In the Genes

It's things like this which make me fairly certain that all the things I have been writing about my mother over the past three years are going to be things my family will talk about, or write about me.

We went to see Seussical last night.  When writing a review, once I get the first line or two written, I have a direction I'm going to take and the rest seems to come, most times, fairly easily.

On the way home, in the car, I knew what my opening was going to be and my brain was already going in that direction.

When we got home, we settled in to watch Jeopardy and then I watched Chopped Junior, which I had recorded.  I was feeling sleepy, so I went to the couch and as I lay there, I was still working on how to connect the rest of the review with my opening sentences.

When I got up this morning, it was gone.  Blank spot in my brain.  The more I tried, the more difficult it became to remember how I was going to start it.  I was struggling to find an alternate as good as my original one.  I was mentally trying to start the review in my head when I went to Atria.

I was still trying to recreate that idea (it wasn't a GREAT idea, just frustrating that I couldn't remember it) while we had lunch, and when I took my mother to the beauty parlor.   I left her there and went back to her apartment to wait until she was finished.  As I walked into the apartment it popped into my head again.  It was all there, intact, like a hard drive you thought was erased which was able to be recreated.

It's things like this which make me sympathetic with my mother when she is struggling to remember something.

The other thing that is just driving me to distraction is typing.  I have been a wonderful typist ever since I learned the keyboard in high school and, by the end of my first year, could type better than anybody in the second year.  The last time I was tested, I think I typed 133 words per minute with 2 errors.  Not to blow my own horn, but one of my strongest attributes has been my abilities at the keyboard.

Not now.

I can't type or spell to save my soul.  My fingers type words I did not mean to type and they misspell about every third word.  By force of habit, I still type fast, but if I were to take a timed test now I'd be surprised at how slow I am because I have to stop so often to correct mistakes.

Now that said, I THINK that part of this might be due to the keyboard I am using.

Like an iPad keyboard, the keys are relatively flat, compared to the raised keys that were on my last keyboard.  I did a sample typing on a keyboard at Office Max recently and it seemed that I was much more accurate.  I am thinking of getting a new keyboard just to see if it will help my typing.  It won't help my typing words I didn't mean to type, but it would be nice if I could up my accuracy a bit.

The day at Atria actually went pretty well.  She was sitting outside the dining room when I got there and actually talking with someone.  We went into the dining room and sat down.  Pretty soon Margaret came in and sat with us, and soon Merlina joined us.  Merlina seems to have a special interest in my mother, knows her eating habits, and joked with her about not having dessert until she ate all her lunch.  Surprisingly, she at fruit and a taco, instead of the soup she has every day.  Her memory impaired a lot of the discussion at the table, but she seemed to have a good time and I enjoyed having lunch with all three women.

She had an appointment at 1 to have her hair cut.  She's been saying she didn't want to go ever since I made it.  Today she asked why she didn't know anything about it.  But I didn't give her a choice.  Her hair hasn't been washed in a month, at least, and was just so stringy. 

We got upstairs 15 minutes early, so we sat down at one of the puzzle tables to work a puzzle. She first said she didn't know how to do it, but she has been an avid puzzle do-er all of her life and soon she was looking for pieces and trying them.  We didn't stay long because of the appointment.  Again she resisted when I told her it was time to have her hair cut.

I left her with Lucy, the hairdresser, and she looked lost but Lucy told me to come back in an hour.

It was a new mother waiting for me.  Not only because her hair looked so good but because she was happily chatting with Lucy...you know...like a normal person.  God, I wish she would get involved with other people.  She is so much better when she has some socialization around her.

I had taken before and after pictures so I could show her stepson...and post here.  I said something like "look how much better it looks" and showed her both pictures.  She said "look the same to me...it looks different to you?  Well, if you say so."

Sigh.