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A loud speaker booms through the corridors.
“Attention all Justice League Of America members, please report to the central control room immediately.”
One by one, the JLA files into the central control room.
“Ok, ok I’m here. What I miss?”
“Don’t worry Oliver, we wouldn’t start without you.” A voice said as Oliver ran into the room
Oliver looked up to see a tall man, completely shaven, standing in front of the team.
“I know you. You’re Lex Luthor, the CEO.”
“Glad we can skip the introductions, Mr. Queen-“
“I also know about all that shady business Lexcorp gets up to. Destroy 3rd world villages mining for rare meteorites. Tired pretty hard to cover that up.”
“I see my reputation proceeds me.”
“You can say that again.”
“Well, unless our own conscientious objector has anything to say-“
“Oh I got plenty to say to you, Luthor-“
“Save it. We have a mission to complete here” Captain Atom interjected
“Thank you Captain. Now, just to make everything clear, I’ll be providing off the books funding for this little escapade, and I’ll also be one of it’s main heads of this operation”
“Called it” Oliver said through a fake cough. Dina chuckled under her breath as Lex scowled.
“Anything you would like to add Mr. Queen?”
“Yeah, I got a question, what happened to your hair? Cause I remember seeing you on TV and you had some nice ginger locks not to long ago.”
Lex sighed.
“I have found that in life there can be a lot of… distractions. Lots of little things that build up over time that can get in the way of your goals. So sometimes, you just need to get rid of all those distractions that get in your way to get what you want. Do you follow?”
“Yeah I think so.”
“Good. Now, here are your mission’s. You’ll be splitting up into pair’s of two’s and you’ll be hunting down known criminals and fugitives from the law. We’re not waiting for them to make a move.”
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Hey, so i'm currently at a film program, thus my lack of updating, but i took a couple photos before i left so expect some stuff for the month of july, just not much
ادلع يا كايدهم خليهم يشوفونك
علمهم اصول الحسن عطهم درس بعيونك
علمهم بنظراتك وشلون الجمال يكون
اضحك يالله وريهم احلى ضحكه واحلى عيـون
ادلع يا كايدهم
غير حسنك المجنون اطلع كل لحظه بشي
حرام انت تفاجئهم عذبهم شوي شوي
ادلع يا كايدهم
Comments and Critic are highly appreciated.
Description: It has been quite a while since my last visit to the As-salam Mosque in Puchong. Arriving at location just after blue hour, I am grateful that I was greeted with a warm but soft light from the sun. As someone who is very new to timelapse, I can't help myself from taking a timelapse. This image is part of the 880 images taken for the timelapse that morning.
Filter: Singh Ray RGND (0.9)
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Comments are always welcome and favs most appreciated.
Comentarios y favs son siempre bienvenidos
© Photography of Ricardo Gomez Angel
All rights reserved. All images on this website are the property of Ricardo Gomez Angel. Images may not be reproduced, copied or used in any way without written permission.
© Fotografía de Ricardo Gomez Angel
Todos los derechos reservados. Todas las imágenes contenidas en este sitio web son propiedad de Ricardo Gomez Angel. Las imágenes no se pueden reproducir, copiar o utilizar de ninguna manera sin el permiso escrito
Comments are always welcome and favs most appreciated.
Comentarios y favs son siempre bienvenidos
© Fotografía de Ricardo Gomez Angel
Todos los derechos reservados. Todas las imágenes contenidas en este sitio web son propiedad de Ricardo Gomez Angel. Las imágenes no se pueden reproducir, copiar o utilizar de ninguna manera sin el permiso escrito.
© Photography by Ricardo Gomez Angel
All rights reserved. All images contained on this website remain the property of Ricardo Gomez Angel. Images may not be reproduced, copied, or used in any way without written permission.
Vrijbroekpark
Thanks for visit and comments
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All best wish happy and take care 2022
Aber Lin
July/11/2022
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Sunday afternoon at Elk Island when we were searching for signs of spring...
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#34: As of 11/15/19, of my 2000+ pics, this is listed as #34 in most # of comments.
#352: As of 11/5/19, of my 2000+ pics, this is listed as #352 in most # of faves.
#468: As of 11/5/19, under Flickr's popularity rankings of my 1900+ pics, this is listed as #468 in "interestingness."
VIDEO AT: youtu.be/FUWi3fLImo0
Since 2017, I've been engaging in a number of short, private crossdressing opportunities at home, after acquiring and trying out some new clothes, shoes, and accessories. This is another pic posted from this renewed CD activity, and was taken inside my house.
As usual, I really enjoy color-coordinating attractive/sexy/cute outfits, and this one features:
* a Sepia Collection "Broadway" long layered curly frosted golden blonde wig with bangs, from Wig Factory in SF;
* Jennifer Lopez yellow patent "Alana" leather pumps with cork platforms & 5.3"-stiletto-heels, from Kohl's;
* a light yellow/cream striped mock-button-front ribbed-knit miniskirt, from Forever 21;
* a light yellow geo-design open-knit scoopneck sweater, from Forever 21;
* neon yellow wide-net fishnet tights, from WeLoveColors.com;
* a yellow 3"-wide waist belt, from BeltIsCool.com;
* an INC yellow polyester sheer scarf with printed botanicals/florals & tassels, from Macy's;
* yellow/gold bracelets and necklace;
* gold rings & hoop earrings; and
* gold/clear "ear cuffs" (long dangling jewelry cuffed to the sides of the ears), from Forever 21.
The full video (2019-07-10 video1) is now posted on my YouTube channel at youtu.be/FUWi3fLImo0. Please check it out and comment/fave here and/or there if you like what you see.
More about this and other 2017-19 pics has been written up in my profile or "About" page here on Flickr. It details some choices made for these 2017-19 pics.
Let me know your thoughts... :-)
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Special NOTE: On Feb. 8, 2012 I attached a comment, readable & easily discoverable on Page 2 of the comments below, that details the vast corporatist scheme, fronted by Jeb Bush, financed in part with hundreds of millions from Rupert Murdoch (FOX nooze), to privatize American public education & reduce it to 'virtual' schools - not to improve anything (as national & international educational research studies clearly show), but rather to become the final recipients of the taxes people pay so that they can skim huge profits off of the top while providing grotesquely inferior services & lots of lying propaganda to keep the public bamboozled. I beg everyone to read the report.
The McGuffey's Ecclectic Spelling Book was published in 1879.
Raymond Cyrus Hoiles (1878-1970) founded Freedom Communications, a newspaper publishing & broadcasting company that has never hesitated to shape the news to fit right wing ideology. When Hoiles was alive & roaring I lived in Orange County, California, home of the equally right wing Walt Disney & Walter Knott, & was frequently compelled to suffer people who agreed with Hoiles' constantly editorialized insistence that public education was a form of theft & communism that must at once be got rid of. Hoiles was motivated by his fundamentalist Christian persuasions, & quite serious. We should restrain our laughter at the abysmal stupidity of his example, because in many ways he & people like him won & are still winning control of public education. - To introduce the article below, I'll say a little about the Christian strategy.
For many years Orange County's teachers worked under a Draconian ruling that forbade the teaching of values. There is no way around the fact, however, that the statement, "Values may not be taught," is itself a value statement belonging to a class of propositions known as Epimenidean Paradoxes. A comparably illustrative sentence would be, "This is not a sentence." Or, a favorite of the best hypnotists, used when addressing a resistant subject, "Do not obey any instruction which I give you."
What, then, was intended by those who created the paradoxical Orange County law? Well, if any teacher dared to say or imply something that would be disagreeable to any person whose beliefs began & ended with church, flag & free-for-all capitalism, then that teacher could be charged with teaching values & be suspended. One family friend, a young man teaching at an elementary school in Anaheim, was charged, hounded, publicly disgraced, threatened with death & discharged from his post, immediately after which he died from a heart attack. The case was depicted in Life Magazine. His only crime was that he was Jewish. His wife, also a teacher, remained bereft & embittered the rest of her long life.
These people became increasingly invisible over time, largely by devising ever more clever ways for gaining control of both education policy & the public dialogue about education.
Ralph Reed, working for Pat Robertson & the Christian Coalition, devised the "stealth agenda" to place fundamentalists in every local school board in America. The plan helped select & fund candidates, who in accord with Reed's instructions never mentioned their religion or religious connections when campaigning for office. In 1983 Reed rigged an election at his university - he got started early, in other words. Recently we learned that Mr. Reed & Jack Abramoff were associate crooks. The revelation forced Reed to abandon his run to become the lieutenant governor of Georgia. Mr. Reed will not disappear, however. He remains a darling of the far Christian right, & owns Century Strategies, a dirty-tricks political consulting & lobbying organization. In 1999 Karl Rove got reed a nice contract with Enron, which was paying Reed $30,000 per month. And guess who recently went to Georgia to try to save poor Reed? Rudy Giuliani, who has the hots to be the next U.S. president & is pandering to the Christians so he can be their new burning Bush.
Stealthiness did not go away when the Christian Coalition folded & Reed went off on his own to rig elections for big bucks. Rather, the stealth moved into policy matters. For instance, all the phony propaganda claiming religious & private education is more successful, creating the excuse to promote vouchers (for which the motives are both religious & racist). Or, most recently, Bush's No Child Left Behind Act, which was sought by the Christians not because they believed all the testing of students would lead to improved education, but rather because they wanted teachers to be made too busy preparing students for endless tests about facts to find time to do the great evil thing, which is the teaching of concepts. Teaching concepts leads to teaching logic, scientific & other academic methodologies which by their nature instill respect for critical - read, skeptical - thinking. Dogmatists, advertisers & con men have equal cause to fear skepticism.
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From: Truthdig.com
Taking Back Our Schools--and Fixing Them
Full text with links: www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060425_taking_back_our_sch...
Posted on Apr. 25, 2006
By Wellford Wilms
The recent news reported in The New York Times that schools are throwing out science, social studies and art to make time for drilling students in remedial math and reading is a sign of things gone terribly wrong. Former New York State Commissioner of Education Thomas Sobol told the Times that narrowing education to just math and reading would be akin to restricting violin students to playing scales day after day. “They’d lose their zest for music.” But most schools that serve poor populations, like those in Cuero, Texas, are squeezed to meet federal math and reading standards. Cuero Superintendent Henry Lind told the paper, “When you have so many hours per day and you’re behind in some area that’s being hammered on, you have to work on that.”
But by the looks of things, hammering students for higher test scores isn’t making much of a difference. Most students have already lost their zest for learning. How do we know? In Los Angeles, upwards of 50% of Latino and African American students never finish high school. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
I’ve been a professor of education at UCLA for more than 25 years and am convinced that despite the fads that come and go, nothing has put a dent in the public schools’ failure to educate inner-city children. In fact, things are getting worse. But I am also convinced that we’ve been looking in the wrong places for solutions. My own research across a wide array of organizations—corporations, trade unions, public schools, colleges, teacher unions and police agencies—suggests another way of looking at the problem and that solutions will come from a new direction.
This essay is a proposition—one that I hope will spark a lively debate among Truthdig readers and inform policy leaders. Future essays will examine Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s campaign to take over the public schools, analyze whether teacher unions can be a force for productive change, and expose promising ways to rebuild public investment in the schools.
Let’s start with Jonathan Kozol’s new book, “The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America.” It is a scathing indictment of American social policy that banned racial segregation in public schools in 1955 and then turned a blind eye to its implementation. Today, Kozol says, schools are more segregated than ever. But he fails to explain why resegregation has occurred. Because Kozol overlooks the root causes of the problem, his solutions—spending more money on dysfunctional schools and wishing for a social mandate to desegregate the schools—miss the point.
To be sure the problems are undeniable. Kozol examines the appalling condition of big-city schools. In school after school we see children who are brimming with potential but who are walled off from the larger society and abandoned by the schools. Most middle-class white Americans simply cannot comprehend the horrid schools that Kozol describes. Ceilings fall in, toilets are filthy, libraries, music and arts have been stripped away. Teachers in these schools, who are paid 40% less than teachers in the suburbs, are forced to teach “scripted” lessons that are written for children who are deemed incapable of learning.
It is all part of the latest reform pushed by the Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind initiative, a reform aimed at the singular pursuit of increasing test scores. Learning has been stripped of its intrinsic meaning and reduced to simplistic steps—“Authentic Writing,” “Active Listening,” “Accountable Talk”—that hamper teachers in teaching anything but how to take a test. Behind it all is an attempt to impose control, much as mass production techniques were used a century ago, to standardize instruction to fit new immigrants to the system.
Meanwhile, millions of children are failing. In nearly half of the high schools in America’s 100 largest districts, fewer than 50% of students graduate in four years. Most of these students are from poor Latino and African-American families. And from 1993 to 2000 the number of failing schools has mushroomed by 75%. Mayor Villaraigosa calls Los Angeles’ high dropout rates “numbers that should put a chill down your spine.”
The reasons, Kozol argues, are lack of money and racial discrimination that produce inferior and segregated schools. No doubt this is partly true. We have tried to desegregate the schools for a half-century and failed. Middle-class white parents have voted for individual freedom with their feet, enrolling their children in private schools, leaving the public schools more segregated than ever. The same is true for middle-class black families. Gail Foster, an educator who has studied black independent schools, was quoted in 2004 in The New York Times as saying: “Many of the most empowered parents and families are removing their children. What’s left, in even working-class communities, are schools filled with the least empowered families. Families with the least parent involvement to offer, families with the least help with homework to offer. There’s been a continual outflow for at least 10 years, and it isn’t stopping now.”
More money is not the answer either. Kozol points to wide disparities in educational expenditures ranging from $11,700 per student in New York City to $22,000 in suburban Manhasset. Disturbing as that is, study after study shows that equalizing money does not necessarily equalize learning.
In 1966, sociologist James Coleman conducted the most extensive study ever made of desegregating education and found that what mattered most in students’ learning was the economic status of their peers rather than the racial makeup of the school. He also found that school funding was not closely related to students’ achievement—their families’ economic status was far more predictive. Coleman’s findings were controversial and led to a bitter debate, but they have been replicated many times. Daniel Patrick Moynihan summed it up best when he commented shortly after Coleman’s groundbreaking study, “We should begin to see that the underlying reality is not race but social class.”
Since social class matters because money follows privilege, and since desegregation will take generations to eradicate, what can be done now? Are poor children doomed to attend grossly inadequate schools? Surely not. We must find ways to remove the influences that have crippled the schools. Money must be diverted from bloated bureaucracies that snuff out innovation. Instead it must go directly to schools where principals and teachers can influence what is taught and what children learn, and help bring parents back into the fold. Otherwise, it is going down a rat hole.
Parents have a significant role to play in their children’s education, but their voices have been largely silenced. Over the last 40 years, we have witnessed the decline of civic involvement and the growing dominance of self-interest over the greater good, a social deterioration that sociologist Robert Putnam calls “hollowing out” in his 2000 book “Bowling Alone.” One result, as the old saying goes, is that “the rich get richer” and the poor fall ever further behind in crumbling schools.
Over the last 25 years, education in general has been taken from ordinary citizens and teachers by politicians, administrators, union leaders, publishers, test makers, consultants, university professors, hardware and software developers and the media, each playing its part in keeping alive the illusion of reform. All in all, this $1-trillion industry has replaced the common interest, and no one, it seems, can muster the will to rein it in.
Local control is only a dim memory. Decisions now come from the top—from the federal and state governments, school boards and high-level administrators who have little knowledge of what goes on in the classroom. Teachers are left out of these decisions, carrying on the best they can, safe in the assumption that the newest fad, like those before it, will blow over. Parents are all but forgotten.
While command-and-control management may seem to produce results in the short run, it strips schools of the capacity to develop the stable leadership that is necessary to sustain success. Principals are besieged with demands from district offices and from the educational fads that emanate from publishers and university researchers. Many principals know that they put their careers in peril unless they do what their bosses want. One elementary school principal told me, “District directives undermine our own abilities to think for ourselves, to believe in what we see and know.” When schools discover something that works, it is rarely sustained because they lack authority or stable leadership.
In 1969 when I worked for the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, I monitored the schools in impoverished Ocean Hill-Brownsville in New York City. The local school board hired a charismatic superintendent, who fired incompetent teachers and hired young and idealistic ones. The firings set the local board at odds with the huge teachers’ union, which demanded due process for the fired teachers. The superintendent, Rhody McCoy, was convinced that good teachers had to respect the children they taught. He put it in plain words: “If you’re convinced that this kid is doomed by nature or by something else to lead a shrunken and curtailed life, then you’re basically incompetent to teach that child.” The experiment worked. Observing classrooms left no doubt in my mind that students were learning. Eager first-graders sat attentively on the floor in semicircles shouting out answers to fraction problems and reading aloud. The schools buzzed with excitement as parent helpers streamed in and out of classrooms. But in a bitter power struggle the board seized authority and the experiment ended.
Years later, in 1985, Deborah Meier, a passionate educator who founded Harlem’s Central Park East Secondary School, achieved stunning successes that led the school to be celebrated as a model alternative school in Time magazine. But it could not be sustained beyond Meier’s unique leadership. Today, 10 years after Meier left, a respected children’s advocacy group, Insideschools and Advocates for Children, reports that the Harlem school “…has fallen on hard times in recent years with rapid staff turnover, low staff morale and uneven discipline.”
In risk-averse environments like public schools, few principals will stick out their necks, because they don’t want to buck the bosses downtown. Courageous and visionary principals like Rhody McCoy and Deborah Meier keep coming. But charismatic leadership is no match for heavy-handed district management, which always wins out.
Take Foshay Learning Center in Los Angeles, for example. In 1989, Howard Lappin took over a failing middle school. With the help of teachers and an infusion of money, Lappin wrested control from the district and transformed Foshay. The school expanded into a K-12 “learning center” and became largely autonomous of the district’s bureaucratic requirements. Teachers and administrators decided who would be hired and what would be taught. Foshay succeeded, and in 2000 its high school was selected by Newsweek as one of the 100 best in America. But in 2001 Lappin retired, and his unique leadership was lost. Today Foshay is being threatened with sanctions by the district and the county because gains in students’ test scores have stalled. As the school has fallen under the district’s “one-size-fits all” bureaucratic requirements, the impact has been to undermine the once vibrant teacher leadership that made the school so enviable.
The problem with public education is not with the teachers, or with the children, but the way we organize the schools. Probably the greatest casualties are teachers themselves, who are forced to accept decisions by authorities about teaching that they know to be nonsense. One professor interviewed by Kozol said that forcing an absurdity on teachers teaches something: acquiescence. For example, in study after study, teachers report that relying on test scores as sole marks of student achievement and teaching scripted lessons destroy students’ natural love of learning. And such practices also erode teachers’ professional authority, which is fundamental to student learning.
Why is it so hard to foster the only kind of reform that really works, which is right in the schoolhouse? Because politicians, school board members and administrators are under intense pressure to produce immediate results, i.e., higher and higher test scores—a goal that is pursued through directives from districts with little input of principals, teachers and parents. Superintendents serve at the pleasure of school boards, and most board members are elected or appointed and have limited terms of office. As test scores have become the measure of educational quality, everyone is under immense pressure to show fast results or be turned out.
No wonder that school boards hire superintendents who promise to deliver quick results. But few do. Superintendents last on average only three or four years. Many are thwarted by outmoded bureaucracies that were designed a century ago using top-down control practiced in American industry to mass-produce learning. Within these organizations, power has quietly accumulated, making them all but impervious to outside influence. Sid Thompson, former superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, told me: “Trying to change the district is like trying to change the direction of a fast-moving freight train. You might knock it off course for a moment, but before you know it it’s rattling right down the tracks again.”
Frustration and suspicion about who might emerge from the shadows to sabotage their plans often lead superintendents to jealously guard their power. In 2002, Day Higuchi, then president of United Teachers Los Angeles, the Los Angeles teacher union, had high hopes for working with the school district’s new “can-do” superintendent, Roy Romer. Higuchi hoped that Romer would endorse a new union initiative called Lesson Study, a plan to help teachers work collectively to improve classroom lessons. At a breakfast meeting that I attended, Higuchi presented Romer with an invitation to work with the union to develop and spread Lesson Study across the district. When Higuchi finished, Romer flipped over his paper placemat and with a red felt pen drew a box with an S in it. “That’s me,” he said. Beneath he drew 11 boxes with smaller s’s in them, representing the 11 local superintendents, and below that, a number of small boxes with roofs, representing schools and teachers. Then, pulling his face near to Higuchi’s, he drew bold red arrows pointing downward from the top. Romer jabbed his pen in the air to accentuate each word: “You cannot usurp my authority to manage this district!” It was a dumbfounding moment, one that revealed the true underside of the use of power. Here was a chance for a new superintendent to forge a small but significant step with the union, but Romer, who recently announced his resignation, explained that he was “in a hurry.” He clearly had little time for ideas that were at odds with his own. In the end his refusal to work with the union undermined the possibility of creating a broader base of power that could transcend self-interest.
Nor are the unions exempt from self-interest. A few years ago I helped establish a national group of union presidents called TURN (Teacher Union Reform Network) who were dedicated to remaking their unions as forces to improve education. One way was to cooperate with administrators and encourage teachers to use their classroom know-how to redesign teaching at the schoolhouse. But hostility and mistrust run deep. The union leaders became nervous, fearing that fellow unionists would attack them for “collaborating” with the enemy and that if the effort to collaborate failed they would share the blame. Don Watley, president of the New Mexico Federation of Educational Employees, commented: “It’s like the Normandy landing. We’ve got the best troops in the world. We’ve got the best officers in the world. And we’ve got the best equipment in the world. But at 0800 when we hit the beach half of us are going to get killed!” Sadly, in the years to come, the ingrained mistrust, and the unpredictable dance of union politics, prevented these unionists from becoming a positive force in educational reform. Instead, they have been reduced to stockpiling power, much as the Soviets and Americans stockpiled nuclear weapons during the Cold War, to oppose any hostile moves the other side might make.
So what can be done to break the standoff between teacher unions and districts? How can teachers’ professional authority be restored? How can parents be awakened and brought back into the fold? Experience shows that it can be done. Schools such as Harlem’s Central Park East Secondary, Los Angeles’ Foshay Learning Center, those in Ocean Hill-Brownsville, and many others attest to the fact that schools can be made into safe places where children learn. Sustaining them is the hard part.
There is little doubt that trying to build good schools with command-and-control management doesn’t work. School boards, superintendents and union officials need to clear the obstacles—unnecessary bureaucratic requirements and outmoded work rules—to make innovation at the schoolhouse possible. These top-level educational leaders also must make resources available to support new ways of teaching. Jonathan Kozol has it right. Teaching is the only reform that counts and it can be done only at the schoolhouse by teachers, principals, parents and students working together.
Turning school districts upside down will also mean turning a century of top-down management on its head. But where is such bold leadership to be found? One promising place is among big-city mayors. But they must resist trying to take over the schools, as they did in New York, Chicago and Boston with mixed results at best. Instead, popular mayors could use their influence and visibility to tell the truth about the condition of education and to build a popular consensus about how change must occur.
In the next essay I am going to examine what mayors can do. Waiting for the schools to be saved by someone else is nonsense. Only concerted local action offers a chance. Doubters should recall Margaret Mead’s observation: “Never doubt that a small group of concerned people can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman.
Copyright © 2006 Truthdig, L.L.C. All rights reserved.
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Thanks for all the nice comments in my previous photo! =D =D Love you all! =D
My dad's gone away to norway, and took his camera with him.. so I'm just editing some old photos now, till I can finally welcome my (well, okay his!) beloved camera back home ;)
This is an outtake from this shoot ;)
*oh and all stock photos came from here!*
225/365
Wansink Photography © All Rights Reserved. 2010. Do not use, copy or edit any of my photographs without written permission.
Comments always appreciated, as long as you keep it clean - I love to hear your feedback! xx
For Leeds Fisrt Friday Gemma and I helped out two first-timers as we love to do. What a brilliant night! Rose and Becky had such a good time - and Becky even came out with us the next night to a non-lgbt club! Amazing, and wonderful to see someone new really taking to being out and about.
Also, I did my second ever karaoke performance at The Bridge, which I absolutely loved! And it turns out there's a little diva buried inside me somewhere - at the end of the song, I got a couple of cheers from the back of the pub, and in response I blew a kiss, LOL! Diva!
Another of Gemma's awesome slow motion corridor walking videos. I forgot to upload this one the other day when I uploaded the others.
A peacefully foraging Goldfinch gets hassled away by a cheeky Blue Tit. But the Goldfinch takes revenge.
Ein Stieglitz, friedlich auf Futtersuche wird von einer frechen Blaumeise verjagt. Aber dann wehrt sich der Stieglitz.
Thanks so much dear friends for your kind watching, faving and commenting -very much appreciated! :-) ♡
Vielen Dank liebe Freunde, für's Anschauen, Sterne und Kommentare! Freue mich immer sehr darüber! :-) ♡
Comment Box ..CLOSED..
but will be returning faves "Share + Look"
All best wish happy and take care 2020
Aber Lin
OCT/16/2020
Comments and favs are always welcome!
- press 'L' for Large/Best View
- press 'F" for Fave
- press 'C' for Comment
Have a nice day :)
Nala et Cachemire.Ce dernier n'a qu'une semaine...et il est déjà debout et solide sur ses pattes...Dame Nature y a vu...
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Vous lire est un plaisir.Merci de votre visite,vos commentaires,vos invitations et favoris.
To read your comments is a pleasure.Thank you for your visit,comments,invitations and faves
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To see more pictures of Northern Hawk Owls, please visit my Northern Hawk Owl album at www.flickr.com/photos/black_cat_photography/albums/721576...
To learn more about these magnificent birds please visit www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Northern_Hawk_Owl/
Comments always appreciated, as long as you keep it clean - I love to hear your feedback! xx
Saturday was a glorious sunny day. We started out with breakfast at Cha Lounge and had a couple of photos near there just near Brewery Wharf.
On the evening we went to Pieminister for tea then on to the Pack Horse, then to Baracoa, then The End and finished up in Smokestack for a drink where we bumped into the lovely Jean.
A cracking evening!
From the archive, but not previously uploaded.
I've still not seen one this Winter, but a small group were spotted this week in Cambridge. If it does ever stop raining then I'll try my best to find them.
Enjoy your weekend and thank you for all your great comments recently, always appreciated.
Comments are welcome if you have an opinion about whether the right or left image is better. They're welcome anyway but I'm curious which one you like better.
In childhood, I had a relative whose house had a well and you had to pump a handle, like the one shown here, to get water. It was potable water from a well but you had to work for it.
Out of frame: this place had "grenade" style glass carbon tetrachloride fire extinguishers. In concept, good. Downside: in a fire the extinguishing agent decomposes into phosgene gas.
…It’s very hard to motivate change when the costs are up-front and the benefits [are later].
— Peter Orszag
Journalism grade images.
Source: 8,100x2,500 file composed of two 16-bit TIF files.
Please do not copy this image for any purpose.
To all my Flickr friends - I wish you compliments of the season. Thank you for all your comments and encouragement. It's been a pleasure seeing all your great work. Happy shooting in 2016!
Sorry to everyone for the absence of comments today, Yahoo have been depositing everything from my Flickr contacts into one folder & it's taken me all day to sort through 240 ish e mails .. normal service resumes tomorrow (hopefully)
Wallington is a country house and gardens located about 12 miles (19 km) west of Morpeth, Northumberland, England, near the village of Cambo. It has been owned by the National Trust since 1942, after it was donated complete with the estate and farms by Sir Charles Philips Trevelyan, the first donation of its kind. It is a Grade I listed building.
The estate was owned by the Fenwick family from 1475 until their financial problems caused them to sell their properties to the Blacketts. The hall house was rebuilt in 1688 around the ancient Pele Tower house for Sir William Blackett and was later substantially rebuilt again, in Palladian style, for Sir Walter Blackett by architect Daniel Garret, before passing to the Trevelyan family in 1777. Charles Philips Trevelyan inherited the property from his father George Otto Trevelyan in 1928.
Set in 100 acres (40 ha) of rolling parkland, the estate includes a wooded dene (valley), ornamental lakes, lawns, and a recently refurbished walled garden.
Comments are always welcome and favs most appreciated.
Comentarios y favs son siempre bienvenidos
© Photography of Ricardo Gomez Angel
All rights reserved. All images on this website are the property of Ricardo Gomez Angel. Images may not be reproduced, copied or used in any way without written permission.
© Fotografía de Ricardo Gomez Angel
Todos los derechos reservados. Todas las imágenes contenidas en este sitio web son propiedad de Ricardo Gomez Angel. Las imágenes no se pueden reproducir, copiar o utilizar de ninguna manera sin el permiso escrito
Any comments and favs are very much appreciated
If you like my creative work, please follow the tracking or other social networking sites below
如果喜歡我的創作與拍攝,歡迎按追蹤
你的鼓勵是每位藝術創作者前進的動力
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Line id : kelvin9925
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email : iwakuma.kelvin@gmail.com
Comments are always welcome and favs most appreciated.
Comentarios y favs son siempre bienvenidos
© Photography of Ricardo Gomez Angel
All rights reserved. All images on this website are the property of Ricardo Gomez Angel. Images may not be reproduced, copied or used in any way without written permission.
© Fotografía de Ricardo Gomez Angel
Todos los derechos reservados. Todas las imágenes contenidas en este sitio web son propiedad de Ricardo Gomez Angel. Las imágenes no se pueden reproducir, copiar o utilizar de ninguna manera sin el permiso escrito
Often when I see people pitch X-men reboots, they do one of two things: A) Do the original Uncanny X-men roster of Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, Angel and Iceman or B) Just plugs in every popular X-men right off the bat. I don't like either of these. The uncanny X-men roster is kinda bland, while having every popular X-man in one movie would obviously not work.
My ideal line up would comprise of Cyclops, Jean Grey, Nightcrawler, Storm and Angel. Professor X and Beast would also be present but as mentors to the team, not actual X-men.
A protective mother puts herself between her calf and a safari cruiser as she leaves the mudhole that the family has just enjoyed. Serengeti National Park, Tanzania. ©2019 John M. Hudson | jmhudson1.com
PLEASE COMMENT WHEN YOU FAVE. It’s really not that hard and i love hearing feedback. It’s not much, even if its just "nice" or something, but it really makes a difference. also, please try to be respectful to myself and others. thank you.
even thought ive posted a lot of these guys separately but i thought it would be nice to put them all together. i think they came out really good.
from left to right
Mad Hatter, Black Mask, Poison Ivy, Scarecrow, Ra's Al Ghul, Manbat, Bane, The Joker, Riddler, Mr Freeze, Penguin, Two-Fce, Hush, Harley Quinn, Killer Croc
Ned Mansour - Beautifoto Model
Please check out my Role Play Story
The Reception Game
Based on actual experiences instigated by my ”Peeps”
Comments and Feedbacks are profoundly appreciated and reciprocated
A rather roguish Game of Dare played and pickpocketed out at a fancy dress wedding reception
Cadence Abbot,Craig Abbot,Ginny B. and Brian Mc
Mystery Chicanery thief jewel tomfoolery prank pickpocket romance trick shenanigans
The Reception Game
Chapter 1
A forethought
“The wedding was a bit over the top. The bride wanted her girl’s dresses to be something they would wear out again. A nice thought, but the gowns she found were a little too long for anything but formal evening wear, according to our girls who were asked to be part of the bridal party. The maid of honour wore a red silk version; the six Bridesmaids wore theirs in black satin.” Each of the girls had also been presented with a matching collection of Swarovski rhinestones “traditional classic darlings”! The jewellery, when added to the girl’s ensemble, further enhanced the red carpet like the atmosphere of the Bridal party coterie’!
^^^^^^^^^^
Intro of the story proper:
“A few years ago, “Ginny” was watching some type of show when I heard her squeal out. Our Golden Retriever ‘Sam’ meandered back in to see what all the fuss was about? I obediently followed. Ginny pointed out to us a model who was wearing, rather fetchingly I might add, a long black satin gown. That’s m’ gown Ginny exclaimed, you remember, the one I wore at “Sheila’s” wedding, the one where my necklace was sn…., But at that point her attention was diverted back to her program. Squirrel I teased as Sam and I watched with her.
It was a gown strikingly very similar in colour, cut, and material to the one worn by Ginny ( and me sister) at a chums wedding years before ( and winningly worn several times hence I might add). It is a pretty thing to behold my charming Ginny sporting it, and in its time, it has born witness to a few goings-on that most ladies wearing a gown like that would never encounter…….”
Chapter 2
Story Proper begins
*************************************** ****************************************
This story is true and is really pretty much told as it happened.
What we did may sound daft, but read and understand the circumstances, plus realize we all were pretty well lit up with the drink.
I will plead guilty at having enhanced certain aspects of the story.
For indeed, the truth can be stranger than fiction… and coincidences occur, both sweet and bitter….. as I’m sure someone once said.
So here goes it….
My twin sister and our friend “Ginny” were invited to join a school chums bridal party. The groom didn’t have enough to go around so my sister’s boyfriend “Brian” and I was pressed, not unwillingly, into service.
As I stated earlier, the wedding and reception were both over the top posh. So much so that our opinions, and subsequent escapades, were still coming up amongst us as a topic of conversation at our local haunt The ‘Poet and the Peasant Pub’, kept by Brian’s Auntie and Uncle...
www.flickr.com/groups/poet_and_the_peasant__pub_/
The Wedding proper was held at the local Cathedral. A rather decadent place built with a hearty clash of gothic/ medieval styles; with black stone towers, Lancet arches, and fly away buttresses.
Inside one finds white marble columns, oak pews blackened with age, intricate woodwork and ghostly while statues. All lit with hanging diamond shaped antique glass lights and colourful lead glass stained windows depicting a horde of medieval era religious scenes.
I twas a fine backdrop for the rather glamorously attired guests in attendance. The wedding ceremony itself would have been an interesting tale in and of itself, but that telling will await another day, for mine has its’ beginnings at the Reception.
The Reception was held in the basement, a grand place with an opulent ballroom, well-stocked bar room and elegant dining area. The subterranean basement was decorated richly along the same grand lines as the interior of the ancient Cathedral above.
We were some time at the reception when my Ginny , who had been held up on her way back from the loo by a snobbish dowager feeling the need to criticise someone, regained her seat by plopping down with a loud woosh.
That was a chore, being picked apart by that “lovely !” creature. she exclaimed cynically, whilst adjusting her loose brooch. We all just smirked. I had received the same treatment from the lecturing prig earlier that evening.
Well, to be honest, my twin sister and Brian just actually were smirking at that. I believe my attention at the time was rather more occupied on the area where Ginny’s Brooch lay, which was the proper cause of my smirk! (naughty me)
Finished, Ginny than leaned against my sister, and, still reeling from being inappropriately chided, made a snide comment about the flimsy clasps on the shimmering jewelry they were wearing. My Sister, touching her necklace, told her, “ no worries, luv, no one would nick them anyways, they are only rhinestones”. Except my ring isn’t, said Ginny looking down at the ruby ring she was wearing on her pinky. My sister, thinking a minute, retorted “Then one never knows… “, It looked like she was going to add something to that, but at that point the band restarted, and we joined the swarm of fancy dress gowns, silky dresses, suits and tuxes worn by the chic guests as they herded to the dance floor.
As we headed off, I was still perplexed about what had been going on in Sis’s head that made her come out with that reply, and I swear she had stolen a look at me while saying it. But as I had watched her pull at an earring to emphasize how loose the sparkling jewel was, a seed was planted in my head about a subject I myself had always found rather intriguing, pickpocketing jewelry!
Chapter 3
Chicanery
Much later that evening, found Brian, my sister, and I alone, and probably more than a little drunk (always a precarious time with us). As Sis and Brain chatted on about a topic I had soon lost interest in, I started to watch Ginny, who had been asked to dance by some twit with shifty eyes in a red silk shirt, (open collared), who had rudely cut in on us. As I watched Ginny’s swishing gown liquidly move and flutter about in quite an interesting exhibition, I found meself mesmerized by the beckoning manner in which her healthy display of rhinestones were tantalizingly sparkling about( as they had been all evening). I looked back at my sister, and her own show of jewelry, also sparkling up nicely against the smooth black satin backdrop of her own matching gown...
Still not being able to shake me twin’s earlier comment about nicking jewels, nor its answer, out of my head, I waited for a lull in conversation to finally chance asking my twin about her comments.
She looked at me, having to think back a bit about the question, ( As I said, we were more drunk than sober by then), placing a nicely ringed finger to her lips, while regrouping her thoughts. Got it, she exclaimed! Proudly remembering what had triggered her memory, and with that, she started to explain.
When she was a tyke of about 7, there was a show that she had seen on the tele that centered on this group of people trying to reform a thief. Believing that he had turned a new leaf, they threw a fancy dress dance for him in honour of his new ways. During the dance, he cut in and danced with each of the three ladies who had been trying to teach him the errors of his ways. From one he slipped off her long diamond earrings, from a second her diamond necklace was lifted away, but me sister was unsure what the scoundrel took from the third. Sis had reckoned that the earrings and necklaces that she and Ginny were wearing that evening, looked a lot like the ones worn by ( and nicked from) the ladies on that show.
Now, as me twin described the thief’s antics, certain emotions awakened, rearing their tantalizing heads; my mind began wandering in some deep waters, pulled bout by some deep personal emotions. Cause I had been sitting on the couch with her when as quite young children, we had seen a repeat of that episode.
As it happened my sister had been outside earlier playing dress up in one of mum’s old party frocks and was still wearing it, along with a set of costume pearls. Suddenly, that day, I wanted nothing more in the world than to lift the pearls she was wearing. I simmered over it for the rest of the program, getting to the point of actually laying my arm on the back of the couch, inching my fingers towards the clasp of her pearls laying there upon the back of her throat. But then the show ended, and I got no closer to stealing anything more than a touch of a quite soft old evening gown. After the show ended, I warily suggested we go back outside and play Robin Hood (my sister has always been into his story).
We did, and as Sir Robin led her to his hideout, conveniently located through a thicket of Hawthorne’s, the pretty Maid Marion’s pearls mysteriously melted away.
That is when I had I had my epiphany, hitting me like a brick wall! Waiting till sis finished her story, I pointed out to Ginny, and asked the pair, If Ginny had been the third lady he had danced with, what jewels do you think he would have found easiest to lift from her while dancing?
Chapter 4
A Devious Dare
Brian, always the more pragmatic of the group, snorted, that rot only happens in stories and movies mate!
I said I would bet it can be done!
This quid says I can lift a piece of Ginny’s jewelry with her never noticing. Sis chimed in, you wouldn’t dare, but she was looking at me like she knew the answer already. Brian caught her tone, and took me up on it, betting me the quid that I couldn’t get away with lifting her necklace,( I liked his choice, it had been a necklace that “Sir Robin” had first lifted from me sisters neck that day in the woods long past).
At this time the music ended, and Ginny swished back to rejoin us. As we played mute about our plans, we welcomed the damsel back and acted like there had been nothing in the world goin on amongst us while she was out dancing.
We drank and talked for a bit more, and I was all but certain that Brian and my sister had all but forgotten the wager.
But I hadn’t, nor had I been able to keep my eyes from studying the glittery rhinestones Ginny had draped around her pretty throat. When a slow song started up, I rose and asked Ginny to a dance. I caught Brian’s eyes, and read the dare reflecting in them, so we were still on with the wager.
Leading Ginny to the dance floor, we embraced, and danced to the pretty song beginning to play, it twas a slow romantic one ( lady in red If I recall correctly). Ginny was absolute pure heaven in my arms, and I found me self so entrapped by her charms, that all ambitions to be a thief and make an attempt upon her lovely rhinestone necklace fell to the wayside.
As the song was ending, I caught a look from Brian across the dance floor, noticing that he smugly was looked at Ginny’s throat. I did not want to lose me quid on principle (I swear), so as the dance ended I held onto Ginny, waiting. Soon a second song started, disappointedly a more fast-paced one with a Latin beat. I spun Ginny around onto the floor before she had time to catch a breath, we danced, like the song which played says:
And we… danced like a wave on the ocean, romanced
We were liars in love and we danced
Swept away for a moment by chance
And we danced, danced, danced
And dance we did, hot, furious and fast. A couple of times I spun Ginny around, and the poor girl already a bit tipsy, fell against me, giggling. About the third time I spun her, she stopped, and dropped backside into me and began to do this sort of gyrating move, slithering up and down my front side, with her hands held high above her head, her longish ginger hair had fallen over one shoulder, exposing her necklace in all its fine brilliance. As her warm, sweaty figure slipped up and down against mine, I watched the back of her throat, eyeing the necklace as it sparkled opulently in the dim lights. I started Studying, intently, the sparkly chain with its simple hook in eye clasp.
She brought her hands down behind me back, crossing them behind me waist. My right hand went to the front of her waist, holding onto her squirming, satin slippery sweating figure, pressing her warm body tightly against me.
My left hand went up to her shoulder, gliding along with the glossy slick fabric of her black satin gown until I reached her necklace. It only took seconds for my fingers to lift up, and slip off the hook from its” eye”, letting the shimmering chain slither down the front side of Ginny’s satin clad breasts. My right hand left her waist, and traveled nimbly, tingling, all the way up the front until my fingers grasped the dangling chain. My left hand let go, and the necklace whisked down the front of her perking bosom, tightly covered by the glossy black satin bridesmaid gown. The whole bit of thievery took me only a few chords of the music, but it seemed to be carried out in slow motion in the process.
We finished out the song, me basking in the fact that my gyrating partner was innocently unaware that her shiny necklace had been pinched, and was now residing in her dance partner's vest pocket!
I will admit feeling a twinge of regret that it no longer could be seen glittering from around its’ mistress’s now bare throat.
Chapter 5
The Race to be unnoticed
We made our way back to the others, Brian had a smug look on his bearded face, I knew he was up to something. As I sat down, he whispered double it or nothing mate, that she notices it’s missing before we leave. I nodded, taking him up on it.
So, the game was still on, and for the last two hours that we stayed at the reception poor Ginny became the unknowing centre of our somewhat devious game1
Brain, eagerly waiting for Ginny to notice her missing necklace, tried, for the most part, to remain mute. I sweated it a bit, but his saboteur’s tactics failed.
I’ll admit I hadn’t thought it out before agreeing, but what probably should have been a suckers bet, with a million ways for Ginny to notice her necklace was playing hooky, apparently was going with the long odds for me to win.
I sweated it a bit, but no-one else amongst the crowd pointed out, or even seemed to care that Ginny was no longer wearing her necklace! Even the bloke in the open-collared re shirt, who managed to steal Ginny away for another dance, failed to say anything. Which made me a mite curious as to where his attention span had been focused.
Even when me sister tried to help Brian out by playing with her own jeweled necklace while she held Ginny’s attention during the conversation, and then again in the ladies' powder room flashing her necklace in the mirror, she failed to cause a reaction!
Through all this, the poor creature never quite caught on that her necklace had been lifted from her throat! Unscrupulously nicked away on a whimsical bet while innocently dancing!
And continued danced with me she did, all of us thoroughly enjoying the rest of the evening’s attractions, along with the bit of fun we were having at poor Ginny’s expense.! But I made damn sure that our poor victim had the time of her life for my repentance.
Then during our last slow dance, I did start to harbour the prickling thought of trying for another of Ginny’s baubles. But the thought of winning 2 quid from Brian, who in his time has won a bit more from me than I from him, kept my thoughts of further thievery in check! I knew my spirit was weakening. Fortunately, we left soon afterwards….
Chapter 6
Innocents Abroad
We finally left the reception after midnight and made our way along the ten city blocks back to the hotel where Ginny and my twin sister shared a joining room with Brian and meself.
Ginny walked calmly with us, unaware of the picaresque devils that were us, keeping pace beside her. As were making our way through a short cut in a wooded Provincial park, we stopped in a small isolated glen and circled around Ginny. Sis was grinning as she asked poor unawares Ginny; So luv, whatever did happen to your necklace? Gin’s reaction was absolutely, rewardingly priceless.
Ginny, a relatively innocent soul, who is prone to believing most anything told to her, started, and her hand went to her throat, feeling about fruitlessly, as her rustling glossy gown and remaining jewels glistened darkly sparkling in the full moons’ light.
“M’ necklace, why it’s gone? , where did it go! she pleaded helplessly, her thought patterns and speech a little slurred by her rather intoxicated condition. We then got into it, playing dumb along with her, and tried to figure out the “mystery” I said the last time I saw it was when that seedy bloke cut in, and I ran my hand up her back, feeling the shivers going down her spine, did the blighter touch you like that, then luv. No she said, then thought hard, no she repeated, he couldn’t have, he was a proper gentleman, and it was only rhinestone like your sister said.
I don’t know said Brian, never trust any gent who doesn’t wear a tie to fancy dress! He had to ‘ave been up to no good, that one!
My sister then commented that the bloke may " have not noticed no difference", and she held out her own necklace, I’m glad he didn’t ask me to dance.
No, Ginny shook her head, her long earrings flickering a frenzied fire out from her let down ginger hair, no one could have lifted them like that, I’d have felt it….I’m sure of that…!
She looked desperately around at us, then seeing the look on upon our faces, Ginny froze with the realization that we had all been up to something, and, then a smile of relief showed up on her pretty face, as I held up her necklace, sparkling in front of her eyes. A sly look of understanding that we had been up to something crept into those dazzling green eyes, as she told us now to spill it out.
We explained the whole tale as Sis helped Ginny place her necklace back on. Ginny, with her usual good humor, said she had never noticed a thing, and it probably was a good thing we weren’t real thieves because if her necklace had been diamonds, it would have been worth a small fortune. And shame on us for having her believe it was that poor blighter in the red shirt.
We wouldn’t’ make very good thieves I agreed we drink too much. She just smiled, a curious-looking gleam creeping up into those witchy green eyes of hers. Let’s get going before we meet a real thief then, urged my sister, all this talk about someone thinking our jewels are real is giving me the right chills.
Our drunken little group then merrily, if not a little more guardedly, made our way home...
Chapter 7
Farewell My Lovely
This next bit is my favorite.
We rode the elevator up to the boy’s room, as the girls called our room, where we drank beer, danced to music and talked on a bit about the reception. The girls stayed in dress and I happily soaked up the rather pretty picture the pair of admirably attractive girls presented with their long sheets of straight hair now just hanging down, their “diamonds” sparkling and all other assorted frills enticing.
About two hours later found Brian and myself sitting on the couch in kind of a hazy stupor while holding onto our beers. Ginny and my sister were standing directly in front of us, holding beers of their own and giggling over some girlish nonsense, the hypnotic swaying of their longish glossy black satin gowns slowly putting me to sleep.
Brain, draining his beer, got up to get another, bumping against my sister and playfully grabbed a handful. My sister started giggling at him as he sauntered off grinning, turning her figure so the brooch at the centre of her gowns’ waistline almost whacked me on the nose. Half asleep I reached over and gingerly lifted it up.
Looking up at the girls I saw that neither was paying no never mind towards me. Ginny, however, laid a hand on my twin's shoulder, drawing her close so she could whisper some girlish secret about Brian. I continued on and was able to undo the brooch and slip it carefully off without notice. I slipped her jewel into my pocket; waiting until I could think, now that I did the deed, just how I would tease her about it.
Brian stopped on the way back and reset the music, a slow song came up. Sis went to him, and the pair started dancing. I rose and took Ginny by the hand, followed suit, leading her to the bit of a dance floor we had cleared. She was again, pure heaven in my arms and my hands slipped liberally up and down her smooth, slinky gowned figure.
Ginny smiled! I knew that smile and realized that something was going on behind her pretty green eyes.
She flicked back her sheet of ginger hair and leaned against me. I saw you, she huskily whispered, her voice putting a tickle in my ear. Saw me I asked, not getting it. I saw you lift that dame’s diamond brooch, Ginny said in a sultry voice as she looked over towards where my sister was dancing, (no, she was actually swooning), in Brian’s arms.
Now mate, you see that one over there, in the black dancing with the bearded gent? I looked over, as she continues, look at ‘er necklace, I have a fancy for diamonds, and if you don’t want me to call security, I suggest you get hers for me, darling, she said with conspiracy-like tones, acting like she was some old-time actress in a movie. I loved the devilishness of Ginny’s role play idea and it did not take much to toss me, whole heart and soul, into the assignment!.
Chapter 8
To Please a Dame
Now wide awake, I got fully into Ginny’s game. As we continued dancing, my eyes watched Brian and me sister, taking careful inventory of all the “dames” sparkling jewelry. Sis turned, and caught my eyes looking her over, she blushed, and not knowing what was really going through my mind, smiled at me. As I smiled back, my eyes drinking her fetchingly attired figure up!
I was imagining that all of her ample collection of rhinestones so prettily positioned on her figure, were real diamonds. And that I was an actual thief plotting to nick her lovely sparklers. I looked into Ginny’s eyes. You have a deal miss, I whispered, making my voice deep and throaty, as I imagined meself as some, albeit drunk, Humphrey Bogart type character in some grittily shadowy film noir style black and white movie.
The song ended and a second, even slower one began playing. Brian and my sister were still locked into each other’s arms, but I felt that the time to make my move was now. Throwing Ginny a wink, I went over and cut in, Brian looked drunkenly at me like “whattsup chap,” but Ginny was right behind and swirled him conveniently away before he could properly react.
And as I took the pretty, wide-eyed with innocence looking “dame” into my arms I found it exciting that she was oblivious to my nefarious intentions. Naïvely unaware, that in indifference to her own words earlier, someone did now want to nick the jewelry which was quite so merrily dangling from her svelte figure. Now, don’t forget at this point to me she was no longer my sister, but a sweet innocent victim weighted down with desirable loot. And I? I was nothing more than a suave thief deliciously hungering after her bright baubles, albeit, a slightly inebriated suave thief!
I bided my time, appearing to look into my twins/victims half-opened eyes ( she was really quite lit by this time, as we all were), my mind was working overtime on how the best approach to reach my objective. Then it came to me, quite clearly, and so Bob became my uncle, and I began his suggested approach…. And if I would have dared say so at the time, I executed my bit of jewel thievery like a pro…. That is if there are actually pros at this sort of thing1?
Employing the same method that I remembered the thief using in the Gilligan’s Island episode to remove his dance partners necklace, I began to compliment my twin on how devastating her and Ginny looked both looked that evening (no lies), slowly moving my one hand up the slick material of the gown covering her back as I whispered my praise. Easily I reached the dangling part of her hook and eye necklace with its’ glittering rows of “diamonds”. She ate it up, blushing and closing her eyes, naively cooperating by tilting her head down, exposing even more of the back of her throat, and laying bare the chain of her “diamond” necklace. As she fawned over my words of (not false) praise, I subtly lifted up the chain of her necklace, whilst my free hand held her ever so her tightly around the waist. For the second time that evening, I could feel the heat emanating from my victim's squirming figure. As well as again feeling me own heart pounding a storm.
I gently used my free left hands’ fingers to unhooked the clasp, and let the necklace fall over her one shoulder. Sis never felt it hanging, or noticed it as I peeled it off her chest (whisking along her gown smooth as silk) and pulled it over her gown’s satin shoulder till it slipped sparkling down behind her. I held it hanging loose behind her back for a few turns, still pouring out the compliments, until I pocketed it, letting it join her purloined brooch.
Meanwhile, Brian had left Ginny to go to the loo, and I saw Ginny, who had been eagerly watching all of it, give me a wink. Then she turned and stole out the apartment door, her longish slinking gown slipping through behind her as she closed the door. I made ready to make some excuse to break away from my sister and head after her with my loot.
But just as I opened my mouth to make that excuse, Sis pulled her arms behind me head, and laid her own head back on my shoulder and closed her tired eyes, getting into the music’s deep beat. One of her longish rhinestone earrings just hung there sparkling, mocking me to touch it, and like Ginger's diamonds, I saw them as quite ripe for the picking.
With the prize within my grasp, I momentarily forgot about the departing Ginny, and I made my move. I found meself trembling a bit, as I reached up and placed my hands gently alongside her ear, her eyes still shut, my victim smiled prettily. The rest of the maneuver was surprisingly easy, as I glided my fingers down and slipped it off the earring in one effortless motion. The sparkling beauty came away from her sweaty ear as smoothly as an ice cube moves along a steaming hot grill ( I actually did have a thought like that).
I held it in one fist for a bit, watching my victim, she had not felt so much as a tickle on her earlobe, as I had removed her earring. Relishing in my success, I looked at it dangling and shimmering in my hand behind her back. Then, as I secured her diamonds away, I thought about trying for the other. But thought better of it, knowing Ginny was just waiting on the other side of the door.
I finished out the dance, taking my sister's hand with its dazzling bracelet and rings, and admired them while I kissed it, the “Dames” Bracelet tantalizing slipped down along her wrist and brushed against me knuckles. At that moment, we both heard the toilet flushing, and my twin looked over her shoulder laughing. As she did do, I saw an opportunity opening up and taking her dangling diamonded bracelet in me fingers, tugged it down ever so discreetly. Surprisingly the clasp popped opened ( right about being flimsy luv, I silently agreed with my twin’s earlier statement)!
I daringly pulled it free from around her wrist and slipped it in me pocket just as she turned back around to face her dance partner. I could see in her eyes that she had not felt nor noticed anything out of place.
“I’d better be off after Ginny”
I said, clearing my throat, and then, with no fanfare, let go of her hand. It dropped to her side, rings flashing, purloined bracelet gone from where it had, with cheeky regally, had been holding shimmering court all evening.
“Nice doing business with you!”
I said, bemused as I watched the puzzlement creep into her half-awake eyes while I backed away from her towards the door.
And that chaps, is how I left her. With my grainy black and white movie still playing out in my mind.
She just was standing there puzzled, a wealthy lady in fancy dress, unknowingly watching the dashing stranger leave, along with the “fortune” in her jewels she had foolishly been wearing in a dive like this!
. She innocently watched me as I left the room with her “diamonds” in my scoundrel’s possession!
Chapter 9
A Quite Curious Encounter
Ginny came swishing into view from around the corner as I shut the door with a subtle click.
I smiled fully as she came up to me and started to say something to her, eager to caw about my evil deviousness.
She smiled and place a finger to my lips. Her hazel green eyes smirked as she said “Not yet lad, let’s take a walk away from here, what needs to be done next is best done in secret.”
“You mean the jewels “ I started to ask but she shushed me.
“That and ... other things laddie she said with a sly look in her eyes!
So we took the stairs down and made our way out into the unusually light foggy evening!
For the world was now ours, as we made our journey together, hand in hand.
We ended up making a very long stroll in the Provincial Park, and reentering the same isolated, secret glen we had been in earlier.
It was not until then that We proceeded to continue acting out the role-playing game we had started at the apartment.
Ginny went to the middle of the clearing to wait, pretending she was smoking, like a moll from a gangster movie.
I circled and watched her sparkling figure, black shiny gown and glittery diamonds, moving without purpose in the shadow of the glen.
And as I did, my thoughts wandered a bit, and I remember reflecting ( not for the first time) how in the older black n whites, the heroine, or villainous, is always wearing gowns, elegant long gloves, and jeweled to the sparkling hilt.
Then she walks alone to and then waits in some dark alley or other desolate spots for her contact, or hero to show up, much like Ginny was acting out now.
So how is it that those fancy dressed and well jeweled unescorted dames, always manage to get to those spots and can wait around in them alone, in those movies, and nary ever meet a ruffian who strips them of those pricy looking sparklers they are flaunting about?
Just saying!
After murmuring a brief prayer that my thoughts were not about to be tempting fate of that type to occur to us now that I had been thinking it, I came out of the shadows and approached Ginny/femme Fatales.
Keeping my left hand in my pocket like I was carrying a heater.
“Hey sister, I said, been waiting long?”
“No, she whispered, did you get the goods.”
“Hot as ice I said proudly.” producing the necklace I had liberated from the dancing “dame” and dangled it hypnotically in front of her eyes.
As I showed Ginny my take from “the dame”, she squealing over the fact I was able to acquire the “Broads” necklace of dripping “ice”.
Playing a thief’s role, I kept mum about Acquiring the Dames earring, no honour amongst thieves I thought mischievously.
Which in the game we were playing, proved to be the right move.
As Ginny admired the necklace we both laughed over what the “dames” reaction would be when the jewels were discovered missing.
Then suddenly my cohort got a serious look in her eyes!
Then she, putting her hand inside the skirt of her gown, raised it and stuck it into my side like a pistol.
“Now lad, the Dames fancy broach, and I won’t yell bloody murder
for the Bobbies now, will I!”
I sighed dramatically while I reached into my pocket and handed the sparkler over. She looked at it delighted, then stowed it
“So luv, do I make a proper Femme Fatale or not ?”
“Not bad my luv, but not evil enough, should ave riffled me pickets!” I said, pulling out the glistening “diamond” earring.
“Really !” She’s shrieked, checking her ears as If I was holding her on of her own!
Realizing she still had em, she smirked
“Took those off her to? Just like a man to always take a lady for all’s she’s worth!”
“Well, with double-crossing Dames like you around, a poor pickpocket has to make his living somehow!
Besides, I left her an earring and her rings! Didn’t I now, luv?!
“Are you sure you didn’t take them also you weasel and are holding out more on me lad!” Ginny teased as she tried to put a hand in my tux jacket pockets
I grabbed her and we began to struggle as I tried to grasp onto her slippery figure laughingly.
As we snickered, Ginny caught my eyes and then we got off on a tangent about jewel thieves, then jewel thieves in love, and ended up re-enacting the “lure” scene from the movie ‘To Catch a Thief” ending up producing fireworks of our own making, as “the femme fatale “ Ginny lost all her jewels as well as her perceived “innocence”...
“kiss me you fool!” Cut, roll the credits...
Later, and a wee bit disheveled, the two of us then made our way back home, as the cock crows, receiving a few odd looks from the occasional early morning lorry drivers.
The End
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