Wake the Devil cover The Thirsty Crows!

 

Can it be considered a 'cover' if there are members from the original band who wrote song performing in the band covering it? Probably. I'll say this - I am extremely attached to every song on The Thirsty Crows' Handman's Noose; however, this is fantastic!

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Read:

I finally had a chance over the weekend to sit down and read Rebekah and David Ian McKendry's Barstow.

Four tight issues that tell a weird A.F. story that brings to mind Jeff Lemire and Gabriel H. Walta's Phantom Road and, I think, Greydon Clark's The Return. Barstow takes place in the desert, and if you've spent any time eating hallucinogens in Joshua Tree or an equivalent location, this will resonate. If you haven't, this is still a damn good time, with a mix of Body Horror, Satan Horror and a skosh of procedural thrown in to boot. 

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Watch:

Ari Aster's Eddington is probably not my favorite film of the year - its unflinching approach to America 2020 dovetails with the country we live in five years later. It doesn't pick at the low-hanging fruit by blaming politicians. Instead, it blames US. 

As with Aster's previous film, Beau is Afraid, there is a lot of humor here. It's dark and subtle and twisted, though, and honestly, my uproarious laughter was, at one point during our showtime, misinterpreted by a fellow audience member. There could have been trouble, but instead, I think the misinterpreter realized his mistake as he adjusted to the movie's voice, and by the end of the film, he was laughing just as loud as I was. 

I will say, I was expecting something approaching Civil War's "reasons to hate humanity" vibe, and instead, Aster pokes a kind of almost good-natured fun at just how stupid our species is. 

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Playlist:

Ozzy Osbourne - Patient No. 9

Mick Harvey - One Man's Treasure

Deafheaven - Lonely People With Power

Them Crooked Vultures - Eponymous

Grinderman - Grinderman 2

Amigo the Devil - I Hope Your Husband Dies (Bridge City Sessions)

Amigo the Devil - 

Anthrax - Sound of White Noise

YUNGBLUD - Idols

G.B.H. - City Baby Attacked By Rats

Aerosmith - Pump

Zeal & Ardor - GREIF

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• IX: The Hermit

• Ten of Swords

• King of Cups

Spend some time alone working on things or there is going to be an issue with getting things finished. 

New Music From NIN!!!

 

I became excited when I saw that a new NIN track dropped yesterday. Alas, from what I see, this does not arrive ahead of an album, but the soundtrack for Tron: Not This Again. With NIN helming it, the OST will likely be solid, but it will likely lean into instrumentals. As much as I dig Ross and Reznor's ambient/score music, I was hoping for a full-on, proper NIN album. We'll see.

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Watch:

Well, what the hell do you know? Stranger Things season 5 finally gets a teaser? 

The wait on this one has been ludicrous to say the very least. That said, I have faith the Duffer Brothers will stick the landing and possibly propel the cast into a Golden Girls-esque sitcom as a sort of postscript.

I can't stress enough, A) How much I loved the previous season, and B) how much damage I think postponing this final season has done the show overall. You can't drag stories like this out this long and expect the material not to suffer.  

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Read:

A few weeks ago, my good friend Chris Saunders clued me in on a series of novels written by Matt Dinniman called Dungeon Crawler Carl. This is a series with six books already released, so that's usually a pretty good excuse for me to pass (Friends have been asking me to read Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden books for nearly 20 years, but even back then, there were too many of them; there's just too much shit to read!)

Here's the solicitation:

"You know what’s worse than breaking up with your girlfriend? Being stuck with her prize-winning show cat. And you know what’s worse than that? An alien invasion, the destruction of all man-made structures on Earth, and the systematic exploitation of all the survivors for a sadistic intergalactic game show. That’s what. Join Coast Guard vet Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut, as they try to survive the end of the world—or just get to the next level—in a video game–like, trap-filled fantasy dungeon. A dungeon that’s actually the set of a reality television show with countless viewers across the galaxy. Exploding goblins. Magical potions. Deadly, drug-dealing llamas. This ain’t your ordinary game show."

The thing that drew me in was how much Douglas Adams I sensed as Chris described it to me. The aliens show up to drain and destroy Earth for blatantly corporate reasons, and use the "game show" as an industry unto itself. So far, I definitely see the Adams influence, but also, Dinniman is a fantastic writer whose prose moves swiftly without forsaking his characters. An extremly enjoyable reading experience.

Check out the Author's website HERE.

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Playlist:

Spoon - Lucifer On the Sofa

The Soft Moon - Criminal

Ministry - Filth Pig

Deadguy - Near-Death Travel Services

Drug Church - Prude

Turnstile - GLOW ON

Pigface - Welcome to Mexico Asshole

Baroness - Live at Maida Vale, Vol. 1

Baroness - Live at Maida Vale, Vol. 2

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Four of Wands

• Eight of Swords

• Ten of Wands

Completion. Interference and thwarted Will.

Completion is blocked by our own lacklustre willpower to actually focus. Interference is the enemy of all success, i.e. my waivering attention span of late is severly hampering my work. 

New Music from Deftones!

From the LONG-AWAITED album Private Music, out August 22nd. Order HERE. Easily one of my most anticipated albums of the last five years, I'm absolutely stoked we're getting this next month. I cannot wait to put on headphones, smoke some pot (increasingly rare) and listen to this record from start to finish. 

 

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NCBD:

HUGE haul today. Let's dive in:

Oni's resurrection of EC comics continues to evolve. No sooner did Epitaphs From the Abyss end, than the the Grave Digger has passed the proverbial Horror mic to his cohort, The Tormentor, for the new series Catacomb of Torment. 

New Z News! I still have barely scratched the surface of the backlog of issues I picked up in Chicago last month, but good to no it's still going. 

Has this series had the best covers of 2025? Maybe. I'm still loving that this is bi-monthly and wondering how we lucked into that? Reminds me of the old 80s Turtles, when it would come out bi-monthly or... maybe later. Either way, it's been very cool to see Jason Aaron come on board with the brothers completely pulled apart and slowly... oh so slowly... put them back together. 

Oh man. Crisis time - Phantom Road's current arc, The Horror Men, ends next issue and the solicitations on League of Comic Book Geeks ends there, so that means, with Lemire having all the irons in the fire he does, this series is about to go back on hiatus. 

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

One of my most anticipated books when it's dropping, it's hard to imagine going another couple of months without Phantom Road. But I guess we do what we have to do.

 

I have been waiting for Imperial issue 2 for what feels like months! I loved the first issue, and cannot wait to jump back in, especially with Hulk's proclamation of "War" at the end of the first issue!

This whole "Baroness as a Joe" scenario continues despite the hope last issue's cover instilled in me. Oh well, I'll just shut my mouth because at this point, there's probably no way I'm not going to continue this series. The one silver lining is the burgeoning friendship between Clutch and Hound. LOVE that development A LOT! Hear Mike Shin and I talk about this on the new episode of Drinking with Comics, HERE.

\Speaking of the latest episode of Drinking with Comics, I convinced my cohost, Mike Shin, to read Ben Winters and Leomacs' Philip K. Dick amalgamation, Benjamin, and he loved it! What's not to love? PKD lived an absolutely fascinating life, and, in retrospect, it blows my mind that it took this long for someone to use that life as fodder for a fictional story! Issue two drops tomorrow, and I cannot wait!!!

I wasn't blown away by issue one of "Death of the Silver Surfer," probably because the whole "Death of" idea seems incredibly passé at this point. That said, there's no way in hell I'm not buying a book with this cover. Holy smokes!

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Watch:

Two episodes from the finale and I have to say, Ian Carpenter and Aaron Martin's Hell Motel (i.e. Slasher, season six) might just be the Horror Event of 2025! Every episode has been fantastic, but this week's? Chef's fucking kiss!

This show is so expertly plotted. A perfectly maddening Whodunit? combined with all the beautifully brutal flourishes Slasher is known for, the combination just works so goddamn well! Also, while I gave props to Martin and Carpenter up front as the creators, lest it not be forgotten that the inimitable Adam MacDonald directed all of these nasty little fuckers. 

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Playlist:

Ty Segall - Possession

Deftones - White Pony

Deftones - Saturday Night Wrist

Deftones - Eponymous

dan le sac Vs. Scroobius Pip - Angles

Drug Church - Prude

Hangman's Chair - Saddiction

YUNGBLUD - Idols

Horrendous - Ontological Mysterium

Ozzy Osbourne - Patient No. 9

Blind Willie McTell - Complete Recorded Works In Chronological Order (Vol. 1)

Willie Nelson - Oh What a Beautiful World Songs of Rodney Crowell

Reggie Watts - Fuck Shit Stack (single)

Jogger - Nephicide (single)

Mi Loco Tango - Rocco and His Brothers (single)

Abby Sage - Smoke Break (single)

Abby Sage - The Rot

Crystal Castles - II

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Nine of Swords

• IX: The Hermit

• Nine of Wands

Two nines? Not sure this has occurred for me before. Climax and accomplishment? That combined with the Hermit actually lead me to believe this is a direct acknowledgement by the cosmos (ie my inner self) that I've earned the break I've taken, through the accomplishment of finishing my book and the culmination of Sweetie's existence. But it's almost time to really tune back in,. 

New Much From Wake The Devil!!!

 

My good friend and former Thirsty Crow Chris Saunders' new group, Wake the Devil, released another single last week, the group's first foray into Country.

It's fantastic.

We listened to this on repeat last Thursday while driving Sweetie to what we were pretty sure was going to be her final Vet visit, and in that twenty or so minutes, I feel in love with this track and it simultaneously burned itself into my DNA for all time.

I cannot wait for a proper release from these guys. 
 

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Play:

Thanks to the mighty Bloody Disgusting for the heads up on this GROGEOUS Horror game coming to Switch on the 24th of July. I'd not heard of this, but SOMA is definitely now on my list:

I need to make some time coming up to play some of the games I still have lingering in half-completed states. I basically sat around the house all weekend mourning and didn't lift a thumb to make any progress on Inside, or Blasphemous, or Call of Cthulhu, or any of the Puppet Combo games - although those I honestly don't care about winning at all, as they are all about the atmosphere. That's the thing, though, and it's not a bad thing - I'd always rather read, or write, or watch a flick than play a video game. I can the spurts of interest and commitment where I find them. 

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Read:

I finished Timothy James' Like • Comment • Survive so quickly, I forgot to post about it here. 

Upon starting Like Comment Survive, I was initially taken aback by the found footage formatting of the prose and feared this would infringe on my reading experience. NOT TRUE! Holy cow - the formatting sucked me right in. 

James' characters are very well-developed, and the scenario he sets up instantly intriguing. I read this over the course of three days, winnowing out spare time from a busy schedule just to creep a few more pages in here and there. One of the most immersive reads I've had in a while.

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Playlist:

Ozzy Osbourne - Patient No. 9

Ian Lynch - All You Need Is Death OST

Tim Hecker - Infinity Pool OST

The Flaming Lips - Hit To Death in the Future Head

The Dead Milkmen - The King in Yellow

Spoon - Lucifer On the Sofa

The Sword - Warp Riders

Wake the Devil - Lonely Road (single)

Jimmy Eat World - The Sweetness (single)

Deadguy - Near-Death Travel Services

Deftones - My Mind is a Mountain (single)

Deafheaven - Winnona (KEXP performance)

Willie Nelson - Oh What a Beautiful World Songs of Rodney Crowell

Willie Nelson & Leon Russell - One For the Road

Ghost - Skeleta

Goatsnake - Black Age Blues

Misfits - Walk Among Us

Suicidal Tendencies - Lights... Camera... Revolution!

Buckcherry - Eponymous

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Three of Cups

• Six of Cups

• Nine of Pentacles

The overflowing emotion of the first two cards I get. This has been a mourning weekend. I'm not sure where the Nine of Pentacles fits in, but maybe it's enough to know I will be able to temper my emotions with the daily grind this week. I certainly was barely capable of tempering them with anything other than Sierra Nevada and movies over the last few days. 

The Sweetness

Sweetie is gone. 

I'm not really a Jimmy Eat World fan, but one of my many nicknames for Sweetie was The Sweetness, so I've always held a spot for this one in my heart. Plus, it is a great song, regardless of how I feel about the rest of the group's music, which isn't terrible, but just seems like so much more of that mid-level radio fodder of the year it came out, 2002. 

The Sweetness found us on July 16th, 2016 - four months and one day after Tom died. She was another cat abandoned to San Pedro's wilds, and we went through a lot with her over the not even 9 years she had us. Our time in the little apartment in Redondo Beach didn't exactly make her happy, but since moving to TN and giving her a whole house and a backyard she spent almost every day all day in, we could see how we'd changed her life and even her attitude. A once "tough love" cat became amazingly affectionate. She slept between Kirsten and I almost every night since arriving here and now, well, it's hard to move on. Luckily, we have Knox, the younger brother that Sweetie didn't ask for or want, and who is himself a bit standoffish with affection.

We'll break him of that habit. 

Regular posts will resume Monday. For now, I'm too devastated to do much of anything.

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New Music From Blackbraid!!!

 

Blackbraid III will be released independently on August 8th, and you can pre-order directly from the artist HERE. 

I'll tell you, I have no problem spending whatever an artist wants to sell their physical media for in 2025 because they need to recoup the cost of services like spotify raping them (while pouring their profits in to the AI arms race). This Blackbraid merchandise looks fantastic - I had to restrain the impulse to buy one of the bundles with the shirt and hoodie - and this is easily the best-looking vinyl release I've seen all year. 

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NCBD:

A pretty robust haul this week. Let's go!

This time, it's all about the "B" cover! LOVE this! Those shadowy Decepticon images amidst fire and ruin, with  Only two issues left with DWJ. I haven't seen who is taking over, but it looks like it's just in time for Quintesson War, which starts in Void Rivals 25 and, I'd imagine, will at the very least echo through this book.

My first issue of Savage Sword as a now monthly subscriber and I'm psyched! I owe a huge debt to my good friend Grimm for turning me onto this book. 

I have been looking forward to Planet Death number one since stumbling on issue 0 last month. If you want to know more, check out the Drinking with Comics Mike Shinabarger and I did on this one HERE.

Dark Regrets is turning out to be insanely fun and pretty damn funny to boot! As much as I love Black Metal and (most) of its aesthetic, you have to admit, there's a lot there to make fun of.

Look at that cover by Miguel Mercado! And inside, Andrea Sorrentino's art adds an extra punch to the first mini-series spin-off from the anthology Epitaphs From the Abyss. Not sure if there are any more coming after this wraps up with issue number 4, but hopefully. That's the awesome thing about running an anthology - you can always mine the stories therein for longer ones down the road.

The penultimate issue of Dark Pattern's Case 03: Pareidolia. Can't wait to see where this is going. I've sampled a handful of Batman books over the last year - the first book* to feature the dark detective that I've read in years - and this? This has been one of my favorites (but nothing beats Gargoyle of Gotham!)

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* Not entirely true; there was that Maxx/Batman book a few years ago. I didn't buy that for Batman, though.

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Watch:

A few days ago, I mentioned my Criterion Sale items, Repo Man and Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Cure. Since I spoke a bit about Repo Man the other day, I wanted to talk now about Cure. 

I've heard about this one for years, but somehow never got around to it until now. Wow. Talk about atmospheric! There is a beautiful pall that hangs over this film, and while it grinds the characters to dust, it creates a singular cinematic experience for the viewer. The tension is so quiet! That's gotta be hard to do, because no one does it. At least, not like Kurosawa does here. 

For years, one of the things I always saw referenced about this film was how it was the start of the Japanese Horror movement of the late 90s/early 00s. That was an immediate turn-off, because with few exceptions, I'm not really a fan of that era of Japanese Horror. I see now that both the inclusion of Cure in with films like Ringu and Juwon is a false relation, and my own preconceived notions about Japanese Horror from that era are wrong. I wouldn't call either a sweeping generalization, but it's close. It's also a great reminder to draw my own conclusions. Sometimes, certain cinematics feel akin to a quagmire, and I after a small sampling, I run for the hills. Best not to do that, and Cure is the, well, cure?

I loved this film and am happy to have it on my shelf. Further study is on the horizon.

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Playlist:

Stephen Sanchez - Angel Face

The Dillinger Escape Plan - Miss Machine

Metallica - Master of Puppets

Arcade Fire - Everything Now

Shellac - 1000 Hurts

The Reverend Horton Heat - Liquor in the Front

Sonic Youth - Dirty

Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation

bunsenburner - Reverie

Ozzy Osbourne - Blizzard of Ozz

Ike Reilly - Salesmen and Racists

Muggs - Dust

Blackbraid - The Dying Breath of the Stag (pre-release single)

Black Sabbath - Master of Reality*

Ozzy Osbourne - Patient No. 9

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* Read a fantastic article about a girl who owns 54 different vinyl pressings of Master of Reality HERE.

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Queen of Cups

• Eight of Pentacles

• Four of Wands

Queen of Cups again - as I write this on Tuesday afternoon, Sweetie has returned from surgery. A section of her intestines is enlarged, and - tests pending - it's likely lymphoma. We have been instructed to begin administering Prednisone today, which the Vet says should help hold it at bay and make her feel better. Once the lab results come back and we know for sure what we're dealing with, we can proceed. It's not the best result, but for now, I will take it and lavish her with Queen of Cups-sized emotion.

Eight of Pentacles - dedication. 

Four of Swords - two interpretations that I can see lining up from those in the Grimoire. The first is completion and balance. The second is, "recognize completion and channel it into the next phase." These would seem to be offering two separate wisps of advice, because, of course, I'm interpreting this all about Sweetie. It's not an easy thing to let a loved one suffer, and that is definitely not our intention. So the idea is we treat it best we can. If it's lymphoma, we'll do chemo, which for cats isn't the same as it is for people. We're talking about a pill. I don't know, I have to do a lot more research. First things first, though. We need those results.

Papa V Perpetua Sings Bark At the Moon!!!

NOTE: There was originally a stream version of this posted to YouTube, but a copyright claim by Mercury Records ultimately resulted in its removal. When I saw this video by PigeonPaul82 pop up, I made the switch. Give this man's channel a gander - lots of great stuff. 

Papa V Perpetua singing "Bark at the Moon" at the Farewell Ozzy show. Not my favorite Ozzy record, but I'll take it. Also, I thought this was a Farewell Black Sabbath show, what with all four original members finally being reunited on stage, but I guess it's changed to focus on saying goodbye to Ozzy? Makes me think there's some medical diagnosis I missed. 

I know there's a ton of hype for this, and it streamed as a pay-per-view event, but I paid next to no attention to any of it. I am a die-hard Black Sabbath fan, but in my eyes, the band ceased to exist about a year after Technical Ecstasy came out. I did manage to see them at the first Ozzfests in both '97 and '99 - the first time with Mike Bordin from Faith No More on drums, the second with Bill Ward, and I'm definitely happy I did, however, that was good enough. Not throwing shade - you look at the crowd in this video and there are a lot of younger generations present. I'm super happy they got to experience Ozzy and Sabbath the way I have over the years. Well, maybe not exactly the way I did, but you know what I mean. 

Interestingly enough, I think my third concert ever was the original No More Tours tour, on August 23rd, 1992. Damn do I wish I still had the tour shirt I bought at that concert!

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Watch:

The Criterion sale is underway, and I picked up two movies: Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Cure and Alex Cox's Repo Man. I'd like to take a minute to talk a bit about the latter. 

Somehow, I did not see Repo Man for the first time until around 2015. Over the last ten years, I've probably watched it five times, each time growing increasingly excited by the film. Upon watching it the other night, I made a connection that struck me as so obvious, I'm not sure how I didn't see it before: William Burroughs' influence is all over this film! I think I intuitively understood this in that section of my lizard brain that sorts and catalogues all the movies, comics, fiction and other errata I consume, but that understanding only just made it to surface-level brain. 

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Read:

K and I finally had a chance to stop by the newly opened Clarksville Bookshop and we were not disappointed. A super nice family owns the store, and after chatting for a bit, we were both able to pick up a book. For myself, I left with a beautiful hardcover copy of the new Stephen Graham Jones novel, The Buffalo Hunter Hunter. 

I didn't even realize this was out yet, and although I missed I Was A Teenage Slasher, I'm psyched to jump into a completely new novel by Jones that I know absolutely nothing about. I'm not even going to follow my usual protocol and paste in a solicitation blurb for fear I may read something I don't want to. 

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Playlist:

Willie Nelson - Oh What a Beautiful World Songs of Rodney Crowell

Arctic Monkeys - AM

The Grimm Teachaz - There's a Situation on the Homefront

Young Widows - Power Sucker

Various - Return of the Living Dead OST

Dreamkid - Daggers

G.B.H. - A Fridge Too Far

Deadguy - Near-Death Travel Services

Dr. John - Things Happen That Way

Ty Segall - Possession

T. Rex - The Slider

bunsenburner - Reverie

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - PetroDragonic  Apocalypse

Various - Rocktober Blood OST

Billy Idol - Rebel Yell

Melvins - Thunderball

Blood Incantation - Absolute Everywhere

Somnium Nox - Apocrypha EP

Nachtmystium - As Made (Single)

Stephen Sanchez - Angel Face

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Ace of Swords

• Queen of Cups

• XIX: The Sun

A breakthrough of Will, heavy Emotion and Revelation. I don't have any idea how this relates to the only thing on my mind this morning - that our Cat Sweetie has to have exploratory surgery and possible mass removal tomorrow, but perhaps I can pin down my emotions (there's that one!) long enough to dig deeper.

One of the notes in my Grimoire for XIX is "Taking the pill will open your eyes." This is peripherally appropriate, as we've been giving her Meclizine (Dramamine 2) for the last five days to try to help her wavering balance and eyesight. This all came out of absolutely NOWHERE, and it reminds me how intense and uncertain the Universe is. 

The Queen of Cups is LOVE and BEAUTY, two attributes I definitely associate with Sweetie and our love for her. This cat has been with us since 2016 when we adopted her as a San Pedro Stray, same as Tom before her. We've found the greatest joy in moving to TN with her and seeing her take to having a backyard she can lounge around in all day, hunt, whatever. This cannot be the end of Sweetie. It just cannot.