The last time I got a photo of these three together, it was at a funeral. Three out of a set of the original five MacMullan siblings of Garden City, born in the early part of the 20th century. The second and fourth of the set are dead. There’s a 10-year age spread among those who are left and I’ll leave it to you to figure out the order, which is not necessarily the order in which they are seated.

This particular occasion was not a funeral, thank you god or who/whatever. It was a wonderful Christmas dinner that we were invited to crashed today. I say that because it was my uncle Don who invited us but it was not at his house. It was hosted by my cousin Doug and his wife, The Beautiful Jennine, and their children, who have moved from Megalopolis to a beautiful house in a country setting not too far outside of The Planet Ann Arbor. Yes, he invited us to somebody else’s house 😉 We were slodging around the Landfill today planning on eating leftover duck or whatever for dinner tonight when Don called and so we mobilized. I have more than enough food and beer and whine around here, so I was at least able to contribute something at a moment’s notice and I know the whine was appreciated.

Don’t let those canes cudgels (in the photo) fool you. These folks are feisty, especially the gals. Roberta, there on the left, was batting at the GG’s remote control helicopter with that cane cudgel, oh boy oh boy. We weren’t quite sure what the heck she was doing. Did she think it was a big mosquito? Maybe she thought she was playing a game? Really, this woman is pretty darn “with it”. At least when she isn’t trying to navigate up a step with a glass of red whine in one hand and her cane cudgel in the other. These folks were born when airplanes, not to mention telephones and things, were more or less in their infancy. When I think about how much the world has changed just since I became a mother, back in 1984, I am amazed that my older relatives can keep up at all. What will the world be like when I have lived as many years as they have? When will I get to the point where I have to focus so intensely on getting myself from point A to point B without losing anything along the way that I won’t be able to take in enough new information to operate whatever devices will be around?

Small world department? I am friends on FB with my cousin’s college freshman daughter. I am friends on FB with the GG’s 20-something nephew. Out of the blue, cousin’s daughter asked how I know the GG’s nephew. Because. The two of them know each other. They have done theatre work together. “Because he’s my nephew,” I said. I was totally astounded! My brain immediately dredged up memories of both of these wonderful people when they were babies. Before they became who they are now. I then spent time explaining that they are not related. My cousin’s daughter is second cousin to my daughters. My daughters are first cousins to the GG’s nephew. I wish I could put into words how ridiculously geekily happy this little coincidence made me. Six degrees of separation? Or maybe just one, I guess, in this case.

Anyway. My new YakTrax worked wonderfully well today. They kept me from slipping and they are so lightweight I can almost forget they are attached to my boots. Good night. Kayak Woman.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 26th, 2010 at 9:31 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.