She stared at him, attempting to employ the control voice, passed down from the Aliens to the Egyptians, akin to the one made famous in Dune's Bene Gesserit. Her command:
GIVE ME MORE TREATS
Unfortunately, the amount of Ra's (those with the gift) in her lineage was scant. While the voice had little effect, her persistence won out and she got what she wanted.
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When she saw the wayward young black cat slinking in the shadows under the pool deck, she sat up in the Egyptian pose and gave him the dowager Madame stare: "You're not wanted here, go home". He got the message and quickly vanished around the corner of the pool. "Fool" she thought, "damn fool". Her son Minnaloushe was wayward, disappearing sometimes for days in Paris and continued doing so in their new home. Then one day, came terrible news: Minn had died in the street. She and Mom were heartbroken. Mom had helped with his birth. Madame sighed and settled down on her side in the final patch of sun of the day.
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I had never heard the collective name "a quarrel of sparrows" until coming across it the other day. Quite accurate as we can attest to such sparrow visitations often in the early evening. We can hear them off in the neighbor's yard and soon they are either in the Japanese willows or the honeysuckles in the Back 40. Our nickname for them is the "Raucous Caucus" for they are as noisy as the name implies and I can see how "quarrel" seemed apt. There are a number of raised voices engaged in loud, frenetic bursts, like an Italian family reunion sped up to 45 rpm.
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While shopping at Lowe's, he asked a clerk where he could find insecticide. "What's that?" replied the clerk. "It kills bugs" he explained. "Oh yeah, against the far wall by the doors going to the garden center" she chirped. "Good grief", he thought, am I going to have to start dumbing down my vocabulary when out and about?"
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