As of last evening, I have gone a full week without enjoying a can of the strong (8% alcohol) beer I keep in stock.
I only have one of those beers when I am watching late-evening T.V.; However, I only voluntarily chose to skip an evening on one of those seven days. All of the others ─ including last evening ─ were because my younger brother drank himself insensible, and I refuse to be in the same room with the passed-out drunkard.
To boot, he had proven himself a malignant presence after first arriving home from wherever he had been drinking. I have grown to hate the persona he so eagerly turns himself into.
We had been watching a couple of episodes of one of the T.V. series we follow via our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box, a device he does not know how to operate.
So upon realizing that he had passed out in his favourite chair there in the living room, I cancelled out of the episode and switched the T.V. over to the only news channel that we received through our basic cable package.
That would be what he would be reviving to.
I then came upstairs here to my computer to spend some time, for it was only around mid-evening ─ too early to be getting to bed.
And when I finally did go, sleep was not easy to find. I suppose that I am still troubled by the enormity of the debt that I recently discovered that my Thai wife had sunk us into.
Barring a financial miracle, I will never live to see myself debt-free because of her selfish foolishness.
I did finally fall asleep, but well before it was yet 2:00 a.m., I had risen just to turn on and log into my computer to have it set for later use.
I returned to bed to see if I might perhaps fall asleep again, but after about 20 minutes I decided to dress and come here to work on the day's content assignment for the post I have in development at one of my six hosted websites.
Most unfortunately, I found my computer had frozen ─ apparently it had occurred at 2:06 a.m., for the actual time was more than 10 minutes later than that.
I had no choice but to force my computer to turn off, and then I turned it back on and logged back into it. Since there is always the risk of it freezing if I try to use it before it has fully loaded and warmed up, I came back to my bed to lie down for another 15 to 20 minutes.
All was well thereafter, but I had lost time.
My youngest stepson had been up earlier, but he had retired by this time.
I worked on the website post's content assignment, hoping to somehow be done before my eldest stepson rose around 6:00 a.m. to ready himself for his workday.
I failed, even though he did not rise until at least 6:15 a.m. However, I had been preoccupied with the updating of a laptop that had not been turned on for a few months ─ there had been a number of Microsoft Windows 7 updates since then that had to slowly be downloaded and installed.
I did not actually get to return to bed until around 8:00 a.m., by which time my younger brother may have been about to get up for the morning.
It had begun raining ─ possibly before dawn. And although it did not rain all the day through, the risk has always been present with no glimpse of Sun.
I now regret not sitting out in the backyard yesterday afternoon for some of the sunshine that was temporarily available then, but I was tied up with the day's blog post here.
Normally I try to make myself available by 10:00 a.m. during weekdays so that my younger brother does not have to put up with the banal daytime fare that is provided through basic cable. I will use our Android TV Box to fetch episodes of some of the series we follow.
Well, today I never revived until nigh 10:30 a.m. following my return to bed, so I didn't make my services available until 11:00 a.m.
We watched a couple of series' episodes, and then around 12:45 p.m. he was ready to return to his bedroom to rest up ere taking off for the afternoon to resume his drunkenness somewhere.
Apparently he was especially anxious to get at it today, for he too soon had re-emerged; and by 1:41 p.m. had bade his adieu and was out the door.
At least he had been in his bedroom long enough for me to get out to our backyard tool-shed for a session of exercising, and then I returned into the house and fixed up a meal. I was eating that here at my computer when my brother came out of his bedroom to ready and leave.
Not too much later, my youngest stepson had risen, and quite smartly had taken off without a word to head away afoot to work ─ he must have an afternoon shift now.
He only has to hike a mile to get to work, but I don't know if he invariably does this, or if he lazily buses sometimes.
I want to return to the topic of that Android TV Box and a couple of recent shows I tuned in through it.
One was an episode of Black Mirror that was titled "Crocodile."
The episode opened up with a young couple partying, and then driving through the rugged, Wintry countryside while singing and laughing and yakking it up.
Then in an inattentive instant, the car hits a cyclist ─ the first sign of anyone else in the longest while, and totally unexpected.
The cyclist is very dead, and quite mangled.
The male driver, pleading with his girlfriend (played by actress Andrea Riseborough) that they have to dispose of the body before it is discovered or else he will spend his life in jail, gets her to help him zip up the body in a sleeping bag. And then they tote it to a nearby clifftop overlooking what may have been a fjord.
The sleeping bag had been weighted down with some heavy rocks.
They toss the body over the clifftop, and then the man gets the woman to do the same with the wrecked bicycle.
I suppose that was essentially the end of the pair's relationship.
Fifteen years later, the woman is married and with a son and quite a successful businesswoman and speaker.
One evening when she is somewhere alone in her hotel room on a speaking tour, her former boyfriend shows up. He is a wreck ─ the years have not eased his guilt, and everything came to a head when he came across a photo that had been published of the dead man and his wife who still yearns for him to come home.
Unable to live with what he has done, the man tells his former girlfriend that he is going to somehow let the dead man's wife know that her husband is dead ─ maybe he will even anonymously let the authorities know where to look to potentially find any remains.
The former girlfriend is aghast ─ she has so much to lose, whereas her former boyfriend has gone nowhere and just spiralled down.
And hiding the truth of the accident had been his idea in the first place! She had wanted to immediately phone the police.
And now this guilty clown is going to destroy her and her perfect life?
He tells her that there is nothing she can say ─ he is going to let the truth be known, and he tries to storm off.
Desperate, the much smaller woman embraces him in her best version of a bear hug with his arms pinned tightly to his side.
He is quite taken aback, and questions what she thinks she is doing?
They stagger about for a bit, and then they lose balance and fall ─ she lands on top of him, and he hits the back of his head hard on the floor.
He doesn't lose consciousness, but some blood starts oozing from his nostrils.
Still unbelievably desperate, the woman then proceeds to straddle him and holds him down. Then she puts a forearm across his throat and begins to apply all the pressure she can.
He grabs her by the hair and tries to pull her head back, but she is resolute.
I wasn't sure, but I thought I might have heard his neck break. Whatever the case, she has somehow managed to overcome him with sheer strength, and he is dead after a rather furious struggle.
I have wrestled with thoughts of suicide since the 1960s when I was a teen, and even today I am considering that after my next birthday in October when I become 70 years old, I will not hang on for a 71st birthday. My life is nothing but an empty waste.
So with that sort of mentality, I found the image of this beautiful woman sitting astride a bigger man and basically overpowering him ─ throttling him with her bare hands or however she did it ─ to actually be erotic.
I practically envied the guy. After all, I have no idea how I may finally meet my own end ─ I cannot imagine that specific extinction of mine by comparison as being quite as 'welcome' as was this guy's demise.
How complicated are the workings of the human mind and imagination!
The other show I wanted to mention was for quite an opposite reason ─ it was a movie that was so abominably dreary that I tuned out after a full half-hour.
Talk about pointlessness! The movie was Knight of Cups.
Seldom have I ever cared so little for a character. His constant and almost whispered soliloquizing and philosophizing were to me unspeakably irritating.
I finally had to shut him up by getting rid of the movie.
And people actually paid money to sit in a theatre for nearly two hours watching that drivel?
I had expected so much more from actor Christian Bale after watching his portrayal of a cavalry officer who hated Indians, yet was put in charge of a small detail escorting a dying Cherokee chief and his family back to their peoples' reservation ─ the chief and his family had been prisoners of the military for something like six or seven years.
The horseback trip would cross at least a couple of states through dangerous ─ lawless ─ territory.
Now that was a good movie! It was titled Hostiles.
Gosh, I have run out of time ─ it is already after 7:00 p.m. Will my younger brother arrive home in any shape to retain consciousness this entire evening and thereby allow me a can of my strong beer after a full week of doing without?
I want to post some article links that talk about a recent study that has found that folks suffering from Alzheimer's disease may have some hope gotten through an extract from a plant called yerba santa or "sacred herb" (genus Eriodictyon).
The first article arrived to me by E-mail on April 1, but it has not thus far been published at its source website JacksDailyDose.com, so I will reproduce it in full here and now:
'Holy Herb' CURES Alzheimer's
It's a medicinal plant used for centuries for so many conditions that Native American tribes dubbed it the "holy herb."Now, cutting-edge research reveals how this "holy herb" just might be the HOLY GRAIL when it comes to Alzheimer's disease!A compound locked inside a shrub that's been harvested and used for centuries for its healing properties has the power to PROTECT the brain and FIGHT inflammation.And researchers believe this holy herb -- also known as yerba santa -- could be the key to finally defeating dementia.The key is in a compound called sterubin.It's not new; scientists have known it's there... but of course, they've blown it off. Natural stuff, can't have that!But lab tests revealed they've been ignoring a potential CURE for dementia.Experiments on mice and in the lab dish show how this compound can help protect the brain in multiple ways.It can:
- STOP inflammation in brain cells called microglia.
- BLOCK energy depletion in nerve cells
- PREVENT nerve cells from dying
If that's not enough, the researchers also found one more way it can protect the brain, preserve memory and stop the decline.Sterubin can FIGHT heavy metal damage in the brain!It can chase out iron, which is known to accumulate up there and cause the damage that leads to dementia and other brain diseases.This ancient secret has been used by centuries by the Native American tribes in California, who served it as a tea to help treat or beat:
- Infection.
- Respiratory problems.
- Fevers.
- Headaches.
- ...And more .
They even use it as a salve to speed wound healing, ease pain, and light bruising... a pretty handy trick, especially if you're a little older and find you get bumped around more easily than you used to.Now, to be clear, the brain benefits haven't been studied in a clinical trial yet.But there's NEW hope against dementia -- and it comes not from a drug... but an herb!Meanwhile, if you or a loved one are locked in the earliest stages of this disease yourself, there are other all-natural actions you can take to slow it down and in some cases even stop it.Last month, I shared the results of a remarkable study that found hyperbaric oxygen can reverse the damage.In addition, high-dose B vitamins, high-dose omega-3 fatty acids, and chelation therapy have all helped people to fight off dementia.
Here are just a few of many other articles reporting on the study:
MedicalNewsToday.com
BeingPatient.com
News-Medical.net
Due to my loss of time for this, I was unable to research much else about the treatment. However, I did do an Amazon search using the term "yerba santa (Eriodictyon)" that you can find at the bottom of this post.
As far as I know, I am not into any early stages of any kind of dementia, but I sure do wonder what's actively left of my younger brother's brain after the years of daily heavy drinking that he has engaged (and continues with).
My wife is presently over in Thailand, supposedly because her mother has been unwell for quite some time.
She took this video yesterday, I think ─ it is entirely in Isaan Thai, so it may get boring for many people ─ as she walked with some others through a wooded area where a couple of the ladies appeared to me to be harvesting green mangoes, or maybe even papaya?
The setting would be quite near to the city of Udon Thani. And apart from my wife doing the filming, the only other person I recognize is her sister Lumpoon ─ she is the woman that you will eventually see who is wearing what appear to be white gumboots.
Note that the video is seven minutes in duration:
I want to finish this post with three further photos that were taken last year on February 25 (2018) when a niece of my wife got married ─ Lumpoon's daughter, in fact. The setting is probably within Udon Thani.
In the following three photos, the groom is in the centre, and the bride is standing just this side of him. I don't know who the woman on his other side is, nor anyone else in the photos:
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