Halloween candy at Cash'n'Carry. Regular size peanut butter cups for 50 cents each. Trick-or-treaters think they've got something special with a full-size candy. Plus family-size chips, unsalted butter.

Husband is out of town tonight so boy and I are living it up. I have some Koji Yamamura short films to watch,

$94.03 after a $5 coupon at a supermarket. Half of that was one full Coho salmon cut up into four-ounce portions. I also bought some discontinued white wine from the bargain shelf. Everything else was vegetables and items for baking cookies.

I am worrying about my short-term memory. It is blitzed. It has relocated to "Whattawa, Zontario." I don't even have alcohol or drug use or medication to blame for it. Today I went to a library I thought would have my book club selection -- this is the second time the online catalogue claimed it was available but turned out not to be so. Then I thought I'd visit another branch on my way home, but I stupidly neglected to WRITE the address down, instead I went by memory and veered everywhere like a trapped buzzing fly to get to the library. Then I had, on my list, to visit the supermarket but I pull up to a third library, after getting my book from the second. In the parking lot I thought "Uh I shouldn't be here. In fact I wonder if I am in a condition to drive."

I couldn't remember the name of Thomas Love Peacock's short Romantic Era rip of his friends ("Nightmare Abbey" I kept thinking "Crochet Castle" and "Northanger Abbey") nor the name of the Indo-Canadian author who wrote A Fine Balance, I was thinking Raj Viswanathan, Arundhati Roy, Vikram Seth, and not at all about Rohinton Mistry.

I wonder if I need a heavy metal detox, or a nootropics concoction. At least I went with a WRITTEN LIST and a PLANNED MENU for the week to the supermarket, with a coupon. At least that.