Today as Kate and I were on the way to lunch, she said, “”Are you going to notice that woman (or was it a couple?) and her (their?) child?”I said, “”Is this somebody you have noticed before?” She gave me a disgusted look. I said, “I’m not good at remembering these things.” She answered, “”Well, you don’t pay any attention to the things I say.” I started to say something in response, but she didn’t want to “talk about it.”
Shortly after we ordered, she commented that the mother and her child were not there. She pointed to the place where they usually sit and asked me if I remembered that she had gone over to the table and told the mother how cute her child was. I told her I didn’t remember. She went on to tell me that when she told the mother that her child was cute, the mother told her she remembered her saying that. Kate said she asked, “Have I told you that before?” The woman answered, “”Two times” and seemed a bit annoyed. She said that when she told me about it, I said, “”If it happens again, I am going to go over to the woman and tell her that you have Alzheimer’s and can’t help it.” Then I said (that is, today when she told me this story), “”I wouldn’t have said that.” She said, “”You just don’t remember. You remember everything, but when it involves me, you don’t remember anything. If it’s somebody else you remember, but not when it’s me.”
While I have mentioned other occasions when she has imagined I had told her something, this is the first time I recall her having such an elaborate description of something that had happened and my reaction to it. I don’t know that this signals anything of significance, but it is something different.
