My younger brother had gone on up to his bedroom last evening unusually early ─ I don't think that it was quite 10:25 p.m.
He said something as he left, but it was lost on me. My conclusion was that he was either exceedingly tired, or else not feeling well.
I was delighted at the prospect of also getting to bed early, but I had to first finish the post I had made in my private blog. I had published it after my brother had arrived home earlier in the evening, even though I had not finalized it.
This must surely have kept me up until near 11:00 p.m., but it was still over an hour earlier than would have been the case had my brother remained and thereby obliging me to keep operating our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box that he doesn't know how to use.
Heck, we might have remained up until after 1:00 a.m., so this was a boon for me.
Yet it meant that for the third consecutive evening I would not be enjoying a beer.
The start of my usual night of fractured sleep soon enough began as I wondered on when it would be that my wife would show up after working the day at her friend's Thai restaurant.
Well, it was approaching 3:00 a.m. when she first began stirring about in the bedroom as she gathered up what she would need for bed, retreating to freshen up in the bathroom.
I typically wear earplugs and a blindfold, but I believe that I was already mostly conscious when I first heard her.
At most, only about 10 minutes passed before she had joined me in bed.
But I was beyond sleeping now. I gave it at least a half-hour, and then I rose to get to work on the day's content assignment at the post I am putting together at one of my six hosted websites.
By the time I was half-done, I felt able to seek further sleep. Nevertheless, I resolved to forge on and complete the assignment.
Meantime, a little before 6:00 a.m. my eldest stepson rose to begin readying for work. I think he blew off the day yesterday.
After he had gone, and as I approached the finish of the content assignment, I considered using his bed instead of bedding down on the floor in front of my computer as I usually do to avoid disturbing my working wife's sleep. She would have another 11:00 a.m. start at the restaurant, and needed her sleep.
But ultimately, I opted not to use my stepson's bed. And it was early enough ─ not yet 7:10 a.m. ─ that when I bedded down after setting my cellphone's alarm for 9:59 a.m., I figured that as uncomfortable as the floor can be, I would be down sufficiently long that surely I would benefit from some additional sleep.
Had I only known that my younger brother would not be rising around 8:30 a.m. as he typically does, I could have had a more comfortable nap on the chesterfield in the living room downstairs.
C'est la vie!
When I became aware of my cellphone's alarm sounding after 9:59 a.m. had arrived, I hustled up off the floor and set my bedding aside.
When I emerged from this room ─ a tiny one immediately next to my bedroom ─ I was surprised to see that my brother was stll shut up in his bedroom. And my wife was still in ours.
I killed some time, and then around 10:13 a.m. I opened our bedroom door and softly mentioned to my wife that the morning was wasting away.
She was all covered up ─ even her face ─ but she muffled out, "A few more minutes."
So I left her. But she was to rouse and emerge on her own those very few minutes later.
And by maybe 10:40 a.m. she was away on her sunny drive to the restaurant.
My brother had still not shown signs of emerging from his bedroom, so I spent a little time here at my computer. I was to hear my youngest stepson apparently up from his bed, and he quickly headed out the front door.
He has all manner of shifts where he works, so perhaps that was where he was bound. I never heard him return, at any rate.
Around 11:00 a.m. I decided to return to my proper bed and see if I could nap. To be honest, I am unsure if I did, but I was abed for almost an hour.
I emerged from my bedroom to find my brother's bedroom door still closed!
I noticed some mail laying on the coffee table in the living room downstairs ─ had my brother been up just briefly and made a return to his bedroom? Or had my youngest stepson seen it outside in the mail receptacle and brought it into the house?
I don't know.
Then before too long, the doorbell rang.
I never answer knocks or doorbell rings if I am home alone, for I have no visitors. And I am not interested in dealing with anyone out there who may have some agenda ─ whether sales, religion, charity, or politics.
But I did peer out from my upstairs bedroom window and noticed that there was a large delivery-type white van in the driveway.
I cautiously came downstairs and peered toward the door and its small window, but the outer screen door was closed. So I drew near, and saw the van pulling away. I correctly expected that a parcel or package had been left, so I opened the door to find it between the main door and the screen door.
It was a delivery for my youngest stepson.
At that point, my brother came downstairs, undoubtedly curious as to who the doorbell-ringer had been.
And so I was to learn what was amiss with him ─ I had actually been dreading that he had contracted the awful flu that sidelined me back on January 14.
He was sick, but it was a stomach bug of some sort. He said he could barely drink tea last evening ─ apparently he wasn't drinking alcohol when we watched the couple of shows that I had tuned in.
He threw up after going to his bedroom last evening, and did so again around midnight.
But he was feeling better; and around 1:00 p.m. he headed away in his van, saying that he wanted to get in a park walk somewhere.
Yes, it's sunny, but quite cold. I heard early this morning that the temperature likely won't rise above freezing.
The dusting of snow that we received a couple of days ago has fairly melted where it is exposed to lots of sunshine; but shaded areas of the ground are white with the superficial blanket and probably rather frozen.
I was most relieved to find out that my brother was not sick with my flu, for I was feeling considerable guilt.
Anyway, with him away so early in the afternoon, I was able to use his bedroom (the master bedroom) for some exercising with my 43½-pound dumbbell.
I do very much wonder if it is possible for me to become anywhere near as proficient with it in exercising as I was even just a decade ago. After all, I am 69 years old now.
Maybe my 'glory days' are done.
By the way, I weighed in afterward ─ stripped down to my undershorts, I might have been as light as 184 pounds.
On to something else now.
Every morning after I rise, I tend to go through the spam messages in my main E-mail account that have accumulated since the day before.
This morning I found one that had arrived at 2:51 p.m. yesterday with the Subject heading "RE: the last ancient trees."
Supposedly, it came from Jolan Bailey of LeadNow.ca and read basically as follows:
...As you read this email, cashed-up logging corporations are quietly scheming to rip down some of BC’s last ancient rainforests. And the worst part? The BC government is letting it happen.But we’re not going to let them get away with it.Over 16,000 people have already signed an emergency letter calling on the BC Government to put a stop to old growth logging, and next week, we’re joining forces with Sierra Club BC to deliver the letter to MLAs right across the province. But if we want the BC government to take action before the last of our ancient rainforests are destroyed, we need to as many people as possible to sign on before we deliver the letters on Wednesday.
Initially I thought that this was from the B.C. Liberal Party, but I signed anyway. I have always felt that it is criminal ─ sinful, in fact ─ to ever log virgin rainforest.
We're not living a century ago when forests seemed virtually limitless.
It is the utmost in commercialism, and I despise the mindset that would encourage or even allow this desecration to happen.
If you feel similarly, why not add your name?
Another thing I feel very strongly about are those newspaper articles I keep seeing where some ignorant or lying 'authority' will declare something like "numerous studies have found no association between vaccines and autism," or maybe "the science is sound ─ vaccines do not cause autism."
If vaccines are so safe, why has the U.S. paid out billions of dollars for proven vaccine-caused damages and even death?
And why is the Pharmaceutical Industry exempt from any liability for their own vaccines?
As for autism, please watch this 10-minute video uploaded to YouTube and titled FULL MEASURE: January 6, 2019 - The Vaccination Debate.
I would have embedded the video, but my private blog has untold numbers of embedded videos over its 10 years of existence that are now just wasted space in my posts because the original video was pulled from YouTube for one reason or another.
As a result, I only embed videos that I have posted to YouTube ─ at least I know that I'm not going to be removing them at some future date.
Certainly vaccines have saved unimaginable numbers of lives. But that doesn't mean that a person is 100% "anti-vaxxer" because he or she understands that vaccines can also be very dangerous to some hapless and innocent recipients.
By the way, I came across that video in this article published just today:
Articles.Mercola.com
I am going to add one further reference ─ this one relates to a plant called balsam of Peru that apparently has properties of great benefit to hemorrhoid sufferers:
HSIonline.com
We humans are certainly prey to some bizarre conditions, aren't we?
That article advises not to use any balsam of Peru product for that purpose for longer than a week ─ it must be fast-acting if that's all the time it can take!
Of course, as warned, lots of people have an allergy to balsam of Peru, so that's a caution not to be ignored.
Here are a couple further articles on balsam of Peru:
- OilHealthBenefits.com: Balsam Of Peru Essential Oil
- Drugs.com: Peru Balsam
I suppose that it would be most prudent to ensure that you did not have an allergy to balsam of Peru before you used any to try and quell a nasty case of hemorrhoids.
That must nearly be like tossing gasoline onto a raging fire!
It is nearing 7:00 p.m. as I type these words, and already my younger brother is home.
I want to post a few photos taken just over a year ago when my wife and her two sons arranged a small reunion in Bali with five of their Thailand family members.
I only have time for three photos ─ the first two feature my wife. All of them were likely taken on January 31, 2018:
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