“
I guess I don't really know what I want to do, either. Sometimes I feel like a shook-up bottle of soda. Like, I have all this passion that wants to explode, but I don't know where to aim it yet.
”
”
Matt de la Peña (My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories)
“
It surprises me, though it shouldn't, how short the memories of these politicians are. They forget the brutal lengths women have gone to in order to terminate pregnancies when abortion was illegal or when abortion is unaffordable. Women have thrown themselves down stairs and otherwise tried to physically harm themselves to force a miscarriage. Dr. Waldo Fielding noted in the New York Times, "Almost any implement you can imagine had been and was used to start an abortion—darning needles, crochet hooks, cut-glass salt shakers, soda bottles, sometimes intact, sometimes with the top broken off." Women have tried to use soap and bleach, catheters, natural remedies. Women have historically resorted to any means necessary. Women will do this again if we are backed into that terrible corner. This is the responsibility our society has forced on women for hundreds of years.
”
”
Roxane Gay (Bad Feminist)
“
If my body was a Country Club soda bottle, it's one that has been shaken and dropped and at any moment it's gonna pop open and surprise the whole damn world.
”
”
Elizabeth Acevedo (The Poet X)
“
A garden of soda bottles filled with water grew by his feet.
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (All the Crooked Saints)
“
My mom yells at someone behind me. I spin with my hand on Pooky Bear, ready to pull out my blade. But it’s just my mom throwing rotten eggs at someone who took an empty soda bottle without asking.
”
”
Susan Ee (End of Days (Penryn & the End of Days, #3))
“
Lonny finishes his drink and stands. “So what’s our plan?”
“You don’t have to go,” I tell him, shrugging out of Carmindor’s jacket. “I’m sort of going AWOL, so it’s not in your contract.”
“Then as far as I’m concerned, I’m off the clock,” he says, straightening his suit. “I can do whatever I want with my time, and I want to help you out. So what’s the plan?”
“First,” I say, “to the vending machines. With all this good luck, they gotta have an Orange Crush.”
And holy gods of soda, Batman, by the glowing light of the great vending machines on the third floor, I spot a beautiful Orange Crush button, and when I push it an orange bottle rolls out. I crack the seal and drink to the sweet, sweet taste of victory.
“That’s your plan?” Lonny says. “To drink a soda?
”
”
Ashley Poston (Geekerella (Once Upon a Con, #1))
“
I feel...I don't know...like a bottle of soda that's been shaken up. Do you know what I want? I want you to take me inside, and then take the cap off.
”
”
Stephen King (11/22/63)
“
The day Joe Pipkin was born all the Orange Crush and Nehi soda bottles in the world fizzed over; and joyful bees swarmed countrysides to sting maiden ladies.
”
”
Ray Bradbury (The Halloween Tree)
“
Once upon a time there was a little girl, and she told a lie to her friend’s brother so that her friend’s brother drove her to the bus station.
She brought with her a bottle of orange soda, fifty dollars (half in change), sparkly slippers, and her cell phone.
He thought he was helping.
So did she.
”
”
Holly Black (The Coldest Girl in Coldtown)
“
Tequila, anyone?” he asked our group, but his eyes were on me.
“Hell, yeah, K, break it out,” Blake said.
I tried to take a step back, but I couldn't go far.
Kaidan poured the drinks, handing one to each twin and Blake.
“Jay?” he asked.
“Nah, dude. I gotta drive.”
“Kope? Anna?”
We both stared at him, not answering.
“Oh, that's right, I nearly forgot,” Kaidan said with smooth indifference. “The prince and princess would never stoop so low. Well, bottoms up to us peasants.”
What was up with that? The group shared a round of uneasy glances. Jay's mouth was set in firm disapproval as he stared at Kaidan, who wouldn't meet Jay's eye.
The four of them raised their glasses, taking the shots and chasing them with bites of lime.
I got a strong whiff of the pungent, salty tequila and gripped the counter with one hand.
“How's your soda, princess?” Though Kaidan spoke with a calm air, there was underlying menace that pained me to hear.
“You don't need to be so hateful,” I whispered.
“If you ask me, I'd say the princess prefers a dark knight.” Ginger smirked and took a long drink of her beer.
“She only thinks she does,” Kaidan said to her.
I opened and closed my hands at my sides. After all we'd been through, how could he stand there and have the audacity to throw temptations in my face and insult me? I wanted to say something to shut him up, but the more flustered I got, the more tongue-tied I became.
“Anna?” Jay asked. “You ready to bounce?”
There was no way Jay was ready to leave.
“No! Don't go yet,” Marna begged. She yanked the front of Kaidan's shirt. “You're scaring everyone off, Kai! If you can't be nice, then don't get so pissed.”
“She means drunk,” Blake said to me in a stage whisper; then he added, “Brits,” with a roll of his eyes.
Blake's attempt at comic relief didn't lighten the mood much.
“My apologies,” Kaidan said to Marna. He slid the bottle away with the back of his hand, and Marna patted down the bit of shirt she'd crumpled. I stared at Kaidan, but he wouldn't meet my eye.
”
”
Wendy Higgins (Sweet Evil (Sweet, #1))
“
Hey,508! Your room is right above mine. You never said."
St. Clair smiles. "Maybe I didn't want you blaming me for keeping you up at night with my noisy stomping boots."
"Dude.You do stomp."
"I know.I'm sorry." He laughs and holds the door open for me.His room is neater than I expected. I always picture the guys with disgusting bedrooms-mountains of soiled boxer shorts and sweat-stained undershirts,unmade beds with sheets that haven't been changed in weeks, posters of beer bottles and women in neon bikinis,empty soda cans and chip bags,and random bits of model airplanes and discarded video games.s
”
”
Stephanie Perkins (Anna and the French Kiss (Anna and the French Kiss, #1))
“
It lands halfway down the skirt. The red wine against the green silk makes it look like Gaia, the primordial earth mother, is having her period. I know I should feel guilty. Contrite. I should be rushing to the fridge and grabbing a bottle of club soda before the stain sets, or rushing Viveca’s dress down the street to that dry cleaning place. But I’m not contrite. I’m a little giddy, in fact. I pour another mug of wine and throw it at the other three dresses. In some places the wine seeps in and it dribbles down to the hems in others. I do it again: pour, splash. I feel like Jackson Pollock must have felt, except I’m not dribbling paint; I’m staining beauty with blood.
”
”
Wally Lamb (We Are Water)
“
I’d spent months carefully winding my gift into a tight spool, only letting it out by inches, and only when I needed it. The strain of keeping it bound up had been a steady, constant reminder that I had to work to keep the life I’d built for myself out here. It was a muscle I’d carefully toned to withstand nearly any pressure.
Letting it all go felt like shaking a bottle of soda and ripping off the cap. It fizzed and flooded and swept out of me, searching for the connections waiting to be made. I didn’t guide it, and I didn’t stop it—I don’t know if I could have if I tried. I was the burning center of a galaxy of faces, memories, loves, heartbreaks, disappointments, and dreams. It was like living dozens of different lives. I was lifted and shattered by it, how strangely beautiful it was to feel their minds linked with my own.
The spinning inside my head slowed with the movement around me. I felt time hovering nearby, waiting to resume its usual tempo. The darkness slid into the edges of my vision, seeping through my mind like a drop of ink in water. But I was in control of the moment, and there was one last thing that I needed to say to them, one last idea to imprint in their minds.
“I’m Green.
”
”
Alexandra Bracken (In the Afterlight (The Darkest Minds, #3))
“
There is a bottle tree in Cross City, FL. Covered in locally bottled items. Seems Dixie County had a soda in the day. Ghosts keeping the ghosts away.
”
”
Damon Thomas (Some Books Are Not For Sale)
“
I try to formulate a plan but my thoughts are a toxic fizz of regret, panic, and self-loathing, as if someone shook up a bottle of carbonated soda and uncapped it inside my brain.
”
”
Elan Mastai (All Our Wrong Todays)
“
Gah!’ Coach Hedge yelled. The canopy ripped and he fell behind the bar with a crash of bottles and glasses. The satyr recovered well. He popped up with a dozen miniature plastic swords in his hair, grabbed the soda gun and served himself a drink.
‘I like it!’ He tossed a wedge of pineapple into his mouth. ‘But next time, kid, can we land on the floor and not ten feet above it?
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus, #5))
“
So in our pride we ordered for breakfast an omelet, toast and coffee and what has just arrived is a tomato salad with onions, a dish of pickles, a big slice of watermelon and two bottles of cream soda.
”
”
John Steinbeck
“
When I finally leave the market, the streets are dark, and I pass a few blocks where not a single electric light appears – only dark open storefronts and coms (fast-food eateries), broom closet-sized restaurants serving fish, meat, and rice for under a dollar, flickering candles barely revealing the silhouettes of seated figures. The tide of cyclists, motorbikes, and scooters has increased to an uninterrupted flow, a river that, given the slightest opportunity, diverts through automobile traffic, stopping it cold, spreads into tributaries that spill out over sidewalks, across lots, through filling stations. They pour through narrow openings in front of cars: young men, their girlfriends hanging on the back; families of four: mom, dad, baby, and grandma, all on a fragile, wobbly, underpowered motorbike; three people, the day’s shopping piled on a rear fender; women carrying bouquets of flapping chickens, gathered by their feet while youngest son drives and baby rests on the handlebars; motorbikes carrying furniture, spare tires, wooden crates, lumber, cinder blocks, boxes of shoes. Nothing is too large to pile onto or strap to a bike. Lone men in ragged clothes stand or sit by the roadsides, selling petrol from small soda bottles, servicing punctures with little patch kits and old bicycle pumps.
”
”
Anthony Bourdain (A Cook's Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines)
“
Could you open bottles using nuclear bombs? This is a completely ridiculous suggestion, so it should come as no surprise that it was studied by the US government during the Cold War. Early in 1955, the Federal Civil Defense Administration bought beer, soda, and carbonated water from local stores, then tested nuclear weapons on them.*
”
”
Randall Munroe (How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems)
“
I don’t think you bought enough beer,” my dad commented in Spanish.
I shot him a look over my shoulder as I poured another two bags of ice over the bottles. “Pa, it’s Josh’s birthday. Nobody needs to be getting drunk. Come on. I bought like half the sodas, waters, and juice boxes that the grocery store carried. Everyone can get Capri Sun wasted if they want.
”
”
Mariana Zapata (Wait for It)
“
Hold on," Marjan said, reaching behind a tin of pistachio nougats. She found the bottle, unscrewing the cap as her back was turned to her sisters. She upended it, letting the rosewater, the priceless tears of that queen of blossoms, pool in her cupped hand.
She turned back to Bahar and smiled. "Better late than never," she said, showering her sister with a brand-new day.
”
”
Marsha Mehran (Rosewater and Soda Bread (Babylon Café #2))
“
Vending innovation isn't dead. Some machines use facial recognition software to guess which drink you're in the mood for (based mostly on your gender and the time of day, I was told). Iris and I always liked to stop at the machine on the Nakano Station platform that dispensed slushy iced drinks like cocoa-strawberry, matcha, and Ramune. (Ramune is a soda known for its unusual bottle, which has a glass marble in the neck, and for coming in various flavors like orange, red, and blue, all of which taste the same to me.)
”
”
Matthew Amster-Burton (Pretty Good Number One: An American Family Eats Tokyo)
“
then they walked back to the wicker picnic basket and sat on a plaid blanket eating cold fried chicken, salt-cured ham and biscuits, and potato salad. Sweet and dill pickles. Slices of four-layer cake with half-inch-thick caramel icing. All homemade, wrapped in wax paper. He opened two bottles of Royal Crown Cola and poured them into Dixie cups—her first drink of soda pop in her life. The generous spread was incredible to her, with the neatly arranged cloth napkins, plastic plates and forks. Even minuscule pewter salt and pepper shakers. His mother must have packed it, she thought, not knowing he was meeting the Marsh Girl. They talked softly of sea things—pelicans
”
”
Delia Owens (Where the Crawdads Sing)
“
Back at the Berlin Conference of 1885, it was decided that the Congo Free State was to be open to international trade. Competition between market and state still exists today, in fact more than ever. In those days the focus was solely on the purchase of raw materials, today it’s about the selling of products as well—even in a desperately poor country, there is a great deal of money to be made with the trade in little commodities like phone vouchers, bottles of soda pop, or bags of powdered milk. To win the souls of all those dispossessed, foreign companies colonize the public spaces of the destroyed country with a temerity only thinly disguised by the bright smile of slick marketing.
”
”
David Van Reybrouck (Congo: The Epic History of a People)
“
All changed! Even the thing with the spades. All of a sudden the Negroes are out of the hip scene, except for a couple of pushers like Superspade and a couple of characters like Gaylord and Heavy. The explanation around Haight-Ashbury is that Negroes don’t take to LSD. The big thing with spades on the hip scene has always been the quality known as cool. And LSD freaking well blows that whole lead shield known as cool, like it brings you right out front, hang-ups and all. Also the spades don’t get much of a kick out of the nostalgia for the mud that all the white middle-class kids who are coming to Haight-Ashbury like, piling into pads and living freaking basic, you understand, on greasy mattresses on the floor that the filthiest spade walkup in Fillmore wouldn’t have, and slopping up soda pop and shit out of the same bottle, just passing it around from mouth to mouth, not being hung up on that old American plumbing & hygiene thing, you understand, even grokking the weird medieval vermin diseases that are flashing through every groin—crab lice! you know that thing, man, where you first look down at your lower belly and see these little scars, they look like, little scabs or something, tiny little mothers, and like you pick one, root it out, and it starts crawling! Oh shit! and then they’re all crawling and you start exploring your mons pubis and your balls and they’re alive. It’s like a jungle you never saw before,
”
”
Tom Wolfe (The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test)
“
22 grams cinchona bark 4 grams dried hawthorn berries 8 grams dried sumac berries 2 grams cassia buds 3 cloves 1 small (2-inch) cinnamon stick, preferably Ceylon cinnamon 1 star anise 12 grams dried bitter orange peel 4 grams blackberry leaf 51⁄4 cups spring water 50 grams citric acid 2 teaspoons sea salt 1 stalk lemongrass, cut into 1⁄2-inch sections Finely grated zest and juice of 2 limes Finely grated zest and juice of 1 lemon 1⁄2 cup agave syrup Combine the cinchona bark, hawthorn berries, sumac berries, cassia buds, cloves, cinnamon, and star anise in a spice mill or mortar and pestle and crush into a coarse powder. Add the orange peel and blackberry leaf, divide the mixture among three large tea baskets or tea bags, and put a few pie weights in each. Bring the water to a boil in a large stainless-steel saucepan. Add the tea baskets, citric acid, and salt. Let simmer for 5 minutes. Add the lemongrass, cover partially, and let simmer 15 minutes longer. Add the lime and lemon zests and juices and let simmer, uncovered, until the liquid is reduced by a little less than half, making about 3 cups. Remove from the heat and remove the tea balls. Pour the agave syrup into a bowl. Set a fine-mesh strainer over the bowl and strain the tonic into the syrup. You will need to work in batches and to dump out the strainer after each pour. If the tonic is cloudy, strain again. Pour into a clean bottle and seal. Store in the refrigerator for up to 1 year.
”
”
Andrew Schloss (Homemade Soda: 200 Recipes for Making & Using Fruit Sodas & Fizzy Juices, Sparkling Waters, Root Beers & Cola Brews, Herbal & Healing Waters, Sparkling ... & Floats, & Other Carbonated Concoctions)
“
I followed Aiden into the kitchen. My steps slowed as I saw everyone gathered around the table. “What’s going…?”
Deacon and Luke stepped to the side. “Happy Birthday!” they cried in unison.
My gaze fell to the table. There sat a birthday cake, decorated with eighteen burning candles and… Spider-man? Yep, it was Spider-man. Red and blue tights and all.
“It was either that or My Little Pony,” Luke said, grinning. “We figured you’d appreciate Spider-man more.”
“Plus he’s all wicked cool with the whole climbing buildings stuff,” Deacon added. “Maybe one day, when you decide to Awaken, you’ll be just as cool.”
“I lit the candles,” Solos said, shrugging. “All by myself.”
“I gave them the money.” Marcus folded his arms. “Therefore I was the key part of all of this.”
“And we got grape soda.” Luke gestured at the bottles of soda. “It’s your favorite.”
“This… this is… wow.
”
”
Jennifer L. Armentrout (Deity (Covenant, #3))
“
Chocolate Cola Cupcakes with Fizzy Cola Frosting Makes approx. 12 large cupcakes 200g flour, sifted 250g superfine sugar 1/2 tsp. baking powder pinch salt 1 large free-range egg 125ml buttermilk 1 tsp. vanilla extract 125g unsalted butter 2 tbsp. cocoa powder 175ml Coca-Cola For the frosting 125g unsalted butter, softened 400g confectioners’ sugar 11/2 tbsp. cola syrup (I used Soda Stream) 40ml whole milk Pop Rocks, to taste fizzy cola bottles, candied lemon slices, striped straws or candy canes to decorate Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line two 6-cup muffin pans with paper liners. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl, beat together the egg, buttermilk and vanilla. Melt the butter, cocoa and Coca-Cola in a saucepan over low heat. Pour this mixture into the dry ingredients, stir well with a wooden spoon, and then add the buttermilk mixture, beating until the batter is well blended. Pour into your prepared pans and bake for 15 minutes, or until risen and a skewer comes out clean. Set aside to cool. To make the frosting, beat together the butter and confectioners’ sugar until no lumps are left—I use a free-standing mixer with the paddle attachment, but you could use a hand-held mixer instead. Stir the cola syrup and milk together in a pitcher, then pour into the butter and sugar mixture while beating slowly. Once incorporated, increase the speed to high and beat until light and fluffy. Carefully stir in your Pop Rocks to taste. It does lose its pop after a while, so the icing is best done just a few hours before eating. Spoon your icing into a piping bag and pipe over your cooled cupcakes. Decorate with fizzy cola bottles or a slice of candied lemon, a stripy straw or candy cane and an extra sprinkling of popping candy.
”
”
Jenny Colgan (Christmas at the Cupcake Cafe)
“
I was thinking, The last thing I want to do is get in a wreck and lose another limb. I completely lost it and blew up at my father.
“Why did you do that? I can’t get injured again! Pull over. I’ll drive!” I screamed.
Dad is not the kind of person who would have ever taken that kind of behavior from me in the past, but I think he understood the paranoia. I’d asked him while I was in the hospital, “Did you ever think one of your kids would ever lose a limb?”
And he said, “No, it never crossed my mind. I was always more afraid I would lost another limb.”
It wasn’t until later that I realized how great it was of him that he kept his cool and understood where I was coming from. He just let me freak out and let me drive. I think in some ways it was the same kind of lesson he taught me as a child without ever saying a word. I watched him just get on with things with one arm. He never made a fuss about it. It was an example that growing up I didn’t know I’d need eventually.
So I got in the driver’s seat and we continued on our way. After a while we stopped at a gas station to stretch our legs and get some snacks. I grabbed a lemon-line Gatorade and Dad grabbed something to drink and we got back in the car. I turned the car on, so the air and the radio were going as I tried and tried to get my Gatorade bottle open, but the top was too big and I couldn’t quite get my fingers to grab it, hold it, and twist it open. My finger strength just wasn’t there yet. So I put it between my legs and tried to hold it still while I twisted the top. I heard the creak of release as I managed to break the seal of the plastic orange cap but my legs were squeezing the bottle so hard that the bright yellow liquid squirted all over me. “Crap!” I yelled. I heard my dad snicker. I turned to look at him and he smirked while holding a can of Coke in his hand.
“And that’s why I drink out of a can,” he declared with a smug grin. Click. Fizzzz. With one hand, Dad popped that can open and took a big slug of his soda.
”
”
Noah Galloway (Living with No Excuses: The Remarkable Rebirth of an American Soldier)
“
On the trip to lunch, Mom and Demi chatted constantly, while Star and I sat in the back seat – in total silence! In the restaurant, things continued much the same, until in a moment of unexpected meanness, Star tips her glass of juice into my lap. I squeal as the cold liquid hits my thighs. Finally Mom and Demi stop talking. They both grab some napkins and start to try and soak up the mess. The waiter comes over too and helps clean up the juice. He even replaces Star’s drink. Star keeps saying that she is sorry. I know she doesn’t mean it. Mom says, “Don’t worry dear, accidents happen.” Star gives me her best fake smile and winks at me. I feel like tipping my juice over Star’s head but show some restraint and decide to wait for a better chance for revenge. The meals arrive, Star and I both have nachos with little side dishes of sour cream and chilli sauce. The chilli sauce is in a bottle that looks like a soda bottle. Star announces that she needs to go to the bathroom and I see my chance. As the waiter goes past I ask if I can I swap my chilli sauce for extra hot chilli sauce. I think he feels sorry for me and rushes off to change the sauce bottles. I quickly swap it with the bottle next to Star’s plate. Star returns and grabs the extra hot sauce bottle and dumps the whole lot over her nachos. She must be hungry, as she quickly scoffs two large mouthfuls of food into her mouth. Suddenly her eyes widen and she starts to cough. I guess that the extra hot chilli sauce is starting to take effect. While she is distracted I hand her the second bottle of chilli sauce, she thinks it is her soft drink and takes a large gulp. Her eyes bulge like some type of wild cartoon character and she explodes. A mouthful of sauce and nachos flies across the table. A bit hits Mom, but most of it splashes onto Demi. Needless to say, after that, lunch is over. The ride home is pretty quiet, except for me munching my nachos and Star’s occasional coughing and whimpering that her mouth is on fire. The waiter put my nachos in a take-away container and with a wink said, “Careful with that sauce.” Demi and Star head off in their car as soon as we got home. Mom gave me a stern look and asked if I had anything to do with what happened at lunch. I just smiled and replied, “I think those nachos had a dash of karma.
”
”
Bill Campbell (Meet Maddi - Ooops! (Diary of an Almost Cool Girl #1))
“
Every object and environment that already exists has to feel like it isn’t enough. There can be no heaviness of the feeling of the too-muchness of the world: not the heavy feeling of the too-muchness of asphalt, or of amphitheaters, soda bottles, modular furniture, or orange traffic cones. Instead, you must be able to look out over the landscape of what is and to say, as if you mean it, there is not enough here.
”
”
Anne Boyer (A Handbook of Disappointed Fate)
“
The ingredients you will need are: 1 cup of baking soda, ½ cup of corn starch, ½ cup of citric acid, 2 ½ tablespoon of sunflower oil or you may use almond oil, ½ to 2 teaspoons of essential oils, ¼ teaspoon of borax, ¼ teaspoon of Vitamin E oil (this is optional but still recommended — this is an antioxidant, thus, this helps in the preservation of the other oil ingredients), vegetable or other natural colorant (however if these are not available, a few drops of food coloring will work as well), witch hazel in a spray bottle, and the very important ingredient — ¾ tablespoon of water.
”
”
Lidia Diamond (Bath Bombs: 30+ Home Made Bath Bombs Recipes for Royal Bath (Bath Bombs, Bath Bombs Recipes, Bath Recipes, Aromatherapy))
“
Sonnet for Thunder Lovers and Primary Colors”
When Sweet Nothings Just Don’t Cut It
You’re more than soda fizz, than sparklers lit
for kids at play, than fireflies’ flit in sky.
You spin around my heart and up my thigh
with the whistle and boom of a bottle rocket.
Baby, those other jugglers’ gigolo tricks—
magician’s spell and mime’s unspoken sigh—
don’t turn my head, don’t catch my ear or eye,
but your mercury rolls in my hip pocket.
Some women like the subtle hints, require
a pastel touch, a whispered cry and blush,
but not me; I am all hyperbole.
Your howls of red, your strokes of green sapphire,
your cayenne kiss, serrano pepper rush
from lip to nape of knee will do for me.
from Rattle #12, Winter 1999. Tribute to Latino/Chicano Poets
”
”
Brenda Cárdenas
“
The combined effects of fructose may add up to altered gene expression in the brain. In a study out of UCLA, rats were given the amount of fructose equivalent to drinking a one-liter bottle of soda every day.22 After six weeks, they began to show typical derangements: they had escalating levels of blood sugar, triglycerides, and insulin, and their cognition began to break down. Compared to mice fed only water, the fructose-drinking mice took double the time to find their way out of a maze. But what surprised the researchers most was that close to one thousand genes in the brains of the fructose-fed rats were altered. These weren’t genes for cute pink noses and
”
”
Max Lugavere (Genius Foods: Become Smarter, Happier, and More Productive While Protecting Your Brain for Life (Genius Living Book 1))
“
All-Natural, All-Purpose Cleaner Combine 1 teaspoon borax, ½ teaspoon washing soda, and 1 teaspoon liquid Castile soap in a spray bottle. Add 2 cups warm distilled water. Add a few drops of the essential oils of your choice (such as lemon, lavender, or orange). Put the spray top on the bottle and shake well. Use on bathroom surfaces, kitchen counters, and elsewhere. —courtesy of Katie Wells, Wellness Mama4
”
”
Joshua Becker (The Minimalist Home: A Room-By-Room Guide to a Decluttered, Refocused Life)
“
A Rationale for Violence At first, I thought I was merely witnessing the shocked aftermath of a shocking election. The Left did not expect Trump to win. As late as October 20, 2016, the American Prospect published an article, “Trump No Longer Really Running for President,” the theme of which was that Trump’s “real political goal is to make it impossible for Hillary Clinton to govern.” The election result was, in the words of columnist David Brooks, “the greatest shock of our lifetimes.”25 Trump won against virtually insurmountable odds, which included the mainstream media openly campaigning for Hillary and a civil war within the GOP with the entire intellectual wing of the conservative movement refusing to support him. Initially I interpreted the Left’s violent upheaval as a stunned, heat-of-the-moment response to the biggest come-from-behind victory in U.S. political history. Then I saw two things that made me realize I was wrong. First, the violence did not go away. There were the violent “Not My President’s Day” rallies across the country in February; the violent March 4 disruptions of Trump rallies in California, Minnesota, Tennessee, and Florida; the April anti-Trump tax rallies, supposedly aimed at forcing Trump to release his tax returns; the July impeachment rallies, seeking to build momentum for Trump’s removal from office; and the multiple eruptions at Berkeley.26 In Portland, leftists threw rocks, lead balls, soda cans, glass bottles, and incendiary devices until police dispersed them with the announcement, “May Day is now considered a riot.” Earlier, at the Minnesota State Capitol, leftists threw smoke bombs into the pro-Trump crowd while others set off fireworks in the building, sending people scrambling in fear of a bomb attack. Among those arrested was Linwood Kaine, the son of Hillary’s vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine.27 More of this, undoubtedly, is in store from the Left over the next four years. What this showed is that the Left was engaging in premeditated violence, violence not as outbreak of passion but violence as a political strategy.
”
”
Dinesh D'Souza (The Big Lie: Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left)
“
Now you can open up your beer or soda bottles with our built-in Bottle Opener on the bottom of your custom flip flop. The sole material is rubber mix.
”
”
diecutflipflops
“
Shelly pulled out another crate. “People back then were the original recyclers, weren’t they? Wooden crates, reusable glass soda bottles. That was kind of cool. Why did we ever stop? Now we have plastic bottles littering the ocean.
”
”
Jan Moran (Seabreeze Christmas (Summer Beach, #4))
“
Now you can open up your beer or soda bottles with our built-in bottle opener on the bottom of your custom flip flop. This is one of our best selling products. Sole is made up of rubber mix with Fleece lined fabric straps.
”
”
diecutflipflops
“
And then someone asks if Callum is as skilled in the bedroom as he is in the kitchen. That's when my blood turns to magma.
I slam my hand on top of the metal countertop. "Listen the hell up!"
My shout silences every last one of the vloggers. The high schooler looks on with a shocked expression and mutters, "Yes, ma'am."
"My personal life isn't up for discussion. I'm also not interested in name-dropping any of you in a commercial when you've been harassing me and my customers every day since the festival. I'm here to cook and serve food, and you goddamn piranhas are crowding around my truck, making it impossible for my mother and me to serve our customers. Either get the hell out of the way so my customers can order, or else."
There's silence, followed by soft mutters. A scrawny, white guy in the back of the crowd tucks his phone into his pocket and crosses his arms, stubborn written across his frown. "Or else what?"
Leaning my head back, I puff out all the hot air pent up in my body. He's the pissant who asked about Callum's bedroom performance. I swipe a bottle of lemon-lime soda from the counter and give it a dozen of the most violent shakes I can manage. I stomp out of the truck and up to the offending vlogger.
Even when I'm standing two inches from him, he has the audacity to smirk. But when I twist off the cap, a stream of soda smashes him square in the face. My frustration dissipates with each violent burst of carbonated liquid.
”
”
Sarah Smith (Simmer Down)
“
There, Faye always orders the same thing, and calls it her “death row meal”: a barbecue chicken sandwich with macaroni and cheese, and a glass bottle of Coca-Cola. It’s the only soda she’ll drink; in fact, her blood is mostly Coke.
”
”
Felix Blackwell (Stolen Tongues)
“
ANNE THORNDIKE, A primary care physician at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, had a crazy idea. She believed she could improve the eating habits of thousands of hospital staff and visitors without changing their willpower or motivation in the slightest way. In fact, she didn’t plan on talking to them at all. Thorndike and her colleagues designed a six-month study to alter the “choice architecture” of the hospital cafeteria. They started by changing how drinks were arranged in the room. Originally, the refrigerators located next to the cash registers in the cafeteria were filled with only soda. The researchers added water as an option to each one. Additionally, they placed baskets of bottled water next to the food stations throughout the room. Soda was still in the primary refrigerators, but water was now available at all drink locations. Over the next three months, the number of soda sales at the hospital dropped by 11.4 percent. Meanwhile, sales of bottled water increased by 25.8 percent. They made similar adjustments—and saw similar results—with the food in the cafeteria. Nobody had said a word to anyone eating there. BEFORE AFTER FIGURE 8: Here is a representation of what the cafeteria looked like before the environment design changes were made (left) and after (right). The shaded boxes indicate areas where bottled water was available in each instance. Because the amount of water in the environment was increased, behavior shifted naturally and without additional motivation. People often choose products not because of what they are, but because of where they are. If I walk into the kitchen and see a plate of cookies on the counter, I’ll pick up half a dozen and start eating, even if I hadn’t been thinking about them beforehand and didn’t necessarily feel hungry. If the communal table at the office is always filled with doughnuts and bagels, it’s going to be hard not to grab one every now and then. Your habits change depending on the room you are in and the cues in front of you.
”
”
James Clear (Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones)
“
Meanwhile, I’m basically a walking, breathing bottle of soda into which a Mentos has been plopped, panic fizzing up, threatening to spew out between my cells.
”
”
Emily Henry (Happy Place)
“
Mix baking soda, water, and a few drops of lavender essential oil in an empty shampoo bottle and shake to make a paste, and there you go. Homemade shampoo.
”
”
Kyla Stone (Edge of Anarchy (Edge of Collapse, #4))
“
Farah looked freaked out until Tawny hugged her and the tension faded from her face. A minute later, the table cloth lifted and Bailey appeared with beer bottles in her hands. “I figured you’d need booze to deal with the boredom of hiding.”
“I can’t drink,” Farah said. “I’m off the pill and trying to get knocked up.”
“I am knocked up. I also don’t like that brand of beer.”
Handing the beers to Tawny, Bailey nodded. “Be back in a sec.” A minute later, Bailey returned with two cans of Coke for Farah and me.
“So what are we talking about?” Bailey asked.
“Men needing to protect their women,” I explained.
“Lame. Talk about something I can join in on. What’s your sister like? Is she hotter than me?”
“Yes.”
“I hate her and you should tell her to watch out. If I see her, that pretty face is dead meat.”
Grinning, I cuddled up with her as the table shook from fighting bodies knocking against it.
“You’re having a baby?” she asked, wrapping her arms around me. “Everyone is getting married or having babies.”
“Raven isn’t,” I said as Farah peeked out from under the table cloth to check on Cooper. She smiled and returned to her spot. “Judd and Aaron have stripped Mac down and are shoving him out the door.”
Tawny laughed. “Judd finally got to punish Mac for letting me touch his arm months ago. Good for him.”
Laughing, I leaned my head against Bailey. “Raven has bad taste in men. Going out with her will be great for you. If Raven likes someone, you’ll know he’s a loser. So she’ll distract all the shitty guys from you.”
“Huh. And she’s hot, so she’ll draw guys to us. I think she might be my new best friend,” Bailey said, taking a swig. ‘Don’t be jealous. I just need a man because all of the kissing and fucking and marrying and baby making you guys keep doing. I can’t be the only one alone and Vaughn doesn’t count because he’ll be dead in a few months and shouldn’t be dating anyway.”
We all frowned at Bailey who shrugged. “Those Devils fuck are going to kill him or he’ll try to kill them and get killed. Why do you think they call him Dead Man Walking?”
“You’re bumming me out,” I told her while finishing my soda. “I wish Aaron was here.”
“As you wish,” Aaron said, leaning down. “Look at you pretty girls hiding under here.”
“We’re not hiding,” I said, crawling out. “We’re planning our attack. You know, just in case you couldn’t handle things.”
When Aaron grinned, I noticed blood on his lip. “You’re hurt.”
“You should see the other guys.”
Glancing around, I noticed Mac’s friend was propped up on the pool table and the other guys were throwing pretzels and peanuts at him. In the corner, Kirk and Jodi sat as if on their porch drinking lemonade and admiring the sunset.
“My hero,” I said, caressing the cobra.
“Are you talking to me or the tattoo?”
“Both, baby. Always both.
”
”
Bijou Hunter (Damaged and the Cobra (Damaged, #3))
“
The crew headed to Tequila Jodi’s for a celebration. Raven and Vaughn arrived an hour after everyone. They made up for their tardiness by binge drinking a bottle of tequila. Well, Vaughn did. Raven binged on a pitcher of Diet Coke.
“I might be binging for two!” she announced then sat down to look over the pictures of her niece and nephew.
Harlow showed up with Toni. While her mom joined Jodi at a back table, Harlow made a beeline for Winnie.
“Are you okay?” she asked, studying Winnie’s face.
“Yes. Are you?”
Harlow rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean.”
Winnie glanced at me and I saw such peace in her eyes. When she looked back at Harlow, her smile brightened.
“Lark and the babies are okay. Today is a good day.”
Hugging her sister, Winnie couldn’t stop smiling.
“Are you drunk?” Harlow asked.
“I’m happy.”
Harlow studied her sister again and checked her hands for new bruises. “Do you plan to sleep at home tonight?”
“No, I’m staying with Dylan.”
“Any bad memories about the baby?”
“Only hopeful thoughts about the future.”
Harlow frowned at me then shrugged. “I can imagine you two making a decent looking kid. Your pretty eyes and hair and his… well shaped head. Yeah, it’ll work.”
Running a hand over my head, I laughed. “My head shape is helluva sexy.”
Winnie’s calm infected Harlow who laughed and ordered a soda. The sisters danced with Bailey and Sawyer to Amos Moses. I knew Winnie wasn’t comfortable showing off in front of people. Whenever she got nervous, she glanced at me and relaxed.
“Wedding bells,” Nick said from beside me. “You didn’t waste any time.”
“She calms the asshole in me and I calm the broken girl in her. What’s there to wait for?”
Giving me a grin, Nick shrugged. “When you know, you know.
”
”
Bijou Hunter (Damaged and the Bulldog (Damaged, #6))
“
AMERICAN WHEAT OR RYE BEER Refreshing wheat or rye beers can display more hop character and less yeast character than their German cousins. This is a beginner-level style that can be brewed by extract or all-grain methods. Ferments at 65° F (18° C). OG FG IBU Color Alcohol 1.040-1.055 (10-13.6 °P) 1.008-1.013 (2.1-3.3 °P) 15-30 3-6 SRM 6-12 EBC 4-5.5% ABV 3.2-4.3% ABW Keys to Brewing American Wheat or Rye Beer: This easy-drinking beer style usually has a subtly grainy wheat character, slightly reminiscent of crackers. The hop flavor and aroma are more variable, with some versions having no hop character, while others have a fairly noticeable citrus or floral flair. Even when the hops are more prominent, they should not be overwhelming, and the hop bitterness should be balanced. The rye version of this style has a slight spicy, peppery note from the addition of rye in place of some or all of the wheat. The key mistake many brewers make is in assuming that American wheat beer should be similar to German hefeweizen. However, this style should not have the clove and banana character of a hefeweizen. This beer should not be as malty (bready) as a German hefeweizen, either, so all-grain brewers will want to use a less malty American two-row malt. To get the right fermentation profile, it is important to use a fairly neutral yeast strain, one that doesn’t produce a lot of esters like the German wheat yeasts do. While you can substitute yeast like White Labs WLP001 California Ale, Wyeast 1056 American Ale, or Fermentis Safale US-05, a better choice is one that provides some crispness, such as an altbier or Kölsch yeast, and fermentation at a cool temperature. RECIPE: KENT'S HOLLOW LEG It was the dead of winter and I was in Amarillo, Texas, on a business trip with Kent, my co-worker. That evening at dinner I watched as Kent drank a liter of soda, several glasses of water, and three or four liters of American wheat beer. I had a glass of water and one liter of beer, and I went to the bathroom twice. Kent never left the table. When I asked Kent about his superhuman bladder capacity, he thought it was due to years of working as a programmer glued to his computer and to the wonderful, easy-drinking wheat beer. This recipe is named in honor of Kent’s amazing bladder capacity. This recipe has a touch more hop character than many bottled, commercial examples on the market, but a lot less than some examples you might find. If you want less hop character, feel free to drop the late hop additions. If you really love hops and want to make a beer with lots of hop flavor and aroma, increase the late hop amounts as you see fit. However, going past the amounts listed below might knock it out of consideration in many competitions for being “too hoppy for style,” no matter how well it is brewed. OG: 1.052 (12.8 °P) FG: 1.012 (3.0 °P) ADF: 77% IBU: 20 Color: 5 SRM (10 EBC) Alcohol: 5.3% ABV (4.1% ABW) Boil: 60 minutes Pre-Boil Volume: 7 gallons (26.5L) Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.044 (11.0 °P) Extract Weight Percent Wheat LME (4 °L) 8.9 lbs. (4.03kg) 100 Hops IBU Willamette 5.0% AA, 60 min. 1.0 oz. (28g) 20.3 Willamette 5.0% AA, 0 min. 0.3 oz. (9g) 0 Centennial 9.0% AA, 0 min. 0.3 oz. (9g) 0 Yeast White Labs WLP320 American Hefeweizen, Wyeast 1010 American Wheat, or Fermentis Safale US-05 Fermentation and Conditioning Use 10 grams of properly rehydrated dry yeast, 2 liquid yeast packages, or make a starter. Ferment at 65° F (18° C). When finished, carbonate the beer to approximately 2.5 volumes. All-Grain Option Replace the wheat extract with 6 lbs. (2.72kg) American two-row malt and 6 lbs. (2.72kg) wheat malt. Mash at 152° F (67° C). Rye Option This beer can also be made with a portion of malted rye. The rye gives the beer a slightly spicy note and adds a certain creamy mouthfeel. Replace the wheat extract with 6 lbs. (2.72kg) American two-row malt, 3.75 lbs. (1.70kg) rye malt, and 3 lbs. (1.36kg) wheat malt. Mash at 152° F (67° C).
”
”
John J. Palmer (Brewing Classic Styles: 80 Winning Recipes Anyone Can Brew)
“
Mama and I walked back out of the woods just in time to hear Frannie squeal, "I want to stay here forever!" "Fine by me." Cleo smiled. She opened up her little red cooler and sloshed through the ice. She pulled out an orange soda bottle and passed it to my sister. "We can stay here all day, at least." "Cleo Harness?" yelled a familiar, husky voice from the edge of the woods. "Is that you?" "Pack up!" Cleo hollered. "We're leaving!" She kicked the cooler lid shut and stood up so fast that her camping chair stayed stuck to her behind.
”
”
Natalie Lloyd
“
Over a century timescale, a kilogram of methane is about 30 times as powerful as a kilogram of carbon dioxide. Now get this. There are billions of tons of methane in molecular cages of water ice, called “clathrates,” held tight in the permafrost soil of Earth’s northern regions and at the cold bottom of the ocean. As Siberia warms, and as the water that circulates along the seafloor warms, the clathrates in the sediments both on land and deep in the sea will release the trapped methane molecules. Once liberated, they’ll come bubbling up. The methane gas will come out in the same fashion that bubbles are released by opening a bottle of soda, or when you pop the cork on a bottle of champagne. Scientists don’t know yet how much methane clathrates will add to the warming process. But intuitively, when one considers how much permafrost there is, or used to be, it seems likely that there’s a lot of methane and a lot of potential for a lot of trouble. More important, the recent research into the possible impact of clathrates makes a crucial point: Yes, there are uncertainties in the climate projections, but many of those uncertainties are things that would make the warming much worse than restrained scientists are forecasting.
”
”
Bill Nye (Unstoppable: Harnessing Science to Change the World)
“
He slipped a dollar bill into a machine for a plastic soda bottle. Prices and plastic bottles with cute names signaled he was in the present day. That and the tattooed arm that reached for the bottle.
”
”
Jaime Allison Parker (The Delta Highway)
“
Szechuan Ginger Beer The schizoid effect of ginger on the palate — at once hot and cooling — is reinforced in this recipe with an added kick of aromatic Szechuan peppercorns. This pepper, named after its native Szechuan province of China, is the dried berry of prickly ash (Zanthoxylum spp.) and is not related to the vine peppercorn (Piper nigrum) commonly served at tables. It has a fruity, floral fragrance that is a wonderful complement to the pungency of ginger. This recipe does not begin with a flavor base. Follow the complete brewing instructions to make one gallon of Szechuan Ginger Beer. TO BREW 1 GALLON 31⁄2 quarts water 4 ounces fresh gingerroot, coarsely grated 1 tablespoon Szechuan peppercorns 1 pound sugar 2 tablespoons unflavored rice vinegar 1⁄8 teaspoon champagne yeast (Saccharomyces bayanus) Combine the water, ginger, and peppercorns in a large pot. Bring to a simmer over medium heat. Let simmer for 5 minutes, then add the sugar and vinegar, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Remove from the heat and let cool until the mixture reaches warm room temperature, from 75 to 80°F. Strain out the ginger and peppercorns. Add the yeast, stirring until it is completely dissolved. Pour the mixture into sanitized plastic bottles (see here) using a sanitized kitchen funnel, leaving 11⁄4 inches of air space at the top of each bottle. Seal the bottles. Store for 3 to 5 days at room temperature. When the bottles feel rock hard, the soda is fully carbonated. Refrigerate for at least 1 week before serving; drink within 3 weeks to avoid overcarbonation.
”
”
Andrew Schloss (Homemade Soda: 200 Recipes for Making & Using Fruit Sodas & Fizzy Juices, Sparkling Waters, Root Beers & Cola Brews, Herbal & Healing Waters, Sparkling ... & Floats, & Other Carbonated Concoctions)
“
I remembered my initial enthusiasm, when I was with the youth movement members at Beit Zera Kibbutz. We were kids and had arrived for our first visit there. When we saw the drinking fountain next to the dining room, we were surprised. There were water fountains, and next to them was a soda fountain one could drink from freely, without restrictions. We were not used to this phenomenon. In the Jordan Valley heat, it looked to us as a well of vital water to those whose thirst had almost finished them. We pounced on the soda fountain, as ones who could not believe their eyes. We drank and drank until we could not fit another drop in our stomachs. I remember when Michael, one of the Tiberias youth movement members, clung to the fountain and began drinking soda, one cup after another. Behind him stood a member of the Kibbutz in work clothes, who apparently, had also come to quench his thirst from the soda fountain. The member of the Kibbutz arrived with a pitcher, which he sought to fill with soda. Michael clung to the fountain and did not let him get near it until he had finished drinking. The member of the Kibbutz waited patiently with a smile on his face, perhaps wondering a little about these Tiberians. Maybe he thought they had never seen a soda fountain. Which we hadn’t, especially one that was freely accessible to everyone. It was something beyond our understanding. As he was sipping the soda, Michael began to explain to a member of the Kibbutz about this invention they were standing in front of. “It's free," said Michael. "Everything is free. You can drink and fill bottles as often as you want. It's all free." "Really.?" asked the member of the Kibbutz, at the sight of the youth movement member who was amazed at the sight of soda. I do not know if he said it sarcastically or in natural simplicity, so as not to embarrass Michael. After all, he saw a group of children attacking the soda fountain, like a found treasure.
”
”
Nahum Sivan (Till We Say Goodbye)
“
A 2 liter soda bottle is my best friend.
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”
Diphallic Dude (Double Header: My Life with Two Penises)
“
CAKE whole black peppercorns whole cloves whole cardamom 1 cinnamon stick 2 cups flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 teaspoon baking soda ½ teaspoon salt 3 large eggs 1 large egg yolk 1 cup sour cream 1½ sticks (6 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature 1 cup sugar 2 large pieces fresh ginger root (¼ cup, tightly packed, when finely grated) zest from 2 to 3 oranges (1½ teaspoons finely grated) Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter and flour a 6-cup Bundt pan. Grind your peppercorns, cloves, and cardamom and measure out ¼ teaspoon of each. (You can use pre-ground spices, but the cake won’t taste as good.) Grind your cinnamon stick and measure out 1 teaspoon. (Again, you can use ground cinnamon if you must.) Whisk the flour with the baking powder, baking soda, spices, and salt in a small bowl. In another small bowl, whisk the eggs and egg yolk into the sour cream. Set aside. Cream the butter and sugar in a stand mixer until the mixture is light, fluffy, and almost white. This should take about 3 minutes. Grate the ginger root—this is a lot of ginger—and the orange zest. Add them to the butter/sugar mixture. Beat the flour mixture and the egg mixture, alternating between the two, into the butter until each addition is incorporated. The batter should be as luxurious as mousse. Spoon batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 40 minutes, until cake is golden and a wooden skewer comes out clean. Remove to a rack and cool in the pan for 10 minutes. SOAK ½ cup bourbon 1½ tablespoons sugar While the cake cools in its pan, simmer the bourbon and the sugar in a small pot for about 4 minutes. It should reduce to about ⅓ cup. While the cake is still in the pan, brush half the bourbon mixture onto its exposed surface (the bottom of the cake) with a pastry brush. Let the syrup soak in for a few minutes, then turn the cake out onto a rack. Gently brush the remaining mixture all over the cake. GLAZE ¾ cup powdered sugar, sifted or put through a strainer 5 teaspoons orange juice Once the cake is cooled, mix the sugar with the orange juice and either drizzle the glaze randomly over the cake or put it into a squeeze bottle and do a controlled drizzle. AUTHOR’S NOTE This is a work of fiction.
”
”
Ruth Reichl (Delicious!)
“
They moved the soda machine into the men’s room?” Nicole asked. “Because if that’s the case, I’m now a big fan of bottled water.
”
”
Shawn Goodwin (Only Son)
“
Mr. Italia sat belching under a pair of oval-framed photographs of parents hairier, if possible, than himself. His wife was dead, but there was a picture of her, too, in her casket, gazing out at us with an eerie simulacrum of motherly love. Dark-complected Mr. Italia was indeed, with handle-bar mustaches of a size that might have made him topple forward out of his chair were it not for the posture seemingly aimed at correcting the leverage in his favor. He drank beer after thrusting into my hand a bottle of soda pop of marked but unidentifiable flavor, pale yellow in color, and lukewarm.
”
”
Peter De Vries (The Blood of the Lamb)
“
Rebecca’s image of herself had been stamped in puberty, tall and gangly, skin hyper-pigmented with spots, and soda-bottle bottom bifocals to correct eyes that had crossed at age five. Now thirty-seven years old, she stood a full six feet, with erect posture and a decisive stride. Her fiery red hair, dramatically set off against a canvas of what now registered as sparkling freckles, as the result of a recessive gene on chromosome sixteen. With high cheekbones, a narrow nose, flush lips, she presented a striking image. Her brown, almond-shaped eyes, surgically uncrossed at age twelve, shimmered when she smiled.
”
”
Michael Abramson (Rebecca Tree)
“
To the average eye, my bedroom was a complete disaster. The floor was hardly visible with all of the empty soda bottles, chip bags, and piles of clothes covering it. The rustic nightstand by my bed was so cluttered with papers, more soda bottles, notebooks, and hoodies that it looked like a pile of contemporary art. And my bed? It was just a pile of dark blue blankets and pillows scattered on an old mattress. What’s the point in making your bed, anyway? You’re just gonna mess it up and unmake it at the end of the day. Why even bother? My bedroom might look like a mess to anyone else, but to me, it was my own personal oasis. I liked it just the way it was. I never bought the whole saying, “A cluttered room is a cluttered mind.” Me? Cluttered? Nah. More like creative. The more cluttered your room is, the more creative you are. And judging by my room, I must be pretty creative. I
”
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Savannah Ostler (Happily Ever After High School)
“
In our opinion, Coke is great from a can, still good from a bottle, yet hard to get just right from the fountain. But oh, when they do get it right, it tastes good enough to be an eighth wonder of the world.
”
”
Alecia Whitaker (Wildflower (Wildflower, #1))
“
Ingredients 1 large bottle white grape juice 4 drops red food color (or blue food color for the blue soda) 1 two-liter bottle of 7-Up (or similar product) 2 cups strawberry sherbet (or blueberry sherbet for the blue soda) Directions 1. Add food coloring to the white grape juice. 2. Pour the juice and the soda into a large pitcher. 3. Add sherbet and serve.
”
”
Sharon M. Draper (The Dazzle Disaster Dinner Party (Sassy #4))
“
hatch our survival plan in the coolest place we could find. We made our way into the cluttered room at the windowed front of the deckhouse—what our boat builders back in Hong Kong called the “lavish grand salon” in their sales brochures. With us, it was more like the messy rumpus room. True, the room had, as advertised, “a curved couch, sleek teak paneling, and hardwood cabinetry with a built-in sink.” But the sink had dirty dishes and empty soda bottles in it, the paneled walls were cluttered with a collection of my parents’ favorite treasures (including a conquistador helmet, a rare African tribal mask, a grog jug shaped like a frog, a rusty cannonball from a Confederate gunboat, a bronze clock covered with cherubs that probably belonged to King Louis XIV, and, in a glass shadow box, a rusty steak knife from the Titanic). There were assorted trinkets, necklaces, and coconut heads suspended from the ceiling. Add a heap of scuba and snorkel gear and assorted socks, shoes, and T-shirts on the floor (the floor is our laundry basket), and our grand salon looked more like a live-in recycling bin. “Have we even seen a map for this treasure hunt?” asked Beck. “Nope. Dad just said we needed to be in the Caymans.” “Then we need to find his map.
”
”
James Patterson (Treasure Hunters - FREE PREVIEW EDITION (The First 10 Chapters))
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Sniff, swill, sip 329 words Leading whisky expert Charles MacLean on the underrated art of downing a good Scotch. USE ALL YOUR SENSES We all love a splash of golden liquor now and then, but the fine art of appreciating whisky requires a heightening of the senses. 'Nosing' whisky, a technique employed by blenders, is called sensory evaluation or analeptic assessment. Prior to sipping, examine its colour and 'tears', which are the reams left behind on the glass after you swirl it. Even our sense of hearing can help us judge the whisky; a full bottle should open with a happy little pluck of the cap. APPRECIATE A GOOD MALT Appreciation and enjoyment are two dimensions of downing a stiff one. Identify how you like your whisky (with ice, soda or water) and stick with it. Getting sloshed on blended whisky is all very good, but you will need single malt and an understanding of three simple things to truly cherish your drink. A squat glass with a bulb at the bottom releases the full burst of its aroma when swilled. A narrow rim is an added advantage. Instead of topping the drink with ice, which dilutes the aroma, go for water. NIBBLE, DON'T GOBBLE Small bites pair best with your whisky. It excites the palate minimally, letting you detect the characteristics of the whisky through contrast. If you're not a big fan of food and whisky pairing, skip it. OLD IS GOLD While old whiskies are not necessarily better, it's a known fact that most of the finer whiskies are well-aged. I would consider whiskies that are anywhere between 18 and 50 years as old, but it also depends on the age of the cask. If the cask is reactive, it will dominate the flavours of the whisky within ten years of the ageing process. If you leave the spirit in the cask for much longer, the flavour of the whisky will be overpowered by the wood, lending it a distinct edge. Maclean was in Delhi to conduct the Singleton Sensorial experience.
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”
Anonymous
“
During the bus ride, our only sustenance was stuff we’d scored from vending machines—a bag of chips, a sleeve of cookies, a bottle of soda. I ate the food. Sam wolfed down the wrappers and the plastic bottle. “Do you always eat trash?” I’d asked, more curious than disgusted. “You think what’s inside the packaging is any better?” He had a point. Some of those ingredients sounded as deadly as the
”
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Rick Riordan (Demigods of Olympus: An Interactive Adventure)
“
During the bus ride, our only sustenance was stuff we’d scored from vending machines—a bag of chips, a sleeve of cookies, a bottle of soda. I ate the food. Sam wolfed down the wrappers and the plastic bottle. “Do you always eat trash?” I’d asked, more curious than disgusted. “You think what’s inside the packaging is any better?” He had a point. Some of those ingredients sounded as deadly as the monsters. The
”
”
Rick Riordan (Demigods of Olympus: An Interactive Adventure)
“
accepted her suggestion that he grab a bottled water from the fridge for the road. Her fridge held water, soda, and milk. Nothing else. What did she eat? He should
”
”
Kendra Elliot (Vanished (Callahan & McLane, #1))
“
I have no musical talent. My clarinet sounded like an apoplectic yak. For the brief days I blew the trumpet, a hostile-sounding pig snorted along in jerky fits and starts with the rest of the irritated band. I never knew when a sound was actually going to come out of the horn and it always startled me when it did. My violin unleashed a trio of enraged, tone-deaf banshees, and I couldn’t blow the flute well enough to make any more sound than with my lower lip on a soda bottle. Something about the pucker eluded me. The drums turned my arms into a pretzel-prison from which there was no escape. I would have given the tambourine a try—I really think I might have excelled at the hip-bump—but sadly the instrument wasn’t offered at my school. I think that’s why I love my iPod so much. I have music in my soul and can’t get it out.
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Karen Marie Moning (Burned (Fever #7))
“
According to a meta-analysis of clinical trials evaluating fructose intake, 25 to 40 grams of fructose per day has no negative impact on our health.12 That’s 3 to 6 bananas, 6 to 10 cups of strawberries, 10 to 15 cherries, or 2 to 3 apples per day. Or, as the old advice goes, a few servings of fruit every day. Problems with fructose intake are only seen among those who regularly eat large amounts of refined sugars, like HFCS or sucrose. For instance, a 20-ounce bottle of soda sweetened with HFCS contains about 35 grams of fructose. One gram of sucrose is about half glucose, half fructose, so if you eat a dessert with 50 grams of sugar, you’re getting about 25 grams of fructose. Even agave nectar, which is touted as healthy by many due to its low-glycemic properties, can be as high as 90 percent fructose. Other less processed forms can be as
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Michael Matthews (Bigger Leaner Stronger: The Simple Science of Building the Ultimate Male Body)
“
When you're ten, the worst ideas in the world can somehow seem like the greatest ideas ever imagined. That's why my friends and I jumped off roofs and swung bats at wasps' nests and shoved our penises into thin-necked soda bottles. Not because any of those decisions were particularly smart, but because we could.
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Justin McFarr (The Bear Who Broke the World)
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answer, just strode into the parking lot with rigid shoulders. I couldn’t hear exactly what he was saying, but there were a lot of fuck yous and kiss my asses. I added “phone etiquette” to the growing list of things Knox Morgan was bad at. He returned looking even angrier. Ignoring me, he produced a wallet and fished out a few bills, then fed them into the soda machine. “What do you want?” he muttered. “Uh. Water, please.” He punched the buttons harder than I thought necessary. And a bottle of water and two Yellow Lightnings fell out onto the ground. “Here.” He shoved the water at me and headed back to the room. “Uh. Thanks?” I called after him. I debated for about thirty seconds whether or not I should just start walking until I found a new reality that was less terrible. But it was just a mental exercise. There was no way I could walk away. I had a new responsibility. And with that responsibility would come some sense of purpose. Probably. I returned to my room and found Knox examining the lock on the door. “No finesse,” he complained. “Told her she should’ve picked it,” Waylay said, cracking open her soda. “It’s barely eight
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Lucy Score (Things We Never Got Over (Knockemout, #1))
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When you shake a soda bottle, don’t be surprised when it explodes all over you.
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Dipti Dhakul (Quote: +/-)
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You’ll notice that I use these ingredients again and again in lots of different formulations, so it’s a good idea to just keep them in the house. 3% hydrogen peroxide (what you get in the brown bottle): a whitener, stain-remover, and chlorine bleach alternative. Borax: Borax, or sodium borate, is a naturally occurring mineral. While it is not as gentle as baking soda, it mixes well with lemon, vinegar, and water for cleaning purposes and does clean quite well when used properly. See here (bathroom) for my favorite Borax trick. Cornstarch: Used in glass cleaner; super soft, provides the most gentle abrasion, and wipes off streak-free. Cream of tartar: Can remove stains when combined with vinegar or lemon juice. Rubbing alcohol: A quick-drying agent for some of my recipes and a dissolver of oil and grease. It is also known to disinfect. White vinegar: Can be used as a deodorizer, degreaser, stainless-steel cleaner, glass cleaner, and it does away with soap scum and limescale. Lemon can do almost anything that vinegar does, but there are practical reasons why I recommend vinegar, not least of all the ridiculousness of having to juice a bunch of lemons before cleaning. You can always sub in lemon juice for vinegar if you want to, but be aware that a product with lemon juice in it will go rancid, where vinegar will not, so any big batch meant to last for a while should contain vinegar. Remember, you can always amp up your vinegar game with 6 percent or 10 percent acidity.
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Melissa Maker (Clean My Space: The Secret to Cleaning Better, Faster, and Loving Your Home Every Day)
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However, the words died on my tongue when I stepped fully onto the rooftop and saw what he’d planned for our first date. Oh my God. A giant standing TV screen dominated one side of the rooftop, kitty-corner to a table covered with every snack one could think of. There were white ceramic dishes filled with M&M’s, pretzels, gummy bears, and other candies I couldn’t identify at this distance; plates groaning with chips, cookies, and sundry snacks; massive bowls containing six different types of popcorn; and a full charcuterie board. A champagne bucket sat next to tea, coffee, and three bottles of wine (one red, one white, one rosé). Beneath the table, a glass-fronted minifridge boasted an assortment of water, juice, and soda. Area rugs and potted plants scattered across the floor, lending the scene a cozy feel. Strategically placed candles and the canopy of lights overhead illuminated the rooftop in lieu of the setting sun while portable heat lamps warded off the cold. However, the real star of the show was the giant mattress laid out in front of the screen. Piled high with pillows, cushions, and cashmere blankets, it looked so cozy I wanted to dive right into the middle and never get up. The entire setup was so cheesy, it looked like something out of a rom-com. And I loved it.
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Ana Huang (King of Sloth (Kings of Sin, #4))
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The pace quickened after the first automatic glass bottle machine was built in the 1890s, making possible the soft drink brands like Coca-Cola (as opposed to being dispensed in bulk from soda fountains).
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Joe Coulombe (Becoming Trader Joe: How I Did Business My Way and Still Beat the Big Guys)
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I am speaking from experience when I tell you that you will wind up the emotional equivalent of Pop Rocks in a bottle of soda. You'll bubble over and you'll burst, and it would be better if you let it out rather than let it fester and explode.
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Alexandria Bellefleur (Hang the Moon (Written in the Stars, #2))
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Nothing could be easier, on the face of it, than this stupid scullion work, but it is astonishing hard when one is in a hurry. (...) You are, for example, making toast, when bang! down comes a service lift with an order for tea, rolls, and three different kinds of jam and simultaneously bang! down comes another demanding scrambled eggs, coffee and grapefruit; you run to the kitchen for the eggs and to the dining-room for the fruit, going like lightening so as to be back before your toast burns, and having to remember about the tea and coffee, besides half a dozen other orders that are still pending; and at the same time some waiter is following you and making trouble about a lost bottle of soda-water, and you are arguing with him. It needs more brains than one might think. Mario said, no doubt truly, that it took a year to make a reliable cafetier.
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George Orwell (Down and Out in Paris and London)
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There was a strong, vocal movement against Coca-Cola bottling plants being built in the country, and the term “coca-colonization” had been coined to describe this supposed insidiousness of the beverage company and its attempt to overtake French beverages in market share. Even vintners saw the soda pop as a direct competitor to their wines and brandies.
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Colleen Cambridge (Mastering the Art of French Murder (An American in Paris, #1))
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Here are seven categories of foods that should be avoided if pain and inflammation are a major symptom of your arthritis. 1. Animal Milk Products
(Milk, Cream, Ice Cream, Cheese, Cottage Cheese, Yogurt) 2. Hydrogenated oils
(Non-Dairy Creamer, Crackers, Cookies, Chips, Snack Bars) 3. Nitrates
(Hot Dogs, Cold Cuts, Pepperoni, Sausage, Bacon, Liverwurst) 4. Processed Sugars
(Candy, Soda, Bread, Bottled Fruit Juice, Cookies, Snack Bars) 5. Nightshades
(Potatoes, Peppers, Tomatoes, Eggplant, Paprika) 6. Convenience Foods
(French Fries, Onion Rings, Loaded Baked Potatoes, Fatty Burgers, Mexican Food, Pizza, Calzones, Stromboli) 7. Processed White Flour Products
(Flour, Bread, Pasta, Pizza, Crackers, Pretzels, Donuts) Are you surprised?
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Mark Wiley (Arthritis Reversed: Groundbreaking 30 Day Arthritis Relief Action Plan)
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In an experiment she conducted while still a graduate student, Cheryan commandeered space in Stanford’s Gates Computer Science Building, creating what she called a “stereotypical” classroom and a “non-stereotypical” classroom. The stereotypical classroom was filled with soda cans, books of science-fiction fantasy, and Star Trek and Star Wars posters. The non-stereotypical classroom featured accoutrements like nature posters, literary novels, and bottles of water. After spending time in each room, undergraduates were surveyed about how interested they were in computer science and how well they thought they would perform in that discipline. Following a few minutes in the stereotypical room, male students reported a high level of interest in pursuing computer science; female students indicated much less interest than their male counterparts. But after they spent time in the non-stereotypical room, women’s interest in computer science increased markedly—actually exceeding that of the men. Subsequent research by Cheryan has found that women exposed to a non-stereotypical classroom are more likely to predict that they will perform well in computer science courses, whereas men tend to predict that they will succeed regardless of which room they encounter. That’s important, says Cheryan, because “we know from past work in psychology that how well you expect to do in a certain environment can determine how you actually perform.
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Annie Murphy Paul (The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain)
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When it was first introduced in 1689, people consumed around 20 to 30 teaspoons of sugar throughout the course of their entire lifetime. That is roughly the equivalent of one 20-ounce soda or one serving of conventional yogurt in your life. Can you believe that? Or better, can you imagine that? Drinking the equivalent of only a single bottle of Coke in your entire lifetime? Almost 400 years later, the average American consumes 130 to 158 pounds of sugar per year!3 This means that many of us are consuming more than our body weight in sugar annually.
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Christa Orecchio (How to Conceive Naturally: And Have a Healthy Pregnancy after 30)
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Our tastes are learned in the context of immense social influences, whether from our family, our friends, or the cheery font on a bottle of soda.
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Bee Wilson (First Bite: How We Learn to Eat)
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Anyone care for a drink?” Rolly asked as he pulled out a bottle of Bulliet bourbon whiskey. It was his favorite drink, and the girls had been nice enough to pick him up a bottle a few days before. “I’ll take a sip,” I said with a nod. I guessed that his willingness to share it with us said a lot about how he felt. I tossed the meat into the skillet along with a handful of morel mushrooms that looked like they had been picked fresh today. Then I accepted the bottle of whiskey and took a sip. The alcohol warmth was a nice way to end the day. I passed it back to the old man. “We should grab a bottle of soda. We worked hard today and can use the calories.” “Plus, I noticed that some of it started to go flat,” Bailey said. “I don’t know about you guys but I would rather drink it while it still has the bubbles.” “At least it still makes a decent mixer when it’s flat,” Tara said with a shrug. “I’ll go grab some kitchenware and soda,” Anna volunteered with a chuckle. “Just don’t eat all of that meat without me. It is starting to smell really good.” The meat sizzled in the pan as one side of it started to sear, and the smell of fresh cooked meat mixed with the wild mushrooms started to fill the air. “Don’t worry, Tav has enough meat for all of us,” Tara teased. “He most certainly does,” Paige agreed as she stared at me with a hungry look in her eyes. “I just want some of that venison,” Rolly said as he shook his head. “You guys have to wait until I go to bed to eat anything else.” “Of course, we aren't animals,” Bailey said. “Speak for yourself,” Paige growled as she shot her friend a wicked grin.
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Eric Vall (Without Law 2 (Without Law, #2))
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At the liquor store, Buster, emboldened by the feeling that he had made friends for the first time in years, used almost the absolute last of the cash in his wallet to buy all the alcohol the soldiers wanted. He felt warm and authentic inside his new clothes and thought, handing over all he owned to the liquor-store clerk, that he could live here forever. Now it was Buster’s turn. He leaned over a massive air cannon mounted on a tripod, which the soldiers referred to as Air Force One. Instead of potatoes, the gun used two-liter soda bottles as ammunition. “See, we don’t like to call them spud guns,” said David, who seemed, as the night progressed, to become more tightly wound. “Some shoot ping-pong balls and some shoot soda bottles and some shoot tennis balls that you fill with pennies.
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Kevin Wilson (The Family Fang)
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I watched in slow motion as the palette of diet sodas sunk an inch, shaking each bottle just enough so a tiny mint that was hidden in each of the bottle caps dropped into the carbonated beverage.
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Marcus Emerson (Extra Large Soda Jerk (Secret Agent 6th Grader, #3))
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Could you open bottles using nuclear bombs? This is a completely ridiculous suggestion, so it should come as no surprise that it was studied by the US government during the Cold War. Early in 1955, the Federal Civil Defense Administration bought beer, soda, and carbonated water from local stores, then tested nuclear weapons on them.
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Randall Munroe (How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems)
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we in detention are given at most a bottle of Coke from the soda machine here, and that’s supposed to keep us from escaping?” Capesius said that “my [Auschwitz] inmates were better nourished.
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Patricia Posner (The Pharmacist of Auschwitz: The Untold Story)
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Sharing is one of the most challenging social skills for all children to learn. The limits are so unclear. Moms and Dads don’t share their cars with the neighbors, and yet kids are supposed to. Mom takes a sip of Dad’s soda, but a toddler isn’t supposed to snitch a drink from someone else’s bottle. We share some things but not everything. It is all very confusing.
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Mary Sheedy Kurcinka (Raising Your Spirited Child: A Guide for Parents Whose Child is More Intense, Sensitive, Perceptive, Persistent, and Energetic)
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On the table behind the built-in bar stood opened bottles of gin, bourbon, scotch, soda, and other various mixers. The bar itself was covered with little delicacies of all descriptions: chips, dips, and little crackers and squares of bread laced with the usual dabs of egg salad and sardine paste. There was a platter of delicious fried chicken wings and a pan of potato-and-egg salad dressed with vinegar. Bowls of lives and pickles surrounded the main dishes, along with trays of red crabapples and little sweet onions on toothpicks. But the centerpiece of the whole table was a huge platter of succulent and thinly sliced roast beef set into an underpan of cracked ice. Upon the beige platter each slice of rare meat had been lovingly laid out and individually folded up into a vulval pattern with a tiny dab of mayonnaise at the crucial apex. The pink-brown folded meat around the pale cream-yellow dot formed suggestive sculptures that made a great hit with all the women present. Petey– at whose house the party was being given and the creator of the meat sculptures– smilingly acknowledged the many compliments on her platter with a long-necked graceful nod of her elegant dancer’s head.
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Audre Lorde (Zami: A New Spelling of My Name)
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All-Natural, All-Purpose Cleaner Combine 1 teaspoon borax, ½ teaspoon washing soda, and 1 teaspoon liquid Castile soap in a spray bottle. Add 2 cups warm distilled water. Add a few drops of the essential oils of your choice (such as lemon, lavender, or orange). Put the spray top on the bottle and shake well. Use on bathroom surfaces, kitchen counters, and elsewhere.—courtesy of Katie Wells, Wellness Mama4
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Joshua Becker (The Minimalist Home: A Room-By-Room Guide to a Decluttered, Refocused Life)
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would arrive armed with a bottle of Scotch; then Ali Sardar would send for soda and biryani from a restaurant,
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Khushwant Singh (The Good, the Bad and the Ridiculous: Profiles)
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FORTY-EIGHT She is almost fifteen when her father shows his true colors. It is the garage again. This time she is looking for empty plastic soda bottles for a school project. The recycling bin will have plenty. It is mid-afternoon on a weekday. Her school dismissed early due to a bomb threat that turned out to be nothing more than rumors. All of her friends went out to lunch, but Pea is home. She hasn’t felt like doing much of anything since The Day Her World Shattered. Her father is up her ass about school on a daily basis though, so she decides to get an early start on her project. This time, it’s not a gaggle of men that she sees. Instead it is only her father. He stands over his handiwork, chest heaving, a look of bloodlust and absolute satiation on his face that sends Pea’s stomach plummeting. Before she can turn away, he sees her. He smiles. A voice in her mind tells her to run but where would she go? This is it. This is what she has in life. This is her life. She can run, but this man will always be her father. She hears something dripping, sees her father turn toward her, hands at his sides. He says, “I had to, Pea.
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Lisa Regan (Local Girl Missing (Detective Josie Quinn, #15))
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You’ll need 1 tablespoon Epsom salts 1 teaspoon baking soda 1½ cups distilled water, warmed 1 teaspoon lemon juice 1 teaspoon argan oil Directions Combine the Epsom salts, baking soda, and warm water in a bottle. Shake gently to mix. Next, add the lemon juice and argan oil. Mix gently. Wash and rinse hair as usual. Apply a generous amount of the Epsom salt rinse to your hair and work it from the scalp to the tips. For extra texture, don’t rinse your hair. For less texture and more shine, rinse gently with warm water. Style
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Josephine Simon (All-Natural Hair Care: 101 Homemade Hair Care Recipes for Shampoos, Conditioners, Hair Styling, and Treatments for Beautiful, Healthy, Shiny Hair (DIY Beauty Products))
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Exploring THC Lean: A Sweet New Way to Enjoy Cannabis
If you’re looking to elevate your cannabis experience, THC Lean is a game changer that has been gaining popularity among enthusiasts. This new product combines the joys of traditional cannabis consumption with the sweetness of syrup, creating a unique way to enjoy THC.
What is THC Lean?
THC Lean is a cannabis-infused syrup that can be mixed with your favorite beverages or consumed on its own. With its rich, syrupy texture, it offers a delicious alternative to smoking or vaping. Many users appreciate the ease of use and the ability to customize their dosing. Whether you’re looking to relax after a long day or enhance a social gathering, THC Lean provides a versatile option.
How to Use THC Lean
Using THC Lean is simple and fun. You can add it to various drinks, such as sodas, lemonades, or even cocktails, creating a flavorful twist that elevates your beverage experience. For those who prefer a more direct approach, it can be consumed straight from the bottle, making it convenient for on-the-go enjoyment.
When trying THC Lean for the first time, it’s essential to start with a small dose to gauge your tolerance. As with any cannabis product, the effects can vary based on individual tolerance levels, so take your time to find the perfect amount for you.
Why Choose THC Lean?
Flavorful Experience: THC Lean is available in various flavors, allowing you to choose one that suits your taste. Whether you prefer fruity, sweet, or even herbal flavors, there’s a THC Lean syrup for you.
Discreet Consumption: For those who want to enjoy cannabis without drawing attention, THC Lean provides a discreet option. It resembles regular syrup, making it easy to use in social settings without raising eyebrows.
Customizable Dosing: One of the best features of THC Lean is the ability to control your dosage. This allows users to tailor their experience, whether they prefer a mild buzz or a more intense high.
Conclusion
In conclusion, THC Lean offers a delicious and versatile way to enjoy cannabis. With its sweet flavors and customizable dosing, it’s perfect for both newcomers and seasoned users alike. If you’re looking to try something new, consider adding THC Lean to your cannabis repertoire.
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thc lean