Dolphins are the Dicks of the Animal World

Our passes to the Georgia Aquarium were getting set to expire so we took one last jaunt down there. We like to rotate our family passes to different places. The Aquarium is my favorite place in the world so I'm going to miss it. But it's my goal that in two years when we get passes again (someone tell my husband I want passes again in two years) that I will dive in the big tank. That's a bucket list item that I want to do RIGHT NOW but I also want to do it when I'm not this size so - two years from now should be perfect.

It was a weird trip from the beginning as the aquarium was PACKED. It's not that we don't like crowds, but UGH crowds at the humid aquarium are sort of brutal. It's almost like they are going to have to require reservations because it seemed like there were way too many people in there.

It was peaceful to look UP in the tunnels though, even if there were monsters above you. I wonder how loud it is in there, and if we annoy them. I sometimes wonder if they swim by to have a look at us.

In 12 years of parenting, no one has ever gotten face paint in this family. I am going to admit right now that while no one ever asked, I also never encouraged it. I grew up in a household where writing on yourself with a pen or marker was strictly verboten - something that my mother equated with low class ignorance. "It looks trashy." I can say pretty certainly that this is a reason I never encouraged the face painting thing. But the girl asked, and frankly - WHY NOT. Her Daddy said yes and I couldn't think of a valid reason to object so she picked out a seahorse and away we went, crushing the social norms of my childhood.

Shortly after this we made one of the worst parenting decisions we've made in a long time, we decided to go to the dolphin show - and we decided to sit in THE SPLASH ZONE.

We thought, oh some splashing will be ok. How bad could it be? We've NEVER done it. My kids LOVE the Dolphin Show. Mostly they love the dolphins, the show itself is seriously one of the worst things ever. Picture a really bad Vegas show, now make it worse, now make it like Christopher Walken being Captain Hook and singing and dancing, now, add dolphins. It's like that.  So we thought for FUN, ONE LAST TIME we'd sit down close.

We had to change seats once because Miles reached behind us and plucked a pretzel off the plate of a man behind us. He was turned, didn't notice, and suddenly Miles was eating a big old pretzel that I am SURE this guy paid 6  bucks for. We moved ONE section over - to dead center.

It started out ok. A little dolphin mist and splash. That's when the full attack began...

If you've  never been the victim of five dolphins doing everything they can to soak you with water, and the same number of humans giving them rewards to do so, then you've never been in this particular hell. The amount of water coming off this tank and literally drenching us looked like this...

Jurassic World only had a dolphin. It wasn't a mososaur at all.

As my children shrieked and screamed, and tried to escape up the seats and sobbed and begged the strangers behind us to help us, I considered my poor parenting choices and had to laugh. In fact, I laughed so hard Julia started screaming STOP LAUGHING.

This picture does not adequately show how wet we were, and how unhappy everyone was. But we were trying to cheer Julia up. Every time the dolphins came out she'd start sobbing. She also wiped her sea horse paint all over my shirt, ruining it.

We were wet inside our shoes and top of our heads, and everywhere in between. We had planned to go have a nice dinner - kind of a fun end to a family day out. However, we now smelled like wet dolphin water and weren't fit to go anywhere (not even the Varsity) so we settled on Chinese.

We were eating in Duluth - so if you're local you know how completely accurate this is.

The day wasn't a success. It was perfect family day, ruined by the dicks of the animal world - DOLPHINS.

Oh well, maybe in two years when we go back the trauma will be worn off and they'll have a different show. Additionally - we will NOT sit in the splash zone.

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Dolphins are the Dicks of the Animal World

Our passes to the Georgia Aquarium were getting set to expire so we took one last jaunt down there. We like to rotate our family passes to different places. The Aquarium is my favorite place in the world so I'm going to miss it. But it's my goal that in two years when we get passes again (someone tell my husband I want passes again in two years) that I will dive in the big tank. That's a bucket list item that I want to do RIGHT NOW but I also want to do it when I'm not this size so - two years from now should be perfect.

It was a weird trip from the beginning as the aquarium was PACKED. It's not that we don't like crowds, but UGH crowds at the humid aquarium are sort of brutal. It's almost like they are going to have to require reservations because it seemed like there were way too many people in there.

It was peaceful to look UP in the tunnels though, even if there were monsters above you. I wonder how loud it is in there, and if we annoy them. I sometimes wonder if they swim by to have a look at us.

In 12 years of parenting, no one has ever gotten face paint in this family. I am going to admit right now that while no one ever asked, I also never encouraged it. I grew up in a household where writing on yourself with a pen or marker was strictly verboten - something that my mother equated with low class ignorance. "It looks trashy." I can say pretty certainly that this is a reason I never encouraged the face painting thing. But the girl asked, and frankly - WHY NOT. Her Daddy said yes and I couldn't think of a valid reason to object so she picked out a seahorse and away we went, crushing the social norms of my childhood.

Shortly after this we made one of the worst parenting decisions we've made in a long time, we decided to go to the dolphin show - and we decided to sit in THE SPLASH ZONE.

We thought, oh some splashing will be ok. How bad could it be? We've NEVER done it. My kids LOVE the Dolphin Show. Mostly they love the dolphins, the show itself is seriously one of the worst things ever. Picture a really bad Vegas show, now make it worse, now make it like Christopher Walken being Captain Hook and singing and dancing, now, add dolphins. It's like that.  So we thought for FUN, ONE LAST TIME we'd sit down close.

We had to change seats once because Miles reached behind us and plucked a pretzel off the plate of a man behind us. He was turned, didn't notice, and suddenly Miles was eating a big old pretzel that I am SURE this guy paid 6  bucks for. We moved ONE section over - to dead center.

It started out ok. A little dolphin mist and splash. That's when the full attack began...

If you've  never been the victim of five dolphins doing everything they can to soak you with water, and the same number of humans giving them rewards to do so, then you've never been in this particular hell. The amount of water coming off this tank and literally drenching us looked like this...

Jurassic World only had a dolphin. It wasn't a mososaur at all.

As my children shrieked and screamed, and tried to escape up the seats and sobbed and begged the strangers behind us to help us, I considered my poor parenting choices and had to laugh. In fact, I laughed so hard Julia started screaming STOP LAUGHING.

This picture does not adequately show how wet we were, and how unhappy everyone was. But we were trying to cheer Julia up. Every time the dolphins came out she'd start sobbing. She also wiped her sea horse paint all over my shirt, ruining it.

We were wet inside our shoes and top of our heads, and everywhere in between. We had planned to go have a nice dinner - kind of a fun end to a family day out. However, we now smelled like wet dolphin water and weren't fit to go anywhere (not even the Varsity) so we settled on Chinese.

We were eating in Duluth - so if you're local you know how completely accurate this is.

The day wasn't a success. It was perfect family day, ruined by the dicks of the animal world - DOLPHINS.

Oh well, maybe in two years when we go back the trauma will be worn off and they'll have a different show. Additionally - we will NOT sit in the splash zone.

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And With That We Are Five..For A Week

I promised not to embarrass him, and I meant to not embarrass him. But I didn't feel like ONE goodbye picture was too much to ask. I didn't hug or kiss him in front of his friends but I think I am feeling his judgment in this picture. MOM PLEASE STOP DOING THAT.

Fine, I stopped doing that. He's gone to South Carolina for a week doing camping stuff with his friends and I loved camp so I'm not going to be all paranoid and worried. It's the longest he's ever been gone. But he's going to be fine, I might not, but he will.

We came home and the girl ruled it imperative that we make some coffee. That's her overseeing the Keurig as it brews. She thinks it's important to watch it so that you know it's done. She tells me this is helping. Who am I to argue.

She has the solemn charge of being in charge of Doggie while Louis is gone. She's taking it very seriously, keeping me abreast of how Doggie feels without Louis. And while Louis was so worried about ME embarrassing him in front of his dorky Boy Scout friends, it was his sister who shouted "I GET TO TAKE CARE OF DOGGIE WHILE HE IS GONE!" holding up the red dog and showing his friend.

Ha. It wasn't me!

We went outside to play and to hopefully delay the nonstop fighting the twins have been doing. Miles gets Charlie all fired up and Charlie loses his mind. Play bubbles outside was a welcome respite from that craziness which gave me a raving headache for the rest of the evening.

Charlie and Julia and unlikely friends, but they spent the most time together every day after school and she has a special place in her heart for him. She's always trying to take care of him. Making Charlie laugh is her favorite thing ever.

For about 90 minutes in the sun, there wasn't any screaming or fighting or attacking. There were just bubbles and the happiness that comes from chasing them. It was pretty good.

It is amazing how there is no downtime, even with 25% of my children gone.

I need to do bubbles 24/7.
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And With That We Are Five..For A Week

I promised not to embarrass him, and I meant to not embarrass him. But I didn't feel like ONE goodbye picture was too much to ask. I didn't hug or kiss him in front of his friends but I think I am feeling his judgment in this picture. MOM PLEASE STOP DOING THAT.

Fine, I stopped doing that. He's gone to South Carolina for a week doing camping stuff with his friends and I loved camp so I'm not going to be all paranoid and worried. It's the longest he's ever been gone. But he's going to be fine, I might not, but he will.

We came home and the girl ruled it imperative that we make some coffee. That's her overseeing the Keurig as it brews. She thinks it's important to watch it so that you know it's done. She tells me this is helping. Who am I to argue.

She has the solemn charge of being in charge of Doggie while Louis is gone. She's taking it very seriously, keeping me abreast of how Doggie feels without Louis. And while Louis was so worried about ME embarrassing him in front of his dorky Boy Scout friends, it was his sister who shouted "I GET TO TAKE CARE OF DOGGIE WHILE HE IS GONE!" holding up the red dog and showing his friend.

Ha. It wasn't me!

We went outside to play and to hopefully delay the nonstop fighting the twins have been doing. Miles gets Charlie all fired up and Charlie loses his mind. Play bubbles outside was a welcome respite from that craziness which gave me a raving headache for the rest of the evening.

Charlie and Julia and unlikely friends, but they spent the most time together every day after school and she has a special place in her heart for him. She's always trying to take care of him. Making Charlie laugh is her favorite thing ever.

For about 90 minutes in the sun, there wasn't any screaming or fighting or attacking. There were just bubbles and the happiness that comes from chasing them. It was pretty good.

It is amazing how there is no downtime, even with 25% of my children gone.

I need to do bubbles 24/7.
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The Mythos of the Garden Tub

I've been kind of down the past few days and I'm not sure why. Hormones maybe? Latent grief from the 6/30 anniversary maybe. Maybe it's because I haven't worked out in days and I'm building up all that stress and tension that normally gets let out on my Total Gym. I'm unsure. What I do know is that the more I'm thinking on it and examining it the more down I'm getting, the more frustrated I'm getting so as of yesterday I decided fuck it, I'll just be down for however long this is going to be. No big deal. No one died, I've not been wronged, hormonally speaking though I'm not in my happy place.
My husband told me yesterday I should go take a bath in our tub. This is truly some sort of recipe for ultimate bliss. I bought my house BECAUSE of the tub I swear to you. This tub is so big that I have, at some points in my parenting, been able to put FOUR children in it comfortably. Then it was three, then two. I'm down to one at a time now but still, it's a damn big tub. You could join me. We've have our feet all up in each other's business but you definitely COULD join me.

When I think of my tub, I think of this...

Of course, it doesn't look anything like that. Mine is 25+ years old, and the jets don't work anymore and it needs regrouted around the tile. I'm surrounded by this hideous faux victorian wallpaper, which looks a bit like this...

the main difference therein being that the one I grabbed to show you is sort of pretty and the one in my bathroom is like the Fingerhut version of that same print. NOT delicate and lovely, in other words.

The other important thing about my amazing garden tub, the one for which I bought an entire house is this - I never use it. Months, years go by, and I never get into the thing. There aren't enough hours in the day to do all of the things I want to do. I want to get into my tub and luxuriate but I never do, so my husband's suggestion of a long hot bath to help soak away my blues seemed like an amazing suggestion. We added a glass of wine to complete the relaxation and I felt like I was in heaven.

You might think maybe I would look like this...

Well that would be how I look in my mind.

You see, I don't have proper wine glasses unpacked (yes I've lived here seven years leave me alone I'll get to it). What I DO have are some snowman printed goblets from when my brother and SIL came down for Thanksgiving the VERY first year I lived in Atlanta (which was awesome btw guys). In my snowman printed goblet, I pour a liberal amount of  fruity blackberry merlot because life is not too short to drink cheap wine.

There I recline, in a huge tub filled with epsom salts (I was thinking these might soak out the poisons in my mind), and a snowman goblet filled with a wine that makes my tongue tingle.  The door is closed and the water is steamy, and I lay back and let the smell of pink peony and rose oil surround me and just try to think calm things.

Crash conk blonk "Don't BOTHER MOM!" I hear. I like to try to deciper the sounds from behind the door of my refuge. I hear toys being dug for in a toy box, I hear stomping (Miles is into stomping), I hear laughter. I submerge and listen to the same sounds from underwater, indecipherable now, like messages from a distant planet.

I slather on No7 Cleaning gel oil which by the way is the best stuff ever for this 46 year old face, it says it's for dry skin but I think it's a miracle product for 40 year old faces. It also has some magical property apparently, according to it's label it goes on as a thick gel, turns into an oil and then turns into a milk. That's got to be some serious science going on there, or magic. I'm not sure which.

I soak in the magic of the body wash that says it's got pink peony and rose oil, I turn it over and can't find pink peony anywhere on the ingredients. I can't find any latin words that would BE pink peony if I looked them up. There are a lot of isosomethingorother ingredients and sodium laurthorsomething. I do find rose oil about half way down so I've only been HALF lied to and I feel better about this. I feel like Tone body wash has lied to me, though, and I'm mentally shaking my fist at them.

I slather kids shampoo on, and gaze around the room, I'm not surrounded by candles and potpourri, I'm surrounded by laundry that needs pre-stained and sorted. Two kids in diapers at age 11 mean a lot of clothes need extra work before the washer, and there isn't anything to be done by lay it out the best place possible - my huge ass tub's ledge is perfect.

Some people always have such elegant shit going on with their towels. I wouldn't know how to begin to have such an array of fine towels around me. Maybe that's 12 years of mom mentality. I've got the big rack made to hold your huge fluffy bath towels, it's got a single hand towel tossed over it. Over the stand up shower that doesn't work there are the bath towels draped so that they can dry properly. The ninja turtles, Sophia the First, and Lightning McQueen are all represented. On the peg hook Spiderman is represented.

I've chosen Lightning McQueen and Spiderman as my towels today, with my floor towel being a lovely towel that used to be a deep rose color my mom mother purchased at Sears about 30 years ago when she did a spruce up to my Grandmother's bathroom. These towels were SO lovely and fluffy when new that my Grandmother proclaimed them too good to use and promptly folded them and put them away in the cabinet. She gave them to me in their pristine conditions when I moved out on my own in the 1990s.

I finish my second glass of wine and submerge, realizing that I'm underwater, have had two glasses of wine and this is how people suddenly pass out and drown and it'll be a headline "Mother of four drowns in freak accident outside Atlanta" so I come up for air and just lay back in the hot flowery water.

I don't know what's wrong with me, maybe sometimes it's just ok to feel like this "everything is too much" and in a few days I won't feel like that at all. I can honestly say that this morning I don't actually feel like that, I can feel stress glimmering on the edges of my mind but I don't feel it right now. I'm drinking coffee with cream and sugar waistline be damned it's what I want.

Part of me wonders though, waking up on this Sunday, if the 45 minutes of soaking did help part of that fade away? Epsom salts are weird things, allegedly this is true:
 Epsom salt has beneficial properties that can soothe the body, mind and soul. Some of the countless health benefits include relaxing the nervous system, curing skin problems, soothing back pain and aching limbs, easing muscle strain, healing cuts, treating cold and congestion, and drawing toxins from the body

Maybe it's true, because very oddly I do feel better. In fact, I think I'm going to have another coffee. With cream AND sugar. Carpe Diem! Because I only say YOLO when I'm being ironic and it's just too early for that, folks.
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The Mythos of the Garden Tub

I've been kind of down the past few days and I'm not sure why. Hormones maybe? Latent grief from the 6/30 anniversary maybe. Maybe it's because I haven't worked out in days and I'm building up all that stress and tension that normally gets let out on my Total Gym. I'm unsure. What I do know is that the more I'm thinking on it and examining it the more down I'm getting, the more frustrated I'm getting so as of yesterday I decided fuck it, I'll just be down for however long this is going to be. No big deal. No one died, I've not been wronged, hormonally speaking though I'm not in my happy place.
My husband told me yesterday I should go take a bath in our tub. This is truly some sort of recipe for ultimate bliss. I bought my house BECAUSE of the tub I swear to you. This tub is so big that I have, at some points in my parenting, been able to put FOUR children in it comfortably. Then it was three, then two. I'm down to one at a time now but still, it's a damn big tub. You could join me. We've have our feet all up in each other's business but you definitely COULD join me.

When I think of my tub, I think of this...

Of course, it doesn't look anything like that. Mine is 25+ years old, and the jets don't work anymore and it needs regrouted around the tile. I'm surrounded by this hideous faux victorian wallpaper, which looks a bit like this...

the main difference therein being that the one I grabbed to show you is sort of pretty and the one in my bathroom is like the Fingerhut version of that same print. NOT delicate and lovely, in other words.

The other important thing about my amazing garden tub, the one for which I bought an entire house is this - I never use it. Months, years go by, and I never get into the thing. There aren't enough hours in the day to do all of the things I want to do. I want to get into my tub and luxuriate but I never do, so my husband's suggestion of a long hot bath to help soak away my blues seemed like an amazing suggestion. We added a glass of wine to complete the relaxation and I felt like I was in heaven.

You might think maybe I would look like this...

Well that would be how I look in my mind.

You see, I don't have proper wine glasses unpacked (yes I've lived here seven years leave me alone I'll get to it). What I DO have are some snowman printed goblets from when my brother and SIL came down for Thanksgiving the VERY first year I lived in Atlanta (which was awesome btw guys). In my snowman printed goblet, I pour a liberal amount of  fruity blackberry merlot because life is not too short to drink cheap wine.

There I recline, in a huge tub filled with epsom salts (I was thinking these might soak out the poisons in my mind), and a snowman goblet filled with a wine that makes my tongue tingle.  The door is closed and the water is steamy, and I lay back and let the smell of pink peony and rose oil surround me and just try to think calm things.

Crash conk blonk "Don't BOTHER MOM!" I hear. I like to try to deciper the sounds from behind the door of my refuge. I hear toys being dug for in a toy box, I hear stomping (Miles is into stomping), I hear laughter. I submerge and listen to the same sounds from underwater, indecipherable now, like messages from a distant planet.

I slather on No7 Cleaning gel oil which by the way is the best stuff ever for this 46 year old face, it says it's for dry skin but I think it's a miracle product for 40 year old faces. It also has some magical property apparently, according to it's label it goes on as a thick gel, turns into an oil and then turns into a milk. That's got to be some serious science going on there, or magic. I'm not sure which.

I soak in the magic of the body wash that says it's got pink peony and rose oil, I turn it over and can't find pink peony anywhere on the ingredients. I can't find any latin words that would BE pink peony if I looked them up. There are a lot of isosomethingorother ingredients and sodium laurthorsomething. I do find rose oil about half way down so I've only been HALF lied to and I feel better about this. I feel like Tone body wash has lied to me, though, and I'm mentally shaking my fist at them.

I slather kids shampoo on, and gaze around the room, I'm not surrounded by candles and potpourri, I'm surrounded by laundry that needs pre-stained and sorted. Two kids in diapers at age 11 mean a lot of clothes need extra work before the washer, and there isn't anything to be done by lay it out the best place possible - my huge ass tub's ledge is perfect.

Some people always have such elegant shit going on with their towels. I wouldn't know how to begin to have such an array of fine towels around me. Maybe that's 12 years of mom mentality. I've got the big rack made to hold your huge fluffy bath towels, it's got a single hand towel tossed over it. Over the stand up shower that doesn't work there are the bath towels draped so that they can dry properly. The ninja turtles, Sophia the First, and Lightning McQueen are all represented. On the peg hook Spiderman is represented.

I've chosen Lightning McQueen and Spiderman as my towels today, with my floor towel being a lovely towel that used to be a deep rose color my mom mother purchased at Sears about 30 years ago when she did a spruce up to my Grandmother's bathroom. These towels were SO lovely and fluffy when new that my Grandmother proclaimed them too good to use and promptly folded them and put them away in the cabinet. She gave them to me in their pristine conditions when I moved out on my own in the 1990s.

I finish my second glass of wine and submerge, realizing that I'm underwater, have had two glasses of wine and this is how people suddenly pass out and drown and it'll be a headline "Mother of four drowns in freak accident outside Atlanta" so I come up for air and just lay back in the hot flowery water.

I don't know what's wrong with me, maybe sometimes it's just ok to feel like this "everything is too much" and in a few days I won't feel like that at all. I can honestly say that this morning I don't actually feel like that, I can feel stress glimmering on the edges of my mind but I don't feel it right now. I'm drinking coffee with cream and sugar waistline be damned it's what I want.

Part of me wonders though, waking up on this Sunday, if the 45 minutes of soaking did help part of that fade away? Epsom salts are weird things, allegedly this is true:
 Epsom salt has beneficial properties that can soothe the body, mind and soul. Some of the countless health benefits include relaxing the nervous system, curing skin problems, soothing back pain and aching limbs, easing muscle strain, healing cuts, treating cold and congestion, and drawing toxins from the body

Maybe it's true, because very oddly I do feel better. In fact, I think I'm going to have another coffee. With cream AND sugar. Carpe Diem! Because I only say YOLO when I'm being ironic and it's just too early for that, folks.
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Fireworks, and the Fourth

The park next to us held it's 4th of July fireworks on the 3rd of July (I don't understand this phenomenon btw why do people do stuff on the 3rd? Is it for rain dates?) so we loaded up the crew and headed over. Our plan was that we'd eat festival food and hang out and then watch the fireworks. Upon arrival we realized that the food tents were running out of food. There was no food. Thus - there was no dinner.

Some strangers gave us these.

These were FREAKING good. They also gave us these.

So we're now officially those hippies taking and eating food from strangers at festivals. Nobody tell my dad, he hates "damn dirty hippies".

But the fireworks went BOOM BOOM BOOM and four children and two adults were mesmerized. Afterward we supplemented our dinner of various chip products with some Waffle House which was tasty and greasy in a horrible way.
For our 4th celebration we stayed home with our own little fireworks and some chicken on the grill. It's probably the best chicken I've ever made on the grill, and it was amazing.

We used a combo of regular old barbecue sauce with some mustard sauce we got from Maurice's Piggy Park on Spring Break, and it's really the only 'mustard' based sauce I have ever in my life liked. It's amazingly delicious and everyone should try it. While I was cooking, a little mouse named Charlie tried out the pie.

I'm guessing he liked it.

Our own fireworks were less spectacular but I think the kids liked them anyway.

It was as good Fourth of July.

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Fireworks, and the Fourth

The park next to us held it's 4th of July fireworks on the 3rd of July (I don't understand this phenomenon btw why do people do stuff on the 3rd? Is it for rain dates?) so we loaded up the crew and headed over. Our plan was that we'd eat festival food and hang out and then watch the fireworks. Upon arrival we realized that the food tents were running out of food. There was no food. Thus - there was no dinner.

Some strangers gave us these.

These were FREAKING good. They also gave us these.

So we're now officially those hippies taking and eating food from strangers at festivals. Nobody tell my dad, he hates "damn dirty hippies".

But the fireworks went BOOM BOOM BOOM and four children and two adults were mesmerized. Afterward we supplemented our dinner of various chip products with some Waffle House which was tasty and greasy in a horrible way.
For our 4th celebration we stayed home with our own little fireworks and some chicken on the grill. It's probably the best chicken I've ever made on the grill, and it was amazing.

We used a combo of regular old barbecue sauce with some mustard sauce we got from Maurice's Piggy Park on Spring Break, and it's really the only 'mustard' based sauce I have ever in my life liked. It's amazingly delicious and everyone should try it. While I was cooking, a little mouse named Charlie tried out the pie.

I'm guessing he liked it.

Our own fireworks were less spectacular but I think the kids liked them anyway.

It was as good Fourth of July.

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