Last evening found my younger brother in better shape than has been the rule the previous half-score days ─ he retained consciousness throughout the evening once he was home from wherever he had been drinking.
This meant that not only did I sit up into the latter midnight hour operating our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box whose operation he does not understand, but I even broke my beer drought ─ and celebrated with two cans of the strong (8% alcohol) beer that I keep in stock.
One of the episodes that I tuned in of the T.V. series we follow was the series finale of the Western Godless ─ what an incredible shoot-out that episode featured when the supposed near-hundred murdering outlaws came to destroy the town of mainly women!
I know it was naught but fantasy and not based upon any real incident, but the scenes within the brick-and-steel hotel where the women made what could well have been their last stand as lead tore into the place from outside, and various of the killers managed to force their way inside with merciless guns blazing, was absolutely stirring and inspiring.
Anyway, it was possibly as late as 1:00 a.m. by the time I was into my bed, and I did not thereafter feel up to checking the time until around 5:45 a.m. ─ it is not often I manage to remain in slumber's arms for that length of time.
Oh, certainly, I was not solidly asleep throughout; but the point was that I never found myself awake enough to be curious about the time.
I wanted to get what work I could accomplish in laying the foundation for a new post at one of my six hosted websites ─ this foundation work can typically take me into a second day, so I finished at least 40% of that task before returning to bed around 8:00 a.m.
Incidentally, my eldest stepson dutifully arose around 6:00 a.m. to ready himself for work, departing maybe 20 minutes later on his drive. His younger brother has been on an afternoon shift this week, so he was in bed.
Upon returning to bed after that website work, I seemed to have some difficulty getting more sleep, but eventually I fell into dream. And it was 10:00 a.m. when I next checked the time and got myself up.
I generally feel obligated to operate our Android TV Box at that hour for the sake of my younger brother who is just about always up and watching T.V. by then.
This seemed like it would be just another such day, but anon he went upstairs and retrieved a suitcase that he deposited near the front door.
I jokingly enquired if he was moving in with his girlfriend Bev for a few days?
To my surprise, I found that he was readying to head off to visit his friend Frank over on Vancouver Island ─ apparently the ferry for the Island was to leave at 12:45 p.m.
And he would be away until at least Wednesday.
This must have been why he maintained some control yesterday over his drinking ─ he had this relatively long transit ahead for today.
This was welcome news to me, for it will free up my time until he returns ─ I will not have to be concerned with trying to watch an evening's worth of T.V. with him, nor spend two to three hours beginning around 10:00 a.m. doing the same.
I may even get back to work on that website post this evening and get the entire foundation laid so that I can commence adding content into it tomorrow morning.
Oddly, though, after bidding each other farewells, I suddenly felt peculiarly lonely.
Anyone who reads much of this blog will perhaps see that as incongruous in view of how solidly I lambaste my younger brother in my posts for his drinking and his malignant personality once he is drunk.
I don't quite understand the sense of loss myself.
I wanted to have some exercise out in the backyard tool-shed after he was gone, but I did not feel particularly well. It took me an hour or so before I managed to work myself into the state that would allow me to handle the required effort.
Before going out to the shed, I noticed when I went into the bathroom to weigh myself that my face seemed surprisingly ill-slept and unhealthy.
As for my bodyweight, I scaled in at 189 or 190 pounds dressed exactly as I would be while exercising out there ─ it is sometimes good to know just how much weight this 69-year-old will be hauling up and down while performing the full-range chin-ups / pull-ups portion of the exercising.
My youngest stepson had only gotten up a short while before I went outside, but he was gone by the time I came back into the house to fix up my day's first meal.
Once that was eaten, I badly felt the need to seek another nap. However, the day had been primarily sunny, even if the blue of the sky was very weak in colour due to light haze. I felt that I should sit out in the backyard and benefit from that sunshine.
I found it to be too cool to be topless, but I wore cut-offs and was barefooted. I was slouched low into a deck- or lawn-chair at exactly 3:35 p.m., and intending to spend just over 40 minutes sunning in that fashion.
However, that coolness, along with the undesirable hazing of the Sun, almost led me to call a halt midway through the session, but I stuck it out. After all, it is not as if I am going to have to surrender any of my later day to my brother ─ the rest of the day is all my own.
Let's move over to some health-related topics.
Until reading the following article, I had never known that Kleenex tissues came in a viricidal (or virucidal) version. And provided that this link still works, you can get a look at the label from the viricidal Kleenex box here.
I hope the link works so that you can see the claim that the product "kills 99.9% of cold and flu viruses."
Well, it turns out that this claim is another of those phony marketing ploys that uses a statement that is not an outright lie if one dissects it far enough, but it is most definitely a lie if it is taken at its face value.
Here is the article you need to read if you think viricidal Kleenex is a fabulous idea:
HSIonline.com
That same website has a pretty good article on a plant I have been aware of since my boyhood in the late 1950s ─ the plant is chickweed (Stellaria media).
I don't know if it's true, but my mother used to claim that its name may have come from the fact that chickens let loose from their pen will almost gluttonously feast on any of the plants that may be growing in the vicinity.
Here's the article:
HSIonline.com
I don't recall that we ever made use of it for our own diets, even though we realized that it was edible. However, maybe I am misremembering ─ my mother may have occasionally incorporated it into our dietary fare.
As that article cautions, however, make sure you know what the true chickweed is before you start feeding on anything ─ and don't bother harvesting any from lawns and public areas such as parkland or roadsides. You don't know what toxic man-made chemicals the plant will have soaked up.
Here are a few other articles on chickweed ─ I've added some that have cautions:
- Mercola.com: Chickweed May Help Promote Proper Digestion and Detoxification
- OrganicFacts.net: 6 Amazing Benefits Of Chickweed (Stellaria Media)
- WebMD.com: Chickweed: Uses, Side Effects, Interactions, Dosage, and Warning
- Herbal-Supplement-Resource.com: Chickweed – Health Benefits and Side Effects
- VerywellHealth.com: What You Need to Know Before Using Chickweed
I want to finish this section with a nice article on exercise or activity ─ why we don't need to push ourselves to our limits to gain the best health benefits:
DrMicozzi.com
That wasn't my credo when I was a young man; but now that I am not young, I am more in align with it.
Well, I am going to bring this post to a close now with a photo that was taken back on February 25, 2018 when a niece of my wife got married.
I suspect that the photo was taken in the city of Udon Thani.
The bride is at the left, and her groom is the man cut off by the left border of the photo.
I don't know who the middle beauty is, but the young lass at the right became the bride's sister-in-law that day, for she is married to the bride's brother.
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