It nearly amuses me how easily I can forget precisely what the time was when I retire at night, for I always make it a point of looking.
Last evening, for instance ─ I know I was into bed ahead of 10:00 p.m., but was it even before 9:30 p.m.?
It may have been, but I just do not remember.
The amusing part of this stems from the fact that in my old journal entries written back in the 1970s when I was in my 20s, I often quoted the approximate time for daily events like getting to bed or rising in the morning.
Why did I know so clearly? I don't think that I was going so far as to actually jot down those times for when I next wrote into my journal. Was I instead simply guessing and pulling a mentioned time from 'out of the air'?
I have no idea anymore.
Or could it be that my brain was younger and more versatile ─ it was able to more easily retain such details of my day?
Without being able to slip back into my more youthful body to experience this for myself, I can never know.
Heck, maybe I got to bed closer to around 9:00 p.m. last evening? I just remember that it was likely earlier than is usual for me even when I do get to bed early.
Whatever the case, I was awake before 2:30 a.m. ─ enough that I rose and came here to my computer to turn it on and log into it so that it would be all warmed up for later use.
I also have to disconnect the mouse ─ I find that the cursor seems to be integral in these freezes. It will suddenly become permanently arrested upon some key area of the screen ─ whether a desktop icon or some area of a browser if I try to use my computer too soon after logging into it.
Thus, I have to give my computer that period of time to sit unused or I run the risk of the old machine freezing and me having to resort to a forced shutdown.
Ideally I try to give it a half-hour, but I know that I am often able to safely use it after about 15 minutes. Still, it is better to be safe than sorry.
Anyway, I returned to bed after logging in and disconnecting the mouse, and I do recall that it was 2:29 a.m. once I was back in bed ─ I know because I saw that I would have to wait until practically 3:00 a.m. before I could be certain the device was warmed up enough to use.
Often I can slip back into a nap at times like this and then discover that I gave my computer much more time than necessary ─ an even better good thing.
But that didn't happen this time. And I was back here within five minutes ahead of the arrival of 3:00 a.m. That was close enough.
My youngest stepson was just arriving home ─ I thought he was here, for downstairs lights were on. He likely took advantage of his sleeping elder brother's car and nipped out to buy something somewhere.
I was soon at work meeting the day's content assignment for the post I recently began putting together at one of my six hosted websites.
Then within an hour, I heard someone else unlocking the front door ─ my wife was showing up.
When she finished engaging with her youngest son who was in no rush to get to bed, she came here upstairs and ─ seeing me here at my computer ─ enquired if I was up to remain?
Well, I did intend more sleep once I was finished with the website work, but that was not going to be anytime too soon; and consequently I simply affirmed that I was indeed up to stay.
At that, she requested that I wake her at 10:00 a.m. ─ her restaurant start time is 11:00 a.m., and she needs to prepare herself and then undertake the fairly substantial drive to get to it.
I was going to have to bed down here on the floor in front of my computer once the website post work was done for today ─ I choose to do this to avoid disrupting my working wife's vital sleep.
At most it was 7:15 a.m. when I did just that, setting my cellphone's alarm for 9:59 a.m.
But I didn't need it. I found myself awake enough within 20 minutes of that hour, so I rose then.
By the way, my eldest stepson rose to begin readying for work well before he usually does at 6:00 a.m. ─ he was more than 15 minutes ahead of schedule.
His younger brother must be into the first of the two weeks that he told me on Saturday evening that he was taking off from his own job.
However, he had said that apart from having a break from the stress of the job, he was planning on getting in more gym activity and even seeking a part-time position somewhere.
I think he can use the gym anytime overnight ─ it is open 24 hours a day, and is only four or so blocks from here. So maybe that was where he had been? I suppose it's possible.
Regardless, he most definitely can't be seeking another job by sitting up all night and remaining in bed all day ─ it is presently 3:20 p.m., and he is still 'in the sack.'
But back to me! Upon rising from my nap and going downstairs to fix my day's second hot caffeinated beverage and join my younger brother in the living room to watch some T.V., at 10:00 a.m. I was just about to go upstairs to rouse my wife when I saw that the bathroom door was shut tight ─ she was already up on her own.
And by no later than 10:30 a.m. she was off on her drive to work this overcast day.
When I joined my brother for T.V. at 10:00 a.m., I used our T9 Android TV Box to call up an episode of one of the T.V. shows we follow.
Then when that episode was done, I gave a movie a try that I had in mind: Arrival.
Wikipedia says that it was "considered one of the best films of 2016."
Well, my brother and I found it interesting enough throughout, but the finish was inconclusive and far-fetched ─ I even expressed that had I paid money to see it in a theatre, I would have been very unhappy.
"Why can't filmmakers make a straightforward movie anymore?"
In reading some of that Wikipedia description of the movie, for the first time I realized that an explosion in the alien craft that had our two main characters hurled forth from their 'conversation' with the two aliens they were communicating with, had absolutely nothing to do with the aliens.
I had thought that the aliens had caused that expulsion of the two humans in a fit of misunderstanding.
But Wikipedia said that rogue soldiers had planted a bomb.
If that was clarified in the movie, I never at all noticed it!
Also, Wikipedia said that one of the two aliens was dying from the explosion. And again, I never noticed a damned thing being said in the movie that this was the case.
So am I getting senile at the age of 69, or is Wikipedia referring to a detailed script whose elements were sometimes only vaguely implied (if even that!) in the movie?
I also did not appreciate all of these "visions" the main character was having of her dead daughter. If the aliens were doing that to facilitate communication and understanding by the woman, then how could such alien creatures be so conversant with the working of the human mind?
For Pete's sake, the aliens couldn't even communicate with humans ─ humans had to figure out how to establish a basis of communication with the aliens! Are we so much their superior in that context?
Stuff like that ruins movies for me. The aliens should have had us all figured out if they've been secretly observing us for any length of time.
Other things Wikipedia revealed that I had no idea about from just watching the movie was that the main character's daughter had not even been born yet ─ the whole batch of sequences of her daughter that she was dreaming or remembering were prophetic visions.
Spare me this! Give me a clear-cut and sensible science fiction movie ─ not this 'artsy-fartsy' surreal and metaphysical garbage!
I didn't even understand what the Chinese general was supposed to have been revealing to the central female character about his dying wife, yet Wikipedia quotes him in full ─ I know I don't hear well, but I sure never heard the key phrase that was supposedly spoken by him and is in quotes in Wikipedia.
Finally, the two lead characters apparently fall in love and the lead female character knows that they will one day have the child she 'dreamed' about who will go on to die as a young adult of cancer or something, but the woman is fine with that?
Even though she knows that when her husband eventually finds out that she always knew their daughter would die, he leaves her because she kept this from him all of his daughter's life?
No, this is rot. I do not appreciate this nonsense in a movie.
So...two thumbs down, man!
The movie ended into the latter half of the noon-hour, so my brother went on upstairs to his bedroom to rest up prior to taking off for the afternoon to end up drinking somewhere.
I was hungry, but I soon enough also sought a proper nap ─ the floor just doesn't do it for me.
My brother was gone when I later emerged from my bedroom.
I noticed around mid-afternoon that it was lightly raining.
To my disbelief and consternation, a radio announcer said that it was 7º Celsius in nearby Vancouver, yet there is a snowfall warning for tonight!
How?
We went through October, November, December, and January without a trace of snow on the ground here in Surrey. For the first time in my memory, I honestly thought that we might end up with a snow-free season.
And then a few snowfalls happened in February, and even some light ones in March that soon enough seemed to melt away ─ and it is rare for us to have any snow in March.
But the older and heavier February snow that is still blanketing areas where the Sun doesn't reach has been melting away rather markedly.
Yet, we're possibly still not done with this weather?
Yes, very unusual. But maybe the snowfall warning will be false. One was issued several days ago that proved untrue.
At least I had my bit of exercise this afternoon with my 43½-pound dumbbell. It certainly manages to exhaust me.
After that session I was finally free to have myself a meal ─ some of which was comprised of a tiny handful of walnut pieces.
I can't lay claim to being aware that the walnuts we eat are primarily English walnuts (Juglans regia), which are not native to North America.
But we do have the black walnut (Juglans nigra) ─ yet most of us have probably never tasted one of its nuts.
I read a rather interesting article laying some big claims upon the heath properties of black walnut ─ and not just the nut itself:
HSIonline.com
After forsaking the gluttony that characterized my younger adult life, I no longer have stomach or intestinal distress. However, there are other benefits to perhaps incorporating some Juglans nigra into one's health regimen:
As wholesome or beneficial as it may be for us, a number of studies indicate that this is not apparently so for horses ─ black walnut is implicated in laminitis.
You can check out a little of each of some of the studies here, if curious:
- ScienceDirect.com: Juglans nigra - an overview
It's fortunate that we don't bed down in black walnut shavings, or randomly chew on the bark.
As I often do, I made a check at Amazon just to see what sort of products would turn up, and their cost ─ my search using the botanical term Juglans nigra is at the top of this post.
Well, despite the weather, it's quite possible that as early as sometime in April I may be able to start doing a little sunbathing again ─ even if it just means that I will be slouched out in the backyard in a lawn- or deck-chair, bare feet on the grass, and my face directed toward the Sun for 40 minutes.
There should be definite vitamin D advantage by then.
The following good article on why we oughtn't to be shielding ourselves as much as many of us do from sunshine mentioned a projection that the World Health Organization published in 2009. Namely, if humans were to be denied all Sun exposure for a year, almost half of our population would die off due to plunging vitamin D levels in the body:
DrMicozzi.com
I have been heeding Dr. Marc S. Micozzi's advice to be taking 10,000 I.U.s daily in the months when I am unable to get that vital solar exposure ─ which is approximately half of the year.
I coincidentally read today that America's FDA recently warned that only two of 16 chemicals commonly found in commercial sunscreens are recognized by them (the FDA) as being safe.
Unquestionably we should not be outdoors sunburning ourselves every time we go outside ─ we just have to be prudent. And as far as I am concerned, being prudent does not involve using sunscreens that have in the past contained cancer-causing chemicals ─ and maybe still do, since the safety of 12 of those 16 chemicals commonly found in sunscreens today is unknown:
JacksDailyDose.com
DailyMail.co.uk
LiveScience.com
Advisory.com
Of course, we all have to think for ourselves in deciding what is our own best step concerning anything and everything.
I have a single photo to close with ─ it was taken on January 30, 2018 in Bali where my wife and her two sons had arranged a small reunion with five of their Thailand family members.
Pictured is Kæ̂m or Gâaem (she actually styles herself as Milada Gamz).
She was photographed by her husband Mark (or MonoMark), a nephew of my wife Jack:
Now that's a good photo!
I never made a post in this blog yesterday, but I did create a fairly extensive post in my much older and private blog ─ anyone interested enough to access it will have to made the request of me.
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