Nothing to figure out, really, and no surprises. I'm just tired and it's way after the fact now and doesn't matter that much anyhow but I guess it does or I wouldn't say anything about it or write anything about it

She asks me where the coffee mugs
are--this the third day of the power
outage. I say The cabinet above the
microwave but I think Why is it that
you don't know? The next morning,
she asks if the "brown" cat can go out,
and I say, You mean Dante ?, and she
says, with her strange accent, OOOh,
of course, Dante. She didn't even know
his f***ing name. I've had him almost 11
years. And I am thinking again how odd.

How odd. How insignificant. How terribly
sad.

But I'm too cold to think too long or hard
at that point. And I'm too tired of being in the dark
and stuck in this house.

And I realize it all matters more than I can
let it matter.

At some point during the week, as we all
sit huddled in one room with a propane
heater going, playing Texas Holdum (sp?),
she mentions by name the brothers and sister's
cats and dogs and lots of other minutiea
which starts becoming what it's been all along
which has always seemed to be monumental
in so many ways.

Not in some linear fashion did she throw these
things out, mind you--just
in the course of a long night's conversation.

I remind her the next morning, when she
asks once again if the brown cat can go
out, that yes, indeed he can and he has
been going out for almost 11 years
and his name is Dante and the mugs
are above the microwave.

P.S

No alzheimer's or dementia here--selective
memory.