I do believe that last evening was the first time in a full week in which I sat up watching T.V. with my younger brother ─ and the first time since then in which I enjoyed some beer.
I drank two cans of the strong (8% alcohol) stuff that I keep in stock.
Of late more often than not, my brother has been coming home after 9:00 p.m. from wherever it is that he's been drinking. I have set 9:00 p.m. as 'the point of no return' where not bothering trying watch T.V. with him is concerned.
Even when he comes home well ahead of 9:00 p.m., the odds are darned good that he will start losing consciousness around 10 minutes into the very first show I tune in for us via our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box.
When he does that, I cancel out of whichever series episode I had called up, and then I am forced to rewatch it late the next morning when he's sober and has the mental resources to concentrate on the episode.
But last evening, he kept it together, and so it was that we enjoyed two episodes each of Jessica Jones and Van Helsing, and one episode of Lilyhammer.
It resulted in me not making it to bed until just after 1:00 a.m., so I accepted that I would not likely be bothering to try and rise early in the a.m. to attempt any long walks.
My night ended at 8:00 a.m. this morning when I was wrenched from sleep by the sound of my cellphone ringing. It wasn't a number familiar to me, so I did not answer.
I later researched and learned that it was a number associated with one of the banks at which I am deep in debt, thanks to my wife's fiscal feeble-mindedness.
There were two further calls over the day ─ none of which resulted in any messages. Yesterday, they phoned at least twice and did leave robocall messages (addressing both my wife and me) that did not include any 'call back' telephone numbers ─ not that I would have complied if any such number had been left.
But that is a topic I do not intend to become enmeshed with in this post ─ I revealed plenty enough in yesterday's post.
As for walking, I am hoping that my brother will not come home this evening ─ the past two or three Saturday evenings have resulted in him staying with his girlfriend Bev and spending the night at her home.
Should this work out for me, then I will retire early and then get up early, and put in a good walk. The plan is to basically duplicate the distance that I managed about a week ago ─ I put in just over eight miles.
I am trying to rebuild some of my former walking expertise, but I am 70 years old now and I have neglected the regular activity for too long.
I do not remember walking causing my toes the discomfort that it now does as they push up against the ends of my boots with each step forward, mile after mile.
I also feel a great stiffening and approaching soreness in the 'ball and socket' joints of my pelvis, as well as some lower back discomfort and general overall bodily stiffness that increases with the distance trekked.
Since I do not live alone, my schedule is not very much my own ─ and especially so during the week when my wife sleeps here in order to have a shorter drive to work.
On weekends, she stays somewhere in Vancouver.
Her youngest son ─ who will turn 22 years of age later this year ─ has an appointment scheduled with her relating to getting her various credit debts consolidated into one manageable account.
The appointment is scheduled for next Wednesday, and he E-mailed me a request last evening for help in gathering information for the following categories:
- 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
Well, I can offer nothing. His mother is far too tight-lipped where I am concerned. She hasn't deposited any of her paycheques into our chequing account for at least two or three months. She has been squandering her income instead of contributing to the monthly mortgage.
Even her car is something of a mystery to me ─ I think it belongs to whomever she stays with in Vancouver, and she just pays for its insurance and thereby gets nearly full use of it.
She also has credit cards acquired independently of me.
There is no way possible for me to even begin to estimate her "monthly expenses" ─ as I said, she only comes home during the week to sleep. Certainly, she often does a lot of cooking, and buys plenty of groceries for that. But I am not involved in any of that shopping.
The lad, his mother, and I need to have a conversation together relating to that Wednesday appointment, but how? She never came home after working yesterday ─ she must have returned directly to Vancouver.
And she won't likely be back here again until tomorrow afternoon at earliest, or possibly even as far off as early Tuesday a.m. if she goes directly to work from Vancouver on Monday and then delays coming here after that workday is done ─ she parties with friends quite a lot.
But even if the three of us do find ourselves here at home for a conversation, we cannot have it if my brother is home. He knows nothing of our affairs, and it must remain so for as long as possible.
The kid places considerable blame on me for his mother's credit debt plight because I have allowed it to continue for so many years. However, I have no control over her.
Even so, he has benefitted enormously over the years from her extravagances and lavishness where spending money that she and I do not have has been concerned.
Gosh, I had no intention of getting back into this topic, yet here I am deep into it.
So I am applying the brakes right now and moving on to something else.
Quite late last month, I noticed a solitary whole durian in the cooler / freezer at the No Frills market I frequent.
My wife is Thai, so she is very familiar with durians, but I never got around to mentioning it to her ─ I certainly didn't buy it.
And then I read this article early this month:
HSIonline.com
I have tasted durian before, and don't really have a problem with it. However, I did not try much of it.
I would not want to buy one and then discover that not only would I not be able to handle eating it all, but that my wife and her two sons were not interested in any of it.
So I have wanted to speak with her about the fruit before risking buying one.
Besides, a Malaysian website cautions that overdoing durian can have negative consequences ─ most especially for pregnant women, diabetics, and the obese:
A really good study on durian was published earlier this year, for anyone who can handle this sort of educational material:
- NCBI.NLM.NIH.gov: Bioactive Compounds, Nutritional Value, and Potential Health Benefits of Indigenous Durian (Durio Zibethinus Murr.): A Review
There is no question that durians have lots going for them nutritionally.
I would like to think that if I had been able to spend half of each year in Thailand following my retirement, I would have tried to eat some fresh durian every day.
I have been having erectile dysfunction issues since my very late 40s, and it is largely behind why my wife and I have not been intimate with one another since March 2013.
Now, it is too late.
And I don't feel like blogging any further today.
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