It pained me considerably yesterday that not once had I ever gone out in the previous two weeks and been exposed to any Remembrance Day poppy sellers. This was to be the first time that I can remember in many, many years in which I did not purchase a poppy in support of Canada's veterans.
I hoped to yet manage to get away early in the evening and at least make a $10 donation at the Royal Canadian Legion ─ specifically, Branch #229 (Google map) in Whalley ─ but I failed in that, too.
I first wanted to watch a Christmas movie that I had located a link source for through the Cinema HD v. 2.1.2 'app' that I have downloaded into our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box. I generally use the Titanium 'app', but it failed to find any working links.
The movie was a 2000 feature titled The Family Man., and it ran for just over two hours.
I was also drinking some Jack Daniel's, and I probably overdid it ─ by the time the movie finished a little after 8:30 p.m., I felt too drained to be going anywhere. I would have to walk, and the Legion is two miles from where I live. I was tired, and felt that it would be more sensible to retire early and get in some very early a.m. activity overnight (i.e., early this morning).
Nevertheless, it hurt not to have participated in this year's poppy campaign. My father was a World War Ⅱ veteran, as was his older brother; and their younger brother served in the Korean War.
As for the movie, I definitely did enjoy it, but I do not believe that I will include it in the list of Christmas movies that I will be re-watching when my younger brother brings his girlfriend Bev here for our usual two-day Christmas movie fest at Christmastime.
I am not a big Nicolas Cage fan, but he was okay in this movie. His co-star Téa Leoni was utter perfection. If I was a young man in my early 20s, I would likely have developed a crush on her due to her endearing performance.
I watch Christmas movies for their heavy Christmas sentiment, but this one focussed more on applying the emotion into other areas.
However, I found its main drawback to be its ending.
Certainly, it was nice that Nicolas Cage's character was apparently going to succeed in rekindling a relationship with the Téa Leoni character whom he had jilted 13 years before (as was depicted at the very start of the movie).
Nicolas Cage's character had been forced to live "a glimpse" of the life he would have had ─ if he had remained with the Téa Leoni character. That glimpse actually spanned a number of weeks that Nicolas Cage's character had to immerse himself into and live as a married family man with two kids, residing in what I suppose was a small suburban home.
The oldest child was Annie, an adorable little girl (played by Makenzie Vega) who pronounced her words as if she was the pre-school daughter of Elmer Fudd. She quickly perceived that the Nicolas Cage character was not really the man she knew as her father, whereas no one else suspected.
But she came to love him regardless, and he of course grew to love her.
So what was so wrong with the ending?
Even if Nicolas Cage's character did successfully woo and wed the Téa Leoni character he had jilted years back, the little house they had as a family (during that "glimpse" of the life that could have been) was being lived in by someone else.
All of the friends that the "glimpsed" couple knew would never be in any new life the future couple might create together ─ the conditions that had existed to make those friendships possible in the weeks-long "glimpse" just would not exist in the present and new future.
And the two children would never exist ─ little cute Annie would never come to be.
I believe there is a God of some kind, and that He has probably in the past foretold personal events to Biblical personages. However, I do not believe it likely that God bent time and space to see into the futures of these various people. Rather, I believe that He caused to happen those events He foretold. In other words, He made them come about.
He was not seeing their futures ─ He was instead creating their futures in order to make His predictions become substance.
Thus to my thinking, the only way that there could be a little Annie exactly as "glimpsed" by Nicolas Cage's character would be if God worked miracles to cause that little person to come to be ─ right down to that adorable speech impediment.
If God could foresee the futures of each and every one of us, then why does He bother letting us live out what lives we have as if we have each have options all of our lives of free choice? If He could see who and what we are to be, then we would not have actual choices ─ everything involving each of us would be foreordained.
And so I did not see the movie's ending as being a happy ending ─ Nicolas Cage's weeks-long "glimpse" of the life he could have had with Téa Leoni's character was not going to start to come true. All that could happen is that the couple would build some kind of new life together.
So no, I didn't like the ending, and I'm not interested in seeing the movie again. It was not a happy ending for me.
I want to bring this post to a close, for the time is already well into my evening as I type these words.
Before closing, though, I want to present a collage that Google Photos created today from five photos that are in an album, and were taken three years ago when my wife returned to her home village in Thailand to visit her mother, family, and friends:
The photos in the collage were taken approximately on November 12, 2016; and the locations would be somewhere in and around the city of Udon Thani, for my wife's home village of Nong Soong is only an approximate 15-minute drive from there.
Here are the original photos, beginning with the left column. My wife is in all three of those photos, sharing the first photo with her very good friend Daisha:
The only person I can identify in the two photos from the second column is the boy seated high on some playground component in the second photo ─ he is Daniel, a nephew of my wife. His mother is one of my wife's two sisters. The lad is actually half-Farang, for his father is an Italian:
Oh dear! I forgot to mention my early morning experiences!
I rose around 2:00 a.m., feeling rather rough ─ probably because of the booze. However, I also did not sleep too much.
It was raining outside ─ a fairly steady rain, but not a downpour.
Just after 3:30 a.m., I set off on what was to be a round trip walk that I suspect was a little in excess of four miles. On my return leg as I was negotiating one of those enclosed walkways that thread through some neighbourhoods away from the streets, in the darkness I espied ahead of me a fairly large elongated shape lying on the paved walkway.
It did not seem to be moving, so I speculated that perhaps it was somebody's discarded trash.
Then just as I was within a yard or metre of the shape and about to pass it by, I saw quick movement at the left side and in the gloom I was able to identify the colourings of what I realized was a skunk.
I had not yet stopped my progress, and for a very brief instant considered to just walk past the mass, for there was sufficient room to the right of it.
Note that this enclosed paved walkway was at most five feet in width, and the mass occupied approximately the left half of it.
As quickly as the notion of continuing my progress had entered my thoughts, I as quickly dismissed it and ─ in as coaxing and friendly voice as I could muster ─ I spoke aloud something like, "Okay, little skunk! I'm going back!"
And I turned about and retraced my steps to a cul-de-sac I had passed through a short ways behind. From there, I took to another enclosed walkway and then a couple of short streets, and I was able to resume my original route.
No harm done.
There was no possibility of the skunk escaping me to the left or right ─ it was fenced in there in that walkway. I have little doubt that had I attempted to continue my trajectory, I would have been sprayed.
The creature was probably involved with something that somebody had discarded there ─ perhaps garbage.
I had a flashlight with me, but I was not using it because I had seen no need. Next time, I will not be so conservative.
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