Former Member

Maybe they can adopt the road-heating technology to install radiant heating in some of the castle floors! ;-) Using electrical heating rather than burning wood, coal, or a petroleum-based fuel would be much more environmentally cleaner. With all those mountains and valleys, I’m sure that pollutants get trapped causing smog and poor air quality. Hydro, wind and solar sources are all renewable and are possibilities for Makarovia.

If we’re all fantasizing, I’d prefer Marky Mark to show up for my resuscitation. I’m sure I’d faint if he showed up! (I got my flu shot and I'm not contagious!) ;-)

In many border towns (including Vancouver, BC), they happily accept US dollars, but give you change in the local currency! I remember making a purchase in 1990 where the total was over CA $20.00 and I got change from my US $20 bill! Just don’t accept your taxi driver's offer to exchange your Dollars for Pesos 1:1! ;-)

And this is one two of the reasons why this story is so fun to read! Robbie being Drama Queen and Nathan calling him on it! Robbie tends to overreact to things and then goes overboard in the other direction when he tries to correct his course!

I remember Carter! Poor TJ is so used to being picked on that he just automatically assumes that Deanna was speaking for everyone. We were spared having to wear worn out clothes mainly because my mother sewed. We’d get to pick out the material and she’d sew us new t-shirts! The knit fabric was much heavier than undershirt-type t-shirts. Later, my favorite Aunt introduced us to tie-dying and we made quite a few of those too! But this was back in the ‘70s and we were very fashionable, the look was hippie-chic, not yet Deadhead/stoner recycles. ;-)

I guess if you can ignore what’s inside, you can convince yourself of almost anything! ;-)

‘Pastor’ Carl is not the only one who has either not really read their bible or ignores the supposedly most important lessons it claims to teach: love one another, forgiveness, and not judging others! These so-called christians are more like neo-Jewish in their disregard for their new testament! They only like to concentrate on misinterpretations of a lesson on hospitality and a ritualistic purification list that they mostly ignore otherwise! Why do I understand their religion better than they do – I’m not a believer, I’m Agnostic! I think Billy’s mother’s medical training overrides her religious bigotry. But only in a medical context. When the crisis is over, she’ll return to her comfortable hatefulness.

Teddy’s mother did mention seeing him with young men other than Ryder, so it sounds like he’s dated at least a few others over the 13 years. ;-)

I thought they were just being very sadistic in retaliation for Ryder’s uncooperativeness! ;-) (Somehow I missed this chapter when it was posted.)

Three somewhat random selections from me too. One, I've always the loved originality and aplomb of @Mikiesboy's Christmas entry to the Secret Santa contest.The Letter: A Christmas Tale is a wonderful romance. @Puppilull's contribution to the same contest was a stunner. It's a romance with a twist, and a hint of desert sand. Please read Habibi if you haven't already. And thirdly, @Cole Matthewswrote one that sticks with me because it's so beautifully tender. From Advent Calendar least year, be sure to check out Eternal Flame. There are many more wonderful Christmas tales on GA, but I just limited myself to three. Happy reading!

A day at Disneyland! What awesome praise. Thank you JP, you are the best!

What can I say other than you are always so generous with my work. Kisses, buddy

Thanks for the recommendation, northie I appreciate it. @Timothy M.helped me shape Modern Magi into a real story, so I owe him too.

Awesome restoration.

Then if there’s any wild thing alive out there, it probably would have eaten it as soon as it spotted it!

But is he Raif? What if he’s not Raif. What will John do if he finds a stranger?

I don’t write stories, but I do play around with making flyer-type posters. Quite often I’ll print one up and discover a mistake or decide to make some sort of adjustment. I often end up with a stack of paper to be discarded. Maybe my test prints feel the same way as your drafts? ;-) I know I read this previously, but it appears I never Liked it or Commented! ;-)

And now we’re left to ponder whether the daisy was even there to begin with! Cold climates are nightmares for me! (And not just Game of Thrones ‘Winter is Coming’ nightmares!) I have no desire to live where snow is anything but an extreme rarity! ;-)

I got lucky? My mother figured out that I’m Gay because I was staying over with the guy I was seeing at the time. But my parents mostly handled it the way they dealt with other things that they disagreed with. They ignored it as much as they could.

Geoff will be flustered and worrying about something or another every day of his life. It’s who he is. And Tony loves him despite his tendencies! ;-) I was surprised to see favorite characters pop up! ;-)

As I mentioned in recent Comment to another story, there is a group of Gay men who fetishize Immigrant Asian men. They don’t really see them as equals, they interpret politeness as submissiveness and compliance. They’re looking for a stereotype, not a person, an accessory, not a partner. I can see this as the next step since some seem to think Asia is one country whose ‘national’ decor is Hollywood’s bamboo and black lacquer faux-Asian.

They always say that sex drives new technologies fastest! VCRs? Porn. The Internet? Porn. Smart Phones? Sexting (and swiping). I’m sure it will be the same with robots.

Why is there a gray line behind all the text in this chapter? ;-) It’s really good to visit with Eli again! ;-) And Charlie should know that I really like skinny guys! ;-)

Eli Alert! Eli Alert! Where’s @Wesley8890? ;-)

Why do I feel worried about Mike escorting Ryder? Teddy’s last lines sound very ominous to me! What has Mike done to prove he’s grown past his hatred of Ryder? Has he recruited Nate too? I hate needles too. When I get an injection or have blood pulled, I always look the other way. One jokester nurse told me the vaccine wouldn’t work if I didn’t look! A year or two later when I reminded him of what he said, he told me he tells that to kids who are afraid of getting shots! ;-) It’s about time for the entire Haner family to face the truth about Ryder. His life has left a tremendous mark on them. They’ve all reacted the way people do to catastrophic events with the older three in denial to some degree as a form of PTSD. It wouldn’t have been surprising if the parents had gotten a divorce, Ryder’s betrayal being so disastrous. But it was long past time for Oli to understand the truth about what happened. It will go a long way to explain to him why his family has been the way it was. It’s painful now, but Oli will be better off in the long run. ;-)