Senior Moment x2

Senior moment: an instance of momentary forgetfulness or confusion that is attributed to the aging process

It is easy to laugh about having a senior moment after some time has passed, but it isn’t so funny when you’re in the middle of one of these episodes and your spouse is right there with you in it.
 

Understanding that a “reasonable price” for a bell pepper now is not the same as a “reasonable price” was before inflation hit, the local grocery store had really nice, large, green bell peppers at a reasonable price. I use bell peppers fairly regularly and was planning to make Peking Hamburgers,  (which this website has lifted from the “Cooking for Two” cookbook I got as a wedding present) and requires a bell pepper ring.
 

On Tuesday I went to the grocery store. Bell peppers were still on sale and were on the list. I remember stopping where the bell peppers were and picking one up and admiring it.
 

Two days later when it came time to make the hamburgers, I couldn’t find the bell peppers. Richard and I both looked in the refrigerator… I took most everything in there out. We looked on the table where some other produce was, under the table, behind the chairs, several other places in the living area. Maybe I left them in the car? Nope.
 

I was positive I had bought the bell peppers and  Richard was positive he had seen them when I brought them home.  I finally found the receipt for the groceries I had bought, and bell peppers were not on the receipt. I never bought them – although I was convinced I had – and Richard never saw them – although he was convinced he had.
 

One of the local pharmacies is recruiting people to participate in a study about Alzheimer disease and dementia. I am half tempted to sign us up.

Raccoon Fashion Show?

We used to have a clothesline that ran on a pulley system from the porch to the barn. It was lovely. If the weather was good, I could stand on the porch, pin the clothes to the line, and then send them off to wave gently in the breeze. Nothing quite like line-dried sheets. One very cold morning I began hanging the sheets on the line and they instantly froze.  We joked about “freeze-dried sheets.”

 I found one photograph of the clothesline from 2011. 

And yes, I was very active in the YMCA, and I still go three times a week. Back then the Y had a program where they gave away t-shirts for walking, and I accumulated some. I am still walking, but unfortunately, I have gained too much weight now to wear these t-shirts. I still have them because, after all, I may actually loose enough weight that I will be able to wear them again. Well, probably not, but hope springs eternal.

The clothes line met its demise when our barn collapsed (and I have no idea when that was).

This photograph of the front of the barn, which was still standing, with the pulley and line attached, but portions of the roof had collapsed and it was about ready to fall.

I used the drier, right up until a few months ago when it stopped blowing hot air and Richard was not physically able to repair it.

So I began draping the clothes on drying racks that Richard bought some years ago for drying clothes in front of our heaters. He took over doing the laundry (and all of the domestic chores) because I was laid up for almost 3 months with a fractured pelvis. He thought we could save some money on our electricity bill.

The appliance repair person has come and assessed the problem. We assumed it was the heating element, but it isn’t. The safety switch and thermostat are broken. The parts have been ordered. Richard guesses it is going to cost about $200, and wonders: Is the drier worth repairing if it breaks again??

Until the parts come in, I continue to use the drying racks and on hot summer days the clothes dry fairly quickly. A few days ago, I forgot about the clothes on the racks sitting outside, until Richard reminded me:

Are you going to bring the clothes in anytime soon or are you going to leave them out there for the raccoons to try on?

In One Ear...

I was a big fan of the Night Gallery TV show that ran in early 1970s. Rod Serling, of Twilight Zone fame, was the host.

I only really remember one of the programs—it was 50+ years ago, after all. It is called The Caterpillar.” Except it really wasn’t about a caterpillar, though.

The bad guy hires someone to put an earwig in the ear of a person he is trying to get rid of in a particularly horrible way: the earwig will chew through the ear canal and into the brain… you get the idea. Only the earwig is mistakenly put in his ear instead….

“Night Gallery Earwig Episode Might Be the Greatest Horror TV Episode Ever,” says the heading on the “The Word” website. Yup.

That program immediately came to mind a couple of nights ago when I got in bed. I felt something “funny” in my ear, and then realized there was an insect crawling around in my ear canal.

I told Richard what was going on and asked him to help me. While he was collecting tweezers and his miner’s head lamp, I filled a syringe with water and squirted it in my ear to see if I could flush the insect out.

He looked in my ear and said he could see something “black” and tried to get it out with the tweezers, but it was too far in and he was worried he might damage my ear drum.  So he used his squirt bottle to squirt more of water in my ear and I guess it drowned.

No more creepy crawly feeling, but I had some trouble falling asleep.