The only thing golden about my "Golden Years" is my urine.

I have a journal for each of my grandchildren.    The journals are pretty much like a blog, but instead of electronic impulses, these journals are made of ink-smeared paper.   I’ve kept these journals since they were babies.  In fact, I started Cole’s first journal before he was born.  Of course, I didn’t learn his name until later.

I try to write something in one of the journals every day.  Mostly I just write what’s on my mind at the time.  Sometimes I make a note about something that happened.  For example, Donnie began working in the kitchen of Bar Italia on Monday.  This morning I began to record this information in Donnie’s journal, the only problem was, I was writing in Cole’s journal at the time.

Confusing my grandchildren with each other, I have reached a new level of senility.  It’s subtle, this gradual encroaching of senility.  Like a fog, slowly swallowing mental faculties.  And you slowly adjust to increasing clumsiness and forgetfulness.  Then something happens to make you think:  I’m just as crazy as I always was, but the deterioration of mental faculties has increased faster than I thought.

More confusion, more forgetfulness, more fumbling with simple tasks.  And sometimes all these symptoms combine.  I find myself in sort of a daze, wandering from room to room, and wondering what I’m looking for.  I don’t see diapers and accommodation in a geriatric warehouse in the immediate future, but I think it is just over the horizon.