We all joke about our memory or lack thereof and I’m no exception, but I’m pushing 80 and it’s no longer a joking matter. It’s getting worse. We watch a lot of TV these days. Too much, if the truth be known, but we’re not as active as we once were and watching TV doesn’t take a lot of effort. Well, that is, unless I’m riding my exercise bike in front of the TV, which I don’t remember to do nearly often enough.
I mention TV watching in connection with my memory because it’s gotten to the point where from time to time, I find myself watching something that I’ve already watched. Generally, I don’t remember it, but Sweetie will call me on it.
We usually have close to 100 hours of interesting programs stored up, so when we sit down to watch TV there is always something that we are interested in, stored there waiting for us to watch it. Once we’ve watched it, if I remember, I’ll delete it so we won’t get caught watching it again.
My memory travails aren’t limited to TV viewing. I don’t remember names very well. I always used to know someone’s face, if I’d met them before, but I couldn’t always put a name to the face. Nowadays, I often don’t remember the face, or the name. That can be embarrassing.
We live in a community of 462 condominiums. I’ve been here a little over 8 years. You’d think, by now, I’d have gotten to know quite a few of those people. NOT! If I’m being optimistic, I could probably match the name to the face of maybe 25 or 30 of them. I cover for my bad memory by almost always saying “Hi Neighbor,” rather than try to come up with their name. After all these years, I think some of them are starting to tumble to my methods, but I figure calling them neighbor is better than calling them by the wrong name.
A few years back, we bought one of those Apple Alexa contraptions. Soon, Sweetie figured out that we could set reminders on Alexa. Now we use her all the time to remind us of this or that. We just tell her to set a reminder for whatever day, time and what to remind us of…. “Alexa, set a reminder in 15 minutes to move the clothes from the washer to the dryer.” “Alexa, set a reminder every Monday at 6PM, Poker Night.”
Later, Sweetie managed to get our computer calendar to be recognized by Alexa and now she tells us about all of those important reminders from our computer calendar too.
Nowadays, we have Alexa remind us of all sorts of things. With a memory like mine, this modern marvel has become indispensable, I really don’t know what I’d do without it.
Now, it seems, all I have to remember is to tell Alexa to remind me of all those important things, such as to eat my lunch, brush my teeth, or take a shower.
Gramps use’ta say
©R.L.King2012 #500
About: Marriage
“It’s rare to hear any husband say, ‘I was wrong.’
But you’ll never hear him say,
….‘You were right.’ ”
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