I’ve started to think of my brain as a somewhat leaky bucket.  In the old days, my memories came with an iron-clad guarantee.  If something happened, I remembered.  If I remembered something, it happened.

Now?  I have no idea what’s happening.

Today I was riding in the car with my husband.  He has a new obsession with podcasts since I showed him how easy it is to subscribe to them with an iPhone.  Now whenever we go anywhere, a podcast plays.  Fine.

Out of nowhere, I said to him, “Hey, have you ever thought about doing your own podcast?” and he said, “Yes, and I already told you that.  In fact, I told you I asked  ____________ if he would do one with me.  I tell you things and you say ‘uh-huh’ but you aren’t really paying attention.”  And so on.

Now, here’s the thing.  Back in the day, I would have argued that point.  I would have insisted that he said no such thing.  I would certainly have remembered that, right?

Now, doubt sloshes around in my leaky bucket.  Is he forgetful or am I?  Did he only think he told me something or did I just pretend to listen and fail to hear it?  Did I forget?  Did he forget?

My hunch–completely undependable like a ladder missing rungs–is that he thinks he tells me things but doesn’t actually tell me.  This is my working theory, my blame-shifting explanation.  He is, after all, four years older than me.  He talks to a lot more people than I do.  I think he tells other people things that he thinks he told me.  Most days I literally don’t talk to anyone other than my kids and him.  (Sad but true.)  Wouldn’t I remember even the idle chit-chat between us?

Then again, maybe it’s me.  Maybe I am losing my mind, one sharp corner at a time.  Maybe I am just not paying attention.  Maybe I am sleepwalking through conversations and when I wake, the information vanishes like a crazy dream.

I don’t know.

I prefer to think that he’s wrong and that I am right.  However, at this point, your guess is as good as mine.

(Just don’t tell me that I really am losing my mind.  I’d rather not know.)

(But ask me what my childhood telephone number was and to sing the Brady Bunch theme and I’m your girl.)

Today Grace and I went to the neighboring town and picked up a new (to us) bed for her room.  Months ago, she told me she wanted a daybed and even sent me a picture of the one she wanted (at Ikea).  I told her I belonged to a Facebook garage sale group and that I’d watch for a similar bed.

Last night, the exact bed she wanted appeared for half the price of the new one at Ikea–and it included a mattress as well (no small expense).  I was lucky enough to be first in line and so today found us standing in a stranger’s bedroom, puzzling over how to disassemble the thing.  It only took us about thirty minutes to take it apart enough to get it out of the bedroom and into my mini-van.  The other mom and I did all the work ourselves, causing me to declare, “Girl Power!” as we lifted the mattress through her house.

The hard work came when I had to put the thing back together.  The worst part was when my helper’s grip failed and the back board fell onto both my bare feet like a guillotine.  Except my toes were not sliced off.  The tops of each foot were just bruised.  Nice.  But I got that bed put together with only one injury and no cursing in front of the children.    (Here’s the bed, but not the exact one we bought):

A couple of days ago, my husband woke up in the middle of the night with a stomach virus.  He went through twenty-four hours of misery.  I only hope my excessive hand-washing protects me from catching it.

On Monday this week, my poor daughter got her orthodontic appliance, a metal torture device affixed to her back molars with glue.  Each day I have to turn it with a “key” that doesn’t at all look like a key.  The device will spread open her palate so her teeth can be moved into alignment.  She could barely talk on Monday and could not eat at all.  On Tuesday, her speech was better but she could only eat what she didn’t have to chew.  Now, she’s adjusting.  And I only  have to turn that key 19 more times.

This was our first full week of summer vacation from school.  I only hope the upcoming weeks are less exciting.

My gas tank is empty and yet we have a few miles to go before school is finally out for the summer next Wednesday.  (My son was out of school a week or so ago.)  My daughter has half-days this week and other than a presentation tomorrow afternoon, she’s pretty much done in terms of productivity.  (Next week:  a field trip to see a movie in the movie theater down the road . . . the next day, a beach day.  This week:  lots of yearbook passing for signatures, plenty of party-planing  for the summer, etc.)

Fortunately, she’s distracted by the presentation and hasn’t been able to obsess and worry about the fact that she’s having a front tooth pulled tomorrow as part of her orthodontic treatment.  This is a girl who burst into tears when she got a vaccination recently, so I can only imagine the histrionics that will accompany the actual needle in her gums tomorrow.  (It’s a small tooth, smaller than normal and I’m told it will ‘slip out’ but I don’t really and truly believe anything a dentist says, no offense if you’re a dentist.)

(I’m not a big fan of the dentist so I’m trying to keep this underlying dread I have to myself.)

I will be glad when the whole thing is over.  And by “thing,” I mean the dental appointment.

I will also be glad when school is over.

Her summer break will end on August 24 and if I know my time-travel, August 24 will arrive in approximately six days.  I don’t know how it happens, I don’t know why, but I do know that time ticks quicker the older I get and summer-time ticks away the quickest of all.

Two months ago on a Saturday morning, I stood fuming in a very long line to register my daughter for recreational soccer.  I had already driven around the enormous parking lot twice to even find a spot to park. Then I joined a herd of parents in a bunched up line to do a task that we should have been able to do online but instead required us to stand in an actual line so we could register our kids.

I’m fuming again, remembering.  A hundred of us milled around, checking the time on our phones, waiting to hand our registration form and a check to the lady who sat on the other side of a table.  So inefficient. Such a waste of time.  So annoying.

While waiting in that ridiculous line, I received a text message from a co-worker letting me know that the employee for the next shift had not shown up.

One of my job duties is to ensure almost around-the-clock monitoring of a website.  I handle the scheduling and oversee a few employees.  And for some reason, I had failed to note an employee’s vacation request.  I hurried home and worked the six hour shift on a Saturday afternoon and vowed to create more sticky notes or something.  Nothing* is more unpleasant than unexpectedly spending a Saturday working because of your own idiocy.

Seriously, with a Google calendar on my phone, an actual paper desk calendar and a variety of Post-it notes, things like this should not fall between the cracks.  Ever.

And yet.  Today I was still in bed (past 10:00 AM which seems late to you but I bet you get to bed before 2 AM, am I right?) and a text message roused me.  (I had been awake and had sort of gone back to sleep because why not?)

Today, June 6 became my personal Groundhog Day.  Months ago, the same employee requested a vacation day for today.  I approved it, typed it into a Word document, printed it out, and set it aside.  (At some point, my daughter spilled a glass of water on it, but it was still legible.  No excuses.)  But . . . no Post-it note, no notation on my paper calendar, no Google calendar alert.   I completely and utterly forgot to plan coverage for today.

What is wrong with me?  I’ll tell you this.  In March, when I last took note of this vacation request, June 6 seemed light years away, too far to even truly consider.  I didn’t even have a shelf in my brain upon which to set this thought.

Surprise!

Three months sped by in a psychedelic flash and suddenly, I’m spending my Saturday afternoon squinting at my computer screen and feeling like a dunce for for failing to hammer down this thing in March.

Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’ into the future . . . and I actually do want to fly like an eagle to the sea.

*Actually, I can think of quite a few things more unpleasant.  The Norovirus, for instance.

Cooking dinner is the bane of my existence.

I have a somewhat adversarial relationship with food in the first place.

(Even stating that I have a “relationship” with food is problematic, am I right?)

Food is supposed to be fuel and yet, I sound like I’m in an unhealthy dating relationship with it, as if food were an abusive boyfriend who alternately insists I eat a plate of raw carrots and celery for dinner or tells me I’m fat while we share a big bowl of barbecued potato chips or prepares me fudge frosted brownies with sprinkles on top and encourages me to lick the plate.  You may know what I mean.

Anyway.  I try not to fry food and eat hamburgers without buns and choose salads.  But . . . brownies.  It’s complicated.

And then I have five other people to feed every day.

Here are some of the restrictions I juggle as I consider what to cook for dinner.

Person one:  Doesn’t like vegetables, isn’t thrilled about pasta, has a sensitive tummy which can’t handle beef or pork or cheese or milk.  Likes buttered bread with meals but doesn’t care for biscuits or scones or muffins or cookies.  Prefers rice with a sauce.  Only iceberg lettuce.  No tomatoes.  Likes fried food.  DOES NOT LIKE BURRITOS.  (This makes no sense to me.)

Person two:  Likes pasta of any kind but not a lot of meat.  Eats some vegetables.  Not terribly picky.  Used to refuse pizza and spaghetti because of the red sauces.   Loves canned tuna with fervor.

Person three:  Drinks gallons of milk.  Loves my potato salad except tonight because the pickles were “too crunchy.”  Can detect the slightest difference in spices or texture and does not like change at all.  If one spice is altered, refuses to eat dish.  Does not like baked potatoes because they are “too much work.”  No vegetables and will only eat salad if there are croutons–and not just any croutons, but the “right” croutons and ranch dressing.  Does not like fruit or sweets.

Person four:  Just became a vegetarian.  Will eat vegetables and any baked good.  Likes coffee.  Usually eats dessert first. Will eat pasta but not casseroles or anything spicy.   Hates rice.

Person five:  Refuses to eat chicken cooked in the CrockPot.  Confided that his friend’s mom’s mashed potatoes are a lot better than mine because they are creamier.  Eats Taco Bell food but refuses my homemade soft tacos.  Most likely to ask, “What’s for dinner?”

I feel like those descriptions don’t fully express the difficulties.  Or maybe I’m just a wimp.

Here’s an example.  Something like eggs and bacon for dinner should be simple except that some like their bacon really crisp and some like it softer.  Some like fried eggs over easy and some like them over hard.  Some want them scrambled with lots of pepper.  Some hate pepper.  Personally, I want a lot of vegetables in an omelette but no one else really digs the vegetables or omelette thing.  Some want the egg cooked in a circle cut out of bread (“egg toast”).  To toast or not to toast?  That is the question.  I spend an hour cooking eggs in various styles and burning my hand on bacon grease.

They are a diverse bunch and they will not eat celery with peanut butter or yogurt with granola or a giant chef’s salad.  So if I want those things, first I make things they will eat because God forbid they eat raw vegetables or whole grains.

Oh sure.  I should insist that this crew learn to cook dinner and take turns.  I should have put the food before them and insisted that they eat it.  I should have introduced spinach before apple juice and I should have always offered slivered raw carrots and celery with hummus at every meal.

But I didn’t.  (Plus, I married a guy who grew up eating southern cooking and I grew up in the Pacific Northwest where we did not and he’s, uh, particular about food and I am not his mother, so there.)

So each afternoon, I wonder what I should make for dinner when all I really want to do is go for a walk, eat a big salad and read a novel.  And I don’t actually want help in the kitchen because I prefer to work alone–and stop trying to solve my problems or point out my inconsistencies because I just want to complain, is that a crime?  If so, please lock me up because then, I will not have to cook dinner.

(I do actually like to cook.  I just don’t like to cook DINNER EVERY NIGHT.  It’s so relentless and boring and time-consuming and thankless and repetitive and besides that, I’ve been cooking dinner for twenty-seven years, going on twenty-eight and isn’t that long enough?)

To answer your inevitable question . . . I have no idea what’s for dinner.  Isn’t it enough that I came up with dinner yesterday?

I am reading a memoir in which the author tells us the year and her age during that year.  I squint one eye and calculate her birth year and then subtract that from the year I was born so I can figure out who is older and by how much.

Lately, I do this every time I come across someone’s year of birth, which is surprisingly often.  It’s as if I’m trying to sort people into chronological order so I can figure out where to slide myself into the row.

Am I older than her?  If so, by how much?  Is he older than me?  A lot?

The even worse question is, “am I old enough to be her mother?”  Sometimes when I realize that I am theoretically old enough to be the parent of a thirty year old, it gives me pause.  Some people my age–and younger even–have become grandparents.  What is happening?

Is everyone else doing math in their heads all the time?  Or is this just a weird thing that I can’t stop doing?  I came across the date 1970 yesterday and thought, “I was five years old.”  I heard about Beau Biden dying of brain cancer at age 46 and I realize I’m four years old than him.  My sons are 22; when I was 22, I got married.

I line up the numbers, organize them, subtract and add.  I constantly slide myself into the timeline.

Not that it makes any difference, really.  My eyebrows are going gray, one hair at a time.  (Current white hair count, right eyebrow only, three.  Three eyebrow hairs are white.)  I’m losing pigment and blurring into invisibility.   There’s no way to stop this process, short of plastic surgery and Photoshop, and even that only changes your perception, not my reality.

1989 . . . the year my dad died and my husband and I moved twice and I worked at an insurance company and grew my hair really long and I was 24.

2001 . . . a space odyssey (ha) and we lived in a small town by the Puget Sound where the twins attended third grade and my baby boy was three . . . we had a big earthquake and I was 36.

1976 . . . the bicentennial and I had a “flag” shirt I loved so much; I was in fifth grade and Nadia Comaneci got a perfect 10 and won a gold medal in the Olympics (she was born in 1961, so she’s four years older than me) and I was 11 and my parents were divorced.

You’d think by fifty, I’d know exactly how I fit into the world, but strangely enough, I have the sense of cutting into line while trying to figure out what, exactly, everyone is lining up to do.  Where does the line begin?  Where does it end?  Am I older or younger than you?

And why do I feel so bitter about my mottled skin and drooping eyelids and the fact that I am older than the President of the United States* ?  (Although, I’d like to note that Oprah is 11 years older than me and so is Anne Lamott, but that doesn’t stop me from being older than Reese Witherspoon–she was born when I was 11–and Taylor Swift, who is young enough to be my daughter.)

At least I can still do math.

*A reader pointed out that I am actually younger that the President of the United States.  Hooray!  My husband and the President are the same age, in case you were wondering.

I prefer quiet weeks that feature good books and naps and pajamas at 6:30 PM.

But sometimes, I find myself driving south on I-5 in slow traffic at 5:30 PM, heading to an art museum to hear an author speak.  And after I park, I notice the scrolling shadows behind a gate as I walk to the auditorium and I am so grateful to have an iPhone to capture that image.

Sue Monk Kidd, by the way, was gracious and interesting and had the mildest southern accent.  She had beautiful white hair, in case you wondered, even though all her book jackets and most websites show her with brown hair.  It was like expecting to see a long-lost aunt and finding instead, your grandmother, only a stylish and wise one who speaks about novels.  I sat in the fifth row.

Tomorrow, I’m hosting an Open House at my house for my blog-friend-turned-real-friend, Carrien (She Laughs at the Days).  She lives in Thailand now and since she has a lot of friends here and not much time (she’s in North America for about a month), she invited people to come all at once to see her.  And I volunteered my house.

Which explains why I was at Ralph’s at noon renting a Rug Doctor from the world’s slowest-moving Ralph’s employee.  My dog, Lola, occasionally sneaks into the living room to pee.  I KNOW.  It’s disgusting but mysterious.  I don’t know when she does it.  I don’t know why she does it.  She has access to the outside all the time.  She never, ever pees anywhere else in the house but the formal living room, go figure.  So, I was cleaning the carpet today.

Then, because this is Southern California, and I am a mom, I spent a couple hours picking up kids.  I spend so much time in the car, picking up and delivering kids.

Then after all that, I headed down the freeway to hear Sue Monk Kidd.  The event took place in La Jolla.  I wasn’t sure where to park, so I turned a corner and found a space directly across from a spectacular beach.

(In other news, last Saturday we had a new water heater installed.  Now, there’s a fun thing to spend hundreds of dollars on.  Oh, and last Friday, my daughter got braces on.  Another fun thing to spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on.)

This afternoon as I was driving toward the school to pick up a carload of middle school kids, I realized that it’s May and that soon and very soon it will be June which will bring Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year.

And then it’s all downhill from there.

My baby boy is a junior in high school and in a blink (and a year), he will be graduating.  For so long, we’ve just been circling around in the same routine but before we know it, some in our circle will exit the orbit and move away from us.  From me.

Right now, I feel disbelief at the ending of an era.  In other words, I am embracing denial.  I am stacking denial up in blocks and hiding behind it.  We will continue in our routines.  I will pad around the house as usual, turn off the lights in empty rooms and wake up the next day to rinse and repeat.  And I will cook dinner, over and over and over again, in the cursed Groundhog Day kind of way.

In the meantime, Summer Solstice approaches.  The countdown to summer break is in the weeks, not months.  The Big One is coming, that quake which will shake us all up and break us apart and scatter us around.  But not too soon.  I’m not quite ready.

(Then there is the other part of me that dreams of an empty nest, who fantasizes about being alone within these walls, uninterrupted as I putter and sort and organize and clean and finally get around to watching the television series I missed because I had kids to put to bed at 8 PM for so many years.  I am not so nostalgic that I don’t want them to ever go–just GO–but change is always unsettling.  And I’m not sentimental much at all.  But to think of my baby boy leaving my house for the thrill of college and the beauty of the big wide world?  I miss him even though he’s just upstairs right now, sleeping.)

In the words of Maurice Sendak, “Oh please don’t go–we’ll eat you up–we love you so!”

The problem is that I’ve developed somewhat of an unhealthy obsession with a computer game (not even worth mentioning which game because you’ve never heard of it; it’s a game that involves matching tiles and honestly, I’m not sure why I started playing but I am certain that I’ll need to stop cold turkey).

It’s a problem because instead of thinking coherent late-night thoughts and composing them into paragraphs here, I just play that dumb game until I realize how late it is and then I turn off my computer, fold a load of laundry, turn off all the lights downstairs and go to bed.

I had a very dull day.  I drove one son to his college class, came home and worked until it was time to load the dog into the van for a quick trip to the pet store for dog food before we went and picked up the same son from the college.  Said son declined to drive home from college which was somewhat of a relief.  Driving in a vehicle with a beginning driver is a terrifying experience.  Did I already mention that here?  Well, consider it mentioned.  But I really should have encouraged him to drive home since he needs the practice.

I dropped him and the dog off, then hurried off to get gasoline (someone please explain to me why the prices are fluctuating so wildly; yesterday, the price was $3.19 at my favorite station and today, it was $3.32).  Then I sped off to pick up my daughter and her carpool buddies.  It was strangely hot today and we have no air conditioning in the mini-van, so we had the windows down and our hair blew into our faces the whole drive home.

As if my day weren’t already exciting enough, I spent the next two hours cooking dinner and cleaning up the kitchen.

After dinner, I took a two hour nap.

I know.  My life is super glamorous.

Don’t be jealous.