I was looking for this pic whatever day it was I wrote the book blahg about Firekeeper’s Daughter. No luck and yet another note to self, ORGANIZE YOUR DAMN PHOTOS!!!

Today my “memories” served it up. 10 years ago today, we were at The Commander’s house in Sault Ste. Siberia for the weekend and I got up early as usual to walk down to the locks and back. That particular morning, Mr. Golden Sun was NOT hiding behind a cloud. Instead he served up this beautiful gradient. I had an early iPhone at that time and look what it did to the colors. The one I have now (it’s just the XS, not one of those fancy 3-camera ones) would probably take a more accurate pic but I really like this old one.

The Comm was hopping around that weekend, cooking for us and carousing just like the old days. A few weeks later, I had to make an emergency trip up to the yooperland with the result that eventually I had to move her to an assisted living facility. I was hoping this would work out in a positive way. We did not have to sell her house and it was a half mile up the escarpment so she could visit it pretty much whenever she could get a ride there. I once suggested she take taxis and we acted out *this* little “twitter” play:

The Commander [indignantly]: WELL! Do you know what a taxi costs?
Kayak Woman: No mom, what does it cost?
The Commander [outraged]: FIVE DOLLARS!

For a split second or so I toyed with the idea of giving her an envelope full of five dollar bills to pay for taxis or trying to arrange to pre-pay the taxi company for rides but I let it go. I couldn’t help remembering though, that when I was a small child and we only had one car, she called taxis all the time. I think they were 50 cents then, which was probably as much as five dollars is in 21st century dollars.

It is very hard to lose your independence. She maintained hers into her early 90s and gave it up with great difficulty.

Anyway, I don’t walk this part of the escarpment any more. Her house is long sold and when we go up there now, we stay at the moomincabin, seven miles or so up the river as the crow flies, to where it makes the turn into Gitchee Gumee, and I walk the beach.

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