When The Commander was around 87-88, she decided she wanted an iPhone. So we helped her buy one. We made sure that her phone would NOT roam to Canananada since she lived a hop, skip, and a jump from there.

She had one demand. “I want BIRD!” She meant iBird, which our lifelong friend Barb Mullin had on HER new iPhone. To clarify “lifelong”, Barb was a lifelong friend of MINE. The Commander and Barb did not meet until they were young married women in Sault Ste. Siberia and Barb and her husband bought property down the beach from us from Doc Read. Long story but they were wonderful friends and neighbors and I grew up with the Mullin kids (adopted fratenal twins, girl and boy). I ran with them and my cousins back and forth up and down the beach or along the paths in the woods.

When my cat Twinkle had her second litter of kittens and first-born Butterball/scotch arrived, I ran like hell down the woods paths to collect the Mullen kids to come and watch the rest of the kittens (five in all) be born. This event was pre-arranged and I had to run the paths because we had no phone at the moomincabin in those days.

I got off on a tangent although Barb is a good tangent. The photoooo is of The Commander and the Uncly Uncle, my husband’s ID twin using their iPhones on the moomindeck. I don’t think they were interacting with each other on their phones. The Commander and I used to text all the time. Late in her life it was often easier than talking on the phone. It wasn’t dementia, just a processing difficulty. But I missed the old days when I would occasionally talk for an hour to the Birch Point Telegraph (my brother’s sometimes name for her).

My point in posting this photo and writing this entry is to illustrate how much The Twinz of Terror cared for my mother in her later years. When she turned 90, I wasn’t easily able to get to the yooperland to celebrate her birthday with her. The Twinz of Terror were going up there anyway and they filled in for me. They took her out to a wonderful dinner at “the hotel”. Dining at “the hotel” has been spotty for a long time. Food and service can vary. The night the twinz took my mother out, everything was wonderful. She told me something like, “those boys (boys?), they throw money around like nothing”. Well really. I knew they weren’t spending anything more than they could afford without decimating their childrens’ inheritance.

In the end, the point is I married the right guy. He and sometimes his brother helped me take care of my mother.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 29th, 2025 at 6:03 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.