Hi. My name is Jan, and I'm post-menopausal. I thank the pharmaceutical gods for the little patch I change twice a week that gives me a shred of memory. I'm reminded of the charitable work I did in Tucson, playing the piano weekly for an Alzheimer's respite program. These sweet little old men and women loved to hear me play tunes from the 30s and 40s and old show tunes. Those tunes spoke to an area of their brains that still worked. One sweet little lady would call out, "Play 'Tea for Two'." I'd play it, then play something else. And she'd call out again, "Play 'Tea for Two'." It would have been humorous if it wasn't such a painful illustration of the ravages of Alzheimer's.
I'm traveling Thursday evening to Asheville to visit my 96yo mother. My brothers and sister-in-law and I split the task of visiting, one of us going every six weeks. This gives Mother something to look forward to, something to brag about to the ladies she eats with daily. She lives to eat and sleep, so I make sure to have audiobooks for the trip and knitting projects for the visit.
(Let me insert here that this woman's mind is pretty darned sharp for someone who will be 97 in May. Her children are grateful to the powers-that-be for her mental acuity!)
I have an Audible.com subscription, but my long daily commute has caused me to use up all my annual credits. Rather than spend real money on more books, I'm going to look back at the library of books I've bought over the past four years and choose a couple to listen to again. This is not a problem, as my estrogen-starved brain can't remember the details of half the books I've "read" anyway!
I really do love long drives as a great opportunity to feast on words, whether that's catching up on NPR podcasts or drawing inspiration from creative authors.
What's your favorite recent read?
(I loved the title of the image I pulled for this post: sparsely populated skull!)
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