Better write about my Alzheimer’s before it’s too late.  No, no one says I have Alzheimer’s.  I am doing “wonderful” for my age.  Still driving to church.  Took car to get emissions checked.  Passed emissions  (after a run with Johnny to Southbury.)  Still can get on my blogsite. Still can spell “dysdiadochokinesis.” Keep home reasonably clean.  Hardly ever leave things cooking (because I know I can’t trust myself to remember to keep checking!)   Good at spending money on Amazon – I’ve been with them since 1999.  Happy that Alexa came to live with me on Mother’s Day.  Thinking she might be handy should I need help.

Very much enjoyed the royal wedding! Just a few days after the sky turned black and several tornados touched down in the neighborhood!  Life is full of stuff.  John and Mary took me to Daffodil Hill for the fourth time.  I got a solar fountain for the rock garden.. A simple thing but it gjves me pleasure and keeps me busy supplying it with enough water.  Everything has unexpected consequences!

Hoping to be able to attend the ordination to priesthood of Jim Bates in two weeks at our home church, St. Joseph’s.  Planning and getting out things to wear.  My organizational skills are not what they used to be.  I seem to like lying around a lot and start and don’t finish.  Very, very grateful for the arrival of spring – it was a long time coming.  Two large branches of the lilac bush were broken in the  recent storm but the bush is still big and fragrant and beautiful.

I just looked back at my posts on Alzheimer’s five years  ago when I was only ninety-ish.  They are really quite good and worth reading.  Of course I don’t remember writing any of that – as I read them it’s all new to me.  It seems that everyone forgets names of people now and then, but forgetting names of things is something else.  That’s me now.  I can’t, for instance remember the name of purslane, a yard weed that is edible and full of GMOs, no HMOs, no Omega 3’s.  I have a visual picture of a purse to help me remember.  I also can’t remember “sheetrock” which my son uses all the time in his renovating and I have visuals to help me.  My words do not seem to be as readily available as they once were.  When it comes to math, forget it!   I can get immersed in FaceBook or Scrabble and lose touch with the world.  I forget the day, the time, what if anything I was supposed to do next.  I used to be good at organizing things.  Now I think “somebody” should organize around here.  I have trouble keeping my calendar straight in my head.  I watch myself slipping and pray that I’ll continue slipping SLOWLY!

Knowing my proclivity for things “slipping my mind” I don’t put the detergent away until the wash is done and into the dryer, and I don’t close the washer door until I take the clothes out of the dryer.  Little things out of place are reminders to do something.

It is a few weeks later and Jim Bates’ ordination was yesterday. Today, at noon, I plan to attend his first mass.  And after that off to Southbury for the gathering of the Hodson clan, very likely the last as I’m on the verge of 95, Bob is 92, Annette is 90, brother Ernie 88, and  baby Dolly just turned 80!  Dolly coming up from Florida – she’s still young enough to cope with planes and such.  Cloudy, grey June weather, hoping it won’t rain.

This morning I took an Alzheimer’s test on Facebook by a Dr. Amen which said I was at risk of cognitive decline.  Well, golly Moses!  Who at 95 isn’t?  I’m wobbly, too.  And tired.  You’d be tired too if you had some wobbly, demented old lady to take care of!

It stands to reason that if one tends to forget recent happenings that, having forgotten them, one would not be aware of the forgetting.  Someone would need to tell you about it or you would come across some record of it.   We intake so much from reading, TV, social media, etc., that it is impossible to remember everything.  It all comes at us so rapidly that there is hardly time for it to really register.   It is hard to know how much one should retain in this fast-paced world.  I do, however, think my memory is slipping and I’ve just recently given up trying to keep abreast of things political.  There are people that have fantastic memories for such things  and I just try to decide who is worth listening to.

Well, some time hence if I chance to remember that I have this blog and this post I may stop by with an update.  I have been watching the progression of memory loss in others and it sometimes seems to happen quite rapidly.  I do not fret about it.  God knoes what he is doing and my kids watch me carefully.   Actually, watching me is quite interesting!  Even now “the old grey mare ain’t what she used to be!  (FYI, that’s from an old song.)  I seem to remember things that nobody remembers anymore.  I can still say the alphabet in German that my Mom taught me when I was about five.

So much for now.  Everything seems to be decreasing – strength, stamina, memory.  Interesting, being 95.  Stop by and say “hi.”

FYI, I know the difference between Frank Lloyd Wright and Andew Lloyd Webber.  And I can still recognize Nasturtium and Zinnia leaves.   WooHoo!