Senior Moments

So I was I-M-ing my friend Carol last night when the subject of Alzheimer's Disease came up. It came up because we were discussing a movie from the 80's and she had forgotten some of the bits about this and that. She blamed it on early Alzheimer's, and I was right there with her, because at 41 years old I seem to be getting very forgetful. Maybe it's a normal part of aging, but I feel really dumb, A LOT of the time. And it's not just forgetting what word to use (although I do that a lot too..."Maddie, can you put the plate on the...the....the..." "The table, Mom?" "Uh, yeah, the table, right, the TABLE.") I've decided to blame it on
-aging, perimenopause
-enjoying myself in college maybe just a little too much
-pregnancy (I still say they sucked me dry of more than breast milk)
-staying home with the kids, not engaging in intelligent discussions for weeks at a time, and purposely dumbing down the vocab. for the rugrats.

So here are some of my early Alzheimer's signs (if I can remember them all -ha, ha):

Recently I left home to pick up Maddie and Ben from school for about the hundredth time. As I was driving there, I started to think about the fact that they got out of school at 2:30, which is awfully early, I was thinking, because I only got out of school that early in high school. And then it hit me. They don't dismiss at 2:30. It's at 3:30. For some reason, I set out a whole hour early absolutely thinking dismissal time was an hour earlier.

A few years ago, I was talking to Dave about a friend of mine from church, but I couldn't come up with her name. I tried describing her to Dave. He suggested I was talking about Brenda. "No," I said. "That's not it." I described her some more. "Beth, you're talking about Brenda Wasilewski." "No!" I said. "Her name is not Brenda!" And you know, it was. Brenda, who'd been to my house, I've been to her Pampered Chef parties, our children had playdates, etc. I completely disconnected her name from her person.

Twice I have worn my slippers out in a public place. One time was to Kindermusic. One time was to Sunday morning mass.

After Jack was born, I was almost done addressing/stamping all of my thank-you notes, when I realized that I had put the stamps on the top-left corner of the envelope, and the address labels in the right. AAAAGH! It never occurred to me that it looked wrong until card #34 or something like that! For future reference, I called the post office and they said it didn't matter, they'd deliver them anyway. I was mortified that everyone would think I couldn't handle even simple tasks anymore, but I couldn't make myself buy more stamps and do it again (I was thrifty AND lazy).

Once we showed up a week late for a party, because I remembered the date wrong.

One time I mixed up doctor appointments and went to Maddie's well visit instead of the dentist I was supposed be at. I raced across town to the dentist, then had to return in the afternoon for the doctor visit.


Dave blames it on disorganization and brain atrophy due to lack of use (ha! I remembered a big word like atrophy!) and threatens to buy me a Blackberry or PalmPilot-like device, which I'm sure I'd never figure out or use anyway, so I try to keep my degrading brain a secret from him as much as I can. But I know he knows.

In the meantime, I'm trying to do crossword puzzles, the Brain Age game on Maddie's DS (well, I'll do it on Ben's now that Maddie has vomited on hers...), and...um...lots of other grown-up, fancy-talk stuff. Like blogging!