Monday, June 11, 2012

Flowers, Part 15: ...And My Aging Brain

Potted water lily, street side, Lopburi

It's not meant to sound depressing, but some of you reading this can agree that as we've begun to move a little further along our life's paths, our memories tend to become more - let's say - disorganized.  That's the kindest way to say it, I think.  If I were to be a little more honest about it I'd probably have to say undependable, or lousy, if we're really going to be brutal about it.

Ginger bud at a friend's home, Udonthani

Despite my best efforts, I walk from one room to another and say "why did I come in here?" when I get there more often than I'd care to admit. The late Herb Caen (a favorite columnist of mine for decades) said once that President Reagan more than likely often said the same thing after walking into the Oval Room of the White House during his second term, when he was in his mid-70s.

That's a little scarier than my merely wondering why I've arrived in the bedroom carrying a pair of scissors, having completely forgotten I'd gone and gotten them to cut the store tags off of a new shirt before tossing it into the laundry basket, but not much. Nobody told Reagan where "The Button" was, either, I'm sure.  He'd have been just as likely to have pushed it, thinking he was calling Nancy in.

Flowers along Soi Convent, Bangkok

Passwords?  "Write them down and put them in a safe place"... oh, please, stop it; the tears of laughter are making it difficult to type this here today. Occasionally I'll be putting socks away and find a piece of paper with some past passwords on it and walk it to the shredder, if I remember to shred it and don't stop to do something else on the way. I do have a specific spot I keep such things now, just so you know I can remember to bathe and cloth myself still, but the old grey matter ain't what she used to be, that's for sure.

Flowers for offerings at a temple in Phitsanulok

That said, with 45,000+ photos of Thailand to work with, I can be disorganized.  Many's the time I've gone to use an image in a post and then wondered if I'd already used it somewhere in the past. Sometimes images near it in the same sub-folder give me clues, and I can look up a post topic and see if the questioned picture is there, but not always.  Over 600 posts is one thing; the 27 months since I started this is quite another.

A large Hibiscus Sorrel bloom - seen throughout the country

I suppose the overall gist of this today is to ask you kind folks to just roll with it if you see a picture here and say "hey... didn't he already use this back in September?", because that's quite likely.  The unkind folks can say what they wish, also; it won't mean much to me a week from now, either!

Lycoris Amaryllidaceae - Spider Lily - Bangkok

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