Spiky profile: not connecting the dots

I think a lot about the "spiky profile" aspect of autism - that we can tend to exceed the norms in some areas and come in average or below in others. I feel like I can rely on my brain to really excel in some important tasks, mostly around noticing information, gathering it and making meaning from it. But I've noticed a big gap in what I think of as nonimmediate implications of new information.

One example just happened. I was planning on taking my dad home from his doctor appointment next week. But I had assumed, like every other time, it was in the morning. Turns out it was in the afternoon. I checked my calendar and saw one a obstacle that I would be able to deal with and told him I could still do it.

This morning, I woke up with the realization (it seems to happen this way) that I wouldn't even have the car. My husband uses it for his job almost every afternoon, including that one. But somehow that information - maybe because it lives in a different place in my brain? - never connected with what I would need to pick up my dad from the doctor.

This happens A LOT to me and I feel so... Well, not great about myself. So I guess I'm hoping to normalize it as part of the spikiness - that it's just an area where my brain has trouble. I wonder if it's the same reason why I have a hard time with strategy games. Does anyone else experience this?