Outlander Chat Tonight

Chat tonight! 9PM Eastern!  I want to know what YOU think Colum knew about Claire getting mixed up in Geilie's witch trial!

What Did They Know?!

SPOILER ALERT:  Dinna read unless you've read chapter 25 in Outlander. 

OK so here's the thing. Claire is sitting in the shed - eating bread and wine that thankfully does NOT have any dooty on it. (Was that gross or was that gross? And she and Geilie ate it!) And I'm sitting here listening and wondering "Has she even washed her hands since then?!?"  I cannot IMAGINE living in that time. I just can't. I'm sorry.

And I'm wondering a zillion things. Does Colum know Claire is being tried with Geilie? He must. And if he does, can't he put a STOP to it? He's the Laird!  I know he wants Geilie to burn... but come on man! Claire is your nephew's WIFE who - last time I checked - you kindof like. As far as I know, Colum thinks Claire is swell. Unless we're going to find out differently when The Exile comes out.

OK so - more. Dougal is off with Jamie... knowing it's going to be "taken care of". (Typical men, btw. What did you THINK was going to happen, dude? You put your thingie in her hoo-hoo! That can happen! Sex Ed 101!) But if he knew Claire was with Geilie - would he care? I'm thinking "No". COMMA HOWEVER - he wouldn't want Claire to die for the simple fact that she solves his property and succession problems with Jamie. So I dunno... I'm sortof thinking Dougal would try to help if he could.

I just can't get past Colum. He knows Claire is in trouble and does nothing to stop it? WTF?

And then... there's LaogWHORE. Snotty little beotch from Planet Hell. She is the scourge of the earth... the dregs of society. Selfish little piggie. She's evil from the word "go".  COME ON! She sent Claire to Geilie's KNOWING there was going to be a witch trial! She KNEW what would happen! I don't buy this "Oh Leghair wasn't really trying to have Claire killed." Oh really? Then what was she trying to do, send Claire down for a little crumbcake and marigold leaf? No way man. She knew. She's vile. SHE'S the WITCH who should be hangit!

Post Scriptum: My daughter just came over to show me something she drew - and I went to say "Hang on" and I said "Hangit" - because that's what I was typing at the time. And she goes "Hangit? Huh?"

I'm still laughing....

And Speaking of Ned Gowan

So I'm sitting in Toy Story 3 last night... and am I thinking about Woody or Buzz Lightyear? NO! I'm thinking about NED GOWAN! Why? Because it only took me 3 movies to realize Rex the dinosaur's voice is coming out of Wallace Shawn - aka "MY NED"!!!

Sliding Doors, Outlander Style

Ya know... I sortof have this "Other Outlander Universe".  It's like the sideways life in "LOST".... or a "what could have been", if you will.  It's a place where things turned out differently, based on the thought that one small decision change could have brought on a totally different outcome. (Think "Sliding Doors").

So in my Sideways Outlander world, Geilie and Dougal actually get married and live at Leoch after the Fiscal and Dougal's wife both died. They're just sickeningly fun characters... and I think of all the antics and hijinks Claire and Geilie could have gotten involved in at the castle. Geilie whispering to Claire about Laogwhore's naughty travels around the castle.... Jamie and Claire getting into heated arguments about Claire's friendship with Geilie (just THINK of the make-up sex!!)... Dougal coming home wounded after battle and us getting to see Geilie's softer side as she gives ministrations to Dougal.

Am I the only one who thinks up these things in my brain?

So it's Possible?

SPOILER ALERT: Dinna read unless you have read up through Voyager. 

WHAT in god's name did Geillis mean when she and Claire were being held captive... and she started asking Claire about Jamie... and she said "So it's possible"?  I assume she means "It's possible to go through the stones and find love"??

When I first read Outlander I never clued in that Geillis might know Claire was from the future. Now I totally get that - and that's why she gave her the opium and tried to find out where she came from. Damn well would have succeeded too, had the Fiscal not come in. Geillis must have had a major suspicion about Claire from Day 1. I wish she would have come right out and asked her.

OK so here's my question. If Claire knew that Colum and Dougal were talking about Geilie - and not Laogwhore - do you think she would have warned Geilie that they were going to off her?

Discuss!

PS - Have I mentioned that Cathy Moriarty has been my Geillis Duncan since the second I saw her name? I am thinking she could play older Geillis at this point?

No Chat Tonight

We're going to cancel chat tonight in observance of Independence Day. We hope you've all had a wonderful weekend (and for those who are still enjoying it; ROCK ON!)

The Declaration of Independence - July 4th, 1776

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing taxes on us without our consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Androgynous Kilt Hotness

This is a tremendous picture, sent in by Angie, one of our best My Outlander Purgatory buds.  Here's what I canna figure out. Is it a guy or a girl???  Honestly I'm starting to think it's a woman - and it looks like it could have come from a fashion show... like Alexander McQueen's "Highland Rape" collection from 1995... or something Highland-inspired.

Am I totally off the mark here? Is it obvious that it's a guy? Or a girl? My husband just said "It's a woman! Look at the hands!" But the knees look like a guy's to me.  Is that because of the way the kilt is hitting her? Or him? Is it Pat? Pat MacGreggor of the Clan MacGreggor?! Seriously. I'm perplexed! What do you think??

Over the River and Through the Woods to Jamie Fraser's Bedroll we Go!

SPOILER ALERT: Dinna read unless you have gotten to chapter 19 in "OUTLANDER". 

OK y'all.... the last time I blogged about my reread,  Leg Hair was jumping Jamie in the alcove (I refuse to see it any other way.)  So I think it's time I did a little blogging... don't you? Mkayyyyy let's get started.

They. Got. Married. And I cannot TELL you what fun I had, listening to Davina wax on about the fly in the green puddle on the bar. I dinna know why, but I have always felt a certain bond with that scene. I can totally put myself in Claire's position in that scene... and it absolutely cracks me up. She's surrounded by people... and yet she's all alone. And she's owning it. She's saying to herself "Well this is a fine mess  youve gotten yourself into, Beauchamp...better just embrace it and marry the bugger." And I'd be saying the same damned thing. So there she is... almost falling off the bar stool... and what I REALLY want to know is 1) WHO got her off the barstool and 2) WHO undressed her down to her shift and put her to bed? I am going to assume Murtagh got her off the barstool and fetched the innkeeper's wife to undress her. I canna imagine any of the men would have done it. Hell, Jamie wouldna even sleep on her floor! Remember?!

Anyway... it is so DIFFERENT, reading it now, when you KNOW the outcome. During my first read, I was totally with Claire in her desire to get back home. The fact that she had gone through the stones was always running in the background in my mind (like some annoying Microsoft program you don't even know is clogging up your harddrive until you see the blue screen of death and it's all over with.) So THIS TIME I'm like "EFF THE DAMN STONES, WOMAN! STAY WHERE JAMIE TELLS YOU TO STAY YOU MORON!" If I were her - NOW that I know what happens - I'd be making every excuse to fetch water... or wash clothes down by the pond... or pick berries... or do anything that meant Jamie was going to come with me as a bodyguard - and we were going to have wild monkey sex in the ferns. Seriously, y'all. Doesn't it kill you the second time around???

For you Twilight fans (Non-Twihards, just skip this part...and dinna judge!) - don't you see Claire like Bella when you do the reread and she leaves to go find Fort William and the stones? The first go round had me saying "Yeah Claire - you go girl - you're tough - you can travel 7 miles and find the stones!!"  This time I'm all "BELLA CLAIRE, YOU DOPE" - he told you to stay there - so STAY THERE!!  He'll be back and once again you'll be playing "Hide the Haggis" with Jamie under the blankets while Murtagh's snoring 2 feet away! Pure bliss!!!" But noooooo....instead she's got to try to escape... fail miserably... and end up in Jack Randall's office, where she is now. And something I don't get - why doesn't she ever even TRY to reason with Randall? They're both English. Can't she use her English charms on him and just say "Look, honestly, I haven't done anything wrong. I'm sorry you think I'm someone I'm not. But please try to understand I'm alone and the Highlanders offered me a place to sleep and protection and there really isn't any more to it than that." Now I KNOW Black Jack would have probably just laughed at her because he's a sadistic mofo - but it still irks me that she never tries. She just keeps giving him her sassy little retorts that are just enraging him even further.

OK before I go - let me say this - the scene where the Grants attacked them while they were camped out on the granite (ouch)?? Holy god -I forgot all about that. And I am now visualizing it SO WELL! I hope y'all got your free Outlander audio... because it is so different when you LISTEN to the story. You can form pictures in your mind and totally lose yourself in the scene. I am glad I READ it first... but now it's like dessert. Just sit back... and listen....while spooning more of the gooey chocolate stuff into your mouth.

Get a Free Audio Book!

"My Outlander Purgatory" friend JENNIFER let us in on some serious scoop: Audible.com is offering a FREE audio book... no credit card required! And guess what book is on the list you can pick from? That's right - OUTLANDER by Diana Gabaldon! (You know, the book I just paid iTunes $29.95 for last week? Yeah! THAT one!)

Hurry up! You have to order by FRIDAY 7/2 at 11:59PM.

PS - THANKS JENNIFER!!