Threw A Party Quotes

Thanks for looking out for her, Sage. You're okay. For a human." I almost laughed. "Thanks." "You can say it too, you know." I walked over to Latte and paused. "Say what?" "That I'm okay...for a vampire," he explained. I shook my head, still smiling. "You'll have a hard time getting any Alchemist to admit that. But I can say you're okay for an irreverent party boy with occasional moments of brilliance." "Brilliant? You think I'm brilliant?" He threw his hands skyward. "You hear that, world? Sage says I'm brilliant.

Ronan's bedroom door burst open. Hanging on the door frame, Ronan leaned out to peer past Gansey. He was doing that thing where he looked like both the dangerous Ronan he was now and the cheerier Ronan he had been when Gansey first met him. "Hold on," Gansey told Adam. Then, to Ronan: "Why would he be?" "No reason. Just no reason." Ronan slammed his door. Gansey asked Adam, "Sorry. You still have that suit for the party?" Adam's response was buried in the sound of the second-story door falling open. Noah slouched in. In a wounded tone, he said, "He threw me out the window!" Ronan's voice sang out from behind his closed door: "You're already dead!

But I can say you’re okay for an irreverent party boy with occasional moments of brilliance.” “Brilliant? You think I’m brilliant?” He threw his hands skyward. “You hear that, world? Sage says I’m brilliant.” “That’s not what I said!” ... “Come on, Sage. You understand how my mind works. You said I was brilliant, remember?” Eddie glanced at me in surprise. “You did?” “No! I never said that.” Adrian’s smile was infuriating. “Stop telling people that.

You forget all of it anyway. First, you forget everything you learned-the dates of the Hay-Herran Treaty and Pythagorean Theorem. You especially forget everything you didn't really learn, but just memorized the night before. You forget the names of all but one or two of your teachers, and eventually you'll forget those, too. You forget your junior class schedule and where you used to sit and your best friend's home phone number and the lyrics to that song you must have played a million times. For me, it was something by Simon & Garfunkel. Who knows what it will be for you? And eventually, but slowly, oh so slowly, you forget your humiliations-even the ones that seemed indelible just fade away. You forget who was cool and who was not, who was pretty, smart, athletic, and not. Who went to a good college. Who threw the best parties Who could get you pot. You forget all of them. Even the ones you said you loved, and even the ones you actually did. They're the last to go. And then once you've forgotten enough, you love someone else.

I threw an etiquette party and served nothing but beans and sparkling water. The topic of conversation was ‘excuse me’.

In March several of the Mandrakes threw a loud and raucous party in greenhouse three. This made Professor Sprout very happy. “The moment they start trying to move into each other’s pots, we’ll know they’re fully mature,” she told Harry.

I threw my 20th birthday party at Brown, and I didn’t even have to say to anyone not to put pictures on Facebook. Not a single picture went up. That was when I knew I’d found a solid group of friends, and I felt like I belonged.

so my grandmother was not without humanity. and if she wore cocktail dresses when she labored in the garden, they were cocktail dresses she no longer intended to wear to cocktail parties. even in her rose garden she did not want to appear underdressed. if the dresses got too dirty from gardening, she threw them out. when my mother suggested to her that she might have them cleaned, my grandmother said, "what? and have those people at the cleaners what i was doing in a dress to make it that dirty?" from my grandmother i learned that logic is relative.

Perhaps, but Anna was right,” said Cordelia. “We must speak to more Downworlders regardless. There was much talk of Magnus Bane—” “Ah, Magnus Bane,” said Matthew. “My personal hero.” “Indeed, you once described him as ‘Oscar Wilde if he had magic powers,’ ” said James. “Magnus Bane threw a party in Spain I attended,” said Thomas. “It was a little difficult, since I did not know a soul. I got rather drunk.” Matthew lowered the flask with a grin. “Is that when you got your tattoo?” “So does that mean you’re close friends with Magnus Bane, Thomas?” said Lucie. “Can you reach out to him for help?” “He never even made an appearance at the party,” said Thomas.

Is Noah out here?” “Hold on,” Gansey told Adam. Then, to Ronan: “Why would he be?” “No reason. Just no reason.” Ronan slammed his door. Gansey asked Adam, “Sorry. You still have that suit for the party?” Adam’s response was buried in the sound of the second-story door falling open. Noah slouched in. In a wounded tone, he said, “He threw me out the window!” Ronan’s voice sang out from behind his closed door: “You’re already dead!

...I can say you’re okay for an irreverent party boy with occasional moments of brilliance.” “Brilliant? You think I’m brilliant?” He threw his hands skyward. “You hear that, world? Sage says I’m brilliant.

Pauline: "All under-fives are mad Adrian, you used to talk to the moon. You invited it to your birthday party and cried when it didn't turn up." George: "When it went dark and the moon came up, you ran outside and threw a sausage roll at it!

You bagged a movie star. You should be throwing a fucking party and bragging on Twitter. What you shouldn’t be doing is moping, not when you threw him out of your house like a baller.

All this was lies. It was nasty, baseless, and ridiculous—there was far more evidence of anti-Semitism in the Occupy movement than there was evidence of racism within the Tea Party. But that didn’t stop the media from trying. In fact, they and their friends tried so hard to label the Tea Party racist that they stooped to planting faux racists, including faux Nazis, at Tea Parties, just to gin up racial controversy. The Tea Parties threw the infiltrators out.

...I can say you’re okay for an irreverent party boy with occasional moments of brilliance.” “Brilliant? You think I’m brilliant?” He threw his hands skyward. “You hear that, world? Sage says I’m brilliant.

You'll have a hard time getting any Alchemist to admit that. But I can say you're okay for an irreverent party boy with occasional moments of brilliance." "Brilliant? You think I'm Brilliant?" He threw his hands skyward. "You hear that world? Sage says I'm brilliant." "That's not what I said!" He dropped the cigarette and stamped it out, giving me a devil-may-care grin. "Thanks for the ego boost. I'm going to go and tell Clarence and Lee all about your high opinion." "Hey, I didn't-" But he was already gone.

What do you think? The last party she threw for you, you came home with an inflatable cock on your head as a tiara, totally drunk, singing ‘Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!’ and carrying a huge basket full of sex toys.

The angels threw glitter up there, just for you, Zoe, Daddy had told her. They celebrated almost as much as I did the day you were born. Every time you look up there you remember how special you are - so special the angels threw a big party.

I used to work at a pizza place. Instead of giving me a raise, my boss threw me a pizza party. He made me make all the food.

Outside the window, people threw dinner parties.

Hell, my parents forgot my birthday, yet threw a freaking party for the family Chihuahua.

I smiled and got myself a slice of pizza that was now lukewarm. I threw a party and everyone was having fun.

And oh, heaven - the crowded playhouse, the stench of perfume upon heated bodies, the silly laughter and the clatter, the party in the Royal box - the King himself present - the impatient crowd in the cheap seats stamping and shouting for the play to begin while they threw orange peel on to the stage.

In Silicon Valley, entrepreneurs and their backers got drunk on the overflowing optimism and abundant venture capital and threw a two-year-long party. Capital was cheap, opportunities seemed limitless, and pineapple-infused-vodka martinis were everywhere.

The noise from the party raging downstairs seeped into my quiet space. I palmed my blue and red bouncy ball as I lay on my bed facing the wall. I threw it in the air a few times to watch the colors blur together before bouncing it off the wall above my headboard.

It is a natural propensity to attribute misfortune to someone’s malignity. When prices rise, it is due to the profiteer; when wages fall, it is due to the capitalist. Why the capitalist is ineffective when wages rise, and the profiteer when prices fall, the man in the street does not inquire. Nor does he notice that wages and prices rise and fall together. If he is a capitalist, he wants wages to fall and prices to rise; if he is a wage earner, he wants the opposite. When a currency expert tries to explain that profiteers and trade unions and ordinary employers have very little to do with the matter, he irritates everybody, like the man who threw doubt on German atrocities. (In World War I) We do not like to be robbed of an enemy; we want someone to have when we suffer. It is so depressing to think taht we suffer because we are fools; yet taking mankind in mass, that is the truth. For this reason, no political party can acquire any driving force except through hatred; it must hold someone to obloquy. If so-and-so’s wickedness is the sole cause of our misery, let us punish so-and-so and we shall be happy. The supreme example of this kind of political thought was the Treaty of Versailles. Yet most people are only seeking some new scapegoat to replace the Germans.

Kim was a pariah, arguably the world’s greatest abuser of human rights, and committed to nuclear armament. But Trump threw Kim a party, showering him with respect and declaring himself honored to be in his presence. The summit was carefully staged to put both leaders on equal footing, which normalized the authoritarian Kim.

She is frightened by the capriciousness of luck: the plain-colored tablets that can expand your mind or turn it upside down; the men randomly chosen and shipped to Cam Ranh Bay and the mountain Dong Ap Bia, in whose bamboo thickets and twelve-foot elephant grass a thousand men were found dead. She has a classmate at PS 42, Eugene Bogopolski, whose three brothers were sent to Vietnam when Varya and Eugene were only nine. All three of them returned, and the Bogopolskis threw a party in their Broome Street apartment. The next year, Eugene dived into a swimming pool, hit his head on the concrete, and died. Varya's date of death would be one thing - perhaps the most important thing - she could know for sure.

We worked, we threw parties, we went skinny-dipping or sledding, we fucked, sometimes we fell in love.

are still talking about that amazing party I threw on the night of her execution.

People are still talking about that amazing party I threw on the night of her execution.

But even as a kid you learn pretty quick that church doesn’t start and stop with the hours of service posted on the church sign. No, church dragged on like the last hour of the school day as we waited in the hot car with Dad for Mom to finish socializing in the fellowship hall. Church lingered long into the gold-tinted Sunday afternoons when Amanda and I gamboled around the house, stripped down to our white slips like little brides. Church showed up at the front door with a chicken casserole when the whole family was down with the flu and called after midnight to ask for prayer and to cry. It gossiped in the pickup line at school and babysat us on Friday nights. It teased me and tugged at my pigtails and taught me how to sing. Church threw Dad a big surprise party for his fortieth birthday and let me in on the secret ahead of time. Church came to me far more than I went to it, and I’m glad.

Before the campaign was scarcely under way Hitler solved the problem of his citizenship. On February 25 it was announced that the Nazi Minister of the Interior of the state of Brunswick had named Herr Hitler an attaché of the legation of Brunswick in Berlin. Through this comic-opera maneuver the Nazi leader became automatically a citizen of Brunswick and hence of Germany and was therefore eligible to run for President of the German Reich. Having leaped over this little hurdle with ease, Hitler threw himself into the campaign with furious energy, crisscrossing the country, addressing large crowds at scores of mass meetings and whipping them up into a state of frenzy. Goebbels and Strasser, the other two spellbinders of the party, followed a similar schedule. But this was not all. They directed a propaganda campaign such as Germany had never seen. They plastered the walls of the cities and towns with a million screeching colored posters, distributed eight million pamphlets and twelve million extra copies of their party newspapers, staged three thousand meetings a day and, for the first time in a German election, made good use of films and gramophone records, the latter spouting forth from loudspeakers on trucks.

Now Brasidas the son of Tellis, a Spartan, happened to be in those parts in command of a force, and, seeing the danger, he came to the aid of the inhabitants with a hundred hoplites. He dashed through the scattered parties of Athenian troops, whose attention was occupied with the fortress, and threw himself into Methonè, suffering a slight loss; he thus saved the place. The exploit was publicly acknowledged at Sparta, Brasidas being the first Spartan who obtained this distinction in the war. (Book 2 Chapter 25.2)

And if she wore cocktail dresses when she labored in her rose garden, they were cocktail dresses that she no longer intended to wear to cocktail parties. Even in her rose garden, she did not want to be seen underdressed. If the dresses got too dirty from gardening, she threw them out. When my mother suggested to her that she might have them cleaned, my grandmother said, ‘What? And have those people at the cleaners wonder what I was doing in a dress to make it that dirty?’ From my grandmother I learned that logic is relative.

I remember you organized the big laundry party and all of our friends took their dirty clothes to the laundromat and drank wine out of a wineskin until the manager threw us out because you kept yelling that there ought to be a prize given to the owner of the biggest pair of boxer shorts.

Something happened a few years ago that made it clear to me that I'm only ever going to be a guest in this country. That it doesn't matter how many garden parties I threw for my neighbors, this would never be my real home. It's important that a man has a sense of a real home. A sense of his own ending.

She is frightened by the capriciousness of luck: the plain-colored tablets that can expand your mind or turn it upside down; the men randomly chosen and shipped to Cam Ranh Bay and the mountain Dong Ap Bia, in whose bamboo thickets and twelve-foot elephant grass a thousand men were found dead. She has a classmate at PS 42, Eugene Bogopolski, whose three brothers were sent to Vietnam when Varya and Eugene were only nine. All three of them returned, and the Bogopolskis threw a party in their Broome Street apartment. The next year, Eugene dived into a swimming pool, hit his head on the concrete, and died.

Finally, spurred by the appetite to which he was indifferent, he took any one, read the printing on the parti-colored label of paper. He held the soup can like a skull; and at once he did not want it. The soup was made from celery. Mr. Lecky put it back. He stood in mild misery, harassed again by the plague of a will impotent in its restored freedom. If the mind cannot direct, it can be cunning to protect its ease. Mr. Lecky now proposed a fantastic pact to himself. He shut his eyes. He reached again and took a can. Eyes still shut, he ripped the label from it, crumpled and threw away the paper. Now he could not tell what he had until he opened it.

Loser" "Father directed choir. When it paused on a Sunday, he liked to loiter out morning with the girls; then back to our cottage, dinner cold on the table, Mother locked in bed devouring tabloid. You should see him, white fringe about his ears, bald head more biased than a billiard ball-- he never left a party. Mother left by herself-- I threw myself from her car and broke my leg.... Years later, he said, 'How jolly of you to have jumped.' He forgot me, mother replaced his name, I miss him. When I am unhappy, I try to squeeze the hour an hour or half-hour smaller than it is; orphaned, I wake at midnight and pray for day-- the lovely ladies get me through the day

Ronan’s bedroom door burst open. Hanging on the door frame, Ronan leaned out to peer past Gansey. He was doing that thing where he looked like both the dangerous Ronan he was now and the cheerier Ronan he had been when Gansey had first met him. “Is Noah out here?” “Hold on,” Gansey told Adam. Then, to Ronan: “Why would he be?” “No reason. Just no reason.” Ronan slammed his door. Gansey asked Adam, “Sorry. You still have that suit for the party?” Adam’s response was buried in the sound of the second-story door falling open. Noah slouched in. In a wounded tone, he said, “He threw me out the window!” Ronan’s voice sang out from behind his closed door: “You’re already dead!

I lived through beautiful times, Busayna. It was a different age. Cairo was like Europe. It was clean and smart and the people were well mannered and respectable and everyone knew his place exactly. I was different too. I had my station in life, my money, all my friends were of a certain niveau, I had my special places where I would spend the evening—the Automobile Club, the Club Muhammad Ali, the Gezira Club. What times! Every night was filled with laughter and parties and drinking and singing. There were lots of foreigners in Cairo. Most of the people living downtown were foreigners, until Abd el Nasser threw them out in 1956.” “Why did he throw them out?” “He threw the Jews out first, then the rest of the foreigners got scared and left. By the way, what’s your opinion of Abd el Nasser?” “I was born after he died. I don’t know. Some people say he was a hero and others say he was a criminal.” “Abd el Nasser was the worst ruler in the whole history of Egypt. He ruined the country and brought us defeat and poverty. The damage he did to the Egyptian character will take years to repair. Abd el Nasser taught the Egyptians to be cowards, opportunists, and hypocrites.” “So why do people love him?” “Who says people love him?” “Lots of people that I know love him.” “Anyone who loves Abd el Nasser is either an ignoramus or did well out of him. The Free Officers were a bunch of kids from the dregs of society, destitutes and sons of destitutes. Nahhas Basha was a good man and he cared about the poor. He allowed them to join the Military College and the result was that they made the coup of 1952. They ruled Egypt and they robbed it and looted it and made millions. Of course they have to love Abd el Nasser; he was the boss of their gang.

They repulsed every attempt of Mrs. Bennet at conversation, and by so doing threw a languor over the whole party, which was very little relieved by the long speeches of Mr. Collins, who was complimenting Mr. Bingley and his sisters on the elegance of their entertainment, and the hospitality and politeness which had marked their behaviour to their guests. Darcy

Republicans channeled groups of opposition into a movement that reinvented American history. By the end of February 2009, they were calling themselves the Tea Party, after the 1773 event in which Bostonians threw tea into Boston Harbor to protest their lack of a say in their government. The name had a second meaning as well: protesters said they were Taxed Enough Already.

But to play in an international tournament of the caliber announced, he had to spend much more time at careful, precise study, analysis, and memorization. He stopped answering his phone, because he didn’t want to be interrupted or tempted to socialize—even for a chess party—and at one point, to be alone with the chessboard, he just threw some clothes in a suitcase, didn’t tell anyone where he was going, and checked into the Brooklyn YMCA. During his stay there, he sometimes studied more than sixteen hours per day. Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Outliers, describes how people in all fields reach success. He quotes neurologist Daniel Levitin: “In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chessplayers, criminals and what have you, the number comes up again and again [the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours of practice].” Gladwell then refers to Bobby: “To become a chess grandmaster also seems to take about ten years. (Only the legendary Bobby Fischer got to that elite level in less than that amount of time: it took him nine years.) Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.

...Secularism has two meanings: the Western concept makes a clear distinction between functions of the State which includes politics and functions of religion which are confined to places of worship, public or private. This is the concept that Nehru accepted, preached and practiced. The other concept was equal respect for all religions. This was propagated and observed by men like Bapu Gandhi and Maulana Azad and lasted as long as the two men were alive. After that it deteriorated to a mere display of religiosity. If you were a devout Hindu you went to a Muslim dargah or threw an Iftar party to prove you were secular. If you were Muslim, you celebrated Diwali with your Hindu friends. Secularism was reduced to a sham display. Time has shown that as far as secularism is concerned, Nehru was right; Gandhi and Azad were wrong.

It had only been moments ago—just a moment ago—that she’d spent the night waiting in line to get her hands on a volume of Akhmatova. Now she was head over heels for a coffee grinder. Some piece of junk…People threw away their Party membership cards like they were just trash. It was hard to believe…The whole world had transformed in a matter of days. Tsarist Russia, as you can read in the memoirs, slipped away in three days, and the same went for communism. A matter of days. It boggles the mind…There were also the kind of people who hid their membership cards, stashing them away just in case. I was recently at a house where they took down a bust of Lenin from the storage cabinet to show me. They’re holding on to it for a rainy day…The communists will come back, and they’ll be the first ones to pin the red bow on once more. [She is silent for a long time.] I had

He accused republicans in his own party of conducting a “proxy war” against Howard. He threw into the mix Churchill, Pétain, Charles de Gaulle, the failings of the Weimar republic and the rise of Hitler. In the Sydney Morning Herald at that time I set him some homework:   Clearly explain how an Australian head of state with powers as proposed in the referendum could bring to office in Canberra a local equivalent of the most vicious dictator of the century?   He never justified the Hitler slur to anyone.

Can’t say my Uttarpara ancestral home isn’t my homeland, I know unidentified bodies, their eyes plucked out, float by in the Ganga. Can’t say my aunt’s Ahiritola isn’t my homeland, I know abducted girls are bound and gagged in Sonagachi nearby. Can’t say my uncle’s at Panihati isn’t my homeland, I know who was killed, and where, in broad daylight. Can’t say my adolescent Konnagar isn’t my homeland, I know who was sent to cut whose throat. Can’t say my youth’s Calcutta isn’t my homeland, I know who threw bombs, set fire on buses, trams. Can’t say West Bengal isn’t my homeland, I’ve the right to be tortured to death in its lock-ups, I’ve the right to starve and have rickets in its tea gardens, I’ve the right to hang myself at its handloom mills, I’ve the right to become bones buried by its party lumpen, I’ve the right to have my mouth taped, silenced, I’ve the right to hear the leaders sprout gibberish, abuse, I’ve the right to a heart attack on its streets blocked by protestors, Can’t say Bengali isn’t my homeland.

London was a class-A city, of course, constantly topping those lists which explained the world in bullet points. It had the best clubs, the best restaurants, the best hotels; it threw the best parties, and cobbled together the best Olympics ever. It had the best royal family, the best annual dog show and the best police force, and was basically brilliant except for the parts that weren’t, which were like someone had taken all the worst bits of everywhere else and shored them up against each other. And the traffic was a fucking nightmare.

I don’t see him much.” “It happens, baby. You forget all of it anyway. First, you forget everything you learned – the dates of the Hay-Herran Treaty and the Pythagorean theorem. You especially forget everything you didn’t really learn, just memorised the night before. You forget the names of all but one or two of your teachers, and eventually you’ll forget those, too. You forget your junior year class schedule and where you used to sit and your best friend’s home phone number and the lyrics to that song you must have played a million times. For me, it was something by Simon & Garfunkel. Who knows what it will be for you? And eventually, but slowly, oh so slowly, you forget your humiliations – even the ones that seemed indelible just fade away. You forget who was cool and who was not, who was pretty, smart, athletic, and not. Who went to a good college. Who threw the best parties. Who could get you pot. You forget all of them. Even the ones you said you loved, and the ones you actually did. They’re the last to go. And then once you’ve forgotten enough, you love someone else.

When we heard at first [John Brown] was dead, one of my townsmen observed that "he died as the fool dieth"; which, pardon me, for an instant suggested a likeness in him dying to my neighbor living. Others, craven-hearted, said disparagingly, that "he threw his life away" because he resisted the government. Which ways have they thrown their lives, pray? ---such would praise a man for attacking singly an ordinary band of thieves and murderers. I hear another ask, Yankee-like, "What will he gain by it?" as if he expected to fill his pockets by their enterprise. Such a one has no idea of gain but in this worldly sense. If it does not lead to a "surprise" party, if he does not gain a new pair of boots, or a vote of thanks, it must be a failure. "But he won't gain anything by it." Well, no, I don;t suppose he could get four-and-sixpence a day for being hung, take the year round; but he stands a chance to save a considerable part of his soul- and what a soul!- when you do not. No doubt you can get more in your market for a quart of milk than a quart of blood, but that is not the market heroes carry their blood to.

In March 2015, sixteen accused policemen were acquitted of their involvement in the Hashimpura massacre, making minorities even more cynical about the promises of justice from secular parties. The case dated back to 1987 when riots had erupted in Meerut. Men from UP’s Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) dragged out young Muslim men, most of them poor daily wagers and weavers, drove them to the Upper Ganga Canal in Ghaziabad instead of to the police station, and threw them in one by one. V. N. Rai, who was superintendent of police in Ghaziabad, wrote a chilling account of how the police—who described Meerut as a ‘mini Pakistan’ and held the Muslims solely responsible for the violence—had behaved. ‘Every survivor who hit the ground after being shot at tried hard to pretend he is dead and most hanged on the canal’s embankments with their heads in water and the body clutched by weeds to show to their killers that they were dead and no more gunshots fired at them. Even after the PAC personnel had left, they lay still between water, blood and slush. They were too scared and numbed even to help those who were still alive or half dead.

The Longbourn party were the last of all the company to depart, and, by a manoeuvre of Mrs. Bennet, had to wait for their carriage a quarter of an hour after everybody else was gone, which gave them time to see how heartily they were wished away by some of the family. Mrs. Hurst and her sister scarcely opened their mouths, except to complain of fatigue, and were evidently impatient to have the house to themselves. They repulsed every attempt of Mrs. Bennet at conversation, and by so doing threw a languor over the whole party, which was very little relieved by the long speeches of Mr. Collins, who was complimenting Mr. Bingley and his sisters on the elegance of their entertainment, and the hospitality and politeness which had marked their behaviour to their guests. Darcy said nothing at all. Mr. Bennet, in equal silence, was enjoying the scene. Mr. Bingley and Jane were standing together, a little detached from the rest, and talked only to each other. Elizabeth preserved as steady a silence as either Mrs. Hurst or Miss Bingley; and even Lydia was too much fatigued to utter more than the occasional exclamation of "Lord, how tired I am!" accompanied by a violent yawn.

On the labour front in 1919 there was an unprecedented number of strikes involving many millions of workers. One of the lager strikes was mounted by the AF of L against the United States Steel Corporation. At that time workers in the steel industry put in an average sixty-eight-hour week for bare subsistence wages. The strike spread to other plants, resulting in considerable violence -- the death of eighteen striking workers, the calling out of troops to disperse picket lines, and so forth. By branding the strikers Bolsheviks and thereby separating them from their public support, the Corporation broke the strike. In Boston, the Police Department went on strike and governor Calvin Coolidge replaced them. In Seattle there was a general strike which precipitated a nationwide 'red scare'. this was the first red scare. Sixteen bombs were found in the New York Post Office just before May Day. The bombs were addressed to men prominent in American life, including John D. Rockefeller and Attorney General Mitchell Palmer. It is not clear today who was responsible for those bombs -- Red terrorists, Black anarchists, or their enemies -- but the effect was the same. Other bombs pooped off all spring, damaging property, killing and maiming innocent people, and the nation responded with an alarm against Reds. It was feared that at in Russia, they were about to take over the country and shove large cocks into everyone's mother. Strike that. The Press exacerbated public feeling. May Day parades in the big cities were attacked by policemen, and soldiers and sailors. The American Legion, just founded, raided IWW headquarters in the State of Washington. Laws against seditious speech were passed in State Legislatures across the country and thousands of people were jailed, including a Socialist Congressman from Milwaukee who was sentenced to twenty years in prison. To say nothing of the Espionage and Sedition Acts of 1917 which took care of thousands more. To say nothing of Eugene V. Debs. On the evening of 2 January 1920, Attorney General Palmer, who had his eye on the White House, organized a Federal raid on Communist Party offices throughout the nation. With his right-hand assistant, J. Edgar Hoover, at his right hand, Palmer effected the arrest of over six thousand people, some Communist aliens, some just aliens, some just Communists, and some neither Communists nor aliens but persons visiting those who had been arrested. Property was confiscated, people chained together, handcuffed, and paraded through the streets (in Boston), or kept in corridors of Federal buildings for eight days without food or proper sanitation (in Detroit). Many historians have noted this phenomenon. The raids made an undoubted contribution to the wave of vigilantism winch broke over the country. The Ku Klux Klan blossomed throughout the South and West. There were night raidings, floggings, public hangings, and burnings. Over seventy Negroes were lynched in 1919, not a few of them war veterans. There were speeches against 'foreign ideologies' and much talk about 'one hundred per cent Americanism'. The teaching of evolution in the schools of Tennessee was outlawed. Elsewhere textbooks were repudiated that were not sufficiently patriotic. New immigration laws made racial distinctions and set stringent quotas. Jews were charged with international conspiracy and Catholics with trying to bring the Pope to America. The country would soon go dry, thus creating large-scale, organized crime in the US. The White Sox threw the Series to the Cincinnati Reds. And the stage was set for the trial of two Italian-born anarchists, N. Sacco and B. Vanzetti, for the alleged murder of a paymaster in South Braintree, Mass. The story of the trial is well known and often noted by historians and need not be recounted here. To nothing of World War II--

Stewart and his producers put their heads together and handpicked a roundtable of first responders to appear on a panel to tell their stories. A few days later, Congress ferried the bill through a vote and passed it. The local firemen were so thrilled that they threw a birthday party for Stewart’s daughter at the firehouse—complete with a fire truck–shaped birthday cake—and Robert J. Thompson, a professor at Syracuse University, instantly vaulted him to having the same status and influence as both Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow, veteran newsmen who used their influence to turn around, respectively, a war and a government witch hunt.

Once you've been to Cambodia, you'll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with you're bear hands. You will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about the treacherous, prevaricating, murderous scumbag sitting down for a nice chat with Charlie Rose or attending some black-tie affair for a new glossy magazine without choking. Witness what Henry did in Cambodia - the fruits of his genius for statesmanship - and you will never understand why he's not sitting in the dock at The Hague next to Milošević. While Henry continues to nibble nori rolls and remake at A-list parties, Cambodi, the neutral nation he illegally bombed, invaded, undermined, and then threw to the dogs, is still trying to raise itself up on its one remaining leg.

All of this goes back to Bill Clinton. It’s not a coincidence that radical welfare reform took place on the same watch that also saw a radical deregulation of the financial services industry. Clinton was a man born with a keen nose for two things: women with low self-esteem and political opportunity. When he was in the middle of a tough primary fight in 1992 and came out with a speech promising to “end welfare as we know it,” he could immediately smell the political possibilities, and it wasn’t long before this was a major plank in his convention speech (and soon in his first State of the Union address). Clinton understood that putting the Democrats back in the business of banging on black dependency would allow his party to reseize the political middle that Democrats had lost when Lyndon Johnson threw the weight of the White House behind the civil rights effort and the War on Poverty.

Very few entities are powerful enough to create Patinas, and those that can guard them closely. The library is here. But Arriane’s right. We’ll need to figure out the way in.” “I heard you need an Announcer to get through one,” Arriane said. “Cosmic legend.” Annabelle shook her head. “Every Patina is different. Access is entirely up to the creator. They program the code.” “I once heard Cam tell a story at a party about how he accessed a Patina,” Rolan said. “Or was that a story about a party that he threw in a Patina?” “Luce!” Daniel said suddenly, making all of them startle in midair. “It’s you. It was always you.” Luce shrugged. “Always me what?” “You’re the one who always rang the bell. You’re the one who had entry to the library. You just need to ring the bell.” Luce looked at the empty street, the fog tinting everything around them brown. “What are you talking about? What bell?” “Close your eyes,” Daniel said. “Remember it. Pass into the past and find the bellpull-“ Luce was already there, back at the library the last time she’d been in Vienna with Daniel. Her feet were firmly on the ground. It was raining and her hair splayed all across her face. Her crimson hair ribbons were soaked, but she didn’t care. She was looking for something. There was a short path up the courtyard, then a dark alcove outside the library. It had been cold outside, and a fire blazed within. There, in the musty corner near the door, was a woven cord embroidered with white peonies hanging from a substantial silver bell. She reached into the air and pulled. The angels gasped. Luce opened her eyes. There, in the center of the north side of the street, the row of contemporary town houses was interrupted at its midpoint by a single small brown house. A curl of smoke rose from its chimney. The only light-aside from the angel’s wings-was the dim yellow glow of a lamp on the sill of the house’s front window. The angels landed softly on the empty street and Daniel’s grip around Luce softened. He kissed her hand. “You remembered. Well done.

Well,’ she says, ‘shit happens. Life is a party, and parties weren’t meant to last.’ He looks sideways at her, a little startled. ‘Is that F. Scott Fitzgerald?’ ‘Prince,’ she says. ‘I can’t get over how gorgeous those mountains are. When the sun goes down I don’t think I’ll look. My heart might break. And the only reason I’m here is because those men raped me and threw me out in the rain. I guess everything happens for a reason.’ Billy has heard the saying many times before and it always makes him mad. ‘I don’t believe that. I won’t believe that.’ ‘Okay. I’m sorry.’ She sounds a little scared. ‘I didn’t mean to—’ ‘Believing that would mean believing that someone or something up the line was more important than my sister. Same with Albie Stark. Taco. Johnny Capps, who’ll never walk again. There’s nothing reasonable about any of that.’ She doesn’t answer. When he looks at her she’s looking down at her tightly clasped hands and there are tears on her cheeks. ‘Jesus, Alice, I didn’t mean to make you cry.’ ‘You didn’t,’ she says, brushing away the evidence on her cheeks. ‘It’s just that if there’s a God, he’s doing a piss poor job.’ Alice points ahead, at the blue teeth of the Rockies. ‘If there’s a God, He made those.’ Well, Billy thinks, girl’s got a point.

Dear Mom and Dad How are you? If you are reading this it means your back from the wonderful cruise my brothers and I sent you on for your anniversary. We’re sure you both had a wonderful time. We want you to know that, while you were away, we did almost everything you asked. All but one thing, that is. We killed the lawn. We killed it dead. You asked us not to and we killed it. We killed it with extreme prejudice and no regard for its planty life. We killed the lawn. Now we know what you’re thinking: “But sons, whom we love ever so much, how can this be so? We expressly asked you to care for the lawn? The exactly opposite of what you are now conveying to us in an open digital forum.” True enough. We cannot dispute this. However, we have killed the lawn. We have killed it good. We threw a party and it was quite a good time. We had a moon bounce and beer and games and pirate costumes, oh it was a good time. Were it anyone else’s party that probably would have been enough but, hey, you know us. So we got a foam machine. A frothy, wet, quite fun yet evidently deadly, foam machine. Now this dastardly devise didn’t kill the lawn per se. We hypothesize it was more that it made the lawn very wet and that dancing in said area for a great many hours over the course of several days did the deed. Our jubilant frolicking simply beat the poor grass into submission. We collected every beer cap, bottle, and can. There is not a single cigarette butt or cigar to be found. The house is still standing, the dog is still barking, Grandma is still grandmaing but the lawn is no longer lawning. Now we’re sure, as you return from your wonderful vacation, that you’re quite upset but lets put this in perspective. For one thing whose idea was it for you to leave us alone in the first place? Not your best parenting decision right there. We’re little better than baboons. The mere fact that we haven’t killed each other in years past is, at best, luck. Secondly, let us not forget, you raised us to be this way. Always pushing out limits, making sure we thought creatively. This is really as much your fault as it is ours, if not more so. If anything we should be very disappointed in you. Finally lets not forget your cruise was our present to you. We paid for it. If you look at how much that cost and subtract the cost of reseeding the lawn you still came out ahead so, really, what position are you in to complain? So let’s review; we love you, you enjoyed a week on a cruise because of us, the lawn is dead, and it’s partially your fault. Glad that’s all out in the open. Can you have dinner ready for us by 6 tonight? We’d like macaroni and cheese. Love always Peter, James & Carmine

I promised to show you a secret cafeteria, didn’t I? Perfect way to end your Foxfire slumber party!” It felt a little wrong to go hunting for desserts while Fitz and Biana were trying to figure out how to live with their murdering brother. But . . . butterblasts did sound pretty good. “Hang on—what are you wearing?” Keefe asked as she threw back her covers, revealing the sparkly slogans on her tunic. “Is that a Bangs Boy reference? Because you know I haven’t let him into the Foster Fan Club, right?” Sophie rolled her eyes. “It’s an inside joke—and Linh made this for me.” “Yeah, well, it still breaks the fan club rules. As penance, I’m getting you a tunic that says, Empaths Give Me All the Feels, and I expect to see you wear it twice as often as Bangs Boy’s.” Ro snorted. “Subtle.” “Ridiculous,” Sophie corrected. “I try,” Keefe told them as Sophie took his hand and let him pull her slowly to her feet. “You good?” he asked when she wobbled from the head rush. No. But she wasn’t going to admit that, so she told him, “I’m up.” “You are. It’s pretty amazing.” “Isn’t it?” Elwin asked as he emerged from his office and helped Sophie strap her arm into a sling. “Bring me back some butterblasts, okay?” “Done!” Keefe told him, bending his elbow to offer Sophie his arm, and after one brief second, she let him lead her toward the door. “TO THE SECRET CAFETERIA!

LEADING LESSONS Rejection is an illusion. It’s all in your head. It was never about Rachael; it was always about me. So maybe I didn’t fit her picture of the perfect dance partner. We were no longer a match--so what? At the time, the rejection hurt like hell and I threw myself a big ol’ pity party. But here’s the thing: No one can reject you. No one can dump you. It’s just a decision, and maybe you don’t like it. I was the one believing I was a victim instead of realizing how blessed my life was. If you’re feeling rejected, you’re looking at things all wrong. Just because someone says no, just because someone chooses another person over you, doesn’t mean you’re not good enough. There isn’t one successful person out there who hasn’t racked up his or her share of rejection. That said, no one likes hearing no. But what are you going to do with that no? Are you going to let it destroy your self-esteem? Or are you going to keep pushing forward, following your passion? Dancers deal with a lot of rejection--I know this now, and I see the rejections as part of my journey. Keep doing what you’re doing and do it well--don’t worry about pleasing anyone but yourself. Sometimes that no can be a wake-up call, a chance for you to reassess, refocus, reboot. I’m grateful Rachael and her family gave me my walking papers. That rejection opened me up to so much more.

The leader of the Red Guards stepped up to Nien Cheng. “We are the Red Guards. We have come to take revolutionary action against you!” Nien Cheng held up the copy of the Constitution and looked the leader in the eye. “It’s against the Constitution to enter a private house without a search warrant.” The man grabbed the Constitution out of Nien’s hand and threw it on the floor. “The Constitution is abolished. It was a document written by the Revisionists within the Communist Party. We recognize only the teachings of our Great Leader Chairman Mao.” One of the Red Guards took the stick he was carrying and smashed the mirror hanging over a wooden chest in the entryway. Another guard replaced the mirror with a blackboard that bore a quotation from Mao: “When the enemies with guns are annihilated, the enemies without guns still remain. We must not belittle these enemies.”2 With that, the young guards tore through the house, smashing furniture, dumping shelves of books onto the floor, slashing priceless paintings by Lin Fengmian and Qi Baishi. On a rampage, the eager students looted the closets and drawers, tearing most of Nien Cheng’s clothing and linens. They overturned the bed mattresses and hacked them to pieces. Then they smashed her music recordings. Pressing on, they found the food pantry and dumped flour, sugar, and canned goods onto the ravaged clothing. They broke several bottles of red wine, pouring it over the mess.

The Magic of Goulash “The trip down the aisle [on a bus or train, during his travels] was where all the stakes were. Because as I’m going down that aisle, I’ve got to look for an empty seat next to somebody who seems interesting. Somebody I can trust, somebody who might be able to trust me. The stakes are high because I know that at the end of that ride, wherever it was going, that person had to invite me to their home. Because I had no money to spend night after night in a hotel.” The clincher question Cal used to get free room and board around Europe as a poor traveler was: “Can you tell me: How do you make the perfect goulash?” He would purposefully sit down next to grandmas, who would then pour out their souls. After a few minutes of passionate pantomiming, people would come from around the train to help translate, no matter the country. Cal never had to worry about where he was spending the night. “During [one dinner party a grandma threw in Hungary to feed me goulash,] one of the neighbors says, ‘Have you ever tasted apricot brandy? Because nobody makes apricot brandy like my father. He lives a half an hour away. You’ve got to come to taste the apricot brandy.’ That weekend, we’re tasting apricot brandy, having a great time. Another party starts, another neighbor comes over to me. ‘Have you ever been to Kiskunhalas, the paprika capital of the world? You cannot leave Hungary without visiting Kiskunhalas.’ Now we’re off to Kiskunhalas. I’m telling you, a single question about goulash could get me 6 weeks of lodging and meals, and that’s how I got passed around the world. 10 years. 10 years.

Evan was attracted to technology early on, building his first computer in sixth grade and experimenting with Photoshop in the Crossroads computer lab. He would later describe the computer teacher, Dan, as his best friend. Evan dove into journalism as well, writing for the school newspaper, Crossfire. One journalism class required students to sell a certain amount of advertising for Crossfire as part of their grade. Evan walked around the neighborhood asking local businesses to buy ads; once he had exceeded his sales goals, he helped coach his peers on how to pitch businesses and ask adults for money. By high school, the group of 20 students Evan had started with in kindergarten had grown to around 120. Charming, charismatic, and smart, Evan threw parties at his dad’s house that were “notorious” in his words. Evan’s outsized personality could rub people the wrong way at times, but his energy, organizing skills, and enthusiasm made him an exceptional party thrower. He possessed a bravado that could be frustrating and off-putting but was great for convincing everyone that the night’s party was going to be the greatest of all time. Obsessed with the energy drink Red Bull and the lifestyle the brand cultivated, Evan talked his way into an internship at the company as a senior in high school. The job involved throwing parties and other events sponsored by Red Bull. Clarence Carter, the head of the company’s security team, would give Evan advice that would stand him well in the years to come: pay attention to who helps you clean up after the party. Later recalling the story, Evan said, “When everyone is tired and the night is over, who stays and helps out? Because those are your true friends. Those are the hard workers, the people that believe that working hard is the right thing to do.

My interest in comics was scribbled over with a revived, energized passion for clothes, records, and music. I'd wandered in late to the punk party in 1978, when it was already over and the Sex Pistols were history. I'd kept my distance during the first flush of the new paradigm, when the walls of the sixth-form common room shed their suburban-surreal Roger Dean Yes album covers and grew a fresh new skin of Sex Pistols pictures, Blondie pinups, Buzzcocks collages, Clash radical chic. As a committed outsider, I refused to jump on the bandwagon of this new musical fad, which I'd written off as some kind of Nazi thing after seeing a photograph of Sid Vicious sporting a swastika armband. I hated the boys who'd cut their long hair and binned their crappy prog albums in an attempt to join in. I hated pretty much everybody without discrimination, in one way or another, and punk rockers were just something else to add to the shit list. But as we all know, it's zealots who make the best converts. One Thursday night, I was sprawled on the settee with Top of the Pops on the telly when Poly Styrene and her band X-Ray Spex turned up to play their latest single: an exhilarating sherbet storm of raw punk psychedelia entitled "The Day the World Turned Day-Glo" By the time the last incandescent chorus played out, I was a punk. I had always been a punk. I would always be a punk. Punk brought it all together in one place for me: Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius novels were punk. Peter Barnes's The Ruling Class, Dennis Potter, and The Prisoner were punk too. A Clockwork Orange was punk. Lindsay Anderson's If ... was punk. Monty Python was punk. Photographer Bob Carlos Clarke's fetish girls were punk. Comics were punk. Even Richmal Crompton's William books were punk. In fact, as it turned out, pretty much everything I liked was punk. The world started to make sense for the first time since Mosspark Primary. New and glorious constellations aligned in my inner firmament. I felt born again. The do-your-own-thing ethos had returned with a spit and a sneer in all those amateurish records I bought and treasured-even though I had no record player. Singles by bands who could often barely play or sing but still wrote beautiful, furious songs and poured all their young hearts, experiences, and inspirations onto records they paid for with their dole money. If these glorious fuckups could do it, so could a fuckup like me. When Jilted John, the alter ego of actor and comedian Graham Fellows, made an appearance on Top of the Pops singing about bus stops, failed romance, and sexual identity crisis, I was enthralled by his shameless amateurism, his reduction of pop music's great themes to playground name calling, his deconstruction of the macho rock voice into the effeminate whimper of a softie from Sheffield. This music reflected my experience of teenage life as a series of brutal setbacks and disappointments that could in the end be redeemed into art and music with humor, intelligence, and a modicum of talent. This, for me, was the real punk, the genuine anticool, and I felt empowered. The losers, the rejected, and the formerly voiceless were being offered an opportunity to show what they could do to enliven a stagnant culture. History was on our side, and I had nothing to lose. I was eighteen and still hadn't kissed a girl, but perhaps I had potential. I knew I had a lot to say, and punk threw me the lifeline of a creed and a vocabulary-a soundtrack to my mission as a comic artist, a rough validation. Ugly kids, shy kids, weird kids: It was okay to be different. In fact, it was mandatory.

Willow chuckled as all up and down Allen Street lights began to glow through every window. Someone in a room down the hall lifted their window threw a chamber pot at the crooners, and followed it with a foul epithet. Undaunted, the men broke into a chorus of Aura Lea. “They sure have lousy timing,” Rider commented wryly. “Just how long does this little serenade last?” Seeing a tall figure in a long frock coat coming up the street, Willow replied, “I think it’s about to end very soon now.” Virgil Earp’s face shone in the gaslight in front of the Grand. “All right, boys,” the couple heard him say, “the party’s over.” He looked up at Rider and Willow with a wide, winsome grin and waved. With that, he ushered the drunken serenaders down the street and into the saloon. Rider turned from the window, shaking his head. “Now where were we? Ah, yes!” He swooped Willow off her feet and tossed her onto the huge bed. “That’s not where we were.” She laughed. “It’s where we were headed, lady, and that’s good enough for me.” Pulling her up, he pulled the rumbled robe off her shoulders to reveal a floaty silk nightdress of aqua. Though it was entirely modest in design, the soft material hugged her curves enticingly. “Lord, woman, there ought to be a law against sheer nothings like this.” Willow smiled seductively. “Do you like it?” “So much that I’m going to strip it off you right now!” Willow giggled and tried to escape, scrambling across the bed. She was quickly foiled by yards of silk tangling about her legs. Rider wasn’t one to waste opportunities and dived onto the bed on top of her. “Ah-hah. I have you in my power now, my pretty!” he said, catching her hands above her head. Chuckling, Willow wiggled and squirmed beneath him in a halfhearted effort to free herself. She watched fascinated as his eyes flamed with desire. Her voice was breathy and provocative. “Who’s got who, villain? I think I’ve got you.

If a man jumped as high as a louse (lice), he would jump over a football field. In Ancient Egypt, the average life expectancy was 19 years, but for those who survived childhood, the average life expectancy was 30 years for women and 34 years for men. The volume of the moon is equivalent to the volume of the water in the Pacific Ocean. After the 9/11 incident, the Queen of England authorized the guards to break their vow and sing America’s national anthem for Americans living in London. In 1985, lifeguards of New Orleans threw a pool party to celebrate zero drownings, however, a man drowned in that party. Men and women have different dreams. 70 percent of characters in men’s dreams are other men, whereas in women its 50 percent men and 50 percent women. Men also act more aggressively in dreams than women. A polar bear has a black skin. 2.84 percent of deaths are caused by intentional injuries (suicides, violence, war) while 3.15 percent are caused by diarrhea. On average people are more afraid of spiders than they are afraid of death. A bumblebee has hairs on its eyes, helping it collect the pollen. Mickey Mouse’s creator, Walt Disney feared mice. Citarum river in Indonesia is the dirtiest and most polluted river in the world. When George R R Martin saw Breaking Bad’s episode called “Ozymandias”, he called Walter White and said that he’d write up a character more monstrous than him. Maria Sharapova’s grunt is the loudest in the Tennis game and is often criticized for being a distraction. In Mandarin Chinese, the word for “kangaroo” translates literally to “bag rat”. The first product to have a barcode was a chewing gum Wrigley. Chambarakat dam in Iraq is considered the most dangerous dam in the world as it is built upon uneven base of gypsum that can cause more than 500,000 casualties, if broken. Matt Urban was an American Lieutenant Colonel who was nicknamed “The Ghost” by Germans because he always used to come back from wounds that would kill normal people.

Bang! Clang! Bang! Clangity bang, rat-a-tat! "Reuben, I have been thinking, what a good world this might be, if the men were all transported far beyond the Northern Sea." "Oh,no!" Willow rose off Rider's lap so fast her forhead bumped his chin. "What is that racket?" he asked, standing and following her to the window overlooking the street. One corner of her mouth quirked in mock disgust. "Take a look for yourself." Clangity bang! Rat-a-tat! The men below beat their pots and pans with wooden spoons and, in a couple cases, gun butts. "Rachel, I have long been thinking, what a fine world this might be, if we had some more young ladies on the side of the Northern Sea. Too ral loo ral. Too ral lee." "Looks like your brothers and the whole Niners team!" Rider laughed. "What are they doing?" "Haven't you ever heard of being shivareed, husband?" Outside the boisterous, drunken voices broke into another chorus of Reuben and Rachel. "Rachel, I will not trasport you,but will take you for a wife. We will live on milk and honey, better or worse we're in for life." Willow chuckled as all up and down Allen Street lights began to glow through every window. Someone in a room down the hall lifted their window, threw a chamber pot at the crooners, and followed it with a foul epithet. Undaunted, the man broke into a chorus of Aura Lea. "They sure have lousy timing," Rider commented wryly. "Just how long does this little serenade last?" Seeing a tall figure in a long frock coat coming up the street, Willow replied, "I think it's about to end very soon now." Virgil Earp's face shone in the gaslight in front of the Grand. "All right, boys," the couple heard him say, "the party's over." He looked up at Rider and Willow with a wide, winsome grin and waved. With that, he ushered the drunken serenaders down the street and into a saloon. Rider turned from the window, shaking his head. "Now where were we? Ah,yes!" he swooped Willow off her feet and tossed her onto the huge bed. "That's not where we were." She laughed. "It's where we were headed, lady, and that's good enough for me.

Cassian said, 'You didn't think you were essential. You saved our asses, yes, but... you didn't think you were essential here.' One-two, one-two, one-two. 'I'm not.' He opened his mouth but I charged ahead, speaking around my gasps for breath. 'You all have a... duty- you're all vital. Yes, I have my own abilities, but... You and Azriel were hurt, my sisters were... you know what happened to them. I did what I could to get us out. I'd rather it was me than any of you. I couldn't have lived with the alternative.' His upraised hands were unfaltering as I pummelled them. 'Anything could have happened to you at the Spring Court.' I stopped again. 'If Rhys isn't grilling me with the overprotective bullshit, then I don't see why you-' 'Don't for one moment think that Rhys wasn't beside himself with worry. Oh, he seems collected enough, Feyre, but I know him. And every moment you were gone, he was in a panic. Yes, he knew- we knew- you could handle yourself. But it doesn't stop us from worrying.' I shook out my sore hands, then rubbed my already-aching arms. 'You were mad at him, too.' 'If I hadn't been healing, I would have kicked his ass from one end of Velaris to the other.' I didn't reply. 'We were all terrified for you.' 'I managed just fine.' 'Of course you did. We knew you would. But...' Cassian crossed his arms. 'Rhys pulled the same shit fifty years ago. When he went to that damned party Amarantha threw.' Oh. Oh. 'I'll never forget it, you know,' he said, blowing out a breath. 'The moment when he spoke to us all, mind to mind. When I realised what was happening, and that... he'd saved us. Trapped us here and tied our hands, but...' He scratched at his temple. 'It went quiet- in my head. In a way it hadn't been before. Not since...' Cassian squinted at the cloudless sky. 'Even with utter hell unleashing here, across our territory. I just went... quiet.' He tapped the side of his head with a finger, and frowned. 'After Hybern, the healer kept me asleep while she worked on my wings. So when I woke up two weeks later... that's when I heard. And when Mor told me what happened to you... It went quiet again.' I swallowed against the constriction of my throat. 'You found me when I needed you most, Cassian.' 'Pleased to be of service.' He gave me a grim smile. 'You can rely on us, you know. Both of us. He's inclined to do everything himself- to give everything of himself. He can't stand to let anyone else offer up anything.' That smile faded. 'Neither can you.

What’ll it be?” Steve asked me, just days after our wedding. “Do we go on the honeymoon we’ve got planned, or do you want to go catch crocs?” My head was still spinning from the ceremony, the celebration, and the fact that I could now use the two words “my husband” and have them mean something real. The four months between February 2, 1992--the day Steve asked me to marry him--and our wedding day on June 4 had been a blur. Steve’s mother threw us an engagement party for Queensland friends and family, and I encountered a very common theme: “We never thought Steve would get married.” Everyone said it--relatives, old friends, and schoolmates. I’d smile and nod, but my inner response was, Well, we’ve got that in common. And something else: Wait until I get home and tell everybody I am moving to Australia. I knew what I’d have to explain. Being with Steve, running the zoo, and helping the crocs was exactly the right thing to do. I knew with all my heart and soul that this was the path I was meant to travel. My American friends--the best, closest ones--understood this perfectly. I trusted Steve with my life and loved him desperately. One of the first challenges was how to bring as many Australian friends and family as possible over to the United States for the wedding. None of us had a lot of money. Eleven people wound up making the trip from Australia, and we held the ceremony in the big Methodist church my grandmother attended. It was more than a wedding, it was saying good-bye to everyone I’d ever known. I invited everybody, even people who may not have been intimate friends. I even invited my dentist. The whole network of wildlife rehabilitators came too--four hundred people in all. The ceremony began at eight p.m., with coffee and cake afterward. I wore the same dress that my older sister Bonnie had worn at her wedding twenty-seven years earlier, and my sister Tricia wore at her wedding six years after that. The wedding cake had white frosting, but it was decorated with real flowers instead of icing ones. Steve had picked out a simple ring for me, a quarter carat, exactly what I wanted. He didn’t have a wedding ring. We were just going to borrow one for the service, but we couldn’t find anybody with fingers that were big enough. It turned out that my dad’s wedding ring fitted him, and that’s the one we used. Steve’s mother, Lyn, gave me a silk horseshoe to put around my wrist, a symbol of good luck. On our wedding day, June 4, 1992, it had been eight months since Steve and I first met. As the minister started reading the vows, I could see that Steve was nervous. His tuxedo looked like it was strangling him. For a man who was used to working in the tropics, he sure looked hot. The church was air-conditioned, but sweat drops formed on the ends of his fingers. Poor Steve, I thought. He’d never been up in front of such a big crowd before. “The scariest situation I’ve ever been in,” Steve would say later of the ceremony. This from a man who wrangled crocodiles! When the minister invited the groom to kiss the bride, I could feel all Steve’s energy, passion, and love. I realized without a doubt we were doing the right thing.

Orion threw a grin back at me as headed to the bar, ducking behind it. “What would madam like?” he asked in a formal tone which was a damn good impression of the Acruxes' butler. I giggled hurrying over to take a stool in front of the bar and placing my clutch down, relishing the cool breeze against my burning neck. “Hmm...a Manhattan?” I teased and he cocked his head. “I'm afraid we're fresh out of bullshit, how about a white wine spritzer with a tiny umbrella in it?” I laughed, nodding eagerly as he made up my drink then poured himself a measure of bourbon. He held it out for me and I leaned across the bar to take it. As I took hold of the glass, he didn't let go and I gazed up at him under my lashes questioning why. “Have I told you have exceptionally beautiful you look tonight, Darcy?” Darcy. He'd said my name. For the first time ever. And why did it sound like so much more than a name when he spoke it? It was like he'd fired an arrow and it had punctured a flesh wound in me at the exact same moment. Hell. I needed to get over this guy. Why was I so caught up on him? Unavailable, that's what it was. We always want what we can't have and Professor Orion was off limits. Simple as that. And those muscles. And the beard. And the dark eyes. And the dimple. But that was it. “That's the first I've heard of it, Professor,” I whispered, unable to make my voice rise any louder. “Don't do that,” he grunted, releasing the drink. I eyed him curiously as he walked around the bar with his bourbon in hand. He took the stool beside mine, his arm butting up against me. “Do what?” I asked, swivelling around to face the pool and taking a sip of my spritzer. It fizzed on my tongue and sent a deep kick of heat through my chest. “You know what.” “You're very presumptuous, Orion. You think I'm far more aware of your chaotic way of thinking than I really am.” I sipped my drink again, spying on him from the corner of my eye. He took a swig of his own drink and the familiar waft of bourbon drifted over me, tingling my senses. It was becoming a trigger, like the moment I walked into his office and he uncorked a bottle, it made me want to taste it on his mouth. And then that led to me wondering whether his fangs would brush my tongue when we kissed, and that always led to me mentally undressing him, then me conjuring an image of what those muscles looked like beneath that shirt... “I have something for you,” he said and I turned, blinking out of my dark fantasy. “You do?” He nodded, reaching into his inside pocket and taking out my coil of blue hair. My heart combusted and a choked noise escaped me. I reached for it and he slid it onto my wrist. He kept my hand in his, his eyes downcast as they remained on the band of hair. “I want you to know, I believe you would have gotten this back yourself when you were ready. But I took a lot of pleasure in retrieving it for you all the same.” I stared at him in complete shock, unsure what to say, my tongue tied in knots. “But Fae don't fight battles for other Fae,” I blurted, completely astonished that his actions that day had been to take this back from Seth. For me. And nothing else. He finished his drink and planted the glass on the bar, rising to his feet. He didn't reply to what I'd said and I barely even remembered what it was as he started pulling his clothes off. “Err, what are you doing?” I half laughed as he shed his jacket and kicked off his shoes, pulling off his socks. Oh my god. “I hate parties, but I like swimming.” He started undoing the buttons of his shirt and thought his back was to me, I was still captivated as he dropped it to the floor like a silken sheet. My eyes scraped down his skin to where his muscles etched an upside down v into his lower back, disappearing beneath his waistband. His shoulders were tanned and heavenly broad, making me long to explore all of those muscles with my hands.(Darcy)

[T]wenty-three years ago in Berkeley, California, a group of college students, history majors, threw a party with a medieval theme. Everyone who came had to dress medievally and behave chivalrously. They did their research, learned some authentic dances which they danced to authentic music, served a feast with authentic recipes. And some of the guys put on a display of foot jousting with wooden swords. The winner was crowned king, and he knighted some of the the other fighters. Everyone had so much fun, they did it again. And again. Pretty soon they were a club--and now we're a non-profit, educational, international organization of people who research and selectively recreate the Middle Ages. By selectively, I mean we leave out fleas, dirt, and intolerance.

threw the front door open, running out into the rain, only wearing a pair of big black granny panties and a glittery crop shirt which had a partying weasel on it.

Ronan’s bedroom door burst open. Hanging on the door frame, Ronan leaned out to peer past Gansey. He was doing that thing where he looked like both the dangerous Ronan he was now and the cheerier Ronan he had been when Gansey had first met him. “Is Noah out here?” “Hold on,” Gansey told Adam. Then, to Ronan: “Why would he be?” “No reason. Just no reason.” Ronan slammed his door. Gansey asked Adam, “Sorry. You still have that suit for the party?” Adam’s response was buried in the sound of the second-story door falling open. Noah slouched in. In a wounded tone, he said, “He threw me out the window!” Ronan’s voice sang out from behind his closed door: “You’re already dead!

if everyone threw their problems up in the air, people would race to catch their own.

The seventies were crazy everywhere, but crazier in Los Angeles. It was the era of freewheeling drugs and sex, the rag end of the sixties. I refer to sprees, to strange couplings and triplings, to nights that started with beer and wine and ended with cocaine and capsules, to debaucheries too various to chronicle. In a sense, we were all Robert Mitchum, smoking rope in bed with two girls while the sun was still noon high. We thought it was normal. You would walk into a house for a pool party, and there, on the cocktail table in the center of the living room, as if it were nuts or cooked shrimp, would be a platter of cocaine. We did it because we were stupid, because we did not know the danger. When I talk about my drug years, I am talking about twenty-four months in the middle of the seventies. I was in the rock and roll world, which meant I was around the stuff all the time. Of course, it was more than mere proximity. I was fun when I was high, talkative and all-encompassing. I could go forever, never be done talking. To some extent, I was really self-medicating, using the drugs to skate over issues in my own life. The fact is, money and success had come so fast, while I was away doing something else, not paying attention, that, when I finally realized where I was and just what I had, I could not understand it. There was this voice in my head, saying, Who do you think you are? What do you think you did? You are a fraud! You don’t deserve any of this! I tortured myself, and let the anxiety well up, then beat back the anxiety with the drugs, on and on, until one day, I stood up and said, “Screw it. That’s over. I’m done.” No rehab, no counseling, nothing like that. Just a moment of clarity, in which I saw myself from the outside, the mess I was making, the waste. I was slipping, not working as hard as I used to. I started leaving the office early on Fridays, then skipping Fridays altogether. Then I started leaving early on Thursdays, then arriving late on Mondays. I was letting myself go. Then one day, I just decided, It has to stop. I threw away the pills and bottles, took a cold shower, had a barbershop shave, and stepped into the cool of Sunset Boulevard, and began fresh. Maybe it had to do with my family situation. I was a father again.

In more than one way, Sheldon Lloyd embodied most of the aspects of the financial world that Benjamin abhorred. For Sheldon, as for most people, money was a means to an end. He spent it. Bought things. Houses, vehicles, animals, paintings. Talked loudly about them. Traveled and threw parties. Wore his wealth on his body his skin smelled different every day; his shirts were not pressed but new; his coats shone almost as much as his hair. He brimmed with that most conventional and embarrassing of qualities- "taste." Rask would look at him, thinking only an employee would spend the money someone else gave to him in such a fashion: looking for relief and freedom. It was precisely because of Sheldon Lloyd's frivolity that Benjamin found him useful. His assistant was a shrewd trader, yes, but Rask also understood that he personified the stereotype of what many of his clients and fleeting associates considered to be "a success.

FOREVER It wasn’t so hard to want it, while the ancient stove smoked and our friends slept under their coats on the linoleum. The door’s warped wood meant it never shut completely, so each snap of wind masked my movement toward you on the sofa. We hadn’t kissed, wouldn’t—we both had partners—I undid my hair from its braids and shook it out over my burning shoulders. Our friends woke. They read tarot on the floor; someone tuned a guitar, another broke down some boxes and threw them on the fire. My suitcase was brought in and dismembered, and my green party dress, and the table where I’d drafted a letter home, of which there was then a staged reading. I was told I could direct my own production, as there was time. There was time for me to move myself so minutely that I would never reach you. I could have what I wanted. The impossibility, the creeping forward all the same.

1) A “Ladies Who Lunch Party” thrown at the country club. Waiters carried hors d’oeuvres around, kneeling on the ground so that the little girls could reach them. The lunch was nicer than Jane’s wedding shower, possibly nicer than her wedding. 2) A “Movie Premiere Party” where the entire theater was rented out and the kids were allowed as much popcorn and candy as they wanted while watching a double feature of Moana and Monsters, Inc. (Lauren threw up in her bed that night.) 3) A “Camping Party” where each child received a sleeping bag personalized with her name and the backyard was set up with mini pink tents and paper lanterns. Someone was hired to grill the hot dogs and make the s’mores. 4) A “Spa Party” at the Four Seasons downtown where the girls got facials and fluffy pink robes and slippers. (Because what first grader wouldn’t appreciate getting rid of clogged pores?)

They resisted him because they wanted things to be easy, as they had been. They glutted themselves on their riches and their games. Feasts manifested that all too much, with their exotic food, their rich costumes. The world itself seemed close to ending, and the Alethi threw a party.

You can’t go.” “Give me a reason why I shouldn’t.” “Because what was the point in anything if you just disappear forever?” she hissed, splaying her arms. “The point in what, Celaena?” How could he be so calm when she was so frantic? “The point in Skull’s Bay, and the point in getting me that music, and the point in… the point in telling Arobynn that you’d forgive him if he never hurt me again.” “You said you didn’t care what I thought. Or what I did. Or if I died, If I’m not mistaken.” “I lied! And you know I lied, you stupid bastard!” He laughed quietly. “You want to know how I spent this summer?” She went still. He ran a hand through his brown hair. “I spent every single day fighting the urge to slit Arobynn’s throat. And he knew I wanted to kill him. The moment I woke up after he beat me, I realized I had to leave. Because I was going to kill him if I didn’t. But I couldn’t.” He studied her face. “Not until you came back. Not until I knew you were all right—until I saw that you were safe.” Breathing became very, very hard. “He knew that, too,” Sam went on. “So he decided to exploit it. He didn’t recommend me for missions. Instead, he made me help Lysandra and Clarisse. He made me escort them around the city on picnics and parties. It became a game between the two of us—how much of his horseshit I could take before I snapped. But we both knew he’d always have the winning hand. He’d always have you. Still. I spent every day this summer hoping you’d come back in one piece. More than that—I hoped you’d come back and take revenge for what he’d done to you.” But she hadn’t. She’d come back and let Arobynn shower her with gifts. “And now that you’re fine, Celaena, now that you’ve paid off your debt, I can’t stay in Rifthold. Not after all the things he’s done to us.” “Please don’t go.” “You’ll be fine without me. You always have been.” Maybe once, but not now. “How can I convince you to stay?” “You can’t.” She threw down the torch. “Do you want me to beg, is that it?” “No—never.” “Then tell me—” “What more can I say?” he exploded, his whisper rough and harsh. “I’ve already told you everything—I’ve already told you that if I stay here, if I have to live with Arobynn, I’ll snap his damned neck.” “But why? Why can’t you let it go?” He grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “Because I love you!” Her mouth fell open. “I love you,” he repeated, shaking her again. “I have for years. And he hurt you and made me watch because he’s always known how I felt, too. But if I asked you to pick, you’d choose Arobynn, and I. Can’t. Take. It.” The only sounds were their breathing, an uneven beat against the rushing of the sewer water. “You’re a damned idiot,” she breathed. “You’re a moron and an ass and a damned idiot.” He looked like she had hit him. But she went on, and grasped both sides of his face, “Because I’d pick you.” And then she kissed him.

Ardie, like many of us, had caught perfectionism, an illness that we heard was more common in women by a factor of roughly twenty to one. To the best of our understanding, it was transferred through social media and the pages of glossy magazines that were displayed face-out in the checkout line and, once contracted at the age of twelve or thirteen, could be cured by no number of Jezebel think pieces or edgy rom-coms in which the leading lady boldly portrayed a train wreck or a bad mommy. For our children, we chased the gold standard of suburban contentment set by our own stay-at-home mothers, while simultaneously stepping into the shoes of our breadwinning fathers. And we made sure that everyone knew we were handling it all swimmingly by the way we wrote notes on napkins dutifully folded into our children’s lunch boxes and threw Halloween parties with Swiss cheese cut into the shapes of ghosts. Because honestly, if that wasn’t success, what was?

All the people who had nagged and pressured her for the last four years were suddenly kind and caring. They threw her parties and bought her gifts. They were genuinely happy for her, now that she was falling into line.

There was a man in ancient Rome—a rich man, friend of the emperor—named Pollio. A slave dropped a glass container at a party once, and Pollio threw him into a pool filled with eels that ate him alive. Pollio was a man who lived in a world where he didn’t expect glass to break. That’s what causes uncontrollable anger: unreasonable expectation. And no one has more expectations about how the world works than the rich, and when it doesn’t work that way, they lose it.

Opening the box, they withdrew the thick plastic grave markers. His lips twitched as he scanned the epitaphs: R.I.P. Van Winkle, Dee Cayed, I.M. Gone, and Barry R. Bones. "Dracula, Fangs for the Memories," he read aloud and, chuckled. Grace held up her favorite. "Rigger Mortys. Death Grips and Holds Me Tight, But I Shall Return on Halloween Night." Tongue-in-cheek, he asked her, "What would your headstone say?" "She Threw a Great Party," came to mind. "How about yours?" "Death by Decorating.

I’m grateful that I get to wake up next to my amazing partner every single morning. #2: I’m really appreciative of the fun, wine-drenched birthday party my friends threw for me last night. #3: I’m truly grateful for the delicious cups of coffee my favorite café serves me each day.

That’s how we know each other.” He eagerly traced her features with his gaze. “We went for a walk together in the vineyard. The night my sister threw that party.

don’t know what my kids’ lives will look like, but I think that at least I’ve offered them glimpses at new ways of seeing themselves. I threw a party in the spring of 2022. It had been a long, cold pandemic. But my children were finally vaccinated and I wanted to have people over. I made a vat of spiked cider and filled mugs for my friends. The very same mugs my ex had hidden away in the basement of our home so many years ago. Now they were filled with booze and joy. I tried to match mugs with personalities. The house was full, and people were shouting. Cheese and crackers were stacked in platters on top of the long table that I had paid for with a story I’d written about my divorce. I thought about how hard I’d worked to get here. To a house filled with friends and wine and happiness. The song “Crowded Table” by the Highwomen is one that always makes me cry; it speaks of community and love and filling our homes. “If it’s love that we give,” they sing, “it’s love that we reap.” “This is going in the book,” I told my friends, shouting over the din of conversations. “It’s going in the end. Because this is my happily ever after.” And maybe it was too earnest, but I thought of all the different kinds of love there are in the world. And I knew that when the party was over someone would help me with the dishes and wiping the counters, and I wouldn’t have to ask.

The grouches thought us wicked, an absolute disgrace to all the rules of the older generation. We threw extravagant parties to excess, laughed a little too vulgarly, traipsed about London in costume on elaborate treasure hunts, drank an unhealthy amount of champagne and showed entirely too much ankle and leg. In short, the Great War was over, and we were determined to enjoy ourselves.

Weir had become a modern-day troubadour—an ancient archetype certain to be recognized by Joseph Campbell, the myth expert and author of Hero with a Thousand Faces, the book on which film director George Lucas partially based his Star Wars trilogy. Campbell was one of dozens of unlikely people to stumble into the Dead camp. At Mickey Hart’s invitation, Campbell attended a Grateful Dead concert. Campbell told Hart he could tell “the band is tied at the heart. You are shaking hands with the ancients.” Campbell was guest of honor at a dinner party Hart threw at his home that Weir also attended.

Before I knew what was happening, he had me crowded up against the wall that separated my living room from my bedroom. He nipped a gentle line down the column of my throat, letting his teeth lightly scrape against me as he moved. His real teeth; not the ones he showed the world. "I've wanted to touch you for so long." His mouth was everywhere. On my neck, my collarbone, then moving back up to kiss along my jaw. He gave my ass a firm, possessive squeeze. Mine, it said. It felt so good I nearly moaned out loud. "Do you know how many times I've thought about it?" "Tell me," I gasped. I didn't know where that bravery was coming from, but I needed to know. "Please." He answered with an excruciatingly slow swipe of his tongue along the sweet, sensitive spot where my neck met my shoulder. His touch was like wildfire, and I keened, my body alight with anticipation as he mouthed at me. My knees felt seconds away from buckling. I threw my arms around his neck so that I wouldn't fall to the floor. As though sensing my insatiability, he thrust his hips forward, pinning me in place between his body and the wall. "At the coffee shop," he mumbled against my neck. His words were gentle vibrations against my heated flesh that I could feel down to my knees. "At your family's party. Every time you touched my hand, smiled, and leaned over in that tiny fucking black dress.

Mr. Johnson and his wife had bought Perle Mesta’s old house, the place where the hostess with the mostest threw some of her most lavish parties. The Vice President of the United States had translated its French name, Les Ormes, to The Elms.

Not a fucking chance. We could’ve refueled anywhere. I know what the fuck you’re up to, and I’m the only asshole on this plane fluent in Greek.” I threw him and his bullshit a look. “You speak Italian.” “I speak dead motherfuckers. That’s Greek enough.” Echo did a mag check on his M4. “Let’s go.” Whiskey got out of his seat and stepped behind Echo. “I’m coming, too.” Jesus fucking Christ. “This isn’t a goddamn party.” Echo smirked. “Could be.

Going to Moscow was a dream for us,' Ilich said years later. He and his younger brother started the course within weeks of Soviet tanks rolling into Czechoslovakia to crush the heady 'Prague Spring'. But they soon found that discipline at the cosmopolitan university, whose 6000 students were all selected through the Communist Party of their country of origin, was as stifling as its modernist architecture. Drab grey concrete blocks squatted around a charmless artificial pond. The only dash of colour was a map of the world painted on to the façade of one block in a valiant attempt to symbolise the ideals of the university: from an open book, symbol of learning, a torch emerges, issuing multicoloured flames that spread like waves across the planisphere. Perhaps Ilich drew some comfort from glancing up at the mural as, huddled against the rigours of the Russian winter and wearing a black beret in tribute to Che Guevara who had died riddled by bullets in October of the previous year, he trudged across the bleak square on his way to lectures. Coincidentally, the base of the flame is very close to Venezuela. Rules and regulations governed virtually every aspect of Ilich's life from the moment he started the first year's induction course, which was designed to flesh out his knowledge of the Russian language and introduce him to the delights of Marxist society before he launched into his chosen subjects, languages and chemistry. Like father, like son. Ilich rebelled against the rules, preferring to spend his time chasing girls. He would often crawl back to his room drunk. His professors at the university, some of them children of Spanish Civil War veterans who had sought refuge in Moscow, were unimpressed by his academic performance. 'His name alone, Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, was so strange that people were curious about him,' relates Kirill Privalov, a journalist on the newspaper Druzhba (Friendship) which was printed at the small university press, and an acquaintance of Ilich. The Venezuelan's escapades, wildly excessive by the standards of the university, only fanned people's interest. 'llich was not at all the typical student sent by his country's Communist Party, nothing to do with the good little soldier of Mao who laboured in the fields every summer. He was a handsome young man although his cheeks looked swollen, and he was a great bon viveur. Flush with cash sent by his parents, Ilich could afford to spend lavishly on whisky and champagne in the special stores that only accepted payment in hard currencies and which were off-limits to most people. More Russian than the Russians, the privileged student and his friends would throw over their shoulders not only empty glasses but bottles as well. The university authorities, frustrated in their attempts to impose discipline on Ilich, reasoned that his freedom of action would be drastically limited if the allowance that his father sent him were reduced. But when they asked Ramírez Navas to be less generous, the father, piqued, retorted that his son had never wanted for anything. 'The university had a sort of vice squad, and at night students were supposed either to study or sleep,' recounts Privalov. "One night the patrol entered Ilich's room and saw empty bottles of alcohol and glasses on the table, but he was apparently alone. The squad opened the cupboard door and a girl who was completely drunk fell out. She was naked and was clutching her clothes in her hands. They asked her what she was doing there and she answered: 'I feel pity for the oppressed.' She was obviously a prostitute. Another time, and with another girl, Ilich didn't bother to hide her in the cupboard. He threw her out of the window. This one was fully dressed and landed in two metres of snow a foor or two below. She got up unhurt and shouted abuse at him.

After Rahul graduated from high school their parents celebrated, having in their opinion now successfully raised two children in America. Rahul was going to Cornell, and Sudha was still in Philadephia, getting a master's in international relations. Their parents threw a party, inviting nearly two hundred people, and bought Rahul a car, justifying it as a necessity for his life in Ithaca. They bragged about the school, more impressed by it than they'd been with Penn. "Our job is done," her father declared at the end of the party, posing for pictures with Rahul and Sudha on either side. For years they had been compared to other Bengali children, told about gold medals brought back from science fairs, colleges that offered full scholarships. Sometimes Sudha's father would clip newspaper articles about unusually gifted adolescents - the boy who finished his PhD at twenty, the girl who went to Stanford at twelve - and tape them on the refrigerator. When Sudha was fourteen, her father had written to Harvard Medical School, requested an application, and placed it on her desk.

My office is over here—” He stopped. Frowned. Looked about. Had to backtrack to the kitchen in order to find the various parties. Sola’s grandmother had her head in the Sub-Zero refrigerator, rather as if she were a gnome looking for a cool place in the summer. “Madam?” Assail inquired. She shut the door and moved on to the floor-to-ceiling cabinets. “There is nothing here. Nothing. What do you eat?” “Ah . . .” Assail found himself looking at the cousins for aid. “Usually we take our meals in town.” The scoffing sound certainly appeared like the old-lady equivalent of Fuck that. “I need the staples.” She pivoted on her little shiny shoes and put her hands on her hips. “Who is taking me to supermarket.” Not an inquiry. And as she stared up at the three of them, it appeared as though Ehric and his violent killer of a twin were as nonplussed as Assail was. The evening had been planned out to the minute—and a trip to the local Hannaford was not on the list. “You two are too thin,” she announced, flicking her hand in the direction of the twins. “You need to eat.” Assail cleared his throat. “Madam, you have been brought here for your safety.” He was not going to permit Benloise to up the stakes—and so he’d had to lock down potential collateral damage. “Not to be a cook.” “You have already refused the money. I no stay here for free. I earn my keep. That is the way it will be.” Assail exhaled long and slow. Now he knew where Sola got her independent streak. “Well?” she demanded. “I no drive. Who takes me.” “Madam, would you not prefer to rest—” “Your body rest when dead. Who.” “We do have an hour,” Ehric hedged. As Assail glared at the other vampire, the little old lady hitched her purse up on her forearm and nodded. “So he will take me.” Assail met Sola’s grandmother’s gaze directly and dropped his tone a register just so that the line drawn would be respected. “I pay. Are we clear—you are not to spend a cent.” She opened her mouth as if to argue, but she was headstrong—not foolish. “Then I do the darning.” “Our clothes are in sufficient shape—” Ehric cleared his throat. “Actually, I have a couple of loose buttons. And the Velcro strip on his flak jacket is—” Assail looked over his shoulder and bared his fangs at the idiot—out of eyesight of Sola’s grandmother, of course. Remarshaling his expression, he turned back around and— Knew he’d lost. The grandmother had one of those brows cocked, her dark eyes as steady as any foe’s he’d ever faced. Assail shook his head. “I cannot believe I’m negotiating with you.” “And you agree to terms.” “Madam—” “Then it is settled.” Assail threw up his hands. “Fine. You have forty-five minutes. That is all.” “We be back in thirty.” At that, she turned and headed for the door. In her diminutive wake, the three vampires played ocular Ping-Pong. “Go,” Assail gritted out. “Both of you.” The cousins stalked for the garage door—but they didn’t make it. Sola’s grandmother wheeled around and put her hands on her hips. “Where is your crucifix?” Assail shook himself. “I beg your pardon?” “Are you no Catholic?” My dear sweet woman, we are not human, he thought. “No, I fear not.” Laser-beam eyes locked on him. Ehric. Ehric’s brother. “We change this. It is God’s will.” And out she went, marching through the mudroom, ripping open the door, and disappearing into the garage. As that heavy steel barrier closed automatically, all Assail could do was blink.

I heard the story of a wealthy Texan who threw a party for his daughter because she was approaching the age to marry. He wanted to find a suitable husband for her—someone who was courageous, intelligent, and highly motivated. He invited a lot of young, eligible bachelors. After they had enjoyed a wonderful time at the party, he took the suitors to the backyard and showed them an Olympic-size swimming pool filled with poisonous snakes and alligators. He announced, “Whoever will dive in this pool and swim the length of it can have his choice of one of three things. One, he can have a million dollars; two, ten thousand acres of my best land; or three, the hand of my daughter, who upon my death will inherit everything I own.” No sooner had he finished when one young man splashed into the pool and reappeared on the other side in less than two seconds. The rich Texan was overwhelmed with the guy’s enthusiasm. “Man, I have never seen anyone so excited and motivated in all my life, I’d like to ask you: Do you want the million dollars, ten thousand acres, or my daughter?” The young man looked at him sheepishly, “Sir,” he said, “I would like to know who pushed me in the pool!” The

Alyssa shrugged. “I think we know the routine.” “You do, but there’s still a…stiffness because y’all aren’t completely comfortable with it, and it shows in your dancing.” Ashton held up a finger. “Everyone close your eyes, relax your shoulders, and just feel the breeze that’s blowing across the field right now.” Ashton closed her eyes and waved her arms around slowly. “You’re a tree, and the gentle wind is swaying your branches. Let it sway you.” What Ashton didn’t know was that no one did as she instructed. The girls and Patty stood there watching Ashton sway her arms. “Coach, you look like the inflatable tube man they have at the new carwash, and you’re scaring me,” Sophie said, looking disturbed. Ashton’s eyes flew open. “I better see some people doing the inflatable tube man pretty darn quick.” The girls all threw up their arms and flopped them around violently, and Ashton said, “Y’all are killing me. Show me how y’all would dance if you were at a party.” She covered her face with both hands when they all started twerking. “Okay, just stop. Gemma, run them through the moves again.” “What were you trying to accomplish with all that?” Patty asked with a grin. “I was trying to get them to loosen up,” Ashton said and glanced at her watch. “This day is creeping by.” “You should’ve dusted off your snake and showed them that. If you can do a smooth snake, you can make any dance move smooth. Check my snake.” Ashton shook her head. “That’s not a full-on snake. You have to roll your body from your head to your hips, use your neck like this.” “You were always better at this one than I was,” Patty said as she mimicked Ashton’s moves. “You couldn’t touch my Cabbage Patch though.” Ashton snorted. “That sounded so dirty. Come on, Patty, neck and shoulders, work them.” Ashton turned when the music stopped and realized the girls had stopped practicing to watch her and Patty. “What’re y’all doing?” Gemma asked with a laugh. “This is dancing,” Patty retorted. “Back in the day, we moved our entire bodies instead of rhythmically humping the air like y’all do. Tell you what, if y’all can learn to do the snake, I’ll buy y’all shakes at Molly’s.” Every girl on the team executed the dance move perfectly, and Gemma grinned. “Momma, we know old school moves.” Melody nodded. “Yeah, we know all those old-timey dances. Can we go to Molly’s now?” “What were you trying to accomplish with this plan?” Ashton asked Patty with a grin. “Apparently, bankruptcy.” ******* “How many times are you gonna change your clothes?” Jet asked that evening as she watched Shawna go back into her closet. Shawna groaned. “Everything I put on is pissing me off.” “Wear jeans and your light blue V-neck T-shirt. You’re just going to her house, you don’t have to dress up.” Jet sprawled out on Shawna’s bed and toyed with the TV remote.