Signs of parental decline:

1) When doing a crossword, my father did not know which state was the "Tarheel State" nor its capital, and when he went to spell "Raleigh," he began spelling it "R - E - L - E - I - G - H," though he did ask if the 2nd letter was "E."

2) Immediately upon returning from a daytrip at like 10pm at night, my mother says how nice it is that my father left lights on for us before he went to bed, only, then she returns from a different part of the house and points out how he did not leave on the light in my childhood bedroom, but rather that in the bedroom of my brother.

3) For like a year-and-a-half now, his standard question on the phone is what the weather is like by me, presumably a coping mechanism since the weather is not indexed to recent or current or ongoing events all of which change and have to be discretely remembered, but rather is something that is always there, and can be asked after unproblematically.