Early onset of dementia...

...otherwise known as middle age. How do you know when you get there? It's not like it's signposted. Assuming a life span of 70-80 years (given that once upon a time, I had 30 as a benchmark year for killing myself for old age, this is progress...!), 35-40 would technically qualify you. A fervent bout of pnpc (para ninda, para charcha) at a family wedding illuminated the fact that 90% of the contributors were hovering dangerously close to that technicality. We had quorum, and an unanimous decision was passed to declare middle age at 45... which means I still have a few good years left in me....
Except, last Thursday, I forgot my father. 8 of us for dinner, 7 of us to get back, 5 to the same place. I sat across him at dinner, and between dessert and his leaving for a smoke, I forgot he was with us.... Preoccupied with calculating the hip/space ratio in the backseat to see who should be awarded the coveted front passenger seat, it took a horrified face going, 'no, no, we'll walk', to turn the absently calculating look to shock; I'd completely forgotten about Ba. He took it rather well I thought, simply shrugging saying I'd forgotten my mother earlier as well.... (true, but I hadn't exactly forgotten! she just wasn't in the car when I drove off, a fact that was easily remedied if my halfwit sister hadn't just sat next to me gasping like an overweight fish on a treadmill, emitting incoherently strangled sounds instead of 'oi, ma's not in the car!', and this was years ago!!).
Chalk it down to genius at work? I would have, except I forgot Emma and Juniper the day before that. En route to Khush & Sujata's for New Years, saved only by Csikoskar's timely recognition of directional discrepancy, if indeed, the plan was for us to pick them up.....
I was told yesterday that I'd lose much of my appeal if I went through with my remedy of a brain transplant (as opposed to a commiserating hug). Not sure if the sight of a grown woman with fetching bits of tin foil on her head is more appealing than one chicly costumed for cocktails with a recalcitrant pencil tucked behind her ear.... well, at least I haven't combined the bright blue rain drop wellies that make strangers smile at the bus stop, with the foil.... yet.