This Morning's Pre-Dawn Walk │ Our Skunk-Caused Lawn Damage

Even with my younger brother away with a beer buddy of his since Friday forenoon on a deer hunting expedition, I am not getting to bed particularly early. It never happened until nearly midnight on Friday, and the past two evenings it was nearly 11:00 p.m.

However, last evening I indulged in some Jack Daniel's while enjoying the 2004 Christmas movie titled Single Santa Seeks Mrs. Claus. I have to admit, I got quite teary at times ─ I am a big baby where the sentimentality of Christmas is concerned.

The two main stars were Crystal Bernard and Steve Guttenberg. I am quite familiar with both names.

But having said that, had I not known that Steve Guttenberg was in the movie, I don't think I would ever have recognized him. Had it really been that long since he previously appeared in anything I had seen? He looked considerably older and...well...puffier.

By "puffier," I mean that his face looked much more filled out ─ as did his body. It was like suddenly seeing the very unfit version of Steven Seagal after only having ever seen him when he was rocking tip top shape.

Crystal looked a wee bit older than I remembered, too. Nevertheless, she was most definitely a keeper in the movie.

It had been so long since I last saw her in anything that I had no idea why I knew who she was ─ for the life of me, I just could not recall what T.V. series she might have gained fame in.

As it happened when I researched her, the T.V. series was Wings (1990 - 1997). I probably have not seen her act in anything else since then.

I love her country accent ─ to me, she sounds something like Dolly Parton or maybe Miley Cyrus. It's a little hard to believe that she turned 58 years old at the end of September.

I will re-watch the movie when my younger brother brings over his girlfriend Bev to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with us ─ we do a marathon of Christmas movies while enjoying our choice drinks. I'll also probably cue up the sequel to that movie ─ the sequel is Meet the Santas. First, though, I want to watch it by myself to ensure that it is worthwhile.

I am in charge of our Christmas movie fest, since I am the only one in the house who knows how to operate our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box.

I went to bed last evening nursing some hope of getting up early enough to put in a walk before daybreak this morning. I had no ambition of making the walk too long ─ in fact, the walk was partially designed to test my left leg's self-diagnosed tibialis anterior cramping and / or inflammation.

The muscle does not hurt, but it is perceptibly sensitive to the touch when I press my fingers firmly against it. The problem I am having with it is that as I walk, it becomes so inflexible that I lose the ability to use the ball and toes of my foot to lift off and take a proper step. I reach the point where I am essentially forced to walk with a lame flat-footed style, and any speed becomes impossible.

I left here around 5:30 a.m. and only put in about 1½ miles at most, but it was sufficient that ─ even at a slow pace ─ by the time I was four blocks from home as I was returning that I was already incapacitated enough that I would not have been able to run for my very life.

I do not like this limitation at all, and need for it to have run its course so that I can resume some serious walking.

While I was out, for the second morning in a row, I tried some pull-ups using gymnastic-style rings outside of A.H.P. Mathews Elementary School (Google map), and it is appalling how weak I seem to be ─ my person feels impossibly leaden.

On both days I stopped at three pull-ups, but I'm going to try to make these attempts a daily morning routine if I can.

Of other note were a couple of probable homeless people who were bedded down (but talking) in a doorway of the school. Since this is a school day, they will have found themselves rousted before too much longer that early morning.

Something else of interest is that I walked through a wee forested park I have never attended before, even though it is at very most a mere three blocks from where I live. This Bog Park (Google map) might actually have been impossible for me to get through without the use of my flashlight / stun gun ─ the trail was too meandering and indistinct in the blackness, as I quickly found out.

When I arrived back home, my eldest stepson was in the kitchen readying his work lunch for today, and soon enough he left.

We only very briefly chatted ─ first concerning the temperature outside (it was milder than yesterday). I then joked that the morning's absence of the touch of frost evident yestermorn must be due to the local Diwali celebrations last evening.

Yesterday afternoon I kept hearing firecrackers being set off, and I thought then that young people must be getting a jump on Hallowe-en. But once it was dark, my vantage in the darkened living room as I watched some T.V. provided me with a very good view of various sky-bound flares throughout the neighbourhood, while the added sounds of all manner of whistling fireworks and explosions made the whole seem nearly like some war zone.

I could still hear explosions after getting to bed ─ Diwali celebrants are quite serious! This dark morning while I was out on my walk, I saw homes all over my route that were decked out with beautiful Christmas lights ─ no doubt for Diwali, though, and not any early display in recognition of Christmas.

It was still wonderful to see.

I have one last topic that I have been wanting to trot forth ─ that of the damage being done to our front yard and backyard lawns by skunks who have been busily ploughing for months.

Actually, they only recently began work on the front yard lawn. Perhaps they've decided to extend the range of this disservice from our backyard.

I took this photo early this afternoon of an affected section of the front yard lawn:

It can become embarrassing, for I don't see any damage being done to the front yard lawns of our immediate neighbours.

Here's a pair of photos of the damage in the backyard lawn:

When the critters open up fresh areas of the lawn, the turf chunks turned over can be very large. But after our efforts at replacing them, and then having them ploughed up over and over again by the small animals ─ and having crows take advantage of the easy pickings at the disturbed ground ─ the turf gets broken up into quite small pieces.

We have seen as many as three skunks in the backyard at a single time, so the darned things are not rare around here.

My brother attributes them to resolving an underground hornet's nest that we had in the front yard two or three Summers ago. One day, he found that the area around the nest's normally very busy entranceway had become something of a burrow, and there was no longer any hornet activity. He reckons that one or more of the skunks attacked the nest during the night and had a sweet and rich feed.

I am going to take a break from this post ─ right now, it is 2:13 p.m. I am soon going to have my first meal of the day, and that generally necessitates a nap. I did seek a nap early this morning after my eldest stepson left for work, but I probably did not acquire much more than an hour of actual sleep. When I got up, I found that my youngest stepson must have meantime risen and gone to work ─ the dense knob left the front door unlocked, and I had specifically made a point of locking it before I took that nap. 

oooooooooooooo

Google Photos notified me today that it created a collage from three photos that my wife took exactly three years ago when she was back at the family home village in Thailand:

Google Photos created a duplicate collage last year ─ not at all imaginative, I have to say. As you can see, the three photos were positioned exactly as they are in the latest collage above:

Anyway, here are the three original photos, beginning with the left column:

I don't know who any of the kids are, but that little girl at the right in the last photo is sure a cute sweetheart. As for the boys, the two immediately next to her look to me to be half-farang, if not 100% White.

The woman with the lying dog in the middle photo is someone my wife has always referred to as being my wife's "sister-cousin." I don't think they are blood related ─ just two women who are as close as if they were sisters.  Of course, they could be actual cousins ─ I could well be wrong that they are not related.

I have not been to Thailand since May / June 2005 when I married my wife over there ─ I was also there in early 2004 and early 2003. And so I remember "sister-cousin" quite well ─ the lady was not shy about enjoying drinks!

Well, it is now approaching 6:00 p.m., and my eldest stepson has just arrived home, talking loudly on his cellphone ─ I had been home alone all day until his arrival. I'm going to bring this post to a close and publish it while I still have the privacy to do so. 

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Yesterday's Pre-Dawn Six-Mile Round Trip Hike to Shop at the Real Canadian Superstore After at Least 20 Years

As a result of an iniquitous, wasteful expenditure of my time, energies, and eye health last afternoon staring at my computer screen ─ possibly five hours' worth of staring, if not even longer ─ I had no time to blog here.

Probably only because I became so depleted from the vile preoccupation was I able to pull myself from the usual denouement, thus sparing myself from suffering through today with depression and self-loathing.

Yesterday began reasonably well, even though I did not manage to get to bed Friday evening until nearly midnight. As I said in Friday's post, the plan was to hike three or miles to a Real Canadian Superstore outlet (as identified on this Google map) that I have not visited in at least 20 years.

The store was advertised as opening at 7:00 a.m., so I hoped to leave here around 6:00 a.m. However, getting to bed as late as I did meant I would fail to rise as early as I would need to, since I would want to have a mug of hot instant coffee before leaving ─ I do not soon nor easily normalize after getting up in the morning.

My journey was not to commence until 6:22 a.m., but at least it was still dark ─ and barely even dawn by the time I got to the store. In fact, not two blocks from the store I had felt the need to micturate, so I did so just off King George Boulevard, and under the shelter of a stretch of evergreen trees ─ it was still so dark that there was no chance any occupants of passing vehicles would have been able to notice me tending to nature there behind a tree trunk. 

I had brought two of my own bags for whatever I might buy ─ one was a gym-style tote bag that rolls up nicely, and the other was a reusable shopping bag that I rolled up right along with the tote bag so that they were one combined roll that I was carrying in a hand.  

I had four items in mind to look for in the store.

When I used to shop at that store two decades and more ago, as soon as one entered the main doors, anyone carrying packs and such were met by a custodian who ensured that the customers left such items in the storage receptacles built into what may have been two or three shelving units that were set up so that the area the custodian was in charge of was almost like a temporary room.    

Each shelf of these quite large shelving units was segmented into numerous compartments for such storage of customers' baggage.

As I wondered in Friday's post, was this rather customer-unfriendly process still in play in our current era of recyclable shopping bags and the encouraged minimization of one-use plastic shopping bags? 

To my delight, no such policing of customer baggage seemed in evidence, although I do wonder what the situation would be if a customer entered the store wearing an actual backpack.

One of the items I was determined to acquire was liquid whipping cream ─ I use it in my coffee instead of the 'watered down' products the Dairy Industry flogs as cream for such beverages. That stuff barely seems any creamier than whole milk when applied to coffee.

What especially intrigued me about this supermarket's whipping cream was that the brand was one I had not before seen for sale anywhere that I shop ─ and instead of the 33% butterfat content of the Dairyland brand that I am always exposed to in stores, Lactantia boasts 35% butterfat:

Oddly, there were other Lactantia dairy products, but not the whipping cream. Evidently the sale I saw online was probably one happening back in Ontario or more easterly provinces than British Columbia.

However, at least the Dairyland whipping cream was also on sale ─ two for $7.18 ─ 80¢ cheaper overall than Lactantia.

So maybe I really did get the better deal?

The cheapest Dairyland whipping cream available to me close to home is at a No Frills store where it presently sells for $5.15 a litre. That same litre-quantity of Dairyland whipping cream bought singly at the Superstore would have cost me $5.48.

It's a shame that No Frills doesn't have some sort of "multi" offer on the cream, too.

As for the other items I sought, one was natural peanut butter. I hoped to find a large container of the stuff ─ at least two litres. Maybe they would even sell the Golden Boy 4½-litre pails that I sometimes (rarely) see available at Save-On-Foods.

I had no good luck.

Nor did I have good luck with extra old cheddar cheese. My hope was to perhaps find a decent-sized quantity of some 'no name' brand, but they only sold the 400-gramme Presidents Choice brand that is available at No Frills (for just a cent more).

The fourth item was one that is not available at No Frills or Save-On-Foods where I usually hike to in order to do my grocery shopping ─ 3-kilogramme containers of honey.

I knew for certain that the honey was in stock there. I opted to buy the creamed variety rather than the liquid because the creamed was $1.00 cheaper. Since the liquid honey has been so thoroughly 'cooked' (or pasteurized) and strained until there are no longer any living enzymes or bee pollen remaining in it, and the creamed honey is probably just the same stuff whipped with air, I decided to save the buck and buy the creamed at $21.98.

That same brand at No Frills in the litre size costs $8.17. Thus, three of them would have cost me $24.51.

Save-On-Foods currently has a sale on their Western Family creamed honey in the kilogramme size, but even as a sale it's priced at $9.49 ($10.99 normally).

In general terms, the walk would have been well worth the effort despite the failure to find everything I had hoped to find, but I physically suffered for it on this occasion.

Within the past couple of years at very most, it sometimes happens when I am walking for any distance ─ that is, a couple or more miles ─ that something gradually goes amiss with my left foot. Specifically, I start to lose the ability to use the ball of my foot ─ along with the toes ─ to push off each time I take a step with that leg.

Ultimately, I end up walking flat-footed with that leg ─ it is as if I have become crippled.

I have thought that something awry happens with my foot's arch, but yesterday ─ when this condition developed when I was about halfway to the Superstore ─ the identification of the problem became clear as I miserably made my way homeward after shopping.

After about a half mile of the three-mile homeward haul, I had become so incapacitated that ─ had I the means ─ I would have seriously courted the idea of getting a taxi.

By the time I was a mile into that trip, I was walking like a very old man ─ of course, at 70 years of age, I am hardly young, but normally I can walk with vigour. Had there been no one to witness, I would have been hobbling, and perhaps even throwing forward my left leg's flat foot.

Because I had to endure such a distance as I did that morning, the cause became apparent for the very first time ─ it has nothing to do with my arch. The problem lies with the muscle that runs up and down at the outside edge of my shin.

It somehow starts to seize up as if slowly developing into a cramped state that entirely prohibits the ability to rise up on the ball of the foot.

It is not possible to properly walk without that ability. One cannot lift off with that leg and foot so as to take a proper step.

The whole scenario became distinctly embarrassing, and I rued that it was not dark so that no one could see the pathetic figure I had become. Fortunately, only once did someone approach me from behind, and I paused at a conveniently-located spot on the sidewalk to look at an adjacent small ravine and its creek, thereby allowing the young fellow to pass me by before I continued on my feeble way.

I could not have out-walked anyone.

It took far longer to get home than I ever expected.

I was not exactly in any pain. It was just as if the muscle alongside my shin had stiffened right up and lost all of its function.

I do not remember this ever happening to me in my younger years, so I dearly hope that if I keep active where walking is concerned, my fitness will improve and this situation will no longer arise.

For now, I am rather hobbled where walking is concerned. I went out this morning for a walk, leaving home perhaps around 5:30 a.m. Wearing a different pair of boots, the same condition began to develop. My round trip was maybe 3½ miles, but by the end of it I was again approaching uselessness as a pedestrian.

I am speculating that maybe I will give up doing calf-raises. I don't manage to do the exercise every day without fail, but I manage to do them on a 'daily' basis each week more often that I miss days. I don't do one-legged calf raises ─ I do both legs at once, and for a total of 111 repetitions. 

But maybe because I am only as of this month trying to get back into anything like regular walking, the strain of both calf raises and the walking has overworked that specific muscle. I don't know the name of the muscle for certain, but it just might be the tibialis anterior.

At any rate, I am going to have to suspend my longer walks ─ the 8¾-mile ventures that involve a 2¾-mile stretch of railway tracks.

I wonder if those railway tracks could also be at fault? Stumbling along that irregular terrain ─ in the dark, no less ─ for 2¾ miles undoubtedly offers a considerable challenge to all of the muscles that are even remotely involved in locomotion.

At present, I have no choice but to limit my walking to the local area in which I live, and save the greater ventures for that time when my status improves and then normalizes once again.

I want to mention a so-called Christmas movie that helped keep me up Friday evening for a tad over 40 minutes before I cancelled out of it, and then finished watching it Saturday afternoon ─ I was using our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box to find sources for the movie.

The movie was not all that much a Christmas movie ─ not by any of the criteria I use. It was just more or less a family drama that took place just ahead of Christmas, and then ended Christmas Day without anything having been resolved or finalized.

I hate movies like that ─ they're a waste of time.

The movie was titled Happy Christmas, and had a reality or documentary feel to it. In fact, the production almost seemed amateurish. 

One of the leads was an actress with an English or Aussie accent who was so darned familiar to me that it became annoying that I could not place her ─ the name Melanie Lynskey certainly meant nothing to me.

I finally had to look her up in Wikipedia, and was enlightened with considerable surprise ─ she played the recurring character "Rose" who was an ongoing thorn in Charlie Harper's side during the run of the T.V. series Two and a Half Men. I guess what threw off my effort to recall just where I knew the actress from was her accent ─ her normal New Zealand tongue was never evident in that series.

In the movie, however, she spoke natively.

It's only a little after 4:30 p.m. right now, but I am in need of a nap, so I am going to cease work on this post and publish it.

Note that my younger brother ─ who left Friday morning on a deer hunting trip with an occasional drinking buddy of his whom I have never met ─ has yet to return.

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My Brother off to Deer Hunt After 20 or More Years

Last night was another late one ─ my younger brother arrived home relatively early that evening from wherever he had been drinking. It turned out that his deer-hunting trip was going to begin earlier today than he had thought ─ he was to show up at his hunting companion's home around 10:00 a.m. this morning.

And so it was that my brother had to put in some hustle last evening to ensure he located everything he wanted to take along. He has not gone hunting in over two decades, I would say. As a result, he didn't have anything to hand that he felt he needed.

We still sat up last night into the midnight hour as I operated our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box to fetch episodes of a few of the T.V. series we follow.

My wife got home and came to bed well after I had. And although I do recall her coming to bed, I am now unsure if I had fallen asleep beforehand. Whatever the case, she was very careful not to be disturbing.

I suppose that I could have managed to remain in bed this morning until 9:00 a.m. if I tried, but I opted to get up around 7:30 a.m. ─ I felt well enough slept. And as it happened, my brother was already stirring in his bedroom, getting an early start on his day.

My wife also got up relatively early ─ it was at least as early as 9:00 a.m. Normally, she does not rise on her workdays until around 10:00 a.m. to begin readying herself. She has a fair drive to get to work and her 11:00 a.m. start.

Usually when she rises ahead of time as she did this morning, she will do some cooking for us. However, that was not the case today. She did launder, however. And since both of her sons were home, she got to commune with them.

My brother left while she was fussing about; and when she realized he was leaving, she shouted to him to have a good time, but he had already shut the front door and gone outside to his vehicle. He would drive over to the other chap's house and leave the vehicle there, for the other chap was driving them in his own vehicle ─ perhaps he has a pickup or something even sturdier.

Alas, I neglected to find out just when my brother was expecting to return. For all I know, this might only be a weekend venture, since the two are heading on up to the Merritt area where the other fellow knows some people. That's supposed to be their base of operations.

When I got up this morning, it was downpouring, and my brother admitted that it was not at all encouraging. However, he was privy to weather reports that claimed the weekend was actually supposed to be quite nice.

And sure enough, as the morning wore on, it did become a mix of Sun and cloud, but it was unpleasantly gusty. I had to close the window in this small room upstairs where I keep my computer ─ it was becoming too darned uncomfortable for me to be putting up with the chill wind forcing its way in.

After my wife left for work, I spent a lot of time today finalizing the post that I have apparently had on the go since October 5 at my website Lawless Spirit, but the post is now published: Distance Learning Holistic Nutrition Ⅱ.

I also had a very good nap this afternoon, finding myself abed from around 1:00 p.m. until after 3:00 p.m. I never napped continuously, of course, but it was still very pleasant with much dreaming. It was even difficult galvanizing myself to get out of bed ─ I lay there for several minutes resisting the effort.

I hope early tomorrow to get away on a pretty decent hike to do some shopping at a Real Canadian Superstore outlet (Google map) that is approximately three miles from where I live here in Surrey. It has a 7:00 a.m. opening, so I would like to be on my way from here by 6:00 a.m.

For personal (religious) reasons, since my late teens in the late 1960s I have always been uncomfortable about shopping on a Saturday. This still holds sway. 

I have not shopped at one of these stores in many, many years. I want to bring a tote bag, but when I used to shop at the store, I always had to check any such accoutrement in a special area where a security person stood in charge. It was off-putting, but at least my pack was not ever snatched away by some thief whilst I shopped.

I wonder if this sort of thing ─ i.e., having to check one's pack or tote bag ─ is still the rule in this era of supplying one's own shopping bags?

It is nearing 8:00 p.m. right now. I would like to watch some T.V. while I enjoy some supper, and then get to bed relatively early. And so I am going to bring this post to a close right here. 

 

Last Evening's Long Walk

I never made a post here yesterday, so I will deal with the events of that day before moving on to today.

It was unexpected by me that my younger brother would actually withstand passing out for two consecutive evenings ─ i.e., Monday and Tuesday. 

It was good for him, but it meant that I had to sit up with him watching T.V. into the midnight hour, for I am the only one of us who understands the operation of our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box that we use to follow the enormous number of T.V. series that we follow.

He did fade a few times on the second evening during the first show I had tuned in ─ an episode of Jessica Jones. It irks me no end when he does that, for I know that he's oblivious to what's happening. However, he kept opening his eyes before I had a chance to start shutting down anything in order to make my getaway.

Each late night means that there will be no early a.m. opportunity for me to rise and get in a good, long walk.  

Despite me getting to bed so late into the midnight hour of early a.m. Wednesday, my wife was still not home following her long day of work Tuesday at the Thai restaurant that employs her.

She was supposed to be keeping an appointment sometime on Wednesday that her youngest son had set up for her at one of those debt consolidation agencies. I had been wanting to have a conversation with the two of them in case they both wanted me to attend, too ─ my wife needed to understand more clearly just what she was going to be facing, for I believed that she was clueless.

It took me some while to fall asleep after I had gone to bed. And then there came a point during the night when I was having a conscious episode, and in considerable surprise I realized that somehow my wife was in bed with me and I had never been aware of her readying to come to bed.

Clearly, I had been sleeping unusually deeply during the event, for earplugs and a blindfold usually do not prevent my awareness as they must have done on that occasion.

I did rise once overnight to use the bathroom, but I seem to remember now that I did not rise for the morning until around 9:00 a.m.

My brother had not yet risen, but he soon enough did.

So...was my wife to remain home for the sake of that appointment set up by her son?

I knew nothing as yet. 

As is my routine around 10:00 a.m., I joined my brother downstairs to take over the T.V. he had been watching, and thereby employ our Android TV Box to fetch up some episodes of the T.V. series we follow. Actually, the first show we were to watch was the remainder of a movie that he had to bail on the day before after a mere half an hour because he had to take his girlfriend Bev to keep a medical appointment.

I will mention the movie, but only to say that it was a waste of time: August. 

Also, the actor (Josh Hartnett) who played the lead character was unknown to me, but he reminded me of another actor whom I was unable to place until most of the movie was over with.

He resembled a black-haired and younger Brad Pitt.

Anyway, my wife normally rises around 10:00 a.m. to begin readying for her workday, for she has a fair drive to get to the restaurant for her 11:00 a.m. start.

And she did rise, albeit a little longer after 10:00 a.m. than she might normally have done.

I suppose she showered and whatever else; and then after she came downstairs and entered the kitchen, she soon enough hustled directly to the front door without a word to my brother and I and left.

She had left wordlessly the morning before, too.

On this occasion, it prompted him to ask me if she and I were having some conflict.

I suggested that it was quite possible her nose was out of joint; but I offered that she might just be very weary, and I then revealed that I had not heard her come home and go to bed last night. It was obviously very late.

My brother and I watched T.V. until around 1:10 p.m., and then he went up to his bedroom to rest up before he took off to end up drinking somewhere.

My youngest stepson had been home all this while, but in bed. He never rose until after mid-afternoon. Somehow, it is nothing for the young man to spend 12 and more hours in bed ─ a feat that was far beyond me when I was his age (he is 21 years old).

He and I never spoke, so I still knew nothing of his mother and her appointment; but late in the afternoon his older brother phoned me to ask if I needed any help with the monthly mortgage.

Well, the $1,600 had been debited from my chequing account on Tuesday (and not Monday as I had been anticipating). In order to have the funds in the account, I had to use RRSP money ─ a so-called redemption of $5,000 I had made the week before ─ that my wife had hoped would be available for her to use to pay back some personal debts. 

Due to the late arrival of the money (the redemption takes a few days to occur), I had loaned her my VISA credit card for two days, and she had been responsible for racking up a total of $1,897.17 in charges (including $10 as fees for two cash advances amounting to $1,580).

She had originally wanted me to loan her $5,000, so I figured that the credit card usage was near enough to $2,000; and it was her fault that our chequing account had been reduced to just over $40 with the monthly mortgage coming up.

So RRSP money had to cover that debt, and this left something over $1,940 in our account. I had already used $1,000 of the RRSP money that had also been there ─ I used it to make an online payment towards the credit card.    

As I said to her in a Saturday evening text exchange, if her sons ─ who are both employed and live here scot free ─ would only help out with the mortgage, then whatever they contributed would be available to her.

And that was why the eldest lad had phoned me last afternoon. His mother had texted him to ask if he has given me any money for the mortgage. He had not, even though last week he knew that the account was over $1,000 short to meet the mortgage payment.

Well, of course I no longer needed some financial help, and I told him that I had to use money from my RRSP to pay the mortgage ─ the deed had been done.

He reflected for a moment about transferring some money to me anyway, but he decided that to do so would only be fuel for his mother to waste partying and maybe even gambling. She had been trying to get him to loan her money, but he was refusing ─ he would have to access funds that he had put away. I don't know if he has set himself up with an RRSP or where his money is going ─ maybe he only has some sort of high-interest savings account. But he had no intention of taking money out of it just so his mother could use it.

She is deeply indebted to friends from whom she has been borrowing money to gamble away. And in the past year, she has gambled away several scores of thousands of dollars ─ much of  it from credit accounts.

She says that nearly two weeks ago, she joined the voluntary self-exclusion program to try and have herself stopped from further gambling, but thus far her sons and I have not seen any contractual proof if she was given any.

As the lad and I talked, I decided to have a look at my chequing account where the $1,940 balance was supposed to still be sitting.

To my disappointment, my wife had apparently withdrawn $1,700 ─ it was down to $240 (and change). I guess she was taking me up on the offer that she could have the $1,900 remaining, but perhaps she did not wish to leave the account practically depleted, so she only withdrew $1,700.

The lad offered that if I should need money in the next week or two for shopping or whatever, then he would transfer me some.

My monthly pension should arrive sometime this next week, so I am hardly going to be soliciting from him. If he is not going to freely make a transfer of his own volition, then I will do without and put much of the blame upon his mother.

She can ponder the depth of her ties with her two sons who will evidently not to any degree whatsoever bail her out financially from her debt dilemma.

By the way, the eldest son in that phone conversation with me informed me that his mother had cancelled on the debt consolidation meeting because she had figured out that it was not going to be something that she deemed to be of any benefit to her.

I had intended to do some shopping last evening, but I dared not touch the $240 in case my wife still required the promised $200. Nevertheless, I still wanted to get in a long walk.

It was most disappointing not to be able to shop ─ I had intended hiking to a supermarket that is approximately an hour's walk from here. That is, a minimum of three miles.

I still intended going in that direction, but I did not want to leave here until around 9:00 p.m. My brother had left me with the impression that he was going to be keeping what has become a weekly hook-up with one of his drinking buddies, so I was not expecting him home until later in the evening.

Imagine my chagrin when just a few mere minutes ahead of 9:00 p.m., he unexpectedly showed up. I had been watching the premiere episode of a T.V. series called Chesapeake Shores that was proving to be far longer than I anticipated ─ over 80 commercial-free minutes.

I was forced to cancel out of the feature, and come upstairs to begin readying for my outing ─ I was not going to have it suspended just because my drunken brother had shown up. That had been the case the previous evening ─ it was not going to be repeated. 

I had not gotten in a good walk since early Sunday morning.

Well, I got all dressed up to go...and then had a change of heart. My route would cover approximately 8¾ miles at minimum, and I detest going anywhere when the day is still busy. I began to focus upon the virtue of trying to get out early in the a.m. hours of the night. 

So I divested myself of all walking garb, and decided to go downstairs to join my brother who might not have been excessively inebriated.

And there he was ─ passed out.

Utterly annoyed with him, I stormed back upstairs, got fully dressed again, and at 9:35 p.m. was on my way.

My route was to involve 3½ miles of streets, then 2¾ miles of railway tracks, and finally another 2½ miles of streets before at last arriving home, quite footsore and bagged.

For protection, I had carried a tactical pen and a flashlight / stun gun.

I was back home around 12:30 a.m., and found my brother just getting ready to head on upstairs to his bedroom for the night.

I had only had one meal during the day, plus a carrot in the evening along with a mug of black instant coffee. So I boiled up a couple of eggs while resuming Chesapeake Shores; and then I ate them along with a wedge of extra old cheddar cheese and an organic orange which I ate in its entirety ( i.e., peel and all). Also, I downed numerous nutritional supplements.

My wife arrived home just as I was finishing the orange. By then, it may have been 1:30 a.m. or so.

We didn't talk too much, and she didn't waste much time before going to bed. It was after 2:00 a.m. before at last I joined her.

I expected to have no trouble getting to sleep after my long hike. Whenever I undergo such a walk in the early a.m., I fast hit such a decline once I am back home that I am good for nothing but a return to bed and a goodly nap.

This time, I felt like I was wired. And it was physically uncomfortable lying in bed ─ my stiffened joints and muscles seemed to object to being there. And this made absolutely no sense to me.

This situation never changed the whole night through, and I had to force myself to remain in bed until just after 8:00 a.m.

I hope not to be making a repeat of such an evening walk anytime soon.

My younger brother never rose until well past 9:00 a.m. this morning, and at 10:00 a.m. I joined him for some T.V.

My wife was to rise properly just after 10:00 a.m. to begin readying for her workday; and when she left us, she was gracious enough to be making polite good-byes this time.

My brother is going to be absent for at least a couple of days, I learned. Sometime tomorrow ─ perhaps late in the afternoon ─ he and one of his drinking buddies are going to be travelling up to the Merritt area to do some deer hunting. This chap knows some people up there whom he and my brother may find lodging with, and that chap will also be supplying the truck or whatever it is that they will be travelling in.

When I asked my brother if he would be back on Sunday, he did not yet know ─ it was dependent upon how much time the other fellow had booked off work. The pair might be away for several days.

This will considerably free me up ─ I will be able to get to bed early when I want to. And that will allow me to potentially have more walking opportunities.

I actually did well on last night's walk ─ I am improving. Although I was footsore and stiff by the late stages, I probably did not give that impression to anyone who might have been watching me. I was walking at a very good pace, and doing my best to move my upper body as if I was limber despite how inflexible I might have felt.

Also, my toes were nowhere as problematic as they have been since starting these walks a couple of weeks back ─ my toes have been dreadfully sore after being pressed against the ends of my boots over the miles trodden. 

I am starting to feel more like my former ─ younger ─ walking self.

 

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On Self-Sufficency

My younger brother retained consciousness all of last evening after he was home from wherever he had been drinking, so I was obliged to sit up well into the midnight hour operating our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box to fetch up episodes of the T.V. shows we follow.

We were to watch an episode of Jessica Jones, two episodes of Van Helsing, and an episode of Vera.

This late bedtime of course meant that I would not be rising early overnight for any activity.

However, it also meant that when my wife arrived home from work, I was not free to have the conversation her youngest son and I should be having with her concerning the debt consolidation agency appointment that she is scheduled to have tomorrow.

I have absolutely no doubt that she has no idea what she is going to have to reveal, for her son had set the thing up ─ it isn't her idea.

So I have been wanting to prepare her, and let her know that I should likely even be going.

As well, it may be pertinent for her to realize that our situation maritally / financially is so dysfunctional ─ primarily due to her crazed consumption of credit and the debt that has amassed therefrom ─ that he has told me that he feels his mother and I should divorce.

He feels that she will never stop gambling and partying as long as she has access to the credit she can get as my wife (23 years my junior). And I will never have any hope of being free of the debt she persists in bringing down upon us.

My wife is Thai, and does not have a very in-depth understanding of English ─ this is why I know that she is unaware of what private personal details that appointment will require to be brought into the open. 

She doesn't even properly live here at our Surrey home. She spends her weekends somewhere downtown in Vancouver, and only sleeps here during the week because we live far closer to the Thai restaurant she works at.

Anyway, I thought last evening that ─ once my brother retired for the night ─ my wife, her youngest son, and I could still have that conversation. However, she had herself gone to bed before then.

So I eventually joined her wordlessly in our bed, doing my best not to disturb her.

This morning, I rose a little ahead of 8:00 a.m., and my brother rose less than an hour later.

My wife does not normally have to start work at the restaurant until 11:00 a.m., so she tends to normally rise around 10:00 a.m. to begin readying for her workday, and of course the drive to get to the restaurant.

I joined my brother at 10:00 a.m. to begin using our Android TV Box for three or so hours, and my wife rose shortly thereafter to begin freshening up in the bathroom with her shower.

When at last she did come downstairs, she did so while addressing her youngest son and straightaway sought him out for some conversation in Thai.

And practically before I knew it, she headed for the front door and left for work without a word to my brother or I. In fact, in all the time since she came home the previous evening, the only conversational exchange I had with her was that of an initial greeting when she came through the front door. 

Such is my marriage.

If this meeting is still on for tomorrow, then I would presume that she is not going to be going to work that day. That conversation I want to have with her and probably her youngest son should still be possible.

So we shall see.

It is now approaching 8:00 p.m., and I would like to ready and get out of here for a hike to do some grocery shopping before my brother shows up and has me tied up again with the T.V.

I do want to link to a very good video at YouTube that shows just what can be done in the way of self-sufficiency if only concerned individuals had the financial means of achieving the feat ─ I do not.

And not many of us do.

Nevertheless, for anyone wealthy enough to be able to create the sort of greenhouse being quite well detailed in the eighteen-minute video, it is a beautiful guide: Nebraska retiree uses earths's heat to grow oranges in snow.  

Only idiots say that money cannot bring happiness.

In this day and age, happiness is not possible without adequate means. Without adequate income, it is impossible to buy the optimal diet that everybody should be able to have, instead of the polluted pesticde- and herbicide-ridden produce and sickly CAFO meats, poultry, and dairy that are the only option of those of us who are too poor and probably geographically isolated to be able to access anything else.  

For all of my adult life, I have felt like a sitting duck. I am at the mercy of whatever catastrophe comes because I am too poor and debt-ridden to go anywhere else. I don't even drive.

And at the age of 70 that I now am, it is fast becoming even bleaker that this is where it's all going to end for me. An utterly futile life that has come to naught.

And now my brother is home ─ I am bloody stuck.

 

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Age, Debt, and Marital Longevity

At this very moment, it is 9:34 a.m. And as yet, I have not heard a thing from my wife since our heartfelt text exchanges late Saturday afternoon and into the evening.

She typically spends her weekends somewhere in Vancouver, so nothing about this reticence or absence is unusual. She essentially only shows up here at our Surrey home to do some cooking for the household, and to get some sleep at nights during her workweek, for we live far nearer than is Vancouver to the Thai restaurant that she works at.

On Wednesday coming, she is supposed to go with her youngest son (who will have his 22nd birthday later this year) to meet with someone at one of those debt consolidation agencies.

He set it up.

My wife has blown through so much of our credit in the past year to fuel her gambling at a casino, that I can only wildly guess at the total; but I can confidently say that we are now over $50,000 or more deeper into debt than was the situation before.

And it was very bad before.

Her youngest son wanted some help from me three days ago to map out her situation as concerns the following ─ as requested by that debt consolidation agency:

• Monthly Income and Assets – Homes, cars and investments
• Debts - Who you owe and how much you owe them
• Monthly expenses – Housing, food, utilities, transportation and family

But I could help with nothing. She has not been depositing her paycheques into our chequing account in recent months, nor helping with the monthly mortgage.

I do not drive, so I know nothing of the vehicle situation.

This Vancouver nonsense has been going on for several years ─ she can barely be said to live here at home anymore. I don't even know where in Vancouver she stays, nor who the "gent" there is who is so important to her.

He may be Gay ─ my wife has always had lots of male Gay friends even back in Thailand.

And I think it is his car she drives ─ she likely pays the insurance.

I don't know which of her friends she owes money to ─ she says that she owes them a total of around $6,000. She also has credit cards independent of those I am involved with, so that is also an area I cannot help with.

Her "monthly expenses" are impossible to even start to identify. She hasn't been helping out with the mortgage nor utilities here for several months, as I have already said. So whatever her expenses are at her other residence in Vancouver is beyond my imagination, as are her transportation expenses.

I probably should go with her and the lad if they keep this appointment on Wednesday, but doing so would open up wide our personal affairs and shameful marital relationship.

Does the lad want that?

It is a conversation he and I have not yet had.

He is irritated with me for allowing his mother to fall so far into debt. And for all I know, he may even blame me for the poor marriage she and I have.

Much of that is certainly my fault, for I have 'performance' inadequacies, and so we have not been intimate since March 2013. I am a little more than 23 years her senior.

Nevertheless, we are amicable enough. We just do not talk. Both of us are the personality type that clams up and bottles up.

oooooooooooooo

... And now the youngest lad has come home, and we've been talking to some length. He should have been at work, but he apparently got punched in the face by a total stranger while the youngster was waiting for a bus. He apparently was engrossed in his cellphone when the stranger tapped him on the arm to get his attention, and then the guy drove his fist into the kid's upper lip and nose.

Anyway, the lad is so unhappy with his mother that he does want me to go with them on Wednesday to the credit consolidation meeting, and if it results in his mother's humiliation, then so be it.

He has texted her that the three of us need to talk ─ she is probably working at the restaurant.

However, the two of them can converse in enough Thai that my brother would not be privy to anything they were talking about. I cannot join in any such conversation. Consequently, I would be unable to engage in a three-way conversation until after my brother has gone to bed for the night, which he does not typically do until into the midnight hour.

I am going to take a break from this post. It is now 11:50 a.m. ─ I may yet find that I have to conclude for the day and say nothing further.

oooooooooooooo

It is now 5:12 p.m., and I had a very needed nap ─ I was in bed from approximately 2:00 p.m. until just after 5:00 p.m.

I did rise once to use the bathroom. And right around 2:00 p.m., one of the banks my wife has us indebted to made its third robocall of the day to my cellphone. The call of course went unawnswered.

It has been raining most of the day, and has been doing so since well before dawn ─ I was up from approximately 2:00 a.m. until a little after 5:00 a.m.

Had I slept better despite getting to bed before 9:20 p.m. last evening, I likely would have gone on an early a.m. walk. Instead, I just put in some work on the post I ought to finally have finished and published within a week at one of my six hosted websites.

I also put in a six minute and 10 second plank. I seem to have given up trying to plank daily. And however it was that I actually managed to plank for just over 12 minutes on four or five different occasions in recent weeks is now beyond my understanding.

Returning now to my morning discussion with my youngest stepson, he actually recommended that I divorce his mother. He feels that it is the only way she will ever quit sucking me dry financially ─ she and I have to no longer have those legally-binding ties and bonds.

But I do not hate the wretched thing, after all. Sometimes, I find myself feeling as kindly and solicitous off her as if she were a child in my charge.

Besides, I did a little research and found that here in B.C., unless a divorce can be proven on adulterous or physical abuse grounds, then it is necessary to have a one-year separation before divorce proceedings can go ahead.

To be utterly frank, at my age now of 70, I would just prefer to not be living any longer than to get involved in a process like that.

What benefit would there be to me at this stage in my life?

The lad even speculated that it might be possible to place every dollar of debt onto her if I got the proper legal representation.

But she would die in debt if that happened. She has no job or other money-engendering skills, apart from that of restaurant work ─ she is extremely capable in kitchens of Thai restaurants, but there is no future in it. There is no pension plan, nor sick and vacation benefits.

I do not know for certain how much formal education she ever got back in Thailand, but she has claimed Grade Ⅸ ─ it would quite surprise me if my formerly simple Isaan girl actually completed that much schooling.

Maybe all she needs is a shocking scare at just where her fiscal irresponsibility may well lead. I know that she is feeling a hell of a lot of stress for what she has done, but it doesn't seem to be enough to stop her from partying with her friends.

She must learn to say, "No." She cannot jump to every beckoning she gets ─ she has done that for too many years.

It is almost all-important to 'save face' in Thailand, and that concept is deeply embedded within her.

She never had aught but other poor friends back in Thailand. To be here with the wide assortment of relatively well-to-do Thai and Lao ladies she deems to be her friends would have been unimaginable for her before she met and married me.

And so it is that she lives above our means in her desperation to keep the acceptance that she has and undoubtedly craves.

I know all this, and understand it. But it cannot go on.

I do not want to blog further today.

 

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Some Saturday Evening Despair Followed by Some Early Sunday Morning Activity

Last evening was rather bleak for me as the weight of the debt my wife has us in bore down on me.

I was watching T.V. by myself ─ she stays somewhere in Vancouver on the weekends, and only comes home to sleep during the week because we live much close to the Thai restaurant she has to drive to for work.

I nearly had my VISA credit card all paid up, but I had loaned it to my wife to use on Wednesday and Thursday because she was desperate to start trying to pay back friends to whom she is in debt due to gambling ─ she gave me the estimate that she owed as much as $6,000.

She had wanted to borrow $5,000 in credit from me via my VISA card, but I decided that it was better if I made a $5,000 redemption from my RRSP ─ I made application for that last Tuesday, probably bringing my RRSP account down to  close to $30,000.

I knew that $500 would be taken from the redemption as income tax, so $4,500 would be the actual result of the redemption.

And that money was deposited into our chequing account this past Friday.

Meantime, my wife had come close to racking up $2,000 on my VISA card.

Tomorrow is the day when our monthly mortgage ought to be debited from our chequing account ─ a hit of just over $1,600. But due to my wife's unrestrained financial foolishness, the account had been reduced to just over $40.

So last evening, I was in a fair depression, feeling quite alone and useless now that I am 70 years old, without any friends near to share my burdens with.

Early that afternoon, I had texted my wife at 1:22 p.m.:

I'm going to put $2,100 towards my VISA card.

She did not respond until 5:51 p.m., and I had not yet initiated that online payment ─ I had withheld for her sake. And as yet, she was unaware that the RRSP money had come.

Please note that several times, in transcribing the texts between my wife and I into this blog post, I needed to disguise identifying names that I did not wish to be public. Those instances will be apparent, but I hope not too confusing:

I do t get my pay yet!! [Her employer and friend] say will get a pay cheque tomorrow

Me:

My RRSP money came yesterday -- $4,500, because $500 was taken off as income tax.  

She:

So how much you will let me pay off my friends

Me:

I was hoping you were doing some of that with my VISA card.

Well, if I pay my card $2,100, and then have to pay all of the mortgages on Monday because your sons don't want anything to do with it, there will only be about $800 left.

She:

Is [her eldest son] give you some

Me:

I haven't heard from him about it since you told me that he could not cover the $1,000 we were short by at the time. 

Both of her sons live here scot free, but they often will help cover shortfalls on the mortgage. Nevertheless, when the eldest lad learned that she had wasted the mortgage for nonsense and we were then over $1,000 shy of what was needed. he told her that he could not cover that big a difference.

She:

Can you plz don't pay ur visa yet I need that 2100 to pay them that why I ask you to helping me fir 5000 before

Anyway up to you

Me:

[One of the banks we're involved with] keeps phoning us -- [My younger brother] asked me about it yesterday, but I acted like they were probably just trying to get more business.

I don't know if they're calling because of the cash that came out of my credit card, or that Growth Account that we owe nearly $1,000 on, or both. 

It's all really embarrassing and stressful.

She:

Yes, call for that one so may be I will deposit this pay cheque in that bank first then withdraw some cash to pay my friends sorry about that

Me:

That might stop them for a month or more.

She:

Ok for now I'm so stress need a break I knew all it's my fault

Me:

Yes, sometimes it makes me feel so sick that I don't want to live anymore.

There is nothing making my life worth living anymore.

Or so I often feel. I'm just a hostage this house and all our hopeless debt.

I'm too old now to ever be free.

She:

Don't feel like that without you me and my sons never have a good life to leave here  , it's my fault to make you feel like that I'm so sorry again

Sorry my stupid fault

Me:

Well, it's too late to do much about it now. 

She:

You don't have to do anything you done enough, thank you fir everything

Me:

I'll just pay VISA $1,000 this time.

Then if your sons do no help with the $1,600 mortgage and we have to cover the full amount, there will be $1,900 or so left over.

And if we do get some help from them, you will have that little bit more.

She:

K

And there was where we left off. 

Until she married me in 2005 over in Thailand, and then came here to Canada in 2006 to join me on our third visa attempt, she had never been outside of her country. She was just a poor Isaan girl with two young sons, and scant prospect of ever having another husband.

Her sons remained with her mother. We had one botched visa attempt to bring them here in 2007, and finally got clearance in 2008. She went and brought them here to be with us.

And now they are all Canadians. The youngest lad ─ who will turn 22 later this year ─ can no longer read his own mother tongue; and his vocabulary has become so reduced that his mother and brother have to use lots of English words when they all speak together in Thai.

Had the boys and their mother never come here because I married their mother, it is quite possible that neither of them would have ever graduated high school (as they both did over here). They might have become relatively useless young men with questionable futures, and might well have both been inducted into the military.

I know all this. I was just unaware that my wife ever realized or thought about these things. I sacrificed so much for them all, so it felt nice to finally understand that she did sometimes realize what I did and made possible for them.

For several years now, I have been thinking that I do not want to reach my 71st birthday if this is all the life I am to have ─ so much debt brought on by my wife that I can never be clear of it.

But I am worth far more to my wife alive than dead. Alive, my monthly pensions clear well over $2,300. However, only one of those three pensions would pass over to her as my widow...and she would only be entitled to 50% of whatever it is at the time of my death.

Yes, she would have the pension for the remainder of her life. Unfortunately, though, its present net value to her as my widow would not even be $650 a month.

Consequently, I am loath to die and force her to have to be a working woman into her old age ─ she is just over 23 years younger than I am. It makes me feel abominable not to be a strong provider.

I still love my wife, even if I cannot physically manage the job.

And so it was that even though I got to bed last evening ahead of 10:00 p.m. with the intention of getting in a good, long walk in the early a.m. hours, I was still wide awake by 11:00 p.m.

When I finally did get to sleep, I was awake again shortly after 2:00 a.m., and unable to sleep. So around 2:30 a.m., I rose to put in some work on the post I have in development at one of my six hosted websites.

I had no hope of getting out on a walk without a caffeine boost, so I fixed up a big mug of hot instant coffee and slowly consumed that.

As it happened, I got hung up for awhile on complications with that website post.

I had thought to get on my walk by around 5:00 a.m., but that plan fell by the wayside. As it turned out, it was 5:54 a.m. once I was outside the locked front door and on my way.

During the initial stages of the walk, several times I considered truncating the original planned route. Heck, I almost called the walk off and remained home ─ it was much later than I wanted to be getting away. The only saving grace was that it was Sunday, and the morning ought to be quiet.

Ultimately, I put in a minimum of what I estimate to be 8¾ miles. It was satisfying, but my cartilage-damaged knees are still burning from the experience. Nevertheless, I did discover that if ever I have the means ─ i.e., the privacy and proper footwear ─ I really do think that I could develop some of my former running ability.

I have not done any running since having the quadriceps tendon of my left leg tear free of my knee cap on November 1, 2010; and the surgery to reattach the tendon on November 5. I am too ashamed to be seen trying to learn how to run again, so I have lost the ability.

I want to be done with this post, so I am going to finish up with the following collage Google Photos created today using three photos that were apparently taken by me back on the same day (October 20) back in 2012:

I remember that my wife ─ pictured there posing on our backyard sundeck ─ had taken her sons and I out to a noodle restaurant called Shang Noodle House (Google map) in New Westminster. As I said earlier, the younger lad will soon turn 22 years of age, while his older brother is now 25.

These are the three original photos:

I want to blog further, but I have already spent a lot of time creating a post in my private blog. That blog is over 11 years old, and I began it within a week of the arrival to Canada of my wife's two sons.

I was obliged to render it private early this year when my youngest stepson learned of it, and was aghast at how much had been revealed about him.

I hope one day to make it public again, but it will not be until this household has broken up ─ if I live to see that day.

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