World's Worst Mnemonic

"it's the opposite of the way you'd expect it to be."

Today, I was getting the cable to connect my camera to my laptop to download a couple of photos.  There are two cables:
 -- the big, fat one (that connects the little, skinny digital point-and-shoot), and
 -- the little, skinny one (that connects my big, honkin' SLR).
So I had a mnemonic -- the big cable connects the little camera, and vice versa.

How long do you think it took before the mnemonic reversed itself?  Until today, when I went into my office, and retrieved the small, skinny cable to use with my small camera.
I got halfway down the hall, when my brain said, "Hey,  Wait a minute.  You're taking the small, skinny cable to use with the small, skinny camera."
So I checked the little sticky-note label I had attached, and, sure enough, I had the wrong one.
Much better.....sticky notes.

Okay, telephone posting today.
Barbara confided that she tried to place a call by dialing out on her remote control.

Where is that cellphone, anyway?

So, the other day I was calling someone on my cellphone, and while I was listening to it ring, I headed to the bathroom to relieve myself.  As I eased onto the seat, I noticed my empty cellphone holster on my waistband.  "Damn," I thought, "I've misplaced my cellphone again!" 
Or, it could just be in my other hand, next to my ear, still listening to the ringing. 

Whose birthday is it, anyway?

Okay, a couple of days ago I got one of those little reminders from my iPhone.  I had cleverly set it up to let me know about each of my family members' birthdays a couple of weeks ahead of time.  It said "Freddie's Bday Sept 11"
So, I called my brother Fred, and asked him what his son, Freddie, might like for his birthday.  No reply.
Later that day, someone said the words "September 11" and my little brain said to me, "Hey; isn't Fred's birthday sometime around then?"  And....BINGO!  I realized I had left my brother Fred a phone message asking him what his son wanted for his birthday, which is in March. 
So, I called Fred again, and told him someone had stolen my cellphone and to ignore it if he had gotten any weird messages today.  Close call there....

Another mystery tweet

This morning, I made a batch of wild rice, beans, popcorn kernels, and a few other starches for my parrot, Tikka. I dutifully put the "timer-on-a-neckloop" around my neck, set to 40 minutes, and turned the stove on. 40 minutes later, while I was on the phone, the timer went off and I said to myself, "oh, I wonder what that tweety noise is?" Then, about 10 minutes later, I felt the cord of the timer around my neck, remembered the rice, and noticed that the timer was no longer ticking, meaning that it had gone off.

"Well, that's odd," I thought.

Then, the "aha" moment.....the tweeting noise I heard was the TIMER!
I suppose the glass-half-full moment here was when I somehow felt the timer cord around my neck.

Dog Food Mystery

Senior moment and general cluelessness:

I was down at the cottage in Beaufort NC with our two dogs. We had run out of dry kibble for our two 50 pound dogs, so I ran over to the local Food Lion and grabbed a small bag of food--not our usual brand, but a basic Purina kibble.

The rest of the vacation, these dogs couldn't get enough of the new food. Every time I turned around, they wanted more and their bowls were licked clean after every feeding. More than once, I remarked to my husband how much they liked the new food. You have to understand that in my orbit, a new dog food that is popular, seems to have healthy ingredients and is not too expensive is a valid topic of conversation and speculation.

We get back to Williamsburg and I am still feeding this great new find. I keep mentioning to my husband how much they like the food. Out of what I think is the blue, he says, "you know, it's probably not good to feed the dogs too much cat food. " Now I do put a spoonful of wet cat food in their bowls every now and then, but not a lot, so I simply ignored his comments.

We'll you can guess the rest, but it took me the rest of the bag to catch on. I was feeding my wonderful new food, when I noticed that Purina had kindly printed on the side, instructions on keeping your cat healthy. All I thought was, "Gee, isn't that an interesting cross promotion of their products."

Finally, a day or two later, when I was recylcing the bag, I finally noticed a drawing of a leaping cat on the front. My dogs had cat breath all week because they had been eating cat food. If you don't know, cat food has more of all the good stuff in it, so to a dog it's like having a dinner of chocolate cheesecake with ice cream along with Fritos and dip washed down with a glass of expensive Merlot.

Chris felt so bad that the party was over for the dogs that he boiled chicken to put on their regular kibble for the rest of the week. He never said a word.

Claire Stephens

Toast

"Never, ever stick a knife in the toaster!"
Of course not -- it's a good-enough conductor to give you a good shock. But, the other day, I found myself thinking, "Well, I could just stick my finger in there to retrieve the toast....my finger's not that great a great conductor, after all..."
Famous last words?

Let's Do the Time Warp Again!

This morning, I was remembering that my sister Lindsay (in California, three hours earlier than here) had left me voicemails last night that I never returned. Well, it's only 8:30 am here, so that would make it.....way too early....to call her now. But I might forget if I don't do it....now.
"But wait!" says my ever-helpful, increasingly-feeble brain. "You could call her on your cellphone instead of the landline!"
Problem solved.

Train of Thought

I used to say that my train of thought had jumped the tracks. Now, it's that my train of thought is so short it only has one car.....and it ain't coach.

Bird? What bird?

This past weekend, I'm walking/birdwatching at the Greensprings Trail (red-headed woodpecker, juncos, bluebirds, cowbird, red-winged blackbirds) and I hear this loud, insistent and very clear bird call. I look around, asking myself what it is, and decide it must be a carolina wren. So, I stand there looking for it in my binocs and tweeting back at it. Finally, gave up and decided it must be hiding in the brush.
As I neared the parking lot, I heard my cellphone signal to me that I had a message. "But why hadn't I heard the phone ring?" I wondered. I programmed it with a nice, clear, bird-call ringtone. Kind of like.....a carolina wren....
Oh, okay. Duh.

Where are my KEYS??!?!?!?!?!?

Got out of the car the other night, arms full of stuff from a day at the park. Within five minutes, had lost my car keys. Noplace, nowhere, nohow. Searched, retraced footsteps, and re-searched, with help of husband, flashlight (still looking in the front yard after dark), then gave up to have dinner. After eating (coincidence?) I made a list of all the stuff I was carrying when I got out of the car. There were seven items, one of which was two beach towels we had been sitting on at the park. I hadn't checked that particular pathway, and found them at the bottom of my bedroom closet, on the floor with the keys under them.

Must've tossed them there with the towels and forgotten all about it in my multi-tasking.

My husband, Mac, kindly pointed out that if I had Alzhiemer's, which is always my worry, I wouldn't have been able to solve the problem the way I did.
Okay, he wins that round. :-)

H.I.M. #2

The other day, I was trying to remove my left hearing aid to talk on my cellphone in the car (never a good idea), and instead removed my glasses.

H.I.M. = "Hearing-Impaired Moment"

You've heard of Senior Moments? Had one or two?

Well, today I coined a new acronym: Hearing-Impaired Moment (H.I.M.). It's when someone says something, and you hear something completely different, and continue to listen to them, trying your very best to make some sense out of it. A Pilates instructor told me a good one today:

"A friend was telling me a story about what happened to her the other night. At one point, she said, "And then "nature called." I heard "And then Rachel called." So, there I am, listening to the rest of the story, and it's not really making any sense, so finally, I ask, "Who's Rachel?" She said, "Rachel who?" Well, that was good for a laugh!"

Idiot-Proofing, Advanced Level

So, I'm online trying to register as a Small, Woman-Owned Business in Virginia (don't ask). I get to what appears to be (finally) the end of my online data entry, and in the middle of the screen, the words "PRINT THIS PAGE" appear in a little box. So, I'm trying to figure out how to print it, and getting frustrated, when it finally occurs to me that the thing to do is to click on the little box with the cursor! Voila! I didn't recognize it as a tool, but thought it was an "order."

Take THAT, GUI designers!

Inexplicable; That's What You Are

My secular humanist senior moment:
In the parking lot after Pilates class, I noticed a fellow-student's license plate: DOUNOJC.
I'm always interested in wordplays and acronmyms on license plates, so I asked her what her plate meant. She replied, "Do You Know Jesus Christ?"
Not satisfied to have asked a dumb question and leave it at that, I replied, "Oh. I thought maybe the JC stood for James City." (the name of our county).
The only thing she was left to decide was what kind of idiot I was.

Idiot-proof?

I got myself a timer on a neck cord so I could set it and wander around the house and yard without burning the house down while my stock was simmering/eggs were boiling. One day, the timer went off in the back yard, at which point I went inside, took the time off over my head, and hung it on its peg on the wall. However, I did NOT turn the stove off.
Do you think I should start a career as a professional idiot-proofer?

In the Dark

A male friend entered the small, single-seater restroom of a restaurant. After taking a leak, he reached over to flush the toilet, and....
...switched off the light.

Rating: 3, for having the guts to repeat this incident.

Synesthesia

While driving up the highway at 70+mph, I realized that I needed to make a call on my cellphone. Normally, I have to remove my left hearing aid to do so. Instead, I removed my GLASSES. As I continued down the road, I realized things were, well, kind of fuzzy. It took only a split second to put the whole thing back together, get my glasses from the passenger seat, and continue down the road.
 
Rating: 5; kind of scary.

Carol, Again

Theother day, Carol's boss told her a new term for "senior moment." She can't for the life of her, remember it.

SCORE: 2

S'true, S'welpme

   Gent rushed into the "Men's Room at Macy's in the Mall, in the early evening. Observing that the floor under and around the facilities was wet he dashed into the nearest cubical.
      
       A few moments later,he turned to leave and found
       that the door had closed,the latch had engaged and
       the handle was not working.
             After pushing and pounding on the door,which
       refused to budge,  he stepped back,looked at the door and
       lifted his foot and planted it swiftly and accurately on the
       latch,causing the door to swing crazily open.
       He stepped out of the cubical, washed his hands,
       reached for a paper towel and then noticed that the
       doors to the other cubicals opened inward.

Score: 4, extra credit for use of unnecessary force during a senior moment.