Long story short- neighbors had fireworks last night and a new family member went BALLISTIC. Very scared. Is there any place where we can go that’s within a four hour drive of Philadelphia to spend Fourth of July that will be quiet? I’m fine with any locale- didn’t know if there were any state parks or anything like that where we could go?

Today we have a full schedule of baseball lined up to enjoy on this long weekend. What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon then with a few friends, or family, sat in your favourite chair, or bar, and watching a game?
There are a whopping 17 games on the schedule today, taking us from lunchtime through evening.
All channels shown below , plus much more great content is available with a subscription from Ultimate Media IPTV. Visit today for more information and choose the best IPTV subscription for you.
Here is a breakdown of each game, including the start time and the television channel broadcasting the game:
11.35am ET - Los Angeles Dodgers v Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field, St. Petersburg, Florida. This game is being broadcast on Peacock.
1.35pm ET - Texas Rangers v Baltimore Orioles at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Baltimore, Maryland. This game is being broadcast on BSSW, MSN2 and MLBN.
1.35pm ET - San Diego Padres v New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium, Bronx, New York. This game is being broadcast on BSSD, YES and MLBN.
1.40pm ET - St. Louis Cardinals v Cleveland Guardians at Progressive Field, Cleveland, Ohio. This game is being broadcast on BSMW, BSGL and MLBN.
1.40pm ET - Chicago White Sox v Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park, Detroit, Michigan. This game is being broadcast on NBCSCH and BSDET.
2.10pm ET - Washington Nationals v Kansas City Royals at Kauffman Stadium, Kansas City, Missouri. This game is being broadcast on MASN and BSKC.
2.10pm ET - Toronto Blue Jays v Minnesota Twins at Target Field, Minneapolis, Minnesota. This game is being broadcast on SNET and BSNO.
2.10pm ET - San Francisco Giants v Milwaukee Brewers at American Family Field, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This game is being broadcast on NBCSBA and BSWI.
2.20pm ET - Cincinatti Reds v Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field, Chicago, Illinois. This game is being broadcast on BSOH and MARQ.
3.10pm ET - New York Mets v Colorado Rockies at Coors Field, Denver, Colorado. This game is being broadcast on SNY and ATTR.
4.07pm ET - Houston Astros v Oakland Athletics at Oakland Coliseum, Oakland, California. This game is being brodcast on ATTH and NBCSCA.
4.07pm ET - Miami Marlins v Los Angeles Angels at Angel Stadium, Anaheim, California. This game is being broadcast on BSFL and BSW.
4.10pm ET - Pittsburgh Pirates v Seattle Mariners at T-Mobile Park, Seattle, Washington. This game is being broadcast on ATTP and RSNW.
4.10pm ET - Boston Red Sox v Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field, Phoenix, Arizona. This game is being broadcast on NESN and BSAZ.
4.10pm ET - Philadelphia Phillies v Atlanta Braves at Truist Park, Atlanta, Georgia. This game is being broadcast on NBCSP, BSSE and FS1.
4.10pm ET - Pittsburgh Pirates v Seattle Mariners at T-Mobile Park, Seattle, Washington. This game is being broadcast on ATTP and RSNW.
7.10pm ET - Philadelphia Phillies v Atlanta Braves at Truist Park, Atlanta, Georgia. This game is being broadcast on ESPN.

Today we have a full schedule of baseball lined up to enjoy on this long weekend. What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon then with a few friends, or family, sat in your favourite chair, or bar, and watching a game?
There are a whopping 17 games on the schedule today, taking us from lunchtime through evening.
All channels shown below , plus much more great content is available with a subscription from Ultimate Media IPTV. Visit today for more information and choose the best IPTV subscription for you.
Here is a breakdown of each game, including the start time and the television channel broadcasting the game:
11.35am ET - Los Angeles Dodgers v Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field, St. Petersburg, Florida. This game is being broadcast on Peacock.
1.35pm ET - Texas Rangers v Baltimore Orioles at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Baltimore, Maryland. This game is being broadcast on BSSW, MSN2 and MLBN.
1.35pm ET - San Diego Padres v New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium, Bronx, New York. This game is being broadcast on BSSD, YES and MLBN.
1.40pm ET - St. Louis Cardinals v Cleveland Guardians at Progressive Field, Cleveland, Ohio. This game is being broadcast on BSMW, BSGL and MLBN.
1.40pm ET - Chicago White Sox v Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park, Detroit, Michigan. This game is being broadcast on NBCSCH and BSDET.
2.10pm ET - Washington Nationals v Kansas City Royals at Kauffman Stadium, Kansas City, Missouri. This game is being broadcast on MASN and BSKC.
2.10pm ET - Toronto Blue Jays v Minnesota Twins at Target Field, Minneapolis, Minnesota. This game is being broadcast on SNET and BSNO.
2.10pm ET - San Francisco Giants v Milwaukee Brewers at American Family Field, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This game is being broadcast on NBCSBA and BSWI.
2.20pm ET - Cincinatti Reds v Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field, Chicago, Illinois. This game is being broadcast on BSOH and MARQ.
3.10pm ET - New York Mets v Colorado Rockies at Coors Field, Denver, Colorado. This game is being broadcast on SNY and ATTR.
4.07pm ET - Houston Astros v Oakland Athletics at Oakland Coliseum, Oakland, California. This game is being brodcast on ATTH and NBCSCA.
4.07pm ET - Miami Marlins v Los Angeles Angels at Angel Stadium, Anaheim, California. This game is being broadcast on BSFL and BSW.
4.10pm ET - Pittsburgh Pirates v Seattle Mariners at T-Mobile Park, Seattle, Washington. This game is being broadcast on ATTP and RSNW.
4.10pm ET - Boston Red Sox v Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field, Phoenix, Arizona. This game is being broadcast on NESN and BSAZ.
4.10pm ET - Philadelphia Phillies v Atlanta Braves at Truist Park, Atlanta, Georgia. This game is being broadcast on NBCSP, BSSE and FS1.
4.10pm ET - Pittsburgh Pirates v Seattle Mariners at T-Mobile Park, Seattle, Washington. This game is being broadcast on ATTP and RSNW.
7.10pm ET - Philadelphia Phillies v Atlanta Braves at Truist Park, Atlanta, Georgia. This game is being broadcast on ESPN.

Today we have a full schedule of baseball lined up to enjoy on this long weekend. What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon then with a few friends, or family, sat in your favourite chair, or bar, and watching a game?
There are a whopping 17 games on the schedule today, taking us from lunchtime through evening.
All channels shown below , plus much more great content is available with a subscription from Ultimate Media IPTV. Visit today for more information and choose the best IPTV subscription for you.
Here is a breakdown of each game, including the start time and the television channel broadcasting the game:
11.35am ET - Los Angeles Dodgers v Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field, St. Petersburg, Florida. This game is being broadcast on Peacock.
1.35pm ET - Texas Rangers v Baltimore Orioles at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Baltimore, Maryland. This game is being broadcast on BSSW, MSN2 and MLBN.
1.35pm ET - San Diego Padres v New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium, Bronx, New York. This game is being broadcast on BSSD, YES and MLBN.
1.40pm ET - St. Louis Cardinals v Cleveland Guardians at Progressive Field, Cleveland, Ohio. This game is being broadcast on BSMW, BSGL and MLBN.
1.40pm ET - Chicago White Sox v Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park, Detroit, Michigan. This game is being broadcast on NBCSCH and BSDET.
2.10pm ET - Washington Nationals v Kansas City Royals at Kauffman Stadium, Kansas City, Missouri. This game is being broadcast on MASN and BSKC.
2.10pm ET - Toronto Blue Jays v Minnesota Twins at Target Field, Minneapolis, Minnesota. This game is being broadcast on SNET and BSNO.
2.10pm ET - San Francisco Giants v Milwaukee Brewers at American Family Field, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This game is being broadcast on NBCSBA and BSWI.
2.20pm ET - Cincinatti Reds v Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field, Chicago, Illinois. This game is being broadcast on BSOH and MARQ.
3.10pm ET - New York Mets v Colorado Rockies at Coors Field, Denver, Colorado. This game is being broadcast on SNY and ATTR.
4.07pm ET - Houston Astros v Oakland Athletics at Oakland Coliseum, Oakland, California. This game is being brodcast on ATTH and NBCSCA.
4.07pm ET - Miami Marlins v Los Angeles Angels at Angel Stadium, Anaheim, California. This game is being broadcast on BSFL and BSW.
4.10pm ET - Pittsburgh Pirates v Seattle Mariners at T-Mobile Park, Seattle, Washington. This game is being broadcast on ATTP and RSNW.
4.10pm ET - Boston Red Sox v Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field, Phoenix, Arizona. This game is being broadcast on NESN and BSAZ.
4.10pm ET - Philadelphia Phillies v Atlanta Braves at Truist Park, Atlanta, Georgia. This game is being broadcast on NBCSP, BSSE and FS1.
4.10pm ET - Pittsburgh Pirates v Seattle Mariners at T-Mobile Park, Seattle, Washington. This game is being broadcast on ATTP and RSNW.
7.10pm ET - Philadelphia Phillies v Atlanta Braves at Truist Park, Atlanta, Georgia. This game is being broadcast on ESPN.

I should’ve known I wouldn’t get an apology or even an acknowledgment of misunderstanding at the very least. I don’t know why I entertained the notion.
I relocated from where my family lives in New Jersey to Los Angeles. I live in the burbs of Santa Clarita. My mother has been saying that she “needs” to see me so she booked a trip to come down here for Memorial Day weekend. Tagged along by my brother (11) and step-father. My brother is the main reason I looked forward to this trip. I was foolishly hoping that this time around we could be drama free because the last time they came to California they stayed at Disney land in Anaheim and were genuinely hurt and felt betrayed that I didn’t take the hour and a half drive after work to see them in the resort because they didn’t grab a rental to drive around town in. They pulled a Fast & Furious and tried to guilt me about family and how you gotta make sacrifices.
All I do is make sacrifices. I loan them money, I don’t protest that they live in the house that I bought while I’m shackled inside an RV here while trying to forge a career out here.
So I tell them the best places to stay that would be close to me and an adequate drive to LA. Valencia, Sylmar, etc.
But no. They choose Hawthorne instead. Okay, no problems. My mother’s words: “We will have a car so can meet u anywhere u’d like”
We see each other on Thursday for a few hours while my partner worked. She doesn’t necessarily like my parents because of how they treated me in the past but she’s cordial when with them. Because they chose to be far, we didn’t have time to stay and came home.
The next day (Friday) they decided to go to universal. Spent all day there. My mother had delusions that we could meet up afterward because in her mind she’s still a vibrant 26 year-old. But sure enough: “Just pulled out of universal. We r on zero lmao Is it ok if we have dinner tmrw instead pls”
In my head, 2/3 days nullified on no fault of my own. I’m with it. But then yesterday rolls around. I text them to ask where they are and they tell me the Grove. Not beat to go all the way to town, I ask them to come drive by me. There’s this place I looked up— MB something— great outdoor spot for kids. Golfing, go karts, etc. and her response:
Can we find another location to meet
Bc this place is 1 hour from me now then another hour back to my hotel
Can we meet somewhere not so far away. Somewhere midway
I didn’t respond for two minutes. I wanted to see if she’d get the clarity that it’s not just a hop and skip away and that she understands why I couldn’t come down to see her when she was in Anaheim.
But instead— she surprises me. She says she’ll come. She does.
Doesn’t talk the entire time. I bond with my brother, he seems oblivious to it all. He’s surprisingly good at mini golf while I’m… not as good.
We enjoy the park for two hours before she says they’re heading out. I recommended a happy hour place I knew but said no, they made a fuss about traffic.
I’m glad it’s over. I just don’t like her when she’s in the same state I’m in.

I am 37y male, PhD. Scientific researh is my profession. Currently almost 3 years into CFS, and since last 1 year i think it has become severe. 1st year i didn't even know the name of my problem. Then, in 2nd year i started to look for it and soon realized i am a CFS patient. My baseline has gradually dropped from normal working person to just 1 hour or even less now. All this drop in baseline is maybe because I can't afford to quit. I have to keep going and see what happens. I have family, beautiful daughters, so i have to keep working for them. I am from Pakistan, but work abroad as a researcher. I have given above preamble just to let you know that i know what i am talking about. Now before disclosing the cure/treatment/remedy, i want to tell you that i have done many possible things like improving diet, being less anxious, supplementing etc. But CFS stayed with me. It was like "whatever had caused this illness, it might be no more there, but the consequences (CFS) is going to stay". Now, by end of 2nd year into this, when my CFS was turning into severe from moderate/mild, i was at home in Pakistan. I was preparing to move into another couuntry for my new job. For this i had to go to that country's embassy in another city about 400 km from my home city. I travelled whole night on bus, arrived there at bus station by dawn, spent 3-4 hours wandering here and there and taking teas from different resturants, just to kill time before the start of office time. At 8:30 am i left for embassy. I was done from there by noon. Left for bus station, i hopped on a bus back to my city. Now the bus i hopped on was kind of a passenger bus (you don't have to book in advance). It makes frequent stops along the way, and in it you will see many people who get on and off the bus to sell stuff. By the mid way, a person got on the bus, and was looking very active, fresh, healthy with bright white red face. He introduced himself to be affiliated with a Herbal Practice Center (Hikmat) in a nearby city to mine. Such people are common to be seen on buses selling their CHORAN (herbal powder). I usually don't buy from them, but i just wanted to listen him to feel a company. The things he described that: if you have this and this then try this Medicine, caught me by surprise. Because most of those things were typical CFS symptoms inside me. It is unusual for such a person to talk about such symptoms, they usually sell stuff related to stomach problems etc. I was amazed by the confidence he was talking with. But, i still didn't believe him and didn't buy anything from him. What he did before getting off the bus, he gave out a small pinch of medicine sample to many people near the bus exit gate, In Free. I was there too. Now, i didn't want to throw it away because it was after all some kind of herbal food stuff, and it is not good to throw away such thing. As i raised my hand towards my mouth to put that powder in my mouth, there was strong air coming in from the open windows on bus. Some of that powder went into my eyes and some into my mouth, and it was already a small bit. Anyways, i reached a city stop and took another bus to my city for final stretch of journey. In the start, the bus was packed with passengers, it was summer season. About when 1 hour jouney was left, i started to feel mentally calm, most of the passengers were gone by now. I started to feel quite fresh and active. It caught me by surprise that though i didnt sleep last night and was traveling and now the whole day i was awake and doing work and travelling and the next night has come over, but here i am feeling quite fresh. I thought that maybe my home is reaching close thats why i am feeling good. OK. I reached home, took a shower ate dinner and got to the bed for sleep, but yet i was feeling quite good. The next day i woke up, did all the morning routine, breakfast, toilet etc. and then went to my friend's shop, where i spend most of my time when i am at home. When i was sitting at shop i noticed that contrary to usual i was feeling quite good and active. I did not feel any pain or tiredness from the last whole day and night journey. This was strange, but i thought that this good time will be over shortly because even a CFS patient can feel sometimes a few hours quality time. Whole day passed quite good and i slept at night again very well. The next whole day was also similarly quite good. Thats how i lived like two whole days consecutively like a normal active fresh person. On third day, i started to feel again the fatigue and tiredness. But, what i have been through just now, i coudn't forget, neither i ignored it. What was it? How is it even possible that I who was at the verge of severe CFS, can feel so better for so long (2 days are quite long for a CFS patient). Anyways, the only thing i could single out was that small pinch of herbal medicine i took during journey. I am like 99.99% sure that it was because of that powder i ingested. But, my visa was granted and i had to depart soon abroad for work. Though, i did not find any chance to find that herbal medicine center, but somehow by chance, an approximate location of that store was still in my memory which that salesperson mentioned during the journey. Now, after arriving here abroad, i feel so sorry that i should have digged out that Herbal Practice center, because CFS is taking a lot of toll on my life, and i can't imagine continuing this way. Now, i am almost 1 year in this country, and soon going to home after few weeks. Now, the first and main goal of my life is to find that herbal center as soon as possible and get that powder for me. I am sure it will be the cure/treatment for my illness . I will keep you guys informed about it after testing that herbal medicine for 1-2 weeks. Hopefully, it will be the end of CFS for me. If it works on me, and am quite sure it will, then i will write here again, and if any one of you want it i will arrange it for you. Hopefully, you will also find your old yourself again. Regards. *** Once i am sure it works as i am hopeful, i may share my whatsapp etc so if any one of you may want to contact for the CHORAN. *** Secondly, if you are doubting that how am i coping with my job with CFS, then i can let you know that in my job i have to get the work done, time and presence at work at all time is not a critical requirement. *** my mail is [email protected] I may not be able to respond in these days because i am finishing my work contract. But, i will reply as soon as possible, and definitely if that CHORAN works on me.

Warning: Long, TL;DR at end.
I love my dad. He was a great parent. Especially when I was a little kid. He loved to take me and my sibling on adventures. He always listened to my questions like they were the most important questions in the world. He made us breakfast and changed our diapers and told us every day that we were important. He was generous with money, but made sure to never spoil us. He loves to teach us things, even today.
But as soon as I hit puberty, things got tricky. Turns out he loves kids, but isn't so fond of women. Especially when they have different opinions from himself. So when my sib and I grew into opinionated women, the fighting started. We had a long period in my teens and early 20's where all we did was yell in each other's direction and desperately hope that the other person would hear. I tried to actively listen, even when he was making assumptions about my worth, my goals, my health, and my life. But, I must admit, I only successfully listened about 50% of the time. He never did.
When I became an adult and got a place of my own, he started insisting that we meet once a week to touch base and have a nice day out.
So I did. But the success in those outings was always touch and go.
Dad doesn't want to admit he hasn't kept up with his children's interests, so he never wants to plan outings. Don't get me wrong, he wants to have outings with me every week, he just doesn't want to plan them.
After a lot of back and forth, I finally got him to plan every other outing and I would take care of the rest.
I've taken us to world famous food markets, cat cafes, historic cemeteries, art galleries, and regional festivals. The only two outings he has planned in the last three months were going for a walk in a park fifteen minutes from his house and going grocery shopping together.
For a while, I was concerned that maybe I was dragging him to things he doesn't like. But I wouldn't know. Dad has always refused to get a hobby or show a visible interest in any topic. Aside from electronics, which is what he built his career on, I can't tell you a single thing he enjoys on a regular basis.
I know that he has a life of his own, with friends, pets, and a new girlfriend. It's just that he doesn't tell me about any of it. And when he does, it's usually done in a way that makes me upset.
Once, when we were having a nice day out together and had stopped for a meal, he turned to me and told me how glad he was that he had found his current therapist. Because with her help he had realized that it was OK that I had never done anything with my life. He assumed I would take that as a high complement.
All this is frustrating to me. I have told him as such. I've put up basic boundaries with him, like asking him to let me know if he's free to hang out this weekend before the weekend starts so I don't have to schedule a trip and can make plans if he's busy. But even when he respects those boundaries or does what I ask, it all dissolves into a screaming match.
I had texted him on Wednesday if he was free to hang out this weekend.
On Friday he texted back that he could do a walk in the park and lunch in a restaurant. (He knows, but hates, the fact that I'm still masking in public.)
I swallowed my pride. I didn't mention that I have been begging him to plan something other than a walk and food for years.
I told him that we could do that if we got the food to-go and could make it an early picnic lunch in a special park that I've been talking about for months - about 40 minutes away from his house.
He said that was too far away. Maybe next week. Or the week after that.
Now his girlfriend is staying with him this week. She was going to come with us. She has her elderly dog with her, and they're both protective of his safety in public. But I made sure the park was dog-friendly (dogs could be on the property, even though there was no allocated space for them) and I checked to make sure that we were going to go when the park wasn't busy.
And he knows this.
And still he just blew it off.
And I was upset. And sad. Again.
I vented to Mom, and she told me that if it hurt this much to keep meeting with him, that maybe we should stop doing weekly visits. We should still visit, obviously, but maybe only when there was something we were both excited to do.
That I should gently break this to him, and center the conversation around my feelings, but to say that maybe we should only get together if there was a reason to.
So after an hour of agonized writing, I sent him the text.
And over a day later he hasn't replied.
I don't feel mad, per say. I mean, I was expecting him to lash out and he hasn't.
But instead he has just tossed me aside like an afterthought.
Which I knew he was always capable of, but still.
It feels like I've been pushed off the swings, the air knocked out of me, and I'm not quite sure if this is going to hurt in a second.
TL;DR: I send my father a text telling him that maybe we should cut back on our weekly visits. I do this because he keeps pushing my buttons and each time we do get together is disappointing or painful to me. He never responds to my message.

Introduction

1) Will this be your first dog? If not, what experience do you have owning/training dogs? * No. Have pretty much always had a dog. Have done basic obedience training. Nothing fancy. 2) Do you have a preference for rescuing a dog vs. going through a [reputable breeder]( http://ownresponsibly.blogspot.com/2011/07/identifying-reputable-breeder.html)? * We have a preference for a pup. We are unlikely to get a pup as a rescue, so will likely need to go through a reputable breeder. 3) Describe your ideal dog. * Good tempered with kids, cuddly, friendly, quiet and a bit lazy, low maintenance. Easy to train and will be obedient to all adult and children human family members. 4) What breeds or types of dogs are you interested in and why? * Most important to us is a dog that will be happy with what our family has to offer. We don't mind what that is. 5) What sorts of things would you like to train your dog to do? * sit, stay, walk on a lead, good recall, eat on command. Nothing fancy. Basic obedience. 6) Do you want to compete with your dog in a sport (e.g. agility, obedience, rally) or use your dog for a form of work (e.g. hunting, herding, livestock guarding)? If so, how much experience do you have with this work/sport? * No. **Care Commitments** 7) How long do you want to devote to training, playing with, or otherwise interacting with your dog each day? * Training and actively playing, 30 mins some days. A couple of hours on others. Depends on the day. Chilling and hanging out, most of the day (except for a couple of days per week when noone is home). E.g. would love it to cuddle up in my lap or on my feet amd snooze when I am working from home. 8) How long can you exercise your dog each day, on average? What sorts of exercise are you planning to give your dog regularly and does that include using a dog park? * Walking (not running) with humans. Can incorporate some off leash running for the dog while the humans walk for sniffing of good smells or ball chasing. Wouldn't go to dog park regularly, but might sometimes. Likely to encounter other dogs while exercising. Realistically, some days we may only manage a short walk. 9) How much regular brushing are you willing to do? Are you open to trimming hair, cleaning ears, or doing other grooming at home? If not, would you be willing to pay a professional to do it regularly? * Prefer a dog that needs minimal grooming. **Personal Preferences** 10) What size dog are you looking for? * Small or medium with a preference for medium. Potentially could consider larger if it was quite placid. 11) How much shedding, barking, and slobber can you handle? * Prefer not too much of any of those. 12) How important is being able to let your dog off-leash in an unfenced area? * Important but not essential. We have some nice places we walk where our old dog would enjoy being off leash to have a bit of an explore and a sniff. We would like our new dog to enjoy this too. Additionally, there are physical limitations on the humans running, so it's better if the dog can be trained to go off leash (I.e. good recall) so that it can have a run. **Dog Personality and Behavior** 13) Do you want a snuggly dog or one that prefers some personal space? * Snuggly 14) Would you prefer a dog that wants to do its own thing or one that’s more eager-to-please? * We want a dog that wants to hang with the humans but also won't be anxious when left home alone. We aren't the most amazing trainers, so one that is easy to train and happy to be obedient would be great. 15) How would you prefer your dog to respond to someone knocking on the door or entering your yard? How would you prefer your dog to greet strangers or visitors? * We do not want an aggressive dog at all. We would like the dog not to jump on visitors in excitement either. 16) Are you willing to manage a dog that is aggressive to other dogs? * No. 17) Are there any other behaviors you can’t deal with or want to avoid? * Excessive barking, jumping on people, or aggression would be very difficult for certain members of our family. **Lifestyle** 18) How often and how long will the dog be left alone? * up to two days per week for a full work day 19) What are the dog-related preferences of other people in the house and what will be their involvement in caring for the dog? * This will be a family dog, so the thoughts of the whole family are reflected in all of the questions. 20) Do you have other pets or are you planning on having other pets? What breed or type of animal are they? * We have a cat. She likes to lie nearby, but not cuddle. She also likes to swipe living beings as they pass. She's a bit flighty. We cannot have a breed that will harm the cat. 21) Will the dog be interacting with children regularly? * Yes, the dog will live with several children aged later primary schooland up. This includes a child with dog anxiety and also a very rambunctious child. 22) Do you rent or plan to rent in the future? If applicable, what breed or weight restrictions are on your current lease? * No. We live in our own home and there are no restrictions. We have a big fenced yard. 23) What city or country do you live in and are you aware of any laws banning certain breeds? * There are no dog breed restrictions where we live. 24) What is the average temperature of a typical summer and winter day where you live? * Average high in summer is 29 degrees average low in winter is 0 degrees. Note, temperatures are in Celsius. We have heating and cooling. **Additional Information and Questions** 25) Please provide any additional information you feel may be relevant. * a funny/entertaining dog would be a nice bonus, but not essential. 26) Feel free to ask any questions below. 

LOOOOOOOORE SUNDAAAAAAAAY

What is this thread for?

Curious about the lore for a TM franchise you haven't consumed? Got theories and need cited source material? Want to know how the laws of Nasuvese works on a fundamental level? Need to find that one line you can't find proof of anywhere because TM wiki is hilariously unreliable?
This is the place!
This thread will be a Q&A sort of location that will serve as a "lore library" of sorts that you can use for any inquiries.
This is NOT meant to be a place for containing all lore discussion and theory posts, as those are still highly encouraged to be submission posts outside of this thread so more people can see your ideas!

Translated Source Material Links

• TMdict - contains all Side Material translated
• Chaldea Records - Compilation of in-game profiles and materials
• TRI-HERMES Lore Database ~ WIP

FGO Materials

• Story Summary Compilation
• Event Summary Compilation
• Interlude Summary Compilation
• Material Profile Translation Compilation
• FGO Arcade Lost Jerusalem Part 1 Translations
• FGO Arcade Lost Jerusalem Post-Raid Translations
• Camelot Zero, premise of Camelot singularity written on Nasu's Blog
• FGO Arcade Babylon Translations

Anime

• Kara no Kyoukai Movie Series
• F/SN Unlimited Blade Works - Ufotable
• Fate/Zero
• Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya - Trust me, just read the manga.
• Fate/Grand Order - First Order
• Emiya Gohan
• Lord El-Melloi II's Case Files {Rail Zeppelin} Grace note
• Fate/Grand Order - Moonlight Lostroom
• Fate/Grand Order - Demonic Front: Babylonia

Note: Nonexistent Tsukihime anime and first two of the Heavens Feel Trilogy Movie Series can be found in the internet somewhere, I believe in you to find them. Wink wink.
Note 2: Fate/Apocrypha and Fate/Last Encore can be found on Netflix, along with Deen/Stay Night as well as Zero, UBW, and First Order.

Manga

• Tsukihime Arcuied Route
• Melty Blood , Act 2 , X
• Kara no Kyoukai
• Fate/Zero
• Prisma Illya, 2wei , 3rei
• FSN Heaven's Feel
• Koha Ace GO
• Fate/Extra CCC Foxtail
• Fate/Apocrypha
• FGO Turas Realta
• FGO Mortalis Stella
• FGO EoR Shinjuku
• FGO EoR SE.RA.PH.
• FGO EoR Shimosa
• FGO EoR Salem
• Fate/Strange Fake
• Fate/Type Redline
• FGO From Lostbelt
• Case Files
• Emiya-san chi no Gohan

Note: You can support a lot of the aforementioned manga officially through this website! https://web-ace.jp/tmca/

LNs

• Angel Notes
• Kara no Kyoukai
• Fate/Zero
• Fate/Apocrypha
• Prototype Fragments Volume 1 Complete PDF + Volume 2 Full Translations + The Rest of the Translations
• Fate/Requiem Volume 1
• Fate/Strange Fake
• Lord El Melloi II Case Files
• El Melloi Adventures Volume 1 Summary

Drama CDs

• Garden of Avalon
• Heroic Spirit's Lore Strange Tales: Edmond Dantes

VNs and Games

• Tsukihime and English patch if you want to play the VN, get VN Separately ​
• Kagetsu Tohya English patch for VN
• FSN All 3 Routes and English patch for VN
• FSN Fate Route ReTL
• Fate/Extella
• Fate/Hollow Ataraxia English Patch
• Fate/Extra English patch
• Fate/Extra CCC Gilgamesh Route and ZVN's Video typeset Playthrough
• Tsukihime Remake Arcuied Days 1-5 English Patch ​

Welcome to the /Indianapolis weekly casual conversation and questions thread.
We've set this thread up so that folks have a place to post general topics that don't necessarily need their own post and for folks to ask questions and get recommendations. Restaurant recommendations, places to stay, airport information, things to do, help from social services, and things like that.
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Suburbia: * Beech Grove Community Events * Play Fishers * Carmel Parks * Zionsville Community Calendar
Need help with social services? Look through Find Help / Aunt Bertha or contact the Mayor's Action Center
This thread defaults to sorting by new to make it easier to find new questions and discussions during the week.

Hey everyone! A few folks requested an update on how the bday party for my now four year old turned out. This was our first birthday party and we had invited his whole preschool class. Thought very few people would come given that it was Memorial Day weekend.
Ultimately we had 60 people join, 30 kids (including siblings) and 30 adults. It was an absolute blast. Hosted at a large park and reserved a shelter. Party was 10:30 - 1pm and that timing worked great.
We had purchased some hand held bubble blasters, bubble wands that made huge bubbles, and a whole lot of bubble mix and this had all kids able to play - some loved blowing the bubbles and others were thrilled to chase and pop them. We had about 10 non-birthday party kids join in and they were welcome :)
Also did 4 stomp rocket stations. And kids took turns. Folks loved it! Parents got to mostly chill on the field and sittervise while kids played. Very minimal meltdowns amongst the kids, just a little turn taking enforcement.
Served pizza, cupcakes for lunch. Had lots of fruit (thanks costco!) out for snacks, applesauce and some granola bites and donuts.
And the crème de la crème: fire department showed up just doing a loop, saw all the kids and stopped so kids could take turns sitting on the fire engine. Every kid got a turn :)
10/10, would do it again! Thanks again for the guidance on here and all the phenomenal feedback on how to plan, when to plan and what to worry about vs. go with the flow. Helped us be able to enjoy the happy day with all the families! And shout out to my wonderful spouse who helped make it happen with me.

Parade
Rosa and Julio were dressed in their sheep outfits, and had the horns put on. They chatted with each other, and even started a conversation with Laurelina and Rosetto (both 11).
Meanwhile Horus and Amabilia were dressed in their suits of armor, and saw Randy (1) talking to a small girl, revealed to be his district partner. Horus and Amabilia decided not to ally with District 1 this Games, and to just work with each other.
The tributes entered their chariots, and began to move down the Avenue of Tributes. Horus and Amabilia held their hands up in the air together, and Rosa and Julio smiled and waved.
Rosa and Julio’s outfits were seen as a bit boring, and they did not place first. Horus and Amabilia were ranked high by all of the judges, but ultimately Lunette and Haruki (both 5) placed first due to their moon outfits.
Training
The next day, Rosa and Julio arrived at the training center. They walked over to the animal station, and learned about a variety of animals. They also threw knives whenever other tributes weren’t looking at them. They also swam in the large swimming pool, but steered clear of Cray and Finley (both 4). They walked past Circitina and Roth (both 3) who were working in the electrical station, and past Wanda (9) who was working in the cultivation station. They finally worked with Laurelina and Rosetto in the botany and toxicology station. Joya (12) accidentally bumped into Julio, who apologized to her for being in the way. Joya was the youngest and shortest tribute this year, at just four foot eight.
Meanwhile Horus and Amabilia changed between the sword and spear stations, and walked past Londyn (6) camouflaging herself, and Twigg (7) throwing axes. When Fabrica (8) started to cry after pricking her finger with a needle, Horus comforted her. He admitted to Amabilia that he knew she would die during the Games, and wanted to be kind beforehand, as he had a thirteen year old sister who looked a bit like Fabrica. Amabilia asked Horus his sisters’ name, and he said the youngest, Annabelle, was eleven, the next oldest, Talia, was thirteen, and the oldest one, Zhalia, was fifteen. He asked Amabilia what her brother’s name was, and she said his name was Lucien.
Assessments
After six hours of training, the tributes were taken to the assessment room, where they showed their skills. Amabilia used a spear, scoring a 9, while Horus sword fought a peacekeeper, winning 11 to 15, and scored a 10. Rosa threw knives and scored a 5, while Julio also threw knives and scored a 7.
Amabilia and Horus were at the top of the pack, along with Randy, who scored an 8, and Wanda, who also scored an 8, while the bottom of the pack was Fabrica and Joya, who both scored a 2.
Odds
Panem Today, a news show, discussed the odds that night, with Amabilia receiving odds of 3 to 1, while Horus received odds of 2 to 1. Rosa had odds of 15 to 1, while Julio had odds of 11 to 1.
Interviews
Amabilia wore a sparkling golden dress, and had a gold barrette in her brunette bob cut. She talked about wanting to bring honor to District 2, and how she wanted to win for her family.
Horus wore a gold suit, and had a gold fedora on his head. He spoke about how he volunteered in order to have money to keep his family afloat, and how he wanted to support his three sisters. He earned some respect for this speech.
Rosa talked about how she wanted to try to win and be an underdog, and prove the odds wrong. She said that she was proud to come from District 10.
Julio spoke about his life in District 10, and said that he was nervous, but ready to win. He also talked about wanting to help his family live without working.
Game Maker Juliana Ricci said that the top 10’s family would receive a quarter of the victors fund, but the top 4 would receive half for their family, and the victor would earn the full victors fund. She gave a hint word, that was “lake”.
Hovercraft
The next day the tributes were flown by hovercraft to the arena. Halfway through the ride, they had their trackers placed in their arms, with Rosa notably flinching.
Tube Rooms
Upon arrival at the arena, the tributes were taken to their tube rooms.
Gladius visited Amabilia first, and gave her a big hug. He told her to stay with Horus until the final two, and allow a worthy fight to happen.
Gladius then visited Horus, and told him the same thing, except he told Horus to win for his late father and sisters, hugging him.
Daniel visited Julio first, and gave the boy a quick hug. He wished Julio luck, and told him to stay with Rosa.
Daniel then saw Rosa crying in her tube room. He comforted her, wishing her luck, and wished her luck in the Games. He told her to stick with Julio.
Once all 24 tributes were in their tubes, they rose up into the arena.

My book on Pilot Mountain State Park won't be available there so have to do target marketing elsewhere and try to find the one million park visitors elsewhere. Since the book is slightly controversial because of using the phrase man-made vs. natural that appears seven times in the index some might not be keen to carry the book while others will embrace that for sales.
Going to hit vineyards in the area of the mountain, AirB&B's, gift shops and visitor centers first and then in about six weeks from now start doing book signing events with a booth. Will be selling the autographed book and metal printings of some of the stone faces and pyramid aspect of the mountain.
Do we have any booth wisdom here to share?
Booking a signing/sales for your book?
Do you share the cost of advertising with the promoter of the book signing event?
Typical cost of a booth and/or do you share % of book sales with promoter?
Does giving a bigger % to the promoter get you a better booth location for sales?
Individual vs. group book signings/sales?
Indoor vs. outdoor if you have a choice?
What do you bring (i.e. table, chairs, books, posters, artwork from book)?
The basics of cash, check or credit card?
Keeping track of everything for tax purposes for sale of book and end of year?
Safety? Getting everything back to the car?

I’ve unintentionally offended a parent of my neighbour and need some advice on what to do next.
I’ve outlined some context, what happened and whats swirling around my head.
Context We live in a street which is quite private. The houses are spaced apart and are set back from the street. Some people live here to be totally private. So it’s not easy to identify the parent of a neighbour, what car they drive or even your on neighbours car in some cases!
We have a parking problem on the street which has improved a lot over the past couple of years. This has been achieved simply by putting out a note which always says the same thing “No parking. Please move you car. Thank you”. 90% of the time people don’t realise it’s causing an issue, there was a period when several houses were getting blocked in by parked cars. Garbage trucks struggled to get passed. Now we probably get one a week. They park up and go anywhere…. Can be there for 30 mins or all day… they might be dog walkers, restaurant attendees, church goers… anything and all types. You have no way of knowing who they are, how long they will be or where they are going.
One of my neighbours has a terminally ill child. The illness has been progressing for several years. Over the past 6 months their child has had palliative care at home and in a hospice. We are aware he goes to the hospice every week approx.
What happened? I went to do my grocery shopping and a car was parked outside. I left the ‘no parking. Please move your car. Thank you’ note. Whilst I was out the owner of the vehicle knocked on the door. He apologised for parking and explained he was a family member visiting next door. My husband apologised for leaving the note, we didn’t realise he was from next door. The man explained he needed to move because the ambulance was coming to take his grandson to the hospice. He said his grandson is dying. He said that we should investigate the circumstances before “leaving a note like that on someone’s car”. My husband apologised again and explained the parking issue, the man acknowledged he was aware of the issue (the neighbouring house had been blocked in in the past on several occasions). The man thrust the note at my husband and said “you can take that and do what you want with it. I hope you never have to go through what my family are going through.” He started walking down the driveway shouting that we should investigate before we leave notes like that and so on. This is all on doorbell cam so I can see the exchange. He is polite in his word choice but clearly agitated and wants to vent at my husband.
What’s swirling around my head - help please! - under any other circumstance, I’d just message my neighbour and say something like ‘sorry if we unintentionally upset your dad, let me know if you need anything’ - I don’t know if the child is going to the hospice on a non scheduled visit because he is dying now (sorry for my poor phraseology) - if so do you really want to be bothered by messages about your dads parking upset…? I can’t related to their situation of caring for a terminally ill child. I experienced a unexpected bereavement recently of an immediate family member. Whilst caring for them and after, I found messages overwhelming. - I don’t think we’ve done anything wrong (?) - we had no idea who it was, I have no idea who’s car it is, the note was polite, we apologised on the doorstep… I’m concerned he may have said we left a ‘nasty note’?
I want to acknowledge my actions have upset someone and be a human being but given the circumstances, i would appreciate a level headed point of view please.
What would you do?

Hello strangers,
I am looking for a bit of general advice on the topics in the title, based on a specific situation at work that I find myself in. In short, I (24m) have become far too close to an employee (18f) (we'll call her Ella), and it has caused me to realize how lonely I feel, it has caused my professional reputation to fall apart, and I don't know how to move forward because I genuinely care about the employee but I am also realizing that I need to fix my life.
Last year, I graduated from a competitive engineering program at a large university, but decided to stay working as a manager in the service industry because I am passionate about the work and I found the leadership aspect very rewarding (despite the lack of pay and prestige relative to engineering). During school, I found myself very depressed and overwhelmed, and I found that the only way to create enough time to work and take a full-time course load was to cut off many of my personal friendships, which I valued deeply because I am very introverted and have a hard time making friends before my social batteries die. By the time I graduated, I had disconnected from all but one of my close friends, and the only relationships I had left (outside of family) were a few decent ones with my coworkers and employees.
Fast forward to now, and I started becoming very close to Ella because I manage a department that she works in as a top-performing shift supervisor. We get along well, and at some point I started driving her home because our shifts usually go to 1am, and it is expensive for her to call an Uber. These drives started to end with her not wanting to leave the car so we could chat more, then she started asking me to drive her around the city so we could talk without being outside her house. The stupid decision was when I started letting her drive my car so I didn't feel like I was responsible for how late we were together, and now we're at the point where we'll do a small road trip one or twice a week, or we'll park the car somewhere pretty and eat/chat for hours. A month or so ago, she started touching me a lot (which I don't think much of because she's a very touchy person with her friends at work), but this quickly evolved into her wanting to hold my hand for most of our drives. Recently, she started placing my hand on her knee or leg in what seems like a welcome to leave it there. I'm not sure if she sees this as platonic or not, but there are a few problems:

• Even if she sees the situation as platonic, the amount of time+talking+touch is causing me to feel very deeply attached to her.
• She has a boyfriend (dating for 3 months, first relationship for both of them, she admits that he's toxic as hell, but of course she still insists she is in love with him). She lies to him (and her family, her friends, and her coworkers) about what she's doing when she's with me, and it often causes some strain for her.
• She is a season of life behind me and there's a huge emotional maturity gap.
• Since I am her manager, there is obviously a huge power imbalance.
• She will sit in my car from leaving work at 1am to as late as 8am on weeknights, or 11am on weekends, even though she is in high school. The lack of sleep is affecting her academically and I can also see it affecting her mental health. She has even admitted this, but says she loses self-discipline when she's with me.

Excuses I tell myself to feel better about the situation:

• I'm not the one driving, so I'm not putting her in an uncomfortable situation.
• I don't initiate any of the hand holding or leg touching so it's doesn't feel predatory or inappropriate.
• I'm usually telling her things like "we should really head home," "your parents will be mad and I don't want you to fight," "this is bad for your sleep schedule and you'll be tired at school," etc etc. (Even though I actually want her to ignore my pleas and stick around.)
• Her boyfriend sounds like the worst person ever (even though she bounces back to "but I love him" after complaining about him), so I feel like I offer her a healthier perspective and influence.
• We accomplish a lot at work together, and I have used my position to create a ton of opportunity for her, which she has always seized.

Bad things that I can admit to myself:

• I am very attracted to her (I have been since I hired her as a cashier when she was 16), and I get excited when she is flirty or chooses to spend time with me.
• I now spend an unequal amount of time with her at work, versus other similarly-performing direct reports. Coworkers and employees are beginning to notice the favouritism. I will also move her shifts around to make them more convenient for us to spend time with each other. So far, my boss doesn't mind because I have developed her so much professionally, but I am quickly losing credibility with my coworkers.
• I am becoming unhealthily dependent on her for adrenaline and overall happiness. I don't have much going on in my life anymore besides her, so she becomes the highlight of my week.

Ella ties into the loneliness topic because I am realizing that much of my dependency on her is probably due to a lack of personal connections that I have. I am deeply connected to my immediate family (mom and sister), and I have 3 great friendships (two are coworkers), but that's it. All of these friends are in relationships, and I feel very lonely when they are out with their significant others, and I am alone at home. As a result, spending a ton of time with Ella has created an unhealthy way to fill that emotional want. Also, I used to love my job and I was intrinsically motivated to be a well-respected top-performer, but now I just see the job as a way to spend time with Ella, and my motivation to perform is dropping dramatically.
I'm at a point where I'm not sure what I need to heado to take the most wholehearted next step. I want Ella to be happy and be successful in her personal and professional life, I want to adjust my own life so I don't feel so lonely and depressed all the time, and I want to go back to the level of satisfaction and respect that I had at work before fraternizing with Ella. On the other hand, I am selfish, and I enjoy spending time with this girl too much to make a real change (mostly out of fear that there is no healthy way to end our relationship that won't damage my ability to be her coach at work, and there is the fear that I will be feel even emptier after, which I'm not sure I could handle).
Thoughts, input, or guidance would be appreciated. Thank you.

Sorry if this post is all over the place; it's my first time posting on reddit. I thought I might describe the whole relationship we had and what went down, in case it changed the etiquette. I'll put the beginning of the current situation and the actual issue in bold if someone wants to skip the massive backstory.
So, the thing is, I (now 24F) became really close friends with a girl (now 23F) from my grup at university 3 years ago. We were both good students, liked similar things, watched some of the same movies and shows, loved cats etc., so we quickly bonded. We became nearly inseparable, we studied together, shared all our notes, hung out after classes, I met her gf and spent time with them, and when they unfortunately broke up, I did everything I could to support my friend (and I was really really worried about her mental health, I got like 3 hours of sleep that first night between physically staying with her and then texting, I started inviting her to my family outings etc.), eventually (near the end of the friendship last year) I was even invited to spend a week at her house with her family and while I was there, I was also invited to her older sister's wedding that was happening about a month later (a lot of people started saying they wouldn't attend so the thought was that if I came, then at least some of the money wouldn't go to waste, I suppose).
While things started off great, they changed over time. Like I mentioned, she got that gf and I didn't have the time for dating and wasn't even particularly interested in the guys around me to begin with. She also got cats and then fostered kittens. So her life got busier while mine didn't, and I understood that. The workload of sharing notes started shifting to where I was doing increasingly more. But I was doing it mainly for myself anyway, so I saw no harm in sharing what I had.
But I'm not going to lie, it started getting more and more irritating. Sometimes we'd agree to split the questions between the two of us 50/50 and the day before the test she'd text me saying she wouldn't be able to do her part because she had had a migraine (I got that) and then she took her cats for a long walk, and also her new gf showed up at her place too (that I didn't get). By the time I finished the whole thing, she was asleep and read what I had prepared in the morning. Whatever.
Things started getting bad a year and a half ago, around the time of her sister's wedding. I live in the city where we study but she only rents a flat for the two semesters and goes home halfway across the country for any longer breaks. She was looking for a new place and I went to see one of the flats for her but ultimately, it fell through. Later, she found a place and decided to take it without sending me there to look at it - but she did ask me to get the keys from the owner. It happened the day before I was leaving for that wedding so I could take the keys with me. I agreed no problem but then she changed her mind, calling the whole thing off - only to change it again after a few hours. I told her it's okay but to please let me know earlier if we're ever in a similar situation again (I still had to pack, also it was quite some distance for me to travel so I lost about an hour on public transport, and ofc I had to buy myself tickets - but I didn't mention any of that). Which apparently was a wrong thing to say 'cause she got mad and started ignoring my text messages, including the ones where I asked what time I was supposed to meet the owner (I didn't have the lady's number). When she finally responded, she said she didn't know. Always one to placate others, I started politely asking her to please find out because I didn't want the owner to wait for me, blah blah blah. Eventually, we figured it out, I handled it and went back to preparing.
The wedding was a disaster in itself. It involved her absurdly creepy cousin who clearly had never spoken to a girl and after just 1 day was convinced we were in love and would be together. I understand she found my following her irritating but I didn't really know anyone else and I was freaked out by the cousin - and her egging him on didn't help xd One of the instances was when he kept openly staring at me (y'know how when you look at somebody and they look your way, you look away? well, he didn't) and I decided to kind of show him I wasn't there specifically as his plus one, so I asked my friend's plus one (he's gay and we had met a few times before) to go dance with me, and he was happy to go with me - but my friend said that no, he was there with her and I could go dance with the cousin. And when I finally snapped and glared at her and said firmly but quietly (so no one else could hear) to stop (she was laughing about how he and I should get a photo together for the wedding photobook), she got mad at me. Well, fine, it was just a few hours, I could sit at the table and endure the creepy staring, it's not like he'd try anything with everyone watching. My friend's plus one had a cold or something so I decided to leave with him. Apparently, she was upset that we left so early. The next day, she wasn't speaking to me until we had to leave for the afterparty and did some shopping together etc. But during the party she kept to her sister and her bff and I didn't want to cause any more trouble between us so I stayed on my own - until the cousin showed up. Now, I'm the type of person who freezes when in a sudden, stressful situations, and that's exactly what happened. He tried holding my hands, again stared at me, didn't realise my constant fiddling with my phone was an indication that I didn't want to spend time with him, and generally made this whole day miserable for me. I was so stressed out I couldn't even eat anything. In the evening, hours later, my friend realised what was happening and decided to drive me to her house early. Ofc he tagged along but she made sure to take him back with her. He kept texting me, saying he was going to go to the train station the next morning to see me off and that he would soon come to my city to visit me, and he could stay at my place while he was there. The next day, my friend's mom drove me to the station (my friend woke up too late to go), and once I was on the train, I blocked him. I also texted with my friend and found out that she, as well as her other cousins who sat at our table at the wedding, had approached the dude to tell him to stop but he ignored them. They eventually got his parents involved and that was why he wasn't at the train station. It made me feel much better about the whole thing, since she didn't abandon me like I thought she had. And again, I understand I was kinda a nuisance - a shy stranger at a family gathering.
After that, things were good for a while. But then, the classes started again and it was becoming stressful and taxing again. We have extracurricular classes we have to attend, and our group needed to prepare a short "article" on a topic we chose. I wrote the whole thing but asked the others to please read through it and let me know if they were okay with what I managed so I could send it to the teacher (they did). I also reached out to my friend and asked her specifically to let me know when she had a moment to read it because I valued her opinion a little bit more, since she would tell me if she didn't like something and the others wouldn't (it wasn't even 2 pages long), and she told me she would. Well, she never did, she started sending me memes and talking about the tests she re-took instead. So at the end of the day (the deadline), I asked her how her test went but because I was quite fed up, I didn't stop myself from adding, "thanks btw. next time, let me know you don't feel like doing something we agreed on so I won't have to wait unnecessarily". Should I have just ignored it and went on with my life? Yeah, sure. But I was angry and I don't think what I said was all that bad. Well, to her it was.
I had already noticed she didn't like any sort of critique of herself, even if it was something like us disagreeing on how to perform an experiment (the difference between us was that I had read the instruction). I suppose we both instinctively assume a bit more of a leadership role and sometimes we clashed because of that. She would get very defensive, and I suppose I did too. But in this particular instance, she clearly misunderstood me and an actual argument ensued. What I wanted to say was that I didn't like what our dynamic was, how I was doing so much and was held to those previous standards while she changed her mind whenever she felt like it, was much less reliable and I had to accommodate her almost all the time. But she seemed to think I was looking for gratitude for some reason? That's not what I care about at all; whenever I had some notes or excel sheets or whatever before the rest of the group, I always shared it on our group chat, and never expected thanks or anything. When I discuss a question that may be on a test with somebody, once I find the correct answer, I send it to them, even if it's days later, simply because they wanted to know at one point. I don't care about gratitude and in fact, it makes me uncomfortable. I want to have a good relationship with everyone and if my openness with sharing means that in the future when I need some help, I can go ask one of those people and they will willingly help me, that's an added bonus. Idk why my friend would ever think that but once I realised there was that misunderstanding, I tried to explain what I meant before trying to placate her.
She, however, was really mad, and said a bunch of really hurtful stuff. That, in turn, made me remind her of how she had treated me at the wedding (apparently I was still salty about her initially egging her cousin off), and that prompted her to say that she never wanted me at that wedding in the first place and that I inject myself wherever I can. Now, I never told this to anyone other than my very best friend, but I think I might be somewhere on the autism spectrum and I really don't know how to read between the lines. It's not clear to me what's appropriate and what isn't. So when her mother came up with the idea of me coming to the wedding, my friend's sister gave me an invitation and my friend encouraged me to go, I simply thought it would be okay for me to do so. Now I know to keep to myself and to turn down any offers unless they come from my closest friends and family. But once I got those texts, I got really hurt and was desperately trying to just end the argument, let her be mad at me for a while and we could go back to normal again.
Well, she was apparently done. She ended the friendship and blocked me. Honestly, while it made me realise just how lonely I am, it also did me some good, I think. I focused on myself, my own studying, and haven't had to retake a single test up to this day. She, on the other hand, had to retake almost all of them. Idk if it was just her being used to me doing so much for her or if something else came up in her life, and frankly, I don't care anymore. I wasn't going to go out of my way to antagonise her or anything, we just ignored each other. Eventually, we had to work together on some project and that led to us sometimes talking to each other during a chat with other people from our group. We say hi when we see each other. But nothing beyond that. She unblocked me (idk if she needed to do that in order for us to be able to create a group chat with a third girl for the project, or if she just randomly decided to undo it, don't care) but we don't text or talk when it's just the two of us. I realised that even if she wanted to make amends, I wouldn't want to be friends with her anyway. I got burned and I learned my lesson. Sometimes I feel like I was being used, sometimes - like I overreacted and was too self-centered. At one point, she saw me crocheting something for a colleague (I picked up crocheting fairly recently, she didn't know about it) and asked if I would make something for her (a specific project that she'd pay me for). I was a bit hesitant and mentioned it to my best friend and she told me not to ever do it. She said my ex-friend treated me the way she did but wanted to still gain from me. So I decided not to do it after all. If she wants it, she can learn or find somebody else.
Now. After some time, when I was still blocked by her, I realised she had two of my books, and I had one of hers. I have been struggling with what to do since then. They're my books and I want them back. I have read one of them and the other one suddenly disappeared from all bookstores here so I couldn't get it if I tried. I'm upset over the fact but at this point I'd rather buy them again than have to reach out to her. But on the other hand, I have that one book of hers - and it's supposedly her favourite.
Now, we're probably going to see each other for the last time for an exam on Tuesday. The next time would be at our graduation in March of 2024. So here's my question: do I bring her book on Tuesday without saying anything? Do I hand it to her and tell her to keep my books or give them away to a library? Or do I keep her book as a hostage in case she ever wants it back?

PODCAST: https://ayearofwarandpeace.podbean.com/e/ep1572-hail-and-farewell-george-moore-vale-chapter-112/
PROMPTS: George does not care about you, whatsoever.
Today's Reading, via Project Gutenberg:
Borde could not enlighten him on that point, and I suggested that he should make application to the publisher of his Prayer-Book and get his money back. There is nobody. I said, like him. He is more wonderful than anything in literature. I prefer him to Sancho who was untroubled with a conscience and never thought of running to the Bishop of Toledo. All the same he is not without the shrewdness of his ancestors, and got the better of Archbishop Walsh, and for the last five years Vincent O'Brien has been beating time, and will beat it till the end of his life; and he will be succeeded by others, for Edward has, by deed, saved the Italian contrapuntalists till time everlasting from competition with modern composers. He certainly has gotten the better of Walsh. And I thought of a picture-gallery in Dublin with nothing in it but Botticelli and his school, and myself declaring that all painting that had been done since had no interest for me.... A smile began to spread over my face, for the story that was coming into my mind seemed oh! so humorous, so like Ireland, so like Edward, that I began to tell myself again the delightful story of the unrefined ears that, weary of erudite music, had left the cathedral and sought instinctively modern tunes and women's voices, and as these were to be found in Westland Row the church was soon overflowing with a happy congregation. But in a little while the collections grew scantier. This time it couldn't be Palestrina, and all kinds of reasons were adduced. At last the truth could no longer be denied—the professional Catholics of Merrion Square had been driven out of Westland Row by the searching smells of dirty clothes, and had gone away to the University Church in Stephen's Green. So if it weren't Palestrina directly it was Palestrina indirectly, and the brows of the priests began to knit when Edward Martyn's name was mentioned. Them fal-de-dals is well enough on the Continent, in Paris, where there is no faith, was the opinion of an important ecclesiastic. But we don't want them here, murmured a second ecclesiastic. All this counterpoint may make a very pretty background for Mr Martyn's prayers, but what about the poor people's? Good composer or bad composer, there is no congregation in him, said a third. There's too much congregation, put in the first, but not the kind we want! The second ecclesiastic took snuff, and the group were of opinion that steps should be taken to persuade dear Edward to make good their losses. The priests in Marlborough Street sympathised with the priests of Westland Row, and told them that they were so heavily out of pocket that Mr Martyn had agreed to do something for them. It seemed to the Westland Row priests that if Mr Martyn were making good the losses of the priests of the pro-Cathedral, he should make good their losses. It was natural that they should think so, and to acquit himself of all responsibility Edward no doubt consulted the best theologians on the subject, and I think that they assured him that he is not responsible for indirect losses. If he were, his whole fortune would not suffice. He was, of course, very sorry if a sudden influx of poor people had caused a falling-off in the collections of Westland Row, for he knew that the priests needed the money very much to pay for the new decorations, and to help them he wrote an article in the Independent praising the new blue ceiling, which seemed, so he wrote, a worthy canopy for the soaring strains of Palestrina.
Unfortunately rubbing salt into the wound, I said. A story that will amuse Dujardin and it will be great fun telling him in the shady garden at Fontainebleau how Edward, anxious to do something for his church, had succeeded in emptying two. All the way down the alleys he will wonder how Edward could have ever looked upon Palestrina's masses as religious music. The only music he will say, in which religious emotion transpires is plain-chant. Huysmans says that the Tantum Ergo or the Dies Irae, one or the other, reminds him of a soul being dragged out of purgatory, and it is possible that it does; but a plain-chant tune arranged in eight-part counterpoint cannot remind one of anything very terrible. Dujardin knows that Palestrina was a priest, and he will say: That fact deceived your friend, just as the fact of finding the Adeste Fideles among the plain-chant tunes deceived him. For of course I shall tell Dujardin that story too. It is too good to be missed. He is wonderful, Dujardin! I shall cry out in one of the sinuous alleys. There never was anybody like him! And I will tell him more soul-revealing anecdotes. I will say: Dujardin, listen. One evening he contended that the great duet at the end of Siegfried reminded him of mass by Palestrina. Dujardin will laugh, and, excited by his laughter, I will try to explain to him that what Edward sees is that Palestrina took a plain chant tune and gave fragments of it to the different voices, and in his mind these become confused with the motives of The Ring. You see, Dujardin, the essential always escapes him—the intention of the writer is hidden from him. I am beginning to understand your friend. He has, let us suppose, a musical ear that allows him to take pleasure in the music; but a musical ear will not help him to follow Wagner's idea—how, in a transport of sexual emotion, a young man and a young woman on a mountain-side awaken to the beauty of the life of the world. Dujardin's appreciations will provoke me, and I will say: Dujardin, you shouldn't be so appreciative. If I were telling you of a play I had written, it would be delightful to watch my idea dawning upon your consciousness; but I am telling you of a real man, and one that I shall never to able to get into literature. He will answer: We invent nothing; we can but perceive. And then, exhilarated, carried beyond myself, I will say: Dujardin, I will tell you something still more wonderful than the last gaffe. II gaffe dans les Quat'z Arts. He admires Ibsen, but you'd never guess the reason why—because he is very like Racine; both of them, he says, are classical writers. And do you know how he arrived at that point? Because nobody is killed on the stage in Racine or in Ibsen. He does not see that the intention of Racine is to represent men and women out of time and out of space, unconditioned by environment, and that the very first principle of Ibsen's art is the relation of his characters to their environment. In many passages he merely dramatises Darwin. There never was anybody so interesting as dear Edward, and there never will be anybody like him in literature ... I will explain why presently, but I must first tell you another anecdote. I went to see him one night, and he told me that the theme of the play he was writing was a man who had married a woman because he had lost faith in himself; the man did not know, however, that the woman had married him for the same reason, and the two of them were thinking—I have forgotten what they were thinking, but I remember Edward saying: I should like to suggest hopelessness. I urged many phrases, but he said: It isn't a phrase I want, but an actual thing. I was thinking of a broken anchor—that surely is a symbol of hopelessness. Yes, I said, no doubt, but how are you going to get a broken anchor into a drawing-room? I don't write about drawing-rooms. Well, living-rooms. It isn't likely that they would buy a broken anchor and put it up by the coal-scuttle.
There's that against it, he answered. If you could suggest anything better—What do you think of a library in which there is nothing but unacted plays? The characters could say, when there was nothing for them to do on the stage, that they were going to the library to read, and the library would have the advantage of reminding everybody of the garret in the Wild Duck. A very cruel answer, my friend, Dujardin will say, and I will tell him that I can't help seeing in Edward something beyond Shakespeare or Balzac. Now, tell me, which of these anecdotes I have told you is the most humorous? He will not answer my question, but a certain thoughtfulness will begin to settle in his face, and he will say: Everything with him is accidental, and when his memory fails him he falls into another mistake, and he amuses you because it is impossible for you to anticipate his next mistake. You know there is going to be one; there must be one, for he sees things separately rather than relatively. I am beginning to understand your friend.
You are, you are; you are doing splendidly. But you haven't told me, Dujardin, which anecdote you prefer. Stay, there is another one. Perhaps this one will help you to a still better understanding. When he brought The Heather Field and Yeats's play The Countess Cathleen to Dublin for performance, a great trouble of conscience awakened suddenly in him, and a few days before the performance he went to a theologian to ask him if The Countess Cathleen were a heretical work, and, if it were would Almighty God hold him responsible for the performance? But he couldn't withdraw Yeats's play without withdrawing his own, and it appears that he breathed a sigh of relief when a common friend referred the whole matter to two other theologians, and as these gave their consent Edward allowed the plays to go on; but Cardinal Logue intervened, and wrote a letter to the papers to say that the play seemed to him unfit for Catholic ears, and Edward would have withdrawn the plays if the Cardinal hadn't admitted in his letter that he had judged the play by certain extracts only.
He wishes to act rightly, but has little faith in himself; and what makes him so amusing is that he needs advice in aesthetics as well as in morals. We are, I said, Dujardin, at the roots of conscience. And I began to ponder the question what would happen to Edward if we lived in a world in which aesthetics ruled: I should be where Bishop Healy is, and he would be a thin, small voice crying in the wilderness—an amusing subject of meditation, from which I awoke suddenly.
I wonder how Dujardin is getting on with his Biblical studies? Last year he was calling into question the authorship of the Romans—a most eccentric view; and, remembering how weakly I had answered him, I took the Bible from the table and began to read the Epistle with a view to furnishing myself with arguments wherewith to confute him. My Bible opened at the ninth chapter, and I said: Why, here is the authority for the Countess Cathleen's sacrifice which Edward's theologian deemed untheological. It will be great fun to poke Edward up with St Paul, and on my way to Lincoln Place I thought how I might lead the conversation to The Countess Cathleen.
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A few minutes afterwards a light appeared on the staircase and the door slowly opened.
Come in, Siegfried, though you were off the key.
Well, my dear friend, it is a difficult matter to whistle above two trams passing simultaneously and six people jabbering round a public-house, to say nothing of a jarvey or two, and you perhaps dozing in your armchair, as your habit often is. You won't open to anything else except a motive from The Ring; and I stumbled up the stairs in front of Edward, who followed with a candle.
Wait a moment; let me go first and I'll turn up the gas.
You aren't sitting in the dark, are you?
No, but I read better by candle-light, and he blew out the candles in the tin candelabrum that he had made for himself. He is original even in his candelabrum; no one before him had ever thought of a caridelabrum in tin, and I fell to admiring his appearance more carefully than perhaps I had ever done before, so monumental did he seem lying on the little sofa sheltered from daughts by a screen, a shawl about his shoulders. His churchwarden was drawing famously, and I noticed his great square hands with strong fingers and square nails pared closely away, and as heretofore I admired the curve of the great belly, the thickness of the thighs, the length and breadth and the width of his foot hanging over the edge of the sofa, the apoplectic neck falling into great rolls of flesh, the humid eyes, the skull covered with short stubbly hair. I looked round the rooms and they seemed part of himself: the old green wallpaper on which he pins reproductions of the Italian masters. And I longed to peep once more into the bare bedroom into which he goes to fetch bottles of Apollinaris. Always original! Is there another man in this world whose income is two thousand a year, and who sleeps in a bare bedroom, without dressing-room, or bathroom, or servant in the house to brush his clothes, and who has to go to the baker's for his breakfast?
We had been talking for some time of the Gaelic League, and from Hyde it was easy to pass to Yeats and his plays.
His best play is The Countess Cathleen.
The Countess Cathleen is only a sketch.
But what I never could understand, Edward, was why you and the Cardinal could have had any doubts as to the orthodoxy of The Countess Cathleen.
What, a woman that sells her own soul in order to save the souls of others!
I suppose your theologian objected—
Of course he objected.
He cannot have read St Paul.
What do you mean?
He can't have read St Paul, or else he is prepared to throw over St Paul.
Mon ami Moore, mon ami Moore.
The supernatural idealism of a man who would sell his soul to save the souls of others fills me with awe.
But it wasn't a man; it was the Countess Cathleen, and women are never idealists.
Not the saints?
His face grew solemn at once.
If you give me the Epistles I will read the passage to you. And it was great fun to go to the bookshelves and read: I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.
Edward's face grew more and more solemn, and I wondered of what he was thinking.
Paul is a very difficult and a very obscure writer, and I think the Church is quite right not to encourage the reading of the Epistles, especially without comments.
Then you do think there is something in the passage I have read?
After looking down his dignified nose for a long time, he said:
Of course, the Church has an explanation. All the same, it's very odd that St Paul should have said such a thing—very odd.
There is no doubt that I owe a great deal of my happiness to Edward; all my life long he has been exquisite entertainment. And I fell to thinking that Nature was very cruel to have led me, like Moses, within sight of the Promised Land. A story would be necessary to bring Edward into literature, and it would be impossible to devise an action of which he should be a part. The sex of a woman is odious to him, and a man with two thousand a year does not rob nor steal, and he is so uninterested in his fellow-men that he has never an ill word to say about anybody. John Eglinton is a little thing; AE is a soul that few will understand; but Edward is universal—more universal than Yeats, than myself, than any of us, but for lack of a story I shall not be able to give him the immortality in literature which he seeks in sacraments. Shakespeare always took his stories from some other people. Turgenev's portrait of him would be thin, poor, and evasive, and Balzac would give us the portrait of a mere fool. And Edward is not a fool. As I understand him he is a temperament without a rudder; all he has to rely upon is his memory, which isn't a very good one, and so he tumbles from one mistake into another. My God! it is a terrible thing to happen to one, to understand a man better than he understands himself, and to be powerless to help him. If I had been able to undo his faith I should have raised him to the level of Sir Horace Plunkett, but he resisted me; and perhaps he did well, for he came into the world seeing things separately rather than relatively, and had to be a Catholic. He is a born Catholic, and I remembered one of his confessions—a partial confession, but a confession: If you had been brought up as strictly as I have been—I don't think he ever finished the sentence; he often leaves sentences unfinished, as if he fears to think things out. The end of the sentence should run: You would not dare to think independently. He thinks that his severe bringing-up has robbed him of something. But the prisoner ends by liking his prison-house, and on another occasion he said: If it hadn't been for the Church, I don't know what would have happened to me.
My thoughts stopped, and when I awoke I was thinking of Hughes. Perhaps the link between Hughes and Edward was Loughrea Cathedral. He had shown me a photograph of some saints modelled by Hughes. Hughes is away in Paris, I said, modelling saints for Loughrea Cathedral. The last time I saw him was at Walter Osborne's funeral, and Walter's death set me thinking of the woman I had lost, and little by little all she had told me about herself floated up in my mind like something that I had read. I had never seen her father nor the Putney villa in which she had been brought up, but she had made me familiar with both through her pleasant mode of conversation, which was never to describe anything, but just to talk about things, dropping phrases here and there, and the phrases she dropped were so well chosen that the comfort of the villa, its pompous meals and numerous servants, its gardens and greenhouses, with stables and coach-house just behind, are as well known to me as the house that I am living in, better known in a way, for I see it through the eyes of the imagination ... clearer eyes than the physical eyes.
It does not seem to me that any one was ever more conscious of whence she had come and of what she had been; she seemed to be able to see herself as a child again, and to describe her childhood with her brother (they were nearly the same age) in the villa and in the villa's garden. I seemed to see them always as two rather staid children who were being constantly dressed by diligent nurses and taken out for long drives in the family carriage. They did not like these drives and used to hide in the garden; but their governess was sent to fetch them, and they were brought back. Her father did not like to have the horses kept waiting, and one day as Stella stood with him in the passage, she saw her mother come out of her bedroom beautifully dressed. Her father whispered something in his wife's ear, and he followed her into her bedroom. Stella remembered how the door closed behind them. In my telling, the incident seems to lose some of its point, but in Stella's relation it seemed to put her father and his wife before me and so clearly that I could not help asking her what answer her father would make were she to tell him that she had a lover. A smile hovered in her grave face. He would look embarrassed, she said, and wonder why I should have told him such a thing, and then I think he would go to the greenhouse, and when he returned he would talk to me about something quite different. I don't think that Stella ever told me about the people that came to their house, but people must have come to it, and as an example of how a few words can convey an environment I will quote her: I always wanted to talk about Rossetti, she said, and these seven words seem to me to tell better than any description the life of a girl living with a formal father in a Putney villa, longing for something, not knowing exactly what, and anxious to get away from home.... I think she told me she was eighteen or nineteen and had started painting before she met Florence at the house of one of her father's friends; a somewhat sore point this meeting was, for Florence was looked upon by Stella's father as something of a Bohemian. She was a painter, and knew all the Art classes and the fees that had to be paid, and led Stella into the world of studios and models and girl friends. She knew how to find studios and could plan out a journey abroad. Stella's imagination was captured, and even if her father had tried to offer opposition to her leaving home he could not have prevented her, for she was an heiress (her mother was dead and had left her a considerable income); but he did not try, and the two girls set up house together in Chelsea; they travelled in Italy and Spain; they had a cottage in the country; they painted pictures and exhibited their pictures in the same exhibitions; they gave dances in their studios and were attracted by this young man and the other; but Stella did not give herself to any one, because, as she admitted to me, she was afraid that a lover would interrupt the devotion which she intended to give to Art. But life is forever casting itself into new shapes and forms, and no sooner had she begun to express herself in Art than she met me. I was about to go to Ireland to preach a new gospel, and must have seemed a very impulsive and fantastic person to her, but were not impulsiveness and fantasy just the qualities that would appeal to her? And were not gravity and good sense the qualities that would appeal to me, determined as I was then to indulge myself in a little madness?
I could not have chosen a saner companion than Stella; my instinct had led me to her; but because one man's instinct is a little more clear than another's, it does not follow that he has called reason to his aid. It must be remembered always that the art of painting is as inveterate in me as the art of writing, and that I am never altogether myself when far away from the smell of oil paint. Stella could talk to one about painting, and all through that wonderful summer described in Salve our talk flowed on as delightfully as a breeze in Maytime, and as irresponsible, flashing thoughts going by and avowals perfumed with memories. Only in her garden did conversation fail us, for in her garden Stella could think only of her flowers, and it seemed an indiscretion to follow her as she went through the twilight gathering dead blooms or freeing plants from noxious insects. But she would have had me follow her, and I think was always a little grieved that I wasn't as interested in her garden as I was in her painting; and my absent-mindedness when I followed her often vexed her and my mistakes distressed her.
You are interested, she said, only in what I say about flowers and not in the flowers themselves. You like to hear me tell about Miss —— whose business in life is to grow carnations, because you already see her, dimly, perhaps, but still you see her in a story. Forget her and look at this Miss Shifner!
Yes, it is beautiful, but we can only admire the flowers that we notice when we are children, I answered. Dahlias, china roses, red and yellow tulips, tawny wallflowers, purple pansies, are never long out of my thoughts, and all the wonderful varieties of the iris, the beautiful blue satin and the cream, some shining like porcelain, even the common iris that grows about the moat.
But there were carnations in your mother's garden?
Yes, and I remember seeing them being tied with bass. But what did you say yesterday about carnations? That they were the—
She laughed and would not tell me, and when the twilight stooped over the high trees and the bats flitted and the garden was silent except when a fish leaped, I begged her to come away to the wild growths that I loved better than the flowers.
But the mallow and willow-weed are the only two that you recognise. How many times have I told you the difference between self-heal and tufted vetch?
I like cow parsley and wild hyacinths and—
You have forgotten the name. As well speak of a woman that you loved but whose name you had forgotten.
Well, if I have, I love trees better than you do, Stella. You pass under a fir unstirred by the mystery of its branches, and I wonder at you, for I am a tree worshipper, even as my ancestors, and am moved as they were by the dizzy height of a great silver fir. You like to paint trees, and I should like to paint flowers if I could paint; there we are set forth, you and I.
I have told in Salve that in Rathfarnham she found many motives for painting; the shape of the land and the spire above the straggling village appealed to me, but she was not altogether herself in these pictures. She would have liked the village away, for man and his dwellings did not form part of her conception of a landscape; large trees and a flight of clouds above the trees were her selection, and the almost unconscious life of kine wandering or sheep seeking the shelter of a tree.
Stella was a good walker, and we followed the long road leading from Rathfarnham up the hills, stopping to admire the long plain which we could see through the comely trees shooting out of the shelving hillside.
If I have beguiled you into a country where there are no artists and few men of letters, you can't say that I have not shown you comely trees. And now if you can walk two miles farther up this steep road I will show you a lovely prospect.
And I enjoyed her grave admiration of the old Queen Anne dwelling-house, its rough masonry, the yew hedges, the path along the hillside leading to the Druid altar and the coast-line sweeping in beautiful curves, but she did not like to hear me say that the drawing of the shore reminded her of Corot.
It is a sad affectation, she said, to speak of Nature reminding one of pictures.
Well, the outlines of Howth are beautiful, I answered, and the haze is incomparable. I should like to have spoken about a piece of sculpture, but for your sake, Stella, I refrain.
She was interested in things rather than ideas, and I remember her saying to me that things interest us only because we know that they are always slipping from us. A strange thing for a woman to say to her lover. She noticed all the changes of the seasons and loved them, and taught me to love them. She brought a lamb back from Rathfarnham, a poor forlorn thing that had run bleating so pitifully across the windy field that she had asked the shepherd where the ewe was, and he had answered that she had been killed overnight by a golf-ball. The lamb will be dead before morning, he added. And it was that March that the donkey produced a foal, a poor ragged thing that did not look as if it ever could be larger than a goat, but the donkey loved her foal.
Do you know the names of those two birds flying up and down the river?
They look to me like two large wrens with white waistcoats.
They are water-ouzels, she said.
The birds flew with rapid strokes of the wings, like kingfishers, alighting constantly on the river, on large mossy stones, and though we saw them plunge into the water, it was not to swim, but to run along the bottom in search of worms.
But do worms live under water?
The rooks were building, and a little while after a great scuffling was heard in one of the chimneys and a young jackdaw came down and soon became tamer than any bird I had ever seen, tamer than a parrot, and at the end of May the corncrake called from the meadow that summer had come again, and the kine wandered in deeper and deeper and deeper herbage. The days seemed never to end, and looking through the branches of the chestnut in which the fruit had not begun to show, we caught sight of a strange spectacle. Stella said, A lunar rainbow, and I wondered, never having heard of or seen such a thing before.
I shall never forget that rainbow, Stella, and am glad that we saw it together.
In every love story lovers reprove each other for lack of affection, and Stella had often sent me angry letters which caused me many heart-burnings and brought me out to her; in the garden there were reconciliations, we picked up the thread again, and the summer had passed before the reason of these quarrels became clear to me. One September evening Stella said she would accompany me to the gate, and we had not gone very far before I began to notice that she was quarrelling with me. She spoke of the loneliness of the Moat House, and I had answered that she had not been alone two evenings that week. She admitted my devotion. And if you admit that there has been no neglect—
She would not tell me, but there was something she was not satisfied with, and before we reached the end of the avenue she said, I don't think I can tell you. But on being pressed she said:
Well, you don't make love to me often enough.
And full of apologies I answered, Let me go back.
No, I can't have you back now, not after having spoken like that.
But she yielded to my invitation, and we returned to the house, and next morning I went back to Dublin a little dazed, a little shaken.
A few days after she went away to Italy to spend the winter and wrote me long letters, interesting me in herself, in the villagers, in the walks and the things that she saw in her walks, setting me sighing that she was away from me, or that I was not with her. And going to the window I would stand for a long time watching the hawthorns in their bleak wintry discontent, thinking how the sunlight fell into the Italian gardens, and caught the corner of the ruin she was sketching; and I let my fancy stray for a time unchecked. It would be wonderful to be in Italy with her, but—
I turned from the window suspicious, for there was a feeling at the back of my mind that with her return an anxiety would come into my life that I would willingly be without. She had told me she had refrained from a lover because she wished to keep all herself for her painting, and now she had taken to herself a lover. She was twenty years younger than I was, and at forty-six or thereabouts one begins to feel that one's time for love is over; one is consultant rather than practitioner. But it was impossible to dismiss the subject with a jest, and I found myself face to face with the question—If these twenty years were removed, would things be different? It seemed to me that the difficulty that had arisen would have been the same earlier in my life as it was now, and returning to the window I watched the hawthorns blowing under the cold grey Dublin sky.
The problem is set, I said, for the married, and every couple has to solve it in one way or another, but they have to solve it; they have to come to terms with love, especially the man, for whom it is a question of life and death. But how do they come to terms? And I thought of the different married people I knew. Which would be most likely to advise me—the man or the woman? It would be no use to seek advice; every case is different, I said. If anybody were to advise me it would be the man, for the problem is not so difficult for a woman. She can escape from love more easily than her lover or her husband; she can plead, and her many pleadings were considered, one by one, and how in married life the solution that seems to lovers so difficult is solved by marriage itself, by propinquity. But not always, not always. The question is one of extraordinary interest and importance; more marriages come to shipwreck, I am convinced, on this very question than upon any other. In the divorce cases published we read of incompatibility of temper and lack of mutual tastes, mere euphemisms that deceive nobody. The image of a shipwreck rose up in me naturally. She will return, and like a ship our love for each other will be beaten on these rocks and broken. We shall not be able to get out to sea. She will return, and when she returns her temperament will have to be adjusted to mine, else she will lose me altogether, for men have died of love, though Shakespeare says they haven't. Manet and Daudet—both died of love; and the somewhat absurd spectacle of a lover waiting for his mistress to return, and yet dreading her returning, was constantly before me.
It often seemed to me that it was my own weakness that created our embarrassment. A stronger man would have been able to find a way out, but I am not one that can shape and mould another according to my desire; and when she returned from Italy I found myself more helpless than ever, and I remember, and with shame, how, to avoid being alone with her, I would run down the entire length of a train, avoiding the empty carriages, crying Not here, not here! at last opening the door of one occupied by three or four people, who all looked as if they were bound for a long journey. I remember, too, how about this time I came with friends to see Stella, whether by accident or design, frankly I know not; I only know that I brought many friends to see her, thinking they would interest her.
If you don't care to come to see me without a chaperon, I would rather you didn't come at all, she said, humiliating me very deeply.
It seemed to me, I answered, blushing, that you would like to see ——, and I mentioned the name of the man who had accompanied me.
If I am cross sometimes it is because I don't see enough of you.
It seems to me that it was then that the resolve hardened in my heart to become her friend ... if she would allow me to become her friend. But in what words should I frame my request and my apology? All the time our life was becoming less amiable, until one evening I nipped the quarrel that was beginning, stopping suddenly at the end of the avenue.
It is better that we should understand each other. The plain truth is that I must cease to be your lover unless my life is to be sacrificed.
Cease to be my lover!
That is impossible, but a change comes into every love story.
The explanation stuttered on. I remember her saying: I don't wish you to sacrifice your life. I have forgotten the end of her sentence. She drew her hand suddenly across her eyes. I will conquer this obsession.
A man would have whined and cried and besought and worried his mistress out of her wits. Women behave better than we; only once did her feelings overcome her. She spoke to me of the deception that life is. Again we were standing by the gate at the end of the chestnut avenue, and I remembered her telling me how a few years ago life had seemed to hold out its hands to her; her painting and her youth created her enjoyment.
But now life seems to have shrivelled up, she said; only a little dust is left.
Nothing is changed, so far as you and I are concerned. We see each other just the same.
I am no more to you than any other woman.
She went away again to Italy to paint and returned to Ireland, and one day she came to see me, and remained talking for an hour. I have no memory of what we said to each other, but a very clear memory of our walk through Dublin over Carlisle Bridge and along the quays. I had accompanied her as far as the Phoenix Park gates, and at the corner of the Conyngham Road, just as I was bidding her goodbye, she said:
I want to ask your advice on a matter of importance to me.
And to me, for what is important to you is equally important to me.
I am thinking, she said, of being married.
At the news it seems to me that I was unduly elated and tried to assume the interest that a friend should.

Part 2 of “The Exterminators RELOADED!”
A Fanfic of u/SpacePaladin15’s work “The nature of Predators” Thank you for the story!
IMPORTANT NOTICE. I AM WRITING ABOUT 247 EPISODES OF THE EXTERMINATORS. ANY IDEAS WOULD BE GREATLY WELCOMED! AS DETAILED OR NOT AS YOU WANT, I WILL CREDIT YOU FOR ANY HELP GIVEN!
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Memory transcription subject: Henry, Venlil Primary School Student
Sylvan’s dad gestured for us to get the show set up while he walked into the kitchen. I couldn’t bring myself to sit still as the sound of popcorn in the microwave bounced through the house. Sylvan threw himself next to me as the annoyingly long series of logos started to parade through the screen.
“C’mon Dad! It’s starting!” We both held our arms up and caught a bag of popcorn as Mr. Smith copied Sylvan and threw himself on the couch. As Sylvan started to juggle the burning hot bag I started to mockingly mimic him. “Oh shut up! You and your built-in oven mitts!”
I batted Sylvan in the face who didn’t hesitate to try and hold off my attacks by smooshing me down into the chair. We both stopped when the Deep heavy beat of the Exterminators RELOADED started to play. This time though the beat didn’t stop as the opening sequence ended. Instead it played dully in the background like we were hearing it through a wall.
Friotetzali stepped into the scene and sauntered his way through an alley. He stopped and looked at a poster hanging on the wall. It showed a picture of a carrot and tomato with forward facing eyes and silly little stick arms cowering in fear of a ravenous looking Venlil. Plastered above it was the episode's title! “THE HERBIVOROUS BEASTS FROM BEYOND THE STARS!!!”
Frio let out a light chuckle as his tail curled in delight. “Oh that looks hilarious. Gotta remember to go see that.” He gently shook his head as he continued to walk and drop into an indifferent attitude as he approached a lone Mazic by a door. The two stared at each other for a moment before the Mazic slowly turned and opened the door.
With a slow and droning voice he addressed our head investigator. “He’s waiting for you by the dance floor. Doubt you’ll miss him. Welcome back Frio. Try not to burn the place down.” As the door opened the tune picked back up and was almost deafening. Frio walked down the dark staircase and eventually into a room filled with neon signs decorating the walls, strobe lights, lasers, and dozens of people dancing everywhere.
Our Harchen Hero cut through the crowd and haze like a fish through water before finally sitting down at a table with a rather… sleazy looking Gojid. “FRIO! MY OLD PAL! Have a seat! Let me get ya a drink!” The greased back fur of the Gojid just looked out of place as he waved for the servers to bring colorful beverages with little umbrellas over.
I honestly couldn’t make out any words that came out of the Gojid’s mouth after that. The dude just seemed to talk and not say any words. But eventually Frio took a slow sip from his drink and turned his head to stare down the greasy porcupine who’s quills extended in a little bit of fear.
“Cut the crap Genseng. I want to know why by Inatala’s tits you’d think it's a good idea to smuggle terran animals here!” He slammed a pawfull of photos on the table. Each one showed the greasy Gojid buying and selling small animals like rabbits and chickens.
Genseng sputtered and pouted “COME ON! I haven’t done anything that puts anyone at risk! I just sell human’s xeno-safe pets! A bunny never ate a Dossur! Don’t you want humans to take care of the petting addiction on things that want to be pet?” Despite my body telling me this guy was bad news, I couldn’t help but agree. I’ve been ‘pet’ more times than I would like by strange humans… and a few Venlil… and one Kolshian… and I ran away from the Mazic.
Frio sat back in his chair and huffed. “Then WHY have I found NO civilians with one of your pets?” This time he slapped down a paper list of names and places that clearly documented each and every business he sold animals to.
The scumbag sat there with a look of shock on his face and started to sputter out several noncommittal and contradictory statements. ALl the while Frio stared at his “friend” with more and more disgust. Eventually Genseng just sighed, stood up, and shouted. "GUN! HES GOT A GUN! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!” and bolted for the back door as screaming began to fill the room
Frio just casually stood up and watched that douchebag flee! He pulled out his badge and announced to the crowd. “FALSE ALARM! FALSE ALARM! OFFICER FRIOTETZALI, HERE ON OFFICIAL BUSINESS OF THE AVALON CITY POLICE! REMAIN CALM YOU ARE IN NO DANGER!”
I couldn’t understand why he was just standing there as the bad guy ran away! The camera cut to Genseng who was sprinting full force down a narrow hall dodging all manner of obstacles like it was an action movie only for it to cut back to Frio slowly taking a sip of his drink!
Again it cut back Genseng huffing and wheezing as he sprinted through his own shipping operation. The only pauses he took were to open up cages causing a small whirlwind of feathers and bunnies to start in the warehouse. Yet Frio started to casually talk to the people in the room. He just slowly went around reassuring everyone that everything was fine and why he was here.
As I sat there in disbelief that he’d just let the bastard run away Genseng rounded a corner to see his getaway truck. Only to step around the corner and get punched squarely in the gut by Iloralia who was hiding there.
“Come on Genseng? Couldn’t you do something original? This is starting to get boring!” Ilo extended a cattle prod and let the end buzz with electricity as an Extermination Officer van pulled up behind her.
The Gojid let out raspy breaths. “Should have- … figured- … he’d send his- … BITCH! To wait in the alley!” The sleazy man sucked that insult back in when Ilo pressed the business end of her cattle prod to his throat.
“Shut the fuck up. You have the right to remain silent, but for your sake… I hope you’re smart enough to use it!” Ilo’s tail waved behind her with delight as Sephon climbed out of the van with a Gojid arrestor vest to cover Genseng’s quills and bind his arms.
I jumped as the video smash-cut to Sephon slamming down piece after piece of evidence on an interrogation room table in front of a nervous Gojid and his exhausted human lawyer. The angelic Tasamine sat on her perch gently drinking some tea as our perturbed Venlil explained each and every paper and photo that he threw on the table.
“Finally we have you on felony tax evasion. You do know you have to declare ALL sources of income right?” Genseng sheepishly looked to his lawyer, who just sat there with a defeated look on his face. “You are looking at forty years behind bars for this Genseng! FORTY!”
Tasamine let her voice coo out over her cup of tea. “We aren’t going to do you any favours over the tax stuff. The IRS is over our jurisdiction on that, BUT we are prepared to drop the rest of the charges.”
Genseng’s lawyer appeared to wake up in an instant and elbowed his client before he could open his filthy mouth. “So what do you want from my client in return for dropping the charges you have against him?”
Tas let out a little smile that set butterflies to flight in my stomach. “We want everyone that Tas sold animals to. And we do mean EVERYONE.”
Sephon started to pace back and forth as the Gojid and lawyer talked amongst themselves. Eventually Genseng relented and turned to our heroes. “Ok… SO I technically never really sold to a person per say… BUT I kept really good papers on all the businesses I did sell to!”
The conversation started to dull out as the camera began to pan back and into the observation room with Frio, Ilo, and a rather small Mazic. Frio stood stoically silent, his paw held gently under his jaw, lost in thought. Ilo was typing away on the computer crosschecking every business Genseng sold out.
The Mazic took a step forward. His badge now clearly showing that he was the Chief of the Avalon City Police. “I know those businesses… Why would he be selling pets to…” The Chief huffed and stormed out of the observation room leaving Frio and Ilo slightly confused only to watch with an ounce of shock as the Police Chief walked into the interrogation room.
“YOU FUCKING IDIOT! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU HAVE DONE?” Genseng recoiled away from the angry Chief as his lawyer was trying to figure out what was happening. “YOU HAVE BEEN SELLING HUMAN PETS AS FOOD TO HUMANS! YOU KNOW LESS THAN ONE PERCENT OF HUMANS EVEN EAT ONCE-LIVE MEAT! EVERYONE KNOWS THAT! MOST HUMANS GET VIOLENTLY ILL AT THE THOUGHT OF IT AND STRAIGHT VIOLENT IF TRICKED INTO IT! IF THIS GETS OUT THERE WILL BE RIOTS!”
Genseng’s lawyer slowly looked to his client with a look of anger and despair plastered on his face. The sleazy man just kinda shrugged. “I didn’t make them buy it!”
“BUT YOU DIDN’T TELL THEM WHERE YOU GOT THE MEAT FROM DID YOU?”
“no?”
“OF COURSE YOU DIDN’T ‘CAUSE, HOW THEN, WOULD YOU GET RID OF YOUR UNWANTED ANIMALS?”
“HEY! I’VE GOT A GUY WHO TAKES THEM IN! I MAKE SURE EVERYTHING IS HUMANE AND SAFE FOR CONSUMPTION AND ANYTHING UNWANTED GO TO THAT GUY! OK? NO MONEY TRANSACTION! … I think he ships them back to Earth or something. No unethical stuff… except maybe selling Once-live as Cloned… but that isn’t that bad! Humans only just considered Rabbits to be on par with dogs!”
The Chief of Police just stood there menacingly as the ever beautiful Tas asked a question. “Who is this man you give the animals to?”
Genseng slowly walked back to his seat. “I don’t have a name. Just some dude wearing the old face hiding masks and a Pleather trench coat. Kinda creepy and usually lets the fat Venlil do the talking, but they scratch my back I scratch thier’s.”
The screen faded to black before coming back to their conference room and joined by the Chief of Police. “So you think this individual is the same one behind the Sheep Operation?”
Ilo sat up in her chair. “It seems to meet up with his M.O. of undermining food production.”
Tas brought a pair of population maps up on their projector. “Just looking at the before and after, the invasive rabbit population was miniscule at best. We had been doing a great job of catching them faster than they could repopulate. At least until their population unpredictably exploded into the hundreds of thousands.”
She swapped out the maps for a single one that showed several areas circled in red. “DNA testing on the rabbits has shown that they aren’t spreading naturally. One population has no genetic relation to the others even though their areas overlap. It has to be someone introducing rabbits in waves to different locals.”
The Chief slowly shook his head. “Do we have any clues as to where the masked man is?”
Frio’s tail curled in delight. “Why yes! Yes we do! He has a meetup with my good buddy Genseng who desperately doesn’t want to spend the next forty years in jail.”
The small Mazic let out a low and insidious laugh “OH! I think I know where you are going with this. You have my support. Let's get this sting operation set up!”
In an instant the day flew by and night rose over the docks of Avalon City. Genseng drove down the roads and pulled around the corner of a large warehouse situated nearby. The sleazy man looked oddly calm. I wouldn’t be surprised if this isn’t his first time ratting.
Overlooking the docks from the warehouse was our team of heroes. Tas had set up a network of monitors and was observing the operation. Several disguised vans were parked nearby filled with Extermination Officers all biting to get a hold of their quarry.
Frio walked over and placed a paw on Tasamine’s wing, before speaking into a recorder. “Looking good Gen. Looks like I misplaced the paperwork on those charges. Get through this and I won’t have time to go looking for it!”
Gen let out a small chuckle. “Hey Frio… Do you miss when we were kids? Getting into trouble. Scraping enough money together to buy lunch when our parents couldn’t afford to feed us?”
Frio took a step back from the monitors. “You said that in a really weird way… but yeah. Just the two of us. Sometimes we were delinquents scamming someone out of five credits and sometimes we were the heroes helping people out. Guess we took different paths…”
The greasy Gojid leaned back in the driver seat of his van. “I- … I am kinda tired of living Frio… It’s just… One deal after another with barely enough money to get from one job to the next… Do- … Do you think I could get a job working with you guys?”
It almost looked like Frio was going to cry as his eyes watered up. “Well… we are a man down at the moment, but my team only hires experienced individuals. It would be hard work, but if you joined as an apprentice and applied yourself… I think you could make it.”
Genseng sat and fiddled with his paws for a few moments. “Even with my arrest record?”
“We are the Exterminators not the City Police. I doubt there isn’t a single one of us that hasn't done something that would get us blacklisted by them!”
Gen let out a light laugh. “Ah good point! They hired you! Well I’d- Wait. He's here.”
A long black limousine pulled up around the corner. Slowly and silently stopping beside them. Frio took a step back. “Alright everyone. It's go time. Gen, get ready to duck down if they open fire.”
With almost perfect unison every unmarked van and cruiser lit up with Yellow and Orange lights and started to race towards the Limo. But with a heart stopping ‘BWOOOOOM’ the Limo exploded into an inferno, sending metal flying through the docks at high speeds.
Gen’s voice screamed over the radio for a brief moment before falling silent.
The next sounds we heard were of a heart monitor. Frio sat at the bedside of what I assumed to be Genseng. His body was covered entirely in bandages, with tubes running into his head and arms. Wires tracked his vital signs and, while steady, didn’t look like they broadcasted good news.
Frio looked up to see Ilo leaning in the doorway. “The limo was automated. No one on board. Mask either knew it was a setup or intended to end Genseng one way or the other.” She slowly walked over to Frio and nuzzled the side of his head. “I talked with the Doctors. They think he’ll make it. Might be a few years, and he will have to learn how to do most things, but he will live.”
Ilo forced her way into awkwardly cuddling Frio. After a small moment of resisting he accepted the embrace and leaned back. “How are we on tracking down the leads?”
She somehow managed to wrap herself around Frio as she quietly responded. “The limo was a dead end. Everything was bought from scrap and assembled off-grid. Camera networks were wiped clean enough that even Tas couldn’t scrape something off of the hard drives. DNA results on the rabbits gave us enough to work with Earth and track down the suppliers on that side, but they were using Genseng as a scapegoat and intermediary for all of it. I don’t think he even realized that the man he was ‘giving’ rabbits to was the man that arranged for him to be able to buy them in the first place.”
Frio wrapped his arms around her. “So this whole operation was basically a money laundering scam with rabbits. They scarred him for life just to- to-” Tears ran down his cheeks as the pair embraced each other. The credits started to roll over the sounds of a heart monitor slowly pinging on. Gentle sobbing slowly faded away as the sound of claws on tile echoed through the speakers.
A rather portly Venlil was flanked on both sides by massive looking dogs. Sylvan’s Dad pointed out those where Karelian Bear Dogs. Bred to actually hunt one of Earth’s apex predators. The Fat Venlil, or Chublil as Sylvan said, walked into an immaculate office, where a man with a silvered mask and brown trench coat sat.
“Sir? Operation Clean House is over. The results are one Gojid launderer hospitalized. He is expected to recover in a few years. When the exterminators watching him clear out an agent will enter with an air-filled syringe and fake death by heart-attack. As you expected the last meetup was a sting operation. Police remain slightly aware of your presence.”
A robotic voice came from the man. “Good work Gavreg. Did you enjoy your trip to Earth?”
“Yessir. You were right. Bear meat is simply divine when prepared correctly.”
WHAT THE FUCK. WHY WOULD HE KNOW WHAT THAT TASTES LIKE?!?
“Glad to hear it. As for the Gojid, I think he’s gotten the message on what happens to people who cross us. Send him a normal fruit basket when he regains consciousness. Have it say… Sorry you got fired! Take a siesta!”
“Very well sir. Just to be clear, hold off on permanently silencing him?”
“Hrm… Yes. He was always amusing to work with.”
“Very well sir. If there is nothing else, I shall take my leave.”
The Fat Venlil turned and walked out of the room. Ending the episode and leaving the three of us sitting on the couch.
“You know Loural is going to throw a fit if she finds out we let both Sylvan and Henry watch this!”
I wasn’t proud but at least the humans screamed louder than I did.
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Special thanks to u/Dinomannick for the prompt
"I got a few ideas for the show. How about a few episodes have them dealing with invasive earth species on alien worlds, brought there for zoos, rich blokes pet, criminals, whatever. They have either catch or kill all of them before their establishing breeding populations and have the cane toad/rabbit problem like down-under. Think it might be interesting enough for future space TV?"
I hope this lived up to your expectations, and the bunny boom won't be relegated to just this episode either.
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Links are still broken cause reddit is more like brokeit... Will get around to fixing them soon, real life has been kinda hectic
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Previous!

A friend and I are visiting Atlantic City this upcoming weekend and we have a couple of questions.
Are there any hidden gems you'd suggest we check? (Especially a pretty view!) What are the restrictions on marijuana use in the city and are there any individual venues that are less centered around alcohol? Are there any good hiking opportunities around AC? Any tips for keeping the seagulls at bay on the boardwalk, if they are as bold as we've been told? Is there anything particularly fun or exciting going on this weekend? Is Lucy, the Elephant, worth seeing as an adult or is it more for families? Those eyes are kind of freaking me out. 😅
Thanks in advance for any advice you may have to offer. ☀️❤️

My family and I, 43 female, had been planning a trip to the happiest place on earth for almost a year for thanksgiving 2022. Since we booked a condo and had extra room-we invited my little brother and sister in law to be to go with us too. They’re both 25 I only mention this because I think it affects the story.
So fast forward to the Fall. We lose our other brother to deteriorating health. Although not completely unexpected-he was still my little brother and it was avoidable so it was absolutely devastating. I said then we should reschedule the trip-my dad insisted that the kids had been waiting for this and my brother wouldn’t have wanted that. So we pushed through.
It’s just my dad, so I took on the role as the oldest sibling as I usually do, and planned his entire memorial. I didn’t give myself a chance to process until it was over. And when I did I fell completely apart. To the point that I had to voluntarily admit myself into the hospital. We were now a WEEK out from our trip! My sis in law was packing as I was getting medicated!I know BIZARRE!! My sweet husband handled all the last minute trip items while he spoke to my doctors and they assured him I would be ok and I just needed to get a few meds and grief takes time, etc. So we moved forward with the trip. And I’m glad we did…for the most part.
So I get out, I turn around and pack to leave two days later. We’re traveling with myself and spouse, my brother and sis in law, my 12 year old Star Wars fanatic of a kid, meeting our foreign exchange student from a previous year in Orlando, and my special needs sister who lives with us. All of us in a condo and a week in the parks. I’m sure this sounds like we’re crazy already right?! But- We arrive at our destination, spend several wonderful days in both big theme parks and have a wonderful time!
Until day five. The plan was for us to take the Star Wars nut to Star Wars and my brother to take my sister for the morning/early afternoon. I assumed we’d meet up by lunch or something. Communication isn’t easy when you’re 1-having a great time 2-on and off rides 3-in a crowded theme park. So there was a miscommunication on when we were meeting up let’s just say that.
Brother & sis in law wanted to ride a ride that had a long wait time. When I called to check on when and where to meet they told me they’d left my special needs sister at the exit to the ride and were in line to ride it. They said they left her w/food and a drink and she’d be fine. Now the last time I checked the wait time on that ride it said 3 hours-so I FLIPPED out! I yelled something at him over the phone half in hysterics and raced across the entire park, to the exit to find my sister. I found her! My husband, kid and exchange student met up with us later and all was fine, thank god. But I was Infuriated and shocked that he would do this. And my mama bear (mom of 3 plus 1) kicked in. When we met up with them he was mad I hung up on him?! I exploded!!! Yes, in public, at the happiest place on earth. And so there we were being an embarrassment. He walked away because he wasn’t going to be a part of it, my sister in law started crying because she couldn’t find him-it was a cluster fuck!
Late that night back at the condo, they all left so we could us try to talk it out. And instead of making things better I threw some below the belt comments that I don’t think I did intentionally, but I was an emotional mess at the time and he was an explosive bear by this point. And It was UGLY! It ended up with them taking our shared rental car staying in a hotel the last day and not even going to the parks and leaving on a different flight. :(
I know we both could’ve handled it better; but little brother is the age of my oldest son! So I know I’m the adultier adult. We have NEVER fought like this! Our family doesn’t DO this! We were SO close, his gf and I like sisters. He was like all that I have left and we haven't spoken since. I know we were both assholes! I want them back, like how things used to be. There’s a hole in my heart and I miss them so much! Is there any hope?!