text:
Fandom: Glee
Pairing: Kurt/Blaine
He sat up, arching like a cat and popping his spine, and retrieved a bottle of water and a handkerchief from the trunk of the car. Blaine bit his lip as Kurt twisted the lid off of the water, took a sip, and then wetted the cloth. There was something about having come cleaned off of him with something that he associated with gallantry and class that made Blaine flush hot.
The soft cotton, damp with cool water, was a relief against his sweaty, sticky skin. He laid back down and let Kurt attend to him: manhandling his limbs as he wiped it off; gently lifting his cock out of the way as he mopped up his stomach, which always made Blaine hiss and flinch, no matter how careful Kurt was, but he had also learned how to be swift; encouraging him to roll onto his side so that he could swipe up the come that had rolled into the crease of his thigh and buttock, and then patting his hip to have him shift off of the blanket completely.
Blaine cranked one of the windows down, sighing as the warm summer breeze wafted into the car and dried out his damp skin. He fletched his own handkerchief from the pocket of his trousers and dabbed at his face, neck, and chest. Kurt handed the bottle of the water and he took a grateful gulp, feeling parched. He didn't want to put his clothes back on just yet, and watched Kurt move around the backseat on his knees instead.
Kurt folded the blanket, concealing the handkerchief in the center of it, piled the tube of K-Y and the water on top, and tucked them deep into the trunk and out of sight. Then he gathered his scattered clothes together and began dressing, finding Blaine's eyes on him and smirking.
With Kurt dressing Blaine stopped dawdling and began to as well. He pulled his underwear and pants up his legs and fastened his fly.
Kurt always had more trouble with his jeans. As Blaine slipped into his shirt he watched with some amusement as Kurt struggled, shoulders and feet planted firm against the floor, body making an arch as he slowly dragged the denim back up his legs and over his ass, finally collapsing flat and pulling up the fly with a zppppt of finality, cock tucked away for the night. The equestrian boots went on easier, though they still required some tugging. "What time is it?" he asked, still on his back on the floor.
Blaine glanced over the seat to check the clock in the dash. "Only nine-thirty," he said. Technically, Blaine had no curfew, as his father had little care about what he did as long as it was what all the other boys were doing, but Blaine usually made it home by eleven o'clock.
"Good, then we have time," Kurt said, beckoning him down. Grinning, Blaine stretched out on the upholstered car floor and snuggled into Kurt's side, offering him the last of the water. Kurt finished it off, chucked the empty bottle through the open window, and turned into Blaine. His hand began idly stroking Blaine's chest, his palm running down from his shoulder to his abdomen and then back up. Blaine let himself drift, caught up with the feeling of Kurt's breath on his cheek and his knee resting over his shin. He caught his roaming hand and laced their fingers together.
"It could be like this," he murmured, "just like this, every morning."
"You just don't quit, do you?" Kurt whispered into the scant space between them. Kurt looked as blissed out as Blaine felt, lax and loving in his arms.
"I fight for the things that are important to me," Blaine said.
Kurt's eyebrows drew down sadly. "It's not that you're not important," he said, his eyes tracing over all the angles and curves of Blaine's face. "It's not that you're not the most important thing to me, Blaine. It's that the choices I make… I can't make them just for me."
Blaine curled their joined hands up against his heart and stared at Kurt for a long time, frustrated with himself for not knowing the words to fix this, hating feeling like even when Kurt was right here in his arms he'd already been taken away from him, like he was somehow wrong about the only thing in his life that felt right.
Blaine tightened his grip, leaned in, and kissed Kurt with every slow ounce of determination that he had. When he pulled away again Kurt looked just the littlest bit dazed, flushed, breathless - and Blaine clung to the belief that if he could do that to Kurt Hummel he could do anything.
"I'm not giving up," he whispered.
Kurt sighed, and instead of replying he leaned in to recapture his lips, kissing him again and again like it was everything that he had.
"Hey!" a voice boomed out of the night. "Hummel!"
Blaine had never experienced quite so violent a shock. Everything went sharp as his heart leapt to his throat and his breath stopped.
Kurt grabbed the sides of Blaine's face, trying to make him focus, and whispered, very quickly and very severely, "Blaine, I swear, everything is going to be alright. I won't let anything happen to you. I love you."
Then Kurt was up, throwing his body over the front seat and yanking the glove compartment open.
"Kurt -" he hissed, reaching out a hand to grab his ankle and yank him flat again, but Kurt was already plopping back down, seated cross-legged on the floor, with a tin of… something in his hand. Blaine's face scrunched up in confusion. "What -"
"Brittany left some bunk," Kurt said, and if Blaine hadn't been in the grips of such a blinding terror he would have been impressed by how steady Kurt's hands were as he flicked open a lighter and touched the flame to the contents of the lid…
"Is that marijuana?" Blaine hissed, sitting bolt upright for the first time and scooting away until his back his the door.
"Stay in the car," Kurt said.
"Kurt -"
And then Kurt was getting out of the car, God, no, no no no, Blaine had only vague ideas of what would befall them if they were caught but none of them were anything he would ever let Kurt face alone. His hand scrambled for the door handle, and then he yanked it open and stumbled into the night.
"- doing out here?" Kurt was in the middle of asking, a calm if somewhat irritable expression fixed firmly on his face, nothing from his steady hands on his hips to his clear voice giving away any hint of distress, as Puck and Lauren walked up from the road toward them.
"Thought that was your car, bro, and - what's Anderson doing here?" Puck asked, catching sight of Blaine, who'd frozen.
Kurt glanced at Blaine. His expression was very tight. "The same thing I am, genius - we were lighting up."
"Really?" Puck asked, looking at Blaine with newfound interest and respect. Blaine tightened his grip on the car door, instinctively put on edge by any sort of close scrutiny. "Didn't know he had it in him."
"Not surprising," Lauren grunted dismissively. "Those preppy types are always wound so tight."
"You got enough to share?" Puck asked, as he and Lauren came closer and peered into the car. Blaine thought his heart was going to beat right out of his chest.
"Dirt weed," Kurt said, shaking his head. "I got it from Brittany."
"Half the time she turns up with actual weeds," Lauren commented.
"That's a bummer, man," Puck said. His expression had brightened. "Hey - I know something that'll pick your evening up. Give us a ride?"
"To where?" Kurt eyed him suspiciously. "You still haven't said what you two are doing wandering around in the middle of the night."
"His piece of junk broke down again," Lauren said.
"While we were on our way to Lima Heights," Puck supplied. "Come on, man, she's got your favorite."
There was a flicker in Kurt's expression that Blaine couldn't place, but when Kurt's eyes slid over to meet his he was as reassuring as he could be with his grim face on. "I don't think that's such a good idea."
"Aw, come on, dude," Puck said, punching his shoulder. "You're letting your boss ride you too hard."
"I'm my own boss, Puck," Kurt said flatly.
"All the more reason to let lose a little!"
"You only want me to tag along because you need a ride," Kurt said with a roll of his eyes.
"So? You owe me; you'd be a bona fide family man by now if I didn't have your back."
Blaine tried not to react at the mention of the prophylactics that Puck supplied Kurt with by the boxful. Since he and Kurt had stopped using them he'd stopping thinking about them, but it sounded like Puck was still handing them off to Kurt at regular intervals. Blaine supposed that was necessary; it was all about preserving the right fictions. And Kurt had spent years crafting a reputation to keep everyone arm's length. Blaine understood that Kurt's surliness and open contempt for other people was as much a guard as Blaine's own friendliness was - different approaches toward the same end.
And now here was Kurt, turning them down, all to keep Puck and Lauren away from Blaine, or Blaine away from whatever misdeeds they were alluding to. It was contrary to his usual behavior, maybe suspiciously so, and it made Blaine's heart clench up to know that Kurt would risk scrutiny like that for him.
As much as it pleased him to know that Kurt was trying to protect him, he couldn't curb his own instinct to do the same. Puck and Lauren were a couple of miles out of the main part of town without a ride if Kurt didn't take them. They would be persistent to the point where they might get angry with Kurt for refusing them. And Blaine couldn't have that.
"Let's go," he spoke up, forcing himself to maintain his breezy composure when all of the focus turned on him. Kurt was frowning, caught off guard and confused, and Blaine gave him a smile that was hopefully reassuring. "It sounds like a blast."
"That's what I'm talking about!" Puck whooped. "I guess Anderson's not a total square after all, huh?"
"I wouldn't be spending time with him if he weren't worth it," Kurt said in a quiet, dispassionate tone, and Blaine clamped down on the urge to grin as warmth unspooled inside of him.
"Dibs!" Lauren called, stalking past where Kurt and Puck were situated beside the bummer and heading for the passenger side.
"Awww, come on, baby, don't you want to lie down in back with me?" Puck coaxed, shooting a hopeful look her way.
Lauren snorted. "Yeah, right. I know what you get up to in that backseat," she said to Kurt, who gave her a tightlipped and purposefully smug smile back. Blaine knew that boys could be unfortunately vulgar about such topics, but he was rather taken aback to hear a girl speak so coarsely. Of course he knew she and Puck were steadies, of a fashion, but Blaine still didn't think such things should be talked about so openly. Obviously he and Kurt couldn't, but even if things were different Blaine would still want to keep such a private matter private.
Kurt reached back into the backseat, pulled out the tin, tipped it out into the dirt, and ground the burning remains out with the toe of his boot. Lauren slid into the passenger seat, and Puck laughed as he climbed into the backseat and noticed, "The window's rolled down? You trying to hot box like that? What is it, the A-lister's first time here?"
"We were airing out the car," Kurt said loftily. "My father's not so much of an idiot he doesn't recognize the smell. And like I said, it was no good." He walked around the back of the car, heading toward the driver's seat, and he sent Blaine a look as he passed him, missed by Lauren and Puck already in the car - one that tried to be reassuring while tinted with worry - and then his face was back to cool detachment as he opened up the car door. "So, do I even have to ask where we're headed?"
Blaine took a deep breath before he slid back into the car. The smell that met him was strong and sickly, and he pressed his hands tight against his thighs to keep himself from covering his nose. That, he was sure, would give away the fact that he had never done drugs in his life, which would fly in the face of Kurt's impromptu cover.
Frankly, he was a little scandalized that it had been sitting in the glove box a mere foot away from him.
But as Blaine sat there and tried not to breathe too deeply, and to subtly take his air from the open window beside him, a second reason for Kurt's quick action occurred to him. Because the scent was obscuring everything else in the car - namely the soiled blanket that had been pushed into the corner.
As the car rumbled to life and Kurt backed out of their enclave and back onto the road, Blaine shifted over to the right until he was sitting between Puck and the blanket as subtly as possible.
"Who else is going to be there?" Kurt asked with careful disinterest as he pulled back onto the road and turned his DeSoto toward the train tracks that unofficially separated Lima from Lima Heights.
"Just us, you know she doesn't like sharing much," Puck said. His expression darkened some and he added, "Maybe the brother. She said she was looking for another piece of man candy since Puckzilla was officially off the market."
"Damn right you are," Lauren commented from the front seat, pushing at the buttons on the radio and muttering when they couldn't pick up a good station.
Blaine swallowed an squeezed his legs a little tighter. He was never entirely comfortable around the subject of Puck's brother. The gossip he heard about the Puckermans were the closest thing he came to imagining what people could say about him, and it made his skin crawl.
As Kurt made small talk with Puck and Lauren - if it were to be called that, for it contained none of the pleasantries Blaine typically associated with smalltalk, and instead was full of innuendo and sarcasm and what he assumed was good-natured ribbing - Blaine tried not to work himself up with too much anxiety. He'd always considered Kurt's car - both of their cars - to be their private sanctuaries. Puck and Lauren's sudden inclusion was a rude reminder that there was no real, stable place here for them.
It was just one more reason to go to New York. They could have a place together there - a home, all to themselves.
It was clear that Kurt knew whoever this "her" they were referring to was, because he drove without any directions from Puck, and soon the car was bumping over the train tracks and rolling into the bad part of town. It made Blaine uneasy - not so much as it had before he'd gotten to know Kurt, but Blaine couldn't help but feel nervous as they slowly passed by all of the houses, smaller and over-all shabbier than the landscaped yards that he was used to. He was accustomed to living in a certain lifestyle, where everyone was pressed and starched and well put together. And for every moment of his life since his father had let the truth slip during one of his bad days, Blaine had understood how tenuous it all was. How it all felt like it could be taken away from him from any second, if he spoke wrong or acted wrong or looked wrong.
Driving through this side of town, he had the paranoid feeling that people would just know he was an impostor.
Kurt finally turned off into a driveway of one of the larger houses (though smaller than Blaine's own). The lights were off and Blaine allowed himself a moment to hope that Puck and Lauren were mistaken and that they could just turn around and leave, but neither Puck, nor Lauren, nor even Kurt looked surprised by this turn of events, and as Kurt turned off the ignition they all opened their car doors and climbed out. Blaine followed a little more slowly, peering around, half-expecting someone to leap out of the shadows.
Puck and Lauren headed for the gate to the backyard. Kurt hung back to run his thumb over Blaine knuckles and breathe "sorry" out of the corner of his mouth. Blaine wanted to say something reassuring - that it wasn't Kurt's fault, anything to ease the grimace from Kurt's face - but Kurt was striding after Puck and Lauren and Blaine matched his pace. They walked one by one into the backyard, letting the gate creak closed behind them, and came around the side of the house to find, to Blaine's surprise, a rather nice in ground pool, lit up by lamps just below the water line. Floating idly over the top of the water on a large inflatable raft was a severe-looking girl that Blaine had never seen before, wearing nothing but a two piece.
She arched an eyebrow at them as they gathered at edge of the water and called out, "Pretty sure this is past the bedtime of respectable people. Did someone get lost on their way home, Soda Jerk?"
Her eyes narrowed. "You know I don't like strangers, Babyface."
Blaine blinked. He'd thought Puck was the only one that got away with that.
"This is Blaine," Puck put in before Kurt could answer, or Blaine could introduce himself, for that matter. "It's okay, he's cool. He vipes with Kurt."
Blaine wasn't quite sure what the expression on the girl's face meant, but Kurt was sending her the same one back. "Really," the girl said, voice heavy with something like sarcasm. "This bromide?"
Kurt just glared back. Blaine had the distinct impression that he and the girl were having an entirely different conversation than the one the rest of them were hearing.
The girl's expression finally broke into a smile. "Well," she said, "I suppose we all have to unwind somehow, and there are only so many options."
"Is Jake here?" Kurt asked, voice nettling.
The girl threw out a wide smile and said, "Oh, he's already come and gone," she said with heavy emphasis, and Puck made a face. "You all took so long. Though probably better that you did, or you would have seen a whole 'nother side of your baby brother, Puck," she purred.
Blaine fought the urge to fidget uncomfortably. She was more than talking about it - she was actually bragging about it. Like she wanted everyone to know she entertained men. What sort of girl sought out that kind of reputation?
"Enough chit chat," Lauren said. "Santana, did we come out here for nothing, or is there some left?"
The girl - Santana then, Blaine supposed - paddled her way over to the stairs and climbed out of the pool with a smirk. "As it so happens," she said with a smirk, "there is. The genius almost suffocated so we had a few wine coolers instead." She gestured around the yard. "Wait out here, I'll be back."
With actual clothes on, Blaine hoped.
Lauren plopped down on a chaise lounge, toed off her shoes, barked, "Get over here, Puckerman - my feet are still aching from that mile we had to walk from your broken down piece of crap," and Puck sat down and started rubbing her feet. It was a little bizarre to see.
Kurt remained standing, so Blaine did as well.
"I can bring the tow truck out tomorrow for it," Kurt said.
"On the house?" Puck asked hopefully, and Kurt gave him an unimpressed look.
"Do you think I'm running a charity, Puck?"
Puck grumbled, "It's probably not even worth the repair fees…"
Blaine shifted on his feet uncomfortably, thinking of his own car sitting in the garage.
The back door slid open again and Santana reemerged, still underdressed, with a bag held in the crook of her arm. "Alright, boys and giants," she said, reaching into the bag and pulling out…
Blaine blinked. It took him a moment to process the inflated, clamped-off prophylactic that she was holding.
"Really?" Puck snorted. "You expect us to suck it out of that?"
"If you don't like it you can feel free to leave, Puckerman," Santana said matter-of-factly. "Easier to explain if you get caught with a box of rubbers in a doctor's office than balloons."
Blaine bit his lip. He wanted to ask what exactly it was, and what it did, but he didn't want to draw any more attention to himself than there already was. The whole situation had him on edge, between the way Santana was flaunting sex like she was almost brandishing a knife at them and the strange tension between her and Kurt.
"Fetch," Lauren said, smacking Puck on the shoulder; he set her legs aside, got up to grab the inflated rubber from Santana's hand, and returned it to Lauren. Santana reached into her bag, fixed Blaine with an unpleasant smile, and pulled out another.
"Here you go, Wholesome," she said with deadly sweetness. Blaine's lips parted soundlessly - until that moment it hadn't occurred to him that he would be expected to partake in their drugged debauchery, as preoccupied as he was with everything else that was going on, though he supposed it ought to have.
Before he could say anything, however, Kurt tugged the clamp off, and inhaled. All of it.
Santana laughed as Kurt bent forward, grabbing his knees as he breathed in and out heavily. "Not all at once," she teased, though there was nothing lighthearted about it, and she strolled back over toward the pool. She bent down and pulled a pack of beer out from underneath a plant, set her bag down, pulled out a beer, worked the cap off, and took a swig.
Blaine took a step closer to Kurt, eyeing him carefully and biting his lip. He'd never felt so out of sorts before - nothing about this was his element, from the place to the people to the activity, and Kurt was the only familiar thing he had to latch onto… even if Kurt had just inhaled some sort of drug and was possibly out of his mind right then.
But after a few deep breaths Kurt seemed to be as collected as he usually was. He gave Blaine a small, reassuring look, and tilted his head toward the unoccupied pool chair. Blaine sat down, hands folded tight in his lap, and Kurt sat down on the deck beside him, his shoulder an arm's length away. He lounged casually, and Santana gave him an ugly smile over the neck of his bottle.
"So what have you been up to since graduation, Hummel?" she asked, as Puck and Lauren giggled in the background, apparently in their own little world and unaware of the strange drama that was unfolding in front of them. Blaine felt like he was watching some foreign play. "Doing a lot of work in cars?"
Kurt fixed her with a cold look. "Keeping busy," he said shortly. "You?"
She met his cold stare, and then some. "Not as busy as I'd like."
"There's shit all to do in this town," Puck grumbled, apparently having heard the conversation after all. Kurt and Santana both drew themselves up as Puck snagged two of the beers and offered one to Lauren. He added, "That's why me and my lady are heading for LA."
Santana scoffed. "I'm sure. By the time you've finished walking there, Zizes here might be fit for the camera."
"Watch it, Lopez," Lauren said, chugging her beer and wiping off her mouth.
"Weren't you going on about how you were heading off for big fame the second school let out?" Puck said, arching an eyebrow at her.
"Yeah, well," Santana huffed, taking a big gulp of her drink and then setting it down with a hard clink. "Things change. Take Kurt, for example," she said as an aside to Puck and Lauren, tossing her hair back. "All he's interested in anymore is being respectable with his respectable friend."
The line of Kurt's shoulders was getting squarer and squarer. "We can all be the children of doctors, Santana," he said cooly. "Some of us have to think about other people."
"How unselfish of you," she said sarcastically, pulling a silver case out of her bag and opening it to reveal a row of cigars. She took one out, tapped it, and lit it with what looked like a very expensive lighter.
Blaine's eyes widened as it occurred to him.
After all, how many girls were there that smoked cigars? That were acquainted with Kurt? And the weird tension that he'd been picking up on, that made him think that everything she was saying was code for something else…
He held himself still as he absorbed his epiphany, not letting on to the others there that his head was churning. Did she know about him?. She must, mustn't she? But she wouldn't tell, certainly - because she had a secret, too. It didn't give him the same sense of camaraderie that he felt with Kurt (but then, he didn't expect to feel with anyone what he felt with Kurt), but there was some comfort to be had there.
By the time he'd worn down his initial panic, Santana had gone through two cigars, Puck and Lauren had finished the last of the "giggling gas," as they called it, and they had all finished off the case of beer. Blaine felt like an observer among natives - he'd never seen this side of Kurt's life, not really. The Kurt that Blaine knew listened to records with him in his room and talked about what he planned to embroider on his jackets next and held him so tenderly that he took Blaine's breath away.
Blaine was sure that that - that all of that - was the real Kurt. But he felt like knowing the facade that Kurt put on, the lies he chose to tell about himself, were just as vital to understanding him completely.
He had to wonder if this was what had occupied all of Kurt's nights, before he had approached Blaine. If instead of the relief they'd found in each other he'd tried to smoke his thoughts out or drown his wants with drugs and beer.
He wondered what had made Kurt finally come to him. He'd told Blaine that he'd seen an opportunity in his car, but certainly he could have thought up a pretense before that if he'd put his mind to it. Kurt was the most creative, intelligent person that he knew.
There was one clear conclusion that he'd come to: the videos they showed at school weren't quite right about drugs. In his mind he'd imagined frantic, destructive energy to mirror the videos' discordant soundtrack. But there was no one falling into the pool, going mad, or even fornicating - Lauren still had Puck rubbing her feet, but she hadn't even taken her socks off, and for all that Santana was lounging around in an indecent swimming suit, she wasn't trying to… entice anyone. In fact, everyone seemed quite mellow and was talking, laughing, and most of all griping about what a nowhere town they were trapped in was.
Santana finally stubbed out her second cigar and told them all to leave - though she used much less polite terms than that as she started picking up bottles and pitching them over the fence into the neighbor's yard.
The ride back was mostly quite; Lauren took the front seat again, and when Kurt pulled up in front of Puck's house, both she and he got out.
Blaine silently climbed into the front seat and stretched out there as they drove along the quiet streets. His felt wrung out - in the pleasant way that he always did after he'd had Kurt inside of him, but also mentally exhausted from everything that had transpired before and past that.
"I'm sorry," Kurt said softly, after he'd put two blocks between them and Puck's house.
Blaine turned to look at him. He was sitting stiffly, holding the wheel hard and staring straight at the road. The tension was pouring off of him now that they were alone.
"I was the one that said we should go," Blaine pointed out, sitting up and sliding a hand up Kurt's back to squeeze his tight shoulder.
Kurt licked his lips. "I didn't want you to have to meet Santana. She's… unpleasant on a good day. Vicious on a normal one."
"It's her, isn't it," Blaine said. "She's the girl that parks with Brittany."
Kurt's eyes slid over to meet his briefly before they returned to the road.
"She knows about me."
Kurt pulled up to a dark patch of curb at that, killing the headlights. He turned toward Blaine, face serious and sincere.
"I didn't tell her about you."
Blaine blinked. "I know. I know you wouldn't." His hand slid down from Kurt's shoulder to his waist and he scooted closer across the seat. Kurt sucked in a breath and let it out slowly.
"She knew of you. Brittany… she's not the best secret-keeper, you know that, she doesn't get sometimes why she needs to keep her mouth shut about things. She told Santana that I have… someone. Special." He pursed his lips. "Well, she didn't use that term, but that was the gist of it."
"Why was Santana mad at you?" Blaine wondered.
Kurt smiled a little. "She doesn't really need a reason, and she doesn't like anyone that's taken a tumble with Brittany - or once intended to, in my case," Kurt added, sucking on his bottom lip and looking out the window. "But she's a little ticked at me at the moment. I don't have so much free time to chauffeur her and Brittany around. And she's just angry in general - she had plans, about leaving town with Brittany after graduation."
"She did?" Blaine asked, sitting up, his fingers curling a little tighter around Kurt's abdomen, warm through the thin t-shirt.
Kurt glanced at him. "It didn't work out," he said. "Brittany got held back and - it brought Santana to earth, I guess. Don't worry," he said, switching topics, "she won't tell, about you. She's a viper, but she's not that heartless."
Blaine's fingers scratched idly at Kurt's side, noting the way that the muscle shivered under him. He digested that and found that he was not worried. "Have you been giving her the prophylactics that Puck gives to you?" he wondered.
The corners of Kurt's mouth turned up. "I couldn't very well let them stack up in my bedroom. Dad's only just been convinced that he's not going to have to rush me through a wedding before Finn's."
"So she…"
"Everyone does what they need to," Kurt said levelly.
Blaine's hand smoothed up to the small of Kurt's back and rubbed there absently. Kurt sighed and leaned into it, finally beginning to unknot. "Can I ask you something?"
"Of course," Kurt murmured. He sounded exhausted, now that he was finally letting himself go, and it made him want to wrap Kurt up in his arms and lie down with him. But they were out on the street, and even what Blaine was doing now was verging on suspicious. It was late enough that all of the house lights on the street were out, so Blaine thought there was little chance of them being seen, but it said a lot about how tired Kurt was, that he wasn't pulling away.
"That - what you took -"
"Giggle gas," Kurt supplied.
"That. What does it do?"
Kurt looked a little surprised that he was asking, but answered all the same. "It's just - a roaring in your ears, and patterns on the edge of your vision for a couple breaths, and then it clears out. It's not dangerous," he promised. "Not as long as you remember to breathe air, too. It just comes on strong and shakes you, and then it leaves just as fast."
Blaine nodded thoughtfully, still kneading his fingers into Kurt's back. "Did you… do that a lot?"
"Sometimes," Kurt said slowly, trying to work out where Blaine was going with this. "Sometimes Santana swipes it when she visits her dad at work. Obviously she can't make off with it all the time."
"And the marijuana and the alcohol?" Blaine asked.
Kurt was eyeing him like he wasn't sure if Blaine was going to berate him or something else. "I didn't care for that. It sort of… put everything in a prolonged haze, and I didn't like it. Those dregs in the dashboard - that really was Brittany's. She loves the stuff and she and Santana use it sometimes, despite my repeated requests for them not to stink up my car," he volunteered, voice picking up some speed. Blaine nodded along thoughtfully.
"What?" Kurt finally said. "What, what are you getting at? Just tell me, because I hate having to try to guess. Are you scandalized?"
"A little," Blaine admitted. "Mostly by Santana."
Kurt cracked a smile at that, and Blaine continued.
"But I guess… I guess I was just thinking about what you did before I knew you. I know you weren't really a… a low-life deviant, but -"
"Hey," Kurt interrupted, reaching back to grasp Blaine's hand from his back and pull it into his lap, where he laced their fingers. "Being a deviant isn't so bad," he said with a smirk.
Blaine answered him with a soft smile and pressed, "I was just wondering why you stopped trying with - with Brittany and highs and why you tried with me."
Kurt was silent. Blaine looked up from their joined hands and saw that Kurt's face was pensive, like he was fighting with the urge to close off. After a long pause he let out a sigh and said, "Santana cries when she gets really drunk."
Blaine blinked, his eyebrows rising, unsure of where Kurt was taking this. Kurt squeezed his hand and met his eyes.
"A couple weeks before - more like three, I guess - Puck bailed on us because he was trying to woo Lauren, and Brittany wasn't there because it was cheerleading Nationals, and no one else showed up because - I don't know. Better things to do, or maybe Santana didn't invite anyone. But it was just me and Santana and a whole lot of alcohol, and - well, I won't repeat everything she said. But when she cries she really cries, and it was probably the most awkward experience of my life."
Kurt looked down at their hands. "Anyway… in between causing irreparable water damage to one of my favorite jackets, she said some stuff about her life that got me thinking, and I… Damn, Blaine." He let out a long, low, pained sigh. "You don't know how unhappy I was until I met you. Properly. I didn't even know how unhappy I was."
Blaine swallowed. "Me too."
"I just…" Kurt took a fortifying breath. "I didn't want my whole life to pass me by without ever being really happy."
"Are you?" Blaine whispered.
Kurt tightened his grip on his hand and covered it with his other. "More than I thought there was in me to be," he said with quiet ferocity.
Blaine smiled shakily. "Me too." He licked his lips. "You know what I'm going to say now."
"I… I can't, Blaine," Kurt said. He squeezed his eyes closed and then dug the heel of his palm into them. "I can't not choose my family, they're…" - a hard swallow - "they're the only one I'm ever going to have."
Blaine swallowed, feeling his hands go numb. And then Kurt was grabbing his arms by the elbows and pulling him in close, their heads low and together, and there was clear distress on his face. "Blaine, please. We still have a year. We still have your whole senior year. You… You shake me, Blaine, I feel like you…"
"Move me," Blaine whispered, and Kurt was nodding.
"Please, this doesn't have to happen yet."
"I love you," Blaine said desperately, because he couldn't think of what else to say. He'd come up against a wall every time, and… and why wasn't that enough? Why did there have to be anything else but that?
"I love you, too," Kurt said with tender fear, eyes so wide and watery and wounded on Blaine like he was the one that was doing this to them, breaking his heart, and Blaine almost wanted to resent him for that but it just hurt so badly - everything hurt, as the suffocation of resignation began to settle on him.
It wasn't that he couldn't find the argument. It was that there was no argument.
So what were their options? To keep on as they were, to love each other so dangerously as they watched the end rush toward them? Blaine didn't know if he could survive that. But the other option - to pull away now, first, to try and recover now - to do what Kurt had begged him not to? He couldn't. He couldn't, he loved Kurt so much that he knew hurting himself would be more bearable than hurting him.
"I love you," Blaine repeated, cupping his face, fingers curling in his hair - "God, I wish I could kiss you."
"Please," Kurt said, eyes squeezed closed again and - he was crying, Blaine realized. He'd never seen Kurt cry before. "Blaine, please try to understand. I have a responsibility…"
He was - he really was. But he couldn't imagine choosing his father over a life with Kurt - even a chance at a life with Kurt. He couldn't help the sting of rejection, the creeping anger that he wasn't being given in return the love that he'd put in. How could Kurt claim he made him happier than anything else if he were willing to let him go?
"You're the love of my life," he said finally, helplessly, hopelessly.
"Blaine -" Kurt's voice broke, and he sucked in a breath, tried to speak steadier, "you are everything that I wish I could have. You're everything."
Everything after that passed in something of a haze for Blaine.
They sat there in silence on that street for a long time, at opposite ends of the car, just trying to steady their breathing and look presentable. Kurt finally wiped his eyes, drove Blaine to the corner of his street, out of sight, and dropped him off. They didn't touch, didn't speak - Blaine was sure that if he did he would fly apart again. Kurt was right there and he already felt like he'd lost him.
But as he slid out of the car without even a "goodnight" or a secret brush of fingers and walked down the block to his house, the fresh summer air drying his face as he approached, Blaine tried to imagine staying in Lima, and he couldn't. He knew his father wanted him out of the house - out of his life - as soon as possible. He wanted Blaine to be successful so that he had accomplishments to be proud of in lieu of a son that he was always going to be ashamed for having. But he wanted him to be successful far away from him.
Blaine thought that he could maybe understand it, as he climbed the steps and let himself in (the lights were on, but there was no sign of his father; retired to his study, Blaine assumed, preoccupied with his work), if the force Mr. Hummel exerted on Kurt was as powerful as the one his own father exerted on him - except his father was compelling him to leave, while Mr. Hummel was reason enough for Kurt to stay.
He stayed up very late that night, trying not to think about anything. He still felt numb all over, like he'd been bled of all sensation.
He still made himself get up on time to catch the bus, go in to work, smile at customers, smile at everyone, act normal, always act normal, no matter how much he wasn't. He wiped down counters and took orders neatly and assembled meals with aplomb and he still flirted with the Crawford girls and preteens.
He didn't sing, though. He could never really fake it when he was singing.
At noon there was a rumble of a familiar engine, and when Blaine looked up from the milkshake canister he'd been washing, he saw his Impala pull up in the parking lot. Kurt came in the door with a jingle, walked straight to him, and set the keys on the counter. He didn't look at him, and once Blaine had reached out and closed his hands over the keys, Kurt turned and walked out.
Blaine wished now that he'd stopped pushing the issue like Kurt had wanted, but he knew that would have been impossible. He couldn't just make himself not worry, or ignore things. But he'd had so much hope, and God, that was a loss of its own worth mourning…
He went through the motions as the afternoon dragged on and his thoughts spun around the seemingly impossible choice before him - how to maximize pleasure and minimize pain? Was there a way, or did the degree of one determine the degree of the other? Did he really have to choose between a life of not truly feeling anything but a vague absence, and such extreme lows to pay for the highs?
Blaine stared at the car and methodically cleaned the counters and fingered the keys in his pocket and stared, and when Puck and Lauren came into the shop ten minutes to closing and tried to coax free shakes after hours, Blaine knew what he had to do.
No one could say that Blaine Anderson was not a man who was willing to take risks. Most of the time he played things safe because he wanted to be safe, but there were things he wanted more - things essential to his character, to his very soul. He could lie about everything, but there were some things that he couldn't deny himself and still be himself. There had to be something about who he was that could hold up against every concealment, denial, misdirection, and lie and still believe he had an identity that transcended it all.
And for him, that was taking chances - big chances, with big gestures - for the things that he believed in. It was like when he'd stumbled out of the car last night to help Kurt face down the unknown. It wasn't a choice that he made about how he presented himself. It wasn't any choice at all. It was just something that Blaine Anderson had to do.
Blaine pulled up to the Hummel garage. This time he knew that only Kurt would be there - it was past closing, and Kurt would want to stay late tonight. Generally when he wanted to take his mind off things, he became very preoccupied with the minute details of simple tasks. (Looking back, he had bedazzled a lot of things as his own graduation had neared.) Blaine knew that he would be in there after the not-fight they'd had.
Somehow it was worse that it hadn't been a fight - that what they had might fall apart while proclaiming to love one another more dearly than anything else in the world.
He climbed out and walked to the front door, rapping smartly on it with his knuckles. He waited a minute, and when there was no response he knocked again, wondering if Kurt would simply ignore a visitor past closing. But presently there was movement from inside, and then Kurt's face was in the window, looking surprised, then apprehensive, as he opened the door. "Blaine…"
"Can I come in?" he asked politely.
"…Yes," Kurt said, stepping aside. He closed the door behind him. Blaine considered the reception room, but it was too bland, designed to be universally appealing.
"Can we go into your office?"
Kurt's head bobbed and they walked there together; the light was on in there, but the rest of the garage was dark as they passed through it.
As soon as Blaine had crossed the threshold he turned to Kurt and said, "I'm selling my car."
Kurt blinked, looking thrown off. "What?"
"To Puck and Lauren."
Kurt still looked confused. "Did he rob a bank?"
Blaine shrugged. "Well, it's not happening right now. There's still a year before I leave for New York. He said that would be enough time to come up with the money."
Kurt crossed his arms, a wrinkle appearing in his brow. "You're just going to sell your car."
"I wouldn't be able to keep it in New York. It's sensible."
"Okay…" Kurt said slowly. "Why are you telling me?" His eyes flickered away. "Is this some sort of… symbolic gesture?"
It took Blaine a moment, and then he blinked and raised an eyebrow. "You mean because this started in my car? No."
Kurt's shoulders relaxed a fraction. "Then I don't understand why you came here to tell me this."
"Because," Blaine said, rocking on his feet, "it'll be more than enough for you to find an apartment in New York."
Kurt's mouth sagged open. "You… Blaine, you cannot give me that much money."
"It's for us," Blaine said.
"You… God, I thought you were coming here to break it off between us," Kurt said, hunching a little. "Blaine, it's not just money. I've told you…"
"Listen," Blaine said, grabbing his hand and pulling him over to the small love seat that was pushing up against one of the walls. He sat down and pulled a hesitant Kurt down next to him. "Your dad had his heart attack almost two years ago, Kurt. He hasn't had another since."
"Once was too much," Kurt said, biting his lip.
"No, please… Just listen. Finn can run the garage. You remember that he and I used to run in the same circle, right? I happen to know that he wants to run the garage. He's planning a wedding, he's probably going to start having kids soon - he needs a career. And I know… I know that they're your family, but Kurt, I need you more than they do," he said, voice breaking a little, Kurt's eyes suddenly concerned and aching as they stared into his own, and he took a shaky, steadying breath and powered through: "And I think you need me, too."
He swallowed. "You don't have to be here to be responsible. You could make more money in New York than you can in Ohio. You could send it to them." He looked up at him and swore fiercely, "This, us, isn't some escape from the dreary reality, and I'm not some high, Kurt, I'm not going to fade away. You… I hope you know that you have my heart, wherever you are," he whispered. "Please be with me."
"Blaine…" Kurt's hand slid around his collar, trembling when he fingered the edge of his bow tie. His breath came in shallowly and Blaine was holding his own, waiting, praying desperately like he never had before.
"Okay," Kurt breathed. He closed his eyes and tipped his head forward until theirs were touching. "Christ, Blaine, there's only so many times I can say no to you. Okay. I'll go to New York."
Blaine sucked in a shuddery breath, grasping the sides of Kurt's face. "Yes?"
Kurt smiled at him. "Yes."
Blaine threw his arms around him, wrapping around him as tight as he could while Kurt's arms came around to cling to his shoulders. "I love you," he whispered. "Thank you, I love you. This will work, you'll see. We've got each other, Kurt."
Kurt's hand slipped up from his shoulder to cradle his head. "I love you," he breathed against his lips, and kissed him for a very long time.
Part 1
Verse Notes


text:
Sometimes the hand is smarter, more nimble, and more responsive to feedback than the brain alone. The craft of design taps into this sophisticated—and uniquely human—way that our senses "feel-out" problems. When we push to assess material resistance or squint to gauge contrast, we employ lo-fi physical intuition (actually: a superpower honed over millions of years of evolution) to make sense of the world around us.
Unlike in other fields, there are no universal rules that designers can take for granted. We must remain nimble and attuned to subtle cues from the outside—whether it's the minute feedback from an ever-shifting visual culture, from the physicality of materials, or from the ever-evolving logic of user expectations. We feel our way through all of it it, A/B test, and create experiences that lead others to our discoveries. Because of this, design can be considered a radically firsthand approach to uncovering new knowledge. Here, there is a high capacity to make work that subverts a viewer's expectations and brings truly unique experiences into existence.
This session will explore how designers' unique set of sensitivities can be used to create work that seems like magic, while challenging their audience's expectations. We will dive into this process-philosophy with a combination of project show-and-tell, research findings, and also complimentary texts from outside of the field.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
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Wed Nov 7, 2012, 06:11 AM
Tx4obama (36,974 posts)
This message was self-deleted by its author (Tx4obama) on Wed Nov 7, 2012, 03:44 PM. When the original post in a discussion thread is self-deleted, the entire discussion thread is automatically locked so new replies cannot be posted.
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Wed Nov 7, 2012, 06:30 AM
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text:
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM opens his novel The Razor's Edge with the following quote:
The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over;
the the wise say the path to Salvation is hard.
The quote is followed with a line below it containing the hyphenated words Katha-Upanishad citing Maugham's original source, while elsewhere it is stated that the actual title of the book was derived from that exact same quote. But what is the Katha-Upanishad? How does the quote fit into IT'S source? The quote is found below at PART ONE, Chapter III, Verse 14 (1.iii.14). The whole of the Katha-Upanishad follows, but you can go to the specific quote by clicking HERE if you like.
When Maugham needed to translate that particular passage of the Katha Upanishad for The Razor's Edge, he sought out Chistopher Isherwood, a follower of Swami Vivekananda and a member of the Vedanta Society of Southern California as well as being an author in his own right. Because of his input, after The Razor's Edge became one of the Bestselling Novels of the 20th Century, Isherwood came to be thought of in some circles as possibly the model for Larry Darrell, the novel's main character who gives up a privileged life in search of spiritual Enlightenment. Maugham, well known for inserting aspects of friends and foes in real life into his books remained mum, but Isherwood himself emphatically denied he was the character's source, and, of course, in actuality, he wasn't. At one time Isherwood became so identified with Larry Darrell that he wrote Time magazine to set the record straight when his book Prater Violet was reviewed:
"I have only one mild word of protest, he wrote. I am NOT, as you have twice stated in your columns, the original, or part-original, of Larry in Maugham's The Razor's Edge. I can stand a good deal of kidding from my friends, but this rumor has poisoned my life for the past six months, and I wish it would die as quickly as possible."
Another person mentioned frequently as the actual role model for Darrell is a man named Guy Hague. Hague had traveled to India in the late 1930s to study under the great sage Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi --- unlike Isherwood who had NEVER been to India until many years after Maugham's book was written. [1]
The Bhagavan had been used by Maugham as the model for Shri Ganesha in the novel, and it has been reported that Hague was at the ashram around the same time as Maugham's Travels In India, hence the seeming connection. In real life, however, they NEVER met, actually missing each by several months. Maugham visited the Ramana ashram in February, 1938 and gone by March, Hague showing up around September of that year. As it was Hague wasn't the model for the Darrell character either as the Darrell character's Awakening experience happened at least six years before Hague was ever in India. The Darrell character was long gone from India by the time Maugham and later Hague showed up.
Actually, the Darrell character has been pinpointed quite well. For more on the actual real life person and what happened to him after the novel finished, click HERE. For more on Isherwood and how he is related to all this click HERE.
Om. May Brahman protect us both! May Brahman bestow upon us both the fruit of Knowledge! May we both obtain the energy to acquire Knowledge! May what we both study reveal the Truth! May we cherish no ill feeling toward each other!
Om. Peace! Peace! Peace!Katha Upanishad
Part One
Chapter I
Vajasravasa, desiring rewards, performed the Visvajit sacrifice, in which he gave away all his property. He had a son named Nachiketa.
When the gifts were being distributed, faith entered into the heart of Nachiketa, who was still a boy. He said to himself: Joyless, surely, are the worlds to which he goes who gives away cows no longer able to drink, to eat, to give milk, or to calve.
He said to his father: Father! To whom will you give me? He said this a second and a third time. Then his father replied: Unto death I will give you.
Among many I am the first; or among many I am the middlemost. But certainly I am never the last. What purpose of the King of Death will my father serve today by thus giving me away to him?
Nachiketa said: Look back and see how it was with those who came before us and observe how it is with those who are now with us. A mortal ripens like corn and like corn he springs up again.
Verily, like fire a brahmin guest enters a house; the householder pacifies him by giving him water and a seat. Bring him water. O King of Death!
The brahmin who dwells in a house, fasting, destroys that foolish householders hopes and expectations, the reward of his intercourse with pious people, the merit of his kindly speech, the good results of his sacrifices and beneficial deeds and his cattle and children as well.
Yama said: O Brahmin, salutations to you! You are a venerable guest and have dwelt in my house three nights without eating; therefore choose now three boons, one for each night, O Brahmin! May all be well with me!
Nachiketa said: O Death, may Gautama, my father, be calm, cheerful and free from anger toward me! May he recognise me and greet me when I shall have been sent home by you! This I choose as the first of the three boons.
Yama said: Through my favour, your father, Auddilaki Aruni, will recognise you and be again toward you as he was before. After having seen you freed from the jaws of death, he will sleep peacefully at night and bear no anger against you.
Nachiketa said: In the Heavenly World there is no fear whatsoever. You, O Death, are not there and no one is afraid of old age. Leaving behind both hunger and thirst and out of the reach of sorrow, all rejoice in Heaven.
You know, O Death, the Firesacrifice, which leads to Heaven. Explain it to me, for I am full of faith. The inhabitants of Heaven attain immortality. This I ask as my second boon.14
Yama said: I know well the Firesacrifice, which leads to Heaven and I will explain it to you. Listen to me. Know this Fire to be the means of attaining Heaven. It is the support of the universe; it is hidden in the hearts of the wise.
Yama then told him about the Fire, which is the source of the worlds and what bricks were to be gathered for the altar and how many and how the sacrificial fire was to be lighted. Nachiketa, too, repeated all this as it had been told him. Then Yama, being pleased with him, spoke again.
Highsouled Death, being well pleased, said to Nachiketa: I will now give you another boon: this fire shall be named after you. Take also from me this manycoloured chain.
He who has performed three times this Nachiketa sacrifice, having been instructed by the three and also has performed his three duties, overcomes birth and death. Having known this Fire born of Brahman, omniscient, luminous and adorable and realised it, he attains supreme peace.
He who, having known the three, has performed three times the Nachiketa sacrifice, throws off, even here, the chains of death, overcomes grief and rejoices in Heaven.
This, O Nachiketa, is your Firesacrifice, which leads to Heaven and which you have chosen as your second boon. People will call this Fire by your name. Now, O Nachiketa, choose the third boon.
Nachiketa said: There is this doubt about a man when he is dead: Some say that he exists; others, that he does not. This I should like to know, taught by you. This is the third of my boons.
Yama said: On this subject even the gods formerly had their doubts. It is not easy to understand: the nature of Atman is subtle. Choose another boon, O Nachiketa! Do not press me. Release me from that boon.
Nachiketa said: O Death, even the gods have their doubts about this subject; and you have declared it to be not easy to understand. But another teacher like you cannot be found and surely no other boon is comparable to this.
Yama said: Choose sons and grandsons who shall live a hundred years; choose elephants, horses, herds of cattle and gold. Choose a vast domain on earth; live here as many years as you desires.
If you deem any other boon equal to that, choose it; choose wealth and a long life. Be the king, O Nachiketa, of the wide earth. I will make you the enjoyer of all desires.
Whatever desires are difficult to satisfy in this world of mortals, choose them as you wish: these fair maidens, with their chariots and musical instruments men cannot obtain them. I give them to you and they shall wait upon you. But do not ask me about death.
Nachiketa said: But, O Death, these endure only till tomorrow. Furthermore, they exhaust the vigour of all the sense organs. Even the longest life is short indeed. Keep your horses, dances and songs for yourself.
Wealth can never make a man happy. Moreover, since I have beheld you, I shall certainly obtain wealth; I shall also live as long as you rule. Therefore no boon will be accepted by me but the one that I have asked.
Who among decaying mortals here below, having approached the undecaying immortals and coming to know that his higher needs may be fulfilled by them, would exult in a life over long, after he had pondered on the pleasures arising from beauty and song?
Tell me, O Death, of that Great Hereafter about which a man has his doubts.
Chapter II
Yama said: The good is one thing; the pleasant, another. Both of these, serving different needs, bind a man. It goes well with him who, of the two, takes the good; but he who chooses the pleasant misses the end.
Both the good and the pleasant present themselves to a man. The calm soul examines them well and discriminates. Yea, he prefers the good to the pleasant; but the fool chooses the pleasant out of greed and avarice.
O Nachiketa, after pondering well the pleasures that are or seem to he delightful, you have renounced them all. You have not taken the road abounding in wealth, where many men sink.
Wide apart and leading to different ends are these two: ignorance and what is known as Knowledge. I regard you, O Nachiketa, to be one who desires Knowledge; for even many pleasures could not tempt you away.
Fools dwelling in darkness, but thinking themselves wise and erudite, go round and round, by various tortuous paths, like the blind led by the blind.
The Hereafter never reveals itself to a person devoid of discrimination, heedless and perplexed by the delusion of wealth. "This world alone exists," he thinks, "and there is no other." Again and again he comes under my sway.
Many there are who do not even hear of Atman; though hearing of Him, many do not comprehend. Wonderful is the expounder and rare the hearer; rare indeed is the experiencer of Atman taught by an able preceptor.
Atman, when taught by an inferior person, is not easily comprehended, because It is diversely regarded by disputants. But when It is taught by him who has become one with Atman, there can remain no more doubt about It. Atman is subtler than the subtlest and not to be known through argument.
This Knowledge cannot be attained by reasoning. Atman become easy of comprehension, O dearest, when taught by another. You have attained this Knowledge now. You are, indeed, a man of true resolve. May we always have an inquirer like you!
Yama said: I know that the treasure resulting from action is not eternal; for what is eternal cannot be obtained by the noneternal. Yet I have performed the Nachiketa sacrifice with the help of noneternal things and attained this position which is only relatively eternal.
The fulfilment of desires, the foundation of the universe, the rewards of sacrifices, the shore where there is no fear, that which adorable and great, the wide abode and the goalall this you have seen; and being wise, you have with firm resolve discarded everything.
The wise man who, by means of concentration on the Self, realises that ancient, effulgent One, who is hard to be seen, unmanifest, hidden and who dwells in the buddhi and rests in the bodyhe, indeed, leaves joy and sorrow far behind.
The mortal who has heard this and comprehended it well, who has separated that Atman, the very soul of dharma, from all physical objects and has realised the subtle essence, rejoices because he has obtained that which is the cause of rejoicing. The Abode of Brahman, I believe, is open for Nachiketa.
Nachiketa said: That which you see as other than righteousness and unrighteousness, other than all this cause and effect, other than what has been and what is to betell me That.
Yama said: The goal which all the Vedas declare, which all austerities aim at and which men desire when they lead the life of continence, I will tell you briefly: it is Om.
This syllable Om is indeed Brahman. This syllable is the Highest. Whosoever knows this syllable obtains all that he desires.
This is the best support; this is the highest support. Whosoever knows this support is adored in the world of Brahma.
The knowing Self is not born; It does not die. It has not sprung from anything; nothing has sprung from It. Birthless, eternal, everlasting and ancient, It is not killed when the body is killed.
If the killer thinks he kills and if the killed man thinks he is killed, neither of these apprehends aright. The Self kills not, nor is It killed.
Atman, smaller than the small, greater than the great, is hidden in the hearts of all living creatures. A man who is free from desires beholds the majesty of the Self through tranquillity of the senses and the mind and becomes free from grief.
Though sitting still, It travels far; though lying down, It goes everywhere. Who but myself can know that luminous Atman who rejoices and rejoices not?
The wise man, having realised Atman as dwelling within impermanent bodies but Itself bodiless, vast and allpervading, does not grieve.
This Atman cannot be attained by the study of the Vedas, or by intelligence, or by much hearing of sacred books. It is attained by him alone whom It chooses. To such a one Atman reveals Its own form.
He who has not first turn away from wickedness, who is not tranquil and subdued and whose mind is not at peace, cannot attain Atman. It is realised only through the Knowledge of Reality.
Who, then, knows where He isHe to whom Brahmins and kshattriyas are mere food and death itself a condiment?
Chapter III
Two there are who dwell within the body, in the intellect, the supreme akasa of the heart, enjoying the sure rewards of their own actions. The knowers of Brahman describe them as light and shade, as do those householders who have offered oblations in the Five Fires and also those who have thrice performed the Nachiketa sacrifice.
We know how to perform the Nachiketa sacrifice, which is the bridge for sacrificers; and we know also that supreme, imperishable Brahman, which is sought by those who wish to cross over to the shore where there is no fear.
Know the atman to be the master of the chariot; the body, chariot; the intellect, the charioteer; and the mind, the reins.
The senses, they say, are the horses; the objects, the roads. The wise call the atmanunited with the body, the senses and the mindthe enjoyer.
If the buddhi, being related to a mind that is always distracted, loses its discriminations, then the senses become uncontrolled, like the vicious horses of a charioteer.
But if the buddhi, being related to a mind that is always restrained, possesses discrimination, then the senses come under control, like the good horses of a charioteer.
If the buddhi, being related to a distracted mind, loses its discrimination and therefore always remains impure, then the embodied soul never attains the goal, but enters into the round of births.
But if the buddhi, being related to a mind that is restrained, possesses discrimination and therefore always remains pure, then the embodied soul attains that goal from which he is not born again.
A man who has discrimination for his charioteer and holds the reins of the mind firmly, reaches the end of the road; and that is the supreme position of Vishnu.
Beyond the senses are the objects; beyond the objects is the mind; beyond the mind, the intellect; beyond the intellect, the Great Atman; beyond the Great Atman, the Unmanifest; beyond the Unmanifest, the Purusha. Beyond the Purusha there is nothing: this is the end, the Supreme Goal.
That Self hidden in all beings does not shine forth; but It is seen by subtle seers through their onepointed and subtle intellects.
The wise man should merge his speech in his mind and his mind in his intellect. He should merge his intellect in the Cosmic Mind and the Cosmic Mind in the Tranquil Self.
Arise! Awake! Approach the great and learn. Like the sharp edge of a razor is that path, so the wise sayhard to tread and difficult to cross.
(please click image)
Having realised Atman, which is soundless, intangible, formless, undecaying and likewise tasteless, eternal and odourless; having realised That which is without beginning and end, beyond the Great and unchangingone is freed from the jaws of death.
The wise man who has heard and related the eternal story of Nachiketa, told by Death, is adored in the world of Brahman.
And he who, practising selfcontrol, recites the supreme secret in an assembly of Brahmins or at a afterdeath ceremony obtains thereby infinite rewards. Yea, he obtains infinite rewards.
Part Two
Chapter I
Yama said: The selfexistent Supreme Lord inflicted an injury upon the senseorgans in creating them with outgoing tendencies; therefore a man perceives only outer objects with them and not the inner Self. But a calm person, wishing for Immortality, beholds the inner Self with his eyes closed.
Children pursue outer pleasures and fall into the net of widespread death; but calm souls, having known what is unshakable Immortality, do not covet any uncertain thing in this world.
It is through Atman that one knows form, taste, smell, sounds, touches and carnal pleasures. Is there anything that remains unknown to Atman? This, verily, is That.
It is through Atman that one perceives all objects in sleep or in the waking state. Having realised the vast, allpervading Atman, the calm soul does not grieve.
He who knows the individual soul, the experiencer of the fruits of action, as Atman, always near and the Lord of the past and the future, will not conceal himself from others. This, verily, is That.
He verily knows Brahman who knows the Firstborn, the offspring of austerity, created prior to the waters and dwelling, with the elements, in the cave of the heart. This, verily, is That.
He verily knows Brahman who knows Aditi, the soul of all deities, who was born in the form of Prana, who was created with the elements and who, entering into the heart, abides therein. This, verily, is That.
Agni, hidden in the two firesticks and well guardedlike a child in the womb, by its motheris worshipped day after day by men who are awake and by those who offer oblations in the sacrifices. This, verily, is That.
Whence the sun rises and whither it goes to set, in whom all the devas are contained and whom none can ever pass beyondThis, verily, is That.
What is here, the same is there and what is there, the same is here. He goes from death to death who sees any difference here.
By the mind alone is Brahman to be realised; then one does not see in It any multiplicity whatsoever. He goes from death to death who sees multiplicity in It. This, verily, is That.
The Purusha, of the size of a thumb, dwells in the body. He is the Lord of the past and the future. After knowing Him, one does not conceal oneself any more. This, verily, is That.
The Purusha, of the size of a thumb, is like a flame without smoke. The Lord of the past and the future, He is the same today and tomorrow. This, verily, is That.
As rainwater falling on a mountain peak runs down the rocks in all directions, even so he who sees the attributes as different from Brahman verily runs after them in all directions.
As pure water poured into pure water becomes one with it, so also, O Gautama, does the Self of the sage who knows.
Chapter II
There is a city with eleven gates belonging to the unborn Atman of undistorted Consciousness. He who meditates on Him grieves no more; liberated from the bonds of ignorance, he becomes free. This, verily, is That.
He is the sun dwelling in the bright heavens. He is the air in the interspace. He is the fire dwelling on earth. He is the guest dwelling in the house. He dwells in men, in the gods, in truth, in the sky. He is born in the water, on earth, in the sacrifice, on the mountains. He is the True and the Great.
He it is who sends prana upward and who leads apana downward. All the devas worship that adorable One seated in the middle.
When the soul, identified with the body and dwelling in it, is torn away from the body, is freed from it, what then remains? This, verily, is That?
No mortal ever lives by prana, which goes up, nor by apana, which goes down. Men live by something different, on which these two depend.
Well then, Gautama, I shall tell you about this profound and eternal Brahman and also about what happens to the atman after meeting death.
Some jivas enter the womb to be embodied as organic beings and some go into nonorganic matteraccording to their work and according to their knowledge.
He, the Purusha, who remains awake while the senseorgans are asleep, shaping one lovely form after another, that indeed is the Pure, that is Brahman and that alone is called the Immortal. All worlds are contained in Him and none can pass beyond. This, verily, is That.
As the same nondual fire, after it has entered the world, becomes different according to whatever it burns, so also the same nondual Atman, dwelling in all beings, becomes different according to whatever It enters. And It exists also without.
As the same nondual air, after it has entered the world, becomes different according to whatever it enters, so also the same nondual Atman, dwelling in all beings, becomes different according to whatever It enters. And It exists also without.
As the sun, which helps all eyes to see, is not affected by the blemishes of the eyes or of the external things revealed by it, so also the one Atman, dwelling in all beings, is never contaminated by the misery of the world, being outside it.
There is one Supreme Ruler, the inmost Self of all beings, who makes His one form manifold. Eternal happiness belongs to the wise, who perceive Him within themselvesnot to others.
There is One who is the eternal Reality among noneternal objects, the one truly conscious Entity among conscious objects and who, though nondual, fulfils the desires of many. Eternal peace belongs to the wise, who perceive Him within themselvesnot to others.
The sages realise that indescribable Supreme Joy as "This is That." How can I realise It? Is It selfluminous? Does It shine brightly, or not?
The sun does not shine there, nor the moon and the stars, nor these lightningsnot to speak of this fire. He shining, everything shines after Him. By His light all this is lighted.
Chapter III
This is that eternal Asvattha Tree with its root above and branches below. That root, indeed, is called the Bright; That is Brahman and That alone is the Immortal. In That all worlds are contained and none can pass beyond. This, verily, is That.
Whatever there isthe whole universevibrates because it has gone forth from Brahman, which exists as its Ground. That Brahman is a great terror, like a poised thunderbolt. Those who know It become immortal.
From terror of Brahman, fire burns; from terror of It, the sun shines; from terror of It, Indra and Vayu and Death, the fifth, run.
If a man is able to realise Brahman here, before the falling asunder of his body, then he is liberated; if not, he is embodied again in the created worlds.
As in a mirror, so in the buddhi; as in a dream, so in the World of the Fathers; as in water, so Brahman is seen in the World of the Gandharvas; as in light and shade, so in the World of Brahma.
Having understood that the senses have their separate origin and that they are distinct from Atman and also that their rising and setting belong to them alone, a wise man grieves no more.
Beyond the senses is the mind, beyond the mind is the intellect, higher than the intellect is the Great Atman, higher than the Great Atman is the Unmanifest.
Beyond the Unmanifest is the Person, allpervading and imperceptible. Having realised Him, the embodied self becomes liberated and attains Immortality.
His form is not an object of vision; no one beholds Him with the eye. One can know Him when He is revealed by the intellect free from doubt and by constant meditation. Those who know this become immortal.
When the five instruments of knowledge stand still, together with the mind and when the intellect does not move, that is called the Supreme State.
This, the firm Control of the senses, is what is called yoga. One must then be vigilant; for yoga can be both beneficial and injurious.
Atman cannot be attained by speech, by the mind, or by the eye. How can It be realised in any other way than by the affirmation of him who says: "He is"?
He is to be realised first as Existence limited by upadhis and then in His true transcendental nature. Of these two aspects, Atman realised as Existence leads the knower to the realisation of His true nature.
When all the desires that dwell in the heart fall away, then the mortal becomes immortal and here attains Brahman.
When all the ties of the heart are severed here on earth, then the mortal becomes immortal. This much alone is the teaching.
There are one hundred and one arteries of the heart, one of which pierces the crown of the head. Going upward by it, a man at death attains immortality. But when his prana passes out by other arteries, going in different directions, then he is reborn in the world.
The Purusha, not larger than a thumb, the inner Self, always dwells in the hearts of men. Let a man separate Him from his body with steadiness, as one separates the tender stalk from a blade of grass. Let him know that Self as the Bright, as the Immortalyea, as the Bright, as the Immortal.
Having received this wisdom taught by the King of Death and the entire process of yoga, Nachiketa became free from impurities and death and attained Brahman. Thus it will be also with any other who knows, in this manner, the inmost Self.
End of Katha Upanishad
Peace Chant
Om. May Brahman protect us both! May Brahman bestow upon us both the fruit of Knowledge! May we both obtain the energy to acquire Knowledge! May what we both study reveal the Truth! May we cherish no ill feeling toward each other!
Om. Peace! Peace! Peace!
This from Hinduism Today:
In his later years, Isherwood undertook research for (his book) "Ramakrishna and His Disciples" (1965). He traveled to India and visited Ramakrishna's birthplace at Kamarpukur and the temple at Dakshineswar where the saint spent most of his adult life. He had a vivid dream of Ramakrishna which Swami Prabhavananda told him "was a great grace." Isherwood began the book: "This is the story of a phenomenon. I will begin by calling him simply that, rather than holy man, mystic, saint, or avatar; all emotive words with mixed associations which may attract some readers, repel others. A phenomenon is often something extraordinary and mysterious. Ramakrishna was extraordinary and mysterious; most of all to those who were best fitted to understand him." Isherwood was not fully satisfied with this book, though it remains quite popular. Privately he wished that he "could have sucked some of the sanctity out of it and dimmed the light," in favor of more realistic portrayals. (source)
And this from Rants of a Diva:
After the screening, I ran into two gentlemen whom I knew reasonably-well, writer Christopher Isherwood and his longtime companion, artist Don Bachardy. Isherwood, so it was rumored at the time, was the real-life role-model for "Larry Darrell" in Maugham's novel. He laughed when I asked him about this, saying in his gentlemanly and modest way, "To some extent, but Maugham was really drawing on a composite on several different people". However, as Isherwood had gone to India with poet W.H. Auden in the thirties, had met with a "guru", which he later wrote about, and had, as a result, gone through a self-proclaimed "Spiritual awakening" (all of which he had directly told me about some years earlier, when I was taken by a friend to meet him at his home in Santa Monica), the general consensus is that he was the "primary role model" for Darrell. Isherwood didn't seem to have any quarrel, that I was made aware of on that night, with Mr. Power's portrayal of "himself" on the screen, nor with Zanuck and Goulding's interpretation of the source material. (source)
The above attributed to a blog respondent that at one time apparently knew Isherwood. The respondent goes only by the initials RJ.
NOTE: In contrast to the contents in the paragraph above, Isherwood had NOT gone to India with poet W.H. Auden in the thirties (i.e., 1930s). He did, however, travel to China with Auden toward the mid-to-end of the thirties, writing in the process "JOURNEY TO A WAR" (1939) with Auden --- not however, for any recorded spiritual or religious reasons.
Good biography. Lots of Maugham graphics, from early childhood to late adult. Link to Maugham's private art collection.
Everybody knows Hemingway drove an ambulance during WWI, nobody knows Maugham did.


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Syros today
Syros today
Sikinos Island, Cyclades, Greece
📍island of Kimolos (Κίμωλος)
A traditional fishing village 🇬🇷
🔹Like and Share🔹
Milos island, Cyclades, Greece
SANTORINI (Greece)
Folegandros, Cycladic islands, Greece
I'm looking for you everywhere I go
But you're nowhere to find
Syros, Cycladic islands, Greece
Paros, Cycladic islands,Greece
Kastro Village,Sifnos island,Cyclades,Greece.
Κάστρο, Σίφνος, Κυκλάδες.
Sifnos Island, Greece (by Marie Therese Magnan)
Tinos, Cycladic islands
Milos cycladic islands | GREECE
A taste from Paros island at night
Naxos, Greece
Drawn from an amazing cafe on the balcony of a castle.
Tinos island, Cyclades
Serifos, Cycladic islands, Greece


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If you've been noticing a lot more of Dion Phaneuf in the offensive zone these days, your eyes aren't deceiving you.
And he's had some company, too, with many of the Toronto Maple Leafs other defencemen jumping into the play to join him.
Heading into Monday's games, the Leafs were tied for 18th in the NHL in scoring at even strength, a huge drop from a year ago, and a pressing issue as they've begun to allow more goals against.
That's led to the coaching staff to call on their blueline to jump up in the play and make something happen – a trend that's been evident over Toronto's recent 6-1-1 stretch in its last eight games.
The results haven't always been pretty from a goals-against perspective – with 12 goals allowed in their last two games – but with the Leafs spending so much time in their own end this season, the defence being more opportunistic and involved in the offensive side of things was a needed change.
"We're trying to play more of an aggressive style and have more of a five-man attack mentality," defenceman Jake Gardiner explained. "Not just sit back."
"We've tried to instil some confidence in them that they have the green light to go when the situation presents itself," head coach Randy Carlyle added. "You see the teams that are having success: Their [defencemen] are very active. They're doing a lot of pinching on the walls. They're joining the rush. They're coming late. They're active in the cycle. We're just trying to stress that."
It's a switch that's been working.
After scoring only 11 goals in the first 47 games of the season, the Leafs blueline now has eight in the last seven outings, with Gardiner leading the way (three). The defence is also producing 2.15 points per game in January, compared to 1.73 in the first three months, with the vast majority of that difference coming at even strength.
But the most interesting shift on the Toronto blueline has been what's happening with Phaneuf, whose offensive game had been mired in a nearly season-long slump.
Prior to his recent run of four points in seven games, the Leafs captain was on pace for only 30 points in 80 games – an anomaly given, over the previous eight seasons, only six NHL defencemen have put up more points.
Part of the reason is his role has been slanted so heavily toward being a shutdown type, at least until the Leafs acquired defenceman Tim Gleason on New Year's Day.
Since he entered the lineup, Gleason has been starting twice as many shifts in the defensive zone as the offensive one, which has freed Phaneuf up for far more of those offensive situations.
His zone start ratio, for example, has climbed from one of the lowest in the league (well below 40 per cent) prior to Gleason's arrival to closer to respectable. Phaneuf's possession rating, meanwhile, is also way up, from an average of 40 per cent prior to Gleason arriving to more than 48 per cent the last 11 games with both defencemen in the lineup.
Add in the fact Gleason is also taking over some of the captain's penalty killing duties, and you can see why the Leafs have now been averaging more than three goals a game again.
Given his skill set, it makes a lot of sense for Phaneuf to be used in more of an attacking role and less like a defensive defenceman who gets power-play time, which is essentially what he had been turning into under Carlyle.
Gleason may not be a world-beater in his own end, but Carlyle trusts him and can load him up with those tough minutes without sacrificing any offence. And that appears to be helping keep the puck out of the Toronto end.
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Number of commits found: 42
- Update to 0.4.0 - Add LICENSE - Sort LIB_DEPENDS - Use USES=libtool - Do not silence installation message - Bump PORTREVISION for graphics/webp shlib change Changes: https://chromium.googlesource.com/webm/libwebp/+/master/NEWS
Convert all :U to :tu and :L to :tl Since FreeBSD 8.4 and FreeBSD 9.1 make(1) do support :tu and :tl as a replacement for :U and :L (which has been marked as deprecated) bmake which is the default on FreeBSD 10+ only support by default :tu/:tl a hack has been added at the time to support :U and :L to ease migration. This hack is now not necessary anymore Note that this makes the ports tree incompatible with make(1) from FreeBSD 8.3 or earlier With hat: portmgr
Don't hardcode libdir flag spec in GraphicsMagick++-config: without that, ports depending on it (e.g. graphics/cimg) fail with the error: c++: error: unknown argument: '-R/usr/local/lib'
The FreeBSD x11@ and graphics team proudly presents a zeising, kwm production, with help from dumbbell, bdrewery: NEW XORG ON FREEBSD 9-STABLE AND 10-STABLE This update switches over to use the new xorg stack by default on FreeBSD 9 and 10 stable, on osversions where vt(9) is available. It is still possible to use the old stack by specifying WITHOUT_NEW_XORG in /etc/make.conf . FreeBSD 8-STABLE and released versions of FreeBSD still use the old version. A package repository with binary packages for new xorg will be available soon. This patch also contains updates of libxcb and related ports, pixman, as well(Only the first 15 lines of the commit message are shown above )
The FreeBSD x11@ and graphics team proudly presents a zeising, kwm production, with help from dumbbell, bdrewery: NEW XORG ON FREEBSD 9-STABLE AND 10-STABLE This update switches over to use the new xorg stack by default on FreeBSD 9 and 10 stable, on osversions where vt(9) is available. It is still possible to use the old stack by specifying WITHOUT_NEW_XORG in /etc/make.conf . FreeBSD 8-STABLE and released versions of FreeBSD still use the old version. A package repository with binary packages for new xorg will be available soon. This patch also contains updates of libxcb and related ports, pixman, as well
Fix the linkage problem, even with the default options. Reviewed by: tijl
OPENMP implies compiler:openmp, hence Gcc46 (this could change in a near future). This causes problems with the linker in some ports (e.g. graphics/cimg). Untill a better solution is found, don't enable OPENMP by default. Checked with CImg and Octave.
Remove TESTS from OPTIONS_DEFAULT This option brings webfonts which is restricted and prevents building around 100 ports on the package builders
- Update to 1.3.19 PR: 185935 Submitted by: Ports Fury
- On FreeBSD < 10, the linker adds -lXt with dps, but on 10 it does not => force it; - Register Xext too; - rename patch-configure.
- don't register lpthread in GraphicsMagick-config and GraphicsMagick++-config - don't link with -pthread and -lpthread together. when GNU Pth is installed.
[Errno 11] Resource Temporarily Unavailable Reassigning my ports back to the pool with the hope of freeing up to do more FreeBSD work in the future. Submitted by: glarkin
- Upgrade to 1.3.18. - Since I'm there, pet portlint and stagify. PR: ports/183821 Submitted by: /me Approved by: maintainer's time-out
Fix badly set PKGNAMESUFFIX Pointyhat to: bapt
Fix pkgname collision With hat: portmgr
Do not arbitrary rename packages
Add NO_STAGE all over the place in preparation for the staging support (cat: graphics)
- Convert USE_ICONV=yes to USES=iconv - Change USE_GNOME=pkgconfig|gnomehack to USES=pathfix|pkgconfig while here Reviewed by: zeising
- Added vendor patch to fix most recent vulnerability - Bumped PORTREVISION Security: 98690c45-0361-11e2-a391-000c29033c32
- Updated to 1.3.16 - Fixed X11-conditional dependency injection [1] - Converted to optionsNG PR: ports/171516 (based on) [1] Submitted by: Rainer Duffner <firstname.lastname@example.com> [1]
- Incorporated upstream patch to fix failing test after PNG 1.5.10 update - Bumped PORTREVISION Reported by: pointyhat (via pav)
- update png to 1.5.10
- Updated to 1.3.15 PR: ports/166683 (based on) Submitted by: Sato Kuro <firstname.lastname@example.com>
- Add LDFLAGS to CONFIGURE_ENV and MAKE_ENV (as it was done with LDFLAGS) - Fix all ports that add {CPP,LD}FLAGS to *_ENV to modify flags instead PR: 157936 Submitted by: myself Exp-runs by: pav Approved by: pav
Clean up "current" versions of autotools components to further reduce tree-churn on updates.
Sync to new bsd.autotools.mk
- update to 1.4.1 Reviewed by: exp8 run on pointyhat Supported by: miwi
- Updated to 1.3.12
- Updated to 1.3.11
- Updated to 1.3.10 Requested by: Peter Kieltyka <firstname.lastname@example.com> Feature safe: yes
- update to jpeg-8
- Added PORTSCOUT variables to stop erroneous warnings
- Added explicit X11 support option - Fixed LDFLAGS handling when OpenMP is enabled and X11 support is disabled. The previous way it was handled caused optional image support (JPG, PNG, etc.) to fail NOTE: graphics/GraphicsMagick is not affected since it doesn't have OpenMP support PR: ports/139975 Submitted by: Marcin Wisnicki <firstname.lastname@example.com>
- Updated to 1.3.7 Feature safe: yes
- Updated MASTER_SITES to use new SFP macro and added MASTER_SITE_SUBDIR
- Updated to 1.3.6
-Repocopy devel/libtool15 -> libtool22 and libltdl15 -> libltdl22. -Update libtool and libltdl to 2.2.6a. -Remove devel/libtool15 and devel/libltdl15. -Fix ports build with libtool22/libltdl22. -Bump ports that depend on libltdl22 due to shared library version change. -Explain what to do update in the UPDATING. It has been tested with GNOME2, XFCE4, KDE3, KDE4 and other many wm/desktop and applications in the runtime. With help: marcus and kwm Pointyhat-exp: a few times by pav Tested by: pgollucci, "Romain Tartière" <email@example.com>, and a few MarcusCom CVS users. Also, I might have missed a few. Repocopy by: marcus Approved by: portmgr
- update to jpeg7 Tested by: pav on pointyhat
- Update to 1.3.5
- Updated to 1.3.3
- Update to 1.3.2
- Initial release of version 1.3.1 - Turned on OpenMP by default
Repocopy from GraphicsMagick12 to GraphicsMagick13 is complete.
Servers and bandwidth provided byNew York Internet, SuperNews, and RootBSD
24 vulnerabilities affecting 63 ports have been reported in the past 14 days
* - modified, not new
All vulnerabilities


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Emer Casey Fun Run in Wheelers Hill, Victoria
The annual Emer Casey 10km fun run and 5km run/walk is at Jells Park in Wheelers Hill, Victoria. This event is run in aid of ovarian cancer to raise funds for Peter Mac.
When Irish Solicitor Emer Casey died of ovarian cancer in June 2006 at the age of 28, her family vowed to do all they could to help progress research into early detection of the disease known as "the silent killer". The Emer Casey Foundation was established in Emer's Memory and this is the seventh year of the Emer Casey Fun Run in Melbourne.
The money raised is donated to support the Peter Mac Foundation VBCRC Cancer Genetics Program and the Kathleen Cunningham Foundation Consortium both of which focus on research into Familial Breast and Ovarian Cancer.
Emer Casey Fun Run
Emer Casey Fun Run
Emer Casey Fun Run
Emer Casey Fun Run
Page history
Update history
Location Map
This event is at Jells Park in Wheelers Hill, from the entrance via Ferntree Gully Road.
Note: map location(s) may be approximate.
Event listings are based on information found on the official website and/or from event directors. All information presented is as accurate as possible but is subject to change without notice. Always check with the official event website for up to date information.


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found a new home!
Plenty of my friends are looking
for one too. Find a pet to adopt.
I am already spayed and good with dogs.
A wonderful ASR volunteer drove all the way to SC to transport her, her sister and 5 other lucky pups to the TLC of ASR volunteers!
Update: Maggie, as she's called at home, is getting along well with the resident dogs, especially the female. She is quite frightened of the humans but we are working to alleviate that. Hand-feeding and lots of holding should help her work out her fears in no time. Poor thing has been through a lot in the last few days!
After a few visits with the bathtub, Maggie's coat is full of shine and softness. Her sweet little black face is nothing short of adorable. She is going to be a beautiful dog!
5/3 Update: Maggie has greatly improved in keeping her crate clean! No accidents for five days now and she has learned to use her voice when she needs "to go". We are still working on overcoming her fear of humans. Maggie is settling down a little faster while being held and seems to enjoy the shoulder rubs!
5/18 Update: Maggie continues to grow and thrive! She is showing a little less fear toward the resident humans, but still skittish. It is much easier to touch her if one of the resident dogs is also receiving attention. I think deep down she really wants the attention but just can't quite bring herself to fully relax. Maggie most likely will need a companion dog to help her feel a part of the "pack".
7/18 Update: Maggie is warming up to her foster mom, allowing petting and easy leashing. She is mastering the "Sit" and "Wait" commands while on walks, which she loves! Maggie goes readily to her crate (most of the time) when commanded, she's much faster at this if she sees a treat in my hand! She's a sweet little girl that will need time and patience from her forever family. Maggie will soon be meeting with a professional trainer to help us determine how best to help her overcome her fear of humans.
8/11 Update: There has been some progress made with Maggie. She loves going for a walk and comes readily, and excitedly, to me when she see's her leash and hears "let's walk". We are still dealing with "accidents" in the house due to Maggie's discomfort of getting too close. If loose, she has to be closely watched. If she is tethered or in her crate, Maggie will bark and whine to go out.
10/11 Update: Maggie has been attending group obedience classes and is doing very well. She walks nicely on a leash, with occasional, gentle reminders. She will sit on command and knows "wait". Maggie's recall is coming around. Because Maggie is around "new" people in class, she is learning that people are okay to be near, and even better if they have a yummy treat! Maggie is a very sweet, affectionate little girl. She can be mischevious but corrects easily, if you're not laughing too hard!
**When applying to adopt one of our puppies, please remember this: Up to the age of 8 months old, puppies cannot be left alone for a standard work day. Arrangements will have to be in place for 4-hour intervals until the pups are at least 8 months old. Having someone with them every 4 hours until they are older greatly facilitates the housebreaking process
If you are not yet approved to adopt from All Shepherd Rescue, please fill out our online application at www.allshepherdrescue.com. Our adoption fee is $300.00.
Magnolia, a Baltimore Border Collie/German Shepherd Dog dog was adopted! Here's how you can benefit by looking at adoption as an option to buying a Border Collie/German Shepherd Dog for sale in Baltimore, or seeking a Border Collie/German Shepherd Dog dog from a breeder in Baltimore.


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Paparazzi Challenge- Treasure Hunt
Fun Team Building Activities Dalkey
Location: Dalkey / Killiney, Dublin. (Click for map)
Duration: Half-day, full-day or evening
Availability: all year.
Suitable for: Adults
You're hot on the trail of a breaking story and need to get your photos submitted to the press before another paper runs them and it's yesterday's news!! Have you got what it takes to be a Paparazzi in Dalkey & Killiney??
Each newsgroup is equipped with a Digital Camera and a Treasure Hunt Challenge Book. The challenge book contains photos and clues to photos that the teams must find and replicate. Teams will have to be fast as they crack secret codes to find the location of some of these photos... these codes are located in strange places, you will also have to complete a number of challenges en-route!!
Bonus points are also awarded for the funniest team photo, capturing another team on film as your roam around Dalkey.
You'll also encounter some fun team challenges along the route which will give you more points.
The Team with the most points WIN!
The route takes you on foot though the most beautiful suburb of Dublin- Dalkey. The rich and famous call it home and this challenge will take you to the best parts. The event is in no way intrusive and is great for a fun team day.
"I'm writing to you following our amazing day in Dalkey! It was really fabulous - the event itself was extremely well organised- perfect Timing, Friendly efficient knowledgeable staff as usual, in great settings + lots of fun and challenging tasks). Speaking to everyone, I can confirm that everyone had a wonderful time and got to know each other even better. Looking forward to our next event."


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Spinoff of todays' weather thread
I did manage to get Sophie and myself out for a walk...Also got some pretty good photos... The white house is across the street. The big "Orange" tree is off the back side of the house I live in
Aren't the fall colors beautiful?
Too much grey, drizzle and rain here to get good pics. It is really windy and most of the leaves will be gone in the next day or two.
Nice pics and cute Sophie!
I love your dog! She's so cute!! How is she adusting to being the only one now? Or is she accepting her role as "the Queen"? haha.
awesome pics, Colleen! thanks for sharing. And yes, update us on Sophie and how she is doing.
Beautiful pics Colleen,
But Sophie takes the cake :)
Join us at
Time Out for You
Love the pics! The trees are so pretty. And Sophie...how cute is she!! Love that too. Is she doing better now? And you....how are you? Hope you're feeling better. :)


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97 Edgewater Street, Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, B0J, Canada
97 Edgewater Street is a one-and-one-half storey wood frame residence in Mahone Bay, NS. The home is Gothic Revival style with Classic Revival elements. It is situated on a well treed lot, the middle of eight heritage properties which line Edgewater Street at the head of the Mahone Bay harbour. Municipal heritage designation applies to the land and building.
97 Edgewater Street is valued for its contribution to a group of heritage properties on Edgewater Street; for its age; long association with the Henry Schnare family and with the Schnare shipyard; and, as an example of early Gothic Revival residential architecture with Classic Revival elements.
97 Edgewater Street is set in a prominent position at the head of the harbour, amongst a group of designated heritage properties which collectively portray Mahone Bay's history from the late 1770's to late 1800's.
Built between 1860 and 1875, 97 Edgewater Street was for many years the home of shipbuilder Henry Schnare whose shipyard was directly across the road. The generous scale of this home and its Gothic Revival features reflect the growing economic prosperity in Mahone Bay in the mid to late 1800s when shipbuilding and related industries flourished. Schnare's shipyard, located by the shallow water at the head of the harbour, developed a unique method of launching vessels on their sides before pulling them upright. The proximity of the Schnare home and business was typical of the period. The property remained in the Schnare family for more than a century.
Architecturally, the Classical and Gothic features convey a sense of both simplicity and substance. In its current use as a bed and breakfast, 67 Edgewater Street offers visitors a vivid insight into the town's social and architectural history.
Source: Town of Mahone Bay Heritage File #MBHG005
The character-defining elements of 97 Edgewater Street relate to its location, its history and its architecture and include the following:
- location at the head of Mahone Bay harbour amongst a group of heritage properties;- all Gothic Revival features such as steeply pitched twin cross-gable dormers enclosing gothic peaked windows with glazing bars; - all Classic Revival features such as transom and sidelights at the enclosed entry, corner pilasters and return cornices;- symmetrical three-bay façade;- six-over-six windows with simple molded hoods;- centered chimney; - interior features such as original operating shutters built to fit the inside of the Gothic windows; original hearth, mantle and cooking irons; and original hutch; generous proportions of entry hall and stairway with wrought handrail; wide wainscoting boards; and, panels inset under windows in parlour.
Nova Scotia
Local Governments (NS)
Heritage Property Act
Municipally Registered Property
Town of Mahone Bay Heritage File #MBHG005
Edgewater Street, corner of Clearland, Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia
Bayview Cemetery is situated on a hillside above Edgewater Street at the head of the harbour in…
328 Main Street, Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia
328 Main Street is situated at the corner of Spur Street on the main road leading west from Mahone…
89 Edgewater Street, Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia
St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church is situated at 89 Edgewater Street, Mahone Bay, NS. It is…


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Friday, March 6, 2009
Colleen's winners
The three winners of a Gardella book of her choice from Colleen Gleason are Davina, Pat Cochran and Karin. E-mail me at trishmilburn AT yahoo DOT com with your full name, mailing address and the title of the Gardella book you'd like to receive.
3 comments:
- Helen said...
Congrats to all the winners
Have Fun
Helen - March 7, 2009 at 12:11 AM
- Louisa Cornell said...
Congrats to the winners! You are going to LOVE these books!
- March 7, 2009 at 9:24 AM
- Karin said...
Yay! Thank you! :)
- March 10, 2009 at 6:49 PM
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