Despite the ridiculous number of holiday cookies I’ve devoured (frosted cutouts and snowballs with chocolate kisses hidden inside among the best), I’ve escaped the “Weber Hips.” This unfortunate posterior flab plagues most of the other women on my mother’s side of the family. I can, however, lay claim to inheriting the “Weber Nose.”

Distinct not only in size, it can detect the lilacs in a neighbor’s yard two doors down. With the windows closed. This sometimes-blessing has a flip side in that it also can identify a full diaper from as far away.

But I’m losing it. This baking season, the aromas have lost their strength. I barely noticed the hint of cinnamon wafting from the oven or the fresh pine of the greens on the mantel. I’ve even started to hand the milk jug to my husband and ask, “Does this smell okay?” A Weber would never have to ask; theirs were the noses that sniffed out the bad and set it right.

I’m not sure how I feel about this hyposmia, this reduced ability to smell or detect odors that is among the numerous symptoms of Parkinson’s.
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