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There were cats in the barn. Litters begetting litters begetting litters—some thin or misshapen with the afflictions of blood too many times remixed.
"Get rid of the damn things," August's father said. "The haymow smells like piss. Take a tire iron or a shovel or whatever tool suits you. You've been after me for school money? I'll give you a dollar a tail. You have your jackknife sharp? You take their tails and pound them to a board, and then after a few days we'll have a settling up. Small tails worth as much as large tails, it's all the same."
The cats—calicos, tabbies, dirty white, gray, jet black, and tawny—sat among the hay bales scratching and yawning like indolent apes inhabiting the remains of a ruined temple. August had never actually killed a cat before, but, like most farm boys, he had engaged in plenty of casual acts of torture. Cats, as a species, retained a feral edge, and as a result were not subject to the rules of husbandry that governed man's relation with horses or cows or dogs. August figured that somewhere along the line cats had struck a bargain—they knew they could expect to feel a man's boot if they came too close; in return, they kept their freedom and nothing much was expected of them.
A dollar a tail. August thought of the severed appendages, pressed and dried, stacking up like currency in the teller drawer of some strange Martian bank. He could earn fifty dollars at least, maybe seventy-five, possibly even a hundred if he was able to track down the newborn litters.
He went to the equipment shed to look for weapons. It was a massive structure, large enough to fit a full-sized diesel combine, made of metal posts skinned with corrugated sheet metal. August often went there when it rained. He thought it was like being a small creature trapped inside a percussion instrument. The fat drops of rain would hit the thin metal skin in an infinite drumroll, punctuated by the clash of lightning cymbals and the hollow booming of space.
In the shed there was a long, low workbench covered in the tangled intestine of machinery: the looping coils of compressor hoses, hydraulic arms leaking viscous fluid, batteries squat and heavy, baling twine like ligaments stitching the whole crazy mess together, tongue-and-ball trailer knobs, Mason jars of rusting bolts and nuts and screws, a medieval-looking welder's mask, and, interspersed among the other wreckage like crumpled birds, soiled leather gloves in varying stages of decomposition. August picked up a short length of rusted, heavy-linked logging chain and swung it a few times experimentally before discarding it. He put on a pair of too-large gloves and hefted a mower blade the size of a broadsword, slicing slow patterns in the air, before discarding it, too. Then he uncovered a three-foot-long torque wrench with a slim stainless-steel handle that swelled at the end into a glistening and deadly crescent head. He brought the head down into his glove several times to hear the satisfying whack. He practiced a few horrendous death-dealing swing techniques—the sidearm golf follow-through, the overhead back-crushing axe chop, the short, quick, line-drive baseball checked swing—the wrench head making ragged divots in the hard-packed dirt floor. He worked up a light sweat and then shouldered his weapon, put the gloves in his back pocket, and went to see his mother.
The old house was set back against a low, rock-plated hill. A year-round spring wept from the face of the rock, and the dampness of it filled the house with the smell of wet leaves and impending rain. The house was a single-level ranch, low-slung, like a dog crouching to avoid a kick. August's mother's parents had built the house with their own hands and lived in it until they died. The old house looked up at the new house, the one August's father had finished the year August turned one. The new house was tall, with a sharp-peaked roof. It had white shutters, a full wraparound porch. August's grandparents had both died shortly before he was born, and the first thing his father had done when the farm became his was sell fifty acres of fallow pasture and build the new house.
"He feels like it's his own," August's mother had said to him once, while smoking at the dining-room table of the new house. "His people didn't have much. Everything we got came from my side, you know. He would never admit it in a hundred years, but it bothers him." She coughed. "It's too big. That was my complaint from the get-go. It's hard to heat, too, exposed up on the hill like this; the wind gets in everywhere. My father would never have done it like that. He built the best possible house for himself and my mother. That's the type of man he was."
August tapped on the front door a few times with the wrench, then went inside. The old house had been built by folks interested in efficiency, not landscape, and its windows were few and small. The kitchen was dimly lit by a single shaft of light that came through the window above the sink. The room smelled like frying bacon, and the radio was on. Paul Harvey was extolling the virtues of a Firmness Control Sleep System. At my age there are few things I appreciate more than a night of restful sleep. Get this mattress. It was dreamed up by a team of scientists. It's infinitely adjustable. Your dreams will thank you.
"Augie, my fair son, how does the day find you?"
His mother was at the kitchen table playing solitaire. A pan of sliced potatoes fried with pieces of bacon and onion sat next to her ashtray. She smoked Swisher Sweet cigarillos, and a thin layer of smoke undulated above her head like a flying carpet waiting for a charge to transport.
"I made lunch, and it smelled so good while it was cooking, but then I found myself suddenly not hungry. I don't know, I may have finally broken through."
August pulled out a chair and sat across from his mother at the small table. "Broken through to what?" he said.
"Oh, I didn't tell you? I've been devoting myself to a new teaching." She stubbed out the cigarillo and shook another from the pack sitting on the table, a fine network of lines appearing around her mouth as she pursed her lips to light it. Her nails were long and gray, her fingertips jaundiced with tobacco stain. "Yeah," she continued, "I've become an inediate."
"A what?"
"An inediate—you know, a breatharian?"
"I don't know what that is."
"Air eaters? Sky swallowers? Ether ingesters?"
"You can attune your mind and your body, Augie. Perfectly attune them by healthy living and meditation, so that you completely lose the food requirement. I mean, it's not just that you're not hungry. That's not too hard. I'm talking about getting to the point where all you have to do is breathe the air and you're satisfied. You get full and you never have to eat. And you can survive that way, happy as a clam." She took a sip of coffee, smoke dribbling from her nose after she swallowed. "That's what I've been working on."
She pushed the pan of potatoes and bacon toward him, and August ate some even though Lisa had told him she would make him a sandwich when she got up from the barn. The potatoes were greasy and good, the bacon little pieces of semi-charred saltiness, the onions soft, translucent, and sweet. August ate, then wiped his hands on his jeans and put his wrench on the table for his mother to see.
"Dad gave me a job," he said. "For money."
"Oh, well, I'm proud to hear it. Did you negotiate a contract? Set a salary-review option pending exemplary performance?"
"No, I'm just killing the cats in the barn."
"I see. And this is your Excalibur?" She tinked the chrome-handled wrench with her fingernail.
"Yeah. It's a torque wrench."
She made a low whistle and coughed softly into the back of her hand. "It's a big job, Augie. Is he paying you upon completion or piecemeal?"
"I'm taking the tails. We're going to settle up at the end of the week."
"Grisly work, son. That's the kind of work you stand a chance of bringing home with you, if you know what I mean."
"The haymow smells like piss. It's getting real bad."
"This is gruesome, even for your father. Jesus." She looked down blankly at the cards in front of her. "I keep forgetting where I'm at with this." She gathered up her game, her nails scrabbling to pick the cards up off the Formica. "I can go only so far with solitaire before I get stumped. You ever win?"
"I never play."
"I suppose it's a game for old women."
"You're not old."
"If I'm not, then I don't want to feel what old is like."
"Are you ever going to come back to the new house?"
"You can tell him no, if you want. About the cats—you don't have to do it."
"She's been staying over."
"I found all Grandma's old quilts. They were in a trunk in the back closet. Beautiful things. She made them all; some of them took her months. All of them hand-stitched. I never had the patience. She used to make me sit there with her for hours, learning the stitches. I'll show them to you if you want."
"Sure. I should get to work now, though."
"Next time, then."
August ate a few more potatoes and stood up.
"I wish you Godspeed," his mother said, coaxing another cigarillo from the pack with her lips. "May your arrows fly true."
"I don't have any arrows."
"I know. It's just an old Indian saying." She blew smoke at him. "I don't care about the cats," she said, smiling in such a way that her mouth didn't move and it was all in her eyes. "I look at you and it's clear as day to me that he hasn't won."
The barn was empty. His dad and Lisa were out rounding up the cows for milking. August put on his gloves and wedged the wrench down under his belt and climbed the wooden ladder up to the haymow.
Half-blind in the murk, wrinkling his nose at the burning ammonia stench of cat piss, he crushed the skull of the first pale form that came sidling up to him. He got two more in quick succession, and then there was nothing but hissing from the rafters, green-gold eyes glowing and shifting among the hulking stacks of baled hay. August tried to give chase. He clambered over the bales, scratching his bare arms and filling his eyes and ears and nose with the dusty chaff of old hay. But the cats were always out of reach, darting and leaping from one stack to the next, climbing the joists to the rafters, where they faded into the gloom. August imagined them up there, a seething furry mass, a foul clan of fanged wingless bats clinging to a cave roof. This was going to be harder than he had thought.
August inspected his kills. A full-sized calico and two grays, thin and in bad shape, patches of bare skin showing through their matted fur. He pitched them down the hay chute and climbed after them. On ground level, he took a deep breath of the comparatively sweet manure-scented air and fished his knife from his pocket. He picked up the first cat by the tail and severed it at the base, dropping the carcass on the cement with a wet thud. He dealt similarly with the other two cats, pitched them all in the conveyor trough, and went looking for a hammer. By the time he returned to the barn, his father and Lisa had the cows driven in and stanchioned in their stalls. The radio was on, loud enough that Paul Harvey's disembodied voice could be heard above the muttering of the cows and the drone of the compressor. I don't know about you-all, but I have never seen a monument erected to a pessimist.
August nailed his three tails on a long pine board and propped it up in the corner of the barn, where it wouldn't get knocked over by cows milling in and out. He could hear his father doing something in the milk room. He passed Lisa on his way out of the barn. She was leaning on a shovel and spitting sunflower seeds into the dirt. She had on blue overalls and muck boots, and her frizzy blond hair was tamed into a ponytail that burst through the hole in the rear of her seed co-op cap.
"Hi, August," she said, scooping seeds out of her lower lip and thwacking them into the dirt at her feet. "You didn't come up to the house for lunch."
"Yeah. I ate at the old house with my mom."
"Oh, O.K. I'm going to stick around tonight. I think I'll make some tacos for you guys for dinner. Sound good?"
August looked at her face, her round, constantly red cheeks. She called it rosacea, a skin condition. It made her seem to exist in a state of perpetual embarrassment. He wondered if she'd been teased about it at school.
She was only seven years older than he was and had graduated from the high school last year. August's father had hired her in her senior year to help him with the milking. She'd worked before school and after school and on weekends. August's father had said that she worked harder than any hired man he'd ever had. Now that she was done with school, she put in full days. She could drive a tractor with a harrow, she could muck out the barn, she could give antibiotic shots to the cows, and when the calving season came she could plunge her hands in up to her wrists to help a difficult calf come bawling into the world.
"Crunchy shells or soft shells?" August said, knocking at the toes of his boots with the wrench.
"I like crunchy."
"Well, I'll see what you guys have in the cupboards, but I bought some soft ones already."
"Flour or corn?"
"Flour, I think."
"I like corn." August spat at his feet, but his mouth was dry, so the spit trailed out on his chin and he wiped at it with the back of his sleeve.
"I asked your dad what kind he wanted and he said it didn't matter."
"He likes the crunchy shells, too. Trust me. Do you make them with beans or without?"
Lisa hesitated for a moment and tugged at the brim of her cap. "Which do you prefer?" she said.
"Well, that depends."
"I bought some black beans. I usually put some of those in. But I don't have to."
"I like beans. But I don't eat black beans. I think they look like rabbit turds. My dad thinks that, too."
"O.K., I'll leave those out, then. Sound good?" The red on Lisa's cheeks had spread. A crimson blush was leaching down her neck all the way to the collar of her barn overalls.
"All right, August, see you at dinner. Your dad's probably wondering where I got off to. We have to get these cows taken care of." Lisa headed into the barn, and August wandered out to the back pasture, swinging his wrench at stalks of burdock and thistle, stepping around the thick plots of fresh manure.
He climbed the low hill before the tree line on the property's boundary and sat next to the pile of rocks that marked Skyler's grave. There was a slightly bent sassafras stick, with the bark whittled off, jutting up from the rocks. It was all that was left of a cross August had fashioned from two such sticks lashed together with a piece of old shoelace. This was a gesture August had seen performed in all the old Westerns he watched with his father. Whenever a gunslinger went down, his buddies erected a cross just like that. During the course of the past year, the sun had rotted August's old shoelace so that the crosspiece had fallen off, leaving just the vertical stick pointing up at the sky like a crooked, accusatory finger.
Skyler had been his birth dog. His father had brought the tiny six-week-old pup home when August had been out of the hospital less than a week. It was something that August's father said his own father had done for him. He thought that it was good for a boy to have a dog to grow up with. And, against August's mother's objections, he'd put the soft, pug-faced shepherd mix in the crib with August—"to get acquainted," he said. "A boy with a dog is healthier, more active." And it seemed true. August had been a particularly sturdy baby, a bright, energetic boy who grew up with a shaggy, tongue-lolling, good-natured four-legged shadow.
At twelve, Skyler had been in remarkably good shape, a little stiff in the mornings but by noon harassing the barn cats like a dog half his age. But then, one day after school, August didn't see him anywhere in the barn or the yard. He went to the equipment shed and found him stretched out on his side with a greenish-blue froth discoloring his grayed muzzle. He'd chewed through a gallon jug of antifreeze that August's father kept under the workbench.
August and his father had carted the body up to the hill and taken turns with the pickaxe and shovel. When they'd finished they stood and regarded the cairn of rocks they'd stacked over the raw earth to keep the skunks out.
"I guess twelve is as good an age as any," his father had said. At the time, August thought he was talking about the dog. Later, he thought maybe his father had meant that twelve was as good an age as any for a boy to lose a thing he loved for the first time.
August watched the sky in the west become washed in dusky, pink-tinged clouds. Unbidden came the thought of Lisa, the crimson in her cheeks that spread like a hot infection down her neck and shoulders and back and arms, all the way to her legs. That this was the case wasn't mere supposition. He'd seen it.
It had been an early-dismissal day the previous fall. August, off the bus and out of his school clothes, eating a piece of cake from the new house, wandered down to the barn, the air sharp with the acrid tang of the oak leaves his father had been burning in the front yard. The pile smoldered; there was no one around. Skyler slept in the shade of a stock tank. The cows were yoked up in their stanchions. The whole barn was full of the low rumble of suction, the automatic milkers chugging away.
And then, through the open doorway of the grain room, there was his father, thrusting behind Lisa, who was bent over a hay bale, her cheek and forearms pressed down into the cut ends of the hay. Their overalls were around their legs like shed exoskeletons, as if they were insects emerging, their conjoined bodies larval, soft and mottled. August saw the flush of Lisa then, the creeping red that extended all the way down her back to her thick thighs and her spread calves. She had her underwear pulled down around her knees, and its brilliant lacy pinkness was a glaring insult to the honest, flyspecked gray and manure-brown of the barn.
On his way out, August turned the barn radio up as loud as it would go. Golf, Paul Harvey was saying, is a game in which you yell "Fore," shoot six, and write down five.
At the dinner table, Lisa and August's father each had a beer. Lisa cut a lime wedge and jammed it down the neck of her bottle, and August's father said, what the hell, he might try it like that, too. They smiled at each other and clinked their bottles together and drank, and August watched the lime wedges bobbing in the bottles like floats in a level held on a surface that was out of true. When they'd finished eating, August's father leaned back in his chair and belched mightily, his rough, calloused fingers shredding the paper napkin as he wiped taco juice from his hands.
"Best meal I've had in a while. Thanks, Lisa."
Lisa smiled and said, "You're welcome, Darwin. I'm glad you liked it."
"I got three cats today," August said to break up their stupid smiling competition. "I did it with a wrench. Right in the head. They never knew what happened." Out of the corner of his eye he could see Lisa wrinkle her nose slightly.
His father finished his beer and piled his fork and knife and napkin on his plate. He was a large man; all his joints seemed too big—hard, knobby wrists and knuckles, his hands darkened from the sun up to the point where his shirt cuffs lay. He was forty-five years old and still had a full head of hair, dark brown, just starting to gray at the temples. In the cold months, he liked to wear a bright silk cowboy scarf knotted around his neck. He smiled at women often, and, August noticed, women often smiled back. His mother used to say that for a guy with manure on his boots he could be fairly charming.
"Come on, now, Augie. I gave you a job and I appreciate you getting right down to it. But there's barn talk and there's house talk. I'm sure Lisa wouldn't mind a little house talk now. How about you clear the table and clean up the dishes. And why don't you thank Lisa for making that delicious meal? She worked all day and then came up to do that for us."
"Thanks," August said, and scooted his chair back loudly. He stacked the dishes into a precarious pile and carried them off to the kitchen. He ran the water until steam rose and squirted in soap until the bubbles grew in great tumorous mounds, and then he did the dishes. Clanking plate against plate, banging pot against pot, running the water unnecessarily, making as much noise as possible to cover the low murmur of Lisa and his father talking in the next room.
Through the kitchen window he could see the murky green cast of the yard light, the hulking form of the barn, and, farther out, the long, low shape of the old house, completely dark. When his father came in to get two more beers, August didn't turn around to look at him. He stood next to August at the sink and took the tops off the bottles. He nudged August with an elbow, and August scrubbed at a pan, ignoring him.
"How's your mother?"
August shrugged.
"I'm not going to run her down, Augie, but she's not a woman that will ever give you her true mind. You know what I mean?"
August shrugged.
"She's been disappointed her whole life, probably came out of the womb that way. You don't disappoint her, I know that, but everything else does—me included, always have, always will. She never learned to hold herself accountable. That's the way her parents allowed her to grow up. She's very smart and she thinks she sees things I don't see, but she's wrong, I'll tell you that. I see plenty. You hear me?"
August swirled a cup in the dishwater and didn't say anything. His father slapped him on the back of the head.
"I said, you hear me?"
"Yeah. I hear you." August looked straight ahead out the window.
"O.K., then." He reached into the dishwater, came up with a handful of suds, and smeared them on August's cheek. "You're all right," he said. "When you think it's time, you let me know and we'll go find you a pup."
In the morning, the smells of toast and coffee and bacon pulled August from his bed before the sun had even hit the east-facing window. He clumped down the stairs into the kitchen and sat at the table rubbing his eyes. Lisa stood at the stove making eggs. Her feet were bare and she had on the gray long underwear she wore under her barn overalls. They were made for men and were tight around her hips, and when she bent over to get the butter out of the refrigerator August could see the faint lines of her panties curving across her full rear.
"Would you like coffee, August?" August nodded, and she put a steaming mug in front of him. "I figure you like it black, like your dad does?"
"Sure," he said, taking a sip, trying not to grimace. "Black and strong."
His mother mixed his coffee with hot whole milk, dumping in heaping spoonfuls of sugar. She told him that was how she'd learned to make coffee when she lived in New Orleans, in another lifetime, before she married his father. August knew that Lisa would never go to New Orleans in a million lifetimes.
His father came from the bedroom. He had a dab of shaving foam under one earlobe. He put his hand on Lisa's waist as he got a coffee mug from the cupboard, and she turned and wiped off the shaving foam with her sleeve.
"How long before the eggs are done?" August asked, tapping his fingers on the tabletop.
"A few minutes. The bacon is almost ready."
August sighed, downed his coffee, and took a piece of toast from the plate on the counter. "Well," he said, "some of us can't sit around. I have to get to work."
He got his wrench from the mudroom and slid on his boots, leaving them unlaced, and walked across the lawn with his boot tongues flapping like dogs breathing in the heat. The cows were milling in the pasture, gathered up close to the gate. They rolled their dumb baleful eyes at him and lowed, their udders straining and heavy with milk.
"Shut up, you idiots," August said. He picked a small handful of pebbles and continued to walk, pelting any cow within reach.
The trees that lined the back pasture were old oaks and maples and a few massive beech trees, the ground around them covered with the scattered, spiny shells of their nuts. There was a barbed-wire fence strung across the trees. It was rusted and had been mended many times, so old that it had become embedded in the trunks. August walked down the line and ran his fingers over the rough oaks and maples and the gray crêpe of the beeches, with their bark that looked like smooth, hairless hide stretched over muscle. He let his fingers linger on the places where the wire cut into the trunks, and then he knelt and sighted all the way down the fence, squinting into the strengthening light, and imagined that he was looking at a row of gnarled old people, the soft skin of their necks garrotted by barbed wire, the twisted branches like arms raised, fingers splayed, trembling and clutching for air.
Until last year, August had assisted with the milking every morning before school and every evening after school, and then his mother forbade it.
"Do you like helping your father with the milking?" she asked one evening as they cleaned up the dinner dishes. His father was on the porch listening to a baseball game, and the sound of the play-by-play came through the screen door, garbled and frantic. The announcer spat hoarsely, A hard line drive—he's going, he's going, he's going.
"I don't mind it too much," August said, wiping a plate dry. "Most of the time I like it."
"Huh, well, that's a problem," his mother said. She had a cigarette tucked into the corner of her mouth and ash drifted into the dishwater as she spoke. "You'll be in high school soon, you know. And then there'll be girls. They're going to find you so handsome. And then there'll be college, and then there'll be any life you want after that. This is just a small piece, Augie, and if you hate it you should know that soon you'll be making your own way."
"But I said I don't hate it, Mom."
"Jesus. I really hope you don't mean that. Getting up early, the shitty cows, the dullness?"
"What about it?"
"My God, Augie, look at me and tell me you don't hate it." She turned to him and held his chin with her soapy hand and her cigarette trembled, and August tried but couldn't tell if she was serious and about to cry or joking and about to laugh.
"I don't hate anything. It's fine. I like everything fine."
"You're serious?"
"Then I'm disappointed in you," she said, turning back to the dishes. "But I suppose it's my fault, for letting it go on. I'm going to talk to your father. Your barn days are coming to an end. I'll finish up here. Go and listen to the game with your dad."
On the porch, his father was in the rocker, his legs stretched out long in front of him. He nodded at August as he sat on the step.
We're going into extra innings. Hang on as we pause for station identification. You're not going to want to miss this. The radio crackled and an ad for a used-car lot came on. Bats flew from the eaves, and August threw pebbles to make them dive, and then the game came back on and Cecil Fielder won it all for the Tigers on a long sacrifice fly to center field. August looked at his father. He was slumped in the chair with his eyes closed and his hands clasped together over his chest.
"Night," August said, getting up to go inside.
His father yawned and stretched. "Night," he said.
Later, his parents' arguing had kept him awake, and the next morning his father didn't roust him for the day's milking, and soon after that Lisa was always around, and not long after that his mother started spending time at the old house. At first, just a few nights a week, and then one morning she didn't come back to make breakfast, and his father burned the toast and slammed the door on his way to the barn.
August tied his boots. He climbed up to the haymow and surprised two cats that had been intently pawing at a dead sparrow on the hay-littered floor. He broke one's back with a quick chop of the wrench and stunned the other with a jab to the head. The cats were indistinct as they writhed, blurred in the gloom. August silenced their yowling with two more sharp blows from the wrench, and then gave chase to a few more slinking forms that eluded him by leaping to join their wailing, spitting clan in the rafters.
August didn't curse much. His father always said that no one took a man who cursed too much seriously and it was better to be the type of man who, when he did curse, made everyone else sit up and take notice.
Now, however, in the dark barn with the hay dander swirling around his face and the cats twitching and bristling out of reach above him, he cursed.
"Motherfucker," he said. "Motherfucking, cocksucking, shitfaced, goddam, fucking cats."
It was the most curse words he'd ever strung together, and he hoped the cats were sitting up to take notice, trembling in fear at the rain of fire that was about to be visited upon their mangy heads.
At the old house, his mother had the blinds drawn. She had cut a ragged hole in a quilt, pulled it over her head, and belted it around her waist, poncho style. Her arms stuck out, bare, and the quilt ends trailed across the floor when she got up to let him in. With the shades drawn it was dark, and she had lit an old kerosene lamp. The flame guttered, sending up tendrils of black smoke. She had been playing solitaire. There was a fried pork chop steaming in a pan on the table.
"You want some lunch?" she said, after she had settled in her chair, smoothing the quilt down under her and over her bare legs. "I'm finished. You can have the rest." She slid the pork chop over to August. It hadn't been touched.
He took a bite. It was seared crispy on the outside and juicy and tender on the inside, quick-fried in butter and finished in the oven. That was how she always made pork chops. Lisa wouldn't know how to do this, he thought. Perhaps his father would get so fed up with Lisa's tough, dried-out pork chops that he would send her away and his mother would come back to the new house and he'd start helping his dad with the barn chores again.
"Are you still not eating?" He picked up the pork chop to gnaw at the bone, where the best-tasting meat was.
"Augie, that's a common misconception about us breatharians. I eat. Good Lord, I eat all the time. Here, actually, let me have one more bite of that." She leaned over and wafted her hand around his pork chop, bringing the smell toward her, and then took a quick hiccupping breath and smiled and leaned back in her seat. "Meat from an animal you know always has the best flavor," she said, lighting one of her little cigars. "That's something city people probably don't understand. You remember taking kitchen scraps out to that hog every night after dinner? You fed that animal, and now it feeds you. That lends a certain something to the savor—I'm sure there's a word for it in another language."
She pulled the quilt tighter around her shoulders. "Did you know that, Augie? That there are all sorts of words for things in other languages that we don't have in English? It's like your soul is tongue-tied when that happens, when you have a feeling or experience that you can't explain, because there isn't a specific word for it. If you knew all the languages in the world, you could express yourself perfectly, and all experiences would be understandable to you because you would have a word, a perfect word, to attach to any possible occasion. See what I mean?"
August was fairly certain that his mother was naked under her quilt. He wondered if there was a word for that in another language. A word to classify the feeling you get sitting across from your mother, eating a pork chop, with your mother naked under a quilt.
"I don't know," he said. "Just because you have a word to put on something doesn't mean you understand it any better. Does it?"
"Oh, I think so. Definitely. I don't think things really exist until we can name them. Without names, the world is just populated by spooks and monsters."
"Giving something a name doesn't change what it is. It's still the same thing."
"You couldn't be more wrong, Augie dear. How about death?"
"What about it?"
"What if instead of death everyone called it being born and looked forward to it as the great reward at the end of seventy or so years of slow rot on earth?"
"That doesn't make any sense. Why would anyone look forward to death?"
"Maybe you're too young for this conversation," she said, coughing into the back of her hand. "That's an interesting thought. I bet in some language there is a word for the state you exist in now—the state of being incapable of formulating a concept of, or discussing abstractly, death in all its various forms, owing to a lack of experience. You need to have someone you love die, and then you get it. All the understanding of the world comes rushing in on you like a vacuum seal was broken somewhere. I'm not saying you'll ever understand why the world works the way it does, but you'll surely come to the conclusion that it does work, and that, as a result, it will someday come to a grinding halt, because nothing can work forever. See what I mean?"
"Huh. Well, in time you will. I'm sure."
She picked up her solitaire game and shuffled the cards, splitting the deck, riffling the ends together with a brisk splat and then condensing the deck back together by making the cards bow and bridge and shush into one. August sat listening, enjoying the sound of the cards and thinking, knowing that she was wrong. He had loved someone who had died.
"How's the job coming?"
"Not great."
"Motivational issues?"
"No. They're just fast. I've been thinking about a change of tactics."
"Oh, yeah?"
"I don't know if it will work. Can I borrow some bowls?"
Lisa stayed for dinner again. August sensed that his life was now split into two distinct pieces. There was the part where Skyler was alive, where his father and mother and he had all lived in the new house, and now there was this new part, where things were foggy and indistinct. August twirled Lisa's spaghetti around on his fork and realized, for the very first time, that all of his life up to this very point existed only in the past, which meant that it didn't exist at all, not really. It might as well have been buried right there in the pasture, next to Skyler. It was dark and cool in the barn, and August switched on the radio for company. He hadn't been able to sleep, so he'd risen early, before Lisa, even, and he hadn't had breakfast and his stomach rumbled as he climbed the wooden ladder up to the haymow. He could see the faint pinpricks of stars through the knotholes and chinks of the barn planks, and then his groping fingers found the pull chain and the haymow was flooded with fluorescent light.
The floor was carpeted with twisted feline forms—tabbies, calicos, some night-black, some pure white, intermingled and lumpy and irrevocably dead. They lay like pieces of dirty laundry where they'd fallen from their perches after the tainted milk had taken its hold on their guts. August coughed and spat, slightly awed, thinking about the night before and the way the antifreeze had turned the bluish-white milk a sickly rotten green. He nudged a few of the still forms with his boot and looked toward the rafters, where there was a calico, its dead claws stuck in the joist, so that it dangled there like a shabby, moth-eaten piñata.
He pulled his shirt cuffs into his gloves against the fleas jumping everywhere and began pitching the cats down the hay chute. As he worked, the voice of Paul Harvey found its way up from the radio on the ground floor.
Just think about it. All things considered, is there any time in history in which you'd rather live than now? I'll leave you with that thought. I'm Paul Harvey, and now you know the rest of the story.
August climbed down the ladder and stepped shin deep into a pile of cats. He got out his jackknife and stropped it a few times against the side of his boot and set to work separating the cats from their tails. As he worked he pushed the cats into the conveyor trough, and when he was done he flipped the wall switch to set the belt moving. August watched the cats ride the conveyor until all of them went out of sight under the back wall of the barn. Outside, they were falling from the track to the cart on the back of the manure spreader. He didn't go out to look, but he imagined them piling up, covering the dirty straw and cow slop, a stack of forms as lifeless and soft as old fruit, furred with mold. Tomorrow, or the next day, his father would hook the cart up to the tractor and drive it to the back pasture to spread its strange load across the cow-pocked grass.
It took him a long time to nail the tails to the board and, as he pounded, the last one was already stiffening. Dawn struck as August carried the board up to the new house. In the mudroom, he stopped and listened. There was no sound coming from the kitchen, but he knew that his father and Lisa would be up soon. He leaned the board against the coatrack, directly over his father's barn boots, and regarded his work as it was, totem and trophy, altogether alien against a backdrop of lilac-patterned wallpaper.
August tried to whistle as he walked across the lawn and down the hill to the old house. He'd never got the hang of whistling. The best he could muster was a spit-laced warble. On the porch, he wiped his lips with the back of his sleeve and looked in the window. His mother was at the kitchen table. She held a card in her hand, raised, as if she were deciding her next move, but August could see that the cards in front of her were scattered across the table in disarray, a jumbled mess, as if they'd been thrown there. ♦


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Educator Resources for NailsReady to nail your next health exam? In this BrainPOP movie, Tim and Moby will teach you all about nails and how they grow! Find out about the integumentary system, and why nails belong to that category. You'll also discover why biting your nails is a bad idea, and what nails allow you to do. Find out what nails are made of, how they grow, and how much the average fingernail and toenail grows in a year - it's kind of gross thinking about it! Plus, discover why it's a good idea to keep your nails short and how to prevent hangnails and tears in your nails. Who knew your nails were so important?
Lesson Plans
Lesson plan coming soon.

subset: commoncrawl


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Ever wonder if there is a Disneyland for flowers and décor? Well, the Los Angeles Flower District is sort of like that. That place is truly magical. Seriously. From flowers to sparkly table runners, it is a budget bride's dream [Read more…]
Bridgette's Pick of the Week: Five Fab Financial Experts You Should Know
I recently checked in with brides-to-be on Instagram about the things that were most challenging about planning their wedding. One of the number one responses was staying on budget. Here are five financial resources to help any bride learn to better manage her money in the days leading up to "I Do" and well after as well.
Triple B is bigger than weddings. We're serious about providing trusted resources for and by Black brides well beyond their nuptials. because this undoubtedly helps to build stronger families and ultimately stronger communities. The five women you're about to meet are driven, fly, funny, know their ish and perhaps most important: They're not preachy. Each of them are helping me achieve my financial goals and I sincerely think they can help you and your family too. You're welcome! [Read more…]
The Road to Mrs. – Setting a Realistic Wedding Budget
Once Vlad and I settled on our wedding location, it was time to tighten up the very loose budget we had in place. Weddings are big business – big as in BILLION dollars big and I was not ready! [Read more…]
Five Easy Ways to Save Money on Your Wedding (and Honeymoon!)
We've covered this topic in various ways on several occasions but without fail it comes up with countless brides-to-be every engagement season: How can I cut costs for my wedding? So, here's our latest list for all your frugal nearlyweds. Happy Saving! [Read more…]
Say What? Nearly One Third Of Couples Pay For Their Wedding With Credit
Triple B friend and former Road to Mrs. blogger Charli Penn wrote an ESSENCE.com article that offers staggering statistics about weddings and specifically how many modern couples pay for weddings. Get this folks, a whopping 57 percent of couples borrow money from a credit card or financial institution to finance their wedding! And there are more depressing finds: [Read more…]
Tie the Knot Tuesday FLASHBACK – Kelly & Bryan
Even with the popularity of "wedspiration-friendly" platforms like Pinterest and Instagram, Triple B still gets lots of inquiries from engaged folks thirsty for ways to save money while planning their wedding — without sacrificing style. Allow us to re-introduce [Read more…]
Bridgette's Pick of the Week – Practical Ways to Save Money on Your Wedding
Searching for new ways to cut costs for your wedding day? Of course you are! Hopefully you already know that having a wedding on a weeknight (or any day other than Saturday) and during the fall or winter could be a significant cost-cutter. But there are many other methods to making your wedding dollars stretch. Check out these practical tips that are sure to help you get the most bang for your bridal buck in the tune of more than $5,000! [Read more…]
Bride-to-Be VISION BOARD WORKSHOP!
More exciting news for Triple B! We are collaborating with Your Hidden Treasure, Inc. for a very special partnership. The inaugural Bride-To-Be Vision Board Workshop will take place on March 1, 2015 in Queens, New York. [Read more…]
Bridgette's Pick of the Week – The Live Richer Challenge
As promised, the first Wednesday of the month here on Triple B is now dedicated to a financial find that can help you add more bliss to your life — regardless of your relationship status. In 2015, I am challenging myself to include even more financial resources to empower Black women and their families on BlackBridalBliss.com and boy are we kicking the year off with a bang! Whether you're saving for a wedding, a modest townhouse, a third vacation home in the South of France, building a college fund for Junior, searching for smarter ways to invest, trying to increase your credit score or just all around want to be better informed about your finances, today's Pick of the Week should definitely be on your radar: [Read more…]
Catch BlackBridalBliss.com on The Marsha & Money Radio Show!
You read that headline correctly, folks! I'm today's featured guest on The Marsha & Money Radio Show. (Remember Marsha from this post? She's a kick-a** personal financial planner and founder of The Finance Bar.) I'll be sharing expert tips and tricks on staying within your budget while wedding planning, revealing a few never before shared secrets on how I cut costs for my own Charlotte, NC nuptials and even dishing on ways to practically plan a wedding for $1,000. Be sure to grab a friend or two and take a listen. Thanks as always for your support of Triple B!
The Road to Mrs. – Romance & Finance
Being an only child, I'd never not gotten what I wanted. And being an attorney, I'd become very good at negotiating. So when my fiancé and I sat down to discuss our wedding and, most importantly, our wedding budget, I had very few worries. My vision was full of lavishness while his involved us going to the courthouse. In the end, we settled on a number that would allow me the wedding of my dreams, albeit with a much smaller guest list. His reasoning for not wanting to go overboard with the spending made absolute sense, and while I understood his point, admittedly I looked at the budget number as a suggestion — kind of the same way I look at speeding limits. [Read more…]
Bridgette's Pick of the Week – 5 Easy Ways to Have an Affordable NY Wedding
New York City is one of the most expensive places to host a wedding in the world. (The average cost of a NYC wedding for 125 guests is about $50,000.) But, if you plan ahead and are willing to wiggle a bit, you can have a memorable wedding in the Big Apple without going in debt. Seriously! Here are five things I learned while planning my own intimate NYC affair. [Read more…]
Bridgette's Pick of the Week: The Benefits of a Minimoon
Shortly after Mr. TK proposed, we made the decision to go someplace exotic (by our standards anyway) for our honeymoon. We both enjoy traveling so we wanted to do it up big. We decided on Italy, specifically southern Italy along the Amalfi Coast and Capri. However the reality was that as we got closer to our Charlotte, NC wedding celebration, we had to make the challenging decision to postpone our honeymoon until this year. Our consolation? A minimoon! [Read more…]
Bridgette's Pick of the Week – Turn Wedding Planning Activities Into Dates!
Nearlyweds if you're in the midst of wedding planning, chances are you are neck-deep in scheduling lots of tastings, venue walk-throughs and dozens of other vendor appointments. Juggling it all along with your already hectic life (because I don't know many Black women who aren't pulled into a multitude of directions) can begin to seem more like work than play. But I strongly urge you not to stay in that place and here's why. [Read more…]
How to Save Money on Your Wedding Catering
I apologize for the gaps in posts recently. Although I'm no longer wedding planning, merging my 30+ years of life with Mr. TK's is time-consuming. Wedding planning is light stuff compared to some of the decisions we're currently making. But, you are likely coming to this site because you're still in the thick of planning your own nuptials. Don't worry, I'm not going to abandon you. In fact, I am eager to share even more of my knowledge now that I've said "I Do." Below are ten ways you can trim your wedding catering expenses. Remember, food and beverage costs will eat up most of your budget so this is valuable information. Bookmark this page, forward this link to others, print this post out and stick it on your fridge — you're welcome! [Read more…]
Wedding Favors – Thoughtful or Wasteful?
Favors have become pretty standard at weddings but many couples (including myself and Mr. TK) have started to wonder if they're necessary. After much thought, we decided our wedding would be favor-free and we have no regrets. However, [Read more…]
Bridgette's Wedding Countdown: I'm Getting Married in THREE Days!
The great news: I made it to Charlotte! Hello, Bojangles and hearing folks say "reckon" regularly. I'm about as Southern as a New York gal can be so it isn't too much of a surprise to most of my friends that I wanted to jump the broom in North Carolina. Time is flying by. Here's what I have on the itinerary for today:
Bridgette's Wedding Day Countdown: I'm Getting Married in a Week!
Yesterday was productive. While I didn't complete all the tasks on my to-do list, I finished most of them and even did a few important things that weren't on the list. (Ahem, my wedding band was finally selected and purchased — WOO HOO!) I realized that not only was my friend Lisa's advice to post this wedding countdown important for the Triple B audience but it will also hold me accountable. (By the way if you're ever in NYC and need a mani or pedi, check Lisa out at The Nail Suite by Lisa Logan. Yes that was definitely a shameless plug.) Here's what I hope to accomplish today and tomorrow: [Read more…]
Bridgette's Wedding Day Countdown: 8 Days Left!
Happy Friday! Guess what? I'm scheduled to jump the broom a week from tomorrow. That's right! One. Week. From. Tomorrow. Although I've been blogging on Triple B for Road to Mrs. periodically, I have managed to remain sorta tight-lipped about the details of my wedding. (When it is all said and done there will actually be two weddings but more on that later.) My good friend Lisa pointed out my covertness the other night over calamari and catfish tenders. Our convo went something like this:
Lisa: Bridge, people will relate to you more on BBB if you shared the details of your day-to-day.
Me: Yeah, but you know I'm kinda private and so is Mr. TK. Plus, I have been blogging about it in Road to Mrs.
Lisa: (rolling her eyes) That's not enough. You launched a bridal blog and you're getting married. You've shared so many details about other brides yet you're keeping all the good stuff about yourself to yourself. That could turn people off.
Me: Oh.
Lisa: How about a countdown! That's fun and exciting and you can be honest about all the ish you still have to do. Be vulnerable like you were when you first announced you were engaged. People will relate to that.
Me: Genius!
And so here it is, folks. The first day of my 1 week wedding day countdown. I even plan to blog tomorrow. (Not Sunday though. The buck has to stop somewhere.) Below is my to-do list for today. Let's see how much of this I can actually get accomplished. [Read more…]
Bridgette's Pick of the Week: Staying Focused During Wedding Planning
Consumer marketing in the wedding industry is genius. Companies in every area of the biz — from fashion and beauty to food and beverage to travel — find ways to manipulate couples into thinking they need certain items in order to have a beautiful wedding. We're led to believe that the "perfect wedding" will led to the "perfect marriage". The truth is neither exists. This might seem odd to read on a bridal blog but then again Triple B isn't your average bridal blog. With the popularity of Pinterest, Instagram, wedding reality television shows, etc. it is easy to lose track of your original vision before saying I Do. Admittedly, I fell victim to a few of the traps (Hey, I'm human!) but thankfully Mr. TK and I have managed to stay truthful to who we are while planning our nuptials. Here's a fun cheat sheet with examples of what we did that might help you while planning your big day: [Read more…]


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Research in machine learning at Michigan encompasses reinforcement, unsupervised, and supervised learning. In reinforcement learning, we focus on building autonomous agents that can learn to act in complex, sequential, and uncertain environments. In particular, a number of research projects derive from an interest in building long-lived and flexibly-competent agents rather than the more usual agents that perform one complex task repeatedly. In unsupervised learning, we focus on developing methods for automatically constructing deep and hierarchical feature representations of high-dimensional data with applications to computer vision and more generally to sensory information processing and perception. Other areas of interest include: 1) the integration of multiple learning methods into the cognitive architecture Soar; 2) developing specialized reinforcement learning methods for behavior-change and treatment-design in healthcare settings ; 3) developing specialized methods for learning in large-scale games and other multiagent problems; and 4) developing unsupervised, semi-supervised, and supervised learning algorithms for information retrieval and natural language processing as well as for computational biomarkers in medical domains.
CSE FacultyBaveja, Satinder Singh
Fouhey, David
Hayes, John P.
Johnson, Justin
Koutra, Danai
Kuipers, Benjamin
Laird, John E.
Lee, Honglak
Mihalcea, Rada
Mower Provost, Emily
Olson, Edwin
Wiens, Jenna
ECE FacultyBalzano, Laura
Berenson, Dmitry
Fessler, Jeffrey A.
Hero, Alfred O.
Scott, Clayton D
Related Labs, Centers, and Groups
Center for the Study of Complex Systems
Vision & Learning Lab


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Bridges Out of Addiction Registration
The Bridges Out of Addiction Conference will take place on Thursday, March 14th from 9-3pm on Ashland Community and Technical Center's campus (1400 College Drive, Ashland, KY). The symposium is being sponsored by the Healthy Choices, Healthy Communities Coalition, Tri-County KY-ASAP Local Board, and ACTC.
This conference is free for participants and will include lunch. Due to space limitations, we are asking for participants to RSVP.
Vendors can register to participate by clicking here!
Who We Are / A Partnership
Healthy Choices, Healthy Communities is a consortium of health providers, restaurateurs, grocers, educators, civic organizations and area businesses that joined forces to improve the health of the Tri-State community of Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia.
Healthy Choices, Healthy Communities was formed in 2015, but its roots began five years earlier when in 2010 Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities began to address the health issues of children in Boyd and Greenup counties in Kentucky. Two years later another coalition, Healthy Choices Kentucky, was formed in response to Eastern Kentucky's high obesity rates. By joining forces and becoming Healthy Choices, Healthy Communities, the former coalitions broadened their focus beyond obesity and children as well as increased the organizations' geographic reach.
The Healthy Choices, Healthy Communities website is your source for news on the coalition, your link to healthy resources concerning better eating, exercise and other factors that can positively benefit your health.
To improve the health of our communities through collaboration, education, prevention and access to healthy choices.
All area residents will live healthy lives.
For More Information
Find us on Facebook


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Israel Summer is Hotter Than Ever
Israeli man sets himself on fire during Tel Aviv social protest yesterday.
Protester in serious condition after he poured gasoline on his body and set himself on fire; in letter he left behind, he says, 'the state of Israel robbed me.'
Moshe Silman, a 57-year-old, is probably correct. The Jewish Sate has been robbing its citizens for decades let alone the indigenous people of the land.
It seems as if the Jewish State embodies the ultimate possible form of Jewish tragedy
to read more: http://www.haaretz.com/
Moshe Silman being evacuated by Magen David Adom paramedics. Photo by Ofer Vaknin


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Here is the card that I created for my Design Team Inspiration for the 2 Sisters Challenge. This month the challenge theme at the 2 Sisters Challenge is TEDDY BEARS. Our sponsor this month is Stichy Bear's Digi Outlet. I use Stitchy's image called Picnic Bear for my creation.
Crafty Catz ~ Springtime
Sister Act Card Challenge ~ Anything Goes
Totally Paper Crafts Challenges ~ Pastels
Charisma Cardz ~ Anything Goes
Word Art Wednesday ~ Anything Goes


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The week in review
Worst hurricane: In a season of deadly hurricanes, Ivan wreaks havoc on the Gulf Coast and racks up the highest U.S. death toll, currently at more than 45.
Worst local damage: Ivan-spawned tornadoes terrorize the area September 17, destroying homes in Orange and Greene counties.
Worst news for foreign students: The FBI can rifle through their records at will, reports the Cavalier Daily.
Hottest courtroom drama: Arrested for trying to chain himself to a banister in the Rotunda when the Chinese Ambassador, Yang Jieh, was here in June, UVA student Rich Felker opts for the first-in-memory open University Judiciary Committee trial September 23 to draw attention to the Chinese occupation of Tibet, according to a release.
Worst case of too many cooks in the kitchen: Inocencio De-La Cruz is charged with malicious wounding early September 20 for allegedly stabbing Jorge Juarez at the Town and Country Motel in a dispute over cooking utensils, according to an Albemarle police release.
Worst loss of a former mayor: R. M. "Jack" Davis, 95, dies September 16. The car dealership owner served on City Council in the 1950s and was elected mayor in 1956.
Worst week for Citizen Cain: Former attorney and City Council candidate Margaret McCleod Cain draws 45 days in jail September 15 in Charlottesville Circuit Court for embezzling over $13,000 from a client.
Worst decision for micro hot-rodders: Mommy– er, City Council votes September 20 to require licenses, helmets, and goggles for mopeds and scooters without windshields, as well as dedicated backseats and passenger foot rests.
Latest gig for Rita Dove: She's sworn in as Virginia's poet laureate September 20 for a two-year appointment. Dove has already served as U.S. poet laureate– from 1993-1995.
Latest gig for DJ Kym McKay: After eight years, she leaves 97.5 3WV to become program director at a classic rock station in Winchester.
Best makeover: Thomas Jefferson gets a new look on the five-cent piece. See news story, page XX.
Bestseller: Kitty Kelly's new book, The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty, hits bookstores September 14.
Greenest Martha Stewart move: The domestic diva asks to begin her five-month sentence for obstruction of justice immediately, so she'll be out in time to plant her spring garden.
Worst week for Dan Rather: CBS News runs with a story about George W. Bush's National Guard service based on bogus documents.
Worst video trend: Yet another American, believed to be civil engineer Eugene Armstrong, is beheaded in Iraq by a militant group.
Best reason to be sedated: Founding Ramones' member Johnny Ramone dies September 15 of prostate cancer, the third member of the influential '70s punk band to die in the past three years (Joey succumbed to lymphoma in 2001; a heroin overdose killed Dee Dee in 2003).
Most surprising discovery: The Washington Post considers Charlottesville a shopping mecca for furniture, antiques, and home furnishings.
Best quote about Charlottesville shopping: "It's a very boutiquey scene here," Hook senior editor and shopping maven Courteney Stuart tells the Post.


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Our room categories.
The 153 rooms, apartments and suites at Traube Tonbach feature spacious rooms, tasteful interiors, high-quality materials and state-of-the-art amenities – from the luxurious bed to the perfectly designed bathroom. All categories have LED flat screen TVs, free high-speed wireless internet and a lovely balcony or terrace.
The majority of our rooms is located in our main building, these 130 rooms and apartments are furnished in the style of an elegant country house, and the suites have an exclusive Black Forest ambience.
On the other side of the road you may find our dependance House Kohlwald, completly renovated in 2012 and disposes about 22 luxorious premium rooms, family apartements and one suite.
For the guests of our House Kohlwald there is an exclusive SPA-Lounge with panoramic family sauna (clothing required) providing a stunning view of the surrounding nature. The SPA also has a steam room (clothing required), heated stone benches and a bubbling warm water pool.


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rogerlj on Family Tree Circles
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Journals and Posts
Looking for ancestors of LEVI WILLIAMS of Ohio & Virginia
Am seeking burial place and ancestor information for Levi Williams, born in Virginia and last known in Linton Twp Coshocton County Ohio in April 1848. Married to Hannah Leamon/Lemon in 1802 in Belmont County Ohio. She may have died prior to 1843.
Levi was "a hunter and lieutenant" with General Anthony Wayne in 1792-94 and fought in the battle of "Fallen Timbers". Any information greatly appreciated.
- Displaying 1-1 of 1 Journals
- 1
- of1


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Scientists picking up signs of water on the moon's surface typically attribute them to deposits left by comets, asteroids and other heavenly objects. But a new analysis of lunar samples brought back to Earth by Apollo astronauts in the early 1970s indicates that the moon's interior may have been a little damp in its early days.
The findings, published online Sunday in the journal Nature Geoscience, support mounting evidence that the moon once contained some "native" water — throwing a wrench into current beliefs about how Earth's companion formed.
Prevailing theories hold that the moon was created when a Mars-sized body crashed into the young Earth and broke off debris that eventually coalesced into a new entity. In the process, much of the water would have evaporated into space, leaving Earth's new satellite quite arid.
"It's thought that the moon's formation involved the materials getting very hot," said Paul Warren, a UCLA cosmochemist who was not involved in the new study. "It's usually assumed that little water would have survived through that."
Indeed, the samples returned by the Apollo missions that visited the lunar highlands seemed to confirm that Earth's cold, rocky companion was bone-dry, said University of Notre Dame geologist Hejiu Hui, who led the new analysis.
But work in the last five years has challenged that notion, as scientists have used more advanced methods to look for increasingly tiny concentrations of water in glass beads that are thought to have been formed by volcanic eruptions in the moon's early days.
Some experts have argued that those glass beads could have been exposed to alien water sources after they had been ejected from the moon's interior. So Hui and his colleagues decided to look at a type of rock called plagioclase, which is thought to have formed in a magma ocean inside the moon. Although the rocks later floated to the surface to form the crust, they contain a chemical time capsule from inside the young moon.
To further rule out any outside source of water, Hui's team looked past the surface of these rocks and into their centers.
After examining the samples under a microscope equipped with a spectrometer, the researchers found that the rocks contained 6 parts per million of water. That's drier than an Earth desert, but far more than expected to survive in a rock from the moon's once-molten center.
The samples should have been bone-dry, Hui said, but "somehow we still detect this amount of water, so that makes things interesting."
Based on their measurements, the researchers estimated that the early moon's magma ocean could have contained up to 320 parts per million of water. Once that ocean mostly crystallized, the remaining residues could have had as much as 1.4% water. That could explain the measured water content in lunar rocks, Hui said.
The findings could have interesting implications for theories about how the moon came to be, Warren said.
"It's thought that the moon's formation involved the materials getting very hot, and it's usually assumed that little water would have survived through that," he said. If the new study is right, "It opens up quite a mystery as to how the moon came through what we think was a very hot genesis process with this much water."
The findings also have implications for the moon's geological evolution, Warren said. Researchers have reconstructed the history of the moon's crustal formation while assuming there were negligible amounts of water involved. Now scientists may need to reevaluate some of those ideas.
Knowing how much water there is could be handy for future explorers. "Someday, when we put men on the moon in a more permanent way, we might need that water," Warren said.


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All the friends and family at the party (minus the adults and 3 babies that were either in high chairs or car seats). We had a couple little visitors from the restaurant come by to check out the presents and one little girl was caught even taking a chicken nugget and some fries off of one of the kids plates...too funny!
Yup, this is Addison in one of his truest forms. When I asked to take his photo by the "Hamburgular" picture he started hamming it up and this is really him...dancing around waving his hands around in front of his face showing everyone that he is "4". Such a good good boy he is and is loved so dearly.


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Tennessee State Parks Customized Topo Maps and Aerial Photos
Outdoor Gear and Clothing
Under the authority of the State Parks is the Hiwassee/Ocoee Rivers State Park. This Park offers whitewater adventures as well as scenic beauty. Other Parks such as the Old Stone Fort and Forts Loudon, Pillow and Donelson hold historical significance, both the founding of our nation and the Civil War. The Meeman-Shelby State Forest offers outdoor recreational activities for those who want to get away from the city.
- Tennessee currently has 54 State Parks from which to enjoy a wide variety of recreational activities. Many parks are historical sites such as The Davy Crockett Birthplace State Park and the Fort Donelson State Park. Others provide outdoor recreations such as Fall Creek Falls State Park and the Warrior Path State Park. Recreation facilities differ with each property. Please see the State Park description for details.
Recreation - Tennessee's State Parks provide all forms of recreation including hiking, mountain biking, fishing, boating, picnicking, paddling sports, camping, group retreats and viewing historical sites.
Climate - Tennessee has a temperate climate with short, mild winters. The average annual snowfall for the state is 12 inches. Spring comes in early March bringing flowering trees and shrubs, and warmer weather. Spring temperatures average between 45 and 70 degrees F. Summer's full force arrives in the region by mid May, bringing warm weather and higher humidity. Cool fall temperatures bring crisp air and brilliant fall colors. Mid to late October is a good time to visit the region to experience the fall foliage.
Location -
Visitors will find the State Parks of Tennessee dispersed throughout all regions of the state.
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Tennessee State Parks, 401 Church Street, 7th Floor L & C Tower
, Nashville, TN, 37243-0446, Phone: 888-TN-PARKS
Additional Information:
- This southeastern state is comprised of vast woodlands, wide river valleys and Appalachian highlands. Nashville, the state capital, and Memphis are the two largest cities in the state.


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Sign up for our Action Network
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The California Department of Education (CDE) released last month an updated letter to county and district superintendents outlining the appropriate uses of federal funding, in particular Title I funding to support arts education, signed by Deputy Superintendent Keric Ashley.
By Merryl Goldberg
Introduction by Joe Landon: On Thursday, June 16, 2016, the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing took a bold step towards recognizing the importance of visual and performing arts as well as arts integration as components of the newly adopted Teaching Performance Expectations of California. What follows is a blog by Dr. Merryl Goldberg, Professor, CSU San Marcos, who was instrumental in the advocacy effort leading to these new guidelines, detailing what the changes are and what they mean for teachers and students in California.
If you are reading this blog, you probably need no convincing of the power of the arts as a discipline and pedagogical tool in our schools. Well, now the State of California agrees with you. The California Commission on Teacher Credentialing has moved to strengthen and streamline its accreditation system, update teacher preparation standards and improve performance assessments by adopting new guidelines for the preparation of multiple subject teachers (K-8). These new guidelines specifically call out the role of arts and arts integration in meeting the needs of learners. The California Alliance for Arts Education was actively involved in this effort along with many higher education partners and professors, including a convening within the California Council on Teacher Education in advocating for the inclusion of the visual and performing arts as well as identifying arts integration, directly in the Teaching Performance Expectations (TPEs).
What role can arts advocates play in the conversations happening around Common Core? We can be active contributors to conversations, helping educators see the connections between Common Core and the invaluable contributions of learning in and through the arts. Our recent Local Advocacy Retreat featured a session by Vice President for Education for the Los Angeles Music Center and California Alliance Board Chair, Mark Slavkin highlighting the risks and opportunities that Common Core presents, along with some strategic approaches for advocates.
In June, California passed historic reforms to our school financing system. After four years of funding cuts, districts now have the ability to make decisions that help to restore, make improvements and set a foundation for a more responsive and outcome driven educational program at the local level.
The new Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) provides a base level of funding for all districts, with additional funds for districts with higher needs. It also gives local school boards unprecedented control over how these new funds are spent. In this new paradigm, the role of local advocates is critical.
Americans for the Arts has designed a series of e-books to help educators, advocates, students, and organizations alike navigate the field of arts education and work together to ensure that the arts are valued in our country as an important part of all students' lives.
The e-book series will cover multiple topics, such as the benefits of arts education, what quality arts education looks like, tips for evaluating arts education, and how to effectively make the case that the arts should be an integral part of a well-rounded education. Learn more.
Creative Ways to Connect with Your School Board is a webinar offering concrete ways to build relationships with school board members and promote arts education in your local school district. Created by the California Alliance for Arts Education and the California State PTA, it features strategies for elevator speeches, school board presentations and an array of other ways to connect with school board members. View an archive of this one-hour event here (please note presentation begins at :30).
With the budget process underway, there are critical decisions ahead about if and how arts education will be funded. The Governor's budget proposal, released last week, gives local districts greater flexibility and autonomy in how they use state funds, putting more decisions in the hands of local school boards, with fewer state restrictions and requirements. The Governor's budget also eliminates some categorical funding, which could shift money away from what was previously reserved to support arts education programs. Watch the archive here. (please note presentation begins at :30).
www.artsed411.org Home • email@example.com • California Alliance for Arts Education • copyright • 85 S. Grand Ave., Pasadena, CA 91105 • 626.578.9315


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Introducing Parrys Raines
My name is Parrys Raines and I am 14 years old. I am currently the Youth Ambassador for World Wide Fund for Nature.
I am in year 8 at St Marys Star of the Sea College in Wollongong. I love sport and being in the great outdoors. I have four national titles and one Oceania title. I have completed level two in Safe Surfing, an introduction course to Ice Climbing and have my PADI Diver Certification. I have represented my school and region in indoor and outdoor soccer. I am just getting started in Mountain Bike riding and may start to compete this year. I played the violin for five years but have just changed over to drums.
When I was in year four I discovered film and started to make documentaries. I like the use of film for communication as it means I can reach a larger audience. I have made movies/documentaries about Polar Bears, My Life, Bananas, Machinery – Diggers, and a Science Show about experiments on light.
I am using film-making as a way to teach kids about the environment and one special project I am working on is a documentary about organ-utans after a trip to Borneo last year.
I am currently the Youth Ambassador for WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature). WWF is an international conservation organisation. I am honoured to be part of WWF and share their values.
I have represented Australia twice in sport and won a Bronze and Gold medal. I felt really proud to have achieved this but I felt more proud when I was selected by the United Nations Environment Program to represent Australia at the International Children's Conference of the Environment in Norway in June 2008. I was also selected to speak at the conference. I spoke about how climate change was going to affect Australia. I was named Environmental Hero of the month for November 2008 by the United Nations.
I often get to ask to speak at schools and environmental events and I enjoy this. I have found that other children are interested in helping and learning about the environment but are not sure how to go about it.
My motto is "habits made today will help life tomorrow".


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Tuesday night on his "Real Sports" HBO show, Bryant Gumbel made some egregious comments about NBA commissioner David Stern.
"Finally tonight, if the NBA lockout is going to be resolved any time soon, it seems likely to be done in spite of David Stern, not because of him. I say that because the NBA's infamously egocentric commissioner seems more hell-bent lately on demeaning the players than resolving his game's labor impasse.
How else to explain Stern's rants in recent days? To any and everyone who'd listen, he has alternately knocked union leader Billy Hunter, said the players were getting inaccurate information, and started sounding chicken-little claims about what games might be lost if the players didn't soon see things his way.
Stern's version of what's been going on behind closed doors has, of course, been disputed. But his efforts were typical of a commissioner, who has always seemed eager to be viewed as some kind of modern plantation overseer treating NBA men as if they were his boys. It's part of Stern's M.O. Like his past self-serving edicts on dress code or the questioning of officials, his moves are intended to do little more than show how he's the one keeping the hired hands in their place.
Some will, of course, cringe at that characterization, but Stern's disdain for the players is as palpable and pathetic as his motives are transparent. Yes, the NBA's business model is broken, but to fix it, maybe the league's commissioner should concern himself most with a solution, and stop being part of the problem."
While David Stern is an infamously egocentric commissioner, Gumbel was completely out of line by bringing race into his argument. Though out of line, Gumbel's statement should not come of surprise to anybody as he has made such blasphemous comments in the past.
In February of 2006, Gumbel said about the Winter Olympics:
"So try not to laugh when someone says these are the world's greatest athletes despite a paucity of blacks that makes the Winter Games look like a GOP convention"
In August of 2006, Gumbel kept the trend going when he directed these comments about then NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue to current NFL Commissioner Rodger Goodell:
"Before he cleans out his office have Paul Tagliabue show you where he keeps Gene Upshaw's leash. By making the docile head of the players union his personal pet, your predecessor has kept the peace without giving players the kind of guarantees other pros take for granted. Try to make sure no one competent ever replaces Upshaw on your watch."
Now I have no bias against Bryant Gumbel, I think Real Sports is a great show and I enjoy lots of the investigative reporting done in that show. That being said, I have to completely disagree with this radical black apologist stance that Bryant Gumbel consistently takes. I respect everybody's right to have an opinion but I think Gumbel crosses the line when he unnecessarily brings race into the conversation. While I am a fan of David Stern, I can see where Gumbel is coming from in terms of Stern's egocentrics and his argument about Stern demeaning the players. However, Gumbel allows his radical racial opinions to cloud his vision when it comes to this lockout. It is not only David Stern demeaning the players. The players have put just as much effort into public relations as Stern has. And for the record, I listened to Stern speak last week when he was interviewed by both Darren Rovell and Mike Francesa and I would not necessarily say that Stern demeaned players. Stern told his side of the story as he would like the public to know it. Just as how the players have taken to twitter to try and show this image of solidarity and this illusion that they are victims of this lockout.
I believe the owners have made concessions. They have come off the hard cap. They have eased up on the BRI split. I believe the players are holding this agreement up with their unwillingness to give up money and change the system. What Gumbel fails to see is the other side of this lockout. He sees the players side but he does not see the owners side of the argument. Stern is trying to get the best deal for his owners. That is his job. That is what he is paid to do. He is no plantation owner. The NBA players are not being forced to take 5 million dollars a year. The NBA superstars are not being forced to take a BRI cut from 57 down to 53 or 50. Thats the whole reason we have this lockout is because the players have a 50/50 voice in this discussion.
Now how ridiculous is this "plantation owner" comment. Hell, if the NBA is a plantation and the players are slaves making an average of 5 million dollars a year, then sign me up. I would love to work on a plantation where I play basketball and make millions a year. How is David Stern trying to control "his boys"? By enforcing a dress code? People forget. The players are EMPLOYEES of the NBA. The players, while being the main attraction, do not run the NBA. If not for the owners, there would be NO NBA. How can you call the commissioner of the league a "plantation owner" when the league average salary is 5 million dollars a year. How can you call Stern a "plantation owner" when the league provides a forum for players to improve themselves on the court and off the court with community service opportunities and endorsement opportunities they would have otherwise not had? Gumbel is so wrong to bring race into this because race has nothing to do with this lockout. Stern isn't lobbying for the white players to make 30 mil a year while the black players make minimum wage. Does Gumbel even realize that Stern works for the owners? If he was going to make this idiotic comment about somebody, he should have made it about the owners. Stern serves as their spokesman and fights for what they want.
Gumbel's comments made me so angry because they are so untrue, out of line and unnecessary. There is no reason to bring race into this discussion. Nobody else has and probably nobody else will because there is no reason for it. Stern is no racist and he is no plantation owner. Just because he is fighting a PR battle with the union, and in my opinion is winning, that makes him a racist? Stern is doing what any person of power in a labor situation does. They fight for their side of the issue. In my opinion it is the players, such as Kevin Garnett that are holding up these discussions. I respect all people's right to have their own opinions but when race is brought into it, that is when the line is crossed. Gumbel was flat out wrong in making racist statements about Commissioner Stern and I think there are few people that would debate that.Follow @tarmosino


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Fifteen people have been arrested so far in the neglect and abuse of residents at Alzheimer's Care of Commerce, including the owner of the facility.
Donna Wright, 58, was booked into the Jackson County Jail Tuesday evening on charges of abuse and neglect of the elderly residents of the home.
Others arrested and booked into the Jackson County Jail Tuesday afternoon were:
•Judy Nell Baird, 409 Heritage Hills, Commerce.
•Brittany Tyronda Rollins.
•Danny Sue Wingfield.
•Christa Lucinda Pittman.
•Myra Malinda Kitchens.
•Deborah Nation.
•Kenyonna Vendresha Pittman.
•Shirley Jean James, 248 Cherity Road, Homer.
•Lonnie Weldon Strickland, 44 Woodbine Street, Commerce.
•Stella Louise Strickland, 105 Bellview Homes, Commerce.
•Susan Joe Martin, 250 Railroad Street, Jefferson.
•Mary Crystal Elrod.
•Marquese Chavev.
•Jonathon Lee Elrod.
The charges include: abuse of disabled adult, failure to report abuse, neglect or disabled person, neglect of disabled adult, cruelty to adult over age 65.
A search warrant was executed Tuesday morning at Alzheimer's Care of Commerce 200 Bolton Drive, Commerce, following a three-month investigation into the facility stemming from allegations of abuse and neglect of Alzheimer's patients staying at the facility. Warrants for the arrests of 21 former and present employees have been issued.
Former and present employees have been interviewed and provided detailed information concerning abuse and neglect of patients at the facility. Information obtained through the investigation indicated that patients were restrained with bed sheets and subjected to inhumane and undignified conditions to include "double diapering," which is a practice whereby multiple diapers were placed on the patients at once to keep the staff from changing soiled diapers as often. There were accounts of physical abuse, such as staff members striking patients and throwing water on them.
On April 2, the GBI was requested by the Commerce Police Department to conduct an investigation into the Alzheimer's Care of Commerce in reference to allegations of abuse and neglect.
There are over 70 charges including Cruelty to a Person 65 Years of Age or Older; and Abuse, Neglect, Financial Exploitation and Failure to Report which are charges under the Protection of Disabled Adults and Elderly Persons statute.
During the investigation, the GBI learned patients were also being cared for by people with prior felony convictions ranging from voluntary manslaughter to drug charges to identify theft. It is against state regulations to have convicted felons working in a personal care facility. There were also unauthorized personnel administering medications to the patients and medication prescribed to the patients were found to be missing or unaccounted for during an audit of the facility in May of 2013.
Numerous agencies have assisted with the investigation: the Commerce Police Department, The Jackson County District Attorney's Office, the Georgia Department of Human Services Forensic Special Investigations, the Georgia Department of Revenue, the Georgia Healthcare Facility Regulation Division, the Georgia Department of Aging, Adult Protective Services, the Athens Community Council on Aging, U.S. Social Security Administration, and the Jackson County Emergency Medical Services.
15 arrested so far in elderly abuse case
Tuesday, July 2. 2013
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"There were also unauthorized personnel administering medications to the patients and medication prescribed to the patients were found to be missing or unaccounted for during an audit of the facility in May of 2013."
Imagine that? Drugs missing around people with prior felony convictions ranging from voluntary manslaughter to drug charges to identify theft? No surprise there!
Imagine that? Drugs missing around people with prior felony convictions ranging from voluntary manslaughter to drug charges to identify theft? No surprise there!
Disgraceful! The fact that 21 people from one facility could be of such low moral character is mind blowing. Shameful. Nice work GBI and all others that helped exposé this and those involved. To bad we have to now treat them far better then they treated their victims.
You really shouldn't believe everything you read or hear in the media. Commerce Police screwed up this investigation. I can't wait to see them have to publicly apologize for the mess they created in these peoples lives and for everyone who is judging them to have to admit they were wrong.
It is about time, they have been reported before and nothing ever done. The list of violations and abuse has been many years. I thought it might have gotten better but sounds like I was wrong. They only wanted residents that could not tell on them an employees that they could hold something over their head to keep from telling on them. Some of the things in this article were happening even 10 years ago. I thought they were paying someone because they never got in trouble. Drugs stolen, employee's with records, not giving baths, food in bent cans, hide injuries and bed sores from family, this list keeps going.
#5 Teresa Hicks on 07/03/13 at 09:56 AM [Reply]
I Think This Is A Disgrace To Commerce So Glad They Found Out About It Be fore It Was To Late
I Want To Thank All The Law Inforcement For Doing A Great Job
I Want To Thank All The Law Inforcement For Doing A Great Job
Elder abuse in Jackson Co is not only going on in business facilities but right in elders homes by family members who have isolated the elder member. They are felons who brainwash and mentally abuse them, manipulate their way into their finances then live off them taking all they can. Elder abuse is hard to prove because often the abused family member is afraid of being put into a nursing home and "losing" what is already gone (and they don't really realize their assets ARE gone) and will say "nothing is wrong" when confronted. There's no physical signs. Abusers will pay but usually the elder suffers in silence till death. PLEASE JACKSON CO and other resources, HELP where you can and THANK YOU for all that you already do.
I work with two of the people that were arrested..i know for a fact that these two girls would never hurt a fly.
I agree with you. However, if they even suspected abuse in their facility and didn't report it, they are still, regrettably, going to be held accountable. I'm praying they didn't know and it will be proven. But in these days of bad economy and few jobs, I pray, too, that they didn't stay silent because they feared of losing their jobs. My heart goes out to the innocent-patients and staff alike.
thanks for saying that bc I worked there also and I didn't do anything like that either. I know a few that did do all these things and I know some of the girls didn't hurt anyone....and neither did I. Its ok I will have it all straightened out soon
Let's don't hang anybody yet. This could really be elder abuse, or it could be an ex employee or family member with an axe to grind and an overzealous prosecutor.
Hopefully, the GBI will now look into all the pain and methadone clinics in Jackson County and Commerce. These pain and methadone clinics kill and hurt people everyday as well as destroy families, just like this place.
I have worked there for the past month, allegations are not always facts. I can personally say for the time I have been employed absolutely none of these allegations have been done. I have a grandmother who has alzeimers and I have taken care of her from day one and believe me if any mistreatment had been done while I was around I would have reported it myself. Everyone I have worked with were very caring,I just dont think they would do something like this.
When will someone survey the conditions at North Ridge the old hospital? It is in Commerce.
Would you want your loved ones stored in a basement without windows? Hold your nose.
Would you want your loved ones stored in a basement without windows? Hold your nose.
I would hope that guilt or innocence would be determined in a court of law and not in the court of public opinion. All one has to do is look at the "Little Rascals" Day Care Center case in Edenton, NC to determine not everything the prosecution claims is abuse in an initial stage actually is. It appears to me that law enforcement officers have taken a shotgun approach to this by over charging the case hoping to find something that will stick or plea before it goes to case.
It is most unfortunate when the legal profession wants to make medical judgements/decisions. While I respect and esteem him highly, I have little to no confidence in Vernon Keenan, the director of GBI, defining what neglect is from a medical perspective.
It is most unfortunate when the legal profession wants to make medical judgements/decisions. While I respect and esteem him highly, I have little to no confidence in Vernon Keenan, the director of GBI, defining what neglect is from a medical perspective.
why is it taken so long for something to be done,i know people had to report there members abuse,why now why not the first time,if it had been a parent of someone in the police dept.would it have taken so long to take action,why were these people allowed to suffer for so long,and i cant help but to wonder .....how many have died from these peoples hands....past and present.where was the doctors,they know abuse when they see it
I can't believe that they can post the address before these people have even been tried. What ever happened to innocent until proven guilty? Everyone automatic thinks guilty. Most of the people who say I worked there I saw that happening have never even stepped foot in ACC and those who have were probably fired and are just trying to get back at ACC. Have you even listened to the families? They say we never saw it. They loved them like family. Do you really believe that this could be happening with families in their 24/7? The state health dept had been in there for 3 months everyday do you believe they would of not seen this and shut them down before now. Really???
Well, the famous "innocent until proven guilty" phrase means nothing legally outside the courtroom. It only applies there. That is the exact reason you can be arrested, jailed, and kept for years until your trial date. The police are not required to follow that famous phrase...only the jury.
I am sorry to hear about the abuse that those old people had to go through there I know how it feel to be abuse I was in a nursing home i will not say which one but I was mistreated but I didnt reported it because I was afraid noone would believe but that was 4 years ago I want to leave it behind but I will never be a resident there again.
the other nursing home I was in took good care of me and I was glad and thankful for it. I hope these people will realize that they shouldnt missed treat the elderly or anyone else and that it is against the law I am praying for them. thanks for letting me voice my opinion suzie
the other nursing home I was in took good care of me and I was glad and thankful for it. I hope these people will realize that they shouldnt missed treat the elderly or anyone else and that it is against the law I am praying for them. thanks for letting me voice my opinion suzie
I agree until you know the full story dont comment, I know officer who gets away the things and nothing is done to them just because someone wears a badge and has a gun dont give them the right to judge others, its hard dealing with someone who has a mental health issue, I blame the state for not having better places that is easier to get a family memember into, not all peole are stuck where they want to be at but have no other choice it does not mean they are living off the elderly, but you take a family memember who is looking after someone who has no help from others who has said they cant deal with it, you cant just go off and leave them the state then would get you for not caring for them, caregivers do have a very hard roll and some of these patients hit back and screams until you want to pull you har out... I know for a fact I have sick family members and alot of day unless you know how much it is you have no idea or no right to even set and judge others, I aint saying if some of this is true its not wrong but you also have to realize their is alot of stress and tension dealing with people who has a mental illness and until your placed in that position be it caregiver or family you have no idea, you also have some folks who know it would be better off for their loved ones to be in a care home but some people in the family dont want them placed their due to the fact they think they can take care of them on their on, so this leaves the person who knows what is best not knowing what to do because he sees its hurting the entire family... But some folks are not using the elderly for their money they have tried to work but have health issues thier self and has no where else to go does not make them a bad person when they try as best a they can.... You wana know what is the best thing anyone can do is to pray and let the people know your their for them if they are looking after someone who does have mental illness.


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