Last evening after my younger brother was home from wherever he had been drinking, he almost immediately asked me if I had heard anything about two people having been shot and killed earlier that day.
When I replied that I had not, he then went on to tell me that a woman and man had been killed, and my brother's girlfriend Bev had known the woman for many years ─ they had even been co-workers.
Bev also of course knew the man ─ the two dead were a couple.
My brother went on to suggest that there was some scuttle that the police many have been responsible for killing both people ─ they were definitely responsible for shooting the man.
This is an account in the local twice-weekly free community newspaper the Surrey Now-Leader: Two people dead after hostage taking in Surrey ends with gunfire.
Please keep in mind that my brother was clearly very drunk as he presented this account of his.
He then went on upstairs to his bedroom to change into his home wear.
When he came back downstairs, the first thing he asked me was, "Did you hear anything about a shooting in Whalley today?"
In the short time ─ less than 20 minutes ─ that it took him to go upstairs to change his clothes, and then come back downstairs, he had lost all memory of having already spoken at length to me.
This is often the level of companionship that I have on any given evening. I have absolutely no friends near ─ no one with whom I can spend some quality time socializing with on occasion.
I am so deep into debt thanks to not being able to stand up to my younger and frivolous wife, I struggle to even afford a can of beer an evening here at home ─ to drink out anywhere is an impossibility, and I have not spent a cent in a pub or bar in years.
Anyway, he managed to remain conscious the evening through, so we watched a few episodes of the T.V. series we follow right on into the midnight hour ─ I fetch the programming via our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box that my brother does not understand how to operate.
As has become my lot, I only enjoyed some broken sleep overnight until around 4:00 a.m. when I rose to get busy with the day's content assignment for the post I am constructing at one of my six hosted websites.
I had already risen an hour or more earlier just to turn my computer on in order to have it warmed up and loaded for use ─ a precaution I have to take, or I will probably have the machine freeze if I attempt to use it after turning it on once it has grown cold following a previous shut-down.
I held fast with that task until the content assignment had been met, and then I returned to bed at some point after 8:00 a.m. to seek further sleep.
Since there was no need to rise at any specific hour, I forced myself to remain in bed for possibly over 2½ hours, enjoying a succession of several short naps.
It was after 11:00 a.m. when I was up from bed again. My younger brother was at the dining table enjoying instant coffees and reading the Saturday morning edition of the Vancouver Sun that I subscribe to.
I fixed a large mug of instant coffee for myself, and then came back upstairs here to my computer.
Eventually my brother came upstairs to his bedroom to seek further rest ─ this is what he typically does before he heads away for the afternoon to once again end up drinking somewhere. The day has been beautifully sunny, so I hope he chose to get in a walk at some park before he began his daily dissipation.
However, while he was enjoying his midday bedrest, I donned cut-offs and went on out to the backyard tool-shed for some exercising.
And then at exactly 12:56 p.m., I began just over 40 minutes of sunning while slouched into a deck- or lawn-chair, my bared feet on the ground, and my torso shirtless.
Upon returning into the house, I found that my brother was already gone.
He often remains away on Saturdays, spending the night at the home of his girlfriend Bev. Perhaps he will do so this evening. He and I never exchanged a word today, so I know nothing of his intentions.
I had not yet eaten today, so I fixed myself a small but substantial meal, and then I became too overcome from it's burden to do aught but return to my bed to nap for awhile yet again, lying upon my left side to facilitate the meal's digestion.
It is nearly invariable that my first meal of the day will have this result. I am not much like my younger self as I now watch the months of my 69th year slip past and bring on the approach of my 70th birthday in the Fall.
When I was a teen and also throughout my 20s, I used to pour through books about living off the wild and surviving in the wilderness.
Alas, I was never able to actually experience life in Nature to learn and apply these things for myself, for I have never had a choice but to live here in Surrey (and New Westminster for maybe eight years beginning near the end of the 1960s). And since I never got a driver's licence nor a car, I have been grounded here.
I lost recollection of nearly everything I used to study, but I do remember a few things, such as the fact that certain evergreen needles can yield some nourishment under survival conditions.
But they can also have health properties most people are unaware of:
HSIonline.com
The article is about a specific pine ─ the mugo pine (Pinus mugo); but others also have varying value.
Unfortunately, there is so much chemical spraying going on for various reasons, I would never try to prepare anything with any of the pine trees I might find here in Surrey ─ nor anywhere in this region of the country.
I performed an Amazon search at the top of this post using the term "Mugo pine essential oil" in order to see what might turn up, but I am in no financial position to ever be purchasing any such product.
Nevertheless, it is interesting that so many health benefits are attributed to Pinus mugo and even other pines ─ here are some further articles, if you are interested in finding out more:
- OrganicFacts.net: 5 Incredible Benefits of Pine
- NaturalMedicinalHerbs.net: DWARF MOUNTAIN PINE - Pinus mugo
- Nature-and-Garden.com: Pine tree health benefits and therapeutic value
- SelfHacked.com: Top 7 Health Benefits of Pine Needle Tea & Essential Oil
- Mercola.com: Pine Oil Benefits and Uses │ Pine Oil: A Potential Panacea?
I want to again stress that unless you live in a remote area where the government is unlikely to have been spraying chemicals to kill things like beetles, moths, and mosquitoes, it's risky business harvesting pine needles and anything else from the trees.
The trees will have absorbed too much ─ and that begins right from the roots. This isn't something that you can just wash off.
A second plant I want to showcase is the maidenhead fern (Adiantum pedatum), but apparently for supplemental purposes, folks are going to have an easier time of it accessing a different maidenhair species known as Adiantum capillus-veneris:
HSIonline.com
Ease rheumatoid arthritis pain with maidenhair fern │ Set up a pain BLOCKADE with this tribal secret
Naturally, maidenhair fern has properties other than that of relieving pain ─ here are a number of other articles about the fern:
- NaturalMedicinalHerbs.net: MAIDENHAIR FERN - Adiantum capillus-veneris
- AnniesRemedy.com: Maidenhair Fern Adiantum capillus-veneris
- WebMD.com: Maidenhair Fern: Uses, Side Effects, Interactions, Dosage, and Warning
- FrannsAltHealth.com: Maidenhair Fern health benefits: for hair loss, coughs and colds
- ElmaSkinCare.com: aidenhair Fern Adiantum capillus-veneris
- PaulHaider.wordpress.com: Maidenhair Fern – A World Wide Herbal Remedy
- MotherEarthLiving.com: Herb to Know: Maidenhair Fern
- TipDisease.com: Benefits Of Maidenhair Fern (Adiantum Capillus-veneris) For Health
I performed another Amazon search at the bottom of this post, this time using the botanical name Adiantum capillus-veneris. The results included a lot of rather extraneous returns.
Heck, there is even a musical piece (and named after the fern) that is an a capella number featuring nothing but vocal sounds and breath ─ I hated it. But you can listen for yourself ─ I located it at YouTube: Adiantum Capillus-Veneris (Maidenhair Fern) . Etudes in Fragility: II.
Two other health-related topics are only going to be a pair of references that you can access for yourself if you are interested in either of the subject matter.
The first is a rather extensive article about chocolate:
LifeSpa.com
And the second involves itself in detailing why we should not pay heed to reports villainizing the regular consumption of ample amounts of eggs:
DrMicozzi.com
I conclude today's post with more photos taken at the wedding of a niece of my wife on February 25, 2018 in the city of Udon Thani.
At least, I feel quite confident that the marriage took place there, for I don't think there is a facility at my wife's family village such as is suggested in the photos.
The first photo features a nephew of my wife ─ he is the son of my wife's brother Santi. The young man is kneeling, and tying blessed string around the wrist of the mostly unseen groom ─ the bride is nearest the camera:
I am unable to identify anyone else in the following photos, although I do think that it is Lumpoon ─ one of my wife's two sisters, and also the bride's mother ─ with her back turned, and who is beyond the smiling woman:
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