Is food city closed on thanksgiving

Is anyone else having these issues or know what to do to fix them? I've just been enrolled into my courses but when trying to access Self-Service on the myNAIT page I keep getting an error saying, "Sorry, the page you are looking for is currently unavailable. Please close your browser and try again."

This is mostly copied from iPhone because I am shit at doing this. PS fuck spez.
Hi everyone,
From 11th June insanepeoplefacebook will shut off posting and enter ‘Restricted’ mode. This will mean no more posts will be coming through for the next couple days, until Reddit decide to revert their stance. Our decision to bring forward the blackout is a result of the actions of the Reddit CEO as well as an abysmal AMA that did little to answer our questions or concerns.
The situation
As you may have noticed over the past week, there has been a lot of discussion surrounding Reddit’s recent policy change to charge access to its API. These changes effectively kill third-party apps such as Apollo, Reddit is Fun and many others due to the exorbitant amount Reddit is asking from them to continue access to their API - with these changes threatening to cost apps such as Apollo an upwards of $20 million a year to keep running as is. These prices place an enormous financial burden on these third-party developers, making it unfeasible to continue operations. This has resulted in a number of apps announcing their plans to shut down, including Apollo.
With these apps shutting down, it also makes our jobs as Moderators that much harder. Many of us mods have had to rely on these third-party applications in order to effectively do our job, simply because the official Reddit app doesn’t have the sufficient tools that these other apps offer. This will lead to many regular users having a subpar experience due to Moderators not having the tools to manage their communities well enough.
These changes also have drastic effects on those that need to use those third-party apps for accessibility reasons, due to the official app, nor new Reddit, providing proper levels of accessibility for those that need it. It’s one step closer to making Reddit totally inaccessible to many users.
The Reddit CEO’s recent antics
We also have concerns that Reddit’s very own CEO is comfortable and willing enough to lie, twist facts and gaslight the userbase into being on ‘their’ side in way of accusing Apollo’s developer, Christian, of blackmail and threatening Reddit. And, when proven to be lying through audio recordings, deciding to double down on villainizing said developer in his most recent ‘AMA’.
As moderators and users, this kind of behaviour erodes our trust in the company’s leadership and undermines our confidence in any statements or actions they take. The AMA today was also abysmal enough to the point we wanted to bring our blackout forward from June 12th. It failed to answer any of our questions or concerns.
If you want further context on this particular issue, please read Christian’s (Apollo Dev) post here: https://www.reddit.com/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/apollo_will_close_down_on_june_30th_reddits/
So, how long is this blackout going to last?
It’s tough to say. It’s something that we’ve gone back and forth on internally because we need to weigh up various factors when making a decision like locking down a subreddit with 3.8 million subscribers and thousands of daily active users. It isn’t as simple as some have suggested it to be.
We also cannot privatise the subreddit indefinitely. We just can’t. At the end of the day Admins have made it clear on numerous occasions that attempting to do so will result in intervention. In what way? We aren’t entirely sure, and this is why we will be reviewing our stance on a daily basis. Reddit, at the end of the day, is a business first and foremost. It is defined by the existence of our communities. Without a clear path to end the protest, Reddit must find a solution to end it themselves. The longer the blackout drags on, and and the harder we push them, the more likely it is that they’ll consider playing hard ball and going with the “Nuclear” option of removing Mod Teams and replacing them with those that they know will be compliant. While this option runs the risk of destroying communities due to replacements who don’t actually understand the community they’re running, it’s likely to be a better option for Reddit compared to having half their website shut down.
We will try our best to keep everyone updated on our decision making.
For those curious, here were some numbers on those participating in the blackout (numbers may be outdated, data was from yesterday):
​
Unique Subreddits Unique Moderators Combined Subscribers 3,314 15,676 1,502,606,382
You can find the full list of subreddits participating on Modcoord.
What can you do to help?
Make noise, contact the Admins and voice your displeasure. Make memes, post about it, comment about it.
We do ask that you don’t pressure other communities to join in, though, through modmailing them or messaging Moderators directly. This is incredibly spammy and, at the end of the day, there are subreddits (such as support ones) who should be staying open due to their importance to many people.
Will we go private?
Yes.
Please do not harass any mods about this decision.

Starting to feel like JP's course on Udemy is outdated. I like his encouragement and style, and I'm clearly learning things... but is it all for not?
Keep seeing AR + 3rd Rock + Vargas (which I love that dude, so entrancing)... but I'm coming from a background where the terms and processes are not the daily jargon/practice (12 years in my job, managing multi-unit franchises).
I'm constantly seeing people cram in like 2 weeks, while I've been slipping in 2 minute videos here and there for close to a MONTH now. Are you guys eating steroids and adderall for breakfast? Lololol.
I want a healthy balance of actual test prep but also trying to actually absorb a few concepts and jargon to retain as I go (ya know, for interviews and resume etc). But I don't want to be behind the times.
What do you think? What is/was a waste or not worth the time for you? What made you have to UN-learn or catch up and how/when did you realize that you went down the wrong fork in the road? Etc. Thanks in advance!

I recently went through a breakup, which was VERY hard. It took everything for me not to give up on people and everything. I started going to a church my sister goes to 5 minutes from my house to try to find some hope somewhere, anywhere. I was starting to feel comfortable, and reconnected with an old friend who happened to go there. I was finally starting to feel like there was purpose to what happened to me and that I fit in and had a place somewhere. But that's not related to what I'm about to say.
I decided to volunteer for VBS to try to give, to give of myself something to someone to try to feel good about myself and serve. I also volunteered to bring a watermelon which they needed for the week. Nothing on display, nothing flashy, nothing like that because I'm not even good with kids at all anyway. I just wanted to be behind the scenes, preparing food in the kitchen for the other volunteers. That's it.
Fast forward to today: my sister relays the message that the pastor wants to talk to me tonight, and that they have a problem with me volunteering because I'm trans and they don't want it to look like they're "promoting" anything. Like... I wanna be hidden in the kitchen making food to help, volunteer MY FREE TIME to try to serve and not just sit in a pew every Sunday. And this is the thanks I get.
I mean for real, it's not like I'm gonna walk in there parading around a pride flag and talking about genitals. I'm just a normal person like anyone else! I just want to be under the radar chopping fruit in a kitchen to help. That's it. And they still have a problem with me. So now I don't want to help. I want nothing to do with it.
I gotta tell ya, I can't take anymore rejection, man. I'm so tired of this. I'm trying to give of my free time (something 90% of the apparently much more acceptable cishets in that church couldn't be bothered to do) and they don't want me. Forget it

My mom got pregnant from a hookup and I never met my father. She still had me and my family helped me raise me. But that doesn't exclude the fact that I was born from a mistake.
I've seen my mom and family members stretch themselves to extreme lenghts just to make sure I had food and a place to study. My mom had to halt her career to take care of me and now she works at a mediocre job she never planned for. The rest of my family invested money on me so I could finish education. My aunt for example. She help my mom pay for school when she could be investing on herself. She gave me the best tools to developt myself, but that doesn't change the fact she could have invested on herself. I believe none of my family did this out of love as they claim to. I believe they did this out of obligation.
The things is that they didn't had to and should not had to. I was conceived on a mistake and I am the end product of that.
And now I feel like I own a shit-ton of money, time and resources to everyone in my family because I was not supposed to have existed and they were not supposed to have dealt with me. But now that I am here, there is no way back. I won't stop working and pushing myself until all of my debt with them is cleaned off. It's my obligation.

I didn't have a very normal childhood and have never been close with my family. Now that I'm pregnant, i have been thinking more about what family life will look like for us. I know i would like to play board games, as that was something i wish my parents had done with my brother and i. But i can't really imagine any activities a family does together, like regularly.
What do you do together on a random tuesday, both parents home from work and kiddo picked up from daycare/kindergarten/school?
How about weekends?
When the child is 1, 5, 10, 15 years old?
How often/how long does the child play by themself?

So last weekend a buddy and I decided to play a round after work. This is a course we’ve been playing pretty frequently and have summer memberships(not much of a membership, just drops the prices a little and gives you twilight prices) It stormed for a little early afternoon but cleared up by 4pm for us to play. I arrived first and as I was walking up to the clubhouse, I caught the tail end of the starter and manager talking about how the course was dead all day and no one was out at the time. At this point the starter seemed to be quite agitated that I was there, I’m assuming he was expecting to get to leave early since no one was playing. I said “ if y’all are closing up, I can just run to one of the other local courses”, to which he replied, still seeming upset, “I can’t close, it’s fine”. Am I over thinking this or is there some respect bylaw on arrival time to play afternoon rounds on slow days.

Hi! So about 3 weeks ago this guy and i started talking. He’s not my usual type of person to date , but I just got out of a six-year relationship and I’m trying to find someone new and different. So he asked me to come over for memorial day weekend, and I set boundaries saying I don’t sleep around I don’t do things if there’s not gonna be some thing coming out of this if that makes sense . I came over & we met. But I could tell since the age difference he had a bit of a drinking problem, and that his friends definitely did too. both of our parents died so we bonded over that and little things. And he made the first step to say hey, I really really like you. He went to his niece who was there with us and told her he was scared I was gonna hurt him, that I am not his usual type of woman he would go after. So it felt like we were kind in the same boat of liking each other, but being scared to commit because we never really spoke about it. Then he pulled this move of grabbing me and screaming at his friends how hot i was (which made me feel uncomfortable) or that could just be me and never being shown that type of affection but he was drunk, so who knows if he actually meant that. Which I told him several times I can’t really trust what you say because you’re drunk and he’s always said a drunk person speaks, sober thoughts.. we spent four more days together , we cooked food together. I met his family and his friends. I even took him to the hospital because he put a gash in his hand while drunk to open a beer bottle with a knife. The day he took me home, was the weirdest part about it , the morning time went fine He was just very hung over, I brought him food , took care of his puppy, even cleaned his house. I gave him some space because he wasn’t feeling well and did my own thing for a while. He started getting sick and then offered to take me home. But barely touched me and I summed it up as too he just threw up. He wasn’t feeling well. He didn’t want to kiss me or something. He texted me the day after, posted a photo of us but then completely ignored me and stopped replying while I was hanging out with his sister when he was at work(they live together). That day I went home and never heard from him again. His sister said that she doesn’t know and doesn’t put herself in drama, but all his friends that were talking to me even his niece just completely ghosted me too. I had to get a book back from him. It was very sentimental, It was my mothers. And I had to give him one of his shirts back. Took me a week to get an answer out of him (he blocked me on all social media platforms besides iphone texting ) he said to pick it up and leave him alone. My question is how do I get clarity from a situation I can’t get clarity from. I don’t know what this was to him but in my mind, I can only think he was afraid to commit to me, or he used me completely because he was on a bender. None of this makes sense , also, should I get tested? I mean if he brought me around his friends so fast who’s to say he doesn’t do this a lot.

It's pretty awful. I love the idea of the class but they need to make werewolf druids stronger. I have claw (I know it's terrible), shred, wolves, rabies, blood howl, and lacerate. I'm level 50 with just regular gear, some imprinted.
Last night I was working on Act II (WL2) and got to the boss in the temple. I couldn't beat him. I tried at least 10 times. Never got even close. Eventually rage quit and tried again at WL1 and was able to beat him. There is no way this build is going to be able to do WL3 and above. IMO ALL builds should be able to do WL3. I don't think I'm bad at the game.
Now...I also have a 50 minion necro that was also on Act III. I spent a couple of hours catching up to my druid this morning and wow...I killed the same boss on WL2 with my necro quicker and easier than my druid on WL1. That shouldn't be the case IMO.
I know I could change to storm/werewolf but I should be able to play the character type I want, right?

Hai! I'm currently looking for a phys ranged or non-nin melee to sub for my group for the week of June 13-19. We raid on, Tuesdays, Thursday, Friday, Sunday @ 8:30pm-11:30pm EST. I will provide food / potions for the week. Loot is Need on BIS, greed on rest.
We are currently cleaning up p10s into a clear to prog p11s. Please DM me on discord mochaux if interested, thank you!

Hello! I am an autistic mother of an autistic child (12M) who is facing a dilemma I don’t know how to navigate.
My eldest child attends a small school (K-8 ~500 kids) in our small town (~10,000 pop.) and has been bullied by a boy in his class for the past two years. This boy is also known to beat up on other children as well.
The boy’s older (by one grade) cousin rides the bus with my children and has been calling my eldest homophobic slurs among other things.
There was a situation yesterday, where my child was missing social cues that his classmates didn’t want to play with him and continued to try to play with them. Eventually, the two cousins took his hat off his head and ripped it. It is unclear if this was on purpose. He then swung his hat around and it hit the boy in the eye. It’s unclear if that was on purpose as well, though he says it wasn’t.
The cousins then pushed him down and wailed on him, and he called the girl cousin a f*ing gendered slur. In response, she slapped him.
The cousins have been calling my son and his male best friend homophobic slurs because they spend so much time together. This is basically the only close friend my son has.
The family is well-known, appears well-liked, and is quite wealthy. We, on the other hand, are intense introverts and don’t know anyone really, aside from our closest neighbours and co-workers. We just really struggle with understanding social norms, and as a response, retreat from society.
My school district offers online education with the same curriculum and I would like to begin online learning with my eldest.
I was heavily bullied for being weird and because my parents were also “weird”, they had no power to influence the bullying to stop. I have SEVERE social anxiety now (I’m in therapy and on medication). My husband was homeschooled from grade 6 onward because of the same sort of situation (bullying from well-known children in a much smaller town) and he is doing far better than I am, but he doesn’t want to do online schooling because it may stunt our child’s social skills development.
Please give me your perspectives!

Hello gamers how you all doing hope you doing well today I'm going to request an dlc for call of duty called demon deer propack dlc
What is demon deer dlc - demon deer propack an dlc pack release by Activision on Feburary 23th 2023.the dlc contain my favourite verison of that operater named chuy the things that comes with it is chuy bracken operater skin, operater chuy,FXJ imperium hunter weapon blueprint,close call mp5 weapon blue print,wild skull weapon charm , forest king weapon sticker , feathered embrace emblem
Why i need it - i have been playing warzone 2 for 1100hours at the moment and this dlc would greatly improve my experience to the game and i like cod very much so this dlc will be worth buying.it also comes with my favorite operater chuy with best skin version of it being full black and it's generally cool skin i would be very happy to get the dlc pack.
Why can't I afford it - the truth is I'm a student and there is really no source of income and since i get very less pocket money it's out my caliber to buy it secondly my parents won't even allow me to spend money on games cause of many weird reason
If you wanna help me out here is my steam link-https://steamcommunity.com/id/GOLD_SKYLE

I've been fortunate enough to receive acceptances at KCUMB(KC) and USUHS. However, I am having a hard time deciding between them. What are your thoughts? KCU MB Pros:

1. In the Midwest. I'm from the Midwest.
2. Tuition is reasonable
3. P/F/Honors system
4. Excellent Match statistics every year
5. Students seemed happy (is this true in your experience?)
6. OMM is kept at a minimum.
7. In general, I really liked the school when I went there for a campus tour as well as Kansas City.
8. I would have the opportunity to serve some of the sickest patient populations in our country.

Cons:

1. Tough curriculum
2. Rumored scheduling issues
3. The hassle of taking both COMLEX and USMLE
4. Not sure how step 1 going p/f will affect the school
5. Limited Research opportunity? (but a lot of students from KCU work with UMKC and KU research groups)

USUHS: Pros: 1. P/F curriculum 2. Excellent match statistics 3. Free tuition 4. I don't have an issue with the 7-year service commitment. 5. During the campus visit, I felt it was a very collaborative environment and students seemed to be happy. 6. Lots of research opportunities. 7. Don't have to take 2 sets of board exams or deal with OMM at all.

1. This might seem naive, but ever since the start of my premed journey, USUHS has been my dream school

Cons: 1. Will have to constantly move (Although this is not something new for me it's still very challenging) 2. Pay is significantly lower in the long run (but I won't have student loans which was quite a bit when I checked on finaid.gov--roughly $600,000 will be paid back in 10 years) 3. Skill atrophy in some surgical specialties (At the moment, I am not too keen on pursuing surgical specialties but this might change. Currently, I am interested in internal medicine, anesthesiology, and radiology..not sure how skill atrophy affects these specialties.) 4. Won't have a chance to serve some of the sickest patient population (not sure if this is true).
Please let me know what are your thoughts. Any advice is greatly appreciated! And thank you Reddit for all your help with this crazy application process.
View Poll

Champions League final live stream: How to watch Manchester City vs. Inter online, Champions League final 2023 free live stream: How to watch Man City vs Inter in USA team news, odds, time Pep Guardiola is chasing his third Champions League crown and Man City's first ever in Istanbul Manchester City vs Inter LIVE [email protected] Free UCL Streams: Inter vs Manchester City Live UEFA Champions League Final 2023 Live: Man City vs Inter LIVE [email protected] Inter vs Man City Live, air time, TV channel,UEFA Champions League Final 2023 Live Manchester City vs Inter Milan Live

How to watch and odds

• Date: Saturday, June 10 Time: 3 p.m. ET
• Location: Ataturk Olympic Stadium -- Istanbul
• TV: CBS Live stream: Paramount+
• Odds: City -225; Draw: +360; Inter +600 (via Caesars Sportsbook)

Manchester City will gun for a famous and coveted treble when they face Inter Milan in Istanbul, Turkey for the 2023 Champions League final on Saturday.
Should they manage to pull it off, the Premier League side would become the first English club to win a domestic and continental treble since their rivals Manchester United in 1999. City have already secured the Premier League and FA Cup titles this season, but the European crown would be the ultimate achievement, something never done before in club history.
Inter, meanwhile, finished third in Serie A and enter this match as heavy underdogs, but their recent form to finish the season will give them hope. Inter won seven of their last eight league games of the campaign and kept four clean sheets in the process, while also downing rivals AC Milan in an emotional Champions League semifinal matchup.
There will be a whole truckload of narratives regardless of how this game plays out, and fans will be scrambling to enjoy every minute of the action.
LIVE STREAM: Watch Champions League final on Paramount+ in USA, use promo code "FINAL" for 1 month free trial
Champions League final 2023: How to stream Man City vs Inter live online
Fans in the United States can watch Man City vs Inter in the Champions League final for free online one of two ways.
With the match on the parent CBS network channel, fans can watch the game using a Fubo subscription. Fubo is available to new users for free via trial. A Spanish-language broadcast can also be found on TUDN or Univision, which are both available on Fubo as well.

I can't with this error anymore.
Sometimes I can play the game for hours, not a crash, sometimes like now... I have lost 2 Nightmare dungeons sigils because of the crash in less than 10 mins.
(Btw, I think it's stupid that you get thrown out of the game by no fault of your own and you lose the ND)
​

• I have reinstalled the game
• I have updated the bios
• I have updated windows
• I have updated the drivers on the video card
• I have set the refresh rate on 60hz
• I am closing the iCue and Ghub before opening the game

​
I don't know what more to do and it's so freaking random, although most of the time I get it when I'm in town doing something at one of the shops there.
It's ruining the enjoyment of this game and I never had it in beta or server slam...
The game is running on:

• AMD Ryzen 5 3600
• 16GB Ram
• Win10
• NVIDIA GTX 1070

Any suggestions? Has anyone managed to fix it?

So me and my wife have been together for 2 years, we’re happy and love one another and can’t wait for the day we can live together. Currently she lives in California and I live in the UK.
I find that even though me and her are really depressed due to the distance and life situation, our relationship is really strong and it’s probably better than ever. Sometimes I do worry though, we’re so close and want the same thing, to be together but what if the reason we’re so happy and committed and in love is because of the distance and once we’re together the relationship want feel the same. I worry because of the saying, ‘addicted to the grind’. Or like when you want something so bad and once you get it the interest is lost. Both me and my partner have BPD and it’s very possible.
I’m not on this subject because of me and how I feel, it’s the opposite in fact. I know I’ll never stop loving her and I definitely know I won’t ever get bored but I’m scared she will. I might be overthinking though, I most likely am. It just scares me. The relationship might seems so amazing now and the want to be together is so strong now but it might be covering the imperfections. Love is blind type of thing.
For some context on the stability of the relationship currently, we’re married and FaceTime every single second of the day, we have obviously visited one another a million times and we have been through thick and thin. The relationship is so close that most people would consider it unhealthy lol.
People who have closed the gap, did you ever feel this way?

I've seen these excuses thrown around in various place on the Internet like twitter and it just bugs me.
"Play it with friends".

1. Not everyone has the friends to play this game with, or said friends having the time or access to play the game with you.
2. By default you can play the game alone, but shouldn't playing it alone still be fun?
3. Almost anything can be more fun if you play it with friends.

"Just install mods".

1. Not everyone has access to mods whether they play on console, or on Bedrock (Java mods are WAY WAY BETTER than the Bedrock marketplace)
2. It requires a bit of research to get into. It's not hard, but you still have to look into it, plus Curseforge did recently have a security breech
3. It's the job of the company to develop a quality product they deliver to the customer, not the community's job to improve it. This would be like excusing flaws in Skyrim because there's a mod that makes dragons less annoying.

"If you find the game boring, it's because you lack imagination"

1. This is just pure projection. It's possible to try and do a lot of creative stuff in Minecraft and still find it a boring game. I have built mob farms, mansions, a cathedral that encloses the giant natural spawning nether portals, yet I still find flaws in its core gameplay loop.
2. Redstone and automation isn't taught in the game and is an unintuitive system for new players. How likely are you to learn everything about automation with various kinds of farms and logistics by only playing the game? Odds are most people just look at a tutorial and follow the construction step by step. What's creative about that? It's like instead of learning how to code, you copypaste stuff from stack overflow.
3. Sandbox games don't have to only rely on self imposed goals. Minecraft isn't like gmod, because you still have survival mechanics like enemies, hunger, crafting and resource gathering. But a lot of the mechanics don't really tie in that deeply to the core gameplay loop. Beds just easily destroy the threat of night and villages can easily supply you food. Factorio is also a sandbox game but core gameplay concepts and mechanics like automation, space management and using belts, vs rails, vs bots always have the player actively engage with them with more of a challenge.
4. Self imposed challenges are always going to more shallow than an actually hand crafted challenge. Hardcore makes it so you only have one life, but it doesn't fix all of the problems. You still have beds easily delete the threat of night, you can still find villages, combat is always going to be "hit them before they get close to you", and the Enderdragon is still going to be same old boss. It's like with Pokemon nuzlocke, how it doesn't change how gyms make it obvious which pokemon type they'll use.
5. Finally it's just insulting and toxic to assume people lack imagination because they don't like the game you like. What does it say about the Minecraft community when some people just resort to personal insults when responding to people voicing their opinion on this game? This would be like responding to someone saying they found a game's difficulty to be unfair, and then you call them an idiot.

​

It’s not really important to detail everything of the next few weeks, word did spread that the Walkers were leaving again, of course, there was no way to keep that secret. Packing had to be done, after all, and arrangements for the house had to be made.
There was simply no way to keep our going ‘completely quiet’. So the neighbors started to come by asking questions.
“Should we leave too?”
“Am I going to end up with more bits of shrapnel in my kitchen?”
“Do I need to get more stuff to patch bullet holes?”
“I assume we go to the same hotel as last time, or will it be a different one?”
It was frequent enough that we held another ‘neighborhood barbecue’ where William explained over sizzling meat and a mix of real beer and that abomination to all civilized species ‘non-alcoholic beer’ that, “You are in no danger. We are leaving for a government assignment, but it is not one that puts any of you at anymore risk than yesterday or the day before. I promise, there won’t be any crazy masked gunmen showing up and disturbing the peace.”
William’s reputation was one of truthfulness, and it probably didn’t hurt that making sure the neighbors were safe had been a priority last time.
‘Last time… for the sake of the void… how many shenanigans are we supposed to get involved in?’ I asked myself that question while sipping on a very large ‘wood bottle’. This was a wonderful innovation in alcoholic beverages. Instead of ‘glass’ this ‘wood’ actually added a wonderful earthiness to the beer, making it smoother and far more full bodied than the glass counterpart.
It had its drawbacks, of course, if you didn’t want that added flavor, you had to use glass, but I found it to be positively delectable, if a little ‘thicker’ than my usual preferences.
I had a great fondness for ales, particularly the more ‘aggressive’ ones with an immediate sort of bite to them. They weren’t to be ‘chugged’ like the bland and fizzy ones that had all the kick of a sleeping toddler. No, no, these powerful ones were meant to be ‘swigged’. You take one big swig at a time, savor the richness, the full flavor, the taste, and the feel of it going down.
It’s about here I should mention that ‘beer clubs’ and ‘bourbon buddies’ were starting to gain popularity among dlamisa.
It began with the Ballyball League of Earth and Dlamias. As part of their training for the sport, teams ‘ran’ a great deal, and they learned of an ancient Earth organization that survived through the centuries called the Hash House Harriers, ‘drinkers with a running problem’ as they are popularly known.
These organizations around the world would lay out trails and follow them in search of alcohol at various stopping points. They would drink together and have a grand old time, and be rather intoxicated by the end of it all. From this my people innovated various ‘fan clubs’ for certain alcohol organizations that would sponsor their runs in exchange for filming their gatherings.
Naturally I set up a few gambling options for people to bet on my players during training, but out of these grew specific off-field rivalries which were now starting to spread to my home world, usually run out of coffee establishments.
This might be the thing that made someone decide to put me at risk. I will probably never know the answer to that one.
It didn’t matter. Not really.
I was standing there among my friends, family, neighbors, with warmth and welcome, with the smell of good food cooking and people wishing me well on my ‘business trip’ and I knew I was doing the right thing.
This was the reason, this was the point of it all, to bring ‘this’ not just to me, but to everybody.
Every drop of blood that spread in my arena, every credit that flowed into my exponentially growing cooperative organization… all of it was serving this single purpose. ‘I will see my will done. I will bring it all down.’ I vowed and took another swig from my bottle. Latunde was telling a joke, and I huffed politely.
A good man, a good neighbor. And a surprisingly good actor considering he ran a feed store, his pretend police situation when we were making our evacuation a few years ago was really well done.
But I couldn’t pay attention to jokes right then.
I went back into the house and up to Fauve’s room. I knocked, “Come in.” She answered.
I expected this, she was never particularly social, and didn’t care for large gatherings of people. I still wasn’t the biggest fan of those, but…alcohol makes everything much easier.
“Hi.” I said, poking my head in without entering. “How are you?”
She was seated at her terminal, pounding away at ‘nothing’. But she had a virtual headset on so there was ‘something’ to her.
“Fine. I’m just taking care of some things. Writing out some notes, researching the Praeda species that we’re going to meet, writing my will, breaking up with my girlfriend, the usual sort of thing that happens every…single…time I think life is going to finally come out of warp and let us relax.” She said it with such deadpan humor that I almost missed it.
“I’m sorry.” I said and slipped into the room, closing the door behind me, I went and sat down on her bed.
“For what? You didn’t do anything wrong.” Fauve answered, though she didn’t take her attention off her work. “This is just more of the usual, and if anybody is to blame, it’s me. I could have faded into the background. I could have just let everything go back to normal. I could have just shut my mouth after everything was over the first time… but no. I didn’t. I didn’t and now I can’t have a moment’s peace or normalcy. I had to be media personality, a speaker, a filmmaker a….” She trailed off and slapped her palms down on the desk. “I did this to myself. Now I’m going to be alone again because I just can’t say no. Michael is going to lose years with his friends. You’re being thrown back into god knows what, mom and dad are… no, they’re fine, to them this will be a vacation, if anything.” She sighed.
“My point is, Bailey, you don’t have anything to apologize for. I’m just, I’m stressed out a little.” Fauve said to me and I swallowed hard and nodded.
“I know what you mean.” I said, I chose not to mention the pseudo-attempt on my life, but added, “This is a disruption to my life too, and… a lot of things are going to change, even if things go well, maybe ‘especially’ if they do.” I got up and went to put my hand on her shoulder.
Fauve leaned back, rocking her chair so that it hit my waist, her head was against my fur, “And I don’t think I did anything wrong here but… I’m sorry that things aren’t as easy for you as you deserve. I mean that.” I promised.
She cracked a smile beneath her headset.
“Yeah, yeah, well it’s not like space is boring. No human has ever been out that far before, so we get to be a first… but even so? I’m tired of having to end relationships over work. It happened with Halbert, it happened with… wait… has it ever not happened that way?” Fauve stopped and thought that over.
I wasn’t surprised she referenced her first romantic interest. Humans tend to template all later relationships on the basis of their earlier ones, and Fauve tended to be hyperfocusd on what she was engaged in at any given moment, so I wasn’t surprised that she would never have really looked at how something over ‘played out’ in the end. Not until she had a reason to.
“Wow… yeah… everything always ended because of something work related… if not mine, then theirs. Damn.” She sighed as that understanding hit home.
Humans have in my observations, a tendency to blind themselves to what is happening, they don’t always see underlying causes for what goes awry in their lives, and as such they may miss patterns that will not be missed by other species. It makes them interesting to be around, at least.
“I’m taking a long vacation when I get back.” She promised herself and slumped. “Maybe I should sell the rights to that game series and turn my attention to something new… I…” Fauve shook her head, “Bailey, do you think it’s possible to be too career focused?”
I squeezed my hand on her shoulder a little nad cocked my head. “You’re asking me that question? Fauve, I came here on a fifty year doctoral program, I’m the last person you should ask that question.”
She was quiet for a moment before she quipped, “Alright, that’s fair. But after this is over, I’m definitely taking a break. Maybe I’ll just rewrite this breakup note and explain that because of work that we need to ‘go on a break’ no questions asked after I get back.”
It was of course possible that the other person would ‘move on’ and there was nothing to come back to when Fauve did return, however this did leave the possibility open at least. “I think that’s wise.” I said with a gentle voice.
“You should invite them to Waterland Park with everybody else.” I suggested, but Fauve shook her head.
“No. No. I have to face this one on my own. If I can walk in there and walk past that place without a problem, on my own, I can finally put the last bit of that bastard behind me.” She said it with such iron resolve that it was hard for me to imagine she wouldn’t be able to do it.
“You won’t be alone, you know that.” I reminded her.
She smiled again.
“That’s not quite what I mean, Bailey… but thank you. I still have some work to do here, but, would you be a friend and bring me a beer while I finish this up… and maybe a hamburger?” She asked.
“Sure thing, Fauve.” I said, and left her room again.