The day Dad talked to a banana

Back in the day, before everybody had a cellphone in their pocket, my folks had a phone on the kitchen counter.

Next to the phone, they had a fruit bowl.

One night at dinner, the phone rings. Dad gets up from the table, picks up a banana, and says "hello?"

That was at least thirty years ago. We laughed uproariously, but there was also a dark edge.

Has Dad taken the on-ramp to the dementia highway?

The dude is gonna be 90 this year, God bless him!

And all the marbles are still rolling in the right direction.

I bring this up because we've recently been wondering where I am with respect to that on-ramp.

This afternoon me and the Farm Manager settled in front of the TV to binge watch the doc about Janet Jackson. I was never a fan, but I have a new respect for her now.

This went on most of the afternoon, and at some point I felt I needed a snack.

Fixed myself a dish of pickled beets, a pickled egg, and a slab of blue cheese on caraway rye toast.

And what a tasty snack!

But back to the point. I got up to wash up my dish, got to the sink, and realized I forgot to bring the dish.

The other day, I got up from my usual perch in front of the fire, meaning to grab a beer out of the fridge.

On the way to the fridge, I thought maybe I'll step out for a breath of fresh air before I get the beer.

I was back on the couch before I remembered I forgot the beer.

So I get up again. Bruno is by the kitchen door with his throw-toy. I figure I'll just step out and entertain him a bit. The Big Boy makes me laugh out loud multiple times per day.

It's the least I can do.

Fifteen minutes later, I take my place in front of the fire again...

Oh, for fucks sakes!

Still no beer!

I don't know what that means for the long term. 

Plenty of dementia on Mom's side.

None on Dad's side.

Another reason I just want to be like you, Dad!

Cruising down the Alzheimer Highway without a roadmap

Found myself staring out the window this afternoon absently reaching for the name of the cat I've had for at least 18 years.

Reaching... reaching...

Just couldn't get hold of it.


Chloe!

Ya, it's Chloe of course! How could I forget? Chloe got fixed at the vet clinic where Karla Homolka worked back in the day. I'm pretty sure Karla was in jail by the time Chloe was at that clinic, but still, that leaves Chloe one degree of separation from Karla... and me two.

There's a history of Alzheimer's in my mother's family. Her mom, my grandmother, Leokadia Packull, spent the last twenty years of her life institutionalized. I used to go and see her from time to time. We were close when I was a youngster. We were still doing things the old-world way where the elders live with their children and their children's children.

Somewhere along the way we adopted the new-world custom of dropping the elders off in a home.

That seems a cruel abuse of language if you ask me.

"We're taking you out of your home and putting you in a home."

Leokadia, or Lotte as she styled herself, had three children.

My mother, who still has all her marbles rolling in the same direction.

And two uncles, both on the Alzheimer Highway. The younger one went to a home just before Christmas.

He's fifteen years older than me.

Maybe he's my roadmap.

A night full of dreams

I'm in places that were familiar in my youth but are foreign... I know where I am but I don't know how to get home. I wait for buses/trains/trams that never come. Oh, buses trains and trams come and go constantly, but never the one I'm waiting for.

People seem to know me but they are strangers.

I navigate endless corridors through abandoned factories and department stores. Idle machinery, entire floors of once-grand stores with the displays intact but covered with cobwebs and dust.

Up and down ladders and stairways and walking past a concrete crew that chases me off their fresh cement... my phone won't work. I'm trying to call home but my phone won't work.

I'M CALLING HOME BUT MY PHONE WON'T WORK!

I can hear the echo of the familiar... but I'm not sure where I am...

Buckle up and put the pedal to the metal dude! It's just early laps in the Alzheimer 500!

Will Herr Doktor Alzheimer be gentle?

There is a profoundly moving and very sad story on view at The Toronto Star tonight about one Kathleen Pollock.

She was found dead on the front stoop of her former home of fifty years.

According to news reports Mrs. Pollock has been getting acquainted with Doktor Alzheimer lately, and the newspapers imply that's what led her to take a cab to the home she left a couple of years ago.

Sold the property to developers, who have boarded it up till they have their plans approved.

And while this is a sad story, one can only hope that in her mind, as she faded away, Mrs. Pollock was just back at home for one last visit, and fell asleep recalling every happy memory of her fifty years there.

That would be gentle.