Need a spanner scanner…

macsistersI know… I’ve kvetched about that here on my blahg and also on facebook and even though I have received good advice, I still don’t have a workable solution. The thing is we HAVE a blasted spanner scanner. The GG’s Mothership can talk to it just fine. I cannot for the love of Mike get my loverly late-model MacBook Pro to talk to it. I don’t LIKE to have to use it from the Mothership because, well, it’s the GG’s ‘puter and he’s usually using it. My lame excuse? Of course, “I don’t have time, I work.” (say it in a sad sing-song-ey type voice).

(Wouldn’t you know that, just now as I am writing this, the GG went down into the dungeon and dredged out a blasted spanner scanner that DOES hook up to my MacBook Pro AND it scans slides and negatives! I *thought* we had a beastie like that around here somewhere but I was clueless as to where it was.)

Anyway, that photooo shows the MacMullan sisters of Garden City. There’s Roberta on the left, she’s the oldest daughter and big sis of five children. Charlotte is in the middle, youngest daughter and fourth of five. The Commander is on the right, middle child and middle daughter.

As life would have it, it was the youngest of the three who died first. Charlotte was 79 when she went out to walk the [obnoxious] dog and collapsed of a heart attack. This happened a couple weeks before 9/11, a harbinger of horrific things to come, maybe. Charlotte was my favorite MacMullan aunt (and my mom’s favorite sister) and although I was stoic about this, I remember taking a river drive just so I could see the GG out there in his kayak. The Commander and Grandroobly drove down to Charlotte’s funeral and after that trip, Grandroobly announced to The Comm that he was not going to drive south again. And he didn’t. And so they missed Lizard Breath’s high school graduation party the next spring. Charlotte was a classically trained soprano and her funeral was a formal one in the church where she had led the choir for many years. The Commander was kind of put out about that. I could never quite figure out why. I thought it was appropriate. There was a lot of classical singing and I think Charlotte probably sang and/or directed the choir for a lot of funerals and I bet she would have liked that her choir did that for her funeral.

The Comm died next (my five readers know that) but not until she was 91! We did a funeral home visitation but no service. I don’t think The Comm would have wanted a service. We were never a particularly religious branch of the family and she was still pissed off at the Methodist minister preacher that blew her off when Grandroobly died. I have to add here that the Methodist *minister* who was serving as mom was dying was pretty cool and I think she actually liked him. Although she mentioned that he wasn’t really all that good looking. Big grin. I hope he isn’t reading this. Honestly, my mooom could be a bit judgmental about other people’s looks. Not the best trait…

Wouldn’t you know, Roberta, eldest of the sisters died last, at 98 or whatever. I was not even notified when she died. That was okay with me. Only their youngest brother is still alive and he is struggling. My uber-cuzzint Terri told me about it over cocktails or whine or whatever at the moomincabin last summer. “Did you know Roberta died?” KW does a spit-take! Terri didn’t know about it right away either. We both laughed our asses off. Life is what it is. I’m pretty sure there wasn’t a funeral.

The Commander did not get along with Roberta all that well, at least not in later years. Their mother died in a car accident when The Comm was 15 and I suspect that Roberta tried to become the mom of the fam. Lots of complicated stuff that I won’t put on the internet (and don’t know all of) but I’ll never fergit when I brought The Comm down to The Landfill after Grandroobly died. We went over to Megalopolis to take Roberta out to lunch and the two sisters started to argue and The Comm threatened to leave the restaurant we were at. It was POURING RAIN, fer kee-reist. I somehow settled that down. Roberta was quite the piece of work but she was the aunt who kept me supplied with origami paper and instructional books when I was a kid. I spent *hours* doing origami in those days. And she was the aunt who gave me false eyelashes at the age of 12. Oh boy oh boy, did *those* ever look good on *me* [sarcasm]. I’m sure The Comm was not particularly thrilled with that gift. Alas, she sounds like a cool aunt but in reality she was so self-centered it was hard to have a two-sided conversation with her (and she was a hoarder to boot). Not easy to deal with in general.

Spanner scanner or not, I took a picture of this picture with my iPhone. The last couple years of The Comm’s life, she often substituted “spanner” for “scanner”, even though she owned a scanner and knew how to use it. I know she was struggling but it still cracked me up. I’m sure I will be doing something equally silly someday. I have a lot of old photos and some negatives and slides and man oh man I hope I am up to the task of organizing and scanning them.

I love seeing these women when they were young and having fun.

3 Responses to “Need a spanner scanner…”

  1. Paulette Says:

    The girls look happy, especially the Commander. She is beautiful.

  2. Margaret Says:

    Your mom is the best looking one and I’m not just saying that! Love your stories. My mom didn’t get along well with her younger sister who was grasping and self-centered. But I do have lots of good memories of her because I stayed with her and my cousins when I was growing up. She got very, very judgmental and domineering when she got older though. My dad doesn’t get on with his older brother; he adored his younger one who died in his 60s of an aneurysm.

  3. Pooh Says:

    Maybe scanning some pics is the reward at the end of a flinging session? I would scan them as they come out of the box, and organize later, but that’s just me, today.