I blame it on Mommy Brain

When I flipped over my calendar to October last week, I scanned it like I always do to make note of any appointments I had coming up.

One on Tuesday and one on Thursday this week. The first was a checkup with my periodontist, in the hopes that she would look at my gums and pronounce me good to go. The second, with my chiropractor, and I feel the need to stop right here and proclaim how much my back loves this man.

My periodontist's office is always very good about calling the day before to remind me of my appointment, but Monday came and went, and there was no call. I double checked my calendar to make sure that I didn't have the wrong date, but no - it plainly said Tuesday.

So on Tuesday morning as I was getting ready, it occurred to me that it might be prudent to give them a call. Of course, I had no doubt. My appointment was most definitely that morning. For sure. They had just forgotten to make the courtesy reminder call, which irked me a tiny bit, but nothing that a call to them wouldn't clear up.

"Hi, I have an appointment today and I just want to verify the time," I said when the receptionist answered the phone. I gave her my name and there was a pause as she looked me up.

"Um, yes. We have you down on Tuesday, October 21."

Weird way to put it, I thought. October 21 IS today. I was looking right at my calendar as we spoke, and so of course I could see that it was the 21st. Today. One and the same.

"Right," I said, "October 21st. That's...." Today. My voice trailed off as my brain scrambled to catch up to the fact that that I was way, way off. "That's in....two weeks??"

I hung up and stood looking at my calendar, completely bemused. How was it possible that I had looked at my calendar no less than 10 times and every single time I had thought that my appointment was today? Even though it was clearly written on the right day?

My brain, people. I am starting to get concerned. And as if this were not enough, let me present to you Exhibit B:

When I was in school, my favorite subject was English. I love words, I love the rules that go along with them, I love stringing together a sentence, a thought, a story. I was always fairly decent at it, at least back then.

But back then...that was a long time ago.

I found a Grammar Girl quiz a while back (they have since changed it, but if you want to see the new version, check it out here) and since another way that I love to waste time is to take quizzes, I was excited. I was pretty confident that I would do well, because after all, this was my best subject.

So I took it. About halfway through, a question popped up, something along the lines of:

Verbs that end in -ed are regular verbs, irregular verbs, or triangular verbs?

My mind utterly and completely blanked out. It sounded familiar. In fact, they all 3 sounded familiar. Regular. Irregular. Triangular. Yes. All good choices.

But I could not remember for the life of me what they meant, and which was the right answer.

You know what is coming, right? I chose triangular verb, oh yes I did, and then held my breath as I clicked to see the answer revealed.

Wrong! It was more than happy to inform me. The correct answer is regular verb. And then to add to my humiliation, it added in no uncertain terms, There is NO SUCH THING as a triangular verb.

Well, then.

Sure, sure, I know you knew that. Your 5 year old probably knows that. Everybody knows that there is no such thing as a triangular verb.

To make myself feel a little better, I have started doing what I did when I was in school; every time I hear a word that I do not know the meaning of, I add it to a list and then look it up and try to commit to memory its meaning. We'll see if this helps sharpen my brain a little.

Any words that you want to help me out with and add to my list? I need all the help I can get.