Except I posted this one on Instagram and an Insty friend noticed that the guy on the right buying apples could possibly be her brother. Who lives here on The Planet Ann Arbor and who I know… Small world.

I’m not friends with her on Instagram because I know her brother. I found her because she and wanderfacts were friends and I figgered out by her yooperland posts that she was my friend’s sister. And then I friended her. I *am* friends with her brother on Instagram. I don’t know if it’s her brother or not and I’m not sure she can tell either. I was not focused on people’s faces on that quick dark pandemic seven AM trip. I’m sure he’s capable of getting to the market at that early hour but I don’t know if it’s his habit. But still, small world, online or off.

I was especially good friends with her brother’s first wife Paula, who died quite unexpectedly in 2004. It was in December and it was one of the darkest, fugliest weeks I can remember. One of the beach urchins was friends with their daughter and between that and play rehearsals, Senora (her language teacher) called me to say she had sent my kid home. She wasn’t sick, just exhausted. When I made the official absence call, I got someone really rude who insinuated that I was covering up for some sort of delinquency. Um, no, she’s been with her friend whose mother just died, jeebus. This was not typical of that school so there must’ve been an office sub. When I followed up with Senora, she was also nonplussed and reminded me that my kid was a straight-A senior student.

Paula and I worked together on the youth theatre guild our kids belonged to. I LOVED the guild and the GIFTED executive/artistic director but SHE and various PARENTS could sometimes drive me around the bend. Paula and I shared a certain “wry” sense of humor and we would often get into email exchanges about whatever backstage drama was going on at the moment and she would literally have me falling out of my chair laughing. Miss her and will never forget her.

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