Dinosaurs, AT-AT with a Santa hat, Paw Patrol™, those I don’t blink at much any more. But an inflatable Christmas axolotl? That’s different.
I sort of wonder what’s going to appear for Easter, and July 4, and Halloween. Mudpuppies? Manatees? Aardvark riding a broom?
Why does classical music (and baroque) work so well in rock settings? I’ve heard Romantic pieces as well, but Bach, Orff, Mozart, Beethoven, and a few others show up over and over in rock and metal compositions. I’m sure that part of it has to do with the pieces being in the public domain, so that no one has to pay royalties to Bach’s estate, for example. Certain melodies, such as the “Dies Irae” chant, have been encoded in western music, and make easy audience cues for musicians to tap if they want a certain mood or sense in the music (and in the listener).
Baroque music, and some classical, has a very firm structure. There is a constant pulse, one that remains steady even though the music may seem to race or plod as the text (or composer’s desire) demands. This makes it easy to fit into similar genres, including metal. The “bright” sound of baroque also fits with metal. A lot of the “warmer” instruments, and the true bass instruments, were just coming into use, so a great deal of the instrumental pieces are bright and somewhat harsh sounding on period instruments. That translates very well into rock guitar, and the rock vocal registers.
Many early rock and metal musicians had classical training. A goodly number still do, or have been exposed to classical and baroque music as part of their regular education. This gives them technical chops (the trained) and a broad base of melodic and harmonic sounds to draw from in their own compositions. Some are more obvious about it than others (Sabaton, TSO, Black Sabbath, Serenity, Connor Gallagher), others incorporate ideas without drawing attention to them.
I’m enough of a music nerd that I enjoy catching bits of classical and folk music in other genres. Sometimes it is obvious, like Trans-Siberian Orchestra and Sabaton. Other times I have to go back and listen very hard to be certain that I heard what I thought I heard. On occasion it is a nod, a quick few notes from a well-known theme that then passes without further musical comment. Sort of a musical Easter egg, as if were. If you know, you know. If not, it is still a good song.
For two months around midwinter, the sun shines in through the southernmost windows of Redquarters.
Jase isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, and it took him a year and a half of residence to discover the pleasures of Sunny Spot. Now he marches in every sunny morning and migrates with the sun for three hours or so.
Somehow, the gutters around RedQuarters went unemptied for … longer than they should have. Some are pretty clean, since there are almost no trees that drop things into the gutters. Those need the dirt dug out, and anything the jays and squirrels cached removed. Then there are the others …
[House gutters are metal troughs that fit onto the lowest edge of the roof, and direct water to downspouts, that send it away from the foundation. When the gutters don’t overflow from intense rains, or leak, or are full of stuff, that is. Not every house has or needs them.]
One downspout is jammed full of locust stems. I got some out, but it calls for a bigger ladder and plan of attack, because the ladder has to straddle a rose, but not fall into a French drain*. The locust was especially generous this year, and another section calls for professional skill, or at least someone younger and more limber. The yard at RedQuarters is not level, which complicates that particular section of trough. And no, getting onto the roof and attacking from above is not wise for someone like me. The pitch is steeper than I’m comfortable with, and getting onto said roof requires a better ladder and someone holding it. The dirt blows in on the wind, and washes off the roof, and sometimes accumulates. A narrow garden trowel is perfect for removing the dirt, leaves, and other stuff smaller than what I grab with my (gloved) hands.
Because of the leaves and sticks, and locust stems, just flushing the gutters with water is not an option at this point. Plus it wastes water.
I do not enjoy cleaning gutters. It is satisfying, because it is done, and I see progress in the heaps of stuff at the base of the ladder, but I’m not a fan of going up and down ladders, digging as far as I can reach, moving the ladder, and repeating, all while trying not to lean too far (“just half an inch farther that way and-“) or grab the gutter for stability. The ground is not perfectly flat or firm, and avoiding the sprinklers is also important, along with not flattening plants.
However, it has to be done, and it is much easier when everything is dry, not wet and compacted. Ever scoop anaerobic mud out of a pond? Do that out of gutters. I did it, but ugh, not again, please. Everything is dry, the leaves are semi-loose, and progress is faster where I can reach things. So I climb, dig, and climb down, over and over and over.
Gutters are like a lot of things in life. If you tend them on a regular bases, or when problems are small, the work moves smoothly and large problems are averted. I need to paint waterproofing on part of a wall, to keep it from being damaged by over spray and rain drips. It was done 15 years ago, and needs a fresh coat. Tuck-pointing bricks on a chimney or brick house, or brick wall. Same thing – do it before something falls out. Tending to little things prevents big things, or makes it much easier to deal with one big thing on its own. Keep your street gutters clean, and your yard is less likely to flood. Clean the house gutters, and you don’t have roof leaks, foundation surprises, rotting siding, or other fun stuff.
Or so I tell myself as I wrestle ladder, trowel, and self over another four feet and reset everything.
*A French drain is a length of perforated pipe, covered with permeable material, that takes more water away from foundations or low places. In this case, it is a belt-and-suspenders in case of major gutter overflows during storms, or extended rainy periods.
The potatoes were large. “New” potatoes, or at least they looked like the thin-skinned type called new potatoes, but each was larger than of one of my clenched fists. They totaled two pounds of ‘tater, so only one potato’s worth got eaten on Sunday (with green beans and chutney* pork chops). That left potato that needed to be turned into something. How about a variation on hot German potato salad?
OK, for non-pea fans, skip the peas. I needed to use them up, and Mom likes them.
Left over potatoes, or fresh-boiled potatoes, a pound or so.
Bacon or other salty-fatty (or flavorful and fatty) meat
Cider vinegar
sugar
onion
(raw egg)
two-three boiled eggs
1 cup frozen peas, cooked and still hot.
In a pan, fry the bacon or other meat with the onion. Add the peas, if using. Blend 1/4 cup or more vinegar with 1T sugar (or more if more vinegar) and one egg. Toss in with bacon and stir over medium heat. Add chopped boiled eggs and chopped potatoes. Adjust flavors so you have a blend of sharp and mellow, serve hot with protein source of your choice.
If your potatoes are mealy, go higher on the dressing amount, because they will soak it in. I should have done about 1/3 cup vinegar and 1T, 2t. sugar. I’d also toss in a bit of dry mustard, if you have it. But that’s me. As it was, it was very good, nice and hot and filling to go with BBQ.
*I never really liked the chutney-on-cream-cheese appetizer, so I use the onion, pepper, and tomato chutney for other things, like slathering over pork chops before I baked them. Yum.
Long-time readers know that I have an odd fondness for the Hapsburg family and their accomplishments over the 700 or so years that they were active in Central Europe. It is a fight I have no dogs in, since my ancestors left Europe some time ago, and were not from the Hapsburg lands, as best we can discern.
I think it is their survival skills. Love ’em or detest ’em, they were active in European politics, wars, marriages, and culture from the early 1200s (when they first appear in written documents) until, well, one is still a diplomat for Hungary, so today. They left political power in 1918. They tapdanced through wars, climatic change, the Reformation, more wars, the Industrial Revolution, and a lot more. Their art collections formed the core of at least two great museums, and appear in other places as well. Madrid and Vienna would not be the same without the Habsburgs, other places likewise.
The family began its career, as so many others did, as small landholders and petty knights, in this case near the headwaters of the Rhine River in what is now Switzerland. They worked for the Holy Roman Emperor, and through being smart, tough, and surviving, ended up on the Marches in Austria. The Babenburg family died out (with some Habsburg help), and the Habsburgs became the dukes of Austria. Rudolph the Founder was not averse to dirty tricks and cheating (well, according to the understandings of chivalry, it was cheating) to defeat the greatest threat to his family’s holdings, and establish a toehold on Bohemia. Through 600 years of ups and downs, ins and outs, the family prospered, eventually owning most of Europe, all the New World, and a bit of other places as well when Charles V became Holy Roman Emperor in 1520.
As I said at the start, I don’t have a dog in this fight between historians. I know some people still detest the Habsburg family for how they ruled, where they ruled, and what they did during that time. Others think bringing back a Habsburg to run central and eastern Europe might be better than the EU.* I admire their loyalty to family, and their determination to keep the family properties intact. This led to some … genetically unwise choices in spouses, although they shared that unwisdom with a lot of people then and even today. The Austrians at least out-crossed with the House of Lorraine, which kept them from ending up like the Spanish side of the family. They hired the best of the best for art, buildings, collecting books, and other things, and left a political and cultural legacy that can still be admired. Some of the black sheep in the family founded universities, modernized farming in their personal lands, or had interesting but harmless eccentricities that kept the rest of the family (and others) in gossip for decades.
Part of me wants to go back, to roam the old Habsburg lands of central and eastern Europe again. The rest of me knows that time has passed, and those places are very different than they were even 30 years ago, and 10 years ago, not necessarily in good ways.
*Depending on the Habsburg, and the problems, it might not be worse.
Jude contemplates the life of a Hunter.
“Take the blood, cleanse the land,” Pasaru ordered. Jude shook off the falconer’s gauntlet and set the karabela on the leaf litter, then got a steel bottle out of the hard leather case on his belt. The creature’s blood, now red, still flowed, and he caught some, then capped the flask and returned it to the case.
From a jacket pocket he drew a fabric pouch. “In the name of the Great God who made the earth and called it good, the Son who cleansed the unclean, and the Spirit that brooded upon the waters, be cleansed if the Great God wills,” Jude commanded. He scattered the dried basil onto the remains. Blue-green rose high as his shoulders, then danced back along the creature’s path to the blackberry tangle. It flickered among the thorns before disappearing. As small flamelet touched his leg before the blue green vanished. When he turned back to the beast’s remains, nothing remained. Jude wanted to sit, now.
“Not just yet,” he told his body. First, he got water from his rucksack and poured half on his leg, hissing as it diluted and washed away the last of the thing’s blood. He set a bit of magic on the ground beside the karabela. Shoim landed, and Jude used he rest of the water to rinse Shoim’s talons. Jude got his Partner’s food out of the rucksack and gave it to him. Only then did he limp to the remains of the pattern.
The sorceress had defaced part of it before she fled. That was good. He found a stick and drew another line through it. After a moment he gave up trying to study the shape. Instead, he dug his phone out of a pocket and took a picture before scuffing and erasing the remains. “Later,” he told the air. “I’m too tired to think.” Phone stowed once more, he wove an unsteady path back to his rucksack and the sword.
The ground that received his rump was cold. Jude drank some water and gulped trail mix. Butterscotch was not his favorite, but it gave energy and fat. Once his hands stopped shaking, he cleaned the karabela and worked it into the sheath. “Someone needs to learn to divide her attention,” he told the night.
“Ne [crap],” Shoim rasped, then gulped another chunk of organ meat. As his mage had a over-done cookie, the harrier said, “Even Numbers and Cat don’t get that super-focused. I’m not sure she’d even have heard the Last Trump if it blew. And why a horse with antlers?”
“Ne skian,” no idea. Jude had more water. “I didn’t study the pattern, just got rid of it. She’s going to have a headache.”
“Benes.” Good. Shoim devoured the rest of his meat as Jude ate a rather toasty prune kolache, followed by a meat stick. “We’ll worry about it after sunrise. The breach closed, thanks be.”
“Amén.” He crossed himself as the clan did. “And I do not have work, and we are not teaching class, or taking apples to market.” His left hand ached along the old scar, as did his right leg. The bruise would be impressive. “We go rest.”
“Anno. Too bad the little house is no longer available.”
Jude made the “strong agreement” gesture, then got to one knee. He stowed the empty box in his rucksack, put it on, and stood. The leg still held weight. That was very good. He pulled on the gauntlet and leaned down. Shoim stepped aboard and they returned to the house at a slower pace. Slower for a Hunter, still a very brisk walk for normal men. His right leg warned that leaping fences would not be wise.
The little hand on his pocket watch touched the two when he fell into bed, almost. Four hours later, he woke. Thanks be that I am not working today. He stretched, moving everything. His right leg stung. He’d wiped it with salve after washing the burn again. He’d left the pants in the trash bin. They’d begun to show heavy wear, so he felt little guilt for the loss. Everything worked with only the usual complaints, save his right leg and left hand.
He dressed and tidied his hair, then checked on AJ. The boy still slept. Jude went down to the book room. He bowed to the shrine in the corner, then lit one taper and knelt on a small pad. Shoim opened the window and came in. Together they recited the morning Office, and chanted one of the Hunters’ prayers, a thanks for a successful Hunt. The icon of Our Lady of Victory seemed to smile in the flickering light as shadows danced on St. Michael, St. Jude, and St. Lucy.
Refreshed in spirit, Jude put out the candle. He stood, then genuflected. His right knee popped, drawing hisses from both Partners. “I’m glad my joints can’t do that,” Shoim said from his perch.
“I wish mine didn’t,” Jude admitted, quietly. The miles begin to tell. How long before—? He stopped the thought aborning. Today alone was his to worry with, not the future. “Do you need breakfast?”
The harrier rocked from side to side before admitting, “A snack would be welcome.” Jude offered his forearm and Shoim stepped with care, mindful of his talons. Jude took him out to the wood rack beside the mudroom door, then got a dish of hearts and livers and set it down. As the raptor dined, Jude started water heating and poured a small dish of cream for the cat. Bauxite gave him a look that strongly implied that he should have done that task at least an hour earlier.
Jude rolled his eyes, then went upstairs and made certain that Levi had begun to stir. He already heard Claire-washing sounds from her room, so he busied himself making breakfast and tea.
“Good morning, Dad!” Levi bounced in just as the sausage finished. Jude served him two eggs and the sausage. A peek into the oven revealed golden brown toast, so that came out. Claire appeared, yawning mightily. She sat, Jude said grace, then she got up and served herself. Levi devoured everything, nibbled the heart out of the toast, then gobbled the crust. Jude nursed tea, letting the heat ease the aches in his hand. Would that tea also worked on knees.
“Let’s go check on the rabbits,” Claire offered, as she put her dishes on the counter beside the sink. Levi hesitated, then nodded once and bounced up, almost racing her to the mudroom. Jude let himself sag for an instant, then gathered Levi’s dishes and washed them. It wasn’t worth calling the boy back, this time. Care for living things took priority.
Levi returned, gave his father Shoim’s dish, then slouched off to get ready for school. Jude followed at a more dignified pace and checked on Lucy and AJ. AJ yawned and fussed quietly, so Jude changed him, then dressed him. They went back down and Jude made a travel cup of milk for his son. “Breakfast when we get home,” he assured AJ. The toddler looked doubtful. Jude got him into his snow suit and boots, then carried AJ, cup and all to the sedan and strapped him in. The bus sighed to a stop as Clair zoomed out the open garage door. Levi trudged to the car and heaved himself into his booster seat. Jude checked his belt, then backed the car out, closed the garage, and drove to town.
“When can I ride the bus, Dad?” Levi asked again.
“When you can get all your morning chores done and breakfast eaten by seven ten.” The grade school bus route ran by the house twenty minutes earlier than the junior high bus did. Claire self started. Levi took after his mother—mornings did not appeal. Jude shared their opinion, but life had not cooperated thus far.
A first grade sigh whispered from the back seat. A softer echo followed. Jude smiled a little to himself. “How were the rabbits?”
“They were OK. The brown doe tipped over her food pan again.” he sounded frustrated. ‘Why does she do that?”
“I don’t know. I don’t speak Rabbit, or we could ask.”
“Is there magic that lets you talk to animals?”
Jude thought, slowing, then stopping for an oblivious soul backing onto the road from a driveway. “I do not know of any. I suspect their conversations are rather boring by our standards.”
A bit of quiet, then “What does Mr. Shoim talk about, Dad?”
“Food, what he ate, what he wants to eat, what I did wrong, our work, food, and food.” And other things that you do not need to know about just yet. All too soon he’d have to teach Levi, then AJ, about the Hunt and their duties as Hunters. His heart stung for a moment, then eased. That was a long time away yet.
“Boring,” Levi opined.
“Burp,” his brother added.
Son deposited, Jude checked his phone. Nothing from the sheriff’s department. That was very good. He drove back to the house. Had AJ unbooted himself yet? Yes, as his father observed when they got home. Jude carried his sock-footed son into the house, then returned for the footwear. “I wonder if they make straps for boots like they do for mittens?” he asked the air.
Toddler giggles greeted his question, followed by a disgruntled, “Mrow.” Bauxite stalked out of the kitchen, AJ following behind. The black cat now sported a ridge of back-brushed hair down her spine. She gave Jude a dirty look as she passed, then accelerated and dove to hurry under the guest room bed and recover her dignity. Jude intercepted AJ before he could follow, removed his snow suit, and set him in the high chair with a teething biscuit and cup of water.
(C) 2026 Alma T. C. Boykin All Rights Reserved
OK, they don’t call it a chore coat. They call it a Vintage Flex Firehose™ Coat. I needed a new chore coat, since the one I’d been using was given to someone who needed it a lot more.
A chore coat, or barn coat, or “jacket closest to the mudroom door,” is a sturdy garment you are not the least bit afraid of getting dirty. It may or may not have had a previous, dressier, life before becoming the go-to messy yard work garment for cool weather. It should have pockets, no loose or floppy things that can snag, be washable (or hoseable), and ideally comfortable. The fit is probably a little loose, especially in the shoulders, but not so loose that it gets in the way or hampers work. Color is not important, because it will be dirt colored at some point.
I had been using an insulated canvas jacket that was too big. It got washed and given away when my back was turned. The person who got it really needed something like that, and it fit him better. However, that left me doing yard work in a less-than-great jacket. So, come the holidays, I let it be known that a new chore coat was needed. Family members gave me a gift card, and I started looking.
Firehose™ canvas is heavy, stiffer than the usual garment canvas, somewhat water resistant, and rose resistant. It is smooth enough that it doesn’t snag easily, something that helps plant material stay in the Great Outdoors. Once I put this thing on, I stop noticing the weight. It has lots of shoulder space, pockets that don’t collect dirt unless I’m really tossing loam around*, and the pockets are very sturdy. It is dirt colored, natch. The jacket has no insulation, but that’s what layers are for, and when I’m going up and down ladders, or shoveling dirt, or moving leaves, or bending and twisting to weed under roses, or … I get warm without much help.
The coat is longer than what I used to wear, which isn’t a bad thing. The two-way zipper means I can undo the bottom for mobility if I need to, not that I need to very often. The length also helps keep some of the dirt off**. Even Sweetbriar and Lydie Rose have trouble getting thorns through the canvas, a major plus. They skitter off the surface, although I’m not going to go out of my way to test just how thornproof this coat is. That’s what leather rose gauntlets are for.
I’d recommend the chore coat to ladies who really get into dirty yard work, people who need an abrasion and puncture resistant every-day coat (dog owners with mouthy puppies, perhaps?), and anyone who tends to have soil leap onto her from six feet away. It is not lightweight, and come summer, it will probably be a little much, but that’s why I work before the sun is really up.
*I was digging and tossing dirt and leaves and sticks out of the gutter, from a shorter-than-deal step ladder. Dirt flew far enough that I found it in pockets.
**Dirt will find a way. I mean, when dirt and leaves get down the collar of a closed-collar flannel shirt … I was impressed.
FTC Disclaimer: I purchased this coat with a combination of a gift certificate and my own money, for my own use, and got no credit or consideration for this review.
Could part of what we see be the collapse of a Millennial movement, one that has lasted 47 years? I hadn’t thought about it until I watched a video clip yesterday, and pieces fell into place.
Revolutionary Shia Islam of the kind preached by the various ayatollahs since 1979 has a strong eschatological bent. Shia Islam, like Christianity, has an end time with a last battle and the return of a prophet, in this case first the Hidden Twelfth Imam, then Issa bin Maryam. The pair will be at the Last Battle and the coming of the End Times, followed by paradise. One of the big differences, as best I can tell, between the older versions of Shiism and Khomeini and Khamenei version is that the older belief does not include pushing G-d into ending the world (for lack of a more graceful term). Like Christianity and Judaism, the majority of Shiites believed that the end time would come, or a Messiah-like figure would return, when the Most High willed. Not when people wanted it. And no one could or should push G-d into acting*.
I recall getting rather concerned in 2009-2011 when the then-president of Iran, Mahmud Ahmedinegad, claimed that he had spoken to the Twelfth Imam, and that the US was preventing the end of the Occultation of the Imam and the beginning of the End Times. The US State Department shrugged such words off, because they didn’t take religion seriously. The Iranian government does – it is a theocracy. If the president of Iran said he was talking to a major figure of the Second Coming and End Times, that was not good. Especially later, when whispers got around that the ayatollahs might be discussing starting the global conflict that would herald the coming of the Last Judgment, because it had not happened yet.
Back up here, and bear with me, please. Millennial movements are end-times movements within faiths and cultures. They often develop when there is a lot fo social stress, fast change, and the old order seems unable to cope. A prophet appears with a message of hope – the end is coming, and it could be very good for believers. Do certain things (dance a special dance, for example, or gather at a certain place and pray and fast), and a great change will come, the bad things will be wiped away, and a new, better world will appear. Or, in the case of the Ghost Dance, the enemy will be driven away and all the bison return and good times will also return. I am greatly simplifying, but the theme appears in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Native American religion, the Ibo in southern Africa, and ExtinctionRebellion.
When that promised Millennium doesn’t come, however, the leaders have a problem. The Twelfth Imam has not appeared, the end is not (apparently) nigh, and Tehran is running out of water and food and power. The government of the Islamic Republic of Iran cannot provide the basic needs of the people, in part because they sacrificed infrastructure to the nuclear program and funding Hizbollah, and on a lot of things besides fixing dams, water pipes, and pumping stations. Drought has not helped, but what might have been barely adequate for the usual drought has failed completely.
The people have sacrificed since 1979, and nothing seems to have come of it. They seem to be turning on the religious leaders, not just as political heads but also because the religious side has not provided. How long can a people sacrifice in hopes of the coming of a better world, when things keep getting worse? I wonder if that is part of what we are seeing – the collapse of a Millennial movement?
I honestly have no clue. What I can see seems to fit the pattern, but I’m not seeing much that I am certain of.
*Yes, there are always people who are different. And some who think they can see what others can’t and know that the End Is Very Nigh. Ask the Saudi government about that. They had their own adventure in 1979, in Mecca.
Welcome, Instapundit Readers! Thank you for dropping by.
Mike has a day. Rich the Mongoose has a new dream vehicle. [I will probably change some ranks when I finish this story, because Sar-Major’s too high to be involved in the mess. Yet.]
Mike had taken no more than two steps onto the ancient floor tile when Rich raced toward him, skidding to a skittering halt on his boot toes. “Boss, boss, we got a new addition to Skippy’s List!”
Torn between competing urges to satisfy morbid curiosity, or run screaming into the closest wilderness, Mike asked, “Do I need to know?”
“It’s in the motor pool parking. Private Schmukatelli, in the motor pool, and the lights and sirens work!” Rich raced back up the hall, chanting, “Wanna play, want one, real cool, want one!
Rich’s mage plodded after the frenetic Familiar. “And it is not Monday.” Not officially Monday, that was.
The sergeant-major’s voice rose an octave as he demanded, “Where did he get it?”
“The internet.”
How far into the wilderness can I get with four meters’ head start? Rich is a sprinter. Mike stopped just in sight of the office’s occupants.
“It was advertised as low mileage, rugged, off-road capable,” the other man continued. Rich grinned and bounced in place. “Only two owners.”
Mike waited to be acknowledged before coming closer. An officer-major did not outrank a sergeant-major. “I see your sidekick, sir. Come in.”
He set foot in the hallowed precinct and eased left, not blocking the door. Tyler, the motor pool platoon sergeant, was pinching the bridge of his nose, tired already. Sar-Major Harrington shook his head a little. “Sir, have you looked at the parking beside the truck repair shed?”
“Not yet, Sar-Major. Unauthorized vehicle?”
“I told Schneyder to park there for now.” Master Sergeant Tyler let go of his nose. “Schneyder got a truck. A fire-department brush truck. That quote ‘mostly works’ end quote.”
“Could be worse, Sar-Major,” Rich chirped. “Could be a ladder or aerial bucket, big city with water cannon.”
The glares aimed at the mongoose would terrify anyone with a fragment of sense. Rich, of course, remained impervious.
“Is it street legal?” Mike inquired. If not, Schneyder’s sergeant had a completely different problem.
“Yes, sir. It has a diesel engine that passed emissions tests, goes up to sixty on pavement. I didn’t ask about mileage,” Tyler said. “It needs to go away before the inspection next week.”
“Sir, can you turn it into something else?” Harrington asked.
Serious question, or yanking my chain? Assume serious. “If you mean a locked illusion so it looks like a custom pickup or SUV, yes, but not forever. Transform it into an SUV or station wagon? No.”
Rich shook his head so hard his entire body wagged. “No, Sar-Major, too much power needed, too much risk of the spell snapping and backlashing, draw too much Outside attention.” Rich sounded unusually certain.
(C) 2026 Alma T. C. Boykin All Rights Reserved
Cat Rotator's Quarterly 