Parental Negligence

Tuk ne se vzema
A se ostava
“Come on, kids!”
The alpine meadow was so close to the border that our phones got welcome messages from the Republic of North Macedonia. Grass spread out before us, speckled with violets and only slightly soggy, to a hill and a little white church.
Pavlina wanted to walk up there, and I was eager to walk off some of the Easter cake I’d eaten, but Maggie and Ellie had found a stick. Their desires were, in decreasing order: twirl the stick, take the stick from the other one, complain about the stick being taken, complain about the stick not be shared, scream, roll around on the wet grass, give up the stick, share the stick, find anything else to play with, walk up the hill.
So, we left them. Pavlina and I hiked until our children were tiny, brightly colored dots, rolling around in a field of green, almost inaudible.
Imagine a long box, covered in cement and peeling whitewash, pierced by a few tiny windows. The roof line was slightly lopsided, and there was no steeple, just a collapsing, gazebo-like enclosure that might have once held a bell. The church was completely empty, but it was not abandoned. Keys hung on a nail hammered into the door frame, along with a note: Here nothing is taken, only left.
It meant that you don’t go to church go get something from God, but to leave something for Him. Also don’t steal the candles.
“The Macedonian style,” said Pavlina. “We’ve seen churches like this in Kavala and Prespa.”
The door was not in the church’s southern face, leading directly into the nave. To the right is the templon, decorated with icons. The second to the left is the patron of this church, I think Saint George. Look up and see Christ on the cross, with a snake under His feet and Adam’s skull under the snake. Further up, and Christ Pantocrator sits at the center of the ceiling, surrounding by angels.
The builders of this church had installed columns to hold that ceiling up with a degree of craftsmanship that I am in no position to criticize. I will say that the columns had been sponged with white and gray paint and had little sculpted lumps decorating their capitals. They meandered quite a bit on their journey from the floor to the ceiling, but they got there.
On the walk up, I’d been chattering something I’d read online, which Pavlina says she finds soothing. On the way back, though, I was quieter. We commented to each other on the wildflowers and mountains visible to the north and east. When our children were our age, what would exasperate them about our generation?
When we found them, Maggie and Ellie were still arguing about the stick.

In other news, I broke through a wall with Wealthgiver, which was a big battle scene with no predecessors from previous drafts as from a few notes on the order of “that sure was a cool scene we just witnessed.” Now, the battle scene is done, and in fact higher-tier patrons can read it here.
That chapter will become available to everyone in a couple of months, which might be news to you. Yes, readers, every chapter of Wealthgiver becomes free to the public after 10 weeks. The whole first third of the book is free right now. You can read it on Substack, Patreon, or Royal Road.
If you go to Patreon, this is the page to use. The platform should automatically generate an index, but it keeps scrambling the order and dropping chapters. Use the index that I made.
Finally, I had a bit of fun in the First Knife* universe, creating a post-apocalyptic version of English called Vekhiz.

And I read some books last month.
The Fourth Turning is Here by Neil Howe*
This book is as interesting and flawed in the same way as American nations. Where Woodard says “Yankees be like this,” Howe says “Boomer be like that.” The best parts of this book are when it’s most like a novel, with characters struggling in and remaking a world, only to be betrayed by the children they bring up in that world. I keep thinking about it, casting people I know and read about into the mold of Hero, Artist, and so on, and that’s fun. As entertaining as it is to slice people up in different ways, though, I’m not sure how quickly this lens stops illuminating and starts blinding.
Crashing the System by Inadvisably Compelled
The author sent me a copy and asked for a review, but I’d actually already pre-ordered my own. I’m glad I did, because Inadvisably Compelled usually delivers on his promises. In this case, that means the utter destruction of the magical, galaxy-spanning System. The way he takes it out is good, although I wish he’d dug in more. There are a couple of places (the bad guys achieving godhood, the side-kick’s bringing people into their conspiracy) where success came too easily. I did appreciate it, though, when those self-satisfied bumblers vanished up their own asses.
Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy
I wouldn’t excommunicate Tolstoy for writing this book, but I don’t want to read it again. It’s a fine story all the way up to the end, at which point it collapses into a treatise on a particular form of 19th-century land taxation, called Georgism. There’s a reason Tolstoy is remembered as a genius novelist and not a genius economics communicator. What about the characters, Lev?
Frieren
I watched this anime with my wife and daughters because it’s an interesting meditation on time and mortality. There are times, too, where the animators deciding to really put their hearts and souls into showing a character slightly change the angle of her chin. Nice. But for the love of conflict, nobody has an emotional range beyond somewhat satisfied or slightly piqued. They’ll stand in front of each other and monotone about how much they want to kill each other for half an hour. Somebody have an emotional breakdown!
Road Belong Cargo (a review) by Jane Psmith
A fine companion to Germs, Guns, and Steel. So good a companion, in fact, that you don’t need to bother with Jared Diamond. Just read about what was really going on with Yali and the Cargo Cults, which is a specific kind of civilization crab-bucket that can keep you down for forty thousand years.

See you next month
*Links to books are all Amazon affiliate links