What Is Her Name?

December 24, 2020 ~ Janet McKee ~ Leave a comment

Memory is actually a fascinating subject.

What is her name – that friend in Dublin who I can picture, who I know so well , who lives across the street from Sue, whose husband is William, who supplied us with a dead magpie, who lived on Hillside Road – I can picture the house and the steep narrow drive, I can picture her collection of captive birds, I can picture her as a bereavement counselor. Her son Nigel was a classmate of Andrew at Wesley, Andrew beat Nigel for a prize in Geography (Andrew wrote a report on a survey of shopping patterns in Thimphu Bhutan). I am sure her name will suddenly pop into my head. And I’ll think “of course”

P.S. Her name is Florence. So easy – Florence Bell. Yes, it just came into my head – from nowhere!

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Memory Test

December 24, 2020 ~ Janet McKee ~ 1 Comment

Back in the 1980’s my husband and I lived in Thimphu Bhutan. Fascinating as it was there were certain challenges. One challenge was how to get a chicken, sort of a staple for our Western palates. So at dinner tonight here in Seattle we were served chicken. To make conversation I aSked my husband if he remembered driving to Simgatoka about 7 miles from Thimphu to buy a chicken for our evening meal. This was a fairly regular occurrence which I tended to avoid. My husband drove and I was in the passenger seat with a 3000 foot drop to my right. It always felt as if he were far too near that precipitous drop. Of course it never happened since we are still here to tell the tale. He couldn’t remember the name of that chicken farm, but I sort of did and a Google search confirmed my guess. Fun times.