Tag Archives: memory

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’25 A To Z Challenge – Y

 

This week’s A to Z challenge is to honor a request of – though, hopefully, not to honor the memory of – yet another blogger who seems to have quietly disappeared.  A couple of years ago, one of my regular visitors/commenters, who named himself Daniel Digby, requested that I do a challenge for the letter Y, with the word

YCLEPT

The all-too-often-late, great, blogger named Archon, finally got around to it, just after the nick of time.

Yclept is a word that means “named” or “called.” It is an archaic term that was commonly used in Old English and Middle English, but it has largely fallen out of use in modern English.

The word “yclept” is derived from the Old English word “cylt,” which meant “called” or “named.” This word was often used in phrases such as “yclept by name” or “yclept after his name,” to indicate that someone had been given a specific name or title.

In modern English, we might use the word “called” or “named” instead of “yclept,” so for example: “He was called John” or “She was named Sarah.” However, “yclept” can add a more formal or archaic touch to writing, and it can be used to create a sense of historical or literary context.

Archon was never called to the bar, but has been sent home from a few in a taxi.  Y’all come back in a coupla days.  We havin’ barbecue and Coors Lite.  CU then.

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Blog Theme Prompt – Memory

Would you rather have no long-term memory or no short-term memory? Why?

What was the question, again??

As a world renowned expert on both of these phenomena, let me assure you that neither of them is a bed of roses – more like a bed of rose bushes, with lots of sharp thorns.

I was born with a neurological syndrome that seriously impaired both my short-, and long-term memory.  It was maddening to appear slow, or stupid, when all I was, was forgetful.  I was actually relatively smart.  I could understand and figure complicated things out.  I just had to develop methods that helped me remember them for things like school exams.

I tested at 142 IQ.  I was smart enough to join MENSA – if I’d ever remembered to apply.  I cracked the electronic lock on a small safe, on the way into a Science Museum, but couldn’t remember the sequence, 8 hours later, as I exited.

You’ve heard of the old meme of tying a string around a finger, to remind you of something.  My life has been a trail of bread crumbs memory joggers – a pen left here, a bag set there, a book placed on the stairs, a note in red, in my Word blog file.  It is also maddening to see the trigger, and know that I’m supposed to recall something, and not have the faintest clue what it is.

What is also frustrating, is remembering something that didn’t happen.  I have given the pets water, or cleaned out the litter pan, every day for 4,000 days – so I ‘remember’ doing it today.  My normal age-induced memory loss is increasing.

My life – my consciousness –  my awareness – is closing in on me.  It’s a wonder that I remember to publish my blog-posts. The wife, who I relied on, because she had a diamond-hard, laser-sharp memory, is quickly, and deeply, slipping into old-age memory loss far worse than mine.  Some days, it’s like dealing with Rain Man.  Fortunately, the kids – and Grandkids – are here to keep an eye on us.

….what was I talking about??  Oh yeah.  You please remember to stop back on Friday for some fabulously funny fibs.   😀

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Southern Comfort Comedy

I admit, I’ve got a bit of a lead-foot.  I was driving through Georgia on vacation, when I got pulled over by a State trooper.  I decided to try some fake innocence, to see if I could get away with it.  When the officer approached my car, I said, “I’ve never been pulled over like this.”  He just stared at me and said, “What do they usually do??  Just shoot out the tires?”

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My doctor’s receptionist commented that she hadn’t taken her morning vitamins, and was walking around unprotected.
I replied that I hadn’t taken my Prozac, and that everybody was walking around unprotected.

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The wife and I were watching a TV show about long-married couples.  I asked, “If you had to do it over again, would you marry me?”  She said, “You’ve asked me that before.”  “So, what was your answer?”  She replied, “I don’t remember.”

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The knit cap my friend sent me from England was a bit small.  But it was lovely, so I wore it to church on Sunday.  Afterward I emailed her to say how nice it looked on me.  She shot me back a text, saying how glad she was. ”Especially,” she wrote, “as it’s a tea cozy.”

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My grandson and his pregnant wife were checking into a new birth facility that was more like a spa.  The birthing room had a hot tub, soft music, and candlelight.
“What do you think?” she asked.
He looked around and replied, “Isn’t this how we got here in the first place?”

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A teenager brings her new boyfriend home to meet her parents.  They are appalled with his tattoos and piercings.  Later, her Mother says, “Dear, he doesn’t seem to be a very nice boy.”
“Oh please Mother,” the girl replies.  “If he wasn’t nice, would he be doing 500 hours of community service?”

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A marine biologist was telling some of his friends about his latest research findings.  “Some whales are capable of communicating at a distance of 300 miles.”
A sarcastic friend asked, “What the Hell would one whale have to say to another whale, 300 miles away?”
“I’m not absolutely certain” the expert replied, “but it sounds a lot like Can you hear me now?”

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What should I do? yelled the panicked customer to the veterinary receptionist.  My dog ate two bags of unpopped popcorn.  Clearly not as alarmed as the worried pet owner, she replied, “The first thing I’d do, is keep him out of the sun.

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An orangutan at the zoo has two books – The Bible, and Darwin’s Origin of Species.  He’s trying to find out if he’s his brother’s keeper, or his keeper’s brother.

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Fibbing Friday #277

These are funny phrases that Pensitivity101 found on the internet and I admit we have no idea who said them, so who would you suggest as the speaker?

When I read this list, I found that so many of them seemed to point directly at me, I worried that the wife had installed a nanny-camera in my computer room.  (Note to self – Clear browser history every day!)

1. I’m not arguing, I’m just explaining why I’m right.

I’m not always right, but I’m never wrong.

2. My bed is a magical place where I suddenly remember everything I forgot to do.

Then I file it all under P for Procrastination.  Nagging Reminding is what I have a wife for.

3. My diet plan: make all of my friends cupcakes, the fatter they get, the thinner I look.

During the heat wave, the kids up the street came down just to sit in my shade.

4. My wallet is like an onion. When I open it, it makes me cry.

Apparently, I must have accidently switched wallets with the Invisible Man at the gym.  I got all his invisible bank-notes.

5. You never realize what you have until it’s gone. Toilet paper is a good example.

He was gone for a while, but not long enough.  Now he’s back.  I print a few copies of his face on my Brother Copier, and use them.  They’re almost as much a pain in the ass as the real thing.

6. Chocolate doesn’t ask silly questions, chocolate understands.

Chocolate says nothing – unlike the women in my office.  With them, silence is not golden.  It’s a vague, distant memory.

7. I don’t need a hair stylist, my pillow gives me a new hairstyle every morning.

It somehow also bleached my black hair white.  My morning hairstyle looks like a Costco swirly vanilla soft-serve cone.

8. My favorite exercise is a cross between a lunge and a crunch… I call it lunch.

I lunge toward the all-you-can-eat taco buffet, and crunch until I lapse into a salsa coma.

9. Whoever said nothing is impossible has never tried slamming a revolving door.

Chuck Norris is the only guy who ever did it, but the tornado that I spun up, leaving the insurance company’s Customer Service department, crossed three counties.

10. I don’t sweat, I sparkle.

I thought it was an Eskimo, coming out of an exercise gym in Nome, Alaska, but the daughter insists that it’s Richard Simmons!!!  He was the biggest sparkler of all time.  What with all that sweating to the oldies and his perky personality!

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’25 A To Z Challenge – B

What will you never hear a Millennial say??

BACK IN MY DAY…

I mean, what are they gonna say??!  Remember when flash-drives could only hold a MB of data, and they cost $100?  Now they can hold a terabyte of information, and they’re 3 for $9.99.

I’ve done a couple of these Back in my day/Remember when posts, to remind my older readers that the GOOD OLD DAYS weren’t all that good, and to show some of the younger ones what they’re lucky to have missed.

Social development, especially technological, is not linear.  It is more logarithmic.  It is not 1+1=2, 1+2=3. 1+3=4.  It is more like 1+2=3, 2+3=5, and 5+4=9.  As Isaac Newton said, If I have seen farther than others, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.  The slant of the bell curve gets steeper and steeper.

Change that used to take a century, and then a year, and then a month – now happens in a week.  I am proud of Canada, and especially my local Kitchener/Waterloo area, with its RIM Park, and a Google branch as big as its parent.  It can be a rough ride, and some people have a hard time holding on, but change is inevitable, and must be embraced.  I suppose that those who can’t hack it, can always be hewers of wood and drawers of water – and makers of MAGA hats.

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Intelligent VS Smart

Being “Intelligent” does not mean that you are “Smart.”  Take my wife – please.

When she went into Grade 9, the school administered an IQ test, on which she scored in the middle 120s.  She is reasonably ‘intelligent,’ however….
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Where and when I attended high school, jewelry of any sort on students was rare.  I was almost the only one I knew who had a wristwatch.  Boys wore no rings, often because of sports.  Bracelets and bangles were non-existent.  Very few girls wore necklaces.  There must have been a few Catholics mixed in with us heathen Protestants.  I remember a couple of modest, sterling crucifixes, and the cafeteria served salmon loaf each Friday.

Not being a “Christian,” and desiring to be a little different, I wanted to wear some kind of necklace, but not A CROSS. I read in some magazine, an offer like, Send in two Post Toasties box-tops and 75¢, and we’ll send you a genuine, pewter, Maltese Cross.  I hung it from a cheap, steel chain, and wore it for years.  One day, it just disappeared.  With no memory, I couldn’t look back to see exactly where and when and how I had lost it.

Fast forward ten years.  I have a couple of kids and a wife.  We are watching some PBS documentary about the Knights of Malta, and how they petitioned the Pope to allow them to use the Maltese Cross as their religious emblem.  I casually said, “I used to have a Maltese Cross that I wore, but it just disappeared one day.  I don’t know how I lost it, or where it went.  And the wife said:

Well, when we first started going out, I noticed you wearing it.  I didn’t know what it was.  I’d never seen anything like it.  The only ones I knew about were part of Nazi war medals.  I didn’t know why you were worshipping Nazis, but I just didn’t think it was right.  One day, when we were at the beach, you took it off to go into the water, and I took it out of your shoe, and buried it in the sand.

W!   T!   F!??

So:
Before we were even married
Without my Knowledge
Without my permission
Without having me explain myself
Without knowing what it was
Without doing any research
Without asking questions
Without expressing her concern

She just felt justified in stealing my personal property, and disposing of it without telling me, because she somehow disapproved – and then, voluntarily piping up, and admitting to it.  Her recent ex-Catholic status forced her mind to confess her sin.  Had it been me…. My ‘Smart’ brain would have told my ‘Intelligent’ mouth to Shut the f**k up!!

Fifty years later, I am still occasionally reminded somehow, and I am still angered.

😦

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Keeping An Eye On You

Old age is upon me, and The Game is beginning to be played a bit differently.  I turn 80 in September.  The Province of Ontario, in an attempt to reduce the number of incompetent drivers, insists that I be retested soon, and every two years.

I still think that I am as good a driver as most, and better than far too many, if a little aggressive.  My only worry was about my eyesight.  It continues to decline.  Recently, I had my yearly checkup with my ophthalmologist.  The technician asked if I had noticed any deterioration.  I said NO.  She then ran some tests, and showed me what I had not noticed.

After retinal surgery several years ago, I received a new, plastic lens in my right eye.  The vision is clear, except for a small divot/dead zone in the center.  I rely on ‘averaging’ with my left eye.  The tests showed that cataracts were clouding the left lens, so that my vision was down to 20/50, the Province’s limit.  The eye doc told me that she will schedule me for day surgery, to insert a new, plastic lens in the left eye, some time in June or July, depending on the hospital’s schedule.  This will give me time to heal and adapt, by my birthday.

I recently spoke to a lady who had just turned 81, and went through this last year.  She said that all they had her do was draw an analog clock, showing 10:15….  W.T.F!?  My Osteopath told me that she went through this with her mother and her progressive dementia.  Often, they don’t even check vision.  They are more worried about loss of cognitive ability on the roads.  As the son says, if you can’t find your car keys, that’s just memory.  If you don’t know what car keys do, they want you off the roads.

I was willing to draw a digital clock, with two squares and some numbers, but they insist on a circle, a center dot, a big hand and a little hand.  Anyone our age should remember what they look like.  With the lens/vision situation taken care of, I feel fairly confident, even if the retesting is more complex.

I’ll keep you updated, to know whether I’m allowed to do more driving than just making other people crazy.  So, Here’s lookin’ at you, kid. Soon.

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Smitty’s Loose Change #24

The Grandson got to the supermarket nearest to me before I did.  As a New Year’s present, he brought me from the chute of their coin-counter, a Canadian quarter and nickel, an American quarter, two nickels, two dimes – one a 1946, worn flat and almost illegible, and a bronze?/brass? – It ain’t copper – a One something coin from Serbia.  I need to research it, to find what it is, and made from.  This is my first Serbian coin.  I have several from Croatia, but none from Serbia.

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I keep forgetting to work on my writing. I keep forgetting to write and submit my writing. Buy my books on Amazon.

I was going to, but I keep forgetting.  😮

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If u cud recomend me a book. wot wud u recomend?

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If you’re wearing a mask, why do you care if I’m not?  Yours works, doesn’t it?
If you’re sober, and I’m driving drunk, why do you care?  Your seatbelt and airbags work, don’t they?

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What part of your morning routine takes the longest?
Me: Deciding to get up.

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Other countries don’t think as we do, and their languages do not express themselves as we do.
The German surname Rosenthal is translated as Rose Valley.  English assumes that there is more than one rose in the valley.  German does not leave it to chance.  ‘Rosen” is plural.  The name more precisely/pedantically means “Valley of Roses.”

I recently opened a (Canadian) Chinese fortune cookie.  The English side said, “Your reputation is worth more than money.”  The French side said, “Your reputation is worth more than nice perfume.”

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I was recently offered ‘Dark Roast’ peanut butter, and jumped at the chance.  I wondered if it would be like dark roast coffee – a brighter, fuller flavor.  It is one chain’s ‘No-Name’ brand.  Would it be from the overcooked nuts at the bottom?  Nah.  It’s just promotion,, more lying advertising,  decent, un-homogenized peanut butter that needs the oil stirred back in prior to every use.

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I joined Linked-In because I thought that it was a social media thing, like WordPress, or Facebook.  I soon found that its main drive was an online networking group, helping people make connections, and find jobs.  Since I’m a dedicated, industrial-strength retiree who doesn’t want a job, nor can aid anyone else in getting one, I soon ignored it.

I recently received an invitation to add someone to my circle, Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada!  I didn’t do so, and a week later, I got another, identical request.  Is there an upcoming election that I haven’t heard about??!

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’23 A To Z Challenge – V

TECHNOLOGICAL OBSOLESCENCE

It’s a term to describe systems or ways of doing something that have changed significantly within living memory.

For centuries – millennia – change and progress inched forward.  Then, about 150 years ago, knowledge reached a critical mass, and technology soared.  Things like the telephone and the gramophone made it possible to store and conduct sound.  The telephone was electrical, while the gramophone started out as strictly mechanical.

A crank wound up a spring which ran a clockwork motor.  A needle at the end of an arm ran in a rotating, serrated groove.  The first examples were actually cylindrical.  Only later did flat discs become standard.  The sound was conducted up the arm, into a horn and out, to be heard by avid listeners.  Like some YouTube shorts, the sound level varied.  Some ‘records’ had deeper grooves, and the sound level could blast a small room.  Pieces of cloth were sometimes stuffed into the horn as a damper – a mute.  This is where the phrase, “Put a sock in it!” originated.  The best, and the best-known, brand of gramophone was the

VICTROLA

The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American recording company and phonograph manufacturer, incorporated in 1901. The company operated independently until it was purchased by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in 1929 and subsequently operated as the RCA Victor Division of the Radio Corporation of America.

Sound reproduction has gone from mechanical, to electric, to electronic, to digital.  We have come so far.  I wonder how much, and how soon, the future will change and improve it – neural??  We already have Smart Glasses, which transmit sound from the arms, into the bones near your ears.

Veni, Vidi, Victrola

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Possibly Funny One-Liners

Anything seems possible….
….if you don’t know what you’re talking about.

A pun, an innuendo, and a limerick walk into a bar….
….No joke.

I am getting so old….
….that I have started lying about my children’s ages.

I am so old I can remember….
….when Emojis were called hieroglyphics.

Is it a sign that I am getting old….
….that I have started buying giant print alphabet soup?

I try not to let my age get me down,….
….at my age it is too hard to get back up again.

Too much sex can cause memory loss….
…. I read that in a Medical Journal on April 14th at 3:18 p.m.

I try to be a nice person….
….but sometimes my mouth just won’t co-operate.

My life diary – I was born,,,,
….Then everything bothered me – that brings us up to date.

As a chronic procrastinator….
….I’m deathly afraid of Saturday the 14th.

In ancient Greece, Chiron was a half-human/half-horse, doctor….
….Centaur For Disease Control

I spent $300 on a limo, but it didn’t come with a driver….
….all that money, and nothing to chauffeur it

I looked up my family tree….
….I found out that I’m a sap.

Don’t worry about getting older….
….You still get to do stupid things, only slower.

The other day, I rang the Speaking Clock….
….It said, “What’s the matter, can’t you afford a watch?”….
…. “Are you too lazy to lift your arm up you idiot?…. “
….It was Greenwich Mean Time.

What’s an acorn?….
….In a nutshell, it’s an oak tree.

Diet books are popular because….
….they appeal to a wide audience.

String theory may explain everything….
….Then again, maybe knot.

My ‘alone time’ is….
….strictly for the safety of others.

I bought my friend an elephant for his room.  He said, “Thanx”….
….I said, “Don’t mention it.”

When I get naked in the bathroom….
….the shower is the only thing that gets turned on.