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After two days of sun so bright and temperatures reaching 80F, we were hit with a forty degree drop and heavy rain. Rain so drunken that at 8:30pm when I was dozing in front of the television in snowflake flannel pajamas watching Derek Jacobi in LAST TANGO IN HALIFAX, the house mates woke me. "Mom, our room is leaking from the doorway ceiling!"

My head-of-household and motherly protective instincts kicked in. I assessed the dripping where someone had placed a towel on the floor. …

February 25, 2018 was a pleasant, warm and sunny day. The winter had been on the mild and dry side. Although a winter storm had left several inches of snow only days before, spring-like warmth and sunshine surged into the area. Finding the garden soil thawed but not too wet, I took the opportunity to rototill the entire garden and to sow triple rows of spinach and sweet peas. I also started kale and broccoli down in…

It's been months now since it happened. I figured that some distance would provide a more useful perspective on events rather than writing something while still in the fallout of the event. Who knows, arguably I'm in the perpetual fallout, the nuclear winter of our friendship. She would appreciate that line.

Flash back a month or so further, and I'm out of town on business. By pure chance I happen to be one town over from where she's living with her wife. The last time I saw her was before…

In professional sports, a "Gentleman's Sweep" is a playoff series that is won with the losing team winning a single game. A sweep is a playoff series where the winning team wins all the games, so the idea of a "Gentleman's Sweep" is that the victorious team concedes a single game to avoid humiliating the other team.

The term is usually used in a humorous manner, to refer to the frequent appearance of 4-1 series, and most people don't believe that teams would purposely lose a game in…