When I retired last night at 12:44 a.m., I was under great disquiet. However, the revelation as to why is meat for my older and private blog for which access must be requested.
It will have to suffice here just to say that it was a struggle to achieve the calm to fall asleep knowing that I was going to have to rise later into the a.m. to hike the mile or so over to the Coast Capital Savings building next to the King George SkyTrain Station to deposit $500 in cash at the credit union's outdoor ATM ─ cash that my wife had given me at the start of the week. She had borrowed it a week or more ago, having me transfer it online from our chequing account over to her personal account.
Our chequing account is the one from which our monthly mortgage gets debited, and it is also one from which a myriad other debits occur over the course of any one month.
It is the account into where my monthly pension is directly deposited, and from which I make withdrawals for any shopping that I get out and do.
Last night, it had sunk to an unworkable balance of $21 and change. I had planned to make the $500 cash deposit over the coming weekend, but that was now too far off ─ I had to get more money into the account fast, for I no longer know just what debits may occur against the account. There are just far too many, and one might well try to take place before a weekend deposit.
But I was too tired to get out and make that hike before my bedtime ─ it was going to have to be done after some sleep.
Well, sleep did come, but when I next checked the time, it was only 2:41 a.m. ─ not quite a full two hours later.
Nevertheless, I rose, but I was not going to be getting out and going anywhere until I had consumed a mug of one of my hot caffeinated beverages.
My youngest stepson was still up ─ he is into the first of two weeks off work that he had arranged in a bid to recharge, for he is disenchanted with the job.
Since I was going to be taking the time to drink that stiff caffeinated beverage, I decided that I would put in some work on the day's content assignment at the post I am putting together for one of my six hosted websites.
I decided that nothing less would do than to fulfill half of that assignment. There was a notice from Microsoft that three major Windows 7 updates were available, so I started the lengthy download and installation process as I worked on the post.
I would save the computer restart until I was set to make my hike.
Unfortunately, as I was setting up to begin working on that website post, I mistakenly clicked on the icon for a game of Microsoft FreeCell ─ I play it so often that it is one of the icons that display when I click on the Windows "Start" menu. In fact, the game is the fifth icon in the list that displays there ─ but I had meant to click on the fourth icon, and not the fifth that was the FreeCell game.
Regardless, a new game loaded, and I was presented with the challenge to play it.
I always play these game until I finally win ─ no matter how long it takes. As a result, I have well over 6,000 wins listed, with nary even one loss.
Thus, I had to play and get the game over with. I could not just close out of it, or my record was going to be in jeopardy.
It proved to be an unexpectedly difficult game to win. And by the time I did, I had lost a lot of valuable time.
I got to work on the website post and stuck with it until half of the content assignment had been completed before I knocked off, but by then it was after 5:30 a.m.
I had wanted to get away early to avoid the commuter rush ─ that was why I was making this trip in the dark a.m. and not just doing it in the busy daytime; but the early birds would already be out there.
I hurriedly readied, and then began my hike.
The chore got accomplished, and I returned home and soon enough also returned to bed.
Incidentally, by the time I was back, my eldest stepson was readying to leave for work; and his younger brother was still up.
Normally when I rise early in the a.m. and my wife has to work that day, I usually bed down on the floor here in front of my computer after I have finished the days content assignment ─ I seek my sleep here to avoid disrupting hers, despite how often uncomfortable it is for me.
But since it was still so early ─ not yet dawn ─ I opted to go back to bed. My wife doesn't normally need to rise until around 10:00 a.m. to start readying herself for her 11:00 a.m. start at the restaurant (and the drive to get there).
Also, I usually have more sleep behind me than I had managed with the sub-two hours that I had earlier been in bed ─ I needed better sleep than I was likely to get by laying on the floor here in the small room where I keep my computer, which is immediately next to my bedroom.
It took awhile for me to settle down after the activity I had gotten outdoors, but I did finally get some sleep. And then I heard my wife's cellphone alarm sounding to alert her to get up.
That was my cue, too. However, she was tardier than I ─ I guess she delayed until her cellphone's second alert sounded, but I was already downstairs by then, joining my younger brother in the living room where he was watching T.V.
I always use our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box to fetch up episodes of the series that we follow. He is unable to operate it, so he has to rely upon the offerings within our basic cable T.V. package to entertain himself.
My poor wife looked dreadfully tired when she left us on that drive to work; but again, the reason just why is fodder for my older and private blog, and will go unsaid here in this public venue.
The day has been mostly cloudy, but there have been considerable breaks of sunshine.
My brother and I watched our shows until into the latter half of the noon-hour, and then he sought his bedrest ere disappearing for the afternoon to end up drinking somewhere.
I was very hungry, so I broke my fast before also getting back to my bed for a needed nap ─ I think that it was after 1:30 p.m. by then.
My brother was gone when I later rose and emerged from my bedroom.
Before I get into some health-related topics, I want to mention a feat that I recorded in my old journal as having accomplished ─ specifically, it was an exercise involving doing a headstand against a wall, and then pushing myself up and down into a series of handstands with the wall as my support.
The exercise is variously called headstand push-ups or headstand press-ups.
I have no balance ─ I have never been able to perform a freestyle handstand without falling over. So I need the wall for support to lean the backs of my heels against.
Anyway, I wrote that for the first time in my life (this was exactly 40 years ago yesterday, and back when I was 29 years old), I did four sets of those headstand press-ups for a total of 30 repetitions: 14 - 6 - 6 - 5.
But that's actually 31, isn't it? Was that what I really managed to do, or did I maybe write "5" when I should have written "4"? I sure don't know now.
If I only took the same break between sets that is typical of me today, and which I used to use back then for the many sets of chin-ups and pull-ups I would engage, I only had a slow 30-count between sets ─ each count was maybe the duration of a second.
I had lost memory that I was ever that proficient at this exercise. I haven't been able to do a single headstand press-up since at least 2006, and have since quit even trying.
Anyway, each day that I have an old journal entry to match with the present 40 years later, I reproduce the journal entry in the post I make at my older and private blog.
That older blog is about 10½ years old now, and the journal entries that I include in many of its posts obviously extend up into 1979.
And my old journal was started sometime in 1973, so there is a lot of personal history in those old posts, covering my life in 1973 when I lived in New Westminster until I finally moved out to Surrey in (I think) 1977.
I'll probably give up blogging before I ever reach the end of my old journal ─ I think its last entry was in 1995.
Or maybe I'll die first ─ who knows?
Or even gives a damn, right?
And it will all be lost because that old blog is private and I am its sole reader.
The plan is to one day make that blog public once again ─ but long after my two stepsons are on their own and none of us are living where we are today.
The lads need to have advanced sufficiently far into their lives that the things I have written about them ─ since they first came into my life back in September 2008 when they arrived here to Canada from Thailand to live with their mother and I ─ will not have the sort of potential harm and embarrassment that making my writing public now would.
As I suggested, though, I might easily die before that ever happens; and in that event, the blog would never become public and generally available.
It would slip into oblivion without ever having a reader other than myself.
Now let's move on to those health-related topics.
The first I shall get into involves a plant reputed to be able to relieve a relentless cough by the mechanism of loosening up the problematic matter that needs to be summarily expectorated.
Actually, the article enumerates two very much related plants in the Grindelia family ─ Grindelia robusta and Grindelia squarrosa:
HSIonline.com
I located some further articles about these plants, and will link to them now. I just want to comment that the first reference in this list has very odd and awkward English, with some bewildering (to me) grammatical flaws:
- HomeopathyCenter.org: Grindelia
- Henriettes-Herb.com: Grindelia. Grindelia robusta.
- PFAF.org: Grindelia robusta Great Valley Gumweed
- RxList.com: Gumweed Effectiveness, Safety, and Drug Interactions
There is also a good .pdf document that is half-a-dozen pages long:
- AmericanHerbalistsGuild.com: Topical uses for Grindelia species
And if you go to this final reference, you can read excerpts from a number of the studies that have featured Grindelia:
- ScienceDirect.com: Grindelia - an overview.
As usual, you need to educate yourself somewhat before investing yourself into something like Grindelia ─ not every article declares it to necessarily be both effective and completely safe.
An Amazon search I did using the term Grindelia is at the top of this post to give an inkling of what is available, and what the going prices are.
A second plant might be just what people (like me) need to facilitate a better night's sleep ─ hops (Humulus lupulus):
HSIonline.com
Here are some further articles, some of which do contain a few cautions:
- TheSleepDoctor.com: Understanding Valerian and Hops - Your Guide to Better Sleep
- Healthline.com: Can Hops Help You Sleep?
- WebMD.com: Hops: Uses, Side Effects, Interactions, Dosage, and Warning
- IrishTimes.com: Does it work? Can hops help you to sleep?
- FarmersAlmanac.com: Can An Ingredient In Beer Help You Sleep? The Sedative Effect of Hops
Anecdotally, a lot of evenings, beer certainly seems to put my younger brother under, although not always for very long.
My Amazon search using the botanical name Humulus lupulus is at the bottom of this post, should anyone care to see just what sort of products are out there, and how they are priced.
I finish this section with some articles reporting on how the concept of watchful waiting where prostate cancers are concerned is seeing quite a drop in treatments and surgeries:
ScienceDaily.Com
HealthImaging.com
RadiologyBusiness.com
It certainly sounds like great news all around, but one observer has a different take on this ─ namely, that the surgeons who perform prostate surgeries have devised a workaround so as to minimize lost surgical revenue:
JacksDailyDose.com
Maybe there is some truth in that commentary.
I close now with some photos that were taken on January 31, 2018 during a trip to Bali that my wife and her two sons enjoyed after arranging to have a small reunion there with five of their Thailand family members.
The woman in this first photo is my wife ─ she is also posed by the very attractive and dramatic Marvel superheroes mural:
Google Photos automatically "enhanced" the above photo to create the next image, although I see scant difference:
By the way, sunshine prevailed this afternoon. If it was warmer, a person could have sat outside and soaked up those Sun rays ─ and maybe I could have if I didn't have to bloody blog.
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