Food confusion

Tonight she asked me about every 15 minutes if we were going to the grocery store. Each time I calmly replied that tomorrow is Super Bowl Sunday--the grocery store will be a mob scene and the salty snack aisle would be stripped bare. So we would go grocery shopping soon, but not today. There came a point where I reached my limit and said, "I cannot answer this question again. No, we are not going to the grocery store tonight!" 

She went back downstairs and came back about 10 minutes later and said, "We have that frozen casserole that Annie made..." I looked at her and searched for what to say. Before I could say anything, she spread her arms wide and said, "I don't know what you're asking me to do..." I walked over to her and said, "There's much confusion here. I'm not asking you to do anything. We ate lunch at 4 o'clock. I'm not even thinking about food." 

She said she would just try to find something for herself. I followed her downstairs and pulled a pizza out of the freezer and asked her if she could eat that. She said yes, so I helped her put it in the oven and set the temperature. I came back a few minutes later to make sure the pizza wasn't burning. She asked, "Do you want rice with that?" 

Again I didn't know how to answer. I wondered if she had put something else in the oven. "Do I want rice with my pizza?" is all I could think of to say. She just turned away from me and put the rice back on the shelf.  

No, no, NO!

She asked me three times in the space of five minutes if I wanted toast with my dinner. The third time I said no, it might have been with a little edge to it. She asked if she had asked me that seven times and I said, only three. She shook her head and muttered "I hate getting old." She's said that several times lately -- she hates "getting old," as opposed to "having this disease." 

These four walls

I was traveling on business and Annie was here to stay with May. When I got back I asked Annie if anything weird happened. She said no, but something very sad happened...

Annie was going shopping and asked May if she wanted to go. May said no. Annie wrote down where she would be, what her mobile number was, when she would be back. She returned to find May crying. May told her, "I sit in this house all day staring at these four walls and I would think that if you were going out, you'd take me with you." 

How did we get here?

Driving back from a neuropsych appointment today, she asked me, "How did we end up living in Chicago?" I told her the long version, which started in 1992 and culminated in our official transfer of residence in 2000. It took up the entire 30-minute drive, and it was as if she were listening for the first time to the history of someone whose story was important to her. 

Deja kindergarten

This was information night for those who will be sending kids to kindergarten next August. That's something we haven't done since 1986. But tonight we went to the meeting, for Adam. May took one look at the flyer on the kindergarten curriculum and said, "Isn't that the same as the one we just got the other night?" I didn't know how to answer, and in my hesitation she said, "Didn't we just do this?" 

Bugs in the night

Adam was sleeping with May in our bed; I was in the little bed in the extra room. I awoke with her standing over me. "Adam and I are covered with thousands of little bugs--more on him than on me," she said. I got up and followed her to the bed. We're just a few days past a full moon and the snow cover sent a fair amount of light into the room. She pointed to the bed and the walls and said, "See? What are those?" I didn't see anything. I turned on the bedside lamp. Everything looked normal. "I don't know what to say..." she said. This morning she came in and asked if I slept well. I said I did, except for the bug hunt. She looked confused and I told her that she had seen bugs last night on her and Adam, the bed and the walls. "Oh yes," she said, "what were those?"

Trip routine

"What time do you leave?" she asked over breakfast. Now it starts...

I'm leaving on a business trip five days from now. Between now and then, I will be asked, several times a day, "What time do you leave?", "How long will you be gone?" and "Do you need anything ironed?" She will be relieved every time I tell her it's not time for me to go yet.