A Sunny and Hot Afternoon Hike to Buy My Younger Brother a Bottle of Scotch for His Upcoming Birthday

Last evening certainly did not develop as I was expecting. Right around 8:00 p.m. my cellphone rang ─ it was my younger brother's girlfriend Bev.

Nothing was amiss ─ she was just phoning with a movie suggestion for when she and my brother showed up 30 to 60 minutes later.

Well, I located the movie through our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box, so it became a 'go' once they finally got here.

The movie was Where the Heart Is, released in 2000.

Bev had learned of the movie from someone she knew, and had the impression that it was going to centre around the pregnant main character secretly or otherwise living in a Wal-Mart store.

As it turned out, that incident was a very small portion of the movie, and my brother and I were subjected to recurring expressions throughout the movie of Bev declaring that she had no idea that the movie was going to be anything like it was, and she was so apologetic for it.

Eventually even my brother began grousing that it was nothing more than a Hallmark movie.

I conversely was enjoying the film ─ as much as I could with the ongoing blather that my two drinking companions kept drowning out the feature with.

I hadn't noticed the opening credits identifying who the cast members were, so I had no idea who most of the actors and actresses were.

Only at the end of the movie did I see that the central character was played by actress Natalie Portman ─ she's a name I am familiar with, but I don't know anything of her work, nor was she visually familiar to me from anything else I may have seen her in.

But her character was extremely cute and endearing in the movie; and actually liking the main character makes such movies enjoyable, does it not?

Bev and my brother complained so much and for such extended periods of time that they often entirely missed various events and incidents. Also, Bev took at least one cigarette break to go and smoke outside; and my brother disappeared for quite some while, after which I heard a toilet flush (bowel movement?).

In my brother's absence, a dramatic incident occurred in which one of five kids of a single mother ─ the woman had become a best friend to the central character ─ phoned our heroine and let her know that something was very wrong at home.

When help arrived, the mother was found in a bedroom, conscious but badly beaten up.

It turned out that a new boyfriend she was so hopeful about had shown up at the house when she was not there. He proved to be a pedophile.

The mother arrived home and discovered he was there ─ with two of her kids in a bedroom, apparently quite involved in having his way with one of them.

The mother flew at him and struck a couple of blows, but he viciously retaliated and beat her before fleeing the scene.

My brother knew nothing of this event.

He also had to be told by me who it was when the "librarian" older sister of an educated young man who had come to be in love with our heroine, had suddenly died.

The alcoholic sister was mentally and physically ill and had been essentially bedridden for the longest time.

My brother had no idea who it was that had died during the scene when a pair of paramedics were wheeling out the woman's corpse, and her brother was shown clearly devastated over the loss.

My brother and Bev by that time were so caught up in endless alcohol-inspired complaining that they were unable to fathom elements of the movie any longer.

Bev had even once expressed to me that I could turn the movie off and fetch up something else, for she was assuming that I was deriving as little from the show as were they.

Of course I did not turn it off; and as I said, I quite enjoyed it.

However, the plot spanned a half dozen or so years, and often took considerable leaps in time while depicting events that were only given very brief play or development. Too much was being crammed into the limits of the duration of the movie.

But I would still rate it a "7" out of "10" points because of how much I liked Natalie Portman's portrayal of the character, and the actress's on-screen presence. She made me hearken back to me as a younger man, and how much I would have cherished having the love of someone like her.

I was to enjoy two cans of the strong (8% alcohol) beer that I keep in stock. Bev retired after having a final cigarette following the movie, but my brother had me fetch up two episodes of the sitcoms that we follow before he followed suit and I was also able to go to bed ─ well into the midnight hour, if not actually after 1:00 a.m. (I do think that it was that late).

Overnight I developed what  may well have been a hangover. I refrained from rising until it was after 7:00 a.m., and then I got to work on the day's content assignment for the new post I am constructing at one of my six hosted websites.

I was to take a break during that work to perform a 5½-minute plank, but it was unexpectedly difficult to endure even though I have been doing planks of that duration daily since June 24.

My brother and Bev do not typically rise until after mid-morning, so I nurtured the desperate hope that I would be able to return to bed before they had risen ─ that hangover sensation was not abating. It was as if a headache mightn't be far off.

As it happily developed, I did indeed get to return to bed well after 9:00 a.m., for I had 'pulled out all the stops' in discharging that content assignment and everything seemed to work in my favour for a rare change.

Incidentally, when I took that plank break, I of course had to use my cellphone's timer. In lighting up the phone's screen, I discovered that I had missed a FaceTime call from my wife at 4:50 a.m.

She generally spends her weekends somewhere in Vancouver, and had not been home since she left here just after 10:30 a.m. Friday morning to drive to work at her friend's Thai restaurant (my wife typically has an 11:00 a.m. start).

The only reason I can imagine for her to be using FaceTime to call me that early in the morning is that she had been up all night partying, and possibly had wanted me to transfer her some money from our chequing account to her personal account.

She will be getting no nighttime money transfers from me for her nonsense ─ not with our annual property taxes due on July 2.

Anyway, despite a pretty good latter morning nap ─ I got up around 11:00 a.m. ─ I still feel threatened with a headache.

Right now it is 12:25 p.m. on a spectacularly sunny day, and my brother and Bev are downstairs watching a baseball game. My wife will very possibly show up sometime this afternoon, although it may not happen until the early evening.

But I want to get out and make the four-mile round trip hike to the government liquor store over by 108th Avenue & King George Boulevard (Google map) in Whalley.

My brother's 66th birthday is about 10 days off, so I want to ensure that I have his expected bottle of Scotch, and maybe even a birthday card ─ I cannot be sure that I will be up to the task next weekend, and I really do need the exercise and the sunshine.

I would also buy a dozen cans of the strong beer that I try to keep in stock.

This is a hike that I need to do once my brother and Bev leave ─ which ought to be happening early in the afternoon ─ and before my wife shows up if she is going to be coming home in the afternoon.

I also would like to get the worst ─ if not all ─ of the day's allotted exercises over with out in the backyard toolshed before I leave on the hike.

Thus, I am going to break from this post now, and see how things develop as I hope for the very best.

oooooooooooooo

All pretty much went as hoped. 

After my younger brother and his guest left, I had some exercise out in the backyard toolshed ─ just the two most challenging exercises.

I even had some conversation with my eldest stepson concerning the property taxes due on Tuesday. It seems he recently received some ICBC money ─ part of a settlement for a no-fault-of-his traffic accident he suffered some injury in a few years ago.

So some of that pressure is more or less off me now.

By the time I readied myself for my hike, it was 2:54 p.m. once I was on my way. And it was no later than 4:40 p.m. by the time I was back here in the house with my errand done.

I never bothered looking for a birthday card ─ there is still lots of opportunity to do that.

I bought my brother a boxed 1.75-litre bottle of Ballantine's Finest Blended Scotch Whisky ─ the shelf price (before taxes) was $52.99.

I feel a touch guilty for buying so much alcohol for him ─ my brother will only begin drinking the stuff late into the evening when he's already plastered on beer, and his ageing organs do not need this sort of abuse.

It was definitely a hot and wearying hike home toting that and the dozen cans of beer I also bought. Heck, I was already sweating by the time I was in the liquor store ─ and I had walked slowly, and was not bearing any extra weight.

Only my youngest stepson was home when I had left, so I alerted him to lock the house up if he went anywhere. I arrived home to find that he had indeed gone and locked the front door, but the sliding door to the backyard sundeck was left open.

He can be quite the knob.

Yesterday afternoon I noticed him performing some midsection exercises in the boys' den area, so I brought up the subject of planks.

It seems that he recently tried one on a whim, and could only last for two minutes. He claimed that when he was in school (he is now 21 years of age), his record was five minutes.

Honestly, he should not be wasting his time doing any other midsection exercises ─ nothing he could do here at home would match the benefit of planking.

Anyway, he did seem a little surprised to learn that I am currently performing 5½-minute planks on a daily basis ─ half a minute more than his school best. (I am 69 years of age.)

I might as well wrap up this post ─ the afternoon is nearly done, and my brother could feasibly be back home at any time now. My wife, as well.

Last year in June, my wife was over in Italy to visit a sister of hers who has basically made that country her second home.

I want to close with a few more photos that were taken at that time. The photos were taken approximately on June 7, 2018.

I say "approximately" because the digital camera she took with her did not have its date setting adjusted for the holiday; and it may not even have been adjusted when our time locally advanced an hour that Spring here in the Pacific Time Zone.

Thus, the camera's metadata is not reliable for the date.

Anyway, this is my wife posed in the first photo:

Incidentally, my research reveals the location above to be the Trevi Fountain in Rome.

I have yet to eat a thing today beyond my day's two hot caffeinated beverages and the evening is already upon me!