Although my younger brother arrived home relatively early last evening ─ I don't believe it was quite 8:00 p.m. ─ he proved to be odiously drunk and of such a belligerent mien when he reacted in opposition to the T.V. series I tuned in, that I almost walked off.
He doesn't know how to operate the T9 Android 8.1 TV Box that we use to follow our shows, so without my presence he is restricted to whatever meagre fare he can find through the limited basic cable package we subscribe to.
In recoiling rage, I switched off the Android TV Box and instead had the only news channel tuned in that we can access through the basic cable package, and I sat for a few minutes as I cogitated on my urge to just leave the drunkard there by himself.
He was calling forth some series preferences that his beer-impaired brain's memory was able to recollect, none of which I was in any mood to accede to. I have a system, after all. We probably follow a hundred or so T.V. series. Had we watched the episode I had intended for us, my plan was to then watch three consecutive episodes of a series I know he considers to be extremely choice.
I finally decided to relent and tune in the first of those episodes without saying a word. But as I sought a link to a source, I glanced over and saw that the sot had already passed out.
And that was my green light to get up and leave him to eventually rouse to the news channel and spend the remainder of his evening swilling beer and watching basic cable all by himself.
I spent some time here at my computer, and made it to bed ahead of 10:00 p.m.
Of course, with a new day ahead ─ along with its content assignment for the new post I have in development at one of my six hosted websites ─ my night's sleep is seldom long.
Shortly after 3:00 a.m. I was back here at my computer to work on that post. I was still at work when my eldest stepson rose after 6:00 a.m. to ready himself for his workday, and not long after that his younger brother did the same; I did not finally return to bed until after 8:00 a.m.
I had been in poor emotional shape for some while as I worked at that post, still angry at my brother's drunken persona, and otherwise lamenting my helplessness to escape the quagmire that is my suffocating life.
More than 50 years of prayer has resulted in nothing. Termination seems the sole solution.
I slept some more, but not sound and peacefully. It was 10:10 a.m. when I finally checked the time and decided to get myself up.
Usually during the week I will join my brother in the living room at 10:00 a.m. to take over operation of the T.V. and in so doing use our Android TV Box to call up more interesting fare than he had been settling for to that point, but this morning I judged that he had likely become too involved in the episode of Matlock that he had tuned in.
So I waited until 11:00 a.m.
We watched two episodes ─ an episode each of two shows that we follow. And all was perfectly amicable between us. I suspect that he is aware that he likely overstepped himself the evening before, but he probably has scant clear recollection.
This is ever the case.
When the second show finished, he wanted me to help him cart a van's heavy backseat from the backyard tool-shed out to his vehicle to reinstall the furnishing.
His van sports three seats in total, but my brother seldom bothers with the third and prefers to have the additional storage space.
However, today he said he was taking his van in to some dealership and will be leaving with some other vehicle he will have taken possession of.
He has driven his green van for so long that I cannot recall what he drove before.
So for sentimentality's sake, I took these four photos ─ the day was utterly overcast throughout, so the images are a little gloomy:
He of course needed some bed rest once the preparatory work was done, for he would be heading off for the remainder of the afternoon.
I felt like returning to bed, too. However, the activity had loosened me up sufficiently that I felt I should not waste the benefit, and so I went out to the backyard tool-shed and had some exercise there.
I had weighed myself beforehand so that I would know just how much poundage I would be hauling up and down during the pull-ups ─ dressed exactly as I would be, I apparently weighed 190 pounds at a height of maybe five feet and 10½ inches...and the age of 69.
My performance was not exceptional, but at least I was a pull-up above the minimum I require of myself.
I then fixed up my day's first meal, and I was eating that here at my computer when finally my brother emerged from his bedroom to soon head away.
Both of my stepsons had gone to work this morning; the youngest returned so soon after my brother's departure that it was almost as if the lad was hiding outside and waiting for my brother to leave.
Anyway, with him home, I felt at ease to seek a nap to help me recover from my meal and ease away some of the need I was feeling for further sleep. Otherwise, I would not be able to confront the start of this post.
I only tend to eat twice a day, but that first meal did not include any animal protein beyond a rather wide slice of extra old cheddar cheese.
I have learned just this year that older adults actually require more complete protein than do their younger counterparts.
An article I read just this afternoon at GetPocket.com confirms that, and gives some speculation as to just why that likely is: 4 Laws of Muscle.
I didn't notice at the time, but I now see that the article is a reprint of one first published on November 9, 2017.
Another more current article that I came across today presents the argument that everyone needs to start eating kelp, and I wish that I had access to a ready supply:
NYTimes.com
Most of us need to be eating more iodine-rich foods anyway ─ which nicely ties in with ye another article I read.
Coincidentally, this article ─ like the one on protein ─ was also published in 2017 (but at LifeSpa.com), and a little later in the year (December 17): The Complete Guide to Iodine Deficiency.
I probably don't get enough iodine in my diet.
One thing that I did not expect to read in that article was that the iodine added to table salt disappears entirely after four weeks once the salt is exposed to the air ─ which I suppose it as soon as it is processed, for I can't recall that table salt comes in a vacuum-sealed pouch or container, does it?
All quite interesting.
I didn't notice if the skinny kelp being discussed in the New York Times article was botanically identified, but other articles I researched claim that term belongs to Saccharina latissima.
I don't wish to spend further time blogging today, but I do want to add that my emotional negative state this early morning was exacerbated by the defeatist acceptance that a hospital home lottery that I had risked $115 back in late January to participate in, was having its final draw today.
I only enter maybe four such lotteries a year ─ I cannot afford to play the regular lotteries that happen once or twice a week or more, and scratch lottery tickets are something I only buy for other people as gift packs on birthdays or at Christmas.
So the $115 is akin to one of those last straws this failing man is grasping at.
I haven't had any telephone messages arrive, so it would seem that once more the BC Children's Hospital CHOICES Lottery has not proven to be the miracle I need to deliver me from debt and what seems more and more likely to be an early exit from life.
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