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 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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