#two neighboring houses of six units total

[aholefilledwithtwigs]

I once had a landlord offhandedly mention that his mother had set this house on fire before. He and his wife lived on the first floor, and i rented the third.

Apparently his mom didn’t like his wife. So she set their house on fire. The house i was living in.

He assured me that everything was fine now and that this was years ago, just kinda laughed, smiled, and said ‘You know how moms are’

Yes. I know how moms are. I know how fucked up moms are as well. I have known many fucked up moms and fellow children of fucked up moms.

Attempted murder through arson is not typical mom behavior, even for a fucked up abusive mom

Oh, and his mother lived next door 🙃

[dwellordream]

Notable American Women: BARTON, Clara (Dec. 25, 1821 - Apr. 12, 1912)

“...Named Clarissa Harlowe, after the heroine of Richardson’s novel, she preferred to be known simply as Clara. She was deeply influenced by her family. Her father, to whom she was especially close, was a veteran of the Indian wars and a substantial farmer and sawmill owner who inspired his daughter with patriotism, a love of military lore, and a broad humanitarian interest.

From her mother, a practical, hot-tempered, and warm-hearted woman, she acquired a lifelong interest in the household arts. Her four considerably older brothers and sisters also played important parts in her education, guiding her in mathematics, literature, and out-of-doors activities, including horsemanship. “I had no playmates but in effect six fathers and mothers,” she later wrote.

…Plain in feature, almost neurotically sensitive, and endowed with an abundance of nervous energy, she early evidenced a strong will, a determination to surmount obstacles, and a capacity to identify herself with needy sufferers. At eighteen, little more than five feet tall, she began to teach in neighboring schools, her early success giving her increasing self-confidence and poise. Her patience, integrity, sense of fun, and ability to inspire won the life-long devotion of many of her pupils.

…In the confused days that marked the beginning of the Civil War, Clara Barton found an opportunity to aid and befriend homesick Massachusetts soldiers in the capital. Later, witnessing the almost total lack of first-aid facilities at the battle of Bull Run, she advertised in the Worcester (Mass.) Spy for provisions for the wounded. 

Using her own limited quarters as a storeroom, she accumulated bandages, medicines, and food. Despite initial opposition in the War Department and among field surgeons, she and a few friends began in the summer of 1862 to distribute these supplies by mule team to ill-equipped hospitals and camps and on the battlefields themselves.

…Insistent on keeping her operations independent of the United States Sanitary Commission and of Dorothea Dix’s division of female nurses, Clara Barton short-circuited military routine and again and again appeared at military engagements with desperately needed supplies. Adaptable and cooperative, she was able to commandeer army mules and wagons for transport. It was her genius to blend sympathy with efficiency and never-failing resourcefulness. 

…Increasingly she won the respect and admiration of commanding officer and surgeons, one of whom wrote, after seeing her in action at a critical juncture, that “if heaven ever sent out a holy angel, she must be one, her assistance was so timely”. She always insisted that she was only one of hundreds of women who had rendered such service, yet by thousands of soldiers she was remembered as the Angel of the Battlefield. 

…Undismayed by governmental and public apathy, she initiated what was to prove a five-year campaign for the organization of an American Red Cross Society and the adherence of her country to the Geneva Treaty. …Spending increasing periods of time in Washington (her permanent home after 1884), she worked indefatigably, though often in a mood of profound discouragement, to persuade the State Department, the White House, and Congress to ratify the treaty. 

…Finally, on Mar. 1, 1882, with the approval of the Secretary of State James G. Blaine and the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, President Arthur signed the Geneva Treaty. Two weeks later the Senate ratified it. Both at home and abroad, it was generally agreed that American adherence could not have been effected had it not been for Clara Barton’s persistent campaign.

…Aware of the tendency of some philanthropic organizations to remain in operation longer than the situation warranted, she made a point of leaving when the main work was done. Although she cooperated with local relief groups and with government agencies when these were involved, she insisted on keeping tight rein over whatever was done. Her program consisted of getting as speedily as possible to the scene of the emergency with relief--food, clothing, medicine, materials for shelter. Anticipating a later emphasis, she was concerned with rehabilitation as well as with relief.

…But there was serious criticism, both from within the organization and from outside, of Miss Barton’s management. Many felt that her place was at her desk in Washington rather in the field preparing soup for soldiers or establishing orphan asylums for Cuban waifs. So ill-defined were relations between the national Red Cross organization and its nominal auxiliaries that much of the useful red Cross war work, particularly in the training of nurses, was wholly independent of the national office.

…She could not delegate authority. Any criticism of her informal method of handling finances, which was without benefit of acceptable bookkeeping or audits, seemed to her to impugn her integrity. The truth was that she clung to power when it was clear to all but her most devoted supporters that new methods and new leadership were required. 

…Whatever her failings, the honors were unquestionably merited. In a public career spanning over forty years, she had not only performed outstanding humanitarian services at home and abroad, but, above all, she had made the emblem and meaning of the Red Cross familiar to her countrymen.”

- Notable American Women, Volume I: A-F, 1971

[metamoonshots]

[ad_1] Within the ever-evolving world of cryptocurrency, Bitcoin has carved a distinct segment for itself as a digital powerhouse. However what many don’t notice is that this innovation comes at a big value: electrical energy consumption. Bitcoin miners worldwide eat a staggering 348 terawatt hours of electrical energy yearly, a determine that rivals the power consumption of complete international locations. Because the world turns into more and more centered on renewable power sources, it’s price delving into the query of the place Bitcoin attracts its energy from.Photograph by Art Rachen on UnsplashThe highest 10 international locations for Bitcoin mining collectively account for a staggering 93.8% of the complete community’s computational energy, measured in hashrate. Amongst these, the USA, China, and Kazakhstan safe the highest three positions. As of the shut of 2021, these three international locations held practically three-quarters of the Bitcoin mining community.United States: 37.8% hashrate, 22.5% renewable powerChina: 21.1% hashrate, 30.2% renewable powerKazakhstan: 13.2% hashrate, 11.3% renewable powerIt’s attention-grabbing to notice that China was as soon as the uncontested chief in Bitcoin mining, commanding as much as 75% of worldwide capability. Nonetheless, a regulatory crackdown in the summertime of 2021 led to a swift decline in China’s share, with many miners relocating to neighboring Kazakhstan and a few choosing the USA. China’s Bitcoin mining scene has additionally witnessed the emergence of a covert mining neighborhood in response to those modifications.On the decrease finish of the highest 10, we discover Eire, Singapore, and Thailand, collectively internet hosting 4.9% of the community. Nonetheless, there's motive to consider that Eire’s reported share, in addition to Germany’s, is likely to be an overstatement as a result of miners concealing their precise places.On a nationwide degree, the USA, China, and Kazakhstan have renewable power shares of twenty-two.5%, 30.2%, and 11.3%, respectively. To supply context, renewables constituted 30% of the world’s electrical energy technology in 2022, excluding nuclear power.Kazakhstan’s modest share of renewables might be attributed to its heavy reliance on coal, which accounts for 60% of its electrical energy technology and serves as a big export. In distinction, China, whereas additionally closely reliant on coal (61%), boasts a better total renewable power share as a result of its speedy enlargement of wind and solar energy.The placement the place a Bitcoin miner units up their operation performs a pivotal function of their success. In contrast to typical industries with mounted amenities, Bitcoin mining rigs are cell, typically housed in delivery containers. Components influencing their selection of location embody regulatory insurance policies, electrical energy prices, and the native local weather.Contemplating the growing concentrate on renewable power sources pushed by local weather change, many Bitcoin miners are actually meticulously inspecting the sources of their electrical energy. This explains why Canada, with its plentiful hydroelectric assets, has climbed the ranks from lower than one p.c of the community in 2019 to six.5% by the tip of 2021.Whereas international locations like Iceland, Paraguay, and Norway, with robust renewable power foundations, collectively hosted simply over one p.c of the worldwide community, there stays ample room for progress within the inexperienced Bitcoin mining sector.Because the world continues to transition in direction of cleaner power sources, Bitcoin’s environmental affect will seemingly be a topic of ongoing scrutiny. The alternatives made by miners by way of location and power sources may have a big affect on the cryptocurrency’s sustainability. With a shared dedication to eco-conscious Bitcoin mining, we will hope to strike a steadiness between technological development and environmental duty. [ad_2]

[creatiview]

A lethal blizzard paralyzed Buffalo, New York, on Christmas Day, trapping motorists and rescue workers in their vehicles, leaving thousands of homes without power and raising the death toll from storms that have chilled much of the United States for days. At least 30 people have died in U.S. weather-related incidents, according to an NBC News tally, since a deep freeze gripped most of the nation, coupled with snow, ice and howling winds from a sprawling storm that roared out of the Great Lakes region on Friday. Much of the loss of life has centered in and around Buffalo at the edge of Lake Erie in western New York, as numbing cold and heavy "lake-effect" snow - the result of frigid air moving over warmer lake waters - persisted through the holiday weekend. Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said the storm's confirmed death toll climbed to 13 on Sunday, up from three reported overnight in the Buffalo region. The latest victims included some found in cars and some in snow banks, Poloncarz said, adding that the death tally would likely rise further. "This is not the Christmas any of us hoped for nor expected," Poloncarz said on Twitter on Sunday. "My deepest condolences to the families who have lost loved ones." New York Governor Kathy Hochul called it an "epic, once-in-a-lifetime" weather disaster that ranked as the fiercest winter storm to hit the greater Buffalo area since a crippling 1977 blizzard that killed nearly 30 people. "We have now surpassed the scale of that storm, in its intensity, the longevity, the ferocity of its winds," Hochul told an evening news conference, adding that the current storm would likely to go down in history as "the blizzard of '22." RESCUING THE RESCUERS The latest blizzard came nearly six weeks after a record-setting but shorter-lived lake-effect storm struck western New York. Despite a ban on road travel imposed since Friday, hundreds of Erie County motorists were stranded in their vehicles over the weekend, with National Guard troops called in to help with rescues hindered by white-out conditions and drifting snow, Poloncarz said. Many snow plows and other equipment sent on Saturday and Sunday became stuck in the snow, "and we had to send rescue missions to rescue the rescuers," he told reporters. The Buffalo police department posted an online plea to the public for assistance in search-and-recovery efforts, asking those who "have a snow mobile and are willing to help" to call a hotline for instructions. The severity of the storm was notable even for a region accustomed to harsh winter weather. Christina Klaffka, 39, a North Buffalo resident, watched the shingles blow off her neighbor's home and listened to her windows rattle from "hurricane-like winds." She lost power along with her whole neighborhood on Saturday evening, and was still without electricity on Sunday morning. "My TV kept flickering while I was trying to watch the Buffalo Bills and Chicago Bears game. I lost power shortly after the 3rd quarter," she said. John Burns, 58, a retiree in North Buffalo, said he and his family were trapped in their house for 36 hours by the storm and extreme cold that he called "mean and nasty." "Nobody was out. Nobody was even walking their dogs," he said. "Nothing was going on for two days." Snowfall totals were hard to gauge, he added, because of fierce winds that reduced accumulation between houses, but piled up a 5-foot (1.5-meter) drift "in front of my garage." Hochul told reporters on Sunday that the Biden administration had agreed to support her request for a federal disaster declaration. About 200 National Guard troops were mobilized in western New York to help police and fire crews, conduct wellness checks and bring supplies to shelters, Hochul said. ELECTRICITY HIT HARD The larger storm system was moving east on Sunday, after knocking out power to as many as 1.5 million customers at the height of outages late last week and forcing thousands of commercial flight cancellations during the busy holiday travel period.

More than 150,000 U.S. homes and businesses were without power on Sunday, down sharply from the 1.8 million without power as of early Saturday, according to PowerOutage.us. In Buffalo, 15,000 residents were still without electricity on Sunday evening, Poloncarz said. He said one electrical substation knocked offline was sealed off by an 18-foot-tall mound of snow, and utility crews found the entire facility frozen inside. Christmas Day temperatures, while beginning to rebound from near-zero readings that were widespread on Saturday, remained well below average across the central and eastern United States, and below freezing even as far south as the Gulf Coast, National Weather Service (NWS) meteorologist Rich Otto said. Nearly 4 feet of snow was measured at Buffalo airport by Sunday, according to the latest NWS tally, with white-out conditions lingering south of Buffalo into the afternoon as continuing squalls dumped 2-3 inches of snow an hour. In Kentucky, officials confirmed three storm-related deaths since Friday, while at least four people were dead and several injured in auto-related accidents in Ohio, where a 50-vehicle pileup shut down the Ohio Turnpike during a blizzard on Friday. Other deaths related to extreme cold or weather-induced vehicle accidents were reported in Missouri, Tennessee, Kansas and Colorado, according to news reports.

[saebyeog-i]

bitter brews (i) | syh

“Johnny laughed again, eyes crinkling at the sides. Your mind wandered briefly to a half formed thought about how endearing that was. “Maybe so, but despite your efforts to make me an enemy, I think you’re actually a really good person. You even guessed my favorite coffee drink, so that has to count for something.””

genre | not quite a coffeeshop!au, (mild)slow burn, this thought about being an adversaries to lovers fic for six minutes

rating/warnings | a stupid amount of exposition about coffee plants, catch me throwing in the random recipes that have been my go-to for cooking during quarantine, is this angsty?, discussions of mental health issues {see tags for details}, overall mature content/themes {foul language, alcohol consumption, references & discussion of masturbation, awkward boners, future smut}, some soft moments, and some good ol’ tooth rotting waxing poetic nonsense fluff. Don’t expect too much out of this I just got tired of editing this part so I’m finally posting it.

word count | 19.6k (I meant for this to be a super long one-shot but it’s turning into a story in parts for the sake of ratings w h o o p s)

pairing | Johnny Seo x fem reader

writing playlist | Egotistic - Mamamoo, Black Swan - BTS, Sober - HYO, I Blame On You - Taeyeon, Heartbeat - BTS, Close to Me (Red Velvet Remix) - Ellie Goulding feat. Red Velvet

—

“So, what you mean to say is… you’re not coming? Like, at all?”

The bright yellow plastic of the rotary phone was slightly cool against your overheating skin, which was constantly veiled in a thin layer of sweat whenever you stayed on the farm property instead of the main house on the opposite side of the island. It was the first week of May, which meant it was already humid again. If it wasn’t the time for the daily afternoon rain showers, it might as well have felt like it was raining with how saturated the air was.

“I’m sorry, Bean, I just can’t get on a plane right now. I thought it would be fine it we stretched out the time between flights, but all my doctors are saying I need to just stay here between now and the birth, so…”

Your sister’s voice trailed off and you had to wait for a moment to be sure it wasn’t the poor reception for the phone call running across the four thousand miles that separated you— the four thousand miles that would continue to separate you for the rest of the summer.

You exhaled and twirled the aged spiral phone cord that could barely hold its shape around your index finger, staring at the concrete floor and scrunching your toes. “Well, I’m already here, obviously… do you… you want me to stay here then? Take care of stuff?” You asked hesitantly, already having a feeling of what the answer would be.

A crackly sigh of relief came through the other line. “Little Bean, you are the best, Yunho was worried about asking you to stay and man the farm for the summer harvest but I knew you would just offer! You’re the best like that, you know?” You gritted your teeth and forced a smile through, even though no one was there to witness it. “Okay, so we’ll ship out the supplies in the next few days. Yunho is gonna email you a list of delivery dates of materials for the projects he had planned for the summer and a few contractor contacts…”

Her voice warbled on, and you could only nod your head and vocalize an ‘mhmm’ every so often, listening to her rattle off instructions and information that you knew would be sent in an email too. You’d been looking forward to spending the summer with her— you hadn’t gotten a proper chance to visit for more than a weekend since she and Yunho had gotten married about two years ago— but it turned out this wouldn’t be it. You couldn’t blame her though; she was approaching the third trimester of her pregnancy. You’d do anything for her, even this, even isolating yourself on a farm for four months. Alone.

Not exactly the leave of absence you’d been hoping for from work, but it would have to do.

✧ ✧ ✧

This was supposed to be a vacation. A break. Some much needed time off, away from your job, your career, and your “normal” life. You told yourself over and over again you were looking forward to it. And besides, it would all be worth it, because of all the time you’d get to spend with your sister after so long.

And then she had to betray you by going and getting fucking knocked up, with twins no less.

Fucking happily married couples with their god damn healthy ass sex lives and family planning and wanting to raise children. What the fuck was that all about?

It had been so long since your last vacation. Years, in fact. So long, you had over two months of paid time off accrued at work, and back at New Years you’d made the preliminary plans to spend a month on the farm in Hawaii with her, bonding and just relaxing. Sure, it would require some manual labor for the business here and there, but mostly just to rest.

What a joke that turned out to be.

The farm in Hawaii. You know, the coffee farm your brother in law bought four years ago on a dare from your sister, because he said he could totally pull it off as a side hustle, and she said he wouldn’t be able to? Yeah, that one. Fast forward to today and the side hustle became a full fledged passion that roped in a good amount of the family into the business. Siblings, cousins, parents, all involved in different aspects of package design, social media marketing, distribution and wholesale— everyone except you, who stuck with your soul sucking job in advertising, the same industry your brother in law had since left behind.

The farm and roasting wasn’t an overnight success by any means, but in the last year the brand had really taken off in the craft coffee scene. After all, Kona coffee was well sought after, and one could only claim the name ‘Kona’ if it was grown on the same two thousand or so acres of land on Hawaii’s big island. You know, the same area of land you were living on for the remainder of the summer?

Right. The whole summer.

It was just supposed to be the month of May. And then it turned into May and some of June, when you’d asked your sister to make more concrete plans, and she kept brushing it off. And then the week before you actually got off the plane, you hadn’t booked the return ticket, because you were still waiting for her answer. And then the phone call, and now, this was… indefinite? No, that was being too dramatic; if anything, it would be up through the birth. Based on the number of projects Yunho had planned for the farm, through the remainder of the summer was how long everything would take. Just you and a little over five acres of land and the summer heat. The thought of an extended isolation had your breath catching in your throat, but the last thing you wanted to do was complain or call for help. Stubborn and proud, you wouldn’t have made the offer to stay if you didn’t mean it, if you didn’t think you could handle it. There was no way you were backing out now.

When Yunho had first bought the farm, it had been a rough first few years of refining the coffee plants that had been on the land and uncared for for a number of years, but the last two summers had provided a steady increase in the harvest yield. There was a small farmhouse on the property, with two small bedrooms, a shower, and a small kitchen and living area. A few miles down the coast was the nicer, newer condo that the business had bought, a multi-bedroom unit with some better amenities for when more of your family wanted to visit. It felt weird spending time there— it was too nice, too clean, and quite frankly you had enough to keep yourself busy with on the farm property, you’d rather not have to spend time driving back and forth every day. So you opted to spend most of your nights sleeping here, even though it meant only ceiling fans and no air conditioning.

The farmhouse had very shitty, very limited wifi and a grand total of three electrical outlets outside of what was used to power the oven and refrigerator. One of those outlets was, of course, dedicated to an espresso machine on the kitchen counter, which you had gotten acquainted with over the last two weeks. It was an older model and a little temperamental (the one at the condo was much nicer), but it was still from a decent manufacturer, and you could still use it to pulled a decent shot.

Most of the time you worked in silence, and most of the time you were never too aware of how much time had passed, other than when the sun went down and it was suddenly dark out. You weren’t always this absent minded, you swore— maybe it was a byproduct of being alone for so long—

A loud, high pitched whine filled your ears, followed by some scratching at the door that lead to the lanai outside. You sighed, standing up from the kitchen table and walking over to face the monster that had made it.

“What? What do you want now?”

Staring back at you from the the other side of the screen door was what you’d affectionally referred to as The Thirty-Three Pound Menace— the medium sized stray dog that your brother-in-law so conveniently forgot to mention had been living on the farm for the last few months. It had been waiting outside the farmhouse when you first arrived, and you’d learned from the neighbors that Yunho had taken a liking to the stray and had arranged for them to feed it in his absence. But now that you were here, taking care of the dog was added to your list of daily chores. It seemed to not want to leave the farm property unless actively accompanied by you, with the assurance that you’d be bringing it back with you.

With a roll of your eyes you hip checked the door open just enough to let the dog inside the house. It circled you several times, sniffing at your knees before sitting and panting, staring up at you expectantly. In the two weeks you’d been here, the majority of your conversations were between you and this, a being that couldn’t talk back. Maybe you liked it that way. “What, dinner? Fine, fine,” you grumbled, shuffling to the cabinet and pulling out a can of wet food.

Your meals had consisted of relatively simple dishes, but today you were cranky at the confirmation that your summer was not going to go as planned. Tonight’s dinner featured a bowl of cereal and a coffee mug full of cold white wine.

You ate in silence. You drank in silence. The only noise came from the hum of the ceiling fan overhead, and the occasional sound of the dog, cleaning its paws and laying by your feet protectively. Why it seemed so determined to win over your affection, you had no idea.

After sitting in silence with only your thoughts and the now sleeping dog to keep you company for what felt like hours and downing a second mug full of wine, you found yourself letting out a loud yell, startling the dog and waking it. In a fury, you pulled out the laptop you had for the sole purpose of checking once a day for emails from Yunho and connected it to the shitty, sub-par wifi with just enough patience to navigate to an airline’s website and search flights back to the states. You were looking for the cheapest, most reasonable one you could find. After all of five minutes of research and a quick round on mental math, you clicked on a date and hit the ‘book now’ button before you could second guess yourself, slamming the computer shut once the payment went through and shoving it away from you across the table.

“September 10th,” you grumbled out loud for only you and the dog to hear. Standing from the chair, the legs scraping loudly against the floor, you crossed the room and stopped in front of the wall calendar your sister had put up the last time she’d visited the farm just after New Years. You lifted a few pages and flipped forward to the month of September. Red marker in hand, you found the date and circled it rather aggressively, several times over. You looked down at the dog, watching you patiently with its head tilted. “You got that? I’m getting off this fucking island on September 10th.”

✧ ✧ ✧

The day your life fell apart came twelve days later just before nine in the morning.

Mondays were the delivery day, that’s what Yunho had laid out in his instructional emails to you. Your only source of personal transportation was an older jeep, one you didn’t enjoy driving, given that it had no top and needed some mechanical work done. So you’d made arrangements and had your groceries delivered on Monday mornings, buying mostly direct from another farm on the other side of the island, and they were always kind enough to act as the courier for whatever additional miscellaneous supplies you’d request, regardless of where they’d have to go to procure them.

There was a winding driveway that lead up to the house from the main road, and a larger, wider drive up a less steep hillside for larger vehicles for delivery. You were fully expecting the truck that lumbered up the delivery road and came to a stop just outside the barn which housed the massive coffee roaster and stored most of the processed green beans from harvest. Even though it had only been three weeks, there was a routine that had slowly been settling into place: the sound of the truck coming to a stop riled up the dog, the dog came running from wherever and started barking, you’d get your groceries and any other assorted items, the dog would get a treat because your delivery boy had a soft spot for the creature, and you’d pay for your goods. “Hey Jin,” you called out over the barking from the front of the barn, hands currently full with a sack of processed coffee beans you’d hoisted over your shoulder. “You can just leave the groceries on the porch, I’ll put them inside in a few. Did you manage to get me the bags of fertilizer and some wood stakes?” A loud thud sounded as you dropped the bag to its resting place on the concrete floor.

“I mean, I can go put these inside if that’s easier. And yeah, there’s ten bags to get us started, we can have more delivered next week if you still need ‘em.”

You whipped around to face whoever had just spoken, because that voice was most certainly not Jin.

He was tall like Jin, had wide shoulders like Jin, and his hair was kept just a bit long and looked ridiculously shiny and soft and like you could run your fingers through it like Jin’s. It was a lighter brown with some honeyed highlights running through it, compared to the dark brown almost black of Jin’s. You tensed, seeing him carrying a brown paper bag with a loaf of bread and the leafy green tops of carrots sticking out the top. He wasn’t looking at you, rather, he was far too occupied with bending down slightly and scratching behind the ear of the dog who was currently whining and wagging its tail at his feet. Some guard dog it was.

Without a second thought, you reached for the first sharp object you could find, which happened to be the box cutter you used to cut open the burlap bags the beans came back from the processing plant in. “You’re not Jin,” you said tersely, holding the utility knife by your hip defensively.

“Chill out killer, he’s harmless,” a more familiar voice called. Seokjin, your regular delivery driver whose family owned the farm you bought directly from, came into view carrying another two bags of produce and a small pile of envelopes. “Picked up your mail on my way up, the box was practically overflowing. Do you ever check that thing?” You’d first met Jin two years ago when you’d come to visit your sister and Yunho for a long weekend. He’d become a good friend of Yunho’s and was one of the people who would take turns feeding the dog when no one else was here.

Ignoring the unknown man, you relaxed your shoulders slightly and placed the knife down on the table behind you. “Thanks,” you grumbled, taking the small pile of letters from him. Admittedly, you hadn’t checked the mailbox since the day after you’d arrived on the farm, mostly out of sloth and spite. You sifted through the letters— mostly junk mail, with a few bills and notices relating to the business. You put those in front so you could look through them later, when you’d finished the physical work for the day. You tore one envelope open in particular when you noticed it was addressed directly to you and had your sister and Yunho’s Illinois address in the upper corner. It was a letter postmarked from two weeks ago, which struck you as odd, because what the hell would he bother writing in a letter that he couldn’t just send you in an email or a text or a phone call? You started reading aloud softly to yourself.

“‘My Dearest Bean… First of all I want to apologize for the change in plans, but with your sister’s condition her doctors just don’t recommend her traveling,’ God, he’s so dramatic she’s not terminally ill she’s just pregnant. Blah blah blah, I don’t care, you’re full of absolute shite, Yunho,” you began skimming through his lengthy pre amble, looking for the purpose behind the note. Without reading the middle you flipped the stationary paper over to see his handwriting covered the entire back of the page, too. “God, he’s so long winded. Oh, here we go, the very end— ‘I promise we’ll make it up to you, thank you for running the farm and taking care of Puppy, please be nice to Johnny and treat him well, he seems like a good kid.” You stared at the words written on the paper and looked up at Jin. “Who the fuck is Johnny?”

The man next to him cleared his throat and held his hand up. “Johnny! I’m uh, that’s me. You must be _____— I’ve heard a lot about you from Yunho! I’m Johnny Seo, it’s nice to meet you,” he said with a smile, reaching a hand out.

You eyed it but made no move to reciprocate the action. “Cool. You know Yunho. Lots of people know Yunho, he’s a huge fucking flirt, social butterfly of the century, the man never shuts up. Why should I be nice to you?”

He shifted on his feet and his outstretched hand retreated. “Oh. Uh. I’m uh, here for the summer,” he explained, sounding almost confused. “Didn’t— didn’t Yunho tell you?”

Your eyes bugged out and you looked over to Jin. “Jin who the fuck is this and why is he on my farm?” You whispered.

Your friend laughed. “You read the end of Yunho’s letter. I’m sure if you read the whole thing it would explain more. This is Johnny, and he’s here for the summer. He’s gonna help you out! I know the list of all the projects you need to finish this summer is lengthy, and plus look at the guy, he’s jacked! You could use the muscle for manual labor. More work for him, less for you, right? And look, the poor dog you refuse to give a name to even likes him!” Jin gestured comically at Johnny. You looked over, sizing him up some— Jin wasn’t wrong. The stranger was muscular on top of being tall, and under the capped sleeves of his tee shirt you saw his arms that looked the size of your head. The dog was still circling him, sniffing and begging for attention.

Johnny tried smiling again. “Yunho mentioned there was a lot of construction type work to do. I uh, had nothing else planned so he said I could stay on the farm for the summer and work in exchange for food and a place to sleep. I take it he uh, didn’t run that by you first, did he?”

Your grip on the papers in hand tightened and you felt your jaw tense involuntarily. “No, he managed to not mention that once to me. How did you even get here?” You hissed back.

“I picked him up at the airport this morning,” Jin answered calmly, “Yunho gave me a buzz a few days ago to ask if I could bring him here with this week’s groceries.”

“So he managed to arrange for him to get on a plane and secure transportation to the farm but couldn’t be bothered to call me and let me know?”

Jin only laughed, his eyes crinkling. “I’m pretty sure he knows you well enough by now to know that this would have been your reaction whatever way he told you.” Despite the kinship you’d felt growing between the two of you, Jin was Yunho’s friend first, and it only made sense that his allegiance would be to him first. Of course he’d side with Yunho on this matter. “And yes, like Johnny said I did bring a bundle of plant stakes and ten bags of fertilizer— they’re in the back of the truck bed.”

“Oh, I could get those—” Johnny started, moving to step towards the truck.

You could barely think straight. First they bailed on you unexpectedly to spend the summer on the farm alone. That was fine— you’d gotten that through your head, and had come to terms with that. But suddenly springing a plus one on you, without your consent? Absolutely the fuck not.

“Yeah. Don’t need help. Thanks,” you spat, grabbing the bags of groceries from him and brushing past, stomping your way back to the farmhouse.

Johnny stood frozen for a moment before stammering, looking from Jin to your retreating figure and back again. “I should— I should talk to her, right? Or do I—”

“Whoa, don’t think too hard there handsome, I can smell wood burning. Don’t stress about it. She’s just a little… touchy. Let me talk to her,” Jin patted Johnny on the back before heading up the path to the farmhouse after you.

You’d stormed into the house and slammed the groceries down on the counter and let out a screech of rage before picking up the receiver of the yellow rotary phone and dialing. Tapping you foot incessantly, you waited as it rang.

“He-llo~?” The singsong voice that came through the other end was far too amused with itself, more so than usual, and that’s how you knew he knew why you were calling.

“Jung Yunho you better be thankful you knocked up my sister because if it weren’t for the babies in her womb I would fly myself across the Pacific and flay you alive,” you seethed through gritted teeth.

In true unbothered fashion, your brother in law only laughed at your threat. “Ah, so I take it your employee has arrived safely! I’ll have to thank Seokjin for getting him from the airport. Can you give the Kims a pound of the special medium roast as a token of my gratitude?”

“No!” You yelled back, “No! I will not! I’m already beyond frustrated that I’m on this island alone for the entire summer, I’m doing this as a favor because we’re family! I’m not your slave, Yunho! Where was my warning, huh? When were you going to ask if I was okay with you sending some stranger to live in the same house as me, huh?!”

The familiar ache in your chest started to swell, and breathing became difficult. ‘Not now,’ you thought bitterly, ‘Please not right now-’

You curled your free hand into a fist and pressed your nails into your palm, hard, grounding yourself. Yunho’s voice on the phone blurred out and by the time his words started making sense again, you’d already missed what he’d been saying. “I’m not saying you have to like the kid, just show him some hospitality, yeah? You just said it yourself, you didn’t want to be alone this summer, and now you won’t be. I know you’re a good cook so that’s why I told him food would be included. Don’t worry, I’ve already sent some pre-payments to the Kims, so your grocery orders are doubled for the rest of the summer.” His voice went quiet for a second. You rubbed at your temple in frustration, squinting your eyes shut and forcing the mere thought of tears deep back into the recesses of your brain. “Bean? You still there?”

“Don’t get all pretend concerned, Yunho. And stop using my childhood nickname any time you want something from me.” Your voice was quieter now, the intensity of your emotions subsiding, but the betrayal you felt still running strong. “Fine. I’ll tolerate him. But there better be a case of wine in next week’s groceries to make this bearable.”

“Done and done! You’re gonna love him Bean, he’s really great. He’ll be good company.” The continued use of your childhood nickname from anyone other than your sister always gave you pause.

“I said tolerate not befriend. There’s a difference,” you clarified quickly. A knock at the door startled you, and you jumped and looked to see Jin standing by the front door, a roll of wooden stakes under his arm. You rolled your eyes and waved your arm to shoo him away, pointing at the phone pressed to your ear. “Look, Yunho, I don’t know what you’re hoping to see me get out of this, but if he drives me insane I can’t promise that he’ll walk away from this unscathed.”

His laugh echoed through the receiver and reverberated against your skin. “I just think it would do you some good to have some human interaction, that’s all. Your sister too. She says hi, by the way,” he added softly, “And so do the little ones.”

You scoffed. Yunho always brought up your sister as a way of diffusing your temper. He knew it would always work. “They’re still in embryonic fluid, they can’t talk and they certainly don’t have cognitive function.” Sometimes you wondered if even Yunho had that with the wild ideas that went through his mind.

“Ever the romantic, you are. You know, soon they’ll be able to think! And they’ll be thinking of their favorite auntie, and how much they can’t wait to meet her! So she can’t be arrested for murder between now and when they’re born, because babies can’t go to prison!”

“I’m telling your sister you said that,” you challenged. With an exhale, you did your best to let go of the frustration and tension inside and politely ended the phone call. You were trying to clear your head and collect yourself before heading back outside when you heard a yell that sounded all too much like Jin’s voice.

“What fresh hell—” you started, shuffling back outside in the direction of the commotion where you saw Jin, somewhat struggling under the weight of two bags of fertilizer, and Johnny, now with a baseball cap turned backwards on his head, easily hoisting a stack of four bags without slouching.  

Your eyebrow ticked up upon the realization that it was almost seventy pounds that he was slinging around like it was nothing. “Anywhere specific you want these?” He asked innocently, looking up at where you stood on the lanai just outside the door. You almost cursed him out when he blinked at you twice.

You pointed your left arm down the hill, the opposite direction of the way to the barn. “Shed. Next to the vegetable garden.” You wrinkled your nose at him. “And lose the hat. Or at least don’t wear it backwards. Makes you look like an ass.”

Johnny’s mouth hung open for a moment before he hummed and winked. “You got it, Boss! Come on handsome, if you can carry those good looks you can carry some dirt,” he called back to Jin, who was currently grumbling about how manual labor wasn’t a part of his delivery arrangement.

The hairs on your arm stood up on edge as you watched Johnny laugh deeply as he ambled his way in the direction you’d pointed. The thirty three pound menace next to you whined and wagged its tail, panting as it went from watching you to watching Johnny’s retreating figure. You looked down and made eye contact. “If I survive this, I’m going to kill Yunho.”

✧ ✧ ✧

There was no case of wine in the grocery deliveries the following week. The reasoning Yunho gave was that per Jin’s investigation, the liquor stores were all out of your favorite wine, so there was no point in sending you a sub par alternative. It was absolute crap, but you had better things to do than chew out your brother in law over the phone. Took way more energy than it was worth.

So far, Johnny was making good on his word and earning his keep. At first, you’d tried avoiding him as much as possible, intentionally waking up hours ahead of him and starting your day when the sun rose. You never made much noise in the mornings, the loudest thing you did was make coffee, and lately you’d opted for a pour over versus pulling shots of espresso. You weren’t personally one for breakfast, choosing just coffee and maybe a piece of fruit instead. This morning you felt a little hungrier than usual, so you thought you’d get yourself a bowl of cereal. Peering into your pantry, you saw that on the shelf where there had been a stash of cereal boxes, there was now nothing.

“Where the fuck are my cocoa pebbles?” You swore in shock, not realizing you weren’t alone in the kitchen.

“Shit sorry, I ate the last of those yesterday.”

You whirled around to see Johnny, still seemingly half asleep and with some gnarly bedhead, yawning and rubbing at his eyes. His lips were so perfectly pouty, one small part of your brain almost thought he looked cute like this.

But no, he wasn’t cute, he was a thief— he’d stolen all of your cereal stash. “Did you seriously eat through four boxes in a week?” You asked incredulously.

“It was three and a quarter! And yeah I don’t know, I’m always hungry and just one bowl of cereal isn’t filling enough, so I usually have two, or three...” He mumbled, voice trailing off as he rubbed a hand behind his head sheepishly.

You snorted. And then a thought came across you. “Johnny,” you said calmly, the feeling of his name on your tongue foreign and strange. Was this the first time you’d addressed him by name since his arrival? You couldn’t remember. “Do you not know how to cook?”

He hummed thoughtfully for a second. “No-pe!” He popped the p sound in the word. How was he this cheerful, even first thing in the morning? “I mean, I can like, boil water and cook pasta and stuff like that. I think I successfully grilled pork belly once, though it was probably doused in too much oil and too many spices. My college experience was funded almost exclusively on instant dinners and takeout for two years, and then for the second half one of my roommates was an actual chef, so, no one was allowed in the kitchen ‘cept for him.”

“Honestly, I am shocked that you haven’t perished in some tragically strange idiotic accident yet,” you sighed and shuffled to the fridge, pulling out a carton of eggs and a pack of bacon. You grabbed a frying pan from the cabinet under the stove and clicked the burner on, reaching for the oil bottle that lived on the counter top and drizzling some in the pan.

Johnny shuffled closer to inspect what you were doing and let out a gasp of appreciation. “You’re making me eggs and bacon?”

“I’m making me eggs and bacon,” you corrected, “But I guess I’ll make enough for you too,” you said as you peeled the strips off the packaging and placed them into the pan with a sizzle. You reached for a few eggs and cracked four into the pan directly, cocked your head at the amount of food, and then grabbed two more eggs and added them in before taking a fork and scrambling them all together, adding salt and white pepper to the bubbling liquid. You glanced up at Johnny, still watching you, slightly curious. “I don’t trust you. You say you’re an adult but you eat like a teenage boy still. There’s never any leftovers.” After a few minutes you flipped the strips of bacon over and then quickly chopped up a green onion and scraped it onto the scramble just before the eggs finished cooking.

Johnny watched you the whole time, and you felt only slightly uneasy under his gaze. When you turned off the stove after plated your food and stepping away to pour yourself some coffee and he didn’t move, you gestured at the pan in a fashion as if to silently ask him ‘What?’

“Oh!” He gasped out lightly, springing into action and plating the food for himself. You hadn’t bothered to sit down at the table, instead holding the plate in front of you as you leaned against the counter and ate. Johnny followed your lead, taking a bite and groaning audibly in enjoyment at he chewed. He smiled and his eyes shone, almost sparkling. You watched him curiously for a moment before he mumbled out “Your cooking is really good! It uh, reminds me of my mom’s. She’s a great cook.”

You kept your lips tightly shut at the apparent compliment. “It’s just eggs, you weirdo. Finish up and do the dishes. When you’re done meet me by the shed. Today you’re stripping off the old paint and removing any of the rotting boards and disposing of them,” you instructed while placing your empty plate in the sink. His tasks for the day were the next phase in slowly rebuilding the dilapidated shed on the west side of the property to make it useful for storage of all the tools you used to tend to the fruit trees and vegetable garden nearby.

He flashed a smile at you and gave a mock salute. “Aye-aye, captain, I am at your service.”

“Oh shut up,” you grumbled, downing more of your coffee before trudging off.

It was going to be a long summer.

✧ ✧ ✧

“I’m telling you Wendy, I’m going to need an alibi, I really am going to murder my brother in law.”

“What, for giving you live-in eye candy for the summer and hinting that he thinks you need to get laid?”

“Ugh, no, that’s not— hold up, you don’t agree with him, do you?”

The sound of your best friend’s laughter through the phone had you dragging your hands over your face and pulling down at your eyelids dramatically, as if she could see your reaction.

On Thursdays, you finished up your work for the day around 4pm so you could pull up a chair next to the rotary phone and make time for the weekly scheduled phone call with Wendy. She’d insisted on the arrangement after you went six days without texting her, which you’d insisted was because service was spotty, but she’d accurately called you out on being cranky and stewing by yourself.

You and Wendy had met during your freshman year of college. By graduation, you’d lived together for three years, and made a vow to move to the same city together post grad, hence why she was still your roommate now— or was, seeing as you were on the island instead of back in the two bedroom apartment you shared. There was a five hour timezone difference between Hawaii and Chicago, so you’d figured out a schedule that worked for both of you. The calls had a tendency to last for several hours, and depending on how much wine you’d drink while on the phone with her would include bathroom breaks and you inevitably swearing at whatever you were cooking for dinner than night.

“Honey, please. I love you. Dearly, and against all other advice, you’re my best friend— but you need to get laid. You haven’t been this tense since our last finals week of senior year. And clearly you’re not opposed to the idea of Eye Candy banging your brains out, otherwise you wouldn’t have described him as, and I quote, ‘dumb hot and stupidly ripped’. When are you gonna send me a photo so I have something better to work with?”  

“Okay but are you sure you’re not the sexually frustrated one here and you’re just trying to live vicariously through me?”

Wendy’s hum sounded through the line. “I mean, can’t we both be desperately horny and in need of getting some? It’s not ideal but it is possible. Plus, I’m not the one that didn’t pack her vibrator—”

You let out a whine interrupting her as you leaned back in your chair, swirling the wine in your glass a few times as you held the phone to your ear with your shoulder. “Shut up stop reminding me! I regret it but no I’m not letting you send me a new one, especially not with a guy living with me. Come on, my stories are boring, it’s the same thing every day. I wake up, I feed the dog, I tell him what to do and then I hide away doing my own chores. When are you gonna tell me more about that girl you were seeing— what was her name, Joo-something?”

“Nice try, we’re not changing the subject with my dating life. Seriously, babe, you should just think about it.”

“And what, make it awkward for the rest of the summer? No thanks,” you shot her idea down quickly.

“I’m willing to bet money you’ll cave before the end of the summer. Plus, who doesn’t love a good ol’ summer fling? And who says you ever have to see him again once it’s all over?”

As much as you’d loathe to admit it, Wendy had a bit of a point there. “Cute, but you and I both know I’m too high strung for a temporary fling. Plus, I’m not in the mood to catch feelings right now.”

“If I find a way to replenish your wine supply, would that help?”

You groaned dramatically once more. “Not with the sexual frustration, but with my overall wellbeing, yes, yes it would.”

Wendy squealed on the other end of the phone. “Ha! So you admit it, you are sexually frustrated!”

“Woman, when in the years that you’ve known me have I not been at least some kind of frustrated?” You acknowledged.

Your best friend laughed in agreement, understanding she wasn’t going to get much more out of you about Johnny, and began a lengthy and detailed story about her last three dates with a girl she’d met through a friend of a friend. As you listened to how her voice held a dreamlike quality to it when she talked about her, you couldn’t help the pang of jealousy you felt and a sinking feeling in your gut that you’d been lying through your teeth earlier, and that maybe, subconsciously, you did want to catch feelings.

Maybe.

✧ ✧ ✧

“So… is there a story or a reason why you’re here instead of Yunho?”

You lifted your head from your focused task of sorting out the peaberry beans from the regular beans. It was tedious, time consuming, annoying as all hell, and made you want a drink stiffer than the coffee that you were certain made up more of your body fluids than blood or water did at this point. “Yes,” you said curtly after studying his face for a minute, not providing any further explanation. Johnny had his hands in his pockets and pursed his lips, nodding for a moment where he stood in the entrance to the barn.

You had set up your mad scientist level organization for the process all across the concrete floor of the refinished barn. Over the last week, Johnny had finished replacing the boards on the siding of the shed, stained the wood, and sealed it with a protective coat. He even managed to remove all the broken glass from the windows without sustaining any injuries, which you hadn’t thought possible for him. This morning you had him weed the vegetable garden, prune back the hedges along the back side of the house, and clean the deck of the lanai. How did he possibly still have any energy left? He was definitely a harder worker than you’d first given him credit for— you shook your head, not wanting to continue a spiral on Johnny and any detailed thoughts about him.

Back to your task at hand.

The harvest had been divided into several metal basins of five pounds of beans each, and in front of each basin you’d placed two dishes on either side. The point was to be able to weigh how many beans ended up being peaberry from each five pounds of harvest, and to see if you could leverage a steady average from the yield and better plan for how many pounds of the limited roast you could advertise for and set the price per pound accordingly. You wore a face mask and nylon disposable gloves while sorting, and despite being an annoying task, after a while it became a way for you to zone out and let the hours pass by. When the dishes were empty and you first started sorting them, there was a distinct echo of the small beans hitting the metal dish over and over again, until enough beans were lining the bottom that it started to dull the noise.

“Sigh.”

A slight puff of air washed over you. Did he just say the word ‘sigh’ out loud? And was he hovering over your shoulder?

“Can I help you?” You asked, pausing your sorting for only a moment.

“Isn’t it my job to ask you that question? I’m not some layabout, I am trying to earn my keep, you know,” Johnny said in response, rubbing his hands together and eyeing the basin of beans in front of him. You were almost inclined to hand it to him. Over the last four weeks, you’d gotten a lot of decent work out of him, even if you did feel somewhat micro-manage-y half the time with the tasks you did give him. “Okay, how does this work?”

You groaned exaggeratedly and excessively, rolling your eyes. When you didn’t answer, he reached forward and plucked a single coffee bean from the basin and examined it closely. “Hey, this one’s funny looking!”

“Don’t touch them with your bare hands, that’s just going to waste them.” You swatted the bean out of his hand and then looked at your own gloves and sighed. “If you’re insisting on helping, fine. But you need sanitary gear to handle them. Go wash your hands, there’s masks and gloves by the sink,” you grumbled, standing up and taking off your own gloves to dispose of them and replace them with a fresh pair.

Johnny followed obediently, trailing behind you a little too innocently for someone of his size. “Yes, the beans still need to be roasted and that’ll kill any bacteria, but I just like to be extra cautious, okay? Because it’s a mutation there’s no rule to how much of a yield I’ll get with each harvest so I don’t like wasting even a single bean,” you reasoned, settling back down and folding your legs back at the now half-sorted metal bowl.

“So, we��re just sorting the weird ones from the normal ones?” He asked while picking up another peaberry bean, this time with gloved hands and a mask over his mouth and nose.

You took a quick glance and nodded to confirm that yes, the bean in his hand was one of the weird ones he should be looking for. “They’re called peaberry. Normally, a coffee cherry has two seeds in it, or beans. Those two seeds mature in the center of the cherry and you get one flat side and one side touching it. Sometimes people call them ‘flat beans’ but those are the ‘normal’ beans, as you said,” you explained, sifting through your bowl rather quickly. “But the peaberry ones only have one bean inside. The bean is round, so that’s where the name ‘peaberry’ comes from, because—“

“Because it’s round so it looks like a pea, oh I get it! That’s funny,” he laughed, examining the rounded bean in front of him. “Okay, got it, so we’re sorting the peaberry from the flat beans?”

“You proud of your new vocab words?” You snorted, listening for the well known tink of a bean hitting the empty metal bowls. He giggled in acknowledgement.

You worked in relative silence, a small rhythm growing between the two of you. Johnny worked at about half the speed you did, but you couldn’t knock him for it, as it had taken you a while to pick up the pace when you first started hand sorting like this.

“How do you even know Yunho?” You finally asked. Four weeks since he’d arrived, and you’d never bothered to get to know him well enough to listen to the full story of how he’d ended up here.

Johnny shifted in his seated position, clearly a little taken aback that you’d bothered to ask him anything, given your track record. “Oh. Met him in Chicago when I was home visiting. At a local coffee shop, where my buddy Jaehyun is the manager. I went to go bother Jaehyun at work and he was just, shootin’ the shit with one of his coffee suppliers who was doing a visit. That supplier was Yunho. Started talking about how he owned the farm where the beans were grown, and that he wasn’t going to be able to spend the summer out there like he’d planned, so he was looking for some reliable help to uh, take care of things. Mentioned someone else would be on site and in charge, but offered the whole ‘room and board in exchange for copious amounts of physical labor’.”

“And you said yes? Just like that, no questions asked?” It seemed a little too easy, but then again, Johnny had proved to be a little too easygoing.

He shrugged. “Well, yeah. That’s kinda the point of my whole year. Just, go with the flow.” You glanced over, but Johnny was looking down, focused on the task at hand.

You nodded and hummed and turned back to your own basin to continue sorting. A few beats passed by before you couldn’t help yourself— “You’ve said that before. ‘Go with the flow’, or that you ‘had nothing else going on’. What do you mean by that?”

Out of the corner of your eye you saw Johnny’s ears perk up, followed by movement of his cheeks implying the curve of a slight smile. “I’m on a gap year, I guess is what the kids would say. Or maybe sabbatical? Though it’s not like I have any tenure enough to qualify for the real meaning of the term. But yeah, anyways— year off from work. Not getting paid or anything, but, when it’s over if I want it, my old job is waiting for me.”

“How come? That seems so—”

“Impulsive?”

You frowned. “Yeah, exactly.”

“Yeah, exactly,” he repeated, but not in a mocking manner— it was in agreement. “I guess the best way to explain it is this: I was a huge workaholic. I’ve only had my one job post grad after studying business, and I woke up one morning a month before my twenty-fifth birthday and realized it was sucking the soul out of me. It was all I ate, slept, breathed, and it wasn’t even what I wanted to be doing with my life, I realized.”

His pain started sounding all too familiar. “What is it you wanted to do instead, then?”

Even under the mask covering the lower half of his face, his smile reached his eyes. “Photography. I got into an art school when I was applying to colleges, but it just seemed so… risky. I would’ve had to take out loans and instead I got almost a full ride for a bigger university, so I went for that instead. Studied business, managed to grind through undergrad and grad school in four years and walked out with a combined BS and MBA. Took classes every summer to make it happen. I think after graduation, I went back to my parents house and passed out and slept for twenty-three hours straight,” he laughed, clearly recalling a specific memory. “I felt really accomplished when it was over, and even had the job offer already lined up. But I wish I had had more courage to study what I was truly passionate about.

“So after an almost three year long stint at the company and a vested 401k, I decided to take a year off to just, travel the world a bit. I grinded so hard through college I never got the chance to do study abroad, so I guess I wanted to make up for that? I never used to act on impulse or follow my heart, so, that was the goal for this year. To do only that.”

His words struck you differently. This was a whole new side to Johnny that you really weren’t expecting— not that you had a particularly three dimensional view of him to begin with. “And your heart lead you here… to my brother-in-law’s coffee farm?”

He laughed again, trying to hide just how thrilled he was that you were actually engaging in a full on conversation with him. “Well, sort of. My year off started back in February, day before my birthday. Got on a plane and did a few months backpack trip around Asia. I had no clue what would be next, thought maybe Australia, maybe Europe, but when I got off the plane in Chicago to see my mom and regroup on my packing, I decided to go straight from the airport to surprise and bother Jaehyun at his coffee shop. That day I met Yunho. That was a little over six weeks ago. And now I’m here, with you.”

There was something about the way he said that that didn’t sit well in your stomach— with you, like it was a good thing, like he liked it. You didn’t deign him with a response to the end of his story. Like an extension of the current state of your mind, your hands were reaching, feeling around for something, but you were only met with the flat surface of the bottom of the basin.

You looked down to see the last of the metal bowls was empty. Somehow, you’d managed to sort through all twenty pounds of coffee beans. You pulled the face mask down under your chin as you stared at the metal surface for a moment before standing abruptly and turning on your heels.

Confused, Johnny called your name out after you questioningly. “It’s getting late and I’m hungry. You uh, bag up the peaberry and set it aside and then wash out all the metal trays,” you gave him his next set of tasks quickly to make your escape back to the farmhouse to put some distance between the two of you.

A little over an hour later, you’d put together a curry on the stove with some stew meat and a base that included apples, carrots, potatoes, and melted dark chocolate for a more mellow sweet taste to balance it out. You thought about the first time Johnny complimented your cooking when it was just eggs, and how he’d continued to compliment it with every new meal you’d make. You wouldn’t call yourself a chef by any means, thinking that enjoying your go-to recipes would be a more acquired taste, and were in the midst of serving yourself when Johnny came inside with the dog trailing behind him. You didn’t bother saying much, you never did when you’d finished cooking a meal; just a grunt acknowledging his presence and a head nod at the food before you took your bowl and went through the door to go sit on the lanai by yourself. Absent-mindedly, you whistled for the dog to follow you.

Johnny kept to himself that night, eating at the kitchen table, content with looking up out the bay window to see you hand feeding small chunks of meat from your bowl to the dog, even going so far as to pet its head. He shook his head to himself thinking about how you pretended to be so opposed to the dog, and how you still hadn’t given it a name, and smiled as he took another bite.

✧ ✧ ✧

At five weeks, you stopped watching Johnny like a hawk, and started giving him more lengthy tasks that you, quite frankly, just didn’t want to do yourself. Though, if you were being honest, every task you gave him was one you didn’t want to do yourself.

Such as his current one, which was to prep the ground for a new row of sapling fruit trees. You’d walked down from the farmhouse over the hill to the open area next to a row of lemon and guava trees where you’d set him to the task of digging a row of four foot wide, four foot deep holes. The week after next, Jin’s delivery would be a much larger one, and include a number of sapling fruit trees from his family’s farm— rambutans, limes, and mangos, to name a few. You wanted to make sure the holes got dug and the irrigation system set in place properly well in advance.

When you came to a stop at the end of the row of freshly dug holes in the ground you blinked once. Twice. A third time. The sight before you was impossible to comprehend. Because not only was Johnny finishing digging the last of ten massive holes having taken less than three hours to do so, but he had been digging them shirtless.

“What. What?” You asked, staring, eyes wide and brow furrowed.

“Huh?” He asked, looking up from the bottom of the last hole and swishing his head to get his bangs, matted with sweat against his forehead, out of his face. The sun had crested over to this side of the hill now and it was blisteringly hot out. Standing in direct sunlight, doing physical labor, obviously he’d worked up a sweat.

You had to tear your eyes away from the shine on his torso and return them to just his face. “Where the fuck is your shirt?”

He pointed to where a lump of fabric was off to the side next to a water bottle. “It’s fucking hot out, I was dying,” he reasoned.

“You’re hot,” you mumbled under your breath, turning on your heel to give yourself reprieve from the onslaught that was Johnny’s unexpected number of defined abdominal muscles that were usually covered by cotton t shirts.

“What was that?” He called, squinting up into the sun from the bottom of the hole.

“I said, put a god damn shirt on before you come back in my house,” you called back, already wrapping your arms around yourself and heading back to the farmhouse. “And dinner’ll be ready in twenty, so finish up,” you added, trudging off before he could respond.

What you would have seen if you’d turned back around was an open mouthed smile curl across his face, as Johnny hummed to himself at the joy he felt for this, the first time you’d bothered to warn him when dinner would be ready.

✧ ✧ ✧

Ever since you’d seen Johnny shirtless, you’d be restless.

Well, restless was the polite word. The word to better describe what you’d been feeling was… frustrated?

Distracted? Peeved? Worked up?

Horny.

The word you were avoiding was horny.

Wendy had been the one to get you to admit it during your last weekly phone call. You told her about the shirtless incident and the first thing she asked was if you had plans to throw out the washing machine and instead start doing your laundry on Johnny’s abs, which did not help your predicament any further. It was also Wendy who had pointed out that you’d been alone on this farm for almost two months with a dog and a man too pretty for his own good, and despite how he represented everything you were annoyed at in life at the moment, after seeing his half naked figure, it would only be natural for you to have been a little turned on. And a little turned on was exactly where you were— for the last week, you had been going on runs every night to release the excess pent up energy you suddenly had.

The last time you exercised this much you were still in college. Back then you went on hour long runs through the city with your phone on ‘Do Not Disturb’ because it was the only way you weren’t constantly bombarded with an on onslaught of messages from classmates, friends, family, or your on campus job that took up way too much of your time. And now, you found yourself returning to old habits, this time because what, you were too proud to just rub one out like the rest of humanity? (That phrasing, too, was courtesy of your best friend, when she again reminded you of your failure to pack your vibrator.)

After another eight miles up and down the road outside the farm that ran along the island’s coast your legs felt like absolute jello when you finished, but your head was empty enough that you were able to return to the property and exist near Johnny in peace. You walked by the barn on your way up to the farmhouse, sticking your head inside briefly to look for him. You didn’t hear any noise, and didn’t find him at first glance, but didn’t think much of it as you went back inside.

The dog was already in the kitchen, so that should have been your first clue. You opened the fridge and peered inside, pulling out a number of assorted ingredients to make a lemon cream sauce for pasta with chicken.

You set a pot of water to boil, turned the oven on to preheat, and began melting butter, garlic, oil, and a variety of herbs in a sauce pan. That plus the low hum of the overhead fan meant just enough noise that you couldn’t hear the water running from the small shower on the other side of the house, and you didn’t think twice as the heat cast off by the appliances made you feel even stuffier post-run, and you peeled your shirt off your body and rolled the waistband of your shorts down an inch, pressing your bare feet flat against the hardwood flooring to try and get some semblance of cooling relief.

It was only a few moments later, with the water boiling and pasta cooking inside and the chicken already seasoned and in the oven, when you peered over the bubbling sauce pan and dipped the edge of your pinky into the mixture to bring just a taste up to your mouth. Just like you’d hoped, it was light and had a kick of citrus to it from the lemon, but not so much that it was overpowering. You closed your eyes and hummed in appreciation as you licked the sauce off, which, in retrospect, probably sounded far too much like a moan for your own good.

“Jesus fuck—”

And suddenly, you realized you weren’t alone inside the house.

You screamed at first from the shock of being startled by the noise, and then again when it registered in your brain that Johnny was standing in the kitchen, hair dripping wet, chest bare and abdominal muscles just as defined as the last time you’d seen them, face flushed in some sort of embarrassment with a bath towel wrapped around his hips.

Johnny was fresh out of the shower, nearly naked in your kitchen, clutching his clothes balled up in his left hand.

You scream again.

“What are you doing?!” You shrieked out, raising your voice over the dog’s excited barking at the commotion the two of you had begun making.

He stammered for a moment, clearly frozen in place. “I was just! You were gone, and I was done for the day, so I took a shower but I— I forgot my change of clothes in my room and these towels are small and just— Jesus why are you wearing so little clothing?!”

Your fury returned full force at the comment. “Why am I wearing so little clothing? You’re in a towel for fuck’s sake! This is my house, I live here! I should be the one asking you where your clothes are!”

“They’re here, in my hand!” He yelled back, waving the bundle around frantically. “I just said I forgot them when I went to shower!”

Your eyes bugged out of you head as your gaze traveled down, taking in the entirety of the figure before you and— oh.

“Are you… are you hard right now?” You asked in bewilderment.

The way the color drained out of Johnny’s face and the speed with which he moved the bundle of clothing to hold it over the space between his legs answered your question.

“Oh, my god.” Exasperated, you slammed your eyes shut and held your hands up by your sides. “What the fuck, John.”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean— fuck, shit I made it weird— please don’t get mad, I can totally fix this,” he started spewing apologies, and you heard him take two steps closer to you. “Wait, were you looking at my dick?”

“Ah!” You spat out, turning away from him. His question was valid but you had no intention of acknowledging it. “Out! Get out of my house, go… somewhere else until that goes away or you can, I don’t know, take care of it!” You instantly thought of the implication of your words and then yelled again. “No— don’t— fuck, don’t do that! Jesus for the love of god don’t take care of it while I’m standing here—” you were stammering and beyond flustered. How the fuck were you supposed to talk to someone who had just gotten a fucking boner by looking at you, sweaty in a sports bra, while sucking a cream colored substance off the tip of your pinky?

You exhaled deeply, eyes still closed. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You are going to go to your room. I am going to finish cooking my dinner. You will be absolutely silent until you hear me leave. I will be staying at the condo for the next week. You will either ration the leftovers or fend for yourself, I do not care. Got it?” You signed out again, eyes flicking open. Johnny held his bundle of clothes in front of his legs and nodded his head once, not bothering with any comeback before he shuffled to the guest room and shut the door quietly.

It took another twenty minutes for the meat to finish cooking and the dish to be full prepared. How you managed to keep your head empty and shut off your internal monologue during that time, you’ll never know, but you were thankful for it nonetheless. You packed two servings into a Tupperware container for yourself before shoving some clothes in a duffle bag and grabbing the keys to the jeep you hated driving. It was only about ten minutes down the road to the condo, but it was almost fifteen miles, so you figured this was the lesser of two evils. You whistled for the dog to follow you, and it was all too excited to jump in the passenger seat of the car. The farmhouse was now dry of liquor, what with Yunho not making good on his promise a month ago and your weekly wine dates with Wendy, but you knew the condo definitely had some spirits stashed somewhere in a cabinet. You were going to need that and a nice hot bath to destress after that encounter.

Meanwhile, Johnny sunk down on to the floor inside the guest room, his back pressed against the door. When he heard the sound of the jeep’s engine turning over, he sighed in relief and ran a hand through his hair. There were no better words to describe it: he was truly and utterly fucked.

✧ ✧ ✧

You stayed at the condo only for three days, and did little other than sleep, binge watch some TV since there was better electricity and internet here, and eat your way through slightly stale bags of chips and frost bitten freezer dinners that were months old. Because you couldn’t just open the door and let the dog out to run through the property for whatever exercise or bathroom needs it had, you had to actually walk it with a leash and everything. You paid less attention to how domestic the action of clipping the leash on to the collar you’d found in an unopened delivery package on the kitchen table was, and thought more about how slothful you’d felt over the last 60-odd hours of self isolation, especially after two months of working outdoors every day.

It was childish to keep hiding from Johnny. It’s not like you could prove that he’d gotten hard looking at you, and really, shouldn’t you take it as sort of a compliment? (Well, maybe you wouldn’t go that far.)

It was Monday when you returned to the farm, parking the jeep back by the barn and hip checking the door shut after the dog went running off in search of Johnny. It found him carrying pruned branches of trees down to the area where you burned excess brush, and you could hear the excited sound of his voice at the return of the creature as you walked slowly down the hill towards him.

“I missed you! It’s been so lonely without you, but I guess I’m glad your mommy had you with her, huh?” He cooed at the dog, rubbing its face in his hands after dropping the bundle of branches and flopping its ears from side to side. Hearing Johnny refer to you as a mother, even of the animal, had you grimacing.

“Ew,” you said, making your presence known. He stood up suddenly, possibly just a little embarrassed.

“Oh! You’re uh, you’re back.” You nodded, lips pressed together in a flat line. Your hands were full, carrying two takeout coffees from a shop down near the condo you’d stopped at on the way back. You’d forgotten how much the farm felt like a different planet, a different space in time almost, because of how isolated it felt. The act of ordering a coffee to go rather than making it yourself in the morning was equal parts bewildering and soothing.

You had no idea what compelled you to order an iced americano along with the cortado you’d gotten for yourself. You didn’t really know much about Johnny beyond the one conversation you’d had about how he ended up meeting your brother in law and crashing on the farm with you in the first place. But somehow, ordering the drink had felt right, and you thought of it as a potential peace offering to cut the tension.

“This is yours,” you said plainly after some thought, trying to remove any and all emotion from your tone.

He blinked a few times before taking three steps towards you and reaching his hand out to take the drink. He mumbled a soft thank you and sipped without bothering to ask what was inside.

“You’re just going to take the drink a stranger offers you, no questions asked?”

“Ooh!” His eyes perked up when he tasted the coffee. “I mean, I’ve never questioned any of the food you’ve made me so far, why start now? Besides,” he shrugged, taking another sip, “I trust you.”

You snorted. “That’s a stupid thing to do.”

Johnny laughed again, eyes crinkling at the sides. Your mind wandered briefly to a half formed thought about how endearing that was. “Maybe so, but despite your efforts to make me an enemy, I think you’re actually a really good person. You even guessed my favorite coffee drink, so that has to count for something.” He nodded to the paper cup in your hand. “What’s your poison?”

“Cortado,” responded curtly, ignoring his comments that were cutting a bit too deep for ten in the morning.

“Ah, a strong espresso pull with a balance of steam milk and a touch of foam. Nice choice. I can definitely appreciate one, but I’m a little too impatient and drink them too quickly— I think that’s why I love americanos so much, because it lasts a little longer.”

You tilted you head to the side, puzzled. “Wait. You… actually know things about coffee?”

“I mean, yeah,” he laughed, “What do you think I spent three hours talking with Yunho about the day we met? I did my time as a barista in college. Free coffee every shift was hard to pass up when you’re doing almost a double course load every other semester. I’ve always been curious about the growing and roasting process, and I know a lot of people do home roasting as a hobby but I just never made the time to explore it.”

Well, duh, you thought, that actually made sense. “Oh god, and here I’ve been making my lame ass bitter pour over all summer— you know how to pull a shot of espresso then I take it? You’ve seen the La Marzocco on the counter, how come you’ve never used it?”

He pouted his lips out in a flat line and shrugged comically. “Dunno. I mean, I’m a guest and a worker first, and it’s not mine, so, I didn’t wanna make any assumptions. But if this is an open invitation to use it, I’m more than happy to accept.”

You chewed on the inside of your mouth for a moment. You could feel it in the air as the hairs on your arms stood up slightly, goosebumps running down your skin. You hoped in wasn’t too noticeable. Maybe this was it— maybe it really was time to extend an olive branch and have more than half a conversation with him every four days. “It’s a little older and sort of temperamental, but it’s still a good machine. I’ll… show you the quirks tomorrow morning, or whenever you want something to drink,” you offered.

It was then that you discovered this: Johnny was not a great actor. He wore his heart on his sleeve. You figured this to be true because he could barely contain the smile that spread across his face, and the energetic nod he gave, and the mild soft exhale (squeal?) of excitement. You rolled your eyes gently and turned away, drink in hand. “When it cools down later after dinner, I’m roasting tonight. You’re welcome to join.”

You gave him the benefit of not bearing witness to the fist pump he made as you walked away.

Dinner that night was stir fried ground pork with carrots and zucchini from the garden served over rice. It was one of your comfort dishes, easy to make and easy to clean up after, since it used only two pans. As soon as you’d finished eating, this time sitting at the table together with Johnny, he’d cleared the dishes and got to cleaning up right away. You stretched your arms overhead and leaned back in your chair far enough to crack your back slightly with a loud pop.

“Oof, that sounded like it felt good,” he laughed from the sink. You hummed in agreement. “So what’d you do before this? Desk job hunched over a computer like the rest of us?”

“Mmm something like that. You may have been bored out of your mind in business, but I sold my soul years ago to work in advertising.”

“Why does that like, fit?” He asked, turning the water off and drying the pan you’d used for cooking by hand.

“You saying I have no soul?” You challenged.

He shrugged. “Hey, you said it, not me. We’re both just cogs in the machine that is late stage capitalism, I guess.”

You didn’t know how deeply you wanted to get into it with Johnny just yet. Maybe eventually, but, not right now. “Yeah, well, I was just a Project Manager, not like a Copywriter or anything. Did you know Yunho was a staff Art Director before he switched to the coffee business full time? We used to work at the same agency a few years back.”

Johnny snapped his fingers and pointed at you. “Ah, that’s right! I remember him saying something about that, made the same jokes about having no soul. You two are a lot alike for not being related by blood.”

Well, he wasn’t wrong; sometimes you wondered if you’d become closer with Yunho that you were with your sister at this point. “Enough about that. If you’re done follow me, it’s probably cool enough to fire up the roaster. I just want to do a test batch of like, five pounds with the regular beans to see how this year’s harvest takes to our standard roast,” you explained, heading to the door and slipping on your sneakers. “Don’t let the dog out, it gets scared from the loud noises and I don’t need it freaking out.”

Johnny dried his hands and followed after you to the barn. You flicked on the lights and went straight for the sink to pull your hair out of your face, wash your hands, and put on a pair of gloves and a mask. Johnny followed your lead, even going so far as to tie up the top layer of his hair on top of his head. “Hey look! It’s like an apple,” he bobbed his head from side to side to make the tiny ponytail move back and forth, and you couldn’t help but snort as you tried to suppress your laughter.

“Dork,” was all you said. You went to the storage racks to pick up one of the sorted burlap bags of beans and hoisted it over your shoulder to carry it to a metal prep table where you carefully opened it and began scooping out the green beans and pouring them into a bowl on a metal scale that had been zeroed out. “So  obviously you know that coffee is counted by weight in pounds. That monstrosity,” you jerked your head in the direction of the massive eight foot tall machine in the corner of the room, “Can handle up to twenty-five pounds of beans in the barrel at a time. Because it’s so big, it’s best to not do super small batches, otherwise you risk burning the beans. Since I’m going for five pounds, it’ll be okay, but if I was doing any less I’d use one of the table top roasters, since they have a smaller barrel.” You finished weighing out five pounds and handed the container to him to carry.

You continued explaining the full process of roasting and science behind it as you flipped switches, checked that the exhaust was hooked up properly, and set the dials for the heat and time on the industrial roaster before pulling the door to the funnel open and having Johnny slowly pour the beans inside. “God you’re a fucking giant, I always need a step stool to reach that high,” you commented as he made the reach with ease.

You weren’t kidding when you said the roaster was loud when it was running. Thankfully with the size of the machine and this batch, it was only eleven minutes of the two of you standing just a few feet away in case anything went wrong and you had to hit the emergency stop, holding your hands over your ears to block the sound. Johnny began jokingly exaggerating mouthing something out, and you felt almost like friends as you laughed at his antics. You were never the best at reading lips. Especially not Johnny’s, they were too full and distracting on their own for you to make sense of the mouth shapes. When the machine came to a grinding halt and the noise suddenly stopped, he was still shouting words and his voice echoed around the space in the absence of the noise, “I said, I think you’re— oh, wow, that was fast,” he quickly diverted, catching himself from finishing whatever it was he was about to say.

Your heart skipped a beat at the thought of trying to pry out of him what he was in the process of saying under the protection of the loud noises. You shook it off mentally and showed him how to remove the beans from the roasting chamber. “So you take them out like this, and then they’re still going to be warm for a while, so it’s best to let them rest for a bit. If you were to brew them right away, the flavor might not be what you’re expecting, so if you wait for them to sit for a few days, you’ll notice a considerable difference in the flavor profile—”

You stopped suddenly, a sound in the distance suddenly registering to you. You left Johnny standing there with the roasted coffee in hand and trailed to the edge of the barn and then you heard it more clearly— the sound of the old rotary phone ringing. “Oh, shit,” you swore and took off running back up to the house. The only person who had the number for the landline other than Wendy were Yunho and your sister. Wendy didn’t call you outside of your Thursday night appointments. You did the math in your head— it was the end of June, your sister’s due date wasn’t til the end of August, but early labor was always something you’d heard about, especially with more than one baby.

Hands shaking, you got to the phone on what could have been the last ring and panted out a greeting of Yunho’s name, already knowing it was him.

“Oh thank god you answered, I’ve been calling for the last twenty minutes, where were you?” He chastised immediately. You felt uneasy at the tone in his voice.

You stammered in response. “I— we were in the barn, I was roasting so I couldn’t hear the phone— what’s wrong? Is she okay?”

Yunho sighed out heavily and was quiet. “She’s going to be okay, but there was a… scare,” you could tell he was choosing his words carefully. “I don’t want to freak you out, but I don’t want to not tell you either. She slipped getting out of the shower, landed on her hip. Started having lower abdominal pain right after. We thought maybe it was going to be now, but, she’s fine. The doctors think they were phantom contractions? Whatever they were they’re gone now. The babies are fine, but she’ll most likely be in the hospital until the due date. If she starts experiencing any kind of contractions between now and then, though, they’ll want to induce labor.” You could tell he was still stressed and worried, but you nodded and listened as he explained some of the medical details a bit further. “Anyways, all this to say, the next time I call, it could be to tell you that you’re an auntie.”

From the moment you heard the phone ringing this late at night and calculated that it was almost two in the morning in Chicago, the tightness in your chest had been building. Listening to Yunho speak delicately about your sister’s condition was one thing— you thought it was a sigh of relief when he said that everything was fine, but then it was most certainly not fine when the gravity of his last words really hit you.

“Little Bean are you listening? Is the signal bad? I know the connection isn’t always great—”

You inhaled sharply as the pressure inside came to a head. “Yunho I gotta go,” you gasped out, barely able to make sense of thoughts to get the words out.

Before you could hear his rebuttal you slammed the phone on to the receiver to end the call and covered your face with your hands still in their nylon gloves. Despite standing in an open space, you suddenly felt like the room was spinning and the walls were closing in on you. Out, out, you had to get out—

“Hey, everything okay in here?”

Fuck.

Johnny was standing in the door, a look of concern on his face. You heaved into your hands and choked out a sob, feeling the wetness in your eyes building. No no no, everything was most certainly not okay in here. You shouldn’t have made eye contact, you should have known better, because looking at his face, his stupid perfect face and his genuine care for your wellbeing, it set you free falling over the precipice.

You were spiraling, and hard, and needed to land. It was instinctual, the way you cried out and ran pushing past him before breaking into an all out sprint down the hill to the fruit trees. Your legs barely kept up with the velocity of running at a decline, stopping short of tumbling and falling forward. The only thing that you knew to help this, the thing that had worked for you in the past, and you raced through the grove of trees for the larger one at the very end. It was one of the older trees, well mature and established with its root system, so you could always expect it to produce fruit.

But you’d harvested a large amount of the fruit in the last few weeks from the lower branches, and the only remaining fruit that would be ripe enough for your purposes was on the higher branches just out of reach. Over the sound of your pained sobs, you couldn’t hear Johnny’s approach or him asking what was wrong, your one track mind just trying desperately to jump and reach, fingertips barely brushing on the fruit you were reaching for.

“Hey hey, calm down, what are you—” he started.

“Shut up! Just shut— don’t tell— don’t tell me calm— calm—” you couldn’t make the words make sense, in your head you were screaming don’t tell me to calm down, but the act of translating that into words on your tongue was downright Herculean right now, it just wasn’t happening. Your knees began wobbling and standing too started feeling impossible. The tightness in your chest had expanded to reach your back, and though you were clearly still getting air by the fact that you hadn’t passed out yet, you felt like you weren’t breathing at all. You were crying outright now, tears wet and hot and painful as the sobs escaped your throat.

It didn’t take a genius to figure that you were trying to reach a fruit on a branch just above your wingspan. Johnny placed one large hand against your back gently and reached all the way up, fingers wrapping around what he assumed was the object of your fixation, before twisting and pulling to release it from the tree. “Hey,” he said softly, “This what you need?”

As soon as you made sense of the object in front of you you seized it from his hands, biting directly through the rind of the lemon. A muffled sob came out as your knees buckled and you sank to the ground. The bitter rush of citrus did part of its job, and brought your consciousness back down to earth. But your breathing didn’t steady, and your heart was still pounding, and the tears were still falling.

It wasn’t working, your grounding technique; not like it had the previous times, like the night you’d first gotten the phone call from Yunho saying they weren’t coming, and not like the time you bit into a lemon in the kitchen at work after first getting the phone call that your sister was pregnant, and even the time before that when she told you she and Yunho were moving, or when Yunho had asked you if he could marry your sister. If you were more with it, you would have thought for a moment longer about how all of your largest panic attacks of the last several years seemed to be linked to things about Yunho and your sister. Biting into a whole lemon had been your go-to for years, and suddenly, it wasn’t working.

“Fuck!” You cried out, spitting the lemon into your palms, “Fuck fuck fuck! Why isn’t it— why isn’t it working?!” Your words were absolutely frantic, and you were yelling at yourself more than your companion who, quite frankly, you’d forgotten was even there.

Until you felt a shadow pass over you in the moonlight and a pair of arms enveloping you in an embrace.

The top of your head was pressed against his chest and his hands found their way to the planes of your back and began rubbing soft circles. Softly he tutted out a shushing noise, voice barely above a whisper, steady. “Come on, let it out, I’m right here. I’ve got you, you’re not alone,” he said calmly, “You’re gonna get through it. Try to take a deep breath, that’s good now hold it as long as you can— okay, that’s okay, try again, try to hold on to it and let it out slowly this time.”

You’d never had anyone physically with you and help you through a panic attack before. You’d had them around people in the past, but no one had ever made a move to help you through it— not like this, not like him, not like he was doing right now by attempting to guide your breathing. The one time you had one in front on Wendy, you’d locked yourself in the bathroom and refused to answer her while you came down, and she never pressed you about it afterwards.

You had no idea how much time passed as Johnny held you in his arms, keeping a steady rhythm of his palms on your back and letting you cry it out into the fabric of his shirt, your hands wringing the material so strongly you thought you’d tear holes where your nails were.

One hand traveled to the back of your head and he stroked that too. “I’ve got you, I’m right here,” he said again.

After a longer period of silence, your ears stopped ringing and you could finally make out the chirping of the crickets in the night. You sniffled and rubbed the last of the trails the tears had left on your cheeks into his shirt, mumbling an apology into it.

“Don’t do that,” he said softly, keeping his voice low, almost as if he was afraid he’d scare you off if he raised it any higher. “I mean— haha, don’t apologize. It’s okay, whatever it is, it’ll wash out. If it doesn’t, it’s just a tee shirt, I can always buy another.” His tone was even paced and calm, and in pressing your ear against his chest you could hear the reverberations as he spoke.

The humid summer air was heavy as usual, even this late at night. You don’t know how long you sat there in silence, wrapped in Johnny’s arms listening to his heartbeat, but eventually you acknowledged that your heart was beating in time with his. Whether you liked it or not, he had been the thing to ground you, and not a stupid fucking lemon.

You shifted slightly, making a move to stand, but Johnny stopped you. “Whoa whoa, hang on lemme get ready— okay, hold on to my shoulders, that’s it.” Your fingers dug into his arms as he adjusted his legs and hooked one arm under your knees and the other around your back and stood up, taking you with him.

“Shit,” you mumbled out, head rushing at the quick movement and the realization that your legs were still bent over his arm, and Johnny was now carrying you. “Hey, heavy,” your words were still soft.

“Mmm, nah, nothing I can’t handle,” his response was easy, dismissive of your complaint, but not in a bad way. “You don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to but— anxiety? Panic attack?” You sucked in a breath at the word. You hated that word. That word made you feel weak, even if it was exactly what this was. You dug your nails into his skin slightly on a reflex of bracing yourself, not with this intention of inflicting damage. “Got it. I get it,” he had approached the house and walked to the door, reaching for the handle with the hand under your knees. “I’ve had a few myself. Not recently, but back in college, maybe two or three? Don’t think they were ever as strong as that, though. I tried the lemon trick once, it actually worked pretty well for me. Didn’t make the next time I did a tequila shot all that fun though, couldn’t enjoy citrus for at least a month after that.” His soft laughter shook his chest and you leaned in further. Listening to his voice was comforting. It was keeping you steady. It made you feel safe, and in this moment, you were too tired to think about how you probably should have hated that. “Think you could swallow some water? Rehydrating is important.”

Your head nodded. “Okay, I’m gonna put you down now.” He used his foot to push one of the chairs away from the table and set you down on to the seat gently. The dog was immediately at your knees, whining lowly and attempting to give as many kisses as you’d accept. “Here,” he said gently, crouching down in front of you and holding a glass out. “Drink what can, but not too fast. There you go, that’s it,” his large hand clasped over your knee, thumb rubbing circles on the side. “Feeling any better?”

“Yeah,” you rasped out, voice raw from all the crying earlier.

Johnny smiled softly. “Good, that’s good. Okay, I think you need to get to bed, yeah? Or do you wanna take a shower or something first?” You shook your head. “Okay, just washed your face then?” You nodded. Your conscious monologue was returning, but bringing words from your mind to your mouth was still proving difficult. Johnny didn’t seem to mind. Instead, he offered you his hand. “Need help getting up?”

You answered by gripping on to his hand and using his shoulders to help you stand up. Johnny walked you to your room, holding his arm out for you as a guide. You were able to bear weight on your feet now, and though your steps were slow, you made it to the bathroom to wash your face and and change into sleepwear. Johnny waited by the door, averting his eyes for privacy for you, and returned to your side to help you into bed.

When he leaned over you to pull the sheets up, you reached for his wrist and asked, “Why are you being so nice to me?”

His face went blank before it softened into a smile. “Because. I told you earlier, didn’t I? You’re a good person. Should be simple as that, yeah?”

You didn’t have a response for him, only shifting deeper into the pillows. He turned off the light and retreated to the door frame. “Try and get some rest. Call me if you need me, okay?”

Your head managed a nod, and Johnny finally left, leaving the door to your room slightly ajar. You listened for the sounds of him milling about the house, his footsteps softly shuffling against the floorboards, a few mumbled words to the dog that followed at his heels, until you finally fell asleep.

When you dreamed that night, you dreamt of him, the sound of his voice, and the way your blood felt on fire whenever he looked at you and smiled.

✧ ✧ ✧

Johnny never asked you about the panic attack.

He didn’t bring it up, he didn’t ask what caused it, he didn’t even allude to it in any conversation over the next week. The next day he was just a little bit more gentle with you with the tone and volume of his speaking voice, but when you showed no signs of still be affected from the previous night, he let it go and didn’t bother you about it.

You couldn’t tell if you loved him or hated him for it.

Confusion on your feelings aside, as June came to a close and the morning of July 3rd came, you woke up to the sound of the espresso machine running. Johnny had very quickly proven that he was worth his salt as a barista, even though it had been several years, and had a very nice shot pull. He even figured out the steamer, which was the most finicky part of the machine, and had been making you cortados every morning. That’s what you were sipping now from a metal camper mug, as you walked with him to the shed.

“I think that all that’s left is nailing down that last sheet of roofing and then we’re done,” he hummed cheerfully, inspecting the building. It looked brand new, a marked improvement from the broken windows and bleached paint job it had sported two months ago.

Two months. Was that really how long he’d been here? You didn’t want to think too much about it, about how those two months gone meant you had reached the half way point, and that there were about two months left.

Two months…

“We should celebrate,” he said suddenly, and you looked up puzzled.

“We?”

“Sure!” He exclaimed, “I had no idea what I was doing. I just did what you told me to. This was one of the biggest projects for the summer, right? And plus, not that I care too much for the holiday, but won’t there be fireworks and stuff for the Fourth? Come on, this house has been dry for weeks, let’s go get some booze and live a little, huh?” He prodded your side with his elbow and began needling at you, saying huh, huh, huh over and over until you groaned and relented.

“Fiiiiiine, let’s go before the stores get crowded when everyone realizes everything’s gonna be closed tomorrow.”

The dog was less than pleased that you’d sent it back into the house when you picked up the keys to the jeep. Usually you took it with you, but this time you decided against it, since you weren’t sure how the liquor store would feel with you bringing the stray dog off leash into the store with you.

“All you, big guy,” you said to Johnny as you tossed the car keys at him.

“Aren’t you gonna ask if I know how to drive first?” He quipped back quickly while walking to the driver’s side.

“Nah,” you shrugged comically, hoisting yourself up by the frame of the car. You buckled yourself in and watched as he did the same and adjusted the mirrors for his height. “Besides,” you looked down to inspect your fingernails as if they were the most fascinating thing on the planet, “I trust you, or whatever.”

“Bit of a stupid thing to do, but alright,” he smiled, echoing your words back at you. “Kidding, I’m an excellent driver. Alright, co-pilot! You have the most sacred duty bestowed upon you—”

“Navigation?”

“No, music selection, duh,” he scoffed and handed you the aux cord and pulled out a cell phone you’d never seen him hold before. You stared at the device as he unlocked it and pulled up his music library. Johnny noticed your surprised expression out of the corner of his eye. “What, it’s not like I have a use for it out here. Your wifi sucks and I’m not about to rack up a huge cell phone bill, so it stays off in my duffle bag most of the time. Anyways, this is a test! Pick whatever your heart desires.” The smirk on his face was beyond mischievous as he handed it to you.

You sighed and settled into the seat and began scrolling. What to pick, what to pick…

Surprisingly, there was a decent number of songs you recognized, and one album in particular you were a fan of. You scrolled down the track listing to about the half way point and pressed play.

The sounds of The Killers and the familiar guitar chords that were practically sewn into your DNA began to filter through the speakers. Johnny smiled and started clapping as the car reached the bottom of the driveway and he flipped on the turn signal. “Oh my god, Mr. Brightside, excellent choice! Okay, you passed the first test. But do you know the words?” He teased.

You gasped in feigned offense as the lyrics came to the chorus, and as he accelerated up to speed you began to belt the words out as loud as you could manage. For once you weren’t thinking about how you hated that the jeep had no top while the wind whipped past you on all sides as Johnny sped down the highway. As the song played, the magic high of belting the words to something fifteen years old that were still imprinted in your brain didn’t seem to wear off like you’d expected it to.

“Alright, chop chop what’s next maestro!” He called over the sound of the wind as the song came to a close. You already had something queued up, something a little more recent, and you smiled as the words to the next song began filtering through the speakers, letting the music carry the drive and not belting along with it this time. You tried to not think too deeply about the lyrics of the chorus as it played.  

'Cause you're the last of a dying breed Write our names in the wet concrete I wonder if your therapist knows everything about me? I'm here in search of your glory There's been a million before me That ultra-kind of love You never walk away from You're just the last of the real ones

As the bridge played and you neared your destination, Johnny tilted his head towards you while keeping his eyes on the road. “Growing up, it was like, a badge of honor as a Chicago kid to have gone to a Fall Out Boy show when they still played the smaller clubs. I snuck into one when I was 16— it was an 18 and over show— felt like I was hot shit when I got away with it.”

“Don’t know why, but you don’t strike me as a Fall Out Boy fan,” you admitted. From your scroll through his music library, you saw most of their discography saved to his phone.

“Hey, I had my embarrassing wannabe emo phase too.”

“Had?” You couldn’t stop yourself from teasing. Johnny didn’t give a response to that one, and as another Fall Out Boy song played through the speakers you let yourself rest in a comfortable lack of conversation, instead sharing the music with him as he drove. It only took to the end of that third song to reach your destination and based on how he handled the drive and parking, true to his word Johnny was an excellent driver.

Johnny followed you closely once inside, his eyes scanning up and down the shelves of the tiny liquor store before he reaches and picks up a six pack of pilsner. “You ever try this one?”

Your nose wrinkles in disgust. “I don’t do beer.”

Johnny blinks twice in response and plops the six pack back down on the shelf. “Noted. What do you drink?”

“If I’m picking?” He nods. “I’m a slut for rosé or champagne. Any sparkling wine, really, it makes me feel fancy and you get to turn basic days into little celebrations.” You follow him as he walks down the aisle to where the selection of wine was shelved and starts looking through the options. “Hang on, you’re not gonna grill me about the beer thing?”

“You say that like your friends usually give you shit for it.”

You crossed your arms and shuffle your feet underneath you. “Well, yeah. Usually.”

“Then I would say,” he trails off for a moment, bending and squatting to see a label on a lower shelf before picking up two bottles of the same brand, “You need new friends. Or that your current ones need to learn boundaries, take your pick. How’s this look for one option? Since this is a celebration and all,” he says with a wink.

Leaning forward, you study the label on the bottle for a moment before nodding in approval. You agree to his point that since they were 15% off if you bought six or more bottles, it only made sense to buy more, and besides, “It’s not like you won’t drink them eventually when you’re on the phone with Wendy.”

Your eyebrows shot up at that. “How do you know her name?”

“I’m quiet not deaf, and you’re louder than you think you are,” he says matter-of-factly before heading to the cashier to pay for your selection. You bite your tongue then, hoping to whatever deity was watching you (and probably laughing) that he’d overheard one of the conversations that wasn’t about Wendy insisting you should bone him.

Johnny picks the music on the way back, opting for some Bleachers and Paramore now that he knew at least part of your music taste and how it aligned with his.

Your new selection of wine goes into the fridge as soon as you get home, and Johnny heads to the shed with a ladder in hand to climb on top and finish nailing down the roofing. You opt to help with this task, spotting from the ground and continuously yelling for him to ‘be careful’ and ‘you better not fall and break your neck while I’m watching’. It takes a little over an hour, and it’s late afternoon when he finishes, but when you climb the ladder yourself as he holds it steady from the ground to inspect his handiwork you have to say you’re impressed.

“You sure you never did construction work before? You’ve got shockingly good craftsmanship for a newbie.”

“My dad’s pretty self sufficient so he was always doing the handiwork around the house. Picked stuff up here and there from him growing up, but anything I didn’t know I could just look up on the internet.” You shoot him a pointed look. “What! I said your wifi was shitty not that I didn’t use it every now and again. There’s a YouTube tutorial for everything these days.”

Johnny insisted on cleaning up the last of the debris on his own while you worked on dinner— another pasta dish, orecchiette broccoli rabe, and while that was cooking you boil a pint of blackberries with water and sugar to make a flavored simple syrup. Since you were celebrating tonight, it only felt right to put in a little extra effort even to the drinks of choice. Kir Royales were typically made with a blackcurrant liquor, but it was a niche product you hadn’t found in the store, so the syrup and a slice of lemon for garnish would have to do.

While you waited for Johnny to finish up and take his shower (after the last time, you gave him plenty of space out of an abundance of caution whenever he showered), you started rummaging through the pantry cabinets and making sense of the dry ingredients you had on hand. You had time to kill, why not make a dessert with it?

You hadn’t talked about it much with Johnny, but you actually did enjoy cooking and baking. Something about spending time and energy making something and having someone consume it and tell you they liked made you feel good. You still remember the first time you made breakfast for a hungover Wendy in college and she raved about it for days, though you were pretty sure back then it was because the carbs soaked up the remaining alcohol in her system and stopped her from puking.

Dinner was finished when Johnny finally came out of the shower, this time fully clothed and his hair more dry. You explained that you’d gotten bored and made cookie dough but the oven hadn’t finished pre-heating yet so nothing was baked.

“Fuck it, cookie dough is always better than the cookies themselves,” he shrugged.

“But salmonella—”

Johnny held up a hand jokingly as he stopped your interjection and turned off the oven. “Still convinced that’s a myth parents made up to stop kids from actually enjoying childhood. Plus it’s hot as balls, chill the dough while we eat and then it’ll be even better after. Plus, you haven’t poisoned either of us yet, I think your track record is pretty good so far.” (There he went again, referring to you and him as an ‘us’.)

So you did just that, putting the cookie dough into the fridge and taking your dinner outside with the cocktails you’d made. You didn’t have any wine glasses here at the farm house— after breaking one stemmed glass during your first phone call with Wendy you’d moved the rest to the condo and replaced the drink ware with mason jars because the clean up was too annoying. Plus, you didn’t want to risk the dog stepping on stray shards of thin glass and getting them stuck in the pads of its paws. (You were still decidedly apathetic towards it, but that didn’t mean you were cruel).

So it was in the wide mouth Kerr jars that you poured your blackberry syrup and a half a bottle of champagne, after a comical exchange of Johnny insisting he wasn’t scared of the pop! that corks made coming out of pressurized bottles and the yelp he let out anyways when it happened as expected. The lemon slice garnish was more of an aesthetic touch than anything but you liked it nonetheless.When Johnny pulls out his phone for the second time that day and insists on playing music and making a dramatic toast before you could drink, you could only laugh and agree.

“To the best Boss I’ve ever had,” he said with a raised glass, “Even though you used me for cheap labor and to do all the hard shit.”

“Rude! I cook every day, look at all the chances I’ve had to poison you and how many times have I done it? Absolutely none because I am a saint and you know it.”

You weren’t sure if it was the alcohol, the music, the low hum of crickets, the starry night sky, or the summer heat that did it, but time flowed so easily, and so did the conversation and teasing banter. Over the course of one meal you’d exchanged more words with Johnny than you had in the whole two months you’d known each other. Two hours later and you’d finished all the dinner (of course there were no leftovers, Johnny was still Johnny, but the amount of manual labor he did in a day made sense of how much he usually ate, you’d come to realize). The bowl of cookie dough was now sitting on the step of the lanai and you and Johnny were side by side on the deck, looking out over the farm and taking the occasional spoonful of dough into your mouths. He was right— the dough did taste better than the baked cookies probably would have, especially after it had chilled for a bit. With the way the stars and moon were hung in the cloudless sky, you could see the soft glow of their reflection in the water beyond the highway and the cliff leading to the beach.

“You ever go down to the shore?” He asks suddenly, and it feels out of nowhere and like he’s inside your head because how else would he have known you were just thinking about the ocean? But then you register that Andrew McMahon’s voice has just crooned something about Venice Beach and the California summer in the music that had still been playing through the speakers of Johnny’s phone.

You hummed for a moment before answering. “Not really. I should make more time for it, but I rarely ever leave the farm, as you probably noticed. I know this place is paradise for so many people, the vacation destination on a lot of bucket lists, but I think my… circumstances made me bitter towards the island, conceptually speaking anyways.” You watched the water with a bit more focus as a few waves crested, but you couldn’t see enough of the shore to see them actually crash. “I know I don’t talk about it much but, I needed a break from my work too. That’s… part of the reason I’m here, why I was waiting for my sister and Yunho to come out. It’s a much less interesting story than yours, so I won’t bore you with the details,” you wanted to reroute the subject before any questions started getting asked, but deep down you knew Johnny wasn’t going to press you for anything you weren’t ready to share. He’d figured that much out about you anyways.

“Anyways, maybe you’re on to something, Seo. Maybe I should take some time to actually relax a bit, seeing as now that I’ve tricked you into finishing the most difficult and time consuming of the summer projects Yunho had planned,” you stuck your tongue out between your teeth jokingly in an effort to mask the vulnerability you’d briefly shown.

Johnny took the hint and changed the subject. “The Killers, Bleachers, Paramore, Fall Out Boy… not saying I don’t like your taste in music, but I’m surprised it’s your picks were so astoundingly pop-punk-rock. Woulda taken you for a—”

“If you finish that sentence by saying ‘country kinda girl’ I’m locking you out tonight and taking the cookie dough with me,” you warned.

He laughed and shook his head. “No, you strike me as too high strung to enjoy country. Like it’s typically too slow for your tastes, or something like that.”

“Oh I’m obnoxious about my taste in media, if you couldn’t already tell. I’ve listened to mostly the same artists for the last ten years. In high school I was that kid that thought making it known that I ‘didn’t listen to the radio pop main stream’ was a personality trait, whatever that meant.”

“Oooh, so edgy and mysterious, did she used to cut her own bangs too?” He giggled into his mason jar, taking another sip.

“Nooo, that was only one time and I swear it was on a dare and not because of a break up!” You jokingly wailed out, throwing your head back in exaggeration. “Although I do regularly trim Wendy’s bangs for her because she can’t be trusted with sharp objects. Knives, needles, scissors, none of it, girl’s a total klutz,” you took another sip and uncorked the bottle again to refill your jar. You held the remainder up for Johnny to see, silently asking if he wanted a top off to finish the last of the second bottle you’d opened.

Johnny was a big guy— tall and muscular, you were sure it would take him a bit more than a bottle or two of shared champagne to get him tipsy. That’s why you didn’t think too much of it as he stared into the reinvigorated fizzing bubbles as he quietly said, “I’d like to meet her someday. Wendy, I mean— you talk about her so fondly, she seems like a great person. Like she’s good for you in your life.”

Why did you feel a little uneasy at the way he spoke about Wendy? He had no idea what she looked like, it was only from the stories you’d been telling that he knew anything about her. And it wasn’t even the real her, it was just her as she existed to you, so what was there to be uneasy about? You were overthinking again, so you had to come up with an answer to fill the silence you’d created— “Yeah well, Wendy’s sick of dick, she’s very bisexual and I’m pretty sure she’s head over heels in love with this Joohyun she started seeing recently, she’s just too much of a chicken shit to tell her how she feels,” you hid behind you glass and drank deeply, not minding as the floating slice of alcohol soaked lemon rested against your nose.

“Sounds familiar,” Johnny said quietly. “I… can relate, I think,” he mumbled out, and you glanced over in time to see him place his now-empty cup on the wood beside him. “Sometimes you just feel the way you do and you don’t really have a reason for why, but you can’t even put it to words to the person it matters to.”

This time when your breath caught in your throat, it wasn’t because of a mounting attack, but in anticipation of what Johnny would do next. The space between you had slowly waned as you’d been drinking, your bodies inching closer to each other without you even realizing it, almost like the way the moon pulled the tide to the shore over and over again. When your eyes traveled from where his hand was pressed into the deck flooring up to meet his hooded gaze, you don’t really know what you were expecting, but Johnny’s parted lips shining slightly (probably from that last drink of wine) was not it.

You knew this feeling. This was when you were supposed to lean in, right? That’s how this usually went. Your hand shifted closer towards his for a moment and then pulled back, and the end joint of Johnny’s fingers flexed as he pressed his fingertips into the deck.

You didn’t lean in. Your heart was hammering in your chest far too loud for you to be able to do so; instead, you look away, his eye and his lips and his face and his everything suddenly too much, and your turned your cheek to him instead.

Instead, he leaned in, and for just a brief moment the crickets stopped chirping, the distant ocean stopped moving, the music stopped playing, and your heart stopped beating as Johnny’s perfectly pouty lips pressed against your cheek, and then your temple, and then your throat. And then his head tilted down and his nose brushed against your skin delicately, leaving a trial of burning in its wake, and time didn’t start turning again until the snort of his laughter broke the silence and he fell into your shoulder in a giggle fit.

It took all of your patience and self control to make your lungs continue to function as you listened to Johnny giggle so much he stopped making sounds until he was spewing out between fits of laughter ‘The bubbles make everything funny, why is everything funny with bubbles?’

‘Why indeed’, you wondered silently, letting the clearly tipsy Johnny rest his head on your shoulder as he continued his giggle fits, stroking the palm of your hand against his back as he’d first done for you under far different circumstances, trying to not think about how much faster your heart was beating while doing so, and how if your accelerated heart rate was from his proximity to you, you didn’t mind.

How long did you stay like that, in such a familiar embrace with Johnny? Long enough, it seemed, for the playlist on his phone to come to an end and for him to start dozing off while resting against you, his light snores the thing that finally made you disturb him so you could go back inside. It was late anyways, nearing midnight you said softly and you tried to wake him gently—

A surprisingly loud boom shook the sky followed by a burst of light and color. Immediately the dog inside woke up and started barking, and Johnny bolted upright, eyes darting around in search of the source of the noise that had disturbed his snoozing.

“Fireworks,” you breathed out, more to yourself than to him. “Guess it’s midnight already.” Johnny didn’t say much, but his eyes twinkled as he watched in earnest as a few more went off before you tugged on his sleeve and insisted that he needed to make his way to bed and sleep. There were sure to be more tomorrow, and he could watch them then.

You didn’t sleep for hours that night. After helping the mildly intoxicated Johnny to his bed, you sat on the floor of your room, knees pulled into your chest and a hand laying flat against your cheek where he’d planted his trail of kisses. “He was just drunk, he’s just a flirty drunk, that didn’t mean anything,” you repeated to yourself over and over again.

But something about the way Johnny’s lips felt against the apples of your cheek and the hollow of your throat when he’d been nuzzling against you stayed with you all night long, sending a shiver down your spine and igniting a flame where your heart lived. You pressed the heels of your palms into your eyes and inhaled deeply, breath shuddering on the exhale.

Against all your hopes and intensions, Johnny Seo had slowly chipped his way through your armor and into your heart.

You had to get him out. Fast.

tbc.

—

author’s note | Me: this first part is gonna be like, I dunno, 5k? 6k? Also me: writes 19,000 words. We call this ✨processing your own trauma through writing as an outlet✨ Originally this was going to be one really long one shot and then I decided to split it up for ratings purposes because I am a thirsty whore for Youngho. The ending is rushed but honestly I was so sick of editing and overthinking this lmaooo. No I have not spent a summer living in Kona working on a coffee farm. Most of my coffee knowledge is second hand from the time my brother in law bought a coffee farm and started a roasting business because my sister dared him to by saying “do it you won’t” (an exact quote I shit you not). There’s more to this story and uh I dunno I’ll maybe post it eventually if people don’t hate this one *shrugs*

[bomberqueen17]

frazzle

Lo, for I am Pfizered, and my follow-up second dose is in 21 days. So far no symptoms.  (I found a Twitter post with hilarious imaginary house crests for the different vaccines, though only featuring the ones currently available in the US. I’m unreasonably pleased that House Pfizer features a bear, given my late-quarantine-sona.)

Back in my own house, though have not yet retrieved the cat. Spent last week at the farm, and with my overachieving oldest sister we got a bunch of Dad’s stuff cleaned out of the garage. A Jeep Guy is coming next week to investigate The Collection; he’d known Dad for decades. Mom admits she’s not so concerned about a fair price as she is that the various Jeeps go to someone who’ll enjoy and restore them if possible, since dad was so preoccupied with doing that.

(I made some jokes about the one he’d had in progress, which was like... the Jeep of Theseus. Was any of it original? Not much!)

It was also the First Week Of The Season at the farm, and they’ve hired... a lot of people... which is good and bad, for many reasons, but mostly good, and it’s exciting to get to meet them. The real exciting news is that the new livestock manager is an alum of a neighboring farm and will be bringing 1) some of his own funding, and 2) several animals of his own, including a herd of tiny kunekune pigs, and several sheep and a goat, and I’m quite excited about those last two ones. I have been wanting the farm to get sheep forever. Alas, I was not able to stick around long enough for the livestock to be brought over, which was scheduled to happen today. I shall await impatiently the news of the specifics. Now, of course, his own funding will be to work toward his own eventual goal of having his own farm, but I know my sister had been very interested in collaborating with other farmers, and it would be great to be another stepping stone on this guy’s path to independence. Also he’s just cool, we’ve known him a year, and he’s just good company, which is important in these constrained times.

I’m left sort of wondering what my role is on the farm, as they’ve hired people to do much of the stuff I’d been doing as a volunteer over the last six years, but I’m assured I still am needed, so we’ll see.

I did also spend an evening helping Middle-Little tidy her apartment. At this point it’s kind of a disaster area but! but! the kitchen was clean, so she’s not totally given up? I just stood in one spot for four hours sorting through boxes of boxes of bags of piles of papers etc., and helped her find several things she’d been looking for a long time, so. It wasn’t nothing, but I need like thirty to forty more hours of that, and I don’t have time. We’ll see though. We’ll just see. (She has a storage unit somewhere, doesn’t she? I’m not going to ask.)

Ah gotta go switch the laundry. Got a lot of that to do.

[simschallenges]

Zodiac Legacy Challenge

(note: because the original poster has deactivated, i am reposting an archived version of the challenge rules retrieved with the wayback machine. all of the following text is a copy of the original post by @autumnalpixels.)

As someone who is a bit of a nerd when it comes to astrology and witchcraft in general, I of course love learning about western zodiacs. So I thought I’d bring my love of the zodiac signs to the sims.

I know that a challenge with this name has been made before, however mine will be more structured for each generation. This is a 12-generation legacy, with each generation representing one of the different zodiacs.

Side note: This legacy is not meant to misrepresent or offend anyone. The generations are being based off of descriptions of the zodiacs from this website. Feel free to read up more about each zodiac to get a better sense of your sim’s personality!

Starting out:

Feel free to make your founder however you’d like. Traits for each heir will be listed in their section, but their looks are up to you so feel free to get creative! You’ll start out like a traditional legacy on one of the 50x50 lots (or 64x64 if you’d like). Here is a link to Pinstar’s legacy rules.

General Challenge Rules:

Honestly this is the only way to fail the challenge, other than not producing an heir.

Generation One: Aquarius

“Aquarius’ are shy and quiet, but on the other hand they can be eccentric and energetic. However, in both cases, they are deep thinkers and highly intellectual people who love helping others. They are able to see without prejudice, on both sides, which makes them people who can easily solve problems.”

Who ever said eccentricity was a bad thing? You are a little out there and can be pretty spacey sometimes, but overall you are very passionate about your morals and strive to make other people’s lives better. Just be careful not to become a pushover.

Traits: Self-assured, Insane, Ambitious Aspiration: Leader of the Pack Career: Politician

Goals:

Reach level ten of the Politician career, either branch

Complete your aspiration

Have a club gathering at least once a week (your club can literally be for anything! Get creative!)

Have three kids, get married as an adult

Have at least four good friends (they don’t have to be a part of your club)

Reach level ten of the Wellness skill

Generation Two: Pisces

“Pisces are very friendly, so they often find themselves in a company of very different people. Pisces are selfless, they are always willing to help others, without hoping to get anything back.”

You love to socialize and surround yourself with all different kinds of people. Your parents loved you and raised you to be kind and perhaps a bit sensitive. You can be insecure at times, especially when it comes to your significant other. For some reason, you can’t seem to stay in a relationship for very long. Is there a way to fix this?

Traits: Creative, Jealous, Gloomy Aspiration: Soulmate Career: Painter

Goals:

Have at least two friends of a different race/gender/sexuality than your sim

Reach level ten of the Painting skill

Reach level ten of the Painter career, either branch

Must go through at least two girl/boyfriends before settling down

Have two kids

Own a pool (at least a 4x4 size)

Generation Three: Aries

“As the first sign in the zodiac, the presence of Aries always marks the beginning of something energetic and turbulent. They are continuously looking for dynamic, speed and competition, always being the first in everything - from work to social gatherings.”

You’re competitive and hard working, and can sometimes come across as a bit arrogant. However, you have a bit of an inferiority complex, so every time your sibling or a friend succeeds, you aren’t too happy about it and always try to one up them. But after a while, you realize that you acting this way is pushing away the people you care about. Can you salvage these relationships before it’s too late and the damage is done?

Traits: Hot-headed, Ambitious, Perfectionist Aspiration: Renaissance Sim Career: Secret Agent

Goals:

Be enemies with your sibling until you are both YA

Only have one friend until you are a YA, since they were the only one who stuck around

Repair your relationships as fast as possible

Reach level ten of the fitness skill

Reach level ten of the Secret Agent career (any branch)

Complete your aspiration

Go for a jog for a total of three hours each week

Have one kid

Generation Four: Taurus

“Practical and well-grounded, Taurus is the sign that harvests the fruits of labor. They feel the need to always be surrounded by love and beauty, turned to the material world and physical pleasures. Stable and conservative, this is one of the most reliable signs of the zodiac, ready to endure and stick to their choices until they reach the point of personal satisfaction.”

You grew up truly appreciating food and what it meant. You were amazed how a simple meal could bring a family together, and how many memories were made because of that. You were close to your parents and were taught to always stand your ground and share your opinions. However, this caused you to become a little bull-headed (pun intended). You’re super stubborn and don’t like to be wrong, and won’t admit that you are ever wrong. This makes romance hard for you, but you keep trying because you are a hopeless romantic at heart. And once you find that special someone, you are loyal ‘til the end.

Traits: Romantic, Foodie, Materialistic Aspiration: Mansion Baron Career: Business

Goals:

use the cheat sims.get_sim_id_by_name {PlayedSimFirstName} {PlayedSimLastName} Get the pregnant Sim’s ID, then use the cheat pregnancy.force_offspring_count {simID} {amount}

Generation Five: Gemini

“Expressive and quick-witted, Gemini represents two different personalities in one and you will never be sure which one you will face. They are sociable, communicative and ready for fun, with a tendency to suddenly get serious, thoughtful and restless. They are fascinated with the world itself, extremely curious, with a constant feeling that there is not enough time to experience everything they want to see.”

Growing up, you had the “perfect life”: two parents who loved each other, lots of friends, good grades, and a beautiful house. You were living the good life, so why did you always feel like you wanted more? You decide to take a step on your own, leaving your family behind to pursue your dreams in the big city. However, you quickly realize that life is harder than it seems. You can’t find a job you’re comfortable in, you can’t hold down a relationship, but you find solace in entertaining people and throwing parties. Something about being a host really makes you feel happy.

Traits: Noncommittal, Outgoing, Insider Aspiration: Party Animal Career: None

Goals:

Must have a twin (feel free to cheat for this)

You are the opposite of your twin, in obvious ways such as style, but also in more subtle ways such as emotions and reactions to events (for example, you could be stereotypical and make one of the twins a “preppy” person and the other an “emo” person)

Reach level ten of the charisma skill

Must move out to an apartment with the Needs TLC trait

Throw every type of party at least once

Complete your aspiration

Have three jobs (at least one week for each) before deciding to freelance (writing books)

Travel to at least two community lots each week and stay there for at least an hour

Have at least level four in three different skills by the time you’re an elder

Learn all of the recipes from the vender stalls in City Living

Have one set of twins (keep trying until you get them)

Be caught cheating by your spouse (you can decide whether they stay together or not)

Generation Six: Cancer

“Deeply intuitive and sentimental, Cancer can be one of the most challenging zodiac signs to get to know. They are very emotional and sensitive, and care deeply about matters of the family and their home. Cancer is sympathetic and attached to people they keep close. Those born with their Sun in Cancer are very loyal and able to empathize with other people’s pain and suffering.”

In another life you would have become a doctor, but in this one you are content with looking after your family and making sure your children grow up the best they can. You’re a loving but strict parent, and just want what’s best for your children. However, will you push them away by being too overbearing?

Traits: Gloomy, Jealous, Family-Oriented Aspiration: Super Parent Career: None

Goals:

Gen six heir must reach level five in Imagination and Communication as a toddler

Master Baking skill

Master Cooking/Gourmet Cooking skills

Host a tea party (or a small get together) every week. Invite over your neighbors, your friends, your family, whomever you’d like. Must have a baked good for the gathering made by you.

Complete your aspiration

Pick up woodworking as a hobby and craft every sculpture

You live off of your parents’ money until you get a spouse: you are to be a house wife/husband, and will never have a job. You’re allowed to sell duplicate sculptures for money, however.

Show off your sculptures by putting them on display somewhere in your house!

Pack a lunch for your kids every morning. If you forget, make them a snack when they get home.

Keep the house clean—all you have to do all day is chores, after all!

Have two kids

Both kids need to have A’s in school

Generation Seven: Leo

“People born under the sign of Leo are natural born leaders. They are dramatic, creative, self-confident, dominant and extremely difficult to resist, able to achieve anything they want to in any area of life they commit to. There is a specific strength to a Leo and their “king of the jungle” status. Leo often has many friends for they are generous and loyal. Self-confident and attractive, this is a Sun sign capable of uniting different groups of people and leading them as one towards a shared cause.”

Your parents were so overbearing to you and your sibling growing up that in your teenage years you began to rebel. Staying out late, skipping class, whatever you could think of. Your parent made sure you got good grades, but you didn’t care about school. All you cared about was your music. You were going to make it big, and you didn’t need calculus to help you rock out on your guitar. You’re arrogant and stubborn, but determined to succeed no matter what the cost. Unfortunately, that means that you can miss out on things that are most important in life.

Traits: Materialistic, Music Lover, Cheerful Aspiration: Musical Genius Career: Entertainer

Goals:

If your heir for this generation is male, come up with some sort of reason for why you got the baby. The mother didn’t want it, the mother died in childbirth, whatever. You can even move her in until she gives birth, then they have a big fight and she walks out on them.

Generation Eight: Virgo

“Virgos are always paying attention to the smallest details. Their methodical approach to life ensures that nothing is left to chance and their heart might be closed for the outer world. This is a sign often misunderstood, not because they lack the ability to express, but because they won’t accept their feelings as valid. The symbolism behind the name speaks well of their nature, born with a feeling they are experiencing everything for the first time.”

You grew up without a strong parental figure in your life, which made it hard for you to trust other people. How do you know that they would be there for you when you truly needed them? You’re cautious and shy, but curious about the world. You truly enjoy learning and collecting things, and through this passion is how you meet the love of your life. They are the only person you can trust, but they can tell you’re always holding yourself back and hiding parts of yourself away from them. Can a relationship last with this kind of distrust?

Traits: Loner, Geek, Bookworm Aspiration: The Curator Career: Scientist

Goals:

Marry a coworker who has at least one trait in common with you

Get married right before becoming an adult

Separate from your spouse for a while after a large fight (your choice if they get back together)

Reach level ten of the Scientist career

Complete your aspiration

Have a home library (at least 25 books)

Finish a collection (your choice)

Have two kids

Generation Nine: Libra

“People born under the sign of Libra are peaceful and fair, and they hate being alone. Partnership is very important for Libra-born, and with their victorious mentality and cooperation, they cannot stand to be alone. The Libra is an Air sign, with expressed intellect and a keen mind. They can be inspired by good books, insurmountable discussions and interesting people.”

You thrive on socialization. Your parents are kind of shy homebodies, but you crave constant company and cannot stand to be by yourself. This can come across as quite overbearing to some people, so sometimes it’s hard for you to make friends. And, despite being such a sociable person, you are kind of oblivious when it comes to romance. You are very childish in the best possible way, and are the kind of parent to get down in the dirt and play with your children. You are a very supportive parent and you strive to make your family as happy as they can be, through whatever means.

Traits: Unflirty, Loves the Outdoors, Goofball Aspiration: Big Happy Family Career: Social Media

Goals:

You post a lot about your kids and about your life, so take as many pictures of your kids as you can!

Generation Ten: Scorpio

“Scorpio-born are passionate and assertive people. They are determined and decisive, and will research until they find out the truth. Scorpio is a great leader, always aware of the situation and also features prominently in resourcefulness.”

You grew up watching true crime television shows and superhero movies and decided that’s what you wanted to do with your life: bring justice and fight evil. Unfortunately you can’t become a superhero, but you can become a police officer/detective. You want to make the world a better place than it was before, and you want your legacy to be something of legend. Hardworking and dedicated to your craft, you tend to focus too much on work and it puts a strain on your relationship.

Traits: Ambitious, Good, Genius Aspiration: Nerd Brain Career: Detective

Goals:

Get married to your high school sweetheart

Complete your aspiration

Reach level ten of the Detective career

Reach level ten of the logic skill

Reach level ten of the handiness skill

Get a divorce (you can decide who gets custody of your kids)

Get remarried as an elder, retire from your career

Have three kids

Generation Eleven: Sagittarius

“Curious and energetic, Sagittarius is one of the biggest travelers among all zodiac signs. Their open mind and philosophical view motivates them to wander around the world in search of the meaning of life.”

You love travel and learning new things. You want to experience as much as you can in your lifetime, which means meeting people different from yourself. You heard that one of your ancestors (generation five) was a big traveller too, so you decide to follow in their footsteps.

Traits: Outgoing, Noncommittal, Dance Machine Aspiration: Friend of the World Career: None

Goals:

Live in three different worlds for at least a week before settling down

Have kids with three different people

Never get married

Make money freelancing (collecting, gardening, painting, writing, whatever you wish!)

Completely redesign your house at least once (after settling down for good)

Go to every festival (unless you’re at work/on a date/at a wedding/etc)

Travel to the Nightclub every Friday

Complete aspiration

Master dancing skill

Master comedy skill

Generation Twelve: Capricorn

“Capricorn is a sign that represents time and responsibility, and its representatives are traditional and often very serious by nature. These individuals possess an inner state of independence that enables significant progress both in their personal and professional lives. They are masters of self-control and have the ability to lead the way.”

You hated how free spirited and laid back your parent was, and craved structure and discipline. Since a teen, you had a schedule every day after school: do homework, practice your skills for an hour, eat dinner, go to bed. Moving around so often meant that you didn’t make many friends, so you chose to devote all of your time to mastering as many skills as you could. But focusing in on one detail of life made you miss out on the bigger picture.

Traits: Ambitious, Snob, Mean Aspiration: Fabulously Wealthy Career: Tech Guru

Goals:

Since this is the final generation, you can choose whether to have kids or not. Preferably none.

Reach level ten of the Tech Guru career (either branch).

Master logic skill

Have at least level seven in three other skills (your choice)

Follow a schedule every day; spontaneity is not your strong suit

Get married as an adult to someone who shares at least one of your traits and is in the same career as you.

Live in an expensive house (200,000 simoleons or more) by the time you’re an adult

Surround yourself only with other snobby people

Buy an expensive item every Wednesday. (Perhaps even start a collection of expensive artwork or sculptures and showcase them somewhere in your house. Feel free to get creative with it.)

Oh wow, we’ve made it to the end of the challenge! I hope you enjoyed. Feel free to show me pictures or update me on your playthrough on this if you’d like (tumblr: autumnalpixels.tumblr.com/twitter: @absoluteking8). You can also use the hashtag #autumnalzodiac so I can see your posts and reblog some of them!

If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to tell me and I’ll take them into consideration. <3

[cpd5021]

The Thing That Works...

Hailey and Jay take on a case that affects them both, bringing up things from their past. This will be a two-shot (probably). Let me know what you think!

       Jay sighed down at his phone when, for the second time, his call to Hailey went unanswered. It wasn’t like her to not pick up, especially a call from him, but then again it was supposed to be their day off. The team had spent the last two weeks working a grueling case so Voight had shown them mercy and given the two detectives the day off. It all sounded good in theory until Kevin and Vanessa had caught a case, resulting in the whole unit being called in. Vanessa had called him, apologizing when his gruffly voice told her she had woke him, and gave him a quick rundown of the case. She mentioned texting Hailey, but that she hadn’t gotten a reply yet and Jay told her not to worry, that he would get a hold of her. That was twenty minutes ago and now Jay sat in his truck, parked outside of her condo, staring at a blank screen. Maybe she was still asleep. He sighed again and shut his truck off, jumping out and making his way to her door. A mix of confusion and entertainment crossed his face when, as he approached her front door, he could hear music blaring inside. He chuckled to himself, not really pegging Hailey as a 90′s classic kind of gal. Jay knocked and when he realized she’d never hear him over the music, he hesitantly rang the doorbell. He listened as the music was turned down and could see movement behind the frosted window of her door. Suddenly, she was in front of him. A range of emotions flashed across her face, going from surprise, to a huge smile, and then what looked like mild embarrassment. Jay inhaled sharply as he took in the sight of his partner before him. Before he could stop himself, his eyes traveled down her body, which was glistening with sweat. He hadn’t really seen her in anything other than her usual jeans and a T-shirt or sweater, unless you count that one time she was quarantined in a hospital gown. But her currant attire had her body on full display. His eyes quickly roamed from her chest, covered in nothing but a tight black sports bra, down her sculpted abs and to her toned legs showing out of her small athletic shorts. His eyes met hers finally, his eyebrows raised in appreciation, his lower lip clenched between his teeth. He swallowed hard as he felt his face burn bright red, realizing that not only had he just totally checked his partner out but that he had done so in such an obvious way that there was no way he could back track it. He gave her a sheepish grin as he took in her face, a pink blush spreading across her cheeks that he hoped was from whatever she had been doing and not his blatant staring.

“Did we catch a case?” Hailey asked finally, clearing her throat to get his attention. 

“Huh? Uh, yea...unfortunately.” He tried to play it cool but his voice came out huskier than he intended. 

“Okay...” She trailed off slowly. “I’ll be ready in just a minute, I just need to grab a quick shower after working out.” She hesitated in the doorway for a moment before stepping aside and motioning for him to come in. Jay ducked his head down sheepishly as he entered her home, suddenly the air around him felt thick and he was struggling to focus with the new tension between them. “You can hang on the couch..or in the kitchen...I’ll be right back.” Hailey stammered the words out before turning to dart up the stairs. He risked a glance at her retreating figure and the sight of her toned behind did nothing to help his case. With another sigh, he rubbed his face and walked towards her kitchen. He sat down on her bar stool, taking in the space around him. He had been here many times before, but this was the first time he really took it in, trying to distract himself from the other thoughts floating around his head. The room was neat and tidy, save for a few empty beer bottles perched by her sink. The decor was light and simple, a contrast to her as a person, anything but simple. He jumped slightly when he heard her jogging back down the stairs and joining him in the kitchen. Now she stood before him, wearing her usual jeans and a cream colored sweater, her wet hair draping around her face and he found himself swallowing hard again. If she noticed his look this time, she chose to ignore it, instead walked around him to head towards her coffee maker on the counter. 

“Want a cup?” She asked, back turned to him as she pulled a travel mug out of the cupboard. He found himself lost for words as the smell of her shampoo assaulted his nose when she had walked by. He always knew she smelled good, but that was the first time he had caught a whiff fresh out of the shower. He shook his head briefly as his mind started to wander again. Blinking a few times he realized she had turned to face him, waiting for an answer. 

“Hmm, uh...yea...sure...please.” He stammered out his words, giving her a sheepish grin. Get a grip Halstead, he thought to himself. 

     Somehow, he managed to make it through the last few minutes and they were finally in his truck. He filled her in on the little he knew of their case as they drove to the precinct and found himself happy for the distraction. He couldn’t get the smell of her shampoo out of his mind, so it was either new or he just hadn’t been paying attention previously. Either way, it was his new favorite scent. They joined the others in the bullpen, Hailey giving Vanessa a quick smile as they were the last ones to arrive, Jay watched as the two exchanged an odd look, almost like a silent conversation between the two women, but his attention was quickly pulled away by Kevin starting to go over the case. 

“Alright so, V and I were called in by patrol this morning. They were sent to a house for possible shots fired. When they made entry, they found mom and two kids shot dead. There’s a third kid, the youngest, who is in surgery at Med right now but it doesn’t look good. The husband/father is in the wind.” Kevin finished, pointing to a photo on the board showing a man in his thirties, dark hair cut close to his scalp and a scar on his left cheek. 

“With all due respect, this sounds like a case for Homicide. Why’d we take it?” Hailey asked, taking a sip of her coffee. 

“Because,” Voights gravelly voice came from his spot in his office doorway. “They were shot with a military grade assault rifle and the husband was dishonorably discharged six months ago.”

“Neighbors told patrol the couple was always fighting and he has PTSD from his time in.” Adam piped up from his desk where he was going through the traffic cameras from that area. Jay clenched his jaw then, fighting back his own military memories and his struggle with PTSD. He noticed Voight eyeing him from across the room, but diverted his eyes to find Hailey’s. Not surprisingly, she took was assessing the shift in his mood, knowing almost the full extent of what he had gone through. 

“So right now, husband is our number one suspect. And we have no idea where he is.” Kim said, filling the sudden awkward silence. 

“We’ll head to Med, see if we can get an update on the boy. Keep us posted.” Hailey stood from her desk and headed down the stairs, Jay close behind. Once settled in his truck, she turned to face him, her eyes trying to meet his while he actively tried to ignore her. 

“Jay? You good?” Hailey pushed and he knew he wouldn’t be able to get away from this. 

“Yea, I’m okay Hailey.” Jay started the truck and sped them out of the lot. 

“You’re lying.” It wasn’t a question, but a firm statement. 

“No, I....look a few years ago this case would have really got to me. And it definitely crossed my mind up there. But I’m good, promise.” Jay turned to give her a reassuring smile and he could tell it calmed her nerves. He wasn’t lying either and was finding himself all the more grateful that she had pushed him into therapy all those years ago. 

   At the hospital, they met with Will, who also eyed Jay at the mention of the ex-military husband. He told them the boy was out of surgery but that he was still in critical condition and it wasn’t looking promising. It would be a few hours before they would be able to talk to him, if he even woke up. Next, they decided to head back to the house and see if they could dig up anything that had been missed earlier. As they entered the home, patrol still perched outside, they slowly walked around the living room. Hailey picked up a picture frame, showcasing the supposedly happy family. Mom, dad, two sons and a daughter. Hailey couldn’t help but see her own family in the picture and wondered what was really going on behind their closed doors. 

“Hey check this out.” Jay’s voice drew her back to the present, she set the frame down before making her way over to him. He pointed at the wall which appeared to have been recently patched, one spots paint not matching the surrounding area. “What do you think happened here?”

“Someone punched a wall.” Hailey shrugged, trying to shake off childhood memories.

“Yea?” Jay asked, puzzled by her confident answer. 

“Perfect circle, this was a fist meeting drywall.” Hailey’s eyes were dark and he could tell she was somewhere far away. He debated questioning her on it, but decided it would be better to let it go for now. They searched the rest of the house but it came up clean, nothing indicating what might have caused the husband to attack or leave the family as a target for an outside attack. They walked back to the truck, feet dragging slightly at their empty-handedness from the house, when Jay’s phone rang. 

“Hey Will, what’s up?” He shot Hailey a look and picked up his pace towards the truck. She got the hint and jogged right behind him. “Okay, we’ll be right there.” Jay hung up the phone as he climbed into the drivers seat. 

    Once at Med, the duo quickly made their way to the nurses station, meeting Will for another update. He informed them that the boy, Jackson, was awake but still pretty out of it. He warned them not to push the boy and that they needed to be quick, they both gave Will an understanding nod before heading towards the room. Hailey swallowed hard at the sight of the small body laying in the hospital bed, tubes coming from every direction and beeping machines all around. Her eyes met his and she could see the terror within. Hailey walked over to the bedside, pulling up the chair and giving the boy a warm smile. Jay leaned back against the counter and let her take point. 

“Hey Jackson, my name is Hailey and this in my partner Jay.” She nodded in Jay’s direction and he gave the boy a small smile. “Do you mind if we ask you some questions?” 

“Who are you?” His impossibly small voice asked, glancing between the two.

“We’re police officers and we just want to talk to you about what happened.” Hailey was trying to tread carefully and not upset the boy. She knew from his file that he was only seven so she wanted to keep this conversation as light as possible.  

“Mommy’s dead.” His stated, brow furrowing. His blunt statement threw Hailey for a loop and she fought to quickly recover. 

“Yes.” She nodded, somewhat unsure of whether that was a question or not. 

“And my brother and sister.” The boy’s face remained eerily calm while he talked. 

“Yes.” Hailey nodded again, wanting to see where he would go with this. 

“Daddy’s gone. He was angry.” Jackson met her eyes then and in them she saw herself, as a child, uttering the same words. Daddy’s angry. She felt her eyes burn and blinked quickly to fight back the tears threatening to form. Jay picked up on her shift in mood but remained behind her, letting this play out. 

“Why was he angry?” Hailey asked softly, hating how thick her voice sounded right now. 

“He’s always angry.” Jackson shrugged, sending another wave of emotion through Hailey. 

“Do you know what happened to your mommy and your brother and sister?” Hailey pressed gently. 

“Daddy was angry.” His eyes gazed into the distance and Hailey could tell he was shutting down, still she tried to gather some more information. 

“Did your daddy hurt them, today?” Her words were a whisper. 

“Yes.” Jackson still looked away from her, his face emotionless. 

“How?” She wanted to ask for details, to ask if he had shot them, but she knew she couldn’t lead his answers and needed to get him to say it on his own. 

“With his gun. And then he left. He was angry.” The boy shrugged again, as if this conversation was the simplest thing in the world and she wasn’t setting here discussing a triple homicide with a seven year old. She swallowed hard again, throat tight with emotion. She had gotten what she needed from him and now they knew the father was their main suspect, which they had figured all along. 

“Okay Jackson, we’re going to let you get some sleep now. I’ll come back to visit you if you want.” Hailey stood then, glancing at Jay before giving the boy a warm smile. She turned and they started to make their way out of the room when his small voice sounded out once again. 

“Are you going to kill my daddy?” His question froze both of them in their tracks, neither sure how to answer him. Before either could verbalize a response, Jackson continued. “Because you can, he’s a bad man.” Hailey choked back tears and forced a smile on her face before turning to look at him. She wanted to say something to him, to say she knew how he felt, to explain that she had wished someone would hurt her father too and take away her pain. But this wasn’t the time or place for that, so instead she gave him a nod and left the room, Jay hot on her heals. Hailey didn’t stop her brisk walk until they were back at the truck. They climbed in, Jay’s eyes never leaving her face and he assessed where she was at mentally right now. He knew bits and pieces of her past and realized that this case would certainly be bringing some of those memories back to the forefront for her. He was trying to decide how to proceed when she beat him to it. 

“I’m fine Jay.” Her words were cool, lacking emotion. He could tell she didn’t want to go there right now and he respected that, hoping they could talk it out later. 

“Okay, we’ll head back and see what everyone else has.” He started the truck up and they headed towards the 21st. 

   Back at the precinct, the mood was somber while everyone sat around feeling somewhat defeated at their lack of leads on this case. Jay had gone over what Jackson had confessed, Adam had given some information on where the father might be hiding, but so far all the options had turned up dry. Kevin and Vanessa were still scouring over traffic camera’s when suddenly she stood from her desk, sending her chair flying backwards. 

“I got him!” She exclaimed, pointing excitedly towards her screen. They gathered around her quickly, Voight radioed for patrol to follow him and they scrambled to get geared up and into their vehicles. Luckily, their suspect had decided to spot for something to eat and was still parked outside the small diner just outside the city when they arrived. The team had convened a few blocks away so they could set up the plan, Voight barking out orders and everyone hurrying to get in place. They would wait for him to come out of the diner, not wanting to start something inside with potential victims. Vanessa was sent to walk down the street, acting the part of a regular pedestrian so she could get a peak inside. She radioed that he was about to leave and continued walking around the corner so he wouldn’t be suspicious of her. They watched as he walked out, quickly closing their ranks to surround him, but his military training kicked in and he saw them coming. The man spun around quickly, taking in their approach from all angles as each member marched closer, guns drawn. Jay took the lead, hoping he’d be able to connect with him due to their similar history. 

“Hey man, put your hands up. We’re not here to hurt you. We just want to help.” Jay’s voice was loud but had a calm tone to it as he stepped forward. 

“That’s what they all say!” The man bellowed, his head twisting frantically as they continued to close in. 

“You’re ex-military right? Me too.” Jay stretched both his arms up, gun still in hand but now pointing skyward. “We can talk this through, I can help you.”

“Help me?” The man laughed frantically. “You don’t know what I’ve done.” His voice broke then, his first real show of emotion. 

“Yes, I do.” Jay remained calm and collected despite the heated situation. 

“They’re gone! All of them! Because of me!” He yelled out, face reddened and eyes watering. 

“Not all of them. Jackson is alive, he’s at Med. I can take you there.” The lie fell from Jay’s lips effortlessly. He had no intention of taking this man anywhere near his son but if it would help diffuse the situation he would use it. At Jay’s words though, the man spun to face him, suddenly drawing his own gun and aiming it towards Jay. 

“Don’t lie to me!” He bellowed, taking a step towards Jay. Jay knew what he should do, the man could shoot him at any second and he needed to take him out. But he hesitated, thinking of his own PTSD and the time he had pointed a gun at Hailey, not recognizing her in the heat of the moment. He didn’t want to take him out like this, the guy definitely deserved to pay for what he had done but Jay had a hard time pulling the trigger on a fellow military Vet. 

“I’m not.” Jay stated, voice still calm. He could feel his team around him, all ready to take the shot and end this scenario. He was hoping it wouldn’t come to that, but he didn’t get the choice to continue talking him down as the man lurched forward towards Jay and in an instant, Jay leveled his gun and took the shot. He watched as the man dropped instantly and blood began to pool underneath him. Adam and Kevin ran over, kicking the gun out of his hand. He watched Kevin kneel down to check for a pulse but he didn’t need the confirmation. A shot to the center of his chest was fatal, almost instantly. Jay holstered his weapon and turned back to face Hailey, standing wide eyed and seemingly frozen in place behind him. He wasn’t sure what she was thinking or if she was even there with him right now, her face impossible to read. While the rest of his team got to work securing the scene, Jay made his way over to her. 

“Hailey?” His voice soft, not wanting to spook her. 

“He could have shot you.” Her voice trembled slightly and she blinked, bringing herself back into the moment. 

“But he didn’t.” Jay stepped closer, placing his hands on her shoulders. This wasn’t what they did, physical contact. It was somehting new. But in this moment he felt it’s what was needed, what she needed, to feel him and know that he was unharmed. They stood like that for a moment, her eyes searching his face, before they both seemed to realize their close proximity. Jay lifted his hands at the same time she took a step back, both giving the other a sheepish grin. 

“We should....go help them.” Hailey nodded towards their unit.

“Yea...” He agreed, rubbing his neck awkwardly. 

   They eventually cleared the scene, Jay spent over an hour talking to the IA officer who had come to investigate the shooting, but finally they were back at the precinct. Hailey was in front of her locker when Jay entered the locker room, she gave him a quick smile before finishing up what she was doing. 

“So much for a day off.” She joked lightheartedly but Jay knew better. He knew that this case had affected them both, in different ways, thanks to their respective past lives. He knew this would be a case where they ended up doing ‘their thing’ and he found himself thankful he had her to talk it through with. 

“So, my place or yours?” He asked, sitting to untie his work boots. She turned to give him a quizzical look. “Our thing that works, I definitely need it tonight and I’m pretty confident you do too.”

“Oh yeah?” She challenged his last statement with a raised eyebrow. 

“Yeah Hailey, I know enough now to know this got to you, at least a little bit.” She dipped her head then, unable to put up an argument because she knew he was right. 

“I’ll get the beer if you’ll get the pizza?” She asked, biting her lower lip playfully and scrunching her forehead up in excitement over the thought of her favorite pizza place. 

“Make it beer and tequila and we have a deal. I’ll even throw in some bread sticks.” He gave her a cheesy grin then, knowing she would be even more excited now. 

“Jay Halstead, you spoil me.” She smiled at him genuinely and then shut her locker door. She gave him another look, he still sat perched on the bench working on a knot in his laces. “Chop chop! I’m hungry!” She teased before walking out of the locker room. Despite his hellish day, Jay couldn’t help the smile plastered to his face as he walked out of the precinct, calling in their pizza order. 

[newstfionline]

Monday, August 23, 2021

22 dead, many missing after 17 inches of rain in Tennessee (AP) At least 22 people were killed and rescue crews searched desperately Sunday amid shattered homes and tangled debris for dozens of people still missing after record-breaking rain sent floodwaters surging through Middle Tennessee. Saturday’s flooding in rural areas took out roads, cellphone towers and telephone lines, leaving families uncertain about whether their loved ones survived the unprecedented deluge. Emergency workers were searching door to door, said Kristi Brown, a coordinator for health and safety supervisor with Humphreys County Schools. Up to 17 inches (43 centimeters) of rain fell in Humphreys County in less than 24 hours Saturday, shattering the Tennessee record for one-day rainfall by more than 3 inches (8 centimeters), the National Weather Service said. Lines of storms moved over the area for hours, wringing out a record amount of moisture. The downpours rapidly turned the creeks that run behind backyards and through downtown Waverly into raging rapids.

Moving inland, storm Henri drenches Northeast US (AP) Storm Henri weakened into tropical depression Sunday night, as it crawled over the Northeast and continued to unleash downpours over a region already saturated by heavy rain and wind that knocked out power to over 100,000 homes and swamped roads, closed bridges and left people stranded in their vehicles. Henri made landfall Sunday on the coast of Rhode Island, and the National Hurricane Center warned that the slow-moving storm would continue dumping heavy rains on wide swaths of the region. The storm was downgraded from a hurricane before reaching New England, leaving many to breathe a sigh of relief. There were few early reports of major damage due to wind or surf. But the storm’s heavy, sustained rains raised concerns about flooding from the storm that threatened to stall over the region before pivoting to the East and moving out to the Atlantic Ocean on Monday night. Some of the highest rain totals were expected inland.

Civilian air fleet activated for just 3rd time in history to aid Afghanistan evacuation (The Week) For just the third time in U.S. history, the Pentagon is activating the country's Civil Reserve Air Fleet, meaning 18 civilian aircraft from airlines such as American, Delta, and United will be utilized to aid the Afghanistan evacuation in the wake of the Taliban takeover. The planes won't fly into and out of Kabul—the CRAF does not enter war zones—but they will head to U.S. military bases in Germany, Qatar, and Bahrain to fly stranded evacuees elsewhere, alleviating some of the pressure on the armed forces trying to get tens of thousands of Americans and Afghan civilians to safety. The civilian planes are also necessary because the military planes used to carry people out of Kabul don't have adequate restroom facilities or the ability to provide food on longer flights across the Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal notes. The CRAF program was created in 1952, a few years after the Berlin Airlift, an early Cold War crisis that saw the Soviet Union block access from the east to other sectors of the divided city that were controlled by Western powers. Since then, it's only been activated twice—during the Gulf War in Kuwait between 1990 and 1991, and at the start of the Iraq War between 2002 and 2003. The Pentagon only wants to use the aircraft for a week or two, which seemingly lines up with its plan to finish the withdrawal by Aug. 31, though the U.S. is facing calls to extend the deadline.

In Haiti, a brutal reckoning over an all too familiar task: Rebuilding (Washington Post) Hundreds of schools in Haiti were destroyed or badly damaged when the earth shook. The quake damaged power plants, bridges and roads, compromising electric grids and transit. The water supplies for countless communities are contaminated, in some, locals say, because of corpses upstream. Even as Haitians bury their dead, rescue operations continue and bands of desperate victims raid aid trucks. A country of endless crises led by an interim government stepping in for an assassinated president once again faces the arduous task of rebuilding. In the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation—one worn down by repeated natural and man-made disasters—the list of broken infrastructure and housing is an omen of new hardship ahead. Just as it did in 2010 after a more deadly earthquake—and in 2016, when Hurricane Matthew pummeled the same southern communities stricken by the quake now—Haiti is looking to the international community for help. But that hasn’t worked out well in the past. Last week’s quake reopened old wounds from the 2010 temblor that struck closer to the densely populated capital and killed more than 220,000 people. Over $13 billion in aid was allocated by international agencies to respond to the disaster. But mismanagement, a disconnect with local reality and lack of organization led to mistakes that the Haitian government, international agencies and NGOs say they can’t afford to commit again. To avoid the mistakes of the past, the Haitian government is now requesting that aid flow through it. But on the streets, distrust of local and national officials, who victims insist are corrupt and will spread distribute the aid for personal or political gain, is growing.

British military: 7 Afghans killed in chaos at Kabul airport (AP) A panicked crush of people trying to enter Kabul’s international airport killed seven Afghan civilians in the crowds, the British military said Sunday, showing the danger still posed to those trying to flee the Taliban’s takeover of the country. There have been stampedes and crushing injuries in the crowds, especially as Taliban fighters fire into the air to drive away those desperate to get on any flight out of the country. On Saturday, British and Western troops in full combat gear tried to control the crowds pressing in. They carried away some who were sweating and pale. With temperatures reaching 34 degree Celsius (93 degrees Fahrenheit), the soldiers sprayed water from a hose on those gathered or gave them bottled water to pour over their heads. It wasn’t immediately clear whether those killed had been physically crushed, suffocated or suffered a fatal heart attack in the crowds. Soldiers covered several corpses in white clothes to hide them from view. Other troops stood atop concrete barriers or shipping containers, trying to calm the crowd. Gunshots occasionally rang out.

Europe fears Afghan refugee crisis after Taliban takeover (AP) From above, the new border wall separating Turkey from Iran looks like a white snake winding through the barren hills. So far it only covers a third of the 540-kilometer (335-mile) border, leaving plenty of gaps for migrants to slip across in the dead of night. Traffic on this key migration route from central Asia to Europe has remained relatively stable compared to previous years. But European countries, as well as Turkey, fear the sudden return of Taliban rule in Afghanistan could change that. Haunted by a 2015 migration crisis fueled by the Syrian war, European leaders desperately want to avoid another large-scale influx of refugees and migrants from Afghanistan. Except for those who helped Western forces in the country’s two-decade war, the message to Afghans considering fleeing to Europe is: If you must leave, go to neighboring countries, but don’t come here. Even Germany, which since 2015 has admitted more Syrians than any other Western nation, is sending a different signal today. And French President Emmanuel Macron stressed that “Europe alone cannot shoulder the consequences” of the situation in Afghanistan and “must anticipate and protect ourselves against significant irregular migratory flows.” Greece, whose scenic islands facing the Turkish coast were the European point of entry for hundreds of thousands of Syrians, Iraqis, Afghans and others six years ago, has made clear it doesn’t want to relive that crisis. Turkey is also reinforcing its borders.

Internal displacement crisis looms in Afghanistan in wake of Taliban takeover (Washington Post) As Afghanistan’s neighbors, along with other countries in the region and in the West, brace for the possibility of a large-scale refugee crisis driven by the Taliban’s rapid return to national power, the largest share of the displacement crisis is unfolding within Afghanistan’s borders, aid groups say. As the Taliban took territory in recent weeks, waves of Afghans fled their home provinces on foot and in cars and rickshaws in search of shifting, shrinking government-controlled pockets. In the week before Kabul fell to the Islamist group, tens of thousands of people fled, many of them making their way to the capital, directly or by way of provincial capitals that did not hold out long. Afghanistan already had 3.5 million internally displaced people before the Taliban took over. More than a half-million Afghan civilians have been displaced this year, UNHCR estimates, with about 80 percent being woman and girls. Now that the Taliban has control at the national level, and there are few places to flee its fighters within the country, it remains to be seen what share of people will simply go home.

Israel strikes Gaza after violent protests along border (AP) Israel’s military bombed Palestinian militant weapons sites in the Gaza Strip early Sunday in response to a violent demonstration on the perimeter fence that left an Israeli police officer critically injured, the army said. Saturday’s violence erupted after hundreds of Palestinians took part in a demonstration organized by Gaza’s Hamas rulers to draw attention to the Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the territory. The demonstration grew violent after dozens of people approached the fortified border fence and threw rocks and explosives toward Israeli soldiers from behind a black smoke screen billowing from burning tires. At least 24 Palestinians, including a 13-year-old, were injured by Israeli gunfire, according to the Gaza health ministry. An Israeli Border Police officer was shot and critically injured. The army said in a statement that in response to the violent demonstrations, fighter planes hit “four weapons and storage manufacturing sites” belonging to Gaza’s Hamas rulers, and that the military deployed additional troops to the region near the border with the Palestinian enclave.

[papermoonloveslucy]

DINNER FOR TWELVE

October 14, 1950

“Dinner for Twelve” (aka “Liz Cooks Dinner for Twelve”) is episode #101 [some sources say #100] of the radio series MY FAVORITE HUSBAND broadcast on October 14, 1950.

This was the sixth episode of the third season of MY FAVORITE HUSBAND. There were 31 new episodes, with the season ending on March 31, 1951.  

This episode was fully animated and can be found on Vimeo. It was created by Wayne Wilson in 2012. 

Synopsis ~ George has invited ten dinner guests on the maid’s day off and Liz is determined to prove to George's mother that she can prepare a dinner for twelve without any help.

“My Favorite Husband” was based on the novels Mr. and Mrs. Cugat, the Record of a Happy Marriage (1940) and Outside Eden (1945) by Isabel Scott Rorick, which had previously been adapted into the film Are Husbands Necessary? (1942). “My Favorite Husband” was first broadcast as a one-time special on July 5, 1948. Lucille Ball and Lee Bowman played the characters of Liz and George Cugat, and a positive response to this broadcast convinced CBS to launch “My Favorite Husband” as a series. Bowman was not available Richard Denning was cast as George. On January 7, 1949, confusion with bandleader Xavier Cugat prompted a name change to Cooper. On this same episode Jell-O became its sponsor. A total of 124 episodes of the program aired from July 23, 1948 through March 31, 1951. After about ten episodes had been written, writers Fox and Davenport departed and three new writers took over – Bob Carroll, Jr., Madelyn Pugh, and head writer/producer Jess Oppenheimer. In March 1949 Gale Gordon took over the existing role of George’s boss, Rudolph Atterbury, and Bea Benaderet was added as his wife, Iris. CBS brought “My Favorite Husband” to television in 1953, starring Joan Caulfield and Barry Nelson as Liz and George Cooper. The television version ran two-and-a-half seasons, from September 1953 through December 1955, running concurrently with “I Love Lucy.” It was produced live at CBS Television City for most of its run, until switching to film for a truncated third season filmed (ironically) at Desilu and recasting Liz Cooper with Vanessa Brown.

MAIN CAST

Lucille Ball (Liz Cooper) was born on August 6, 1911 in Jamestown, New York. She began her screen career in 1933 and was known in Hollywood as ‘Queen of the B’s’ due to her many appearances in ‘B’ movies. With Richard Denning, she starred in a radio program titled “My Favorite Husband” which eventually led to the creation of “I Love Lucy,” a television situation comedy in which she co-starred with her real-life husband, Latin bandleader Desi Arnaz. The program was phenomenally successful, allowing the couple to purchase what was once RKO Studios, re-naming it Desilu. When the show ended in 1960 (in an hour-long format known as “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour”) so did Lucy and Desi’s marriage. In 1962, hoping to keep Desilu financially solvent, Lucy returned to the sitcom format with “The Lucy Show,” which lasted six seasons. She followed that with a similar sitcom “Here’s Lucy” co-starring with her real-life children, Lucie and Desi Jr., as well as Gale Gordon, who had joined the cast of “The Lucy Show” during season two. Before her death in 1989, Lucy made one more attempt at a sitcom with “Life With Lucy,” also with Gordon.

Richard Denning (George Cooper) was born Louis Albert Heindrich Denninger Jr., in Poughkeepsie, New York. When he was 18 months old, his family moved to Los Angeles. Plans called for him to take over his father’s garment manufacturing business, but he developed an interest in acting. Denning enlisted in the US Navy during World War II. He is best known for his  roles in various science fiction and horror films of the 1950s. Although he teamed with Lucille Ball on radio in “My Favorite Husband,” the two never acted together on screen. While “I Love Lucy” was on the air, he was seen on another CBS TV series, “Mr. & Mrs. North.” From 1968 to 1980 he played the Governor on “Hawaii 5-0″, his final role. He died in 1998 at age 84.

Bea Benadaret (Iris Atterbury) was considered the front-runner to be cast as Ethel Mertz but when “I Love Lucy” was ready to start production she was already playing a similar role on TV’s “The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show” so Vivian Vance was cast instead. On “I Love Lucy” she was cast as Lucy Ricardo’s spinster neighbor, Miss Lewis, in “Lucy Plays Cupid” (ILL S1;E15) in early 1952. Later, she was a success in her own show, “Petticoat Junction” as Shady Rest Hotel proprietress Kate Bradley. She starred in the series until her death in 1968.

Ruth Perrott (Katie, the Maid) was also later seen on “I Love Lucy.” She first played Mrs. Pomerantz, a member of the surprise investigating committee for the Society Matrons League in “Pioneer Women” (ILL S1;E25), as one of the member of the Wednesday Afternoon Fine Arts League in “Lucy and Ethel Buy the Same Dress” (ILL S3;E3), and also played a nurse when “Lucy Goes to the Hospital” (ILL S2;E16). She died in 1996 at the age of 96.

Bob LeMond (Announcer) also served as the announcer for the pilot episode of “I Love Lucy”. When the long-lost pilot was finally discovered in 1990, a few moments of the opening narration were damaged and lost, so LeMond – fifty years later – recreated the narration for the CBS special and subsequent DVD release.

Gale Gordon (Rudolph Atterbury, George’s boss and Iris’s husband) does not appear in this episode, although the character is mentioned. 

GUEST CAST

Eleanor Audley (Leaticia Cooper, George’s Mother) previously played this character in “George is Messy” on June 14, 1950. She would later play Eleanor Spalding, owner of the Westport home the Ricardos buy in “Lucy Wants To Move to the Country” (ILL S6;E15) in 1957, as well as one of the Garden Club judges in “Lucy Raises Tulips” (ILL S6;E26).

Richard Crenna (Delivery Boy) would make his television debut with Lucille Ball as Arthur Morton in “The Young Fans” (ILL S1;E20). The character is virtually a carbon copy of Walter Denton, the role he played for four years on radio’s “Our Miss Brooks” starring Eve Arden. In 1952, Desilu brought the show to television where Crenna recreated his role. He later starred in Desilu’s “The Real McCoys.” He would become one of Hollywood’s busiest actors, starring in "Vega$” and Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo films. He died in 2003.

THE EPISODE

ANNOUNCER: “In a little white two-story house located at 321 Bundy Drive in the bustling little suburb of Sheridan Falls, George Cooper is just leaving for the bank.” 

Before leaving for work, George breaks the news to Liz that his mother is coming to dinner that night. 

At the dinner table that evening, Mother Cooper (Eleanor Audley) is reminding her son to eat his spinach, thinking Liz is not feeding him properly.  George suddenly remembers that he’s invited the Atterbury’s and some out-of-town clients to dinner on Monday night - dinner for twelve. The only problem is, Katie is going away on vacation on Sunday, so Mother Cooper suggest Liz cook the dinner herself. 

Liz brags that she made the soufflé herself.  Mother Cooper insists that Liz give her the recipe - right now!  

LIZ: “Well, you just put all the cheese and things in a bowl. They you take a piece of ‘souff’ and put it on the top.”

Liz vows to cook dinner Monday night - all on her own. Monday morning, Liz cooks breakfast for George. The eggs are stone cold. Liz says she cooked them the night before and froze them to save time. 

In “Lucy’s Schedule” (ILL S1;E31), to save time, Lucy prepares Ricky’s breakfast the night before and freezes it. She serves him frozen fried egg, exactly what Liz served George two years earlier! 

Liz has invited Iris Atterbury over to help her cook the dinner for twelve. George leaves for work and the women repair to the kitchen to get a start on dinner. When Liz says she’s decided on chicken as the main course, Iris wonders assumes it will be broiled chicken. 

LIZ (indignant): “Please! Does Oscar of the Waldorf serve broiled chicken? We are having poulet almondine.” 

Oscar Tschirky (1866-1950) was a Swiss-American restaurateur who was maître d'hôtel of Delmonico's Restaurant and subsequently the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in Manhattan, New York, United States. He was widely known as "Oscar of the Waldorf" and published a large cookbook. He is credited with having created the Waldorf salad, and for aiding in the popularization of the Thousand Island dressing. He died three weeks after this episode aired.

Liz realizes that she needs mushrooms but that she doesn’t have any in the house. She wonders whether she can use the mushrooms growing in the backyard. Iris points out that they may be toadstools, which are poisonous. Liz decides to use walnuts instead. 

The girls peel onions for the dressing. They begin to tear-up from cutting the onions.  

LIZ (tearfully): “This is the best time I’ve had in ages!” IRIS (crying): “Me too!”

In “The Million Dollar Idea” (ILL S3;E13) in 1954, Lucy and Ethel were awash in tears when they peeled onions to make Aunt Martha’s Old Fashioned Salad Dressing. 

ANNOUNCER: “As we return to the Cooper’s it’s several hours later and we find the kitchen knee deep in dirty saucepans, greasy skillets, broken eggshells, and well-thumbed cookbooks. Surveying the wreckage are Liz and Iris Atterbury.” 

Iris wonders whether the chickens are ready to come out of the oven. Liz says she put them on at 9am at 600 degrees!  Iris points out that they were only supposed to cook at 300 degrees. 

LIZ: “I know but we have two chickens so I doubled it!” IRIS: “I never would have thought of that.”

They open the over and find their two chickens have burned to a crisp and resemble “two little lumps of charcoal with legs and wings”!  Just then, Mother Cooper arrives. 

Lucy burned two chickens in “The Matchmaker” (ILL S4;E4) when preparing dinner for Sam (the spider) and Dorothy (the fly) a dating couple Lucy hopes to lure into matrimonial bliss. 

Liz and Iris don’t tell Mother Cooper about the burned chickens. Chicken almandine is her favorite dish. She advises Liz on her cooking technique: 

MOTHER: “You just keep your eye on them until they’re a nice crinkly brown.” IRIS: “How about a nice crusty black?”

Mother Cooper discovers that Liz has burned the dinner. They trade insults and Mother storms out in a huff. Iris promises to help Liz cook a new dinner, but first she has to go to the beauty parlor to have her hair done. 

When Iris gets home from the beauty parlor she phones Liz to see how the dinner is going. Liz is dazed and confused. 

LIZ: “Iris, you are talking to a woman who’s gone through eight chickens today.”

Liz reports that the pressure cooker exploded and the chickens are still on the ceiling. 

When Lucy and Ethel are working at the chocolate factory in “Job Switching” (ILL S2;E1), Ricky and Fred are cooking dinner at home. Ricky puts two chickens in the pressure cooker, which explodes and strands the birds on the ceiling! 

Liz’s fifth and sixth birds were accidentally thrown in the garbage disposal. The seventh and eighth birds arrived from the butcher still alive!  Iris asks Liz if she has cooked them yet.

LIZ: “Cook ‘em? I can’t even catch ‘em! When last seen, seven and eight were going east on Bundy Drive.” IRIS: “You poor thing! Eight chickens and nothing to show for it!” LIZ: “Oh, yes I have. Before she left seven laid an egg on the kitchen table.”

Iris tells Liz everything will be alright. Just then, a delivery boy from Johnson’s Catering Service (Dick Crenna) arrives at the Cooper’s back door with a meal for twelve: Roast prime ribs of beef, green beans, potatoes, and Yorkshire pudding.  The meal was sent by Katie!   

Just as she is about to call Katie to thank her, the Delivery Boy returns with another catered dinner: Lobster Thermidor with French fries and asparagus. This meal was sent over by Iris! 

The Delivery Boy returns yet a third time!  This time with Pheasant under Glass sent by Mr. Atterbury!  Liz tips the boy with a bowl of Yorkshire pudding. 

Oops!  Yorkshire pudding is not served in a bowl. It is not a pudding in the American sense, but similar to pop-overs, designed to sop up the drippings and gravy when served with a roast beef. 

The phone rings and it is Mother Cooper telling Liz that she has made a dinner for twelve and will bring it over. Liz says thanks but no thanks, and invites her to make the dinner party 13. 

The phone rings once again - it is George. He has called to tell Liz that he has made a mistake. The dinner isn’t until next Monday night!  

LIZ: “Oh, no!”

Announcer Bob LeMond reminds listeners that Lucille Ball can currently be seen in The Fuller Brush Girl and that they can read about her in the current issue of Pageant Magazine. 

[sciencespies]

Civil Rights Icons' Mothers, Lost Ancient Cities and Other New Books to Read

https://sciencespies.com/history/civil-rights-icons-mothers-lost-ancient-cities-and-other-new-books-to-read/

Civil Rights Icons' Mothers, Lost Ancient Cities and Other New Books to Read

Anna Malaika Tubbs has never liked the old adage of “behind every great man is a great woman.” As the author and advocate points out in an interview with Women’s Foundation California, in most cases, the “woman is right beside the man, if not leading him.” To “think about things differently,” Tubbs adds, she decided to “introduce the woman before the man”—an approach she took in her debut book, which spotlights the mothers of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and James Baldwin.

“I am tired of Black women being hidden,” writes Tubbs in The Three Mothers. “I am tired of us not being recognized, I am tired of being erased. In this book, I have tried my best to change this for three women in history whose spotlight is long overdue, because the erasure of them is an erasure of all of us.”

The latest installment in our series highlighting new book releases, which launched last year to support authors whose works have been overshadowed amid the Covid-19 pandemic, explores the lives of the women who raised civil rights leaders, the story behind a harrowing photograph of a Holocaust massacre, the secret histories of four abandoned ancient cities, humans’ evolving relationship with food, and black churches’ significance as centers of community.

Representing the fields of history, science, arts and culture, innovation, and travel, selections represent texts that piqued our curiosity with their new approaches to oft-discussed topics, elevation of overlooked stories and artful prose. We’ve linked to Amazon for your convenience, but be sure to check with your local bookstore to see if it supports social distancing–appropriate delivery or pickup measures, too.

The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation by Anna Malaika Tubbs

Ebenezer Baptist Church is perhaps best known for its ties to King, who preached there alongside his father, Martin Luther King Sr., between 1947 and 1968. The Atlanta house of worship proudly hails its ties to the Kings, but as Tubbs writes for Time magazine, one member of the family is largely left out of the narrative: King’s mother, Alberta.

The author adds, “Despite the fact that this church had been led by her parents, that she had re-established the church choir, that she played the church organ, that she was the adored Mama King who led the church alongside her husband, that she was assassinated in the very same building, she had been reduced to an asterisk in the church’s overall importance.”

In The Three Mothers, Tubbs details the manifest ways in which Alberta, Louise Little and Berdis Baldwin shaped their sons’ history-making activism. Born within six years of each other around the turn of the 20th century, the three women shared a fundamental belief in the “worth of Black people, … even when these beliefs flew in the face of America’s racist practices,” per the book’s description.

Alberta—an educator and musician who believed social justice “needed to be a crucial part of any faith organization,” as Tubbs tells Religion News Service—instilled those same beliefs in her son, supporting his efforts to effect change even as the threat of assassination loomed large. Grenada-born Louise, meanwhile, immigrated to Canada, where she joined Marcus Garvey’s black nationalist Universal Negro Improvement Association and met her future husband, a fellow activist; Louise’s approach to religion later inspired her son Malcolm to convert to the Nation of Islam. Berdis raised James as a single parent in the three years between his birth and her marriage to Baptist preacher David Baldwin. Later, when James showed a penchant for pen and paper, she encouraged him to express his frustrations with the world through writing.

All three men, notes Tubbs in the book, “carried their mothers with them in everything they did.”

The Ravine: A Family, a Photograph, a Holocaust Massacre Revealed by Wendy Lower

Few photographs of the Holocaust depict the actual moment of victims’ deaths. Instead, visual documentation tends to focus on the events surrounding acts of mass murder: lines of unsuspecting men and women awaiting deportation, piles of emaciated corpses on the grounds of Nazi concentration camps. In total, writes historian Wendy Lower in The Ravine, “not many more than a dozen” extant images actually capture the killers in the act.

Twelve years ago, Lower, also the author of Hitler’s Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields, chanced upon one such rare photograph while conducting research at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Taken in Miropol, Ukraine, on October 13, 1941, the photo shows Nazis and local collaborators in the middle of a massacre. Struck by a bullet to the head, a Jewish woman topples forward into a ravine, pulling two still-living children down with her. Robbed of a quick death by shooting, the youngsters were “left to be crushed by the weight of their kin and suffocated in blood and the soil heaped over the bodies,” according to The Ravine.

Lower spent the better part of the next decade researching the image’s story, drawing on archival records, oral histories and “every possible remnant of evidence” to piece together the circumstances surrounding its creation. Through her investigations of the photographer, a Slovakian resistance fighter who was haunted by the scene until his death in 2005; the police officers who participated in their neighbors’ extermination; and the victims themselves, she set out to hold the perpetrators accountable while restoring the deceased’s dignity and humanity—a feat she accomplished despite being unable to identify the family by name.

“[Genocide’s] perpetrators not only kill but also seek to erase the victims from written records, and even from memory,” Lower explains in the book’s opening chapter. “When we find one trace, we must pursue it, to prevent the intended extinction by countering it with research, education, and memorialization.”

Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age by Annalee Newitz

Sooner or later, all great cities fall. Çatalhöyük, a Neolithic settlement in southern Anatolia; Pompeii, the Roman city razed by Mount Vesuvius’ eruption in 79 A.D.; Angkor, the medieval Cambodian capital of the Khmer Empire; and Cahokia, a pre-Hispanic metropolis in what is now Illinois, were no exception. United by their pioneering approaches to urban planning, the four cities boasted sophisticated infrastructures and feats of engineering—accomplishments largely overlooked by Western scholars, who tend to paint their stories in broad, reductive strokes, as Publishers Weekly notes in its review of science journalist Annalee Newitz’s latest book.

Consider, for instance, Çatalhöyük, which was home to some of the first people to settle down permanently after millennia of nomadic living. The prehistoric city’s inhabitants “farmed, made bricks from mud, crafted weapons, and created incredible art” without the benefit of extensive trade networks, per Newitz. They also adorned their dwellings with abstract designs and used plaster to transform their ancestors’ skulls into ritualistic artworks passed down across generations. Angkor, on the other hand, became an economic powerhouse in large part thanks to its complex network of canals and reservoirs.

Despite their demonstrations of ingenuity, all four cities eventually succumbed to what Newitz describes as “prolonged periods of political instability”—often precipitated by poor leadership and unjust hierarchies—“coupled with environmental collapse.” The parallels between these conditions and “the global-warming present” are unmistakable, but as Kirkus points out, the author’s deeply researched survey is more hopeful than dystopian. Drawing on the past to offer advice for the future, Four Lost Cities calls on those in power to embrace “resilient infrastructure, … public plazas, domestic spaces for everyone, social mobility, and leaders who treat the city’s workers with dignity.”

Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, From Sustainable to Suicidal by Mark Bittman

Humans’ hunger for food has a dark side, writes Mark Bittman in Animal, Vegetable, Junk. Over the millennia, the food journalist and cookbook author argues, “It’s sparked disputes over landownership, water use, and the extraction of resources. It’s driven exploitation and injustice, slavery and war. It’s even, paradoxically enough, created disease and famine.” (A prime example of these consequences is colonial powers’ exploitation of Indigenous peoples in the production of cash crops, notes Kirkus.) Today, Bittman says, processed foods wreak havoc on diets and overall health, while industrialized agriculture strips the land of its resources and drives climate change through the production of greenhouse gases.

Dire as it may seem, the situation is still salvageable. Though the author dedicates much of his book to an overview of how humans’ relationship with food has changed for the worse, Animal, Vegetable, Junk’s final chapter adopts a more optimistic outlook, calling on readers to embrace agroecology—“an autonomous, pluralist, multicultural movement, political in its demand for social justice.” Adherents of agroecology support replacing chemical fertilizers, pesticides and other toxic tools with organic techniques like composting and encouraging pollinators, in addition to cutting out the middleman between “growers and eaters” and ensuring that the food production system is “sustainable and equitable for all,” according to Bittman.

“Agroecology aims to right social wrongs,” he explains. “… [It] regenerates the ecology of the soil instead of depleting it, reduces carbon emissions, and sustains local food cultures, businesses, farms, jobs, seeds, and people instead of diminishing or destroying them.”

The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song by Henry Louis Gates Jr.

The companion book to an upcoming PBS documentary of the same name, Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s latest scholarly survey traces the black church’s role as both a source of solace and a nexus for social justice efforts. As Publishers Weekly notes in its review of The Black Church, enslaved individuals in the antebellum South drew strength from Christianity’s rituals and music, defying slaveholders’ hopes that practicing the religion would render them “docile and compliant.” More than a century later, as black Americans fought to ensure their civil rights, white supremacists targeted black churches with similar goals in mind, wielding violence to (unsuccessfully) intimidate activists into accepting the status quo.

Gates’ book details the accomplishments of religious leaders within the black community, from Martin Luther King Jr. to Malcolm X, Nat Turner and newly elected senator Reverend Raphael G. Warnock. (The Black Churches’ televised counterpart features insights from similarly prominent individuals, including Oprah Winfrey, Reverend Al Sharpton and John Legend.) But even as the historian celebrates these individuals, he acknowledges the black church’s “struggles and failings” in its “treatment of women and the LGBTQ+ community and its dismal response to the 1980s AIDS epidemic,” per Kirkus. Now, amid a pandemic that’s taken a disproportionate toll on black Americans and an ongoing reckoning with systemic racism in the U.S., black churches’ varying approaches to activism and political engagement are at the forefront once again.

As Gates says in a PBS statement. “No social institution in the Black community is more central and important than the Black church.”

#History

[undiscovered-horror-icon]

SlipKnot the Beginning

[All of this info was copied form the archive of this blog on Skyrock.com circa 2009-2010: User - maggot777 on SkyRock . com]

[I’m just sharing it and take no credit]

Des Moines is the capital of Iowa, the twenty-ninth of the fifty states of the USA. The city contains about 200,000 inhabitants for a little less than 200,000 km² and 500,000 reside in the suburbs. There is no Persian diversity in Des Moines, to speak in numbers 90% of people are white. The city is not known as a "dynamic" city, it is rather total boredom there! If we had to summarize what there is in Des Moines we would put: offices (especially insurance companies), factories, churches, a few shops and buildings ... ah I forgot the city hosts also the World Pork Expo. We understand why some say it's "the asshole of the United States"! "It's not just a big urban center, it's not a village either, it's just ... the area. There is absolutely nothing to do. The main activity for young people is 'is to find something to do. In Des Moines, everything is closed at 6 p.m. When you're not old enough, you can't go to a club; when you're old, you go. and you realize that it really sucks. And then it's a very conservative place, where people are not very inclined to encourage artists, whoever they are. " (James Root in Guitar Part, July 2001) "Des Moines is like a cemetery with buildings growing on it. It's a small place, with a majority of old people. It's the second highest concentration of old people in the country. Imagine what it is like. to be 15 years old in this puritanical and totalitarian environment. There is nothing else to do but to have rabies! " (Corey Taylor in Hit Parader, May 2000) However, it was during a concert in Des Moines that one of rock's greatest anecdotal moment happened. On that day of January 20, 1982, Ozzy Osbourne was playing in the city and tore off the head of the live bat! Indeed a spectator had thrown the animal, then unconscious, on the stage to provoke the singer who, thinking that it was one of his plastic bats, bit it deeply! Several rabies vaccines were injected into him. It was this event that traumatized young Joey Jordison, aged less than 7, for life. In high school he joined the Avanga group as a guitarist. But considering the terrible level of the drummer he had to place himself behind the drums. But quickly he is annoyed by the other members of the group, preferring to smoke weed and get drunk at various student parties. He then left the group and created Modifious. He recruits his neighbor Tim on vocals and Jay, Avanga's guitarist who has since become one of Joey's best friends. The trio that lacked a bass player found one in Ryan who had responded to the ad about the band. Modifious then makes Trash Metal, a style that fascinates Joey. Unfortunately some time after the formation of the group, Jay is killed one evening, in a car accident, after falling asleep at the wheel. Despite the drama, Modifious hires a new guitarist named Bruce. But the Bruce in question abandoned the group some time later and joined Atomic Opera. He is replaced by a certain Craig Jones, a friend of Ryan's. In 1992, Tim left the group, replaced by Josh Brainard on guitar and vocals. It is this formation which, in 1993, will record the first two demo cassettes of Modifious: Visceral and Mud Fuschia. By dint of playing intensively in Des Moines and its surroundings, the group began to have a good reputation. He even manages to get the first part of the group Type O Negative! Which will be their hour of glory. In 1994, the two demos are combined in a CD: Sprawl. Then the Trash Metal went out of fashion giving way to Death and Black. The group then changes style for a more radical music but that displeases Ryan who leaves the group. Following the departure of Ryan and the disaffection of the public Modifious split up in 1995. But Joey has already planned everything: he has two groups in parallel. He is the guitarist of Paul Gray, when he arrived in Des Moines in 1989, played in VeXX where he was bassist alongside guitarist-singer Josh Brainard and drummer Anders Colsefini. In 1991, VeXX changed its name (but not its line-up) and became Inveigh Catarsis until 1993. From this date the guitarist-singer Josh Brainard left the group to join Modifious. The group therefore split up, but Paul and Anders, who have become very friends, form a new group. They then formed Body Pit, a Death Metal combo composed of guitarist Mick Thompson, second guitarist DonnieSteele and Danny Spain on drums. Body Pit, starting to make itself known, even managed to compete with Modifious and Atomic Opera in the Des Moines Metal scene. Beside that, Paul finds his drummer friend Joey Jordison in the group Anal Of Blast that But let's take a step back. We are in 1992 and Paul is part of the Painface group. He plays alongside his friend Anders Colsefini on vocals, Patrick M. Neuwirth on guitar and drummer Shawn Crahan. The quartet plays dark and aggressive music and, rehearsing in Paul Gray's cellar, they manage to compose five pieces: "Slipknot", "Gently", "Idiot", "What's Wrong" and "Wise Up". They record his songs with the means at hand. These pieces gathered under the title of Basement Sessions, are in fact part of a rehearsal of the group. In 1993, Shawn Crahan joined another group: Heads on the Wall. This event will temporarily stop Painface's career. During its three years of existence, from 1993 to 1995, Heads on the Wall will perform four times in the first part of Modifious. The guitarist is a certain Kun Nong with whom he decides to set up another project called Meld. The group therefore brings together Shawn Crahan on drums, Kun Nong on guitar, Paul Gray on bass, Anders Colsefini as singer and Donnie Steele on guitar. Even though the band members start to compose a few songs, Shawn can't seem to get the band off the ground. But in 1995, while he was tinkering with Paul Gray in his garage, Shawn told him that he wanted to create THE band. Anders Colsefini as singer and Donnie Steele on guitar. Even though the band members start to compose a few songs, Shawn can't seem to get the band off the ground. But in 1995, while he was tinkering with Paul Gray in his garage, Shawn told him that he wanted to create THE band. Anders Colsefini as singer and Donnie Steele on guitar. Even though the band members start to compose a few songs, Shawn can't seem to get the band off the ground. But in 1995, while he was tinkering with Paul Gray in his garage, Shawn told him that he wanted to create THE band. Shawn and Paul recruit Anders on vocals, Donnie on guitar, and Kun on guitar to create The Pale Ones. The combo will repeat and compose, in the basement of Anders 'parents' house, as if their life depended on it. To perfect their technique, they go so far as to film their rehearsals on video! One day Shawn's mom looked at one of the tapes and said, "Anders, you look like a wolf ready to attack. Shawn you look like a gorilla. And the band in general makes me feel like I'm attending the party. what would overexcited cavemen give before going to slaughter a mammoth! " From that moment on, Shawn will be called Kong by his comrades as a nickname and in tribute to King Kong. But about two months after the formation of the group Kun Nong decides to leave the group and turns to more punk projects. Anders would later say: "Kun Nong is a phenomenal and exceptional guitarist, but certainly not a Metal guitarist." Meanwhile Paul tries to convince his friend Joey to join the group on one of his nightly visits to his workplace. Joey works at Sinclair's gas station. Paul suggests that she go see a rehearsal. He will miss two because of his job, but he will eventually come to Anders 'parents' basement to see the band play. It is low to the ceiling, narrow and covered with bits of carpet to absorb sound and avoid neighborhood problems. But unfortunately, the carpet from a pet store is impregnated with the smell of puppy urine that does not control their bladder! Despite the drawbacks, the little drummer was impressed by the three pieces performed: “Slipknot”, “Gently and“ Fur. ”Joey then said to himself that he absolutely must join this training. This is what he will do officially on September 15, 1995. The group, now composed of a drummer AND a percussionist, takes more power. Shawn then leaves his place of drummer to Joey and tinkers with a percussion kit thanks to his talents as a welder. During Joey's long working nights at Sincair's, Paul and Shawn visit him. They then talk about the future of the group. Shawn then declares that there should be a second percussionist to increase the aggressiveness of the combo. Anders then agrees to sing and do percussion. In the visual, like Joey, Shawn is a big fan of Kiss, it is also the first concert he saw during the Creatures Of The Night tour. Moreover one fine day, Shawn arrives at a masked rehearsal of a clown mask. A few day later, Joey did the same and arrived with a Kabuki mask, which is in traditional Japanese theater, on his face. He also has the good idea to add red and black paints to it for a more frightening aspect. Which is also in agreement with his two-tone hair of the same color. But the idea of ​​the masks at first was just a joke. Joey will say later: "We had trouble playing a song, we were so laughing!". To replace Kun Nong the group decides to recruit guitarist Josh Brainard to add a melodic touch to the sextet. The group now containing six musicians, composes in a very short time six new songs: "Killers Are Quiet", "Do Nothing / Bitchslap", "Confessions", "Some Feel", "Part of Me" and "Tattered And Torn" . After briefly changing their group name to Pyg System the sextet then adopts the name Slipknot ("flowing neud"). Joey is in charge of the group's logo. He first creates a beautiful tribal "S" then draws the logo of the typographical group SlipKnoT. The idea of ​​putting a capital "K" came from the fact that Joey, in these days, was a mega-fan of KoЯn. A few months later, Anders got the tribal "S" tattooed by a certain Greg "Cuddles" Welts who soon became the band's official tattoo artist. It must also be said that Greg, since 1995, is the drummer of Have Nots, a group of Hardcore Punk directed by David "DaVo" Wilkins, owner of the tattoo and piercing shop Axiom where Greg works, and in which Paul and Joey officiate. as ... guitarists! Des Moines being quite small, people quickly learn of the existence of the group without it being done in concert yet. In November 1995, the group decided to give a small concert in a local club named Crowbar (which would later be renamed The Love Shack) but under the name Meld, to keep the mystery on SlipKnoT (an idea of ​​Josh). This intimate concert was done under a greenish lighting, without a mask, but with make-up inspired by the group Kiss and fancy accessories, such as pipes crossing the various piercings of Paul's face and Anders' wolf skin. The group being convinced that their compositions were of quality, he decides to contact a professional recording studio to put the compositions on CD. They contacted THE Des Moines studio called SR Studio. It is directed by a certain Mike Lawyer who has produced artists such as Todd Rundgren, Tinny Tim or Michael Bolton. At the end of 1995, Anders and Paul meet the sound engineer of the studio: Sean McMahon. They manage to convince Sean to come see them rehearse. He then made the trip to the cellar of Anders' parents to see the sextet repeated. At the end of rehearsal, Sean remains speechless as he is so impressed by their music, he does not understand their approach or their lyrics. He then agrees to produce their first recording. Work then begins at SR Studio, where the band goes there as soon as possible to rehearse, play and record as much as possible for the album whose title they have already chosen: Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat. To feel at home and make themselves comfortable, they decide to redecorate the studio in their own way: porn posters, particular lights, toys and objects testifying to the strange atmosphere that reigns there. The bizarre atmosphere moves to the parking lot where corpses drawn in chalk appear ... The tracks are recorded live with the three drummers at the same time. Shawn puts so much heart into the work that the (poor) wall next to his percussion is filled with holes made by his sticks and fists. For one track, Joey plays the drums completely naked! Throughout this recording period, Joey continues to work at Sinclair's gas station. He left rehearsals around 10 pm, picked up a CD player and a portable TV, and began his night shift. An hour or two later, Shawn usually joins him to talk about the future of the group until five in the morning. These "small working meetings" used to scare potential customers who went to seek their essence, But the finalization of the album, arrived at the mixing stage, may be longer than expected. Indeed, in February 1996, Donnie, the guitarist of the group, decided to leave the group because "the musical and spiritual orientation" did not suit him because he would in fact have had a mystical revelation and would therefore have seen God! The other members of the group, being tolerant, accepted his departure amicably. Joey then proposes to replace Donnie by Craig Jones, the last guitarist to date of Modifious. Craig then arrives in the middle of mixing the album. The atmosphere within the group is tense: the mix is ​​most chaotic! Each of the six band members give a different opinion of how one song should sound than another. Having a habit of remedying it with violence to sort out the various problems, Joey, Paul, Anders, Shawn and Josh often come to blows. In addition, in the end, the group is very disappointed with the mastering of the album and insists that Sean remake it himself. During the mixing, SlipKnoT discovers that in addition to being an excellent guitarist, Craig is a computer buff and handles samples wonderfully. However, before releasing a record, the sextet must prove itself on stage. It was finally on April 4, 1996 that SlipKnoT gave its first real concert in a Rock club in Des Moines called Safari. The rumor of the group having swelled, it is about 200 people who come to attend the concert, which is about the maximum of people that the club can contain. Taken by Joey in his own car, SlipKnoT is already dressed exceptionally. Shawn wears his Clown mask and Joey wears his kabuki mask; Paul has his piercings attached to each other again, Anders is covered in tribal paint, Josh is masked with an executioner's hood, and Craig wears a stocking on his face. While the group is piling up on the small stage, Joey starts repeating the same phrase, louder and louder and more and more mean: "I need a little Christmas in my drink!". Then the group starts with its eponymous hymn: "Slipknot". The group will then make its small effect although sharing the poster with another group endowed with a more important notoriety named Stone Sour and carried by their singer: a certain Corey Taylor. The Corey in question, being there during the band's performance, soon became a big fan of the band. The following month, SlipKnoT will be featured seven times as Safari's headliner. During their second concert at Safari; Paul chose to cover his face with a pig mask "because it was cheap", which earned him the nickname Porky. The machine being launched, at each concert the members disguised themselves in the most extravagant ways by associating the great guignolesque with the unhealthy. Indeed, at one performance, Shawn showed up wearing a Barney costume, a fat half-man, half-dinosaur figure appearing in an educational series for small children as the main hero. He would add later: "It was the hardest thing I have done in my whole life, but I managed to make Barney have it to be on crack!" The others will appear in turn dressed in the costume of a nun, a shepherdess, Santa Claus, in a worker's jumpsuit stained with paint or in a ball gown! The concerts are introduced by a sample, directed by Craig, of a mad laugh and a naive melody of an ice cream truck while Shawn uses a power saw to spark sparks above the impressed audience. Moreover, the idea of ​​samples to accentuate the creepy and unhealthy character went around the heads of all members. Thus, Craig gave up his position as second guitarist to concentrate on electronics. Paul then had the idea to call his friend Mick Thompson with whom he had already played in the group Body Pit with Anders. But after Mick's arrival on guitar, the group being now seven, Anders 'parents' cellar became too small and Craig was forced to put his equipment in the laundry room! But it would have taken a lot more to discourage SlipKnoT ... the idea of ​​samples to accentuate the creepy and unhealthy character circled all of the members. Thus, Craig gave up his position as second guitarist to concentrate on electronics. Paul then had the idea to call his friend Mick Thompson with whom he had already played in the group Body Pit with Anders. But after Mick's arrival on guitar, the group being now seven, Anders 'parents' cellar became too small and Craig was forced to put his equipment in the laundry room! But it would have taken a lot more to discourage SlipKnoT ... the idea of ​​samples to accentuate the creepy and unhealthy character circled all of the members. Thus, Craig gave up his position as second guitarist to concentrate on electronics. Paul then had the idea to call his friend Mick Thompson with whom he had already played in the group Body Pit with Anders. But after Mick's arrival on guitar, the group being now seven, Anders 'parents' cellar became too small and Craig was forced to put his equipment in the laundry room! But it would have taken a lot more to discourage SlipKnoT ... call his buddy Mick Thompson with whom he had already played in the group Body Pit with Anders. But after Mick's arrival on guitar, the group being now seven, Anders 'parents' cellar became too small and Craig was forced to put his equipment in the laundry room! But it would have taken a lot more to discourage SlipKnoT ... call his buddy Mick Thompson with whom he had already played in the group Body Pit with Anders. But after Mick's arrival on guitar, the group being now seven, Anders 'parents' cellar became too small and Craig was forced to put his equipment in the laundry room! But it would have taken a lot more to discourage SlipKnoT ... It was finally on October 31, 1996 that the group gave birth to its first record: Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat. The album, printed in 1000 copies, will have cost a total of 15,000 dollars, between recording, mixing, mastering and pressing. A large part of the sum was paid by Shawn, which indebted him heavily. To celebrate the release of the CD, SlipKnoT organized a big party bringing together no less than 400 people obviously all masked! This Halloween party will mark, according to the group, a turning point in the history of Safari. It is indeed from this event that the Metal public began to frequent the club regularly. The picture of the album cover, with its glaucous atmosphere, in fact shows Joey masked and crouched in a metal cage bristling with spikes and including the mechanism of a large circular saw. This instrument of torture was obviously built by Mr. Crahan, like a work of art which he delicately titled Patiently Awaiting Jigsaw Flesh ("Flesh patiently waiting for the jigsaw"). The title of the album refers to the most basic cycle of life: to mate ("Mate"), to feed ("Feed"), to kill ("Kill") and to start again ("Repeat") this infinite cycle. . These nine tracks already carry the basics of today's SlipKnoT. In the notes of the libretto, the group dedicates the album to a certain Joey. He is not' This is of course not drummer Joey Jordison but Joey Plumley, Franck Plumley's brother being a close friend of the band. This Joey accidentally died while handling a gun while the band was recording the album. On the internal photo of the CD, we also see two people close to the group: Greg Welts and DaVo. Finally the booklet includes the name of Corn Wallace. It's actually the name Joey and Anders coined after the drummer drew a childish monster with huge claws and wacky hair. They then began to use this name to sign, one these drawings and the other these texts. while the band was recording the album. On the internal photo of the CD, we also see two people close to the band: Greg Welts and DaVo. Finally the booklet includes the name of Corn Wallace. This is actually the name Joey and Anders coined after the drummer drew a childish monster with huge claws and wacky hair. They then began to use this name to sign, one these drawings and the other these texts. while the band was recording the album. On the internal photo of the CD, we also see two people close to the group: Greg Welts and DaVo. Finally the booklet includes the name of Corn Wallace. It's actually the name Joey and Anders coined after the drummer drew a childish monster with huge claws and wacky hair. They then began to use this name to sign, one these drawings and the other these texts. Most copies of Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat. are sent to fanzines and radio stations that can promote them. But it was on a local radio station in Iowa, KKDM 107.5, that a certain Sophia Jones received the CD and, although not an outstanding Metal specialist, particularly enjoyed the album. She then begins to make a rave review of the album, which then allows SlipKnoT to participate in the Battle of Bands, a competition organized every Wednesday by KKDM at the Safari, and which opposes groups of Des Moines to make themselves better known or at best get noticed by a label. In his first competition, SlipKnoT faces Stone Sour and wins which allows Corey Taylor to think he would really like to sing in this band! During his subsequent participations, SlipKnoT then begins to become a very busy occupation for each of the members of the group, including Joey and Paul who also have to perform within the Have Nots. Especially since Joey, who does not drink, does not support very well the alcoholism of his comrades including Paul! It is besides after a particularly catastrophic performance in October 1996 that Joey threatens to tackle the group to concentrate only on SlipKnoT. It is therefore from this moment that the members of the group will agree not to drink before a concert. Meanwhile, SlipKnoT is starting to gain momentum but no label wants them! It was then that the group asked Sophia Jones to become their manager. She hesitates but accepts because she feels a lot of talent in them. She even declared after a few months: "I see SlipKnoT doing Ozzfest, selling a million albums, making the cover of Rolling Stones and starting her own label."

[gsiegel21ahsgov]

Media Assessment of Issue

1)  https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/27/asia/cctv-cameras-china-hnk-intl/index.html  (CNN - Liberal) 

Subject - China is installing cameras outside of people’s front door and sometimes inside of their houses too. The argument is trying to convey that this is a bad thing. 

Author - The author is Nectar Gan who is a Digital Producer for CNN based in Hong Kong. She mainly focuses on Chinese news and has worked for the South China Morning Post as a senior China reporter. 

Context - The article was written on April 28th, 2020 which was around 4 months into the pandemic in China. This would have affected the tone and aggression of the article because it’s more of a sensitive topic due to the pandemic. 

Audience - CNN published this article and their demographic is a democratic, 21-25 year old female. They could be writing to their demographic.

Perspective - The article is subjective because the author is writing that having the cameras in people’s private spaces is a bad thing. I agree with this because I think it is a total invasion of privacy and shouldn’t be allowed. 

Significance - China also has eight of the world's 10 most surveilled cities based on the number of cameras per 1,000 people. In the eastern city of Hangzhou, China Unicom, a state-owned telecom operator, helped the local governments install 238 cameras to monitor home-quarantined residents as of February 8. China had 349 million surveillance cameras installed as of 2018, nearly five times the number of cameras in the United States.

2)https://www.foxnews.com/tech/dystopian-how-chinas-top-notch-mass-surveillance-threatens-freedoms (Fox News - Conservative)

Subject - China’s advanced surveillance technologies could threaten global freedoms. 

Author - The author is Hollie McKay. She is a Fox digital journalist ad has been since 2007. She covers from a lot of different war zones. She touches on topics related to terrorism, crimes against humanity, and human rights abuse. 

Context - The article was written on August 7th, 2020. This is important because of US relationship w/ China and the Presidential Election coming up.

Audience - Fox News published this document and their demographic is a 68 year old republican. They might be trying to keep their demographic and the older population on their side when writing these articles. 

Perspective - The article is subjective because it is trying to persuade the reader into thinking that what is happening in China could have an effect on the whole world. I agree because it is messed up they can watch everyone whenever, but it is also messed up they can choose who to track and when to track them. It also seems that other countries are using China as a model.

Significance -  There is approximately one CCTV camera for every six citizens in China. Surveillance measures include the urging of neighbors to snitch, placing CCP officials directly in homes and placing QR codes on the doors of homes so police can track who is supposed to be in each building. 

3)https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/GadgetGuide/story?id=4872498&page=1 (ABC News - Objective)

Subject - Surveillance Technologies are becoming increasingly prevalent in our lives and we should be aware of that. 

Author - The Author is Ashley Phillips who is a Digital journalist for ABC News. I couldn’t find much more information which could mean that she isn’t super credible.

Context - The article was written on April 14th, 2009 which was a long time ago and during this time people were just starting to buy more smartphones compared to conventional phones so technology is becoming more and more involved in people's lives at this time.

Audience - The audience is older and neutral for the most part politically. I couldn’t find a lot but it doesn’t seem that they would want to write to an audience because a lot of different people, politically and appearance wise, watch and and read articles from this network.

Perspective - This article is subjective because it is the author trying to convey that although these surveillance technologies have been present in cities before and known about, they can still be dangerous and turn into something worse. I agree with what they are saying because there are a lot of  negatives to having surveillance cameras and trackers implemented around a city.

Significance - The United Kingdom has more surveillance cameras than any other in the world; at least 4.2 million of them are pointed on the country's public streets, one camera for every 14 people. Good algorithms have an 80 percent success rate. 

I noticed when doing this assignment that the two articles that were written by the liberal or conservative news companies were more convincing compared to the article written by the objective news source. The ABC News article gave me the impression that they will give me the information and it is my choice on how to interpret it. A similarity I noticed is that they all focused on how surveillance will be the downfall of humanity or how it will have a negative affect on our lives. I would say I identify most with the objective source because I’m neutral on most topics and I would rather be presented with the information and make the choice on what to think myself.

[jessekeyes12]

Developer Jesse Keyes turns unconventional into bold statement

If there was ever a case of a building perfectly mirroring its developer, it would be One Seventh and Jesse Keyes. Both are angular, ultra-chic, smart and aggressive. Both are also making their emphatic debut on the New York architecture and style worlds.

Built on a 45-degree angle at the juncture of four different streets where Seventh Ave. South meets Varick and Carmine Sts., One Seventh resembles a hulking helm of a slick, futuristic boat or space-age flying machine. Six stories tall with just four units, the corner building shaped in an angular prism has a façade of manganese ironspot brick and Solarban 80 double-paned glass.

 The side of the building on Seventh Ave. South that parallels the rush of autos making their way to Tribeca or the Holland Tunnel has bold racing stripes and competing slabs of vertical windows. On the mellower Carmine St., Juliet balconies face the local cafes, old-time Spanish restaurants and bootleg record stores. One Seventh blends seamlessly with its intersection and has gainied total community board support.

 "No developer would take a chance on this site, which was operated as a gas station since the 1920s and unused for almost a decade," says Keyes, 35, an investor in the swank Goldbar and a partner in La Esquina, one of New York's hippest eateries. "They said it was too small or that the shape wouldn't work. I saw it as an opportunity. We took design risks with this project that architects generally do with museums and public spaces."

 Designed by Rogers Marvel Architects, the same firm recently awarded the Governors Island commission, One Seventh is allegedly the world's first full-floor triangular residence. To make the project work financially, Keyes' development firm REcappartners worked with zoning attorneys Charles Rizzo & Associates to help get a variance to build higher than the allowed three floors. On top of the building, Keyes built a penthouse duplex with two outdoor terraces, both of which lean toward the corner angle.

"The question we had to answer was, how does one live in a triangle," says Keyes, who plays a hand in every design decision. "When I picture who is going to live here, I see an investment banker with an artist inside or an artist with a lot of money. I see the banker sitting totally naked in a chaise longue at the apex of the 45-degree angle, looking out at the cars driving down Seventh Ave., on the phone with his friends, thinking: 'How am I going to own this town tonight?'"

With hardly any marketing, they have two offers for the four units. One from a banker, the other from the son of a Spanish film producer. Prudential Douglas Elliman's Kevin King, a two-year agent who happens to be the long-time maitre d' at Balthazar, heads up sales. The three 1,371-square-foot, two-bedroom, two-bath apartments are listed for $1,995,000. The 2,106-square-foot, three-floor penthouse with 961 square feet of outdoor space costs $4.45 million.

"We're waiting till the units are completely finished until we formally sell the apartments," says King. "A finished product will show how unique this project is and assure we get what it's worth."

Jesse Keyes comes from both sides of the tracks. His parents were hippies. His mother, a lesbian, split from his father but stayed in Redwood City, Calif., supporting her two children as a gardener. As Jesse puts it, they lived on the "wrong side of the tracks." Ironically, she tended gardens near Jesse's father's estate in Woodside, Calif.

"Mom was a real hippie, and dad was a pseudo-hippie," says Keyes, who was called "Blanquito," or little white boy by his Pueblo Mexican barrio neighbors. "Half the time I was in my poor Mexican 'hood with my mom and the other half with a swimming pool, Mercedes, Porsches and horses with my dad."

Keyes talks openly about his desire but inability to communicate with his Spanish-speaking neighbors. He talks openly about almost everything, especially his drive to never stop learning or moving.

"There's a point where you grow up in suburbia that you say I'm either going to get stuck in this for the rest of my life or do something fascinating or interesting," he says. "I was visiting a friend in Mexico City when I was 17 years old. We were in his family's penthouse and I was looking over the slums of the city, whose people needed major help at the time. I thought to myself, we as capitalists need to do better for these people. It was then that I knew I needed to focus on this for the rest of my life."

For Keyes, that meant Princeton, a year in Spain to learn the language, a Fulbright Fellowship and a master's in architecture in Catalonia, a Kinne Fellowship in the Dominican Republic, a job with the prestigious Boston Consultant Group, a master's in real estate from Columbia University, a doctoral candidacy and teaching fellow at Rutgers University in Urban Planning, and roles in the Gore and Kerry presidential campaigns.

"My father is good friends with Gore from St. Albans," says Keyes, whose great-grandfather on his father's side was Democratic Senator Morris Sheppard from Texas who championed Prohibition and women's rights. "My goal was eventually to work in Housing and Urban Development [HUD]. After those two losses, I planned to teach and research through my 30s. But academia, especially in our current political climate, was not as fulfilling as I thought. Building strong architectural projects is a way to make my mark and some money. Eventually, I will get back into affordable housing and giving back in some way."

Keyes' next project is already a major coup for him and New York. Working with Habita, a Mexican group known globally for designing and operating some of the world's chicest boutique hotels, Keyes will open a Mexican-themed, mixed-use hotel and condo project in a location below Houston St. on the East Side. Mexican architect Enrique Norton, who designed One York on Canal St. in New York and the Guggenheim in Guatemala, is an equity partner in the project.

"I want to make a unique statement and be part of the next big place," says Keyes, whose groomed beard and middle-parted hair give him the look of Al Pacino in "Serpico." "You hope it doesn't become something like what happened in the Meatpacking District, which had little thought and planning and became oversaturated with the same product, bars and restaurants. There should be mixed use there. And the Hotel Gansevoort is a mistake. I don't know how they got that built."

Slightly controlling, obsessive about details, and intellectually strategic, Keyes even wrote the copy for the One Seventh marketing materials. (I haven't met a developer yet who does that.) He prefers to focus on one project at a time as opposed to stretching himself thin and losing touch with the day-to-day decisions that these high-design projects demand.

"Scalability will be hard because for each project I'm looking for a specific art and message," says Keyes. "In any case, when you get bigger you lose control over certain levers, and I don't want that to happen."

Still, according to Thaddeus Briner, the architect for One Seventh, formerly of Rogers Marvel (and I.M. Pei's firm) and now on his own, Keyes is a very good client. "This was a dream project," says Briner. "It combined a really challenging site with an extremely progressive client. Those don't come along very often."

Resource :   https://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/real-estate/developer-jesse-keyes-turns-unconventional-bold-statement-article-1.339485

[torturedwarrior]

Albert Fish:

Who exactly is Albert Fish? What made him famous? How many victims did he murder? How did Albert Fish die? Albert Hamilton Fish (May 19, 1870 – January 16, 1936) was an American sado-masochistic serial killer and cannibal. He was also known as the Gray Man, the Werewolf of Wysteria and possibly the Brooklyn Vampire. AKA Albert Fish, Laura Fish, Nepe Fish, Birthday May 19, 1870, Birthplace Washington DC, District of Columbia, United States, Death January 16, 1936, Manner of Death Capital Punishment, Nationality United States Of America, Occupations Prostitute, Serial Killer, Great Person, Male Prostitution, Religion Rejecting The Blood. “Misery leads to crime. I saw so many boys whipped it ruined my mind.”— Albert Fish.

He was delighted that he had "kids in all nations," which places his number near 100, although the question of violence or cannibalization is not obvious, much less as to whether it was real or not. In at least five killings for his career he was a witness. Fisch agreed to three killings and confessed to at least two other individuals attacking investigators might track a suspected crime. He was tried and convicted and hanged by electric chair for abduction and the death of Grace Budd.

Albert Fish’s Early Life:

He was born to Randall Fish (1795-1875) as Hamilton Fish in Washington, D.C. He said he was named after a distant relative, Hamilton Fish. His grandfather was 43 years older than his brother. It had three live siblings: Walter, Joyce, and Edwin Fish. Fish was the youngest child and he was three. After a deceased brother he wanted to be called "Albert," and to avoid the moniker of "Ham and Eggs," provided him in an orphanage where he spent many years in the beginning. Mental illness was suffered by many of his family members and theological mania was felt. His father was a sailor on the river boat, but he was a producer of fertilizers by 1870. The first Fish died in the 1875 Washington, DC, of a heart attack at the Sixth Street Station of the Pennsylvania Railroad. He was hit and kicked regularly, and finally discovered that he was suffering from physical pain. Often the beatings brought him houses that the other children told him about.

His mother was able to look after him and have a government job by 1879. He had however been influenced by his different experiences before this. He began a gay relationship with a telegraph-boy in 1882, when he was 12. Fish also heard about drinking urine and coprophagies in young people. Fish liked to frequent public baths and watch kids get ready and he spent much of his weekends watching them. In 1890, Fish had come to New York City and said he had become a male harlot. He claimed he began raping young boys, even after his mother had negotiated a marriage, a crime that he proceeded to commit. He married his wife in 1898 with a junior aged nine years. The dad: Albert, Mary, Gertrude, Eugene, Charles, and Henry Fish. They had six babies. He was charged on the basis of misappropriation and sentenced to 1903 in Sing jail. He had sex with men frequently during his incarceration. “I have no particular desire to live. I have no particular desire to be killed. It is a matter of indifference to me. I do not think I am altogether right.”— Albert Fish

He served as a house painter in 1898 and said that he kept angry babies, boys mostly under the age of six. Further on, he recalled an instance where a male friend took him to a waxworks museum where Fish became intrigued by a penis bisection, and shortly afterwards he was paranoid regarding castration. Fish tried to castrate him after linking him during a friendship with a mentally disabled man. The guy became terrified and ran. Fish then increased his trips to brothels to taunt and abuse him more often. His wife left him in January 1917 for a handyman, John Straube, who rented the Fish home. Despite this rejection, Fish started hearing voices; for instance, once he was wrapped up in a tapestry and clarified why he followed John the Apostle's orders.

Early attacks and attempted abductions:

It was Fish which perpetrated his first assault in Wilmington, Delaware in 1910 on a child named Thomas Bedden. He eventually murdered a child mentally disabled in Arlington, Washington, D.C., in 1919. Many of his perpetrators would frequently be either mentally impaired or American as they would not be overlooked, he claimed. On 11 July 1924 Fish discovered Beatrice Kiel, eight years of age, playing alone on the Staten Island estate of her father. He gave her money in the neighboring fields to help him hunt the rhubarb. As her mother scared Fish away, she was about to leave the farm. Fish fled but then returned back to the barn of Kiels, where, before Hans Kiel found him, he wanted to sleep and told him to leave.

Previous incarceration:

Fish met "Estella Wilcox," and lived a week in Waterloo, New York, on February 6, 1930. He was held at Bellevue psychiatric hospital between 1930 and 1931 for evaluation, and he was released in May 1930 "because he sent an indecent letter to an African American woman who replied a maid's advertising."

Fish Targets the Handicapped:

Around 1919, Albert Fish started attacking young men who, because he thought that these individuals would be ignored, were intellectually or African American. Fish liked to bribe kids to help him trap other kids so that he could torture and kill them. The proof has been confirmed in any of these murders. Upon his final conviction, Albert Fish made a number of statements. Even if there was no proof, he listed Albert Fish's victims in hundreds. In 1924, Albert Fish developed total insanity. He actually believed, although he has been tested several times by psychologists, that God was ordering him to torture and kill them. In July of that year, Fish met teenage Beatrice Kiel on the estate of her father alone. Her mother heard Fish chuckle and scare him from protecting the 8-year-old girl's life. Fish went back to the farm in Kiel later that night and slept in the stable. Hans Kiel, young Beatrice's parent, spotted him and quickly pursued him. The next move of Albert Fish was targeted at a young boy Cyril Quinn he had annoyed. To draw them into his den, Fish gave the boys lunch. The boys wrested on Fish's pillow, while waiting for sandwiches. Fish's "death weapons" and hammer, handsaw and cleaver were overthrown by the mattress. The boys have run from the house in panic. Again, Fish missed his job of killing and eating a boy. It took Fish up a bit of his playing.

 Albert Fish’s Victims:

Francis McDonnel- Francis, age 8, was murdered on July 14, 1924. He had been raped and strangled to death, Emma Richardson- Emma, age 5, was murdered on October 3, 1926, Billy Gaffney- Billy, age 4, was murdered on February 12, 1927. Fish confessed to torturing Billy by whipping him, cutting off his ears and nose and then gouging out his eyes. After Billy was murdered, Fish took home pieces of his body and ate them over the course of 4 days, Grace Budd- Grace, age 10, was murdered on June 3, 1928. Fish confessed to murdering her and then eating her whole body over the course of 9 days, Emil Aalling - Emil, age 4, was murdered on July 13, 1930, Robin Jane Liu- Robin, age 6, was murdered on may 2, 1931, Yetta Abramowitz- Yetta, age 12, was murdered in 1927. Fish was suspected to have murdered Yetta, Mary Ellen O’Connor- Mary, age 16, was murdered on February 15, 1932. Fish was suspected to have murdered Mary, Benjamin Collings- Benjamin, age 17, was murdered on December 15, 1932. Fish was suspected to have murdered Benjamin. “I always had a desire to inflict pain on others and to have others inflict pain on me. I always seemed to enjoy everything that hurt.”- Albert Fish, "What a thrill that will be if I have to die in the electric chair. It will be the supreme thrill. The only one I haven't tried."- Albert Fish.

 Trial and Execution:

It is not shocking that Fish is regarded as "the worst child killer in criminal history." The Grace Budd assassination court lasted eleven days. Cod has been found guilty and finally electrically disabled. Fish was said to have helped the boy place electrodes on his leg. There have been reports that the needles implanted by Fish into its body have created a short electric circuit, so it requires twice the normal electricity strikes to complete the job. Since then, these arguments have been dismissed. His lawyer claimed after Fish was killed that he had no words from Fish, just handwritten documents. "Information will never be shown to anyone. The prosecutor refused to read them. It was I have ever seen the filthiest list of obscenities. Until the end of his life, Fish had been a vile human being.

Albert Fish will tend to be one of the greatest abusers of girls in America. Few serial killers, particularly against children, have accomplished the cruelty he is renowned for. It needs to be seen whether Albert Fish was a serial killer at the orphanage. One has to ask if someone so evil as Fish was raised as an assassin or could his conditions transform him into a bad person. Like most serial killers, it's become a little bit of nature and nourishment. While he claims to also have killed thousands of children,' one in every state,' he was only ever found to have killed three. The three killings were so horrific that they solidified Fish's place in history as the worst child killer in all of American history.

Work Cited:

"Best Albert Fish Quotes | Quote Catalog." Quote Catalog. Web. 11 Feb 2020. <http://quotecatalog.com/communicator/albert-fish/>.

Blanco, Juan Ignacio. "Albert Fish | Murderpedia, the encyclopedia of murderers." Murderpedia, the encyclopedia of murderers. Web. 11 Feb 2020. <http://murderpedia.org/male.F/f/fish-albert.htm>.

Phan, Daniel. " Everything You Need To Know About Albert Fish | Serial Killer Shop ." Limited Edition Horror & Serial Killer Shirts – Serial Killer Shop . 18 Mar 2019. Web. 11 Feb 2020. <http://serialkillershop.com/blogs/true-crime/albert-fish>.

Whitney , Heather. "Victims of Albert Fish | The Serial Killers Podcast." The Serial Killers Podcast - A Weekly Podcast on Serial Murder. 1 Jan 2010. Web. 11 Feb 2020. <http://serialkillers.briancombs.net/2962/victims-of-albert-fish/>.