“I wonder if that really works,” I said to Husband. We’d just watched a series of television commercials that interrupted one of our favorite programs, NCIS. Husband, seated across the room in his favorite recliner, looked at me. He turned his palms up, tilted his head, and squinted his eyes. I read his body language, “What?”
“That website. Lumoisity.com.” I said. Husband frowned. It was obvious that he didn’t know what I was talking about.
“Did you hear that commercial?” I didn’t wait for an answer. “Lumosity is online games to improve brain function and memory. I wonder if it would help me remember.”
Husband shook his head. “I don’t know.” He’d turned his attention back to NCIS. I picked up the pencil and paper that I keep next to my chair and wrote ‘Look up Lumosity.com’ and lay the note next to my computer.
Two days later as Husband and I travelled in his car, we listened to NPR on the radio. “The following program is sponsored by Lumosity.com,” the announcer said while we were stopped at a red light.
“Hmmm. Lumosity? Seems like we’ve heard before,” I said. “What was it? Do you remember?” Once again I read Husband’s body language. He slowly turned his head toward me, barely grinned, and raised his eyebrows. “You think it’s something I should remember?” I said.
He nodded. “You will.”
“Did I ask another silly question?” I said. He didn’t respond.
A few minutes later, I shouted. “Lumosity! Memory games on the computer. That’s it, isn’t it?” I laughed at myself, and Husband, true to his nature, was so kind that he didn’t tease me. “It’s a word we don’t hear often and it was a couple of days ago that we saw that commercial,” he said.
My forgetfulness was my sign that I should check out Lumosity. I registered for the free version using my email address as my user name and I chose my password. And for the next 20 minutes, I clicked bouncing colored balls on my computer screen. I completed numerical and geometric patterns. I identified objects from one picture to the next. I felt pretty good about my brain function. For three days, I played brain games and then over the weekend, I didn’t practice bouncing balls and patterns.
Monday morning, I opened Lumosity to log in. I typed my user name and password. And this message popped up: Invalid email address/password combination. I hate that message! Three times, I typed both my address and password, trying different passwords, and I got the same response. On the fourth try I read, ‘Would you like to reset your password?’ NO! I shut down my computer.
That afternoon my four-year-old Grand and I played a card game, Matching. We spread 24 cards face down on the table, and took turns turning over two cards at a time and hoped to match the pictures on the cards. I quickly matched the pairs of hippopotamuses and toucans. At the end of the game, we’d both made six matches.
Too bad about that online brain function game – whatever it’s called. Playing cards will keep my memory going just fine and I don’t need a user name or password. All my Grand required was a lap and hug.
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Filed under: Everyday Life, Games, Memory | Tagged: computer game, forget, Memory game | Leave a comment »
Susan Writes 