Rice pudding completes the meal

     "This rice pudding likes your shirt," I said, with a smile, nodding toward the round take-out container I was holding up for her to see.
     She was puzzled for a second, looked, then smiled. 

     "I get it," she said.
     We had ordered take-out for Valentine's Day, from our favorite Indian place, Tava in Morton Grove—tandori fish, chicken tikka masala, spinach, two types of nan. They had included a free dessert, in honor of the holiday. But my wife had baked a pumpkin pie, so we saved the pudding for Monday's dinner.
     "Of course it's spelled wrong," I said, looking at the handwriting on the cover, where someone had written, "Happy Valentine's Day! Complementary Rice Pudding" and added a heart. English is a difficult language to master, filled with complexities, like words that sound the same but are spelled differently and mean different things.
     As a longtime restaurant goer, that note really impressed me. I've had take-out from Alinea, and nobody wrote anything on the containers, or the bag—someone at Tava had also penned "Happy Valentine's Day," large, on the bag. 

     I understand why most places don't do things like that. The little extra flourish takes time and, beyond that, someone has to think to do it.  Restaurants are busy, frenetic places, and just preparing the food, getting together the orders, checking that everything is included, is challenge aplenty. More than one favorite place, that we ordered take-out from mostly just to be supportive, botched the order, which I have to admit, left us a little less enthusiastic, pawing around for something that wasn't there. You should finish a meal from a place feeling grateful and satisfied, not disappointed and sympathetic.

     "Although," I continued. "Maybe they meant it was supposed to augment the meal. As opposed to being free. That would also work."
     "Complementary" means something that enhances something else. "A thing that completes or brings to perfection" another. Which speaks to its second meaning, the usual number for a group. Four players is one short the usual basketball team complement.
     And "compliment," as you know, is an expression of admiration.
     Which gives us a chance to play my Homophone Smackdown Challenge, and see which usage is older.
     "Complement," the Oxford tells us, is from the Latin, complementum, that which fills up or completes—the source being agreeableness, think, "comply-ment," and traces it to 1419. "Compliment" only goes back to the end of the 17th century, from the identical French word and Italian complimento, an "expression of respect and civility to another by words acts." The Oxford goes on a bit, but one sentiment stands out. "Compliment is thus a doublet of COMPLEMENT. (The form directly from the Latin). The latter was in use in this sense about a century before the introduction of the French word, which slowly took its place between 1665 and 1715."
     Hey, we've all been there. I wasn't familiar with "doublet" beyond being an article of clothing—a man's padded jacket—in Shakespearean times. Linguistically, doublets are twinned words, like compliment and complement, that have the same root, but proceeded through the language through different routes, and so have different spellings and meanings, like "pyre" and "fire" or "frail" and "fragile."
     But language is infinite, while people are not, so time to get on with the day. We've come very far from rice pudding, which was good, particularly with a little cinnamon sprinkled on top—though the pudding was too sweet for my wife's taste, so she set hers aside for me for yet another day. And I have to admit, my pang of disappointment that she didn't like her dessert was immediately replaced by the thought, "More rice pudding for me!" We are all but human, alas.

Shut off.

 

 

    "I smell gas," my wife says, coming up from our basement, which is like the setting of a Stephen King novel.
     "I do too, sometimes," I muse, from the sofa. "The house is 115 years old. It must be because of the cold."
    It was 0 degrees this morning. Now it's warmed up to 16.
     "I'm going to call Nicor," she says. It's about 2 p.m.
     I did not leap up, shouting, "The hell you are!" Which, had I known what is coming, I might have done. I would suggest we instead crack a window in the basement and wait for spring.
     But nobody wants to blow up. Houses sometimes do that. Ka-boom. I raise no objection. She calls.
     Meanwhile the dog, which has had tummy troubles, fixes me a meaningful look. We go outside just as the Nicor guy arrives in a white pick-up truck. My wife goes to let him in.
     The dog and I walk. I'll draw the veil. When we return, the Nicor guy is in the basement, waving a wand attached to some device around some rusty pipes by the far wall, by the fuse box. He explains that he's shutting off the gas. Get a plumber, fix the leak.
    "And then you'll come back?" I say, hopefully, trying to get up to speed and process this development.
     "Someone will, yes."
     I did not foresee this development. It seems important to get all the information I can from him while he's here. He shows me where the leak is.
     "Shouldn't you tag it or something?" I say, worried about my ability to point out the proper spot should a plumber actually arrive in the near future. 

     "We only do that for complicated leaks," he says. He shows me the valve he used to shut our boiler off, the boiler that would normally be filling the radiators with hot water, heating our house. But now won't be doing that. Because the gas is off.
     Then he's gone.
     He briefly reappears outside the house, locking the meter no doubt. I suppress an urge to bolt outside, wading up to him in the snow, drop to my knees, hands clasped in front of me. "Please, PLEASE turn our gas back ON!"
     It's about 2:30 p.m. 

     "Panic" is the wrong word. "Focus," is closer. Get a plumber, get him in here, get the pipe fixed, get Nicor back, turn on the gas. I feel magnificently focused.
     My wife steps in. We have a magnet. In the kitchen. With the phone number of Village Plumbing. I call. Explain the situation.
     "I'll call you back," the lady on the other end says.
     While I'm doing this, my wife remembers that we pay $5 a month for Nicor Home Solutions. Which, in theory, is supposed to help with this kind of thing. She phones and gets put on hold. I open the taps to a trickle in all the bathrooms, the kitchen, and the slop sink in the basement. Keep the pipes from freezing. That feels like decisive action.

     I stand in the living room, and can feel the house cool. 
     Twenty minutes pass. I phone the plumber back. "He'll be there within an hour," she says, with a note of exasperation. "I'll call you when he's on the way."
     "Within an hour?" I say, grasping at hope. Yes, within an hour. 
     Nicor Home Solutions finally picks up after a half an hour. They want to know if any of us have COVID. My wife explains we do not. They too have a plumber who would also be here, also within an hour. My wife wonders should she have him come.
     "Yes!" I say, con brio. "Between the two of them, one of them should show," I am normally the most laissez faire, let-things-work-themselves out kind of guy. Let's wait for the free Nicor plumber. We've been paying five bucks a month for, Jesus, probably 20 years. Might as well get a return for our investment.

     But this does not seem one of those coast-along situations. Plus I do not have faith in people. Nicor took half an hour to pick up the phone. It would take them half a week to get here. I have no point of reference here. I don't remember this happening to anybody I know. 

     I leap on Twitter and Facebook to inform the Hive. I could see needing to tap their intelligence. I lay out the story, ending, "The plumber is, in theory, on the way. I'll keep you posted."
     The Village Plumbing plumber arrives, and I somehow resist the impulse to hug him in greeting. Tall, handsome, he has worked on our boiler before. I lead him to the the fitting that the Nicor guy had pointed out. He applies wrenches to it, conducting a monologue on the relative merits of gas company practice now versus in years past that discretion dictates I do not record. He opens the pipe up, observes that it is rather loosely sealed.
     Even as he is doing this, he informs us to call Nicor back up right now and tell them that the problem is fixed and they were to come back now and turn the gas on. Star the process.
     "Do you have any space heaters?" Eric the Plumber asks. 
      "No," I say. "I don't think they would be much help in a place this large."
      "They can do a surprisingly good job." This worries me. I do not want to heat my house with space heaters. I want the heat back on, and just raising the subject seems to imply that is in question. He speculates whether Nicor will pressure test the lines when they return—could cause other leaks. Old house like this, one you jiggle one pipe, others could go.  

     "Yeahhhh..." I imagine the Nicor guy saying, "You're going to need to replace ALL these pipes. And your basement is a foot too shallow. That's not up to code..."     

     I try not to think about it. I do think about all the people everywhere who this happens to who aren't johnny-on-the-spot types. Who don't leap to get that plumber. Or can't find one. Or pay for it. And wonder which is more dangerous: a slow gas leak? Or a house without heat in February when it's 10 degrees outside?
     My wife reaches Nicor, and is told someone will be by before midnight. Eight hours away. I place my fingers on a radiator. Still warm. That's good. Minutes to cut your heat, hours to get it back. That's life as I understand it.

      The plumber sent by Nicor Home Solutions arrives, about 15 minutes after Village Plumbing leaves. He seems very young. We send him away with apologies.
     There seems nothing to do but write a column, which I am doing now. If a meteor were headed toward earth to destroy it, I'd probably do the same. I can decide later whether this is the sort of hale, we're-in-it-together problem that readers can relate to, or a terrified bleat of white privilege by a suburban burgermeister who for a few hours glimpsed the skull of bureaucratic bungling that normally is kept well-fleshed out and smiling for me. (Editor's note: the latter, which is why you're reading it here and not in the newspaper).

      My wife goes in the basement, finds a space heater the size of a large lady's purse that I didn't remember we had, and sets it up near her computer in the living room. I place my hand two inches from its grill.

     "It heats the air for inches," I say. But after a while, it does have some slight effect.

      The snow is falling, in big flakes. Quite pretty, under usual circumstances.
     At 4:30 I say, "Whatever we do for dinner, let's bake something." 
     "Right," my wife replies, "I'll make some corn bread..." She pauses—do you see this coming? I don't—then starts laughing.
     "The gas is off," she says.

      We put on our Land's End fleeces. I slip on a pair of fingerless gloves. It's 60 degrees in the house. At 5:30 we eat an early dinner. Hearty tomato soup with gnocchi. It feels very Eastern European, to be sitting in our kitchen in our coats eating hot soup. Almost an adventure. Like camping in your kitchen.

     Darkness falls. I notice that all the trivial crap that usually dominates my low-level consciousness has fallen away. Getting the heat back on is all that matters.

     At 6:30 p.m. another Nicor guy shows up. Before he even knocks on the door he tramps around to the side of the house and turns the gas on. First thing, he goes into the kitchen to see if the stove lights. Then we tramp into the basement and he lights the pilot light on our boiler and fires it up, then does the same on our hot water heater. He is niceness itself. 

      After he leaves, I first of course inform social media, which shares my relief. Then wonder if we handled it properly. Maybe we should have saved money by not calling Village Plumbing and just waiting for Nicor Home Solutions to send somebody. But I had no reason to assume Nicor would get somebody out, and quick action seemed important. Anyway, done now.

Flashback 2005: How to bluff your way through another Valentine's Day

Veselka, East Village, NYC, Feb.14, 2020

     Exactly one year ago today, my wife and I were having a madcap Manhattan weekend with our two boys, and spent a festive Valentine's Day doing stuff we love all day long... a lingering breakfast at Caffe Reggio in the Village, a long morning stroll through the Whitney Museum, lunch and conversation with an old friend at Miznoun in Chelsea Market, shopping, a mid-afternoon pick-me-up pizza at Lombardi's, shopping in the Strand, and late night chowing down on excellent Eastern European grub at Veselka.   

Breakfast, Feb. 14, 2020

     Skip a year. Now we're in Day 9 of The Liquid Nitrogen Deep Freeze February from Hell, which came hard on the heels of Sedition January, which followed Deceit December, not to forget COVID summer and Civic Unrest Spring. A time when no one goes anywhere or does anything or can imagine going anywhere or doing anything but occasionally checking on the news to confirm that half the country is still crazy, plus occasionally heaving a sigh of gratitude that we're not all dead. Yet.

     Having spent Saturday working on the book, I'd rather put my hand in flame then write something else. Luckily, there is an infinity of old stuff slumbering in the computer, such as this, back when the column filled a page. I kept the old headings. Happy Valentine's Day, if you can swing it, if anything can said to be happy anymore.

Opening shot

     Today is Valentine's Day. If you had forgotten until just now, my sympathies. That forehead-slapping stomach-dip is an awful feeling. I hope at least it's morning, and there is still time to juggle meetings and skip lunch and scramble to find a last-minute token of affection. 

Lunch, Feb. 14, 2020

     If not, if you're on the train heading home, you're a dead man and would do better to face the music than to rush to a White Hen to pick up a limp clump of dyed carnations, the gift that says, "I don't care."
     Instead of that, stick with indifference. Don't grovel and apologize—women hate that. Set your face in a "hard day" look of exhaustion, walk in, sigh, shake your head, and go collapse on the couch. Refuse to talk about it. Accept her gift with a heavy sigh, a weak smile, a crushed "thanks" and toss it wearily away. Maybe she'll buy it. Or, better yet, maybe she'll have forgotten, too.

Heeeee-yah!

     The aerial snapped off our car. As a result, the only station we get in is WBBM-AM, whose signal is so strong you almost don't even need a radio to hear it. We usually keep it off, but on the hour I try to shush the incessant prattle of the boys in the back seat, reaching for the knob and announcing importantly, "I want to hear the top of the news"—one of those clenched dad phrases they'll probably be repeating back to each other with guffaws for decades after I'm gone.
     I'm not looking for breaking stories as much as I like to hear the urgent, jittery CBS Radio Network jingle and the newscaster, whose tone is the last gasp of the old-fashioned, hand-to-ear, loosened necktie, teletype clattering in the background gravitas that once defined radio news.
     The top story Saturday night, at 7 p.m., as we drove downtown for dinner—Greek Isles!— was Howard Dean being named chairman of the Democratic National Committee. They played a snippet of the announcement, and then something that shocked me—he famous "Heeeee-yah!" burst of crazed enthusiasm that doomed Dean's faltering primary campaign early last year. The newscaster quickly added that while Dean didn't primal scream again, he instead said this, and then cut to a quote.
     That seemed so unfair. No wonder politicians are such cringing cowards. Howard Dean is no doubt a man of accomplishment; he was governor of Vermont, after all. But he might as well be an escapee from a lunatic asylum who almost seized power before being betrayed by a spectacular public breakdown. He's carrying on, bravely, trying to make a contribution. But what good will it do him? He could escape to the South Seas, like Lord Jim, but strangers will sneak glances over at him as he stands rigidly at the bamboo bar, nursing his dark rum, then grin at one another and whisper, "Heeeee-yah."

Just keep going

     Speaking of things breaking off the car. We had an extraordinary moment last month. The family was in the Camry. As I backed it out, the right side mirror collided abruptly with the frame of the garage door. It shattered with a bang.
     Once, this would have upset me. Once, my wife would have commented upon it. Now, no one said anything. I put the car in park, went around to inspect the broken stump of the mirror. I gathered up the shattered shards of glass and plastic from the garage floor, disposed of them, got back in the car and we drove away without a word. You would think this kind of accident happened every day.
     I wish I could convince myself that is some kind of Zen-like calm. Don't sweat the small stuff. ... But I have the sneaking suspicion it more has to do with being so completely overwhelmed and burnt-out that nothing much upsets you anymore. The drown reflex kicking in, smiling at the rising bubbles as you settle slowly to the soft silt on the bottom. Not an unpleasant sensation, really.

Closing shot

     Getting back to Valentine's Day, the only reason I have exactly what my wife wants, wrapped and waiting for her this morning, is because she told me precisely what to buy, and reminded me until she was certain it had been taken care of.
      That's the beauty of marriage. It's more difficult for new couples. A new girlfriend wants to test her love's devotion. So she doesn't just tell him what she wants for Valentine's Day. That would be too easy. Instead, he's supposed to prove his worth by reading her mind.
     By the time they are engaged, a fiancee might drop hints, bread crumbs the guy is supposed to follow to the right gift.
     A wife doesn't have time for that, nor does she think her husband is smart enough to figure it out himself. At least mine doesn't. So she just tells him what she wants and then, when he gives it to her, feigns surprise and delight.
     That's love.
     —Originally published in the Sun-Times, Feb. 14, 2005

Texas notes: All that glitters

     Sometimes you flap and flap, and just can't get off the ground, and I felt for Austin bureau chief Caren Jeskey this week, admiring her professional determination to get airborne. Been there. She finally soared away, and for the first time I felt tempted to insert an editorial aside along the lines of, "Editorial note: Old journalism maxim, 'It is easier to apologize than to get permission.'" You'll see what I mean. 

     This week was hiccupy to say the least. I am writing this piece propped up in bed in my tiny house, in frozen Austin at 7:30 Friday night.
     Since COVID began, I dedicated myself to what I call radical self-care. Healthy food, long walks, meditation, lots of rest, and refusing to take on too much. The word “no” is such fun to say. Who knew? This approach has kept me relatively balanced, and when I’ve had slumps I’ve been able to get back on the saddle.
     This is the first Friday in ages I’ve felt squarely thrown off. There were times this week I was precariously hanging off the side of a horse from one boot, my rag doll body helpless to right itself, my hair grazing the dusty ground.
     Talk about curve balls. Just when I thought I’d safely fielded one, another came whizzing up. I had unexpected and uninvited financial news, and a rocky start with a new contract. I’ve had to beat down a few rounds of carpenter ants who came marching in from the cold. (If you need to know the best ant bait, I can tell you). A creepy neighbor made a couple balls jokes to me, and when I shut him down retaliated by insulting me. I’ve tried for hours to secure a COVID vaccine for a relative, to no avail.
     My blog post did not go as smoothy as usual. My first idea just didn’t gel. I had completed a new piece, edited it, sent it Neil and was ready for bed. I had contacted the person I wrote about for some clarification and their response was “I am not comfortable with you writing about me.” That piece got ixnayed. And to top it off, as I sit here writing, I just got stung by a bee. Yes, a bee. Ouch! The Texas critters are trying to come in from the cold that’s for sure. Lest I sound too whiny, I must say that all of the good things in my life are not lost on me, and I know this too shall pass.
     While reflecting on my week I have come to realize that I threw the hardest ball at myself. A few weeks back, I did not trust my intuition. Things snowballed to the angsty place I have been trying to extinguish all week.

   Here’s what happened: I reached out to an acquaintance from my teen years who I wanted to write about. We have not seen each other in over 30 yeas, and though our connection at the time was powerful and memorable, it was brief.
     He decided it was a sign— citing several synchronicities— that I’d reached out to him and we, therefore, were meant to be together. He’s in Texas now (as am I), and in his eyes that’s even more of a reason to rush into something blindly. As a person who would rather be in partnership, a part of me was intrigued and fell for his charms. Since we had a childhood connection and have friends in common, I felt a false sense of intimacy with him.
     I entertained a short flirtation (a few weeks) of phone calls, texts and FaceTime with him. I quickly saw that we are not compatible. When I set boundaries around my availability to talk or text, he became mean and harassed me with messages. Instead of immediately running away, as I should have, I decided I would try to wean him off of his delusional dream.
     We’d talk, I’d remind him that I am not seeing anyone due to COVID, plus I feel we are not compatible. He’d fuss, I’d ignore him and/or respond with more boundaries, and he’d apologize. I’d go back to chatting and laughing with him until the cycle resumed. He lost his temper more than once, and cussed at me. In my rational moments I was scared. Then there was the part of me that wanted to be patient with his process. He clearly has deep attachment wounds and my presence activated them.
     I didn’t realize how bad it was until, the other morning when I heard a snippet on NPR. It was about the fact that coercive control (exactly what he was doing) may soon be illegal in the U.S. as it is in other parts of the world. I realized with crystal clarity that this person was trying to manipulate me into staying in contact with him and I want no part in it. I cannot help him.
     The mistake I made, and the stress I felt this week will help me relate to others when they take similar missteps. Each unwise decision I make renders me a better therapist with real life experience to pull from. It also propels me further into keeping my life small and safe, with plenty of radical self care. Now I will drink my ginger tea and cozy up for the night. Exactly where I want to be.
     If you want to listen to the piece that woke me up, here it is: 

     https://the1a.org/segments/coercive-control-domestic-abuse/

Capitol attack not a finale, but an opening act

 

                     "The Legislative Belly," by Honoré Daumier (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

     Next week, when most Senate Republicans refuse to convict Donald Trump for inciting the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, as they surely will, there can be only one reason.
     They think the tide of chaos will break their way.
     Not in the past, not the wave of anger and insurrection that washed over Washington a little more than a month ago. That’s over done with, and receding; it sometimes feels as if the jarring events are already staring from a history book, where no doubt they will be prominently displayed as our union’s lowest point since the Civil War.
     Unless there are lower points to come.
     Because the struggle happening right now is not about the past, a month ago and fading no matter how sharply the Democratic impeachment managers set out their case.
     It is about the future.
     Are we to continue as a representative democracy?
     Or not?
     Simple question, really. Do American voters cast their ballots and select those who will run the country? Or do demagogues determine what has happened and will happen, while we all must obey? Is democracy discarded when you don’t like the result, as Trump tried to do? Is it to be dismissed as “rank democracy?” A term Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, used in October.
     Or do voters — whatever their color — still get to choose our future?
     That battle is not behind us. That battle is in front of us. State after Republican-led state will wage their own legal riot against the ability of American citizens to cast a vote. They will call these measures efforts to stem voter fraud, which the election of 2020 proved is nearly nonexistent. Their real motive — cling to power even if a majority of Americans don’t want them — will never be spoken out loud. It doesn’t have to be.
     “Stop the steal” is a great rallying cry. Who cares whether there really is a steal to stop? Not Republicans. The slogan brought the mob to Washington, and will justify suppression of Democratic voters. Just watch: more long lines, as mail-in voting is scrapped and polling places removed. Higher hurdles raised to casting a ballot. It worked in Mississippi in the 19th century. It almost worked in 2020. They’ll try again.

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Not a finale but an opening act

     Stacey Plaskett, a Democratic House impeachment manager, a delegate from the U.S. Virgin Islands, presented her case coolly and carefully Wednesday, like the former assistant district attorney she once was. 

     At one point she used the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks as a metaphor, focusing on Flight 93, the passengers who fought back, forcing their plane down near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
     "Forty-four Americans gave their lives to stop the plane that was headed toward this Capitol building," she said. "Those Americans sacrificed their lives, for love of country, honor, duty, all the things that America means. The Capitol stands because of people like that."

     She was trying to appeal to a sense of Republican decency that just isn't there. She might as well be painting a picture in ultra-violet light. If they could see it, we wouldn't be here.

     The rest of us, we can see it all too well. It's been a relief to stop seeing it, this past month.

     For all the shock of the storming of the Capitol Jan. 6, the scenes of rioters surging through the building pales in horror compared to the yawning indifference of the bulk of Republican lawmakers. To be honest, that is worse. That the lawmakers can, at their leisure, contemplate what Donald Trump wrought, and still support him. Out of fear. Out of confused self-interest. Out of cold political calculation, that standing up for our country might make their deluded voters look askance at them. Looking to their futures. Confident that this is the path upward. For them.

     How could they close their eyes to chaos, lawlessness and mob rule? The endless lying necessary to grease the skids of that wreck? How can they rationalize it and shrug it off? I guess because it works, for them, and they expect it to continue to work. It is like, on Sept. 11, surveying the damage done to our country, and not only wishing you could be in some cave in Afghanistan, washing the feet of Osama bin Laden. But traveling there and doing it. This is passivity made active. They conjured up the Beast. And now they serve him.

   

Black parent faces loss of Catholic school

  

 

Ever Strong at Christ Our Savior Catholic School in South Holland.

      Last week I got an email that begins with journalistic clarity I could never improve upon:
     “My name is Carolyn Strong and I am a parent at Christ Our Savior Catholic School in South Holland, Illinois. The archdiocese recently announced that they were closing four Catholic schools. What they failed to say was that all of these schools were located in either Black or Brown communities. What they also failed to acknowledge was that with the closing of Christ Our Savior and St. Ann located in South Holland and Lansing respectively, they have created a 25-mile dearth of Catholic education in the southeast suburbs.”
     That seemed worth a follow-up. I phoned Strong, who has a doctorate in education.
     “We have 146 students, all Black and Brown, 137 Black, nine Latino,” she said. “It is the only all-minority Catholic school outside of the city. There are no others. My decision to send her there: because I am an educator, there are certain things I’m looking for. Because we’re a two-educator household. Because I am raising Black children, what I’m looking for is a mixture of academic rigor and cultural responsibility and a chance for my child to see herself reflected in the day-to-day of the school. Representation is very important. I’ve learned from my own work, which centers around Black students, the impact of anti-racism on Black kids. Representation matters. When you’re ‘othered’cq from such a young age it has an impact moving forward; it’s not a good one. That was top of mind choosing a school.”
     She has two daughters. Eden, 18, in the middle of her COVID-constrained freshman year at Northwestern. And Ever, 5, in first grade at Christ Our Savior. That age gap is no accident, Strong said. Raising a gifted daughter requires undivided attention and determination.
     “There are people who believe you can’t be both Black and smart,” Strong said. “The things we went through with our older daughter. People doubting her. We came in with IQ scores. Came in with testing. None of that stuff mattered. All they saw was a Black child.”
       Christ Our Savior is different.

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