The Fog

 Most days in this life aren’t a whole lot different than yesterday was or what tomorrow will be. Much of life is repetition and that’s ok because most things that you do over and over again you get better at, right? But every once in a while a day comes along where your brain functions at a different level. When the day is over you find yourself wondering what the heck happened? Was it something you ate? 

Take today for example. 

What follows is an attempt to explain what it was like to be me today, to give you a sneak peak into my thought processes for the day. Thankfully this isn’t what I would call a normal day, far from it. However, this sort of thing happens to me more often than I would like to admit. The problem I will have will be finding a way to describe this phenomenon without the reader coming to the conclusion that there is something wrong with me, which is a chance I will have to take.

The day started with me taking Patrick and Sarah to the airport so they could catch a plane to New York City for business. Once I dropped them off I planned on driving to the Cafe at Hope  for my morning ritual of coffee, breakfast and making a pest of myself to anyone who was unlucky enough to walk by. Instead I drove all the way to the entrance to my neighborhood before I realized that I was not, in fact, at the Cafe at Hope. I chalked it up to a brain freeze and although a bit irritated, I made the course correction and made it to the Cafe. Next on my agenda was a trip to Short Pump mall to buy a birthday present for Pam whose birthday always comes while we are in Maine. After completing this task, the plan was to run by CVS to pick up a couple prescriptions. Instead I discovered that I had driven home instead. Lucky for me Pam was happy to see me since she needed me to drive her over to the Hyundai  dealership to get her car which had been inspected and was ready for pickup. I accomplished this task with no trouble after which it was my intention to head over to CVS. Unfortunately, while on my way a really cool plot idea for the book I am currently writing popped into my head. So, I detoured back home so I could write the idea down before I forgot it. On my way home it occurred to me that I didn’t have my sunglasses with me. The sun was super bright and I remember having them on when I drove to the airport. First I thought maybe I left them at the Cafe. I sent a quick text to a friend there but got no response. Then I was sure I had left them at the store where I had bought Pam’s birthday present. I drove all the way to the mall only to discover that there were no sun glasses to be found. This time I was pissed because this makes the second pair of sun glasses I have lost in the past month. I drove home in a foul mood but on the way I remembered that a friend was closing on a house and was feeling a lot of anxiety about it so I sent a text to encourage her. Then I got a Marco Polo video of my grandson playing with a toy we had bought him for his birthday. Adorable. But as soon as the video was finished I remembered a dear friend I had lunch with last week who shared with me that he had four grandchildren he had never met because he was estranged from his daughter. I was overcome with sadness for my friend which reminded me that another friend had just been made a grandparent for the first time in the wee hours of last night. That cheered me up. But then I remembered that my former assistant had become a grandparent for the first time two days ago but she wasn’t going to know the little girl’s name until they arrived in Boston for a visit. That was two days ago and she still hadn’t text me the child’s name! When I arrived home I realized that I had forgotten to pick up the prescriptions at CVS—again. The good news? My sunglasses were on the kitchen counter. 

Smack dab in the middle of the day I had a very important appointment concerning very serious financial matters, the kind of thing that requires you to have your wits about you. My recollection of that meeting was that I was on top of my game and that it went quite well…except for the fact that half way through the appointment a former colleague popped his head into the room to say that he needed to speak with me before I left. I totally forgot about it until I picked up my sunglasses on the kitchen counter, approximately three hours later.

Other than that, it was a great day.

I have often complained about how old our recent Presidents have been, but I think I may have stumbled on an overlooked benefit of octogenarian leaders. If I was President and I wanted to go to war with some country for some reason—all that country would have to do is chill out for a couple days and by that time I will have forgotten why I wanted to go to war with them in the first place!