After publishing yesterday's blog post early in the evening, I tuned in an MMA bout that was well in excess of three hours duration, all the while wondering if my younger brother was going to arrive home with his girlfriend Bev as he had done the three previous Saturday evenings.
Normally, his practice on late Saturdays had been to spend the night at her home; if he showed up otherwise, it was because the two of them got too drunk to get along.
Well, I sat through every preliminary match, and then just as the main card bout was about to start, I espied him about to arrive home ─ it was approximately 10:00 p.m.
Momentarily I remained where I was, thinking that if Bev was with him, then we could watch a movie.
And then it occurred to me that I was likely setting myself up for considerable discomfort if she was not with him ─ I would likely be stuck with an odious drunk unable to retain enough consciousness to watch more than a few minutes of anything at all before he passed out.
So hastily I turned off the T9 Android 8.1 TV Box that I had been using to find and then watch the MMA match on T.V., and I also turned off the T.V.
I then hied myself upstairs ─ if Bev did happen to be with him at that late hour, then I could always come back downstairs and join them. However, if I only heard him sighing theatrically and muttering (usually obscenities) to himself, then I was going to call it an evening and go to bed.
I had hidden myself in my darkened bedroom to listen. But I was also waiting for my infernal youngest stepson to vacate the bathroom ─ my two stepsons have a diabolical knack for ensconcing themselves in the bathroom just as my brother is arriving home. It is as if they deliberately want to prevent me from using it before I am able to get myself to bed.
As it happened, I could only hear my brother ─ nothing of Bev. And then he came upstairs to his bedroom to change into his leisure wear ─ he muttered something as he approached his bedroom door and then went into the room.
Fortunately he took his time while in his bedroom. My youngest stepson finally emerged from the bathroom and scampered downstairs ─ he'd had a shower; and I was free to make that final micturition of the evening and get to bed.
Perhaps it was around 10:15 p.m. at latest.
When eventually sleep possessed me, I slept reasonably well in that I was never curious enough about the time until after 3:00 a.m.
Although I felt very sleepy, I rose to use the bathroom and get more water to drink; and then I came back to bed, thinking that I oughtn't to have too much trouble getting asleep again.
I was wrong. I began reflecting that I still had the day's content assignment to fulfill on the post I am developing at one of my six hosted websites, and it is rare that I can manage that job in as little as three hours.
In other words, if I did not get up and get at it, then I would be involved with it deep into the morning. I prefer getting the task over with as early in my day as I can.
So at approximately 3:20 a.m., I rose and came here to my computer that I keep in a small room next to my bedroom.
As it was to happen, I did not finish and get back to bed until shortly after 7:00 a.m. And I had taken a break midway through my work to partially revive myself by performing a three-minute plank and then 51 partial flat-footed squats.
The entire time I was up, I fretted about and regretted over my life and marriage and the enormous debt that my wife has been foolishly allowed by me to plunge us into; and I worked with the oppressive weight of feeling utterly forsaken by an uncaring God.
Only my return to bed and the gift of sleep got me rid of that despairing mindset.
After a fair initial block of sleep, I enjoyed a few briefer bouts of slumber; and then I accepted that I was futilely wasting my time by remaining abed any longer. By then 10:00 a.m. was not far off.
When I had returned to bed earlier, a strikingly clear blue sky portended that a sunny day might be ahead. That still seems to be the case as I type these words at 11:06 a.m.
My brother has just returned to his bedroom to rest up ─ he will be heading off for the afternoon soon after he gets up again. I am going to take the opportunity now to have some exercise with my 43½-pound dumbbell.
oooooooooooooo
I've had quite the break, actually.
At 11:59 a.m. I began a little over 40 minutes of sunning outside, seated low in a deckchair or lawn-chair, facing into the Sun, and garbed only in cutoffs.
We've got a lot of high, light cloud around, but it's still penty warm out there!
When I returned into the house to begin fixing up my day's first meal, my brother came downstairs. He wondered on the weather; and then after some discussion and a little experimentation (he went out onto the backyard sundeck to assess), he decided to change into shorts before heading away for the afternoon.
My eldest stepson showed up right after I had eaten, so with him home I felt secure about going back outside and lying upon an old bedsheet on the backyard lawn to expose my back to the Sun for just over half an hour. This time I wore a pair of gym-style shorts.
That session began at 2:03 p.m.
That session began at 2:03 p.m.
With that done, the meal and sunning depleted me, so I had to lie upon my bed with a makeshift blindfold ─ possibly I napped a little.
And here I am at 3:52 p.m.
I want to bring up the topic of vision, for my eyes are quite poor. My right one is by far the worst because it bore the brunt of a fireworks accident I experienced one October back in the year 1960 or so.
At least my eyes were damaged through an accident ─ as far as I know, I don't have macular degeneration or something like that, nor am I suffering consequences of eye-related damage due to something like diabetes.
Of course, I might be wrong ─ since I am 69 years old, it is indeed possible that I have developed an eye disease of some kind. I just don't care enough about myself and my life to go and get myself checked out. After all, why should I? What the hell do I have to live for?
If something is seriously wrong with my eyes, then it's just another nail in that ol ' coffin as I head towards that early and final roundup.
But lots of people do care passionately about their lives and their eyes; and as a result, they will undergo optical surgeries I cannot imagine submitting myself to voluntarily.
And that leads me to this recent article I read:
HSIonline.com
Why in blazes would anyone take surgery or treatments like this as their first step, rather than give some "vision support" products a try?
Keep in mind ─ physicians who perform these procedures do not make a living off recommending or prescribing nutritional supplements, so they are never going to suggest giving any a good try.
Only the surgery or wicked medications like aflibercept are going to be pushed.
I have no recommendations on any vision support products, but I did an Amazon search at the bottom of this post using the term "zeaxanthin," and there do appear to be quite a few that contain it.
If cost isn't too much of a bother for you, another avenue is to zero in on a few of these products and examine their ingredients labels. Then seek individual high potency supplements that at least match or even exceed the key components that the vision formulas contain.
For instance, if a vision support formula contains zeaxanthin and lutein at specific milligram levels ─ say 10 and two respectively; then get those two supplements by themselves in an equal or heavier dose than the vision support formula offers.
The formula might also contain a bilberry extract ─ Mirloselect® is apparently a "standardized" brand name that has currency worldwide with researchers. "Standardized" just means that the product contains a guaranteed specific amount whose chemistry is consistent from batch to batch.
So look into getting some quality bilberry extract to at least match what's in those vision support formulas ─ likewise for saffron extract and / or whatever other extras might be in reputable formulas.
Yes, you have to do a little research; but you will find that the ingredients listed on those vision support labels are usually quite limited ─ you are not going to be confronted with some bewilderingly long list.
So why buy a formula with specific doses of a few ingredients if you can afford to get those four or six or whatever ingredients separately and maybe even in greater strength?
After all, you won't be administering to yourself astronomic multiples of each ingredient. Rather, you only want to ensure that you are at least matching what's in the formulas, and bettering them by reasonable margins whenever you can.
That's what I would do if I wasn't on my limited pension ─ I can't afford to do this, nor to buy ready-made vision support formulas.
I am going to bring this post to a close because I would like to try and get out to do some local grocery shopping before my brother shows up for the evening.
However, I want to post four photos sent to me this morning via E-mail at 2:42 a.m. by a Thai woman very dear to me.
Tukta helped me so very much when I made my first trip to Thailand in January 2003 ─ the trip in which I also met the woman who is today my wife.
But Tukta was herself newly married at that time to a Dutchman, and awaiting a visa to go and join her husband in the Netherlands.
Alas, he was apparently of very meagre means ─ his government deemed him unable to support a wife. And so a visa for her to come and live in the Netherlands was refused.
The Dutch government must have felt that she was just desperate to get to the West, and could not possibly love her husband; nor did they intend to allow her into the country and then have to subsidize her potentially for life because her husband was himself not very self-sufficient.
And so she never went. I suppose by now the marriage must have been annulled ─ I have never pried about that.
But had she not been newly married when I made that first trip to her country, it is very possible that she and I would have become involved.
I now believe that she would have been the better choice for a wife than the wastrel I now find myself burdened with.
I have never seen Tukta since that 2003 trip. I returned to Thailand in 2004 to become engaged to the woman who is now my wife; and then I got married in 2005. But my wife did not live anywhere near Tukta, so I was not to see Tukta on those two later trips.
Tukta had only been in the area (the Isaan region) on that first trip of mine where my wife had lived because it was thereabouts that Tukta and another woman had come and gotten newly married. Tukta lived nearer to Bangkok. I suspect that Tukta and the other lady had gotten involved with the men they married through the personals website that was being partially operated by a woman who had been my wife's sister-in-law ─ she had been married to my wife's only living brother.
That website shut down years ago, but back then it was called SiamLady.com. I had actually come across that website before ever going to Thailand, and only later learned that the woman who was to become my wife actually had her own profile on it ─ the sister-in-law had cajoled her into it.
But she never got any 'bites' and figured that it was a lost cause. Nor could I recall having seen her profile at the website.
I would very much like to see Tukta again before I die, but that is unlikely.
Anyway, here she is ─ she must have been using her computer's webcam, and experimenting with some special effects:
I especially like the photo where she is wearing glasses.
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