The challenge was issued by Eleanor Chen via video call at exactly 9:00 AM on a Saturday morning in late November.
She appeared on the large screen in the living room wrapped in a wool coat the color of winter sky, her silver hair pinned in its usual elegant updo, her sharp eyes surveying the assembled household with the expression of a general preparing to deploy troops. Behind her, the skeletal remains of her autumn rose bushes were visible through the garden window—seventeen bare branches reaching toward a pale morning sun. They had died, as they always did, but Eleanor had already ordered next spring's replacements. The catalog was on her desk, dog-eared and annotated.
