Since my younger brother arrived home unexpectedly early last evening ─ maybe 8:20 p.m. or so ─ I felt obliged to remain in the living room where I had been watching T.V. via our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box.
I have an unspoken curfew for him ─ if he is not home by 9:00 p.m., I will not risk trying to watch any of our shows with him because his brain is too alcohol-damaged to follow developments. He usually quickly begins to pass out.
I could see that he had a snootful anyway, so I tried a different ploy. Instead of getting into any of our usual shows, I decided to tune in a movie. I chose 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming.
Well, he never passed out, but he also seemed to have no compunctions about getting up several times throughout the movie and disappearing for some minutes. Clearly, he was not deeply invested into it.
I enjoyed it, though.
Nevertheless, I did not expect to see Peter Parker's Aunt May being portrayed in rather 'hot' fashion by actress Marisa Tomei. The sole development concerning the movie that I was privy to was actor Tom Holland as Peter Parker (Spider-Man) ─ I had previously seen him as a guest a couple of times on The Graham Norton Show, so I knew that he was very English even though no such accent by him was detectable in the movie.
I find it a little amusing that actor Tom Holland ─ who was in his early 20s while filming the movie ─ was playing a 15-year-old; yet his attractive senior high school love interest in the movie was played by actress Laura Harrier ─ who is actually over six years older than is Tom Holland!
Her character wasn't supposed to be that senior!
It was an entertaining and interesting movie, overall, and ran something in excess of two hours. By then, I accepted that my brother would likely be able to hold onto consciousness, so I tuned in an episode of one of the T.V. series we follow, and I had myself a can of the strong (8% alcohol) beer that I try to keep in stock. Eventually, I even had some Captain Morgan spiced rum.
My wife had arrived home well into the movie, and she actually retired before I did ─ which isn't too odd, since I sat up well into the midnight hour. Also, my wife had no one to talk to. Her eldest son had already gone to bed because he had to get up early this morning for work; and her youngest son left with two friends early in the a.m. that day on a flight to Thailand for a month-long holiday.
Sometimes having my drunken brother home and conscious can be an impediment when my wife is here, for I have to remain hostage to the T.V. (my brother doesn't have any expertise with the Android TV Box); as well, I can hardly talk with my wife about anything of import with him present to overhear.
Overnight I had several and usual wakeful periods, and I even rose once to use the bathroom. However, I never rose for the morning until around 7:00 a.m. ─ I was unable to easily sleep any longer by then.
So I put some work into the post I have on the go at one of my six hosted websites.
My wife rose around 9:00 a.m. to go downstairs for some reason, and then came back up to return to bed, alerting me that she didn't have to start work today until the latter afternoon ─ in other words, she didn't want me to be disturbing her when she was not up by 10:00 a.m. or soon thereafter as she usually is when she has her 11:00 a.m. start at the Thai restaurant that employs her.
It was around 9:30 a.m. before my brother emerged from his bedroom. However, by then I had resorted to my eldest stepson's bed downstairs just to rest a little ─ my time at the computer had drained me, and overtaxed my eyes.
I got up shortly before 10:00 a.m. to fix up my day's first hot caffeinated beverage and join my brother for some T.V., putting the Android TV Box to use once again.
My wife rose later in the morning and got busy doing some cooking.
Not too very long after 1:00 p.m. my brother sought some bed rest, for he would be heading off anon to end up somewhere drinking once again. With my wife home, I was unable to seek a nap.
I also resigned myself to not having any exercise today.
I busied myself trying to replace a mini-light in a string of Christmas lights ─ the string had festooned the living room window, but over the course of last evening both my brother and I noticed that half of it had gone dark.
I managed to get the first darkened mini-light extracted from its socket, but a replacement match that I thought we might have did not quite fit.
During the course of my struggles with this involved chore, my poor vision necessitated that I take down the entire string from where it was strung in an elongated 'W' fashion across the top of the living room window ─ it had been up there for at least two years.
In doing so, I discovered a tiny plastic bag containing two mini-bulbs ─ the bag was taped to the end of the string where the plug was.
My brother finished his rest before I was done with all of this.
Then quite unexpectedly well before mid-afternoon, my wife announced that she was leaving. And my brother left soon after she did.
Suddenly alone, and with the interior Christmas lights essentially taken down, I felt I had no recourse but to take down and put away all of the interior Christmas lights and other decor. But the combination of being so alone and of making that decision that Christmas here was now all done, I became deeply emotional.
There were tears, and I wanted to drink.
What served to help pull me out of that wretched funk was my exercise session that had now become possible, since my wife had left much earlier than I had thought she would.
The arduousness of exercising drove away the patheticism that had earlier overtaken me, and I was soon feeling more like my natural self.
The evening is already here, so I want to bring this post to a close. I had thought early today that ─ right along with the dispensation of my exercising ─ I would likewise skip blogging here today; so this effort is sheer bonus.
But baby, it's pretty darned cold outside!
The day has remained in a freeze, not managing to climb any higher than -6º or -7º C. (21.2º or 19.4º F.). The freeze will continue until the frigidity diminishes somewhat on Wednesday, and then on Thursday we should be climbing a couple of degrees above freezing with some rain and/or snow.
It will freeze again overnight after Thursday's rain and/or snow; and then the same threat will exist for Friday. However, the freeze will be done, and we're due for a somewhat wet weekend.
Maybe that will be it for the truly cold weather for this season.
By the way, there are still lots of Christmas lights just outside of our front door, but I did not feel up to braving the freeze out there in order to take them all down.
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