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Tag Archives: Moms Clean Air Force

I Vote for Clean Air

31 Monday Oct 2016

Posted by judithar321 in environment, health, politics

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Clean Air Moms Action, Moms Clean Air Force

I registered to vote in Massachusetts nearly 40 years ago, and I’ve cast my ballot in a voting booth there ever since. So when we moved to Portland, Oregon this month, registering to vote was at the top of my to-do list. The stakes are so high and far-reaching this year —especially when you factor in the fate of our planet — that the possibility of NOT voting is unthinkable.

As  Dominique Browning, senior director of Moms Clean Air Force points out, “ We have a choice for president that is going to influence our lives, and our children’s lives, and our grandchildren’s lives…”

Fortunately, my new state not only makes it easy to register, its system of voting by mail allows citizens to focus on candidates and issues rather than on simply getting to the polls.

My ballot arrived last week and I was determined to wield my voting power with laser-like precision to ensure that Oregon continues to do its part in protecting our environment. This meant going beyond my (obvious) choice for president to learn about the positions of down-ballot candidates, and the implications of local ballot initiatives.

A post about ballot measures on the Oregon Environmental Council’s (OEC)  website was particularly informative. I spoke to its author, OEC’s Health Outreach Director,  Jen Coleman, about why voting “yes” to affordable homes, for example, would also help improve air quality in Portland. She explained,

To have healthy people, we need healthy places for them to live. Our hot spots of air pollution in Portland are linked to low income and minority communities.

Therefore, she wrote in her post,

Affordable housing is integral to meeting environmental goals. High housing prices have pushed lower-income residents out to the edges of urban centers where there are fewer transportation choices. The closer people can live to school and work and accessible transit, the less they need to drive—and less driving results in cleaner air and safer streets.

I also asked Jen about assessing local candidates’ commitment to supporting clean air in my new state. While she couldn’t tell me how to vote, she advised me to read the voters’ handbook. In addition to descriptions of candidates and ballot measures, it includes arguments for and against, as well as endorsements, for each. As she said,

The handbook that comes with your ballot is pretty amazing. Look at those recommendations and base your vote on the assessment of those you trust. A tiny race can make a huge difference in how we use our resources.

With that in mind, my husband and I sat across from each other at our dining room table last night and paged through the handbook as we marked our ballots.

img_3590

This afternoon, we’ll send them on their way, confident that our votes  will have an impact that reaches beyond our new hometown and for generations to come.

Now, dear readers, it’s your turn. Please, take the pledge.

PROMISE TO VOTE!

“This post was produced with support from Clean Air Moms Action. All opinions are, of course, my own.”

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“Prickly” about Climate Change

22 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by judithar321 in environment, politics, travel

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

climate change, Moms Clean Air Force

 

Dry as dust-2

I was working on a post this week about unsolicited advice that was based on an incident at my gym. I was trying to be light and funny about something that many of us don’t appreciate (according to an online poll, 62 percent of us don’t like receiving such advice). I shared it with an editor who usually loves my work. She was happy to hear from me, and even offered to publish the piece, but she ended her email this way,

“p.s. but…it does seem to me (speaking as your editor) that you do come across in this post as a bit too prickly over such a trivial offense.”

Given that I’d rather not appear prickly when it comes to something trivial, we agreed to deep-six the post.

I am, however, proud to be prickly about preserving the environment. The scenery I saw as I traveled from coast to coast and back brought to mind the words from “America the Beautiful,” while it also made me more passionate about halting climate change.

My post today on Mom’s Clean Air Force shares one of the lessons I learned while on the road.

I am also prickly about boycotts. I don’t participate in random ones espoused by individuals. I want my actions to have real meaning and to carry real weight—which they only can when my voice is part of a larger group.

But I wholeheartedly support organized boycotts and petitions for causes I believe in — especially ones that put corporate polluters in their place. For that reason, I signed this petition asking EBay to withdraw its support of ALEC, a group that has pledged to launch “a political tsunami against EPA.”  I hope you will too. You can read about why we are boycotting EBay here. 

When it comes to important stuff like climate change, I’m prickly — and proud of it.

 

 

May Is Clean Air Month

20 Tuesday May 2014

Posted by judithar321 in environment, health

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Dominique Browning, Moms Clean Air Force, Years of Living Dangerously

May is Clean Air Month, and when Women’s Voices for Change asked me to profile Dominique Browning, co-founder and Senior Director of Moms Clean Air Force, I was more than happy to do so.

MomsShirt

I’ve also been busy covering Showtime’s new series on climate change, “Years of Living Dangerously.” You can watch episode one online here, and read my posts about it here.

As Dominique told me,

Climate change is an overwhelming, unhappy subject, but it’s really important to understand that we can beat this—there are answers.

So, in honor of Clean Air Month, please check out, “Dominique Browning: Making a Difference in the Air We Breathe.” And then, do something important for all of us and support limits on carbon pollution.  

Thank you!

Wallowing

08 Monday Jul 2013

Posted by judithar321 in adult children, aging, books, environment, health, marriage, mid-life transition, music

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

"This Train Is Now", climate change, garden, heat wave, Moms Clean Air Force, Raya Brass Band

cobweb

The past few weeks have brought hot, humid weather to the Northeast. Morning after morning, I hustle Karina along our customary walk, swatting away the multitude of flies and mosquitoes that swarm around us all along the way.

The heat and humidity make it hard to focus, and if I were to have a coherent thought, typing while my fogged-over glasses slide down my sweaty nose (and this is after a shower), is nearly impossible. To top things off, my computer went haywire, the cursor skipping around from sentence to sentence, clicking on ads and other links of its own accord.

I was wallowing. A lot.

It started in early June. A piece that I had put my heart and soul into didn’t get published when promised. It may soon see the light of day, but its timely lead is no longer timely and it is deeply personal.  As more time passes, the more nervous I feel about people reading it.

As June progressed, and the weather got hotter and hotter, I deflated and drooped a little more each day. Pretty soon I was comparing my publishing success to that of others….always a sure road to nowhere.

To be fair, June has a history of being difficult. It is a month of anniversaries that clearly demarcate the all-too-swift passage of time. Forty-one years since I became motherless, and 30 years since I became a mother. Yes, I have a child who is 30 years old. That particular anniversary, more than the other one, hit me hard this year.

Nest

In mid- June I pulled some muscle or other in my thigh. Swimming and walking are fine, but rooting around in the garden isn’t possible, and so, I’m letting it go feral this summer. Like everywhere else, it’s too hot and buggy in there anyway.

As if I weren’t already feeling decrepit enough, my dermatologist implied that my multitude of freckles/moles were solely due to too much sun. Sun? Really? In the Northeast? Haven’t you heard of genetics, Bub? So I wallowed in that for a while… until I noticed a woman at the pool. Deeply tanned, her skin was covered with large dalmatian-like spots.

Sometimes, comparison is helpful.

Then my computer went kablooey, and there were histrionics.

The atmosphere inside our little house got even hotter, and to escape, I started reading a book with an angry woman narrator.  I am so into that book right now (The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud). And I can’t wait to discuss it with the friend who gave it to me — especially the comment my local bookseller made as I was buying it for another friend. He said that he found the opening paragraphs “a little too shrill.”

Female anger is such a bummer, especially for men. My husband can handle it though. As he told me after the histrionics subsided, “… it’s good that it wasn’t directed towards me.”

But today, things are looking up. First off, the temperatures are in the 80’s not the 90’s and I can actually type this post without dripping all over the keyboard.

Yes, my computer has been fixed.

  • New track pad: $90.
  • Having a place to vent: Priceless.

And, I have had some writing published this summer. Climate change, always on my mind, came to the fore and I submitted a couple of posts to Moms Clean Air Force.  One on how Climate Change has hit home, the other on how it is threatening New England seafood. By the way, you don’t have to be a Mom to join, just an engaged citizen, and if you haven’t already, I’d urge you to take action.

Then, a couple of days ago, the brilliant D.A. Wolfe reminded me of how lucky  I am that my sons are independent, that they still want to share their lives with us, and that both are doing work that they and we can be proud of.

Shameless plug: older son’s band is releasing an album on October 8. Freckles or no freckles I’m still cool enough to rate an advanced copy. I’m listening to it now and the music has enough energy to make even the most lethargic among us want to get up and dance.

And you know what else? My garden is doing just fine without me.

garden

In so many ways,  I am a free woman!

We all need work, we all need purpose and I’m glad that those are the things I’ll be obsessing about this summer — rather than who’s publishing where, or who or what is or isn’t to blame for my spotty skin — because the day we stop looking for work and purpose is a day when the wallowing has gone too far.

“If It Were Up to Me”

16 Sunday Dec 2012

Posted by judithar321 in adult children, environment, meditation, music

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

"If it Were Up to Me", activism, Cheryl Wheeler, gun control, McBurney YMCA, Moms Clean Air Force, music, New York, Strong Kids Program

reflections of grief

Most likely everything that can be said about Friday’s tragedy in Connecticut has been said. Since Friday, I have been weighed down with a sadness that is punctuated by moments of extreme anger and disgust.

There are candlelight vigils to attend and petitions to sign, but nothing will undo what has already been done. As singer-songwriter Cheryl Wheeler sings below, “If it were up to me, I’d take away the guns.”

Right now, though, the one thing that has made me feel better at all, besides signing petitions and communicating with my own kids, has been to give money to organizations that advocate for children. There are plenty of them out there, but here are two that are near and dear to me.

Mom’s Clean Air Force: Like the proliferation of guns in our society, clean air is a public health issue. Air pollution hurts the most vulnerable among us. By pulling together the voices of mothers, fathers, and other engaged citizens, this organization works to counteract the lobbyists in Washington who fight for polluters’ right to dirty our air. The site provides up-to-date information and lists ways we can act in the interests of ourselves and our children.

Donate now, and for every tax-deductible dollar you donate by January 1, 2013, a dedicated funder will provide two additional dollars tripling your gift.

The Strong Kids Program at the McBurney YMCA in New York. I have a special interest in this program. My younger son taught these kids life skills for several years, helping them learn how to advocate for themselves, and my older son has done some academic tutoring there.  I was often privy to dinner table discussions about how much potential each of these kids—who hail from every borough in the city—have, and how, with some consistent, adult attention, their lives could be improved.

Click here to donate.

“Do we have the courage to stop this?” asks Nicholas Kristof in his column in today’s New York Times, where he makes an excellent case for gun regulation. I hope we do. And I hope that our leaders will exhibit the kind of heroism we need right now, and stand up to, and defy the all-powerful gun lobby.

Pink + Green = Breast Cancer Prevention

22 Monday Oct 2012

Posted by judithar321 in environment, health, politics

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

breast cancer awareness month, breast cancer prevention, carcinogens, Moms Clean Air Force, pink ribbons, Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

October is breast cancer awareness month. Pink ribbons are everywhere, from lapels and teddy bears, to cleaning products and perfume. So much levity and cheeriness for a disease that is deadly seriousness.* So much hypocrisy when these ribbons adorn items containing carcinogens.

When I think about breast cancer, I think about my mother, who died of it at the age of 50. I think of my own diagnosis 22 years later. And, I think of the women I encountered in the waiting room during treatments, and the many I’ve spoken to since, who unlike me, had no genetic risk factors and yet, just like me, were diagnosed with the disease at a relatively early age.

Why them? For that matter, why me? Why are so many of us being stricken?

Some of the answers can be found in a small, green paperback that my father presented to me a few months after my mother died.

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson was published fifty years ago last month and is often credited with igniting the environmental movement. Carson addressed her widely-read book to the general public. It clearly explains how man-made chemicals used to kill insects, weeds, rodents, and other such pests, can travel up the food chain and impact human health.

She asked:

Can anyone believe it is possible to lay down such a barrage of poisons on the surface of the earth without making it unfit for all life?

Carson also sounded the alarm back then for how these poisons can change us on a cellular level.

Some would-be architects of our future look toward a time when it will be possible to alter the human germ plasm by design. But we may easily be doing so now by inadvertence, for many chemicals, like radiation, bring about gene mutations. It is ironic to think that man might determine his own future by something so seemingly trivial as the choice of an insect spray.

Carson wrote these words in the midst of her own battle with metastatic breast cancer. She died two years after Silent Spring was published. Her wise and prescient voice silenced, just like the spring she envisioned in her book’s opening pages.

So while I applaud organizations that use pink ribbons to raise money for breast cancer research, I also agree with my fellow blogger, Elisa Batista, who says,

“It will be a good day when pink mixes with green.” 

To hasten that day, we must honor Rachel Carson’s legacy by educating others about the environmental causes of breast cancer. For the sake of our daughters and our sons (yes, men get breast cancer too), we must take action now.

And we shouldn’t rest until we pin the last pink ribbon on the lapel of the last corporate polluter, and send them packing.

***

This post was originally published by Moms Clean Air Force

* To better understand why so many of us resent the girly, pink symbolism associated with breast cancer, check out this terrific post by Erika Lade.

Yes. I Was Rude.

03 Wednesday Oct 2012

Posted by judithar321 in environment, inspiration, work, writing

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

cashmere, Concord, hypocrisy, manners, Moms Clean Air Force, plastic, rudeness

You’re expecting a “but” here aren’t you? There are no buts about it. It wasn’t intentional, and I didn’t mean it, but yes, I was rude: To a customer.

There I was, head down, lost in thought, and elbow deep in cashmere as I processed a delivery. Two women walked into the store. I think I greeted them….. maybe not.

Then, out of the blue, one of them made a seemingly innocuous statement, “I thought you no longer sold bottled water in Concord.” *

“Huh?” I thought to myself, “we sell cashmere, not water.” But then, instead of making me purr, the way cashmere usually does, this popped out: “What’s your point?”

Oops. This is something I might say in jest to my husband when he drops the occasional non sequitur. But somehow, in that moment and context, I didn’t add my usual lilt of amusement. Even if I had, it still would have sounded wrong.

The polite response would have been something like, “Why do you ask?”  But before I could apologize she left the store in a huff, muttering loudly about “rude shopkeepers.”

These porcelain berries are the closest thing I have to an olive branch.

I don’t know why this happened. I do know I had been feeling rather discouraged that day.

Perhaps it was the residual sliminess I felt from watching Scott Brown’s sleazy debate performance the night before.

Speaking of two-faced conservatives, did the woman’s shrill-ish voice conger up memories of a former landlady — the one who made a point of telling me how much she liked Jews?

Or maybe it was the fact that I was doing better with the cashmere, than I was with my blog. I was starting to feel as though I had nothing new to say.

Bingo.

So, in addition to apologizing to the customer, I guess I should thank her for sparking a post. That is, if she ever sets foot in  my “shop” again.

While I’m waiting for that day, tell me, have you ever inadvertently let loose a snail on an unsuspecting victim? If so, please confess. It will help me feel like less of a jerk.

*The town of Concord, Mass. has banned the sale of less than 1 liter bottles of water, which goes into effect next year. You can read more about the reasons behind the ban here. 

A Blog of One’s Own

22 Wednesday Aug 2012

Posted by judithar321 in friendship, inspiration, writing

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

blogging, BlogHer 2012, Econesting, Groovy Green Livin, Moms Clean Air Force, Womens Voices for Change

Whenever I think about connections between women, I remember coming home from school to find my mother drinking coffee at our kitchen table with her friend Rolande. From my first-floor bedroom, I’d hear the low murmur of Rolande’s French-accented English, punctuated by my mom’s musical laugh.

These days we can connect with other women all over the world via email, instant messaging, video chats, and by commenting on each other’s blog posts. Women we’ve never met face to face have become our friends, colleagues, mentors, and students. We talk, argue, and commiserate as we share stories, opinions, successes, and heartbreaks. Yet we still value, and even crave, that old-fashioned face time.

A few weeks ago, in New York City, BlogHer held its eighth annual conference, and those sessions felt like my mom and Rolande’s kitchen-table conversations—on steroids. BlogHer is a community and media company created in partnership with women in social media “to create opportunities for women who blog to pursue exposure, education, community and economic empowerment.”

Both genders are welcome at the conferences, but most of us at BlogHer ’12—more than 5,000 of us—were women. We were gathered there “to talk about everything from pop culture to parenting to politics,” said BlogHer co-founder Lisa Stone in her opening address.

Indeed, among the bloggers that I met during a “speed-dating” session were a dominatrix with an IVF baby; a mommy blogger; and a woman who teaches sign language to help new moms communicate with their babies.

Why do all these different women blog, and what do they have to say? 

I started my own blog because, after decades of writing for other people’s publications, I needed something of my own—a place where I could express my own thoughts and opinions in my own voice, and even (gasp) have a bit of fun. 

The blog has offered me a chance to reflect out loud about the everyday stuff of an almost 30-year marriage, an empty nest, and tie my concerns about climate change to what’s happening in my own backyard.

Casey Carey-Brown, the mommy blogger I mentioned, describes her experience at the conference  and why she blogs this way:

“I found myself surrounded by thoughtful, vulnerable, honest writers and heard over and over how they are in this because they have to be. Because they love it. For the life that it brings. The life of reflection. Of higher standards for yourself. The struggle and joy of being able to work at your craft and always get better. Always be better.”

Other women I met blog for more concrete, practical reasons. Lori Alper, of Groovy Green Livin told me in an email that she blogs because it “allows for a learning and connecting with an ever-growing  fabulous community of  like-minded men and women.”

Lori began blogging on the heels of another career. A former lawyer, she started her blog because two of her children were born with life-threatening food allergies.

“After spending a great deal of time educating myself on non-toxic living, my family began experiencing first-hand the benefits of living an organic, non- toxic lifestyle.  I knew I needed a larger forum to learn and share. I decided to trade in my attorney suit and follow my passion—and Groovy Green Livin was born as a way to educate myself and others on how to live as naturally and toxin-free as possible.”

Meeting women like Lori, whom I’ve gotten to know online through our mutual work for Moms Clean Air Force, was among my main motivations for attending the conference. I also met and hung out with several other bloggers and staff from Moms Clean Air Force—one of whom, I learned, is a fan of this blog!

I also shared a drink with two women whose blog I had begun to follow only recently: Carrie Tuhy and Mary Lou Floyd from Second Lives Club. These accomplished women post essays about women who are embarking on dramatically different lives than those they lived when they were younger.

Making eye and voice contact, and engaging in a lively back and forth with such vibrant, intelligent women has inspired me to dig deeper, focus on what feels authentic, and to be both fearless and passionate when expressing my opinions and ideas.

The conference sessions provided valuable takeaways and motivation for moving forward. 

I attended BlogHer sessions on writing; on forming and using online organizations to make change; and how to price and value your services.

Two themes that came through in almost every session I attended were:

  • Women have a powerful voice. President Obama’s willingness to open the conference via video is proof positive that what we say and how we vote really does matter. (Mitt Romney, who was also invited, was unable to participate.)
  • Bloggers and writers want—and expect—to be valued and paid for their work. This ambition came through loud and clear in almost every session I attended. The writing sessions addressed issues such as transforming blog posts into printable essays (most print publications pay their writers) and how to approach editors at paying sites, such as Women’s Day.

There were also keynote sessions featuring Martha Stewart and Katie Couric, and a panel with Soledad O’Brien, Christy Turlington Burns, and Malaak Compton-Rock. For a terrific synopsis and a “shoes-eye” view of those sessions, I suggest you read this post by my friend and fellow blogger Ronnie Citron-Fink.

The formal sessions. coupled with many small conversations, helped me clarify my goals. I realized that while my own blog allows me to feed my more creative side and speak my mind, I also want to be part of something bigger than myself. I left the conference even more determined to continue and expand my work for clean air and children’s health.

And while the conversations I had with others at the conference weren’t as personal as the ones between my mom and Rolande those many years ago, the support and friendship I felt as I pushed back my chair and left BlogHer’s enormous kitchen table was every bit as real.

This post was originally published by Women’s Voices for Change.

“P.S. Today Is One Hot Scortcher.”

19 Thursday Jul 2012

Posted by judithar321 in environment, health, mid-life transition, politics

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Catherine Tumber, climate change, fishing, grandchildren, grandparents, heat wave, humidity, letters from home, Moms Clean Air Force

The spelling is imperfect, but the card and note inside are priceless. My grandfather sent the card to me while I was away at overnight camp. Somehow, I have managed to hold onto it and other letters from home (more about those in another post) throughout several moves and numerous decades.

But my Poppy’s P.S. on this card comes to mind whenever we have a heat wave.

Other than his interesting spelling — which I’m just now noticing — I am also focusing on his choice of words, especially the word “one.” Back in the early- to mid- 1960s when the card was sent, we’d have the occasional oppressive day here in the Boston area — a real scorcher. It almost always cooled down at night and the extreme heat rarely lasted more than a day or two.

This week has been one of several this summer when we’ve had a whole string of days with high humidity and temperatures reaching well into the 90s. A few mornings ago, I walked into our kitchen to find that the outdoor thermometer read 80 degrees. “One day soon we’ll be waking to 90 degrees,” I commented gloomily to my husband. Indeed, I am dripping as I write this from my non-air-conditioned home office.

Many of you know that I write about climate change, air pollution, and their effects on children’s health for Moms Clean Air Force. But while I think everyone should understand the facts about climate change, I also want them to know that we can design, build, and act smarter so that future summer mornings don’t have to be even more oppressive than the ones we are living through now.*

I am fascinated by the idea of understanding and planning for the environmental impacts of what we do. While we must continue to demand that our representatives in Congress crack down on corporate polluters, and that both of our presidential candidates address this issue, I also find it comforting to talk about how we can do better in the future.

That is why I recently interviewed my former high school classmate, writer and historian Catherine Tumber, about how small cities may hold the answers for greener living.

“Renewable energy requires land for solar farms and wind turbines,” she told me. “And next generation hydropower requires special waterways. These smaller cities have those resources, making them a great asset to environmental health. Coal energy is a big polluter. These places have the resources to develop the alternative if we just have the political will.”

You can find Cathy’s book, Small, Gritty, and Green here.

My grandfather would be just as proud of me for writing about these issues as he and my mother were of his big fish in the photo below.  And he would be horrified to know that there would be a question about the safety of eating any fish I catch today.

He adored his grandchildren as I will my own if and when they materialize. And I’ll want to make sure they have the extras like he did (note the “Enclosed $1.00 for the cat’s milk”), but I also want them to have something that isn’t an “extra” at all: A planet where they can play outside, breath easy, catch—and even eat—a big fish or two.

*In this week’s New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert explains that global warming works on a time delay, writing “Behind this summer’s heat are greenhouse gases emitted decades ago.” She also notes that “Both President Obama and Mitt Romney have chosen to remain silent on the [climate change] issue, presumably because they see it as just too big a bummer.”

Giants, Fauna, and Flora, Oh My!

06 Sunday May 2012

Posted by judithar321 in environment, inspiration, pets

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

clean air, Concord ban on plastic water bottles, great danes, lady slipper, Moms Clean Air Force, pileated woodpecker

It was a busy week in the woods for Karina and me. On Monday, she was chased by a giant. (Apologies in advance for the poor filming. Think “The Blair Witch Project.”)

(Next time I’ll hold the camera horizontally.)

Then on Thursday, when we reached the spot where I usually let Karina off her leash, she suddenly lurched forward. There was a rush of wings and a bird I’d never seen before flew up onto a nearby tree.

It looked a lot like my old friend Woody Woodpecker. I wondered if I was hallucinating. How could something so fabulous be here?

I wasn’t quick enough with the iPhone to get a photo. In fact, I wish I hadn’t tried, because by the time I’d dug it out of my pocket, the bird had silently disappeared.

When I got home, I learned that it was a pileated woodpecker, fairly common in these parts, even though I’d never seen one before.

Photo courtesy of National Geographic

On Friday, we went back and gathered evidence.

And then this morning, I was reminded that in addition to giants and woodpeckers, fabulous things are turning up in these woods all the time.

Lady slippers are one of my favorite harbingers of spring. They are something I have seen my entire life. Some years they spring up all over these woods. Theirs is a delicate beauty.

I want my grandchildren to come here and see them some day, and I want them to feel the thrill that I felt when I saw my first pileated woodpecker.

That’s a big reason why I write for Moms Clean Air Force. We all need to protect our Mother Earth. In addition to this week’s woodland adventures with Karina, I also wrote a post for them about why Concord’s ban on plastic water bottles is a step forward for clean air.

Happy trails everyone!

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