Mom & Me Four Archive

    Yesterday, which was supposed to be the big day, although most of the day was cloudy except for a few annoying rays in the early afternoon, right in my eyes, it didn't "snow" until afternoon, just before sunset. It stuck, although it froze. It's pretty outside, today, dusted white, bt it's not really snow, it's a web of heavy frost.
    It's supposed to remain cloudy until this afternoon. Maybe some rain and sleet, here. Probably not, considering the last few days. Oh well.

    Did anyone notice this? I've been forgetting to mention it. It's one of those "little things" that everyone seems to be ignoring and, yet, it seems important for my generation, at least. I read about the possible connection between marijuana use and the lack of development of Alzheimer's, and general dementia, too, as I recall, around the time this probably came out. Read it in Mom's daily newspaper, buried in "Section A". Then, again, heard it on a national news program; probably the evening before seeing it in the newspaper. I remember, as well, a few days later, seeing a very small headline tag running across the default news service on my dial-up ISP home page.
    Then, the story was buried. I wonder why. I'd think there would be lots of other questions worth asking, for my generation, anyway. Questions to which I'd like to know the answers. Like (in no particular order):

• What does this mean for people who interspersed regular marijuana use throughout their lives, probably beginning in their teenage years, with periods of abstinence?
• Is this effect lasting? At what dosages?
• If not lasting, what are the "recommended" dosages at this time?
• Are there any studies beginning or in the works which study reported past use of marijuana against mental acuity in later years?
• What about steady recreational use?
• What about past and/or present use of other "soft" drugs such as acid, mushrooms? Is anyone curious about whether use, either occasional or habitual, for periods or continual, of these drugs affects later rates of senile dementia?
• Is is possible that our generation will either be less suseptible, overall to dementia, or prone to "other types" of dementia, or a combination of both.

    Just thought I'd mention this. I know loads of people in my age group who have used marijuana, recreationally and as a type of self-inflicted psycho-pharmaceutical treatment (sometimes successful). I've even known a few who use it for medicinal purposes. Really. I know there's this scare, right now, about early onset Alzheimer's which is happening to my generation. I know the word "epidemic" is being freely used. Yet, I cannot forget the book on the history of old age. I am bound, now, to put all this in perspective. Perhaps what is happening to our parents will not happen to us, for a variety of reasons. Perhaps this is our opportunity, now, to Seize the Lessons of the Day [lucky us that it happens to be a major lesson in compassion] about caregiving to parents because our care will be completely different, probably much less obvious, perhaps well adapted to our curiously dependent, yet distant, society. Maybe chances to learn these lessons don't come around all that often and we need to take advantage of this.
    Just a thought.
    I'm continuing to label over at The Dailies. It's going to be a long haul. I'll probably begin skipping around, doing other types of maintenance. I remain interested in reading what I wrote so off the cuff on a disciplined daily basis. Very interesting, spontaneous, stream of consciousness observations. Minimum of agony. Maximum of detail. Can be successfully accessed in bits and bytes.
    Later.