Bittersweettoast

When you've had a parent struggle at the end of life with Alzheimer's or dementia, you don't take your own memory glitches lightly. We all have them, but after my father died, I found myself looking more carefully at my own brushes with memory loss. So imagine my dismay last week when I accidentally left my sister at the airport to fend for herself and find her way to our house all because I had written on my calendar that she was coming in on Monday instead of Sunday. I was totally thrown out of whack by this major scheduling snafu. We laughed, I sighed deeply, and then moved on. Monday morning I dragged her to my semi-annual dentist appointment. I know what you're thinking: your sister came 3,000 miles to see you and you dragged her to the dentist???! Well, in all fairness, she only made these reservations on July 1st and rearranging those semi-annual visits is as easy as booking dinner with the queen. She assured me that she was happy just spen...

There's a lot that I love about being a parent, but there is one stage I would like to delete from the parenting handbook: driver's ed. I thought that round two would be easier. I'd be an experienced passenger ready to calmly teach my son the rules of the road. Actually, who am I kidding? At the ripe old age of nine, Nelson was kicked off a go-cart course. This should have been my first clue that driving with him might be a little different.  I blame that one on Mario Cart, the video game that allows young boys to practice driving with reckless abandon. As I watched him go around the go-cart course, the look in his eyes told me he was trying to put to good use all that Mario had taught him. Let's just say that Mario's techniques are a little different from what the Department of Licensing is looking for.  My son learned that the hard way after running off the go-cart track one too many times. When the owner came storming onto the track and pointed to the exit, he su...