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Joined: Aug 2005
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Nobel Peace Prize Winner
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OP
Nobel Peace Prize Winner
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 5,797 |
No towels, I'm afraid... What, no pictures of baby Clark in the yellow towel? “Who is the girl next to him?” Lois asked. “Lily?”
“Yes,” Martha replied with a loving smile towards the old picture. “She loved disguises and made Clark dress up in the most ridiculous ways. He wasn’t always happy with it, but he adored his older cousin and did almost anything for her.” Aaawww.... Lily’s father managed to show her every single day how unwelcome she was. He read the newspaper and no one was allowed to disturb him. Any word above a whisper was too much. When she came here, it was as if the sun was rising on her face. She was so happy here and it was awful letting her go after a long day out on the fields.”
“That must have been hard. What about your sister? Didn’t she love Lily?” Lois wanted to know.
“I guess she didn’t dare to show her affection. Besides, my sister didn’t get pregnant again. I think she spent more time trying to give her husband the son he had demanded than she had ever had for her daughter. Oh, poor Lily! Whenever the youth of Smallville met, Lily was the last to go and Clark had to bring her home. Sometimes she had been sober, at other times wasted. And Clark had always been the one to explain Lily’s sorry state to her parents. What a great friend he was to her. But it had been a give and take relationship. Lily had been there for Clark whenever he had needed to be cheered up.
...
She had been the one who listened to what Clark told her. She defended her younger cousin when someone dared mock him. How sweet. in all the two of them had been some kind of old couple, even in their early days of childhood. Adorable. And so Clark, somehow. Lois hoped that her role in his life would be equally important someday soon. Well, Lois, you were born to be more important to him than Lily. “How bad is it, Lois? I mean, how bad is it really? Clark told me about Child Services. I don’t know if you have already noticed it, but my son is Mr. Understatement. He’d never tell me deliberate lies. Wow! Clark hasn't told his parents about his problems with the Child Services. Mr. Understatement, indeed. Lois really needs to help him deal with Margaret Donovan. And he really, really needs Lois to help him with his current predicament as well! Please let Lois figure out that Clark - and Becca!! - are in trouble really soon, Barbara! Ann
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Pulitzer
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Pulitzer
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 3,166 |
Oh, my! You got right to the point of telling us who Margaret Donovan was and then you stopped. Argghhh.... You’re killing me here, Barbara! He could discern the shape of a bed in one corner. Right next to it was a chest that probably contained blankets. This was rather useful to know in case he wasn’t able to get out right away. It struck me as odd that someone would put a bed in a storm shelter but not have heat there. But the thing of it is, is that’s probably pretty much the way it is. We humans do strange things.... Come back soon...
~~Even heroes have the right to dream.~~
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Top Banana
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Top Banana
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As someone who had the (mis)fortune of being raised in the Midwest - storm cellars are designed for short term protection - water, canned food, blankets, flashlights. No power since chances are there wouldn't be electricity after a tornado. Since there isn't a lot of ventilation, no gas fired generator or kerosene heater. (Think of a very small basement with no windows.)
The storms a storm shelter is designed for mostly happen in late summer and autumn.
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Blogger
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Blogger
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It struck me as odd that someone would put a bed in a storm shelter but not have heat there It really does make sense, since in Kansas the storms for which you need a storm shelter are tornadoes. These are rare (though not unheard-of) in cold weather, but the great majority occur in the late spring and summer, usually late in a very hot day, so heat in the shelter wouldn't be worth the extra effort and expense in most cases. The storms also don't last very long in any one place, so even if it was cold, it would only be for a couple of hours at most. I've never heard of one when the weather was below freezing. There were a few early this month in eastern Kansas that moved on into Missouri but they are more the exception than the rule. Frank - about 6 miles from Kansas, and about 35 miles north of where the tornadoes crossed the border.
Monolithic biavicide ......... Killing two birds with one stone
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Posts: 2,636 Likes: 44
Pulitzer
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Pulitzer
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Posts: 2,636 Likes: 44 |
Oh, yeah. Nancy thinks what I write is odd and others correct her. That's kind of ironic, since I've been struggeling with "de-oddification" from the very beginning of this series. Hehe, don't be mad at me, Nancy, I just find this kind of amusing. I love that you comented on my story and I even love your comments when you tell me that I write weird things Oh, and I'm so glad that Ann seemed to have liked this part, although there is still the evil A-plot waiting in the background, baring his teeth.
It's never too dark to be cool.
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Columnist
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Columnist
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oh man another cliffhanger. Get them back to Lois. Please no more angst. I love this story and I hope the happy end is not far away.
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Top Banana
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Top Banana
Joined: Oct 2003
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OMG...poor Becca and Clark! Hurry back with Lois to the rescue!
I'm a firm believer in the fact that God doesn't put any more on us than we can bear. He does however make us come to Jesus every so often.
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Top Banana
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Top Banana
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Great chapter!
I do have a small issue with the skylight in the storm shelter though.
Wouldn't that be un-safe, considering it's basically a window on the ceiling, and if the storm went over it the glass could break, hurting the people inside the shelter?
"You take turns, advise and protect one another, even heal or be healed when the going gets too tough. I know! That's not a game--that's friendship!" ~Shelly Mezzanoble, Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress: A Girl's Guide to the Dungeons & Dragons Game Darcy\'s Place
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Pulitzer
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Pulitzer
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Thank you so much for your feedback... Darcy, that's just a problem with my english. I wondered whether skylight would imply some kind of window, but the German translation wasn't very specific. I wouldn't think of building a storm shelter with a glass door. After all, I've seen "Twister" LaraMoon didn't complain and so I thought that maybe it was okay, though I have to admit that "sky" "Light" really lets me think of some kind of window. But on the other hand, you eat hot dogs and that doesn't necessarily mean that you've heated up a puppy. Or does it? Anyway, I'd be grateful to be corrected, I like to learn new things every day.
It's never too dark to be cool.
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Features Writer
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Features Writer
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Here's a lurker delurking to say how wonderful the story has been so far. Just LOVE it! For clarification: According to the Wiktionary : Noun
skylight
1. A window, dome, or opening in the roof or ceiling, to admit natural light. 2. Diffuse sky radiation—solar radiation reaching the earth's surface after having been scattered from the direct solar beam by molecules or suspensoids in the atmosphere so I'm assuming it would be a window (unless you were referring to the sky radiation). malu
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Top Banana
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Top Banana
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Did you mean the doors that are usually on cellars?
They are usually low on the ground, and mostly horizontal, though they might have a slight incline.
There are usually two doors on one set, and they can be locked from the outside in some way--maybe a wood beam across, or a padlock on some sort metal hardware to keep the doors together.
Directly inside the cellar doors is usually a staircase to get down into the cellar itself.
So, all that said, were you trying to describe the "cellar door?"
"You take turns, advise and protect one another, even heal or be healed when the going gets too tough. I know! That's not a game--that's friendship!" ~Shelly Mezzanoble, Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress: A Girl's Guide to the Dungeons & Dragons Game Darcy\'s Place
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Pulitzer
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Pulitzer
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Yep! I changed it. I thought a cellar door would rather mean something vertical. I guess, not living in tornado area can have it's downsides, huh?
It's never too dark to be cool.
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Pulitzer
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Pulitzer
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As someone who had the (mis)fortune of being raised in the Midwest - storm cellars are designed for short term protection - water, canned food, blankets, flashlights. No power since chances are there wouldn't be electricity after a tornado. Since there isn't a lot of ventilation, no gas fired generator or kerosene heater. (Think of a very small basement with no windows.)
The storms a storm shelter is designed for mostly happen in late summer and autumn. I’m well aware of what a storm shelter is as I also live in an area where tornadoes hit (notice that I live in Kentucky). I didn’t mean to imply that what bakasi wrote was odd. I said that it was odd in general that there would be a bed there but no heat. For that matter, it also seems odd to me that there would be a bed in a storm shelter as storm shelters are usually small (the one depicted in Smallville is huge, if you ask me). But in the area I live in, it’s unusual that there would be storm shelters. We usually have basements - with heat. There were a few early this month in eastern Kansas that moved on into Missouri but they are more the exception than the rule. And yes, some tornadoes do occur in colder weather. It seems that we often get at least one tornado warning in December or January around here. That's kind of ironic, since I've been struggeling with "de-oddification" from the very beginning of this series. But I didn’t find what you wrote odd. I find it odd in general that storm shelters in this modern day and age don’t have some way to provide heat. Well, I usually think of a skylight as a window. But it doesn’t necessarily have to be a window. I just assumed it was some other way to let some light in... Like the opening that Malu mentioned. Depending on the way it was made, it wouldn’t allow wind to enter the shelter, but hey you changed it to the cellar doors so it's a moot point. Now where's the next part!?
~~Even heroes have the right to dream.~~
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