Just a reminder that the commentary will be a week behind for a few weeks. Eventually, there will be a catch up, but not right away.
Trish wants Jackie to be happy, like a good friend would. Trish has also seen Jackie's lack of love life. Trish has an active dating life and is happy with it. Naturally, she sees the best way for Jackie to be happy is for her to find someone. And Jackie is happy after seeing Lance. Trish makes the obvious conclusion. I just wish that the story had gone that way. But Trish is acting as the gauge on who Jackie should end with at the end of the story.
The threat of Trish becoming Columbo is a dire one. Columbo's method of investigation is to find the key clue, then hound the murderer until they break. The murderers didn't have Columbo living with them. Trish is going to find out the truth or break Jackie in the interrogation. Knowing this, Jackie crumbled. And Trish gets to smack her with reality.
Strange weather isn't odd for Ottawa. The city gets weather extremes, often over the course of two or three days. Imagine a day where the high is -30° Celcius and the low is -40°, then the next day, the temperature goes up 20-30 degrees, stays around or even just above freezing for a day or three, then plunges back down to -30°. That was Winter 2018-2019. I have seen rain clouds completely miss parts of the city. Weather trackers mention the Ottawa "rain shield". One year, the grass was greener a few days before Christmas than in June. I have been in a low-hanging cloud bank pretending to be fog on the Queensway that would stay on the highway, even if there were exits to lower roads. Those lower roads were clear. Oh, and three tornadoes hitting populated areas that weren't trailer parks last year have to count for something. So making the weather strange for Ottawa meant trying to work out what would be odd.
It's late fall in Digital Magic, so temperatures jumping around isn't that odd. A weather system getting stopped at city limits is, especially when city limits follow township lines and not geographic features in the west end. Weather cares not for man-made limits and should just blow through, barring the above-mentioned rain shield. Here, though, there's a block.
Lightning during a snowstorm does happen. Ottawa gets thundersnow during winters, but they're always the actinic blue of regular lightning, not the rainbow of colours Trish and Jackie saw.
The blackout Jackie mentions is the 2003 blackout that saw Ontario and several northeastern states lose power. Quebec, since it runs on its own power system that needs transformers to interact with the rest of the continent's power grid, wasn't affected. Prior to that one, there was Ice Storm 1998 that caused blackouts by the sheer mass of ice on power lines. In 2003, I had just left work to go meet with an investment broker of sorts and was sitting with her at a Tim Horton's when everything went off. The sun was still out as it was the start of rush hour, so that wasn't a problem. I saw the crowds building, so decided to wait to let them die down a bit. I even went to the counter to get another drink and fortunately, I had cash. Everyone was going home. When I left, I saw downtown had no power. I get home, still no power, and I lived on the 20th floor at the time. That was a hike. Had to stop twice to catch my breath. Got home, no power, no water pressure, and once the sun set, not much to do except go to bed in the dark with the cats. Fun.
Tomorrow, a quick discussion on the story's direction.
Friday, over at Psycho Drive-In, hiatus week.
Saturday, over at The Seventh Sanctum, a fan-made four setting crossover.
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