Gettysburg to Philadelphia to Columbus to Home

The battle ended and the armies moved on, leaving over 7,000 corpses and several hundred amputated limbs lying wherever they'd fallen or been tossed. The civilians came back or came out of hiding and put the place back together again, burying everybody and everything wherever they could be buried, in shallow graves and mass graves and here and there anywhere there was a spot, sometimes marked and sometimes not. A local lawyer, David Wills, organized the creation of a national cemetery for the Union dead adjacent to the local cemetery, and over the next few months all the corpses who could be found who were Union soldiers (and a few who probably weren't but got caught up in the mix) were moved there. 

Meanwhile, the Confederate corpses stayed in their various shallow graves for several more years, until a local doctor organized the exhumation of whoever could still be found and had them sent to proper consecrated cemeteries back in the former Confederate states. If you want to see a couple of people who have Big Feelings about this and are willing to say so with their full government names, you should check out the Comments section of this blog post from the sadly now defunct Gettysburg National Military Park blog. In it, some guy named John Eady Simmons, Jr. says that the Union soldiers were "misled by Lincoln!" That's not something that you want on the first page of a Google search of your name!

Anyway, a few months after the battle, when the corpses of the Union soldiers had been more or less settled into the brand-new national cemetery, it was officially dedicated and consecrated. Abraham Lincoln came and gave a speech. He stayed with David Wills, and likely wrote some of the speech in his house. He asked to meet John Burns, and they hung out for about an hour and by all accounts had a lovely chat. 

And on November 19, he gave this speech:

Back in our homeschooling days, it took my eight-year-old six months to fully memorize that two-minute speech (So many big words! So many relative clauses!), and I'm still chuffed at her accomplishment.

Also, she managed it in 1:23. She can talk faster than Lincoln, woot!

It was a beautiful day to walk around the national cemetery--

--and see Lincoln's handwritten speech in the place where he'd read it--

--but eventually we had to get back on the actual road, since the Battle of Gettysburg was meant to be by no means the main event of this week.

Okay, one more detour...

At our dinner at Dobbin House the previous night, Mr. Craft Knife had a local cider so delicious that he looked to see if 1) the cidery is open to the public, and 2) if it was reasonably on our path. It is, and it was!

Okay, now we're REALLY on our way!

Because we can be productive and efficient when we need to, by that evening we were enjoying a walk around the little kid's college campus after packing most of her stuff into the car (these knock-off Frakta bags are the BEST things to pack in! They hold a ton, they've got handles so they're easy to carry, and when they're empty they fold up flat and can be thrown in the top of a dorm room closet until they're ready to fill up again):

By the next morning we'd packed up the rest of it and were on the road, by that evening I was in Ohio, dancing to a band that, after an hour of trying to play the music they wanted, had submitted to the crowd and was indulging all the parents of the next day's college graduates with covers of classic 90s songs (the lead singer had to literally read the lyrics for each song off of her phone, and WE DID NOT CARE!), by the morning after that I was snagging seats inside a college gym--

--and by that afternoon I had myself a brand-new college graduate!

And then we packed her, up, too, and drove another four hours back home.

This big kid has grown up so much from that tiny little moppet with messy blonde curls who loved dinosaurs and baby farm animals and interesting rocks. For a while, I really longed for that little kid again--not because I wanted her instead of my own grown-up daughter, but because in retrospect, those days were so magical, and, it turns out, so fleeting. Tangential, but now I, too, have become the person who tells parents of young children in a slightly too intense tone to cherish the present because it's gone before you know it, and the parents always nod and agree but I know they're rolling their eyes because why do all older women keep telling them that but SOMEDAY THEY WILL KNOW WHY.

But anyway, yes, I still miss that little kid, and the best day of my life would be to somehow be a time traveler and get to babysit her and her even littler sister and see those little faces and hear those little voices again, but I wouldn't trade that little version for my own grown-up daughter for anything in the world. It's excellent to have a kid who's all grown up, and you can see that they're thoughtful and kind, they're generous, they're funny, they're happy to be alive and excited to see and do everything they can, but they're still also your kid who will hang out with you and listen to all your boring stories and tell you much more interesting stories in return. And obviously, they still love dinosaurs and baby farm animals and, most of all, interesting rocks.

In related news, if you know of any great job openings for early career environmental scientists, please send them my way!

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I'm All Caught Up On Gay Hockey Smut, So Lesbian Hockey Smut is Obviously Next

The Long Game by Rachel Reid
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Long Game represents, or perhaps is a reflection of, or maybe just came at the right time for me to find the similarity with my own disappointment at falling out of love with men’s professional hockey. I’ve complained over and over again throughout this series that I don’t get what the big deal is about dating your “rival,” that I don’t understand why Ilya and Shane, if nothing else, didn’t at least actively rewrite the myth of their rivalry (it would have been so easy, considering that they’re not actually rivals off the ice!), and that I don’t agree with their assumption that in the universe in which they live, they simply have to stay closeted until retirement. And so in this book, we finally get the big moment in which everything that I’ve been complaining about will be resolved, and I get to see the ultimate plan that will make everything I didn’t understand or agree with make sense.

And… huh.

So, okay. On the one hand, The Long Game does clarify a few things, mainly how impossible it would have been for Shane to come out before this, what with his black and white, catastrophic thinking. He’s very autism-coded, and explicitly orthorexic, and has a few other characteristics that weren’t as clearly depicted in Heated Rivalry that do make me see how he’d choose this closeted life for himself, and for Ilya by default. But then that just leads me to the dead-end that perhaps they’re not as well-matched a couple as they’d like to believe, because Ilya so very clearly needs to be out, deserves a vast found family and support system, and is suffering in this self-imposed isolation of their secret. Add to that the fact that both men are palpably miserable when they have to play their “we’re rivals on and off the ice” roles, and this depiction starts to make it seem like they should part from each other with love.

But that’s obviously not where the book wants to go with their relationship, which I guess leads to this forced outing, since letting them come out on their own terms isn’t a very dramatic conclusion to this angsty and dramatic state of being. I don’t like it for them, but whatever.

I just hate that everything has to be as black and white as Shane’s internal monologue! We’ve got to get Shane onto the Centaurs with Ilya, but he can’t just choose Ilya even though he loves his team--nope, he’s got to get completely emotionally destroyed by people he thought were his friends, and betrayed by a team he’s always been devoted to. It’s as bad as that time that I was so excited one morning to watch the Men’s USA hockey team win Gold, and then they immediately managed to perform toxic masculinity so passionately that by the evening I was no longer a fan of the NHL. It’s fine, though, because the PWHL is even better.

Along those same lines, that’s kind of why I’m not very excited to hear that Reid is working on another Ilya/Shane book next. I know they got their happy ending and almost all of our favorite queer men in hockey are now on the same team so at some point we’ve got to have a book in which Gay Hockey Wins the Stanley Cup, but I dunno. Even with that happy ending and the queer hockey revolution to look forward to, that forced outing and team betrayal have just left a bad taste in my mouth, and I’d rather have a reset, or at least a palate cleanse first. What I really wish is that Reid would write a women’s professional hockey book or two. There are so many adventures she could write about a fledgling professional sports league, so many queer stories to tell in which getting outed doesn’t have to be a plot point, and it would be so restful to have fun reading about hockey and romance in a profession in which toxic masculinity can take a backseat for a change.

Actually… that surely already exists, right? I mean, romances between people and dinosaurs exist--OBVIOUSLY PWHL-adjacent romances exist! Off to research queer women’s hockey romances!

A special shout-out just for the audiobook: I love that when Ilya speaks to his therapist his accent disappears and he talks just like a regular bro. Because of course he doesn’t have a Russian accent while he’s literally speaking Russian, but also? He’s just a guy! We are a world away from Kip’s speech-impedimented Brooklyn accent that the series’ previous narrator subjected us to, and I am SO happy about it.

Game Changer Reviews:

1. Game Changer, or, the Captain America AU hockey fanfic one
2. Heated Rivalry, or, the best one
3. Tough Guy, or at least it's not the real NHL
4. Common Goal, or, I hate Kyle
5. Role Model, or, a bully meets a nice guy and they fall in love
6. The Long Game, or, this is actually really depressing but I guess not as depressing as it could be *cough, cough* Brokeback Mountain *cough*

P.S. View all my reviews

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I Sewed American Girl Doll Blouses With Puffed Sleeves

Unlike the rompers, which I desperately want in my size, I do not long for a pair of me-sized blouses with puffed sleeves, but I do have to admit that they're well-constructed!

That's definitely a feature of the book Doll Couture, which this pattern is from. I don't particularly love any of the designs other than the romper (although I LOVE the romper!), but the three patterns I've sewn from it so far have come together beautifully. The sleeveless dresses remain the easiest, and could be made in infinite iterations depending on fabric and by adjusting the skirt length and volume, but I'm having a little trouble finding complementary additions to the rompers and these blouses.

I intended these blouses to be worn with the two rompers that I also sewed from Doll Couture, so I sewed them from solid fabric. The white one works great with the unicorn kittycat romper, but the grey one not so much with the galaxy romper. Hopefully, I'll find some patterns in different books that I can switch out, but ultimately, it'll of course be up to my niece to decide what goes with what.

The only tricky part of this blouse pattern is centering the collar, since it's very obvious if it's uneven. There are a few fussy elements, such as gathering those puffed sleeves, and I got a lot of TV watching accomplished while stitching tiny buttons and buttonholes:

--and even though the buttons are all vintage choices that the older kid helped me find in my stash, I think they match perfectly!

The kids' dolls like them, too!

What color shirt are we thinking would look better with the galaxy romper? Cream? Black? This grey isn't the worst, but I'm not really feeling like it goes with the romper:

I guess it's not so bad from the side--maybe it's the blue ruffle that's throwing the outfit off? Fortunately, the white blouse is perfect with the unicorn kittycat romper:

I also don't know if I like the look of the puffed sleeves plus the ruffles, but if I do want to switch the pieces up I'll have to figure out what bottom DOES go with puffed sleeves... and now I know that I definitely am thinking too hard about this! Because what I actually would like is for my niece to throw all proper outfit combos out the window and instead dress her doll in a puffed sleeve blouse plus a pair of pajama bottoms plus a tiered skirt plus a fleece vest plus a newsboy cap plus a pair of booties, and then get it all dirty making doll-sized mud pies together.

Up next on my sewing table are flannel pajamas and jersey knit T-shirts from All Dolled Up, and then I might dig through my fancy fabric scraps, because surely a doll's wardrobe is not complete without several ball gowns, party dresses, and dress-up outfits!

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In Which Pickett's Charge Is A Metaphor

In the mornings, I usually get up well before Mr. Craft Knife, so when we're on a trip, I like to hop out of bed, get dressed, and head out with my nook to have a little snoopy around whatever free breakfast options there are in the hotel lobby. On this particular morning, I beelined for the coffee machine, waiting in line behind a guy dressed in pajama bottoms who was making a couple of cups.

As he moved aside to do his cream and sugar dance, I put my own cup under the spout and hit the button for coffee. It filled my cup something like 20% full, then stopped, so I hit the button again, which was apparently the signal for coffee to start streaming forever out of the spout and never stop again. I worriedly let my cup get 99% full and then pulled it away, but that meant that the coffee was now hitting the metal bottom of the dispenser instead, which caused it all to loudly and wildly splash EVERYWHERE. Like... just absolutely everywhere. I was horrified, the guy next to me was clearly horrified--but also comfortingly supportive! He handed me napkins and was all, "I'll pretend like nothing happened if you do!" It was very sweet, and I thanked him and used his napkins to mop up the mess while he escaped before I could spill coffee all over him, too.

I calmed my nerves over a book and a breakfast of white toast, cream cheese, and hard-boiled egg (I don't know why hotel breakfasts always have the most random assortment of breakfast foods, but this combo turned out to be DELICIOUS!)--

--then decided to brave the coffee machine again for a refill.

This time, a sign that I had not seen before was taped to the machine directly at my own personal eye level, and it said, "Please press button only ONCE for coffee." So I pressed the button--only once!--and, okay, the spout dispensed my coffee cup only about 25% full, then paused and made some grumbling noises, then started pouring again without me having to press anything else. Still, though, I kept my hand on the cup, at this point ready for anything...

...except for a voice right behind my ear that said, "Don't spill it!" Startled, I jerked away, meaning that the hand that was holding the coffee cup also jerked away, meaning that the coffee cup in my hand also jerked away, and once again a stream of coffee hit the metal bottom of the dispenser and began splashing EVERYWHERE. Horrified, I turned around and met the again equally horrified eyes of the same man from before, this time fully dressed, clearly just having gotten off of the elevator to see that crazy coffee lady again (still?) at the coffee machine, perfectly set up for him to say the funniest thing ever for us to both have a lighthearted chuckle at.

I tell my husband ALL THE TIME that I am incapable of interacting with other humans out in the wild, because every single time I do it gets weird, and he always tells me that cannot be true, that he himself is constantly interacting with people out in the wild without issue and surely all the weirdness is just all in my head.

And yet.

So let's go see some other people who made bad decisions out in public!

Next to this sign is another sign asking you to please not deface the Confederate memorial. I think that it's obviously correct and ethically sound not to deface this memorial, but I still feel like the miniature Confederate battle flags are a little much.

The day before this last day of battle, Robert E. Lee had gathered experiential evidence that neither attacking the left flank nor attacking the right flank of the Union line could get his Confederate forces through. So on this day, he'd planned to send his troops right through the middle. Major General Pickett's division hadn't actually done any fighting yet in this battle, so they were going to be in front, which I guess is why it's usually called Pickett's Charge even though several commanders and their divisions were involved. Shrug!

Throughout this whole plan, the guy who was supposed to have the overall command during this attack, Lieutenant General James Longstreet, was generally just a big wuss about the whole thing. He did not want to do it, said it wouldn't work, had a different idea that he thought would be better, but instead of obeying like he was supposed to, or flat-out disobeying like Sickles had the day before, he just hedged and hemmed and hawed and half-assed it and eventually obeyed, but only in the worst way possible that definitely fucked the whole thing up. He didn't start the charge when he was supposed to, which means that the Confederate attack on Culp's Hill at the Union right flank that was supposed to divide the Union forces wasn't simultaneous like it was supposed to be, so the Union could easily bring reinforcements to the center of the line. Pickett himself had to go find Longstreet and literally ask if he should start the charge, and even then Longstreet wouldn't give him a direct answer, but instead just bowed. Like... okay? What is THAT supposed to mean, Dude?

After Pickett left to go start the charge Longstreet even tried to get another guy to go find him and tell him nevermind, but that guy was all, "Bro, it is TOO LATE. WE ARE CHARGING."

I get that Longstreet was all morally quandried or whatever, but come on. It's not like this is your first day in the army! You know how armies be! You fish or you cut bait or you go hide in a basement with the rest of the civilians you've put in the middle of your war zone! It's fine that he was acting like a baby about this, though, because he was one of the bad guys.

While Longstreet was having his whole little dither, there was one of the largest ever cannonades also going on, which would probably have been a little cooler if either side could have seen where they were shooting. But they couldn't, so both sides mostly missed, but that also meant that the purpose of the Confederate cannonade, intended to soften up the center of the Union line so they didn't slaughter the Confederates like dogs during their infantry attack, did not work at all. It did run the cannons on both sides almost clean out of ammunition, though this was a bigger deal on the Confederate side. The Union cannons had done this sneaky trick of kind of petering out their cannon fire, as if their cannons were getting hit one by one and going off-line. This made the Confederates think that they were safe to charge, but when they did, the Union cannons started blasting them again.

The actual Confederate charge was so, so, so stupid, and it turned out so, so, so bad. They started from way back here--

--and most historians think they were probably using that copse of trees over my left shoulder as a visual marker. None of them ever got that far, though. For one thing, they were WALKING, not running, supposedly in formation until that devolved into chaos. Also, this area was literally people's farmland back then, fields separated from each other by extremely sturdy fences that had to be climbed over or through but that did not provide any shelter from gunfire to the person doing the climbing or scrambling. Cannons were just blindly firing at them, some from as far away as Little Round Top, and since they weren't aiming at anything in particular they never knew where they'd hit, so in the space of a second the spot next to you, and all your buddies in that spot, would simply be obliterated, and you never knew if you'd be next.

Here's the view out from the Union line (with my trusty guidebook in the foreground, obviously!):

You can barely see the monument that marks the beginning of the charge way far off in the background, kind of near the left corner-ish.

monument to the 72nd Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment

Obsessed with lining up my Gettysburg field guide just right so I can look up from the map and see the real place right in front of me. Major Magic Tree House vibes!

monument to the 1st Pennsylvania Cavalry

monument to Brigadier General Alexander Webb

I wanted to walk the whole length of the charge but we really didn't have time for that, so here's what it looks like partway through, looking towards the Union line:

The copse of trees is on the right, and the whole ridge is lined with Union cannons. The last time that I visited Gettysburg, with my kids, we did not know that you're not supposed to climb on the cannons--oops!

monument to the 59th New York Infantry

monument to the 42nd New York Infantry

The whole attack lasted less than an hour, and it was the disaster that knocked the fight right out of the Confederate side. They had a casualty rate of over 50%, and anyone who could have reasonably been in charge near the front lines was part of that, so there was nobody to organize a proper retreat--Confederate soldiers just ran back the way they'd come, or stayed hiding in the ditches on either side of Emmitsburg Road and waited to be taken prisoner.

I grew up in the South, where my education about the Civil War was not even-handed, but I still see Pickett's Charge as a metaphor for the Antebellum South--though not in the way that it was taught to me. I don't share a geographical nostalgia for the days of chattel slavery or a wistful, "if only" feeling about the racist bullshit that is the Lost Cause. I do, however, recognize what it looks like when a bunch of elites throw a bunch of poors at a cause as literal or metaphorical cannon fodder. They're still doing it today, throwing the ignorant poors with their ill-funded grade school public educations and resultant lifelong media and cultural illiteracy at Republican ideals, getting them to wear their stupid Trump hats and fly their stupid Trump flags--which all cost money!--and pretend like it's awesome that gas prices are exorbitant and screwworms are infecting cattle herds and their children are once again marching off to be on the wrong side of a war.

And god forbid any of us try to move on with our zero generational wealth and focus on carefully educating our children, doing double the work since it often requires re-educating ourselves, battling through unfair taxes that the rich don't pay and student loan debts that they don't have and wages that don't rise to match inflation that they don't have to worry about. We can support and encourage our kids to attend amazing colleges and study in useful fields as much as we want, but federal funding for early career scientists and every kind of public servant BUT the fat cat politician will get cut before they can even graduate with their hard-earned degrees from their amazing colleges, so back to blue collar work they go.

Anyway, let's go look at where Abraham Lincoln gave his Gettysburg Address next.

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I Sewed These Rompers for American Girl Dolls, But I Wish I'd Sewn Them For Me, Instead

I'd omit the ruffles, but otherwise, I would wear the absolute SNOT out of this galaxy romper if only it was in my size!

Alas, for I did not have several yards of fabric to sew a romper for me, nor do I have a pattern--although I did just Google it and now I've got plenty of possibilities! But what I DID have was two fat quarters of this galaxy print (I miss you, Joann's!) and the romper pattern from Doll Couture, so American Girl Doll rompers it is!

By this point in sewing from Doll Couture (I previously sewed these cute holiday dresses), I was able to read the creator's mind a little better regarding stuff she assumed was obvious enough to leave unsaid, so I was able to figure out the ruffle here without any written instructions--

--but I was still surprised to see how low the bodice sat when I tried it on my doll:

Guess she's supposed to wear a shirt with it, lol!

Or not!

I did eventually make shirts to go with the rompers, but the romper itself is so stinking adorable that I wish it had enough coverage that the doll could wear it by itself. I mean, look at this adorable little space romper!

The unicorn kitty one has shorts instead of pants because I only had one fat quarter of that fabric (SOB, Joann's!):

Here it is being modeled by the big kid's doll, blouse and all:

The instructions for these garments (or, usually, the lack of instructions) get on my nerves, but there's nothing yet that I haven't been able to find my way through, and the garments themselves are beautifully constructed and look very nice, and it's easy to add more professional touches like edge-stitching, linings, etc. I've already waded into a couple of projects from a different library book, and was outraged to find half-way through sewing a pair of leggings that the instructions wanted me to attach elastic to the raw edge of fabric at the waist--and then just LEAVE THE EDGE RAW?!? I sewed it like that, as instructed, because I'd already cut out the pattern pieces so it was too late to change it, but I wasn't happy with it, and I hope I run into a better leggings pattern down the road.

But I don't need a new romper pattern, because this one is perfect!

(Unless I find one with bodice coverage, that is..)

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How To Make the Easiest Handmade Photo Greeting Card

I originally published this tutorial over at Crafting a Green World.

A super cute personalized greeting card is just a photo away!

The season of graduation parties is upon us! I’ve been running the joy gauntlet of 2+ graduation parties every weekend all month, and with my very own brand-new college graduate home for a few weeks, I’ve also been helping (i.e. nagging, prodding, fussing…) her prepare thank-you cards for the generous souls who added her graduation to their own May gauntlet.

I know, I know she’s grown and should be able to write and send her own thank-you cards without me nagging. Just let me get this one last thing off my mental list and then I promise not to care if she never writes another thank-you card again.

For all these occasions (and for most other occasions, too!), photo greeting cards are the perfect solution. They’re adorable as congratulations cards, especially with a photo of the recipient of your congratulations on the front–for a graduation card, ideally one from their toddler years! They also make perfect thank-you cards, especially with a cute photo of the gift-giver and the recipient together. And if you’ve got a hard drive full of Senior pictures, those thank-you notes for graduation checks is a great time to use them.

But my favorite part of these particular handmade photo cards is that the photo isn’t glued or taped to the front of the card, so that the recipient can, if they so wish, simply pop the photo out of its holder and allow it to take its rightful position on their refrigerator door.

Mental note: photo magnets would also be good for this project!

This really is the easiest project, totally do-able even if you’re not a scrapbooker or cardmaker, just as totally do-able if you don’t consider yourself crafty at all. Here’s how!

Materials

• photos. All the photos in this particular project are 4″x6″, printed via one-hour photo from the cheapest big-box store I could find (and the quality shows it, but whatever), but you can use absolutely any photo of any size here, or a postcard, or original artwork, etc. Just scale the greeting card accordingly, if the photo is larger.
• cardstock. An 8.5″x11″ piece or an 8″x10″ piece would work equally well here.
• photo corners. This is the secret to THE quickest, easiest, and cutest photo cards! Photo corners are cheap as hell, made from paper so they’re not crap for the environment, and come in every color to match any photo.
• measuring, cutting, and folding tools. I used a metal ruler, paper cutter, and bone folder.

Step 1: Measure and cut the card to size.

For use with a 4″x6″ photo, your cardstock should be cut to 7″x10″. If you’re using an 8.5″x11″ piece of cardstock, cut 1.5″ off of the short side, and 1″ off of the long side.

Step 2: Fold the greeting card in half.

Fold the cardstock in half, making sure the two short sides meet as precisely as possible. Smooth over the fold with a bone folder (or the fat handle of a butter knife!) to make the crease look nice and neat. This is your greeting card blank!

Step 3: Put a photo on the front of the greeting card.

Ignore that my photo is on the wrong side of the unfolded greeting card here, lol. I guess another good thing about this method is that when you realize you’ve put your photo on the wrong side of the card, you can just flip the photo upside down, since it’s not stuck to the card! You can also just as easily make a landscape greeting card instead of this portrait one.

Wrong side or not, the above photo does at least illustrate how the photo should be placed, .5″ from both the top and bottom edges of the card, and .5″ from the left and right edges.

The laziest method for attaching the photo corners is also the easiest method! Instead of doing any additional measuring, just firmly hold the photo in place while you put each photo corner on and stick it down to the card.

If you took the photo off, the photo corners on the front of the greeting card would look like this:

To finish, put your completed greeting card into a standard 5″x7″ greeting card envelope, or do what I do and take five additional seconds to DIY the envelope, too!

I get bored doing the same thing over and over, and I had a LOT of greeting cards to DIY this month, so as you can see if you look closely at the above image, I’ve got one more easy DIY photo greeting card tutorial to share with you (and it’s not even the washi taped one up in the left corner–that was literally just me wanting to use up the last bit of washi tape on the roll, ahem). Stay tuned for next week, when I’ll show you how to make a photo greeting card that’s approximately 1% more work but 50% cuter!

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