It is already 5:15 p.m., and I am eager to tune in a Christmas movie via our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box and get at a little drinking before my younger brother shows up from wherever it is that he went off just ahead of mid-afternoon to drink.
Last evening I was doing the same, quite enjoying the 2008 feature Will You Merry Me? I had been feeling despondent and lonely over the afternoon, and was anticipating much the same for the evening.
Then about 7:40 p.m. my wife arrived home, followed less than 10 minutes later by my brother.
My wife had been gone for over 24 hours ─ she went off to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at the home of her friend (and employer). Clearly, doing so with her friend's family meant more to her than to be spending the time here with me (and her two adult sons).
Anyway, when my brother eventually got around to sitting down to watch the movie, he seemed okay with it, for it was a decent enough comedy. We're both rather old fans of Wendy Malick, whom I see turned 69 years old earlier this month (the 13th). I am just over 13 months older than her, then.
Another familiar face was supporting actress Cynthia Stephenson, who always plays a very sympathetic character with her pleasant and gentle looks and demeanour, and her rather soothing voice.
I was unfamiliar with lead actress Vikki Krinsky, although she did seem like someone I had seen act before.
My brother protests most Hallmark-style Christmas movies when he's drinking, so I had to avoid tuning in any smacking of their more traditional fare. And so I opted to tune in two movies I had already watched this month which I knew he was likely to enjoy.
I led off with the zany Christmas movie Just Friends, and was surprised and delighted when my wife actually joined us to watch it while she ate some of the supper she had finished cooking up. Both she and my brother openly enjoyed the movie.
My next choice was A Grandpa for Christmas. Initially I got some grumbling from my brother, but he could not help but warm up to the storyline and the wonderful young actress (Juliette Goglia) who did such a superb job in the film.
By the time this movie had finished, it was well after midnight. My brother only wanted to watch something short, but I wanted to tune in a 1948 John Wayne Western titled 3 Godfathers. I assured him that we could cancel out of the movie at some point and continue with it when next we watched T.V.
And that we did ─ I stopped it around the 45-minute mark, and we resumed it a little after 10:00 a.m. this morning.
It had some excellent touches, but was pretty darned hoaky or corny at its finish. However, I have wanted to see this movie now for a number of months after first learning of it, and now I have.
My wife had to work today at her friend's Thai restaurant, so she lit out of here around 10:30 a.m. for the drive ahead of her. The restaurant opens at 11:00 a.m.
Once my brother and I had watched 3 Godfathers ─ and I began drinking some Appleton Estate Signature Blend amber rum ─ I tuned in 1945's Christmas in Connecticut. I know that both he and I have had this movie cross our viewing paths at one time or another since the earliest 1960s, but if either of us ever actually watched any of it, the movie never mattered nor registered.
We're so much older now, and feel a strong sentimentality for the World War II era.
Granted, the movie was not great, but it was nonetheless a delightful bit of romantic and comedic escapism. Also, this is probably the first time that I have actually found actress Barbara Stanwyck to be attractively appealing. I have always felt quite neutral about her in 'biological' terms.
Following the movie, my brother was ready for some more bed rest ere leaving just ahead of mid-afternoon to probably go to the bar his girlfriend Bev had to work at today. I didn't seek my own bed rest until after he had left, and I had to wonder afterward if I was abed for even a full hour.
Whatever the case, I felt restored from the effects of the bit of earlier drinking, and I have since managed to get in some exercise.
But I am in the mood to do a little drinking again now that the exercise is behind me. It is 6:10 p.m. as I type these words, so I want to get started.
Anytime I have been at my computer today, I have kept an online Christmas music station tuned in ─ I hate that the two local radio stations entirely dropped Christmas music as of midnight last night. I'm not yet ready to let go.
By the way, my brother brought home a 40-ounce bottle of spiced rum last evening as my Christmas present from him ─ along with a Christmas card and a small lottery gift pack of scratch tickets.
Before I call it quits here for today, I want to post the "stylized" image that Google Photos must have created today from a photo that I took at 1:36 a.m. on Christmas Day in our living room after I had been watching Christmas fare all by myself since early the prior evening.
This is Google Photos' image:
And here is the photo that I uploaded into a Google Photos album:
I like them both!
I want to confess before closing that the arrival home last evening of my wife and then my brother probably spared me from a terribly maudlin and self-pityingly lonely Christmas Day evening.
And now I feel that blue mood returning ─ I need a Christmas movie and some booze into me....
And now I feel that blue mood returning ─ I need a Christmas movie and some booze into me....
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