Bike Week Blues Read Online Free PDF Page B

massive
headache that I could blame on Rich.”
    “I see your point,” I said, reaching for the
bottle. “Want some more?”
    Penny Sue put the glass down. “No, I’m over
it.”
    Good, she was back to her spunky self.
Crying in her beer was not Penny Sue’s style. In the old days,
she’d have walked away from Rich and never given him a second
thought. A new soul mate would have manifested within hours. It was
uncanny how she drew men, absolutely like ants to honey. Yet, her
crying jag told me that, either Rich was indeed special or Penny
Sue’s hormones were seriously out of kilter.
    The H word was something I tried to ignore
since, at forty-seven, I’d reached the age where the old juices
started a downhill slide. I’d never given the issue a thought until
our last trip. Penny Sue had harped on it continuously, warning
Ruthie—who absolutely could not pass a bathroom without going
in—that peeing all the time was not normal and one of the first
signs of plummeting estrogen. Foggy-brained, weight gain, unstable
emotions—Penny Sue’s warnings went on and on. I’d have dismissed it
all as her normal chatter had it not been for the fact that she
started waving a gun around.
    In the months since then I’d noticed one or
two of the symptoms in myself. With time on my hands, I decided to
do some research. I wish I hadn’t, the darn books read like horror
novels. First, there was perimenopause, the stage where the
hormones became unstable. Up and down, up and down, a roller
coaster that somehow involved the pituitary gland. The bottom line
of all of this being that many women experienced depression and
wild mood swings—PMS run wild that could last as long as ten
years!
    There was the story of a lady who walked
down the aisle of the supermarket, looked at the corn flakes, and
burst into tears. Two minutes later, a clerk gave her a sidelong
glance and the woman took the poor girl’s head off (figuratively, I
assume, unless she packed a weapon like Penny Sue.) There were
other terrifying tales about memory loss. Misplacing the car keys
was nothing, many women suddenly forgot their names and addresses.
As if that weren’t enough, the anecdotes ran on to encompass
wrinkles and osteoporosis and sagging breasts and fat stomachs.
Horrible, truly horrible, especially the stuff about memory loss,
because I’d experienced some of that myself.
    I tried to write it off as being
preoccupied, which was part of the problem, but I’d had trouble
remembering my name and address on more than one occasion. I didn’t
think there was a family history of Alzheimer’s; still, the
episodes were so unnerving, I’d called Ruthie for advice.
    “That’s great,” she’d said.
    Great? Did she hear me right?
“Ruthie, I said I’m losing my memory. I can hardly recall what I
did this morning and I’ve actually forgotten my address and phone
number a couple of times. It’s like a brain cramp.”
    “ The past is gone, it can touch me
not .”
    “What?”
    Ruthie had slid right through hormones and
health into spirituality. “Come on, Ruthie, I’m serious. Do you
think I could be getting Alzheimer’s?”
    “No, of course not.”
    “Do you think I should look into hormone
replacement therapy?”
    “Couldn’t hurt, if it’s bothering you.”
    Well, I didn’t check into it, because all
the latest studies came to wildly conflicting conclusions that
confused me more. So, I decided to muddle through until my symptoms
got worse. If push came to shove, I could have my clothes
monogrammed to jog my memory or start wearing my driver’s license
hanging from my neck like people did in airports nowadays.
    But, Penny Sue was another matter. She was
on HRT, she’d mentioned having a hot flash that morning, and now
the depression and crying episode which were totally out of
character. Perhaps her prescription needed to be adjusted. Then, I
wondered if she still carried a .38 in her pocketbook. I wasn’t
sure I could take another