determined, “you’re monstrously selfish. You’re a coward. You don’t care about right or wrong; you worship nothing except your own worst instincts.” They reach the tee, a platform of turf beside a hunchbacked fruit tree offering fists of taut ivory-colored buds. “Let me go first,” Rabbit says. “ ’Til you calm down.” His heart is hushed, held in mid-beat, by anger. He doesn’t care about anything except getting out of this tangle. He wants it to rain. In avoiding looking at Eccles he looks at the ball, which sits high on the tee and already seems free of the ground. Very simply he brings the clubhead around his shoulder into it. The sound has a hollowness, a singleness he hasn’t heard before. His arms force his head up and his ball is hung way out, lunarly pale against the beautiful black blue of storm clouds, his grandfather’s color stretched dense across the north. It recedes along a line straight as a ruler-edge. Stricken; sphere, star, speck. It hesitates, and Rabbit thinks it will die, but he’s fooled, for the ball makes its hesitation the ground of a final leap: with a kind of visible sob takes a last bite of space before vanishing in falling. “That’s it!” he cries and, turning to Eccles with a grin of aggrandizement, repeats, “That’s it.

It was the same child—the same frail, honey-hued shoulders, the same silky supple bare back, the same chestnut head of hair. A polka-dotted black kerchief tied around her chest hid from my aging ape eyes, but not from the gaze of young memory, the juvenile breasts I had fondled one immortal day. And, as if I were the fairy-tale nurse of some little princess (lost, kidnaped, discovered in gypsy rags through which her nakedness smiled at the king and his hounds), I recognized the tiny dark-brown mole on her side

Maybe at the end of our lives we get a Ferris-Wheel vantage of the whole tapestry, the quilt laid flat, answering for its complexity. At the beginning we’re handed frayed and stained flowery bed sheets, a scrap of polka-dots, a snatch of strawberry print. Tattered as they are, there’s some sustaining sweetness in there. The oldest pioneer quilts conceal bits of paper batting between their threadbare layers: postcards, recipes, clipped snippets of newspaper poetry. Every spare material had a part to play, fragments of experience and feeling arranged in a repeating pattern, little sewn sound bytes spinning ordered fractals.

Back in L.A., I’d remained friends with my freshman-year boyfriend, Collin, and we’d become even closer after he confided in me one dark and emotional night that he’d finally come to terms with his homosexuality. Around that time, his mother was visiting from Dallas, and Collin invited me to meet them at Hotel Bel Air for brunch. I wore the quintessential early-1990s brunch outfit: a copper-brown silk tank with white, dime-size polka dots and a below-the-knee, swinging skirt to match. A flawless Pretty Woman--Julia Roberts polo match replica. I loved that outfit. It was silk, though, and clingy, and the second I sat down at the table I knew I was in trouble. My armpits began to feel cool and wet, and slowly I noticed the fabric around my arms getting damper and damper. By the time our mimosas arrived, the ring of sweat had spread to the level of my third rib; by mealtime, it had reached the waistline of my skirt, and the more I tried to will it away, the worse it got. I wound up eating my Eggs Florentine with my elbows stuck to my hip bones so Collin and his mother wouldn’t see. But copper-brown silk, when wet, is the most unforgiving fabric on the planet. Collin had recently come out to his parents, so I’d later determined I’d experienced some kind of sympathetic nervousness on Collin’s behalf. I never wore that outfit again. Never got the stains out. Nor would I ever wear this suit again.

COOKBOOK FOR THE MODERN HOUSEWIFE The cover was red with a subtle crosshatch pattern and distressed, the book's title stamped in black ink- all of it faded with age. Bordering the cookbook's cover were hints of what could be found inside. Alice tilted her head as she read across, down, across, and up the cover's edges. Rolls. Pies. Luncheon. Drinks. Jams. Jellies. Poultry. Soup. Pickles. 725 Tested Recipes. Resting the spine on her bent knees, the cookbook dense yet fragile in her hands, Alice opened it carefully. There was an inscription on the inside cover. Elsie Swann, 1940. Going through the first few, age-yellowed pages, Alice glanced at charts for what constituted a balanced diet in those days: milk products, citrus fruits, green and yellow vegetables, breads and cereals, meat and eggs, the addition of a fish liver oil, particularly for children. Across from it, a page of tips for housewives to avoid being overwhelmed and advice for hosting successful dinner parties. Opening to a page near the back, Alice found another chart, this one titled Standard Retail Beef Cutting Chart, a picture of a cow divided by type of meat, mini drawings of everything from a porterhouse-steak cut to the disgusting-sounding "rolled neck." Through the middle were recipes for Pork Pie, Jellied Tongue, Meat Loaf with Oatmeal, and something called Porcupines- ground beef and rice balls, simmered for an hour in tomato soup and definitely something Alice never wanted to try- and plenty of notes written in faded cursive beside some of the recipes. Comments like Eleanor's 13th birthday-delicious! and Good for digestion and Add extra butter. Whoever this Elsie Swann was, she had clearly used the cookbook regularly. The pages were polka-dotted in brown splatters and drips, evidence it had not sat forgotten on a shelf the way cookbooks would in Alice's kitchen.

Listen, you don't have to get up or anything. Galen just...uh...went for a swim. He'll be back real soon." I look between them and past the beach. I shake my head. "What? What's wrong, Emma?" he asks. I like Toraf. He seems genuinely concerned about me, without ever having met me. Rayna looks as if she might want to stomp on my head and finish the job I started with the cafeteria door. "Storm," I say. The one syllable word polka-dots my vision. Toraf smiles. "He'll be back before the storm. Can I get you anything? Something to eat? Something to drink?" "A taxi?" Rayna pitches in. "Go to the kitchen, Rayna," he says. "Unless you're ready to go find an island?" I'm not sure how far away the kitchen is, but it seems like she stomps for a good five minutes. Finding an island doesn't really seem like a fitting punishment for being rude, but since I do have a head injury, I give them the benefit of the doubt. Plus, there's always the possibility that I imagined the whole thing. "Do you mind if I sit?" Toraf says. I shake my head. He eases onto the edge of the couch and pulls the blanket back over me. I hope he takes my nod for "Thanks." He crouches down and whispers, "Listen, Emma. Before Galen gets back. There's something I want to ask you. Oh, don't worry, it's a yes or no question. No talking involved." I hope he takes my nod for "Sure, why not? You're nice." He glances around, as if he's about to rob me instead of ask a question. "Do you feel...uh...tingly...when you're around Galen?" This time, I hope he takes my wide-eyed nod for "Ohmysweetgoodness, how did you know that?" "I knew it!" he hisses. "Listen, I'd appreciate it if you didn't mention it to Galen. You'll both be better off if he figures it out on his own. Promise?" I hope he takes my nod for "This is the strangest dream I've ever had." Everything goes black.

You’re…you’re what? Where?” I stood up and glimpsed myself in the mirror. I was a vision, having changed into satin pajama pants, a torn USC sweatshirt, and polka-dotted toe socks, and to top it off, my hair was fastened in a haphazard knot on the top of my head with a no. 2 Ticonderoga pencil. Who wouldn’t want me? “I’m outside,” he repeated, throwing in a trademark chuckle just to be extra mean. “Get out here.” “But…but…,” I stalled, hurriedly sliding the pencil out of my hair and running around the room, stripping off my pathetic house clothes and searching in vain for my favorite faded jeans. “But…but…I’m in my pajamas.” Another trademark chuckle. “So?” he asked. “You’d better get out here or I’m comin’ in…” “Okay, okay…,” I replied. “I’ll be right down.” Panting, I settled for my second-favorite jeans and my favorite sweater of all time, a faded light blue turtleneck I’d worn so much, it was almost part of my anatomy. Brushing my teeth in ten seconds flat, I scurried down the stairs and out the front door. Marlboro Man was standing outside his pickup, hands inside his pockets, his back resting against the driver-side door. He grinned, and as I walked toward him, he stood up and walked toward me, too. We met in the middle--in between his vehicle and the front door--and without a moment of hesitation, greeted each other with a long, emotional kiss. There was nothing funny or lighthearted about it. That kiss meant business. Our lips separated for a short moment. “I like your sweater,” he said, looking at the light blue cotton rib as if he’d seen it before. I’d hurriedly thrown it on the night we’d met a few months earlier. “I think I wore this to the J-bar that night…,” I said. “Do you remember?” “Ummm, yeah,” he said, pulling me even closer. “I remember.” Maybe the sweater had magical powers. I’d have to be sure to hold on to it. We kissed again, and I shivered in the cold night air. Wanting to get me out of the cold, he led me to his pickup and opened the door so we could both climb in. The pickup was still warm and toasty, like a campfire was burning in the backseat. I looked at him, giggled like a schoolgirl, and asked, “What have you been doing all this time?” “Oh, I was headed home,” he said, fiddling with my fingers. “But then I just turned around; I couldn’t help it.” His hand found my upper back and pulled me closer. The windows were getting foggy. I felt like I was seventeen. “I’ve got this problem,” he continued, in between kisses. “Yeah?” I asked, playing dumb. My hand rested on his left bicep. My attraction soared to the heavens. He caressed the back of my head, messing up my hair…but I didn’t care; I had other things on my mind. “I’m crazy about you,” he said. By now I was on his lap, right in the front seat of his Diesel Ford F250, making out with him as if I’d just discovered the concept. I had no idea how I’d gotten there--the diesel pickup or his lap. But I was there. And, burying my face in his neck, I quietly repeated his sentiments. “I’m crazy about you, too.

Mazel Amsel- I have the obsession of destroying Nevaeh, she is so perfect, I cannot stand it! My girls have to be on top, and I am never going to let her be anything, I will make sure of it! That is what I have been doing for years. Nevaeh that no good little pussy licker; even if she knows it is me, she will not be able to ‘Prove it.’ I am just that well-liked by everyone, I am so powerful that no one will ever defeat me. I am the master manipulator, Nevaeh- yes, she is the tower! She is about for a hundred pounds, unnatural blond hair, lime green glowing eyes, and a voice that bellows! To me, she looks like a bulldog in the face, yet evil wicked witch-like also, yet to everyone else she blends in, to the others she looks as they do, just a normal mom, with normal kids. Yet I think she is crumbling, I think some people are seeing through her veil, because of what happened recently. Mazel- I have everyone wrapped around my little finger. Likewise, if they do not bow down to me, I will make their life a living hell. That is the way; I have to have it, all the time for Nevaeh! I have to know what she is doing at all times. I have to hack into her social networking and get her pears to think she is a ‘Creep’ and ‘Stocker’ to young girls. So, she has no friends at all. So, my girls can be the supreme of this area, so that they can do as they please, without anyone stopping them from being the best, no matter what, and from getting what they want, and what I want for them. Besides, foremost I wanted to make sure that she would never date anyone. So, I came up with the story of telling everyone that she was into girls and that she is just plain crazy. I should know my eyes are on her always. I did not want to see her go to proms; I did not want to see her succeed. I did not want her to be loved. I would like to see her die, and not walk away from it. I have dreamed of ways to kill her repeatedly. Like this one, I would like to see her be impaled on a sharp wooden stick, starting through her butt hole, and then slowly have gravity have it go up into her delicious miniature body until it hits her brain, and she screams out my girl’s names, as we get what we need. I would love to see a Nevaeh- kabob! I would love to see her stoned out in the open with rocks! I would love to see my girls bite their nipples off with their teeth! I want to see my girl claw her up to head to toe. I hunger to see them scratch her sweet blue eyes that are so heavenly right out of her face! I want to see her gush that cobalt blood like a waterfall from her naked sliced-up body. Yes, I want us to torture her any way we can until she says yes to us. We are going to get at anything of hers we can until she comes with us! As we would, all dance around her, as we would light her up, cheerfully for the last time. How I would love to bleach and fry that perfect hair with chemicals. I and we all in our family want to fuck her up and down anyways we can! Mwah Ha, ha! Yes, Beforehand, we all would kiss, touch, lick, and stick her, and do what we want to get the life from her by sucking away. We would eat her soul away as it would come down from the heavens then through her body, and into ours, as we would drink it out, the way we do. Yes, yes, hell- yes, I can see it now! Yes, I want her soul! Besides, anything or everything I can get out of her to add to my shrine. We even have a voodoo doll of her with pins in it. I have a few things of hers like her hymen-damaged red blood tarnished pink polka-dotted gym underwear, and her indigo pantiliner she had on. That my girl ripped off of her in school, the more things we have the more we can control her mind, but I want more!

DON’T ABUSE ME, I’ve never flown one of these things before.” Richard Reiss put the tip of his tongue between his teeth and squinted at the controls. While he did this, building blocks, tree limbs, and swirling leaves scudded past the plastic windscreen. Chaison stared at the ambassador. “Richard, why are you dressed as a clown?” Ballooning pantaloons and a polka-dotted top spilled out around the edges of Reiss’s seat; he had red smudges on his cheeks that he’d obviously been trying to rub off. The ambassador turned with great dignity, fixed Chaison with a steely eye and said, “It is a very long story, and one I find I would rather not relate.

I spot my bra in the indentation of a cheap red pleather beanbag. My adorable cute, black-and-white polka-dot bra thrown carelessly onto the worse piece of furniture ever invented. He threw my bra.

At the far end of the bakery, our canvas curtain heralded April's lime and coconut theme. Little bags of coconut meringue polka dots with lime buttercream filling were there for the taking. I was proud of our little cakes shaped like a cracked-open coconut- white coconut cake interior with a dark chocolate "shell," complete with a lime cookie straw inserted in the center for imaginary sipping. Lime bars with a coconut crust and lime curd filling sat on a snowy white cake stand.

And between them I am rosy cheeked, aflame with health and joy. I am still the owner of the same stupid Soviet polka-dot shirt, but most of it is hidden by a new Italian sweater, its shoulders ringed with something like epaulets, so that I may continue the fantasy that I will join the Red Army someday. My hair is as long and unruly as the Italian state, and the gap between my crooked teeth is its own opera, but the rings under my eyes that have made such an underaged raccoon out of me are gone.

Juniper was dreaming about riding Sparkles the unicorn to the white waterfall in the southern part of Wildflower Kingdom. Her room was decorated in pink and yellow, with lots of hearts and polka dots. Everyone else in the castle was also asleep. The wizard who did magic, the castle’s chef, the shoemakers, the castle guard–all were asleep. Even the castle’s one cat, Henry the Eighth, was asleep. Then, suddenly– Crack! Princess Olivia’s eyes flew open. Boom! Juniper’s eyes flew open. Boom! Crack! Kapow! Olivia looked around her bedroom, wondering what had made the loud noises. However, seeing nothing, she ran out of her room to find Juniper. Juniper also ran out of her room, clutching her stuffed llama, so that she could find Olivia. Princess Olivia and Princess Juniper were the only two children in Wildflower Castle, and so they were best friends. Sometimes they quarreled, and sometimes they were cross with one another, but when there was trouble, they looked out for each other. The two girls collided in the dark hallway.

I didn’t consciously fall asleep; it’s just that the chair was soft and comfortable, the room was dark and warm, and maybe it was the protection of those black eyes that reflected the blinking of the silly lights. Those eyes were not looking into the small darkness outside the double-paned windows; they were looking farther and to a place about which I did not know. There was nothing that would overtake us tonight that those eyes would not see, nothing that would not deal plainly with a king not in his perfect mind. I must have slept longer than I thought. I didn’t remember waking up, and maybe that’s what he had intended by starting to tell me the story while I was asleep. I remember hearing his voice, low and steady, coming from some place far away, “After the war. Her family were Basquos from out on Swayback, Four Brothers.” He paused to take another sip of his bourbon. “My gawd, you should have seen her. I remember lookin’ over the top of Charlie Floyde’s ’39 Dodge when she came out on the porch. Her hair was black and thick like a horse’s mane.” He stopped with the memory; the only other sound in Lucian’s apartment was the scorched-air heating. His two rooms weren’t any different from any of the others in general design, but they had all the style and mass of the Connally ancestral furnishings. I shifted my weight in the overstuffed horsehair chair and waited. “It was summertime, and she had on this little navy blue dress with all the little polka dots. The wind held it against her body.” It took him awhile to get going again. “She was the wildest, most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my entire life. Hair, teeth . . . We sparked that whole summer before her father tried to break it up in the fall. They wanted to send her away to family, keep us from each other, but it was too late.” I looked at him, and the night in my head seemed darker. “We used to tremble when we touched each other. She had the most beautiful skin I’d ever seen. I would forget from night to night. She wasn’t like American girls; she was quiet. She’d speak if spoken to but only then. Short,

Nice apron,” Tadg joked. “I like the polka dots.

Look over yonder, here come the blues, The thirteenth of anytime, just like a fool. A double-breasted green-and-red polka dot coat, Playin' the violin, Hittin' wrong notes. Wow! Look over yonder, he's coming my way, When he's around, I never have a happy day. He give me bad luck by rubbin' his ring, See that? I just broke a guitar string. Look over yonder, he's smiling at my babe, Now she says, she's gonna leave me here today. I don't need bad luck like him hangin' around, He's knockin' at my door, now my house is burning down. (Crackle, crackle…pop, pop.) Look over yonder, this is the end, He just now said he wants to be my friend. When he's around, I can't do nothing right, He's got me wearing shades in the middle of the night. Look over yonder, yeah. Look over yonder, baby. Got to get away, get away from here. Oh! Look over yonder, yeah. (Where's my shotgun so I can blow this fool away? Get away, brother!) Look over yonder, baby…

If the universe had put polka dots on a barrel and made it look bitter about life, that was her horse.

In the tin-covered porch Mr Chawla had constructed at the rear of the house she had set up her outdoor kitchen, spilling over into a grassy patch of ground. Here rows of pickle jars matured in the sun like an army balanced upon the stone wall; roots lay, tortured and contorted, upon a cot as they dried; and tiny wild fruit, scorned by all but the birds, lay cut open, displaying purple-stained hearts. Ginger was buried underground so as to keep it fresh; lemon and pumpkin dried on the roof; all manner of things fermented in tightly sealed tins; chilli peppers and curry leaves hung from the branches of a tree, and so did buffalo curd, dripping from a cloth on its way to becoming paneer. Newly strong with muscles, wiry and tough despite her slenderness, Kulfi sliced and pounded, ground and smashed, cut and chopped in a chaos of ingredients and dishes. ‘Cumin, quail, mustard seeds, pomelo rind,’ she muttered as she cooked. ‘Fennel, coriander, sour mango. Pandanus flour, lichen and perfumed kewra. Colocassia leaves, custard apple, winter melon, bitter gourd. Khas root, sandalwood, ash gourd, fenugreek greens. Snake-gourd, banana flowers, spider leaf, lotus root …’ She was producing meals so intricate, they were cooked sometimes with a hundred ingredients, balanced precariously within a complicated and delicate mesh of spices – marvellous triumphs of the complex and delicate art of seasoning. A single grain of one thing, a bud of another, a moist fingertip dipped lightly into a small vial and then into the bubbling pot; a thimble full, a matchbox full, a coconut shell full of dark crimson and deep violet, of dusty yellow spice, the entire concoction simmered sometimes for a day or two on coals that emitted only a glimmer of faint heat or that roared like a furnace as she fanned them with a palm leaf. The meats were beaten to silk, so spiced and fragrant they clouded the senses; the sauces were full of strange hints and dark undercurrents, leaving you on firm ground one moment, dragging you under the next. There were dishes with an aftertaste that exploded upon you and left you gasping a whole half-hour after you’d eaten them. Some that were delicate, with a haunting flavour that teased like the memory of something you’d once known but could no longer put your finger on. Pickled limes stuffed with cardamom and cumin, crepuscular creatures simmered upon the wood of a scented tree, small river fish baked in green coconuts, rice steamed with nasturtium flowers in the pale hollow of a bamboo stem, mushrooms red – and yellow-gilled, polka-dotted and striped. Desire filled Sampath as he waited for his meals. Spice-laden clouds billowed forth and the clashing cymbals of pots and pans declared the glory of the meal to come, scaring the birds from the trees about him.

Sex just once in his mother’s sweltering apartment and that would be it. When they opened the door, however, the apartment wasn’t sweltering at all. It was cool, the air-conditioning humming in every room, though Emma was certain she had turned it off before leaving for Ilha Grande. Raquel must have come by and forgotten to turn it off, Marcus said. Come here. He pulled at her hips until she tilted toward him. If they’d been standing anywhere but in front of her author’s bookshelves, the titles she’d run her fingers over for years like sacred scrolls, Emma was sure she would have had more restraint, would not be lifting her own dress this way over her head. When Marcus slid her polka-dot underwear down over her knees, she murmured something about thinking about this a little more. But she didn’t want to think. She wanted to fling her underwear down the hall with her toe. So she did, and the motion was divine. Now there was nothing in the way.

The rhythm of his steps said, Happy to be here, happy to be here. Rays of sunlight shot between the clouds, making spots of light like polka dots on the ground.

In the stillness, the fading rain polka-dots his shirt and kisses his face, his arms. It makes the flat surface of the bay whisper; a sshhh that feels more like commiseration than admonition.

Basically, Lady bugs kick ass in style, all dressed in polka dots!

The Dean stared at me as if I had just sprouted purple horns with yellow polka dots.  ‘You mean you don’t even...’ His voice trailed off, and he rolled his eyes.  ‘Kinesis, Divination, Protection, Evocation and Illusion.’ ‘Ah, I see.’  I nodded sagely. ‘You have no idea what any of those actually are, do you?’ ‘Kinesis is moving things around, I guess.  Protection will be warding, I imagine, and learning how to kick the shit out of nasty things.’ The Dean winced.  ‘Language, please.’ ‘Oh, sorry.  Learning how to utilise one’s alchemical hocus-pocus in order to suppress and extirpate the existence of any objectionable entity that threatens either to subjugate or generally cause botheration.’  I crossed my legs and leaned back again.” Excerpt From: Helen Harper. “The Blood Destiny series.” iBooks.

Kay was only half skinny-dipping, but she fervently wished she’d worn something a bit more substantial than a baseball cap and the bottom half of the quintessential teeny-weenie yellow polka-dot bikini.

But Grandfather Stupid was having the most fun of all. "You sure can polka, Dot," he said.

That’s when they saw-- SPOOK NUMBER THREE! WH-O-O-O WH-O-O-O-O As the campers and Pa shivered and shook, Sis opened an eye and took a good look. She saw something strange: a yellow hat on a pumpkin head, Pa’s red pajamas and a polka-dot dress that looked exactly like…MAMA’S! “Just having fun!” The voice--it was Mama’s. Then her head poked out of Papa’s pajamas. “Teaching Papa a lesson like this was just too good a chance to miss!” “It’s a double ghost lesson,” said Jane with a grin. “There are no such things! There never have been! “But just as sure as night follows day-- it’s fun to be scared of them anyway!

The proud little man was accompanied by three discreet touches of male vanity: a gold watch chain hanging from his dapper white waistcoat, a polka-dotted silk cravat held tightly to his high collar by a pearl stickpin, and his thirty-six-year-old wife.

You’re awfully quiet,” Mark observed. “I was just wondering,” I said. “Wondering if he’ll ever tell her.” Mark cocked his head to one side, his eyes on Elaine and Alex. “I doubt it,” he said after a moment. “Crawford strikes me as the true-blue type. Now that Jo O’Connor’s dead…” He let his voice trail off. “Pretty much what I was thinking,” I said. “Of course,” Mark said promptly, “if he knew that Jo was still alive…” “You never give up, do you?” I asked. He gave me his devil’s grin. “Nope. So whaddaya think, Calloway? Do I get that dance?” “Let’s see the cummerbund.” His expression blandly agreeable, Mark stood up. I laughed before I could help myself. Mark’s cummerbund was black with hot pink polka dots. “I believe I specified plaid,” I said. “Give me a break here, will you Calloway? I got the ugliest one I could find.” “You definitely did do that,” I said. I looked up, meeting his eyes. “One dance,” I said. “We’re supposed to be working, you know.” “One dance,” he agreed as the first dance ended and the crowd applauded. He held out a hand. I took it and let him ease me out onto the dance floor. The band settled into its first slow number and Mark London pulled me slowly but surely into his arms.

So whaddaya think, Calloway? Do I get that dance?” “Let’s see the cummerbund.” His expression blandly agreeable, Mark stood up. I laughed before I could help myself. Mark’s cummerbund was black with hot pink polka dots. “I believe I specified plaid,” I said. “Give me a break here, will you Calloway? I got the ugliest one I could find.” “You definitely did do that,” I said. I looked up, meeting his eyes. “One dance,” I said. “We’re supposed to be working, you know.” “One dance,” he agreed as the first dance ended and the crowd applauded. He held out a hand. I took it and let him ease me out onto the dance floor. The band settled into its first slow number and Mark London pulled me slowly but surely into his arms.

You are good. Just like this. Whatever you want to be is just fine. It doesn’t matter if you like boys or pink sparkles or wear purple polka dotted skirts to school every day. Okay? No one has a right to treat you like crap.

The afternoon began with Greek. It was the Rector who taught them (…). He had the most beautiful Greek handwriting you could imagine; he drew the letters ceremonially, and the loops especially – as in Omega or Theta, or when pulled the Eta down – were the purest calligraphy. He loved Greek. But he loved it in the wrong way; thought Gregorius at the back of the classroom. His way of loving it was a conceited way. It wasn’t by celebrating the words. If it had been that –Gregorius would have liked it. But when this man wrote out the most difficult verb forms, he celebrated not the words, but rather himself as one who knew them. The words thus became ornaments to him, he adorned himself with them, they turned into something like the polka dotted bow tie he wore year in, year out

Placing an arm on Billy’s seatback, Hunter ran a finger up and down her sleeve. Fourteen years and five babies had made some changes, but his love and passion for her had grown to even greater heights. He ran an appreciative gaze over her form. She was all frocked up in one of her city dresses. This one had blue polka dots with a row of blue bows along the hem. “You look mighty pretty today,” he whispered.

The cute little fish had big eyes and a rounded body with black polka dots and fins on either side of him that fluttered like hummingbird wings. "He's staring at me." "He knows a beautiful thing when he sees it.

There’s a heart-wrenching scene in Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the old stop-motion Christmas TV special, that has always resonated with me. After his run-in with the Abominable Snowman, Rudolph and his buddies seek asylum on the Island of Misfit Toys, a haven for crappy, deformed, and unwanted toys presumably built by an elf with substance abuse issues. There’s the choo-choo train with square wheels, the water pistol that shoots jelly, the cowboy riding an ostrich, the white elephant with pink polka dots, the infelicitously named Charlie-in-the-Box. “Hey we’re all misfits, too!” Rudolph squeals to his newfound friends, and everyone breaks into song. I cry every time I see it.

Pulling the covering from her basket decorated with pink-and-white polka-dotted ribbon, she withdrew her journal, a pencil, and some cheese. Jesus Christ She formed the letters of His name with careful script. Points of Merit: • Will never leave me • Nothing can separate me from His love • Took my sins upon himself • Forgave me • Turns my darkness into light • Cares about everything I do, even knows how many hairs are on my head. Drawbacks: She took a bite of cheese, then tapped the top of her pencil against her lips. • Can’t see Him, touch Him, or hear Him with my physical body Yes, but blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. • Is always right about everything True. But if you depend on me and trust me, I will take care of you. • Expects absolute obedience I have warned man that it is better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered woman. It’s in Proverbs, in case you’ve forgotten. She took another bite of cheese and suppressed a smile. • Has a droll sense of humor A feeling of shared warmth and amusement washed over her. She giggled. Wrapping her arms around herself, she basked in the warmth of His love. It was more fulfilling than she had ever thought possible. She knew, of course, that she would still go through difficult times. But she also knew she would not be alone. Smiling, she closed the journal and bowed her head before partaking of her meal. She thanked the Lord for her daily bread, for blessing the bicycle club and, most of all, for being her One and Only.

I think Miss Delia is dancing in heaven knowing that her beloved cat is here with you, although she might think that green ribbon with yellow polka dots is too bold a color scheme for her sweet Bow.” The

Madeline Hatter. Her lavender-streaked teal hair exploded around her in messy curls. The polka-dotted, striped, and lacy layers of her skirt were bunched and fluffed. Her teacup hat tilted low over one ear. “Whoops,

Discipline was rigorous: you wore a uniform, a black regulation dress, a white embroidered collar, a blue bow with polka dots and black stockings. On the right sleeve of the uniform and on the blue coat, you had the embroidered initials of the school L.F.2 (Girls' High School No. 2) and your personal number sewn on. A navy beret with the embroidered initials of the school, too. Anybody who saw you in the street after 7 p.m. or at a movie or theater, which was not permitted to students, could call the school and have you expelled. Of course, one of the cardinal sins was to be seen with a boy in the street.

Welcome to inside my mind, Pink Polka Dots. You’re going to meet your parents.

The scientific (not to mention philosophical and metaphysical) implications are astounding. Let's say some of the atoms in your body originally formed in an entangled manner with other particles soon after the big bang. Since then, both have been flying apart, and now they are separated by billions of light-years. Your atoms make up pieces of your brain, which is physically located in Peoria. Those other particles have become of an alien on a planet in the fashionable Aldebaran system. Right now, some creature there is observing your twin's atoms in a lab. Bingo, they collapse to exhibit specific properties. Instantly, with no delay whatsoever, your own brain's atoms know this is happening five billion light-years away, and they, too, collapse into complementary objects. The effect is sudden and alters your thought processes, and you make a snap decision. You show up at your boss's party wearing an embarrassing, polka-dot tuxedo. You can't explain why you acted so oddly, but your life is ruined. This seems like science fiction, but EPR correlations are real. First it means that the entire universe is a single entity in some fundamental way. It means there are no secrets between locations here and those far away, no matter how distant–and that the information "exchange" happens simultaneously, at infinite speed.

And in this case, the devil didn’t wear Prada so much as she wore a pink nylon tracksuit, polka-dotted bifocals, and answered to the name Gigi.

Knowledge is the key that unlocks all the doors. You can be green-skinned with yellow polka dots and come from Mars, but if you have knowledge that people need, instead of beating you, they'll beat a path to your door.

Throughout my childhood, I often struggled to understand myself as Korean in part because my white family, encouraged by "experts," did not see my race or theirs as relevant within our household or outside it. I cannot recall a single conversation we had about anti-Asian prejudice, specifically - not the model-minority myth, not perpetual-foreigner syndrome, not the exotification and fetishization of Asian women, not the legacy of America's imperialist wars that was partially responsible for my birth family's and my presence here. The closest we came to talking about race when I was a child was my parents' assertion that they would have adopted me whether I was black, white, or purple with polka dots.

Her searching gaze wove past actors on stilts, covered in cream and chestnut fur, and men decorated to look like swans with fangs, rowing upside-down polka-dot umbrellas through flower-covered streams that led toward the center of the ballroom.

She pulled out her green-and-white polka-dot dress with the satin ribbon that tied at the waist, and the matching satin trim that ran along the hem of its ruffled skirt. She would normally only wear a dress like this to a wedding, or on Easter Sunday, but if she was going on this outing with Lottie to Maison Blanche, she had to look the part of someone who belonged there. Because she did belong there. She was just as good as anybody else who set foot in that establishment, and she was going to make sure everyone who was there knew it. Tiana pulled the dress over her head and pinned the barrette Ms. Rose had given her as a gift behind her ear. It had tiny gardenias attached to it, adding an elegant touch to her ensemble. She swished around from left to right in the mirror, admiring the way her dress twirled about her legs.