Soak In The Bath Quotes

Reading poetry is like undressing before a bath. You don't undress out of fear that your clothes will become wet. You undress because you want the water to touch you. You want to completely immerse yourself in the feeling of the water and to emerge anew.

The light of my eyes, I said, light of my eyes, light of the world, that's what you are, light of my life. I didn't know what light of my eyes meant, and part of me wondered where on earth had I fished out such claptrap, but it was nonsense like this that brought tears now, tears I wished to down in his pillow, soak in his bathing suit, tears I wanted him to touch with the tip of his tongue and make sorrow go away.

Oh yes. Blood is everything. But the only blood I'm interested in flows from my enemies. Look around you! These cats are bathed in blood. It soaks their fur and laps at their paws. This is the way we survive! We are BloodClan!

So I left my wonderfully intelligent family and soaked myself in the bath and considered drowning myself. Then I remembered I still had chocolate cake left over from yesterday so I came back up for air. Some things are worth living for.

I am a cutter, you see. Also a snipper, a slicer, a carver, a jabber. I am a very special case. I have a purpose. My skin, you see, screams. It's covered with words - cook, cupcake, kitty, curls - as if a knife-wielding first-grader learned to write on my flesh. I sometimes, but only sometimes, laugh. Getting out of the bath and seeing, out of the corner of my eye, down the side of a leg: babydoll. Pull on a sweater and, in a flash of my wrist: harmful. Why these words? Thousands of hours of therapy have yielded a few ideas from the good doctors. They are often feminine, in a Dick and Jane, pink vs. puppy dog tails sort of way. Or they're flat-out negative. Number of synonyms for anxious carved in my skin: eleven. The one thing I know for sure is that at the time, it was crucial to see these letters on me, and not just see them, but feel them. Burning on my left hip: petticoat. And near it, my first word, slashed on an anxious summer day at age thirteen: wicked. I woke up that morning, hot and bored, worried about the hours ahead. How do you keep safe when your whole day is as wide and empty as the sky? Anything could happen. I remember feeling that word, heavy and slightly sticky across my pubic bone. My mother's steak knife. Cutting like a child along red imaginary lines. Cleaning myself. Digging in deeper. Cleaning myself. Pouring bleach over the knife and sneaking through the kitchen to return it. Wicked. Relief. The rest of the day, I spent ministering to my wound. Dig into the curves of W with an alcohol-soaked Q-tip. Pet my cheek until the sting went away. Lotion. Bandage. Repeat.

This life is a hospital in which each patient is possessed by the desire to change beds. One wants to suffer in front of the stove and another believes that he will get well near the window. It always seems to me that I will be better off there where I am not, and this question of moving about is one that I discuss endlessly with my soul "Tell me, my soul, my poor chilled soul, what would you think about going to live in Lisbon? It must be warm there, and you'll be able to soak up the sun like a lizard there. That city is on the shore; they say that it is built all out of marble, and that the people there have such a hatred of the vegetable, that they tear down all the trees. There's a country after your own heart -- a landscape made out of light and mineral, and liquid to reflect them!" My soul does not reply. "Because you love rest so much, combined with the spectacle of movement, do you want to come and live in Holland, that beatifying land? Perhaps you will be entertained in that country whose image you have so often admired in museums. What do you think of Rotterdam, you who love forests of masts and ships anchored at the foot of houses?" My soul remains mute. "Does Batavia please you more, perhaps? There we would find, after all, the European spirit married to tropical beauty." Not a word. -- Is my soul dead? Have you then reached such a degree of torpor that you are only happy with your illness? If that's the case, let us flee toward lands that are the analogies of Death. -- I've got it, poor soul! We'll pack our bags for Torneo. Let's go even further, to the far end of the Baltic. Even further from life if that is possible: let's go live at the pole. There the sun only grazes the earth obliquely, and the slow alternation of light and darkness suppresses variety and augments monotony, that half of nothingness. There we could take long baths in the shadows, while, to entertain us, the aurora borealis send us from time to time its pink sheaf of sparkling light, like the reflection of fireworks in Hell!" Finally, my soul explodes, and wisely she shrieks at me: "It doesn't matter where! It doesn't matter where! As long as it's out of this world!

12.00 midnight: whilst soaking in my bath I hear a distant shout. "I'm going to bed, but I don't necessarily have to go alo-o-ne." It's Dr Chapman in the passage. He repeats the line three times, like someone selling scrap iron and it recedes along the corridor.

How often did he feel it now, this gorgeous, furtive seclusion? In the bath sometimes, maybe. Though Jean failed to understand his need for periodic isolation and regularly dragged him back to earth mid-soak by hammering on the locked door in search of bleach or dental floss.

WHY IS MY BATH COLD? Because I, purchaser of sadist shoes, needed to soak after wearing cheese graters on my feet yesterday and then traveling and walking and sitting through meetings and touring facilities and impersonating a pack mule today. ’Twas not meant to be.

Rain in the Northwest is not the pounding, flashing performance enjoyed by the eastern part of the nation. Nor is it the festive annual soaking I'd been used to in Southern California. Rather, it's a seven-month drizzle that darkens the sky, mildews the bath towels, and propels those already prone to depression into the dim comforts of antihistamines and a flask.

I took the plug out of the chemical bath of lust that my wits were soaking in and waited for it to empty. I smoked a cigarette while I contemplated the return of reason.

Another explanation for the failure of logic and observation alone to advance medicine is that unlike, say, physics, which uses a form of logic - mathematics - as its natural language, biology does not lend itself to logic. Leo Szilard, a prominent physicist, made this point when he complained that after switching from physics to biology he never had a peaceful bath again. As a physicist he would soak in the warmth of a bathtub and contemplate a problem, turn it in his mind, reason his way through it. But once he became a biologist, he constantly had to climb out of the bathtub to look up a fact.

It extols death with the luminescent brilliance of a dying star. It is Genghis Khan bathed in sherbet ice cream. The mantis shrimp is the harbinger of blood-soaked rainbows.

When I soak in a bath for a long time, all kinds of good ideas suddenly come to me,” Kitaru said

By the eighteenth century the most reliable way to get a bath was to be insane. Then they could hardly soak you enough. In 1701, Sir John Floyer began to make a case for cold bathing as a cure for any number of maladies. His theory was that plunging a body into chilly water produced a sensation of “Terror and Surprize” which invigorated dulled and jaded senses.

And since the exact form of her death had not been recorded, Mira kept dying a great number of deaths in one’s mind, and undergoing a great number of resurrections, only to die again and again, led away by a trained nurse, inoculated with filth, tetanus bacilli, broken glass, gassed in a sham shower-bath with prussic acid, burned alive in a pit on a gasoline-soaked pile of beechwood.

I go to the larder for the quinces and stop in amazement. For the larder is brimming over with food. Baskets of field mushrooms. Trugs of green apples and yellow pears. A metal bath containing two pink crabs. Slabs of newly churned butter as bright as a dandelion flower. Wheels of pale yellow cheese the size of my head. An earthenware bowl of cobnuts. A ham soaking in a pail of water.

It was such ecstacy to dream, and dream - till you got a bite. A scorpion bite. Then the first duty was to get up out of the grass and kill the scorpion; and the next to bathe the bitten place with alcohol or brandy; and the next to resolve to keep out of the grass in the future. Then came an adjournment to the bedchamber and the pastime of writing up the day's journal with one hand and the destruction of mosquitoes with the other - a whole community of them at a slap. Then, observing an enemy approaching - a hairy tarantula on stilts - why not set the spittoon on him? It is done, and the projecting ends of his paws give a luminous idea of the magnitude of his reach. Then to bed and become a promenade for a centipede with forty-two legs on a side and every foot hot enough to burn a whole through a raw-hide. More soaking with alcohol, and a resolution to examine the bed before entering it, in future. Then wait, and suffer, till all the mosquitoes in the neighborhood have crawled in under the bar, then slip out quickly, shut them in and sleep peacefully on the floor till morning. Meantime, it is comforting to curse the tropics in occasional wakeful intervals.

I drew my bath and scattered dried rose petals in the water. I stepped into the tub, pinned up my hair, dipped into the bowl of mayonnaise that had been mixed with fennel and rosemary and soaked secretly in the refrigerator for two days.

His absence is like a dull ache in her bones. What she wants right now, more than anything, is to have a hot bath and a stiff whisky, while he rubs her shoulders, and then sits on the closed toilet lid, an ashtray on his lap, keeping her company as she soaks.

I just let the apples soak up the roses' scent." "You what?!" "This takes a teeny little while to do, but... first, you take the petals off the damask's and wash them gently. When you've washed a whole big fluffy pile of petals... you dump them all into a big pot of water! Let that boil down, and you get a sweet, pink rose syrup! While that was reducing, I lightly heated thin apple slices in an extract I made from boiled apple peels. Then I poured the rose syrup over them and let them soak for 30 minutes. That way the delicate pink color and sweet scent of the roses gently seeped into the apples. Just boiling the lot of them together into a mush like a barbarian is hardly royal, you know. An elegant and relaxing bath in rose-scented water. That is much more fitting for the Queen of Roses. If I had to give a name to perfect my new dessert, I'd call it... The Queen's Apple Tart!

But wouldn't it be more amusing if I stayed? You could climb in the tub again, and I could wash you. Or---" he glanced down at his pants that so graphically outlined his masculine form---"I could soak in the water, and you could bathe me. Either way, I promise the experience will be everything you desire. And more.

If I could bottle that look, I would.  I would eat it, drink it bathe in it. I’d breathe it in through my pores, draw it into my cells.  I’d soak it up until it became a part of me, an inextricable part of me. I’d drown in it until I could feel it with every breath I took.  Until I couldn’t see or hear or feel anything else. 

Soaked from my nose to the tip of my tail, I sat in a plastic bin he’d put in the giant kitchen sink and glared up at him. This is so ridiculous. Not only had I failed in getting him to take the collar off—he wouldn’t even remove it now that I was sopping wet—he’d been concerned enough about Ker’s flea comments that he’d subjected me to a flea bath!

We were just speaking to your friend here about the craft of brewing potions to enhance the libido. It seems he has a wealth of knowledge regarding plants and herbs.”I lowered my eyes to him, my head swimming at the only part of her greeting that I actually heard “You mean you can brew potions to increase sex drive?”She looked confused. “Well of course! We are trying to save our people from extinction, which means we must mate as often as possible. We find the task can become arduous after eight or nine couplings. The potions are what keep us going. Why, it’s in the bath we’re soaking in now.”I thought I was having a small aneurism. “I knew it!” I shouted stupidly. “I thought I was losing my mind!

You wonder about me. I wonder about you. Who are you and what are you doing? Are you in a New York subway car hanging from a strap, or soaking in your hot tub in Sunnyvale? Are you sunbathing on a sandy beach in Phuket, or having your toenails buffed in Brighton? Are you a male or a female or somewhat in between? Is your girlfriend cooking you a yummy dinner, or are you eating cold Chinese noodles from a box? Are you curled up with your back turned coldly toward your snoring wife, or are you eagerly waiting for your beautiful lover to finish his bath so you can make passionate love to him? Do you have a cat and is she sitting on your lap? Does her forehead smell like cedar trees and fresh sweet air?

10-16-13 I, soaking in the bath, O on the toilet, talking, talking about what he's been thinking and writing- short personal pieces, a memoir perhaps. He had brought with him two pillows to sit on and a very large red apple. He opens his mouth wide and takes a gigantic bite. I watch him chewing for quite a while. After he finishes, 'Bite me off a piece', I say. He does so, dislodges the apple from his mouth, and puts the piece in my mouth. We keep talking. I add more hot water. Every other bite, he gives to me. There is a quiet moment, and then, seemingly apropos of nothing, O says: 'I am glad to be on planet Earth with you. It would be so much lonelier otherwise.' I reach for his hand and hold it, 'I, too,' I say.

I turned my palms upward in the sunlight. In an instant, they felt warm, as though the light were seeping into the skin, soaking into the very lines of my fingerprints. The light ruled over everything out here. Bathed in light, each object glowed with the brilliant colour of summer. Even intangibles such as time and memory shared the goodness of the summer light.

(regarding what kind of day she would want to be released) If I had the opportunity to choose, I would want it to be a radiant sunshiny day! And I would love it to be a Saturday morning. I'd go home and take a bath and soak and shampoo and put on clean underwear and clean clothes! And then Sunday morning I want to go to church and thank Gd for freedom -- with capital letters.

The girl remains on the ground. He looks at her and she looks at him and the air feels at once static and loaded, as if there is some kind of undersound his ear can't quite decipher. Like after a bell rings. That's how it is between them. There is something celestial about her, her skin a pale color, but a paleness of the softest gray-white imaginable, as if she had been soaking for years in a bath of moonlight.

The light of my eyes, I said, light of my eyes, light of the world, that's what you are, light of my life. I didn't know what light of my eyes meant, and part of me wondered where on earth I had fished out such claptrap, but it was nonsense like this that brought tears now, tears I wished to drown in his pillow, soak in his bathing suit, tears I wanted him to touch with the tip of his tongue and make sorrow go away.

As I tried to doze, the incident on the piazzetta, lost somewhere amid the Piave war memorial and our ride up the hill with fear and shame and who knows what else pressing on me, seemed to come back to me from summers and ages ago, as though I'd biked up to the piazzetta as a little boy before World War I and had returned a crippled ninety-year-old soldier confined to this bedroom that was not even my own, because mine had been given over to a young man who was the light of my eyes. The light of my eyes, I said, light of my eyes, light of the world, that's what you are, light of my life. I didn't know what light of my eyes meant, and part of me wondered where on earth had I fished out such claptrap, but it was nonsense like this that brought tears now, tears I wished to drown in his pillow, soak in his bathing suit, tears I wanted him to touch with the tip of his tongue and make sorrow go away.

Hattie was an institution in Bath, and besides, everybody romanticized old people, seeing in them their own lost parents and grandparents, most of whom had bequeathed to their children the usual legacy of guilt, along with the gift of selective recollection. Most fathers and mothers did their children the great favor of dying before they began fouling themselves, before their children learned to equate them with urine-soaked undergarments and other grim realities of age and infirmity.

We have plenty of natural springs in our area. The cool springs have the sweetest water you'll ever taste - hence the name of our town. And it's never too cold for a Montanan to sit in a natural hot spring, even if it means your wet hair turns into icicles." Her hand rose to cover her mouth, and her eyes widened. He laughed at her shocked expression. Pamela lowered her hand. "Hot springs outdoors? In the winter?" "Hot springs feel down right good to soak in anytime, especially when the air's cold outside. The hot water soothes sore muscles and is good for what ails you. But I also have a river through my property. I've dammed up a spot that makes for a nice swimming hole when it's hot in the summer." A blush rose in her cheeks, and she glanced to the side. "Very refreshing," he teased, just to watch the pink deepen.... Pamela couldn't help the dreamy vision of bathing with him in a hot spring, touching each other as the snowflakes swirled around them. She let out a sigh. So romantic.

How To Detoxify Using Apple Cider Vinegar ACV detox Drink Always try and use organic apple cider vinegar that is raw, unprocessed and unfiltered. Use of any other types of apple cider vinegar like the processed and unfiltered ones is likely to be less effective. You can start the detoxification process by drinking two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar dissolved in water daily. ACV Tea Detox Drink Ingredients 1 tbsp of apple cider vinegar 2 tbsp of lemon juice 1 tsp of cinnamon 12 ounces of filtered water Honey to taste Dash of cayenne pepper Instructions Combine all the ingredients and consume immediately. For best results, drink three times a day. In case you feel that you have taken too much of apple cider vinegar and want a break from all that, you can also detoxify by soaking in a bath. ACV Detox Bath Add one cup of Apple cider vinegar and 1 cup of Epsom salts in your bath. Soak for twenty to thirty minutes to draw out toxins through your skin. This will relieve joints, aching and heal eczema and acne.

Marguerite said something about the bikini bathing suits the young girls were wearing and how she would never have the nerve to wear such a thing. Eddie said the girls were lucky, because if she did the men would not look at anyone else. And even though by this point Marguerite was in her mid-40s and her hips had thickened and a web of small lines had formed around her eyes, she thanked Eddie gratefully and looked at his crooked nose and wide jaw. The waters of their love fell again from above and soaked them as surely as the sea that gathered at their feet.

The day came: a Monday at the end of September. The night before he had realized that it was almost exactly a year since the beating, although he hadn’t planned it that way. He left work early that evening. He had spent the weekend organizing his projects; he had written Lucien a memo detailing the status of everything he had been working on. At home, he lined up his letters on the dining room table, and a copy of his will. He had left a message with Richard’s studio manager that the toilet in the master bathroom kept running and asked if Richard could let in the plumber the following day at nine – both Richard and Willem had a set of keys to his apartment – because he would be away on business. He took off his suit jacket and tie and shoes and watch and went to the bathroom. He sat in the shower area with his sleeves pushed up. He had a glass of scotch, which he sipped at to steady himself, and a box cutter, which he knew would be easier to hold than a razor. He knew what he needed to do: three straight vertical lines, as deep and long as he could make them, following the veins up both arms. And then he would lie down and wait. He waited for a while, crying a bit, because he was tired and frightened and because he was ready to go, he was ready to leave. Finally he rubbed his eyes and began. He started with his left arm. He made the first cut, which was more painful than he had thought it would be, and he cried out. Then he made the second. He took another drink of the scotch. The blood was viscous, more gelatinous than liquid, and a brilliant, shimmering oil-black. Already his pants were soaked with it, already his grip was loosening. He made the third. When he was done with both arms, he slumped against the back of the shower wall. He wished, absurdly, for a pillow. He was warm from the scotch, and from his own blood, which lapped at him as it pooled against his legs – his insides meeting his outsides, the inner bathing the outer. He closed his eyes. Behind him, the hyenas howled, furious at him. Before him stood the house with its open door. He wasn’t close yet, but he was closer than he’d been: close enough to see that inside, there was a bed where he could rest, where he could lie down and sleep after his long run, where he would, for the first time in his life, be safe.

Today, ferries and sailboats--modern descendants of ancient sailing ships and fishing vessels--shuttle visitors from port to port throughout this vast chain of sun-soaked islands. Stepping ashore, the visitor is instantly enveloped by a way of life that is both utterly contemporary and ageless. The timeless tang of the sea, the calls of fishermen and market women, the deep, complex fragrance of wild rosemary form a seamless whole with the sheep that graze in the shadow of windmills and fortresses, and the enduring ruins of ancient temples and baths: past and present are one.

THE RED SEA had long since been crossed, and the ship was now on its way over the Indian Ocean; but as always the sun mercilessly rose early and set late, encroaching upon the better part of the night. The night, like paper soaked in oil, had become translucent. Locked in the embrace of the sun, the night’s own form was indiscernible. Perhaps it had become intoxicated by the sun, which would explain why the night sky remained flushed long after the gradual fading of the rosy sunset. By the time the ruddiness dissipated and the night itself awoke from its stupor, the passengers in their cabins had awakened, glistening with sweat; after bathing, they hurried out on deck

Stephen strode forward and as the Frenchman turned he brought the massive obsidian down on his head, breaking both. Pontet-Canet was on the floor, limp but breathing. Stephen bent over him, catling in hand, felt for the still beating common carotid, severed it, and stood back from the jet of blood. Then he pulled the body to the hip-bath, placed towels and mats to prevent the blood soaking through to the floor below, and went through the dead man's pockets. Nothing of significance, but he did take Pontet-Canet's pistol and, since he did not possess one, his watch, a handsome Breuguet very like that which had been taken from him years ago, when he was captured by the French off the coast of Spain.

I hadn't known this about love: that you did not need to deserve it. I thought there was a set of criteria, like a good sense of humor and looks and wealth. You could compensate deficiencies in one area with excellence in another, hence rich, ugly men with beautiful wives. But there was an algorithm involved. That was why I thought I was unloved: I didn't score highly enough. I had made some attempts to improve my score and also told myself I didn't care because that was what women wanted, something fake and temporary, I would rather be alone. And sometimes I was just lazy and would rather code things. But here I was soaking in a bath of my own filth with Lola scrubbing my shoulders, and what algorithm could explain that? That problem was nonhalting.

STAINS With red clay between my toes, and the sun setting over my head, the ghost of my mother blows in, riding on a honeysuckle breeze, oh lord, riding on a honeysuckle breeze. Her teeth, the keys of a piano. I play her grinning ivory notes with cadenced fumbling fingers, splattered with paint, textured with scars. A song rises up from the belly of my past and rocks me in the bosom of buried memories. My mama’s dress bears the stains of her life: blueberries, blood, bleach, and breast milk; She cradles in her arms a lifetime of love and sorrow; Its brilliance nearly blinds me. My fingers tire, as though I've played this song for years. The tune swells red, dying around the edges of a setting sun. A magnolia breeze blows in strong, a heavenly taxi sent to carry my mother home. She will not say goodbye. For there is no truth in spoken farewells. I am pregnant with a poem, my life lost in its stanzas. My mama steps out of her dress and drops it, an inheritance falling to my feet. She stands alone: bathed, blooming, burdened with nothing of this world. Her body is naked and beautiful, her wings gray and scorched, her brown eyes piercing the brown of mine. I watch her departure, her flapping wings: She doesn’t look back, not even once, not even to whisper my name: Brenda. I lick the teeth of my piano mouth. With a painter’s hands, with a writer’s hands with rusty wrinkled hands, with hands soaked in the joys, the sorrows, the spills of my mother’s life, I pick up eighty-one years of stains And pull her dress over my head. Her stains look good on me.

It’s so cute, isn’t it?” Arianna said dreamily. “Are we seeing the same creature? It’s like a demented goat with a bone growth.” “You’re going to hurt its feelings! Now shut up and sit on the ground.” I did as I was told, sticking my ankle out. “How is it going to heal me?” I asked, suddenly nervous. I pictured it licking my ankle and gagged. I could only imagine the diseases unicorn saliva had or what it carried around in its filthy, matted beard and hair. Bleating reproachfully, it stared at me with its doleful, square-pupiled brown eyes. “Oh, fine. Great, glorious unicorn, beloved of oblivious girls everywhere, please heal me. Now, if you don’t mind.” With one last bat of its gunk-crusted eyelashes, it lowered its head and put its stubby horn against my ankle. I cringed, waiting for pain, but felt instead tingling warmth spread out, almost like having butterflies in my stomach. Only in my ankle. Butterflies . . . with rainbows. The feeling of wholeness and well-being spread up my leg and into my entire body, and I couldn’t stop grinning. The forest was beautiful! The tree branches, naked against the brightening sky, held unimaginable wonders. The hard-packed dirt beneath me was a treasure trove of unrealized potential, lovely for what it could eventually give life to. I could sit out here forever and just enjoy nature. I was so happy! And rainbows! Why did I keep thinking of rainbows? Who cared! Rainbows were totally awesome! And the unicorn! I beamed at it, reaching out my hand to stroke it. There was never a creature more beautiful, more majestic. I’d spend the rest of my life out here, and we’d prance around the forest, worship the sunlight, bathe in the moonlight, and . . . I shook my head, scattering the idiotic warm fuzzies that had invaded. “Whoa,” I said, shoving the unicorn’s head away. “That’s enough of that.” I looked down at my ankle, which was now completely healed, not even a scar left. I fixed a stern look on the unicorn. “I am not going to frolic in an eternal meadow of sunshine and moonlight with you, you rotten little fink. But thanks.” I smiled, just enough to be nice without being too encouraging, and patted it quickly on the head. I was going to soak that hand in bleach. “Okay, let’s get out of here.” I stood, testing my ankle and relieved with the utter lack of pain. I still had an irrational desire to do an interpretive dance about rainbows, but it was a small price to pay for being healed.

I hope Peter’s still out there. I don’t want to lose my nerve. So I quicken my pace and that’s when I spot him, alone in the hot tub, his head tipped back with his eyes closed. “Hi,” I say, and my voice echoes into the woods. His eyes fly open. Nervously, he looks over my shoulder. “Lara Jean! What are you doing out here?” “I came to see you,” I say, and my breath comes out in white puffs. I start taking off my boots and socks. My hands are shaking, and not because I’m cold. I’m nervous. “Uh…what are you doing?” Peter’s looking at me like I’m crazy. “I’m getting in!” Shivering, I unzip my puffy coat and set it on the bench. Steam is rising out of the water. I dip my feet in and sit down on the ledge of the hot tub. It’s hotter than a bath, but it feels nice. Peter’s still watching me warily. My heart is racing out of control and it’s difficult to look him in the eyes. I’ve never been so scared in my life. “That thing you brought up earlier…you caught me off guard, so I didn’t know what to say. But…well, I like you too.” It comes out so fumbly and uncertain, and I wish I could start over and say it smoothly and confidently. I try again, louder. “I like you, Peter.” Peter blinks, and he looks so young all of a sudden. “I don’t understand you girls. I think I have you figured out, and then…and then…” “And then?” I hold my breath as I wait for him to speak. I’m so nervous; I keep swallowing, and it sounds loud to my ears. Even my breathing sounds loud, even my heartbeat. His pupils are dilated he’s looking at me so hard. He’s staring at me like he’s never seen me before. “And then I don’t know.” I think I stop breathing when I hear him say “I don’t know.” Did I screw things up that badly that now he doesn’t know? It can’t be over, not when I finally found my courage. I can’t let it be. My heart is pounding like a million trillion beats a minute as I scoot closer to him. I bend my head down and press my lips against his, and I feel his jolt of surprise. And then he’s kissing me back, open-mouthed, soft-lipped kissing-me-back, and at first I’m nervous, but then he puts his hand on the back of my head, and he strokes my hair in a reassuring way, and I’m not so nervous anymore. It’s a good thing I’m sitting down on this ledge, because I am weak in the knees. He pulls me into the water so I’m sitting in the hot tub too, and my nightgown is soaked now but I don’t care. I don’t care about anything. I never knew kissing could be this good.

Zane helped Maya down from her horse, then reached for Phoebe. He was stunned when he felt her cold, soaked clothes. “Run a bath,” he yelled to the housekeeper. He turned back to Phoebe. “Can you feel your toes?” “No, and I don’t want to. They’re going to hurt.” Maya came over and wrapped an arm around her. “Don’t sweat it, Zane. I’ll make sure she gets warmed up. See what happens when you cross a river. When I get back to the city, I’m not leaving my house for at least six weeks. And I’m going to spend all my time ordering things delivered. There will be no roughing it for me.” Phoebe shivered as she walked toward the house. “I liked it. It was all very exciting. Well, not the river, but the rest of it. Wasn’t Manny brave? And he saved my life. I need to get him a gift. What do you think he’d like?” “His balls back.

What intense deliciousness! Both the tender chicken meat and its light juices are soaked in rich and creamy egg! The inside of the meat is still tender, while the outer skin is crisp and robustly flavorful! It was cooked in a way perfect for taking advantage of the luxury Jidori chicken's qualities! The sauce is a simple one of eggs and cream seasoned with a bit of salt and pepper and heated to a thick creaminess in a hot water bath. With a touch of turmeric to give it a pleasingly vibrant yellow color, it's become a thick and creamy scrambled-egg sauce! Floating in it are crumbles of specially made rice crackers! Freshly steamed rice, sesame oil, minced squid and a pinch of salt were thoroughly combined, molded into thin rounds and then toasted to crispy perfection. "The layered textures of the crunchy yet creamy sauce play amazingly off of the tenderness of the chicken!" Chicken, egg sauce and rice crackers! Those three things do technically make this a chicken-and-egg rice bowl!

In his worn blue jeans and a black T-shirt, the early-morning sun hits Isaiah just right, highlighting him like he’s a relaxed tiger bathing in the warmth. The light glints off his double rows of hoop earrings and there’s a twinkle in his eyes that makes me feel like he has a secret, but not the type kept from me. No, it’s the type that suggests I’m in on it, and that it involves a lack of my clothes. And maybe some of his. As if I spoke the thought instead of keeping it internal, Isaiah lifts his shirt to scratch at a spot right above his hip bone. Good Lord, he’s pretty. I soak in the sight of the muscles in his abdomen like I’m a plant in the Sahara Desert, except it doesn’t quench my thirst. It only causes my mouth to run dry. Isaiah smiles like he knows what I’m thinking, and heat licks up my body and pools in my cheeks. What really causes my blood to curve into itself is the wicked gleam in his eye. It’s a spark that says he’s done very naughty things I’ve never even heard about.

I like rainbows. We came back down to the meadow near the steaming terrace and sat in the river, just where one of the bigger hot streams poured into the cold water of the Ferris Fork. It is illegal – not to say suicidal – to bathe in any of the thermal features of the park. But when those features empty into the river, at what is called a hot pot, swimming and soaking are perfectly acceptable. So we were soaking off our long walk, talking about our favorite waterfalls, and discussing rainbows when it occurred to us that the moon was full. There wasn’t a hint of foul weather. And if you had a clear sky and a waterfall facing in just the right direction… Over the course of a couple of days we hked back down the canyon to the Boundary Creek Trail and followed it to Dunanda Falls, which is only about eight miles from the ranger station at the entrance to the park. Dunanda is a 150-foot-high plunge facing generally south, so that in the afternoons reliable rainbows dance over the rocks at its base. It is the archetype of all western waterfalls. Dunenda is an Indian name; in Shoshone it means “straight down,” which is a pretty good description of the plunge. ... …We had to walk three miles back toward the ranger station and our assigned campsite. We planned to set up our tents, eat, hang our food, and walk back to Dunanda Falls in the dark, using headlamps. We could be there by ten or eleven. At that time the full moon would clear the east ridge of the downriver canyon and would be shining directly on the fall. Walking at night is never a happy proposition, and this particular evening stroll involved five stream crossings, mostly on old logs, and took a lot longer than we’d anticipated. Still, we beat the moon to the fall. Most of us took up residence in one or another of the hot pots. Presently the moon, like a floodlight, rose over the canyon rim. The falling water took on a silver tinge, and the rock wall, which had looked gold under the sun, was now a slick black so the contrast of water and rock was incomparably stark. The pools below the lip of the fall were glowing, as from within, with a pale blue light. And then it started at the base of the fall: just a diagonal line in the spray that ran from the lower east to the upper west side of the wall. “It’s going to happen,” I told Kara, who was sitting beside me in one of the hot pots. Where falling water hit the rock at the base of the fall and exploded upward in vapor, the light was very bright. It concentrated itself in a shining ball. The diagonal line was above and slowly began to bend until, in the fullness of time (ten minutes, maybe), it formed a perfectly symmetrical bow, shining silver blue under the moon. The color was vaguely electrical. Kara said she could see colors in the moonbow, and when I looked very hard, I thought I could make out a faint line of reddish orange above, and some deep violet at the bottom. Both colors were very pale, flickering, like bad florescent light. In any case, it was exhilarating, the experience of a lifetime: an entirely perfect moonbow, silver and iridescent, all shining and spectral there at the base of Dunanda Falls. The hot pot itself was a luxury, and I considered myself a pretty swell fellow, doing all this for the sanity of city dwellers, who need such things more than anyone else. I even thought of naming the moonbow: Cahill’s Luminescence. Something like that. Otherwise, someone else might take credit for it.

If you do not take baths or you tend to take more showers, you can use the same ritual in the shower. Set the water temperature so that it is cool but not cold (just below body temperature). Adjust the showerhead so the water hits you at the base of the skull and the water runs as evenly as possible over the back and front of your body. It is important to ensure that the water runs down the back of the neck because this is where many people tend to develop a lot of tension (in the shoulders). As the water flows, run your hands down your body to bring the excess Fire energy down to your feet. Use the same glowing heating coil visualization as with the bathtub ritual. See the excess Fire energies being soaked up by the water, and flowing with the water down the drain. At the same time, choose one of the litanies given previously and say it aloud with power and authority. Keep repeating the litany until you feel a change in your state. You may feel less physical pain, a lessening of anxiety, or a sense of peace in your mind. If you have a lot of mind chatter and you suddenly notice that your mind is quiet, then you know that the ritual has been effective. At this point, you may stop saying the litany and consider the ritual a success!

She thought that she had been seeking a light distraction. But when she heard the clang of metal on metal and saw Arin scraping a shaft of steel across the anvil with one set of tools and beating at it with another, Kestrel knew she had come to the wrong place. “Yes?” he said, keeping his back to her. His workshirt was soaked through with sweat. His hands were sooty. He left the blade of the sword to cool on the anvil and moved to place another, shorter length of metal on the fire, which lined his profile with unsteady light. She willed her voice to be her own. “I thought we could play a game.” His dark brows drew together. “Of Bite and Sting,” Kestrel said. More firmly, she added, “You implied you know how to play.” He used tongs to stoke the fire. “I did.” “You implied that you could beat me.” “I implied that there was no reason a Valorian would want to play with a Herrani.” “No, you worded things carefully so that what you said could be interpreted that way. But that isn’t what you meant.” He faced her then, arms folded across his chest. “I have no time for games.” The tips of his fingers had black rings of charcoal dust buried under the nail and into the cuticle. “I have work to do.” “Not if I say you don’t.” He turned away. “I like to finish what I start.” She meant to leave. She meant to leave him to the noise and heat. She meant to say nothing more. Instead, Kestrel found herself issuing a challenge. “You are no match for me anyway.” He gave her the look she recognized well, the one of measured disdain. But this time, he also laughed. “Where do you propose we play?” He swept a hand around the forge. “Here?” “My rooms.” “Your rooms.” Arin shook his head disbelievingly. “My sitting room,” she said. “Or the parlor,” she added, though it bothered her to think of playing Bite and Sting with him in a place so public to the household. He leaned against the anvil, considering. “Your sitting room will do. I’ll come when I’ve finished this sword. After all, I have house privileges now. Might as well use them.” Arin started to say something else, then stopped, his gaze roving over her face. She grew uneasy. He was staring, she realized. He was staring at her. “You have dirt on your face,” he said shortly. He returned to his work. Later, in her bathing room, Kestrel saw it. The moment she tilted the mirror to catch the low, amber light of late afternoon, she saw what he had seen, as had Lirah, who had tried to tell her. A faint smudge traced the slope of her high cheekbone, darkened her cheek, and skimmed the line of her jaw. It was a handprint. It was the shadow left from her father’s gritty hand, from when he had touched her face to seal the bargain between them.

That is when, I walked into the home as if I would have like any other day, with my head down, going to take a bath and get ready for supper, with guardian Hope. Plus went up to the steps up to my room dripping wet my braindead mind puzzled.' 'My sweet brown shaggy teddy bear was the only thing I grabbed covering my body from dinner, then I went into my room. My pink nighty top on my bed from the night before. Truly, I did not care about my nakedness anymore; after all, I am wild, continuous, unbroken, and untamed.' 'Moderate retardation books,' said Hope when she picked them up under her breath, showing them back into the unzipped backpack. 'I feel so weird, like never before; I sat stark naked in my bed soaking wet, rocking hoping for nightfall to come. to see if the next day I would have to go to school.' 'How? I don't know. Just like fast-forwarding it will only dawn another day. That's going to repeat all the hell ones more, I'm just sure of that.' 'Previously this is my question, I asked myself, as I am laying in my bed holding onto my teddy bear far too tightly. 'Is it me who is the problem, or the ones that are all around me?'' I answer myself- 'I know that there is not one person on this planet, who truly cares if I am even here or not.' Oh, 'God' - 'Why does my life have to be like this?' 'I do not think I can take any more of living in this town or going to this school!

Epsom Salt - Don't underestimate the powerful healing effects of regular Epsom salt.  Soaking in hot water infused with Epsom salts (magnesium sulfate) boosts blood levels of the ever important mineral magnesium, by as much as 35% in just 1 week.  Magnesium is a critical mineral that too many people are deficient in.  If you suffer from muscle tightness, stiffness, spasms, aches and pains, then buying Epsom salt in bulk and adding it to a hot bath 3 times a week, will bring magical relief to your discomfort.  The magnesium in Epsom salt will also bring much wanted relief to those who find themselves in a chronic state of tension, stress and anxiety.   The human body requires magnesium to manufacture the 2 enzymes quinone reductase, and glutathione S-transferase, both of which assist in neutralizing and eliminating chemical toxins.  Being deficient in magnesium, puts a significant damper on your body’s detoxification abilities. Magnesium also plays a critical role in regulating nerve and muscle activity, to help shield the body against the ravages and dangerous cumulative effects of stress.  Add 2-4 cups of pure Epsom salt to a hot bath several times a week, and see for yourself the incredible difference it makes.  Epsom salt baths can often turn even the most "bath-shy" guy, into a tub lover.   Most people can enjoy these detoxifying baths as often as they like.  The exception would be for those who suffer from any type of heart condition, epilepsy, narcolepsy, and pregnant women, all of whom, should only use bath therapy under the guidance and care of their health care provider.

It is the quiet of the night that I adore the most. It makes me wander in paths and times that seem so distinct, so distant in the light of a bright chirpy day. Oh, I love to talk and I love to hear, form connections, live the passion of Life throbbing with the fervour of colours and stories. But the dark, the stillness of the night makes me see the rivulets of light that walk in my soul. As if they talk to me, like an unsung melody, a poem scattered in bits and pieces, holding my breath to a dawn. They walk through my soul and ask me to keep my senses open as I inhale the peace of night where only the murmur of the stars dance in a serenade of a lover's dream, as if to paint a shadow of colours woven in the misty echo of an infinite lullaby. I love the night air so cold yet so crisp clutching us in a passionate embrace where we give way to all that a heart desires, some make poems some heal wounds and some sleep in the arms of love, while every soul wears its real and most vulnerable yet most whole self. And there as I watch my soul bathed in the halo of stillness, I see how the silence of the night gives in to the chirping of the birds, while the stars walk into their cocoon to let the Sun smile through the breathing dawn. Only a moment, when the night holds us in a mirror for a second or for a fraction of a second and when the morn seeps in to let Life jump in with a thousand voices. Only a moment. And yet that moment is so pure so beautiful to let us soak and even hold on to that stillness of night as much as we can through our heart, and every bit of our soul. I sit in awe, not only to behold the glory of the Morn but also to absorb the depth of the Night, for it is the quiet of the night that I adore the most.

That looks like the last one for a bit. We’ll climb out there.”   “Is it safe?” I can’t help but ask.   “None of this is safe,” he tells me, voice cutting. “But we can’t stay here all night.”   “Why not? We’re already covered in poop.”   “Because this is a sewer and the water’s rising.” Aron looks at me like I’m stupid. “The tide’s coming in. Unless you want to drown in someone else’s shit, we have to get out of here.”   “It is?” I look down and sure enough, I guess the water (if you can call it that) is higher than it was before. I thought it was because the tunnel was just, getting deeper in this part, but it’s past my knees and soaking the hem of my tunic. “I didn’t realize.”   “How is it I’m the immortal and you’re the one that has no clue how a city works?”   I slap his arm, irritated. “Don’t you start that shit with me. You want to know how it works where I live? We go into a tiny little room, sit on a toilet, take a dump, and then jiggle a handle and the magic poo gods take it all away. Whoosh. That’s it. That’s the extent of my knowledge. Once a month I pay the water bill and that’s all I do. So if your stupid city doesn’t work the way my stupid city did, don’t blame me.”   I glare at him, waiting for his answer.   He just watches me. His mouth twitches, just a little. Finally, he says, slowly, “Magic poo gods?”   I throw my hands up in the air. “You’re impossible and I hate you. If we’re leaving, let’s just go.”   “Should we say a prayer to the magic poo gods first?” When I shoot him the bird, he snorts with amusement. “Here I thought you didn’t believe in any gods.”   “There’s just one where I come from, and he doesn’t put up with any lesser god bullshit like this place, thank you.” I stomp ahead, splashing through the horrible, sludgy water so I can get away from my equally horrible companion.   Aron’s laughter rumbles through the sewer pipe, and I ignore him, pushing forward. I’m so tired and the night has been so long. To think I just took a bath and now I’m covered in crap and mud once more. It’s like this entire world is conspiring against me. Heck, maybe it is. Maybe I’ve been cursed since I stepped through that portal. Given that I’m stuck with the infuriating Aron, I believe it. One minute I think he might be okay, and the next I want to choke him.

I am in no rush. Let Life happen to me just as Life has planned. Because at the end of the day, when the sun sets there is always a horizon somewhere waiting to call forth another sun, in a paradox of Time. Because at the end of each chapter, the story walks towards its culmination. But just like it is not in the setting or rising of the sun but in the sunshine that one basks, just like it is not the finishing line but the voyage through the storyline where one finds the true understanding of the book, Life is about exploring the voyage all the while knowing full well that each chapter shall find its beginning middle and end just how it's meant to be. It is about the truth that Life is but a dream in Time's illusion and the only sharp truth is to love and be loved, and through that assemble moments in Time that smile beyond Time, to make a garden of experiences through lessons and understandings that Life puts at our journey only to walk us closer to our destination. It is not about the destination rather about the journey, and perhaps about who we share the journey with at each crossroad. And no matter how Time walks by, until and unless we cross all the alleys along the way, until and unless we climb up the peak bit by bit, we cannot reach that destination where we belong. But if we tread along the mountain peak or a winding alley soaking in all the freshness of the air enjoying the crispness of our walk, the journey becomes even more enriching not just to our soul but to all of our senses and our very heart. While if we try to run along the way, we might actually topple down a bad turn, taking in a scar that might demand another cup of our soul's portion to heal. Such is Life. A journey that takes smiles and tears, a voyage that bathes in hope and hopelessness, but in all of it, it never stays stagnant, always tiptoeing to exactly where we are meant to be, at any point of our journey. So when something seems to go stagnant or few things make no sense, I tell myself to pause and pat my soul acknowledging each and every decision or detour of mine as part and parcel of Life's plan. I close my eyes and breathe in the freshness of air that flows in every part of my soul to know, to feel alive to all that this journey has shared with me, while believing in the grace and magnanimity of Time who takes Time but eventually shows and leads us to where we belong. And I hear my heart smiling, Let Life happen to me just as Life has planned. I am in no rush.

If you take a moment and look back over all of your life experiences you will soon discover that it is those bitter moments, the moments you do not readily welcome, that become the foundation for your beauty. Those are seasons in your life when even your taste buds are filled with the bitterness of myrrh. You bathe in it and soak in it and wish you could put on the finishing touches of your beauty process with cosmetics and perfumes, but an unseen hand continues to apply the oil of myrrh.

Fat Attack Oil Bath Blend Ingredients: 10 drops of Cypress oil 10 drops of Rosemary oil 8 drops of Grapefruit oil 30 ml of carrier oil (jojoba, almond or olive oil) Directions: Blend the energizing oils together in a dark bottle. Add 1-2 tablespoons to your warm bathwater and soak for 15-20 minutes.

Chickens are soaked in baths of chlorine to remove slime and odor. Mixtures of excrement, blood, oil, grease, rust, paint, insecticides, and rodent droppings accumulate in processing plants. Maggots and other larvae breed in storage and transportation containers, on the floor, and in processing equipment and packaging, and they drop onto the conveyor belt from infested meat splattered on the ceiling.

Turning on the wall light, she saw the blood and gore that splattered the bedroom. The remains of her sister lay among the shreds of a blood soaked bath towel on the floor. Looking at herself in the mirror, she saw dried splotches of blood on her white blouse and across her face.

Improve your sleep routine. It is vital to improving one’s sleeping habits to experience better rest and quality sleep at night. The room must be totally dark without other distractions like television. You can help put yourself in a resting mode hours before going to sleep by reading a book, soaking in a warm bath, and steering clear of alcohol or caffeinated drinks.

Napoleon was in his bath, soaking in cologne-scented water, when his brothers came in to protest the decision to sell Louisiana.24 “You will have no need to lead the opposition,” Napoleon told his brothers, “for I repeat there will be no debate, for the reason that the project … conceived by me, negotiated by me, shall be ratified and executed by me, alone.25 Do you comprehend me?” “I renounce Louisiana,” Napoleon announced to finance minister Barbé-Marbois, early on the morning of Monday, April 11, 1803.26 Within hours, foreign minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand was enquiring whether the United States would be interested in the entire territory. “It is not only New Orleans that I will cede, it is the whole colony without any reservation. I know the price of what I abandon.… I renounce it with the greatest regret. But to attempt obstinately to retain it would be folly.” Livingston knew what he had to do. “The field open to us is infinitely larger than our instructions contemplated,” Livingston told Madison, and the chance “must not be missed.”27 He and Monroe, who had arrived in Paris, negotiated a treaty giving the United States the Louisiana Territory—a landmass so vast the borders were unclear even to the buyers and the sellers—for about $15 million, or three cents an acre.28 Word

I turned my palms upward in the sunlight. In an instant, they felt warm, as though the light were seeping into the skin, soaking into the very lines of my fingerprints. The light ruled over everything out here. Bathed in light, each object glowed with the brilliant color of summer. Even intangibles such as time and memory shared the goodness of the summer light.

and using as edging some of the small stack of old bricks I found under a hummock of ivy in the corner. Another bed was earmarked for my baby Brown Turkey fig tree and I hoped the plum tree in the middle – if it was a plum – would burst into leaf and fruit eventually. It was all very exciting – to me, at any rate! And all the exercise was good for me too, because I had to go and soak the aches away in the bath afterwards, lying like a slightly strange Ophelia among a scattering of dried attar of roses-scented geranium leaves. The nicest thing about living in Sticklepond was that Poppy could drop in much more often, after meetings or whenever she had

Grief Grief is a normal but painful process most people go through when a loved one dies or a relationship ends. Many people also experience deep grief following the loss of a companion animal. Essential oils can facilitate the grieving process by bringing comfort and relief. DIFFUSE WITH BENZOIN Benzoin essential oil calms the nervous system, comforting the bereaved and easing the emotional exhaustion that often accompanies the loss of a loved one. Its fragrance is slightly reminiscent of vanilla—sweet, warm, and welcoming. Diffuse benzoin essential oil in areas where people gather or where you spend the most time. You may also inhale its scent directly or place it in an aromatherapy pendant. RELAX WITH A ROSE BATH MAKES 1 TREATMENT Rose essential oil soothes depression, grief, nervous tension, stress, anger, and fear— all emotions that are commonly felt during the grieving process. Help yourself through this difficult time by using rose essential oil in a variety of ways: diffuse it, use it like perfume, and relax with it while bathing. 1 tablespoon carrier oil 10 drops rose essential oil In a small glass bowl, add the carrier oil and the rose essential oil, and stir to combine. Draw a warm bath and add the entire treatment to the running water. Soak for at least 15 minutes. Use caution when getting out of the bathtub, as it may be slippery. Repeat this treatment once a day as needed.

Shinrin-yoku literally translates to “forest bathing,” or taking in the atmosphere of the forest, and refers to soaking up the sights, smells, and sounds of a natural setting to promote physiological and psychological health.

Make sure to take a soak in a warm bath before bed,” Mom said under her breath. “It helps.” Zach made gagging noises and started tugging on his ears. “I think I just went deaf,” he said loudly. “Can you hear me? I can’t hear you.

It felt wrong, to be sure. It felt like both trespassing on whoever owned the place and trespassing on society for enjoying something so decadent. Did I take baths in the giant soaking tub with a view of both the Hudson and the East River (and everything in between)? Yussss. But I had complicated thoughts about structural inequality while I did it.

Being content to hear His Word second-hand rather than personally and purposefully soaking ourselves in the Word’s deep waters on our own time is like settling for a spit bath over a tub of Mr. Bubble. There’s simply no comparison.

All fantasy tales bathe in the same myth pool and soak in its archetypes and tropes. It's how each author tosses the stock ingredients of the salad that renders their telling unique.

Kuhn Bath, sit in a tub filled to the height of approximately one foot with room temperature water (or slightly cooler) and soak up to the belly button. Do not soak any other part of the body. Remove the legs from the tub and keep the knees out as well. Soak here for at least 15 minutes. Do not end with a shower but

He yearned for a bath, and realization of the many things he could do once again flooded back to him at once. Read a book, sit at a table, soak in a tub. Embrace a woman. Without warning, he surrounded Ana with both of his arms and squeezed her tight, burying his face in her hair. How did she still smell so good even after a battle, with the scent of blood and smoke on her skin? “I’ll meet you in an hour,” he promised, sending her off with a soft pat on her bottom.

I take it you intend to linger in this vicinity, Wife?” He was peering at her in the gloom. Louisa pitched the cloth to the night table and had the sense Joseph was trying to see her without revealing much of himself. “I had planned on sharing this bed with you for the next forty years or so, Joseph Carrington. If the notion does not appeal—” He was over her in an instant. “Sixty,” he growled. “Sixty at least, or seventy. There are people who have lived to be a hundred, though much more of this conjugal bliss, and five-and-thirty might be a stretch. I sustained wounds on the Peninsula, you know.” Louisa wrestled the covers up over him. “I married a ridiculous man.” He sighed and dropped his forehead to hers. “A ridiculous brute. Are you all right, Louisa? We became more impassioned than was perhaps wise for a first encounter.” “No, I am not all right.” He pulled back, real concern—even panic—showing in his gaze. “Wife, I am abjectly sorry. We’ll rouse the servants and order you a hot, soaking bath. I most humbly beg—” She put her hand over his mouth. “You are being ridiculous again, Joseph Carrington. I am not merely all right. I am most pleased. I am most definitely pleased.” And besotted. She was most definitely besotted with her husband too, though that was hardly convenient, dignified, or worth mentioning. He subsided against her on a grand sigh. “I am most pleased, as well.” Some

It was another beautiful crisp, clear day, in what has always been considered picturesque Überlingen. The village was internationally known for its traditional beauty and was a popular vacation destination long before the war. As usual, there was just a hint of a breeze off the brilliantly blue lake and I could understand why so many Germans would come here for their urlaub or vacation. Having a little money left over from the last check sent by Mina, I found a nice room for the three of us, overlooking the lake at a classy resort hotel. For the next two days we lived quite comfortably in our new surroundings. In fact we even enjoyed a real hot bath, something that I had almost forgotten. As I soaked in the warm, sudsy water I could hear my children laughing and giggling in the next room, and longed for a time when the world would be at peace again. During the day we walked along the shore of the beautiful Bodensee, but in the back of my mind, I knew that this was nothing more than a horrible illusion and couldn’t last; besides I had to find work. In reality, the children and I would have to settle in somewhere so that we could find some sort of stability. It was also important that they enroll in a school again. That “somewhere” turned out to be a room in a house owned by two old ladies who took in boarders. The old house faced the railroad station and was quaint in the old world style. It fit right into the picture postcard appearance of romantic Überlingen. Erika, the younger of the two ladies, was very kind and helpful to me. There were also two other tenants, Mr. and Mrs. Koestoll. He was German and she seemed to be what could be considered a typical French housewife, who devoted her life to her German husband. Herr Koestoll, was old and feeble and they sustained themselves on a very small pension. In fact it was so bad that he couldn’t even afford shoes. However their happiness didn’t seem to depend on money. I grew very fond of them for the short time that we knew each other.

This woman's hair ... it was the most sensual hair I have ever seen. Medusa must have had hair like this and with it seduced the men who fell under her spell. It was full of life, heavy, and as pungent as if it had been bathed in sperm. To me it always felt as if it had been wrapped around a penis and soaked in secretions. It was the kind of hair I wanted to wrap around my own sex. It was warm and musky, oily, strong. It was the hair of an animal. It bristled when it was touched. Merely to pass my fingers through it could give me an erection. I would have been content just touching her hair.

If he’s the main exhibit in this zoo, the least they can do is give him a hot bath to soak in.

The sole book now in Dorothy’s possession is a copy of Hamilton’s Mythology. A book she has loved since childhood, when she spied the tattered paperback in a bin in her local library, passed over by all the other kids for its ruined state. It says on the back, published in the U.S.A. She has learned to read this foreign language from this book, this book of myths. She loves each of the little chapters, how they are short, and self-contained, but also all fit together in a larger universe of gods and goddesses, spirits, lower and higher, deities of all types and their seconds, their assistants, their rivalries and hierarchies, their relative powers and weaknesses. Their petty squabbles and sordid doings and secret crushes. Every time she opens the book, she hopes to turn to a new page, a new god, a little tiny thing. She likes the minor gods the best, because they are easier to master, to learn everything about. She can search out and soak up all of the other things that other people had written or said about this minor god, and in that way become an authority on such a god. And when she becomes an authority someday, an expert in her own right, she thinks that maybe she might be able to make her own entry in the book. To create a tiny god from scratch. She has not named it yet. Perhaps the god of bus rides. The god of sponge baths, or maps, or minimum wage. The god of immigrants.

From the geyser ventilators autumn winds are blowing down on a thousand business women having baths in Camden Town. Waste pipes chuckle into runnels, steam's escaping here and there, morning trains through Camden cutting shake the Crescent and the Square. Early nip of changeful autumn, dahlias glimpsed through garden doves, at the back precarious bathrooms jutting out from upper floors; and behind their frail partitions business women lie and soak, seeing through the draughty skylight flying clouds and railway smoke. Rest you there, poor unbeloved ones, lap your loneliness in heat. All too soon the tiny breakfast, trolley-bus and windy street!

The way to get rid of these unhappy campers is to become responsible for your body by giving it rest, proper food, and downtime. In addition, a good Epsom-salt bath works wonders for clearing your energy field and cleanses you of what’s not yours. Put two cups of Epsom salt in a hot bath and sit and soak the psychic pollution out of you.

The horses, reluctant and excited from the first, become furious and wild. At the next shoal-personal nastiness being past consideration-we dismount, at knee-deep, to give them a moment's rest, shifting the mule's saddle to the trembling long-legged mare, and turning Mr. Brown loose, to follow as he could. After a breathing-spell we resume our splashed seats and the line of wade. Experience has taught us something, and we are more shrewd in choice of footing, the slopes around large trees being attractively high ground, until, by a stumble on a covered root, a knee is nearly crushed against a cypress trunk. Gullies now commence, cut by the rapid course of waters flowing off before north winds, in which it is good luck to escape instant drowning. Then quag again; the pony bogs; the mare, quivering and unmanageable, jumps sidelong among loose corduroy; and here are two riders standing waist-deep in mud and water between two frantic, plunging-horses, fortunately not beneath them. Nack soon extricates himself, and joins the mule, looking on terrified from behind. Fanny, delirious, believes all her legs broken and strewn about her, and falls, with a whining snort, upon her side. With incessant struggles she makes herself a mud bath, in which, with blood-shot eyes, she furiously rotates, striking, now and then, some stump, against which she rises only to fall upon the other side, or upon her back, until her powers are exhausted, and her head sinks beneath the surface. Mingled with our uppermost sympathy are thoughts of the soaked note-books, and other contents of the saddle-bags, and of the.hundred dollars that drown with her. What of dense soil there was beneath her is now stirred to porridge, and it is a dangerous exploit to approach. But, with joint hands, we length succeed in grappling her bridle, and then in hauling her nostrils above water. She revives only for a new tumult of dizzy pawing, before which we hastily retreat. At a second pause her lariat is secured, and the saddle cut adrift. For a half-hour the alternate resuscitation continues, until we are able to drag the head of the poor beast, half strangled by the rope, as well as the mud and water, toward firmer ground, where she recovers slowly her senses and her footing. Any further attempts at crossing the somewhat "wet" Neches bottoms are, of course, abandoned, and even the return to the ferry is a serious sort of joke. However, we congratulate ourselves that we are leaving, not entering the State.

In addition to the breathing meditation, here are some clearing techniques that are very effective. Find a few that work for you and do them with diligence. Wash your hands after your Reiki session and imagine that whatever you picked up is washing down the drain. Imagine you’re soaking your hands in a bucket of cool water. (This is very good right after a Reiki session if you can’t get the heat out of your hands.) Imagine that you’re breathing healthy, healing energy up from the ground and blowing the stale energy out through the top of your head or out of your mouth on the exhale. Imagine that a golden hoop goes over your head and down to your toes. Visualize that everywhere it touches, it takes negative energy out and replaces it with light. When it touches the ground, let the ground reabsorb it. (You can also go from the ground up to the sky.) Take a bath with sea salt or Epsom salts. Lavender and rosemary are good herbs to clear energy. You can add them right to your bathwater. Take a shower and imagine that the water is also clearing any negative energy with it. Smudge yourself by burning sage or incense. Clear your Reiki space often using this method. You can also use sage spray. I use sage spray on each client, the room, and myself at the end of a Reiki session. Kneel on the ground and then slowly lower your forehead to the ground in “child’s pose” from yoga. (This is great for emptying out the heart and clearing the third eye.) Spend time in nature. Fresh air and sunlight are highly beneficial. It’s best if you can get into the woods. Exercise—any kind is good. Breathing and sweating are great ways to clear yourself. Sit in a sauna or steam room. Meditate and engage in other spiritual practices. Give or receive some Reiki!

Prepare yourself: First, strip down. No bathing suits, no underwear. Cover tattoos (often banned because of their connection to yakuza). Scrub yourself head to toe. Now you’re ready to soak it all up.

Here is how you make a sheet of parchment: Soak a pelt in a scouring bath until it softens. Scrape the hair off. Treat the skin with astringent tannic acids. Rack and torture until tight. And here’s how you make a story: Soak a life in mortality. Scrape the soul.

The bath. Occupying the other half of the bedroom, my bathtub was actually a pool, hanging right off the mountain itself. A pool for soaking or enjoying myself. Its far edge seemed to disappear into nothing, the water flowing silently off the side and into the night beyond

Calming, soothing and almost without peer. The second, naturally, is a hot soaking bath. The third is Puccini. In the bath with a hot cup of tea and Puccini. Heaven.

My room was... a dream. ... Like the upstairs living area, its windows were open to the brutal world beyond- no glass, no shutters- and sheer amethyst curtains fluttered in that unnatural soft breeze. The large bed was a creamy white-and-ivory concoction, with pillows and blankets and throws for days, made more inviting by the twin golden lamps beside it. An armoire and dressing table occupied a wall, framed by those glass-less windows. Across the room, a chamber with a porcelain sink and toilet lay behind an arched wooden door, but the bath... The bath. Occupying the other half of the bedroom, my bathtub was actually a pool, hanging right off the mountain itself. A pool for soaking and or enjoying myself. Its far edge seemed to disappear into nothing, the water flowing silently off the side and into the night beyond. A narrow ledge on the adjacent wall was lined with fat, guttering candles whose glow gilded the dark, glassy surface and wafting tendrils of steam. Open, airy, plush, and... calm. The room was fit for an empress. With the marble floors, silks, velvets, and elegant details, only an empress could have afforded it. I tried not to think what Rhys' chamber was like, if this was how he treated his guests. Guest- not prisoner. Well... the room proved it.

There was only Lora and the ocean’s song. She closed her eyes, moving forward to bathe her feet in the colorful sea foam, which washed over the sand as it drifted ashore. Cool, soothing water splashed her, soaking the ankles of her jeans. The hypnotic music completely consumed Lora, dominating her mind, until it could focus on nothing else. The chill of the wind against her pale skin felt so freeing. Why couldn’t every day be like this? Music dwelled within her nature, as a part of her soul. She wasn’t meant to spend her days in a small classroom filled with students. Each day should be filled with singing and music. Her clan had no appreciation of their roots, however. They didn’t embrace who they really were. If they discovered she sang with the ocean this morning, they would punish her. But one day, she promised herself, she would be free of their restraints. Ignoring the nagging part of her mind which feared discovery, Lora finally joined the ocean’s song. A hum escaped her, then another, until her throat reverberated with the low melody of the ocean. Lora couldn’t help herself. She felt compelled to sing along.

I let out an ecstatic whimpering moan and released my pent up energies from my exhausting day. At that very moment, he spilled his sex onto my soaked belly dissolving us in our liquid warmth. My fantasies were too wonderful to spoil, so I kept my mask on long after my lover departed, leaving me to savor the afterglow in the relaxation of my intoxicating bath.

Sometimes a self-love soak can right the world and recharge the heart. Draw a bath and step into bliss.

Here is how you make a sheet of parchment: Soak a pelt in a scouring bath until it softens. Scrape the hair off. Treat the skin with astringent tannic acids. Rack and torture until tight. And here’s how you make a story: Soak a life in mortality. Scrape the soul. Librarian Gregor Henry, 1899 CE

Like the upstairs living area, its windows were open to the brutal world beyond—no glass, no shutters—and sheer amethyst curtains fluttered in that unnatural, soft breeze. The large bed was a creamy white-and-ivory concoction, with pillows and blankets and throws for days, made more inviting by the twin golden lamps beside it. An armoire and dressing table occupied a wall, framed by those glass-less windows. Across the room, a chamber with a porcelain sink and toilet lay behind an arched wooden door, but the bath … The bath. Occupying the other half of the bedroom, my bathtub was actually a pool, hanging right off the mountain itself. A pool for soaking or enjoying myself. Its far edge seemed to disappear into nothing, the water flowing silently off the side and into the night beyond. A narrow ledge on the adjacent wall was lined with fat, guttering candles whose glow gilded the dark, glassy surface and wafting tendrils of steam. Open, airy, plush, and … calm. This room was fit for an empress. With the marble floors, silks, velvets, and elegant details, only an empress could have afforded it.