My dear friend, my best friend, my inspiration, Theresa Lynn Praskach, my Teri, died a bit after 4 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 26 at Montefiore Medical Center in Bronx, N.Y., where she had been brought after four days at White Plains Hospital. Teri was an artist, a master gardener, a farmer, a chef, and the kindest and funniest person I ever met.

The Big Chili contest has come and gone for another year. Held last weekend at the P.A. Club in Oak Bluffs, this most popular annual Island event drew 1,800 people to taste, vote and catch up with their neighbors

The temperature dropped. The snow dropped. The kids dropped down the hill at the outlook on all kinds of sleds on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday on Monday. Stellar sledder was Piper Murphy’s daughter, Mary Afton, on a new sled painted like a penguin. I have a new project for Mary Afton and all you pet lovers. Sunday from 2 to 4 p.m. at our Chicken Alley Thrift Shop a $4 entrance charge will provide us with materials while we are taught to sew blanket beds for dogs, kittens, gerbils, whatever. Sounds like a fun Sunday afternoon. Everyone is welcome.