Most youngsters (meaning anyone under 45) fear getting older. Evidently they focus on only the negatives. Well, OK, maybe losing hearing, teeth, sleep, hair, and mobility aren’t good. And gaining weight, many new Rx for various ills, a house full of ‘stuff’ that accumulates over the years, several pairs of glasses for up-close, distance, and in-between viewing; pillows/forms/supports/braces/and you name it to cope with aches/pains/injuries/ are all a negative. BUT I may have found one positive that many of us don’t recognize . . . a new brain with a new way of perceiving, processing, storing, and retrieving information. This new brain moves away from the younger model of instantaneous recognition, quick decision making, and on-the-spot recall. This new brain somehow manages to mash together all of those abilities into what I now call ‘Super Senior Brain!’ YOU may own such a brain if:
ü you stumble to the kitchen to make coffee in the morning and accidently dump loose tea instead of coffee grounds into the coffeemaker filter basket, realize the mistake when you take that first sip;
ü you construct a garage sale sign (on the clean side) from poster board that was previously used for a Super Bowl office betting pool, place it conspicuously in the neighborhood, then notice the next day that the morning dew has reactivated the old ink resulting in a very weird looking sign which is interpreted by your neighbors as ‘he’s gone over the deep end’;
ü you make your weekly trip to the grocery store but accidently take last week’s shopping list, resulting in the house now amply provided with dozens of eggs, too many potatoes, and more bread and hamburger to possibly eat before they go bad, and you decide that ‘hey, let’s have a neighborhood BBQ’ resulting in you finally meeting the rest of the neighborhood;
ü you take the wrong pair of glasses to the grocery store and accidently buy products that effectively place you on a low-fat, high fiber diet and find that you like it (note to readers – Ben and Jerrys now makes a fabulous low fat frozen yogurt named Chocolate Fudge Brownie that found its way home with me last week);
ü your phone rings; the number on the caller i.d. looks sort of familiar as maybe being that of a family member or friend so you pick up and answer, ‘hi! I’ve been missing you and waiting for you to call, so when do you want to get together and what should I bring, sweetie?’ The telemarketer on the other end is stunned and hangs up – that guy will never call again!;
ü you actually take a telemarketer call and give them a piece of your mind telling them that the next time they call you are going to bomb their offices because you are sick of them interrupting your evening TV viewing, before you realize that they guy on the other end of the line is from your local Police Guild – you are now on their watch list;
ü you simply cannot sleep through the night so you begin watching ‘talking head’ shows and discover that, hey those guys are saying WAY more about the sick state of our national economy than the guys on the evening news – this might be a good time to take your money out of stocks and put it in a CD;
ü when your local law enforcement agency holds one of those ‘bring us your old meds and we’ll destroy them’ and you show up with 2 full shopping bags for them, tell them that you have found an amazing natural herb that relaxes you so much that you no longer need the meds, they (naturally) wonder what that herb might be – you are now on their list as well;
ü you give your old dog his meds at the same time that you take yours in the morning; unfortunately the evening prior your husband has nicely cleaned and rearranged the countertops and contents; you later notice that you have felt amazingly relaxed all day but your dog seems a bit ‘off’; later you discover that you have taken his anti-anxiety med and he has taken your vitamin
ü you have forgotten – again – to pack your dental floss with your travel items so you decide instead to use a length of cotton sewing thread you brought along in your sewing kit. It works great! You decide that at the price of $1.99 per package of dental floss that contains a mere 100 yards, you can save a bundle by using cotton thread that is 876 years per a spool that costs $3.99. You are a financial genius!
ü It is finally spring and you go shopping at the local garden center. Great, they carry herbs that you can grow and use in cooking! You buy several including a mint named cats wort. The mint grows like crazy, you use it in several recipes and it tastes a bit different, but maybe that is because it is fresh. You enter one of your recipes in a local contest and win second place. You must list the ingredients on the contest application. You are later informed by the awards committee that this is the first dish they have ever tasted that includes – catnip.
ü you have a google email and calendar account and use them daily on your computer. You discover that you can link your calendar with those of your friends and family and do so. You space that out when later you decide to go on a bona-fide diet and you begin tracking your daily weight as an action item on your calendar. Eventually someone asks about your notations . . . .
ü your car has leather seats. You finally give your car a good cleaning inside and decide to use Armorall Leather Wipes to clean the leather seats. The next time your dog hops into the backseat of your car he slides to the opposite door and crashes into it resulting in much painful yelping
ü it is time for that relaxing evening bath. You fill the tub and sink in. You then recall that it was only yesterday that you thoroughly scrubbed it with SoftScrub . . . because you are now sitting on the gritty remainders. You forgot that you meant to take a shower that evening, not a bath. You hop out but decide to let the water stay in the tub overnight to loosen all the remaining SoftScrub – you will empty the tub in the morning when you turn on the shower. The next morning you do turn on the shower to allow the hot water to build up and you go out to the kitchen to make the morning coffee . . . but forget to empty the tub . . .
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