Friday 4 October 2013

Those Little Moments


Who was it said they wished there was a stair lift that reached the top landing before you'd forgotten why you wanted to go up there in the first place? No, I don't know either, but the first three words of that sentence are currently proving to be rather a leitmotiv for my life. Do not get me wrong: I love being 64. The hair has never been redder, the attitude sassier or feistier and as for caring what the world and its partner thinks of me, I'm so waay ahead of Rhett Butler.

And yet, over and above all the feist and sass and damn, there are moments when stuff .... well ... somehow eludes me. A realization that was brought home vividly the other week as I stood outside a John Lewis store cursing because it was shut, and suddenly perceived the reason I couldn't get in was because I was pushing a door marked pull. Similarly, when I arrived back home minus the things I'd bought as I'd managed to mislay them somewhere between the counter where I paid for them and the homeward journey. And again the time I had a full-on public row with the Automated EE woman because I dropped my credit card while topping up the mobile on a moving bus and she didn't do ''hang on, just got to pick up the card''.

No, I am not going gaga, to use the medical terminology. Just getting a little .... what's the word I'm groping for? Yes, that. Like the other day I was waiting at the bus stop to catch the Luton bus, when I was actually supposed to be catching the St Albans bus which comes on the opposite side of the road and goes in the opposite direction. Fortunately remembered just as it turned the corner. Poor bus driver nearly had a heart attack as I dived in front of his wheels, arm outstretched.

Then there is the mobile phone. I put it down. Somewhere. The number of times I have had to ring it from the landline, having looked up the number beforehand because I can never...umm...thingy...what it is. Thank goodness it's only a cheapo Nokia, suitable for the technically challenged and easily replaceable if I ever flush it down the loo. Which is always a possibility. Gawd knows what might happen if I had one of those bendy i-Phone 6 things.

My best friend Elissa and I have these ... whatsits ... every time we go out together. Sometimes we find ourselves driving along somewhere without the slightest clue where we're supposed to be heading, though we knew when we started out. Or we can't find her silver Toyota in a multi-storey - though in our defence there are always so many silver Toyotas in multi-storeys, silver being the go-to colour for most modern cars that it isn't really our fault. We have been reduced to pacing the aisles clicking her key fob in the hope that the car will respond eventually.

It's infuriating, but there appears to be nothing I can do to prevent it happening. And it does seem to be happening with alarming frequency.Whatever it is. So there you are ...who are you again? Anyway, you'll have to excuse me now: I have an elsewhere to be. Or I will have, once
I can remember where it is.


SEE ALSO: Aldi Antics  http://carolhedges.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/aldi-antics.html
                     Transports of Delight http://carolhedges.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/transports-of-delight.html

36 comments:

  1. Yes Carol, I know exactly what you mean. I've been blaming my ..what can I call it.. mindlessness, on the menopause, but I don't know how much longer I can get away with that excuse. Soon I'll just have to admit - my brain, like my joints, sometimes takes a little longer to get in gear!

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  2. It would be SO damn funny, if it wasn't SO damn sad! :) I've got one solution. Take the pink-mobile! You couldn't lose that sucker if you tried! :)

    Really funny this morning Carol. I feel for you. As they say, been there, done that. Love you hon.... now, where did I leave the laptop?

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    1. Thank you Hap...at least I Am Not Alone...or am I?

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  3. Hahaha..I'm hoping for lots of affirmation! So that it's not just me!!! thank you.

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  4. So Carol, do tell. What's your reaction when faced with a door marked "Lift"?

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    1. I panic and seek alternative egress or access!! Hahahaha

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  5. Laughing to the point of tears here, Carol. The bus incident. That's me too. So I'm there as well, Carol, but in denial. I just tell people it's because I'm soooo busy and I've got soooo much on my mind, You know? Well, it's a good excuse and it almost convinces them. Except when I tell them the same thing I said half an hour ago. Whatever the case, lovely one, there's nothing wrong with the sharpness of your pen…mind….wit! Brillliant!

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  6. Haha. Great post, Carol, as always. I leave myself notes and reminders (pair of knickers on the passenger seat of the car, etc), and then I look at the notes (or the knickers) and wonder what they mean. I've been known to take a shopping list with me that only has 'coffee' on it, just in case I should forget to buy the coffee.

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  7. I know how you feel. Inside we still feel sixteen and can't understand why we do the silly things we do. I always forget if someone's told me something and DD will say," I told you that ages ago" Years ago I remember it well, just ages ago,no chance.
    Makes you wonder how we're all so capable at writing blogs,and yet we are!

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  8. see, you are all reinforcing my ego here. It is not just me..but it is darn irritating..particularly when the whatever it is is just on the edge of memory....

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  9. Ah we all have "blonde moments" wonder how much longer it'll be before they turn into "senior moments"

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  10. Ah - we all know these moments, Carol. (Ages ago I wrote a little poem entitled 'I wish I could ring up my glasses' - given the number of times I put them down and can't find them. Maybe I'll post it one day.)

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    1. ooh...now there's a thought.....someone definitely ought to invent a gadget that does that! I'd buy one.

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  11. LOL, Carol, you have excelled yourself in this post - and the cartoon is priceless! My moments started when I gave birth. Yes - My Children Ate My Brain Cells. So goodness knows what grandchildren do to them?

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  12. Mind you I'm 47 and my mind's been absent for years - I regularly arrive somewhere and realise I've forgotten what I came for then have to go back to where I started from in order to remember.

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  13. Hah! That's funny. I like the way that you can look at yourself.

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    1. I fully sympathise. Only yesterday morning I sprinkled pepper down the back of my shirt and scratched my bacon.

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  14. Overhead an American lady in Switzerland regretting that a mutual friend couldn't be with them because he now has "Old timers disease". Seems to be getting more and more common among my friends.

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  15. I know there was some witty, pithy comment I was going to make, that summed the whole thing up into one ingenious phrase..... I just can't remember what it was!

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  16. It's names that elude me. Please don't ask me to introduce you to my best friend I don't remember their name!

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  17. Oh I am SO reassured.!!!! Thank you, thank you. Hahahaha

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  18. I'd like to say that it doesn't happen to all 63 year olds, that some of us are more, what,a the word again... But it does and it is, or should that be was?! I have very fond memories of my Grandma and Great Aunt working at their sewing machines. They must have been the age we are now but they felt older to me. Every now and then one of them would forget what they were doing and they would laugh until tears ran down their cheeks.

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    1. BH and I frequently find ourselves in the position where we have forgotten to do something..or one of us has. And we laugh too. It's the best way to be!! (Especially if it's his ''little moment'')

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  19. Oh, I so own the t-shirt on this one Carol. I have discovered that if you wait just a little bit longer (I am 70 next year) most people don't even question your mental agility anymore. They just smile benevolently and leave it at that. I am having soo much more fun now I'm getting really old!

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  20. I like to claim that I never lost my "baby brain" from when I was pregnant. ;)

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  21. What a wonderful piece! Made me laugh out loud, especially phone bit. Do it so often! God help me when I hit my sixties!! Thank you :)

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    1. There are compensations..as described in the opening paragraph!! Just as well. Thanks for leaving a comment and welcome to the blog. Drop by again...

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  22. I've read this three times now and laughed LOTS each time ...
    Comments here show you are not alone. I have what I like to call 'menopause moments' which are increasingly taking over but then, most of the time, I'm not sure I care! Certainly I care much less about all kinds of things which makes *age* liberating, I think!!! X

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    1. I am soo reassured by all the comments. And rather perturbed..there are a lot of us about!!

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  23. The gym seems to bring on my senior moments. In the last six months I've left seven tokens in my locker, I've found myself upstairs in the gym in bare feet leaving my trainers in my bag. I regularly get up to the gym and then have to return to the changing room for my drink bottle/iPod/hand towel. I'm getting worried in case I find myself in the spa sans swim shorts. I'm practising believable excuses just in case.

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    1. Ah, the gym. Whatever that is! hahaha. Thanks. You've just persuaded me NEVER to join one.

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  24. Hilarious! I have plenty of 'senior' moments which I blame on the dreaded 'change'... grrrr... My most annoying one is forgetting if I've taken my IBS medication. I have to take a pill before each meal and I'm forever forgetting whether I have or not, and then I can't take it in case I already have, in which case I'd be overdosing! Are you still with me? Hehe. X

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    1. Thanks. I have IBS too...tho mine is linked to stress and I only take meds when I am. It is horrid!!! Sympathies.

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