Sometimes my daughters get very exasperated when I forget something they’ve told me, like whether they talked to their teacher about turning that homework assignment in late, or that they have a planned social engagement this week, or that they already took the test on The Great Gatsby and don’t need to think about it anymore.

I try to tell them that it is hard to remember everything everybody is up to, and that furthermore, being older, my memory banks are a lot more full than theirs.

…They don’t really believe me?  They think, ‘Does she really have so much to remember?’

Well, I am turning 45 this year, and to prove that that’s a lot to accumulate, here’s a random sampling of 45 things that fall somewhere on the list of things Anna does need to remember:

1. my daughters’ birthdays (including the years!)—for filling out doctors’ forms
2. where I hid put the safety pins
3. the lyrics to the Dinosaur Train theme song (for horrifying any childless acquaintances, as needed)
4. the lyrics to my favorite of my dad’s songs (and how nice it was, growing up, to wake up listening to him playing on the guitar)
5. my childhood zip code…and my current zip code
6. the lyrics to ‘Richard Cory’ or at least the chorus…and all the other Paul Simon songs I like to sing
7. the lyrics to the one or two songs I wrote years ago when trying to untangle the alchemy of song-writing  (if I don’t remember them, they’ll be entirely gone, so…)
8. the fact that I have two beautiful daughters…who need to be taken to the dentist, at least sometimes
9. the fact that I still need to take myself to the doctor too, even though I did it last year
10. to pay my monthly TaeKwonDo (TKD) dues, old school, write-a-check-and-hand-it-over style
11. the moves and pattern histories for my green-belt patterns (to hopefully avoid utter humiliation when I’m assigned to teach the green belts)
12. the moves and pattern histories for my black-belt patterns (to hopefully avoid utter humiliation when I’m asked to demonstrate my current rank)
13. how to schedule a meeting on Zoom
14. the dates and times for the one or two meetings I have scheduled that aren’t on Zoom
15. the syntax for if-else statements in IDL and bash (to try to avoid the utter humiliation of googling them for the actual 1000’th time)
16. that Valentine’s Day exists, especially when you have kids
17. that my oldest daughter’s favorite color is no longer simply Rainbow! and hasn’t been since she was about four
18. whether or not we’re about to catastrophically run out of chicken nuggets (or else overflow our second freezer with them)
19. that my grocery lists should consider lunches as well as dinners
20. to take this week’s pictures for my weekly garden posts
21. that the reason I remain eternally devoted to IDL (a programming language some astronomers like) is the WHERE() function.
22. that making custom plots with IDL is pretty great, but making automated plots with it Is NOT!
23. where the heck I thought I was going next with the most recent installment I wrote (a month ago) for this SSCS I’ve now got open, cursor blinking
24. that my daughters have homework and maybe shouldn’t be kept up so late watching musical classics from the 60s (nor horror classics from the 80s)
25. that that burning nausea I get sometimes isn’t just due to stress, and following my doctor’s diet-supplement recommendations might actually help
26. the name of that book I want to recommend to that co-worker I only run into every couple of months or so (The Doors of Sleep)
27. that the mountains are colder than the valley and I should dress accordingly to go for a hike (a.k.a., gloves are a thing that exist)
28. to adjust my retirement deductions after the yearly raises go through (why can’t I just specify a dollar amount!?)
29. to reset the drifting timer on the plant light every weekend
30. to acquire birthday gifts for family at least 6 months before said birthdays are set to arrive (I will panic otherwise, just watch)
31. whether I already got my dad that book for a previous birthday
32. that gas is a thing that sometimes needs to go in my truck
33. that there’s always something else that could use mending in my mending pile
34. to call the electric company about the weird billing issues…again
35. that trying to rush the story while writing it is just going to make a chapter that needs to be re-written
36. to go for a hike! really! even a tiny hike will make me feel better  (also to sleep! sleeping will make me feel better)
37. to keep feeding my family things with cheese, even if I can’t have them anymore
38. how to pick the right email salutations (different for my best friends than for my boss)
39. that family travel doesn’t happen if you don’t plan it…or pick where you’re going…
40. that the dust bunnies really aren’t going to vacuum themselves
41. that I have friends and sometimes I should text them (especially if I can text them something silly)
42. that the SSCS that is fully drafted but has not yet had a review and final-edit pass is not, in fact, done yet.
43. that occasionally it’s okay to actually send one or two of those greeting cards I’ve been hording collecting all these years
44. that instead of just watching the physical reminders (empty oatmeal box, thumbdrive in a ziplock baggie, old pair of shoes, assorted screws in a bowl, …fifteen or so other things) build up on my home desk and over-clutter my workspace, I could actually just take care of the chores they’re meant to remind me to do?
45. my husband’s birthday—for filling out tax forms  (because really, remembering birthdays is what a calendar is for…unless you’re away from your calendar and filling out forms)