I didn’t exactly forget that The Commander would have been 99 today. It came into focus when her younger cousin’s birthday popped up. I have never met Julie but we connected a while back on facebook. She’s 83 and has lived in the Toronto area for her adult life if I get it. Her birthday is not today (late December I think) but it brought mom’s bday into focus. So here are a few pics. It’s so hard to pick just a few pics. I limited my criteria to pics I took in her later years, ones where she is the only one in the pic, and she is showing some aspects of her personality that I don’t much remember from when I was a bratty little kid and was constantly being told something like, “Remember who you are and act accordingly” 🐽

First up, here is the Thud Club. This club was started by The Goddess Esther and yes it has to do with alcohol. Mom was not a lush but she joined the club one night when my cousins and I were “wayward” 20-somethings. The Comm and Radical Betty had some whine while talking about us kids and then they took a beach walk. The Comm fell into the water and “couldn’t get up”. She was not in danger and they were both laughing their *sses off. At some point in time some enterprising person ordered up some Thud Club raperns* This was waaaaay pre-internet BTW so no Cafepress or whatever. Sorry for being such a wastrel, moom. (BTW, I think we *all* have Thud Club raperns* now.)

Okay, here is The Commander slowly and threateningly walking toward me with a great big chitchen knife! What did I do to deserve that? I think I had been “joshing” her about something.

Oh, bloody hell. The Comm was living at Freighter View assisted living and she tripped over her walker and then fell on it or something, I never figgered out exactly what happened. She was not mortally wounded but they put a red jacket on her and packed her off on the bus ambulance for the two block ride to the hoosegow. She got all bandaged up and before they sent her back “home”, my 90-year-old mother handed Nurse Abby her iPhone and said, “Take a picture of all this blood so I can send it to my daughter.”

Back when both the parents were alive. Okay, I guess in this pic, she’s not alone because grandroobly is photobombing.

And finally, we have The Comm in her glorious golden queen hat. After my dad died, we were at the Sault Ste. Siberia post office and a woman came out the door wearing a hat like this. Both of us dropped our jaws. Yes, I was thinking. You need one o’ those. And so I found one. It is still around but I don’t yet feel entitled to wear it.

*Rapern? I hope that is not a trigger for anyone because it has nothing to do with rape. When we were kids, the Sherman family used to park their VW bus and camper in one of our moomincabin parking spots for a couple weeks in the summer. Willy was the youngest of the five Sherman children and at three or so, he loved to hang out with The Comm and his moom in the moomincabin. At that age, he wanted to grow up to be a mother and wear a rapern. He didn’t grow up to be a mother but he did grow up to be a wonderful father (and for all I know he’s a grandfather by now). I dunno if he wears a rapern or not but I bet if he does, he calls it an apron now.

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