An Uninspired Thursday

How I wish I lived untold miles from Surrey! The idiots who keep coming into power here only care about development, and of course taxation climbs endlessly.

But I am trapped ─ a victim of my own weakness that allowed my wife to plunge us hopelessly deep into debt. And now I am too financially obligated to ever be free to leave here.

She showed up last evening while my younger brother and I were watching some T.V. via the T9 Android 8.1 TV Box that only I am able to operate.

I had no intention of watching more than three episodes of shows with him, so when the third episode commenced I let him know as much. I wanted to get to bed after it was done.

My wife's arrival probably ignited some hope within my brother that I would remain up, but that was not to be so. She involved herself with her two sons, and other than mucking about in the kitchen, she pretty much remained in the boys' den area eating with them.

My brother was the only person who knew that I was going to bed, and I was there by about 10:45 p.m.

A half hour later I was still awake when my wife came to bed ─ she was probably weary from however long she had likely worked that day at her friend's Thai restaurant. I don't know how much longer I lay awake, for I do not make much of a habit of monitoring the time when sleep is proving elusive.

When it did come, I later did check the time once I had become aware enough to be wondering on it. I think that it may have been around 2:00 a.m.

Initially I considered trying to seek a little more sleep and then rise around 4:00 a.m. or soon thereafter if that was when next I found myself awake, but I changed my mind and decided to rise then to put some work into the post I am developing at one of my six hosted websites.

I finally made my return to bed as the night was beginning to transition into daytime's morning ─ it may have been after 5:00 a.m.

I was to achieve some further sleep, but by 8:30 a.m. I was set to rise for the morning. My brother was already downstairs watching T.V., but I only came here to my computer to await the advent of 10:00 a.m. before going downstairs to fix up my day's first hot caffeinated beverage and then join him in the living room to put our Android TV Box into action.

My wife rose perhaps around 11:00 a.m., and I expect that after mid-afternoon she likely left to put in some further time at the Thai restaurant. I was here in front of my computer when she left ─ I was lying on the floor where I had made a makeshift bed to try and gain a badly needed nap.

I had nowhere else to do so.

I keep my computer in a small room next to my bedroom, so I just shut myself up in here and I was thereafter left alone.

My brother had sought some bed rest around 1:00 p.m., freeing me up to tackle the day's scheduled exercising out in our backyard toolshed.

I then had my first meal of the day ─ my wife had been busy doing lots of cooking. However, by this time she was again shut up in our bedroom and probably getting some more sleep.

Eventually my brother emerged from his room and came downstairs, but he had in mind some backyard chores. The day was a nice mix of Sun and cloud.

Had he gone off for the afternoon at that time like he usually does, I could have used his bed to lie on, but he kept puttering around outside, and the afternoon wore on.

My wife eventually rose and then occupied the bathroom for what seemed like an hour; then she emerged and returned into our bedroom and had the door just slightly ajar.

By this time it was around 4:00 p.m. and I could bear no more of it ─ I sorely needed to nap. And so without a word to anyone, I shut myself up in this room and did my best with the bed I arranged for myself on the floor. At least I had access to earplugs.

It was 5:15 p.m. by the time I felt revived enough to check the time. And so I rose to find of course that both my brother and my wife had gone.

In all the time that she was home since last evening, she and I spake not a word unto one another. Such is my sorry marriage.

Generally once a week ─ usually a Wednesday or Thursday ─ my brother buses off in the afternoon to hook up with one or two of his drinking buddies. That entails him not returning home until after mid-evening, allowing me to easily get to bed early.

However, he did not do that yesterday; and today, I never heard him involved in any arrangement phone calls. Also, he left with his van ─ a sign that he is not intending any serious drinking.

So if he is back here before 8:00 p.m., then I will allow him some more Android TV Box-derived T.V. programming. But I will again break off in the latter evening so that I can get to bed reasonably early.

This is the only way that I can be assured of having time to work on any of my hosted websites when I have a post in progress at one of them.

Yesterday after 10:00 a.m. I did tune in something we both enjoyed ─ the 2017 movie Kong: Skull Island.

Sure, it had its flaws. For instance, apart from the size of Kong, it made no sense that he would decimate the fleet of military attack helicopters. Granted, the choppers didn't have missiles; but how could trained high-calibre machinegunners not know enough to apply sustained fire at the eyes of a creature that size?

Not one of the enormous quantity of munitions expended on Kong managed to strike an eyeball. That's all it would have taken to do him in, or to at least blind him in that eye.

I could hardly ever go riding my mountain bike in an early morning or into an evening without getting at least one small insect in an eye; yet something the size of Kong with numerous helicopters firing full bore never once managed to hit him in an eye with a bullet?

Or are we to believe that his eyelids are so thick that he was probably in the process of blinking each time any such bullet was optically directed, and it simply failed to penetrate his eyelid?

Bosh.

But that aside, it was definitely an exciting and very interesting feature.

There was a sequence in the movie featuring actress Brie Larson portraying a photographer where she was passionately taking a vast number of photos of the indigenous people they had come across on Skull Island.

At least twice she flashed such an incredibly face-filling grin that I could scarcely believe it ─ that girl can smile! I loved it!

Perhaps more than anything else in the movie, that smile of hers made me something of a fan. I know I've seen her before in other movies, but I do not specifically remember her. Now I shall.

It was sad to see the one solider sacrifice his life for nothing in trying to use himself as a highly explosive live meal for the enormous attacking lizard creature. Instead of gobbling him up like it was going to do to everyone else, it inexplicably used its tail to whip the hapless warrior across the valley to blow up against a nearby mountain cliffside.

Why would it inexplicably do that wasteful act to some potential food? That made no sense.

Well, it is 6:18 p.m., and my brother already has the T.V. on after arriving home not a full three minutes ago. I may join him anon to put our Android TV Box into operation, rather than await 8:00 p.m. like I have been tending to do of late.

It will make it easier on me to call it quits in the latter half of the evening ─ believe it or not, I often feel some guilt for leaving him to find his own entertainment via the basic cable programming that we have with our cable T.V. subscription.

Fortunately, my youngest stepson subscribes to Netflix Canada, and he has that set up so that my brother can access his account. Thus, my brother can always find lots to watch there when regular T.V. is presenting nothing of interest for him.

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Frazzled to the Core

I was into my bed by maybe 8:30 p.m. last evening ─ I don't believe that my younger brother arrived home until around 9:00 p.m. from wherever it was that he had been drinking.

But sleep stayed from me.

I was still awake when my wife got home from probably working at her friend's Thai restaurant. Since she had not been home since I had acquired our home's mortgage renewal documentation on Friday, these needed to be signed by us both before they could be scanned and E-mailed back to the bank agent.

I was fully clothed, so I rose.

Unfortunately, my wife was curious about a mortgage insurance offer that had come with the new agreement, and I had no information to offer her ─ I had verbally declined the insurance, but the two insurance application forms (one for each of us) still needed to be signed indicating the declination.

So she wanted to wait until today to have the paperwork explained.

She was also extremely tired, and just wanted to go to bed.

I remained up (my brother was downstairs watching a Netflix Canada movie that sounded like it featured Liam Neeson) to both E-mail the bank agent and promise to be phone her early this afternoon, and to also ask her about the mortgage insurance.

I had done some research and had found a .pdf document in which it seemed to be indicating that a mortgage insurance applicant had to be under 66 years of age; and when there was a joint agreement, the monthly rates for coverage would be reckoned according to the age of the oldest of the applicants.

My simple reasoning was that my age disqualified my wife and I from being eligible. Further, if it had been possible for my wife alone to apply for it, the cost by my poor math would have been something over $205 a month.

I had probably been up for around an hour before finally getting back to bed. As for the time I did so, I now cannot recall, but it was well before midnight.

I did manage some sleep, but I was awake ahead of 4:00 a.m. and so opted to rise to put in some work on the post I am developing at one of my six hosted websites.

When I achieved the targetted amount of content that I had wanted to add to the post, it was possibly as much as 5:30 a.m. before I made a return to bed.

Sleep was to come and go in successions. Even so, I was surprised to finally check the time and see that it was 10:00 a.m. ─ my younger brother would be up and already watching T.V., fully expecting me to join him at that hour to put our T9 Android TV Box into operation (he is unable to do so on his own) to watch episodes of some of the T.V. series we follow.

It was my hope that he would seek some further bed rest by 1:00 p.m., and I would be free to phone the bank agent ─ it involved matters concerning the mortgage that my brother is not to be privy to.

So I led off the morning with an episode of American Horror Story.

For some reason, around 11:00 a.m. my eldest stepson went upstairs and roused his mother from her sleep, and she was soon up for the day.

Next my brother and I watched an episode of the current season of Dr. Who; and then I followed that with an episode of Game of Thrones, which pretty much concluded around 1:00 p.m.

I was chafing for my brother to remove himself, but instead he called for yet another episode.

I was almost aghast, for the bank agent seemed badly to want the signed paperwork today, and as yet I was unable to even speak of it with my wife. My brother had to be absent before such a discussion could possibly be undertaken.

I had also received an E-mail from the bank declaring that the new agreement would be invalid if the signed paperwork was not received by them before noon tomorrow.

At the start of this unexpected new episode of a T.V. show, I found myself trembling in frustration and impotence. All my benighted brother can do to occupy his time at home is watch T.V. He seems utterly blocked from understanding how to use a computer, and always needs ongoing monitoring anytime he wants to access something.

I have to locate whatever it is that interests him, and then stand by to ensure that he is able to scroll down the page as he reads. Weblinks in any such article are beyond his ken; he would never fathom how to follow one to a new article, nor have the remotest idea on how to get back to where he had been.

He needs 100% ongoing babysitting, and I have no time for that.

It is as if he refuses to try to learn.

And so it is that I also have to operate our Android TV Box. Otherwise, my brother has to settle for whatever he can find through the basic cable package that we have for T.V.

The Netflix Canada account we have is my youngest stepson's, and it can be accessed through the T.V. ─ so that's something that my brother can manage. However, for the scores of non-Netflix Canada T.V. series ─ past and present ─ that we follow, I must sit with my brother and provide them via our Android TV Box.

Consequently, I have to watch T.V. whether or not I want to ─ so often I feel as if I am sacrificing hours of my time each day for my brother's behalf.

Thus it is that if he is not home relatively early in the evening ─ I now have 8:00 p.m. as his unspoken deadline ─ I will hightail it to bed so as to be removed from him and an obligation to sit up much later than I care just so my brother can be entertained with superior T.V. shows than he would otherwise have access to.

Anyway, that second episode of Game of Thrones took us to at least 1:50 p.m., and only then did he announce his need for some further rest in his bedroom.

I was finally able to gather together the documents my wife needed to sign (she seemed to have forgotten that she wanted to know about the mortgage insurance), and she applied her signatures. When it came time for me to also sign, my hand was so shaky from my nervous upset at how my day was consumed on behalf of my seemingly omnipresent brother that my writing looked as if each time I set my hand to paper, I was given an electrical jolt.

But anything can serve as a signature, can't it? Even a pathetic 'mark' if that is all one is able to manage.

I scanned the signed documents, and then E-mailed them to the bank agent. And then I phoned her to let her know.

However, she must have been involved with something, for although she took my call, she hurriedly cut me off and said that she would phone me back in 10 minutes.

I was probably more than 40 minutes later by the time she did call. By then, I had eaten a small meal, and my brother had emerged from his bedroom and gone outside to trim some evergreen branches overhanging our backyard fence ─ I took these three photos of him at 3:17 p.m.:

 I was able to have my short chat with the bank agent while he was outside.

She never did respond to my E-mailed questions concerning eligibility and cost of the mortgage insurance, but instead offered that she would give me a monthly cost for life insurance on my wife, if I was interested.

So I agreed to that, and the results are to be E-mailed to me.

I am 70, but my wife is 47 years old.

My brother finally finished his backyard chore, and soon left for the afternoon. My wife left soon thereafter ─ I expect that she was going to put in some further time at her friend's Thai restaurant.

It was just after 4:00 p.m. when I was at last able to seek a needed nap, or else I would never have managed to find it within me to tackle a post in this blog.

It is already after 6:30 p.m., and I want to engage some exercising, so I am going to call it quits on blogging for today ─ an overcast day, incidentally. It was even spitting rain this afternoon, and by the time my brother left, the street looked as if it was showing some wetting.

Oh! I must mention that my monthly pension arrived in my chequing account today ─ I can finally afford to do some shopping!

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The Economic Stresses and Pressures Are Relentless

This post will be exceedingly brief.

It's a day of mixed Sun and heavy cloud, and we had rain for some time from around 10:00 a.m.

I am in a poor mood ─ thus the short post. My eyes are burned out from inadequate sleep and eyestrain from excessive time at my computer, as well as probably more T.V. than I care to be watching.

I find myself resenting my brother for being home so damned much, forcing me to watch T.V. with him from 10:00 a.m. until at least 1:00 p.m., and then again from 8:00 p.m. until I break off to go to bed.

Last night I made that break around 10:30 p.m., but he clearly wanted me to continue sitting up with him to operate our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box (he has no skill with the device).

If he had his way, I would be sitting up well into the midnight hour every night, if not even until beyond 1:00 a.m.

On my own, I doubt that I would watch more than two hours of T.V. in a day, and sometimes maybe none at all.

Anyway, I can become extremely short with him when he fails to fathom elements in shows that we watch. I probably feel that I sit there wasting my time watching T.V. for his sake, yet he cannot be bothered to pay full attention to the shows that I fetch with our Android TV Box.

If they're not important to him, why the hell am I sitting there watching them?

He will get up and wander off for five and 10 minutes at a time. It just irks me no end.


I am not getting the exercise that I should, and my six hosted websites get far too little attention from me.

I am also profoundly annoyed with the federal government because the tax refunds for my wife and I still have not been deposited into our chequing account, even though I dropped off our tax returns at the local Tax Services Office on March 8.

I know that it's because hardly any employees are actually there at work due to the mandated COVID-19 lockdowns and shutdowns.

In the past, our tax returns have been assessed and the refund deposited in approximately a month after I have dropped them off at the Taxation Services Office. I am almost convinced that the paper tax returns I filed are sitting in utter neglect in some storage area, and may not be processed for a long, long while yet.

I needed that money badly last week.

In addition, my poor wife who had to go part-time back in February at the Thai restaurant where she works ─ a reduction in hours that a doctor prescribed due to some painful development with the elbow area of one of my wife's arms ─ has yet to see a cent in Employment Insurance (E.I.).

Her E.I. account is frozen in some limbo, and no one at Service Canada can be reached by telephone. The public are no longer allowed to visit any of the offices due to COVID-19, even if anyone is still working in them.

She applied for E.I. on February 15 ─ a month or more before Canada opened the floodgates for practically every person even vaguely associated with a job to be able to apply for the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB); and now people my wife knows who have since applied have received as many as three such payments, but her frozen E.I. account prevents her from receiving anything.

We, too, have bills needing payment.

I just feel so damned hopeless.

But she doesn't help matters too much, either. She is supposed to sign our mortgage renewal paperwork that I acquired on Friday, but she spends her weekends somewhere in Vancouver (such is my sorry marriage).

The bank agent who sent me the documents had hoped to get the signed copies back by today, but I expect that my wife will not be showing up until late this evening after she has put in some time at the restaurant.

We live far nearer to her place of employment than is Vancouver ─ in fact, one must travel through our 'city' in coming from Vancouver in order to get to where the restaurant is.

So she will come home tonight and probably spend the day here tomorrow.

I have E-mailed the bank agent ─ I did so late Friday ─ and explained that the documents will not likely be signed and returned until late tonight. I had said that my wife was out of town, which is the truth; but the agent persists in wanting to have me phone back.

Instead of communicating with me via E-mail as I prefer to have done, I was left a phone message just today to call back. The agent wants the documents.

I do not want a damned conversation ─ I already explained the situation. If the agent is too dense to understand that my wife may not be here to sign until late today, then what the hell is expected of me?

Besides, the current mortgage agreement is valid until into this coming July.

I am not returning the call.

I suppose that I am going to have to sit up and await my wife ─ i.e., no getting to bed early this evening. Since my eyes are already a-burn from strain, I am going to stop lamenting and get this post published. I could use a lie-down, for it is just after 6:00 p.m.

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Thoughts Thus Far on Animal Kingdom

I lost a few hours midday yesterday because my younger brother invited me along with him on a visit to have a look at our older maternal half-sister Phyllis's new home in Langley where she had just moved.

Her daughter Sherry was to be moving in with her.

My brother had made a loan to Phyllis to help her with a downpayment on the house, and she was repaying him ─ the major reason for my brother's planned visit.

Well, her new home is a fairly small structure located in a very widespread complex of similar abodes for which tenants have to pay a monthly pad rental fee. The location of this rather nicely wooded area is near to 200th Street & 24th Avenue (Google map).

Apparently Friday night was the first that Phyllis had spent there, but Sherry had yet to do similar ─ she would not officially move in until month's end.

However, my brother and I were not to see inside the small home ─ Phyllis and Sherry were not there, even though my brother said that he had let her know on Friday that he would be around for the visit midday on Saturday.

Phyllis in that regard is best described as "scatterbrained". She had probably entirely forgotten.

After a few attempts to phone her, my brother finally got a response. She and Sherry were in downtown Langley and just about to drive out to Chilliwack to Phyllis's previous residence where she still had a lot of smaller items to move ─ professional movers had transported the major amount of her possessions on Friday.

Rather than have Phyllis and Sherry drive all the way back to where we were, my brother offered to meet them in downtown Langley since we would have to pass through it on our way home anyway.

And so a rendezvous was arranged for the parking lot of a shopping complex by 200th Street & 64th Avenue (Google map), and more specifically right beside a Prospera Credit Union.

The day was very breezy, with a mix of bright sunshine and lots of heavy cloud.

The four of us stood for some while by Phyllis's car, just chatting. Perhaps a half hour was so spent. And then the two pairs of us parted, and each vehicle went its own way.

Not only did the outing cost me time to post in this blog yesterday, but I also was not to have the time for my scheduled exercising. I had eaten naught, and had only had one cup of my caffeinated beverage before leaving home.

After finally having a substantial meal here at home, I needed a nap. My brother, however, headed out for the afternoon.

I wanted to finish setting up a new post at one of my six hosted websites, and not have any of that preliminary work held over until the a.m. of today when I expected correctly that I would be rising early for a few hours.

My brother was back home by the earliest evening, during which time I was at work on a lengthy post in my private blog. I knew that he would be expecting me to join him around 8:00 p.m. to put our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box into operation, so I felt myself with no other option at that time.

Had he remained away, I would have at least squeezed in some exercising.

But it was nice seeing Phyllis and Sherry. I had intended taking some photos if we had actually gotten to visit them at their new home.

While my brother and I were earlier scoping out the exterior of that structure, I was impressed by the soft soughing of the wind in the tall evergreens that are surprisingly abundant in that residential complex. It reminded me of a forested campsite.

I could very much enjoy sitting outside on a sunny and warm day, listening to the wind in the trees, and having a few beers while doing so.

As my brother and I were wending our way out of that wooded complex ─ which seemed to be targetting retirees ─ an elderly lady on a walk actually waved to us as if we were all part of a tiny community or small town somewhere.

I liked that.

I sat up with my brother last evening until at least 11:10 p.m., but that was it. At that point, we had watched the finale episode of season two of Animal Kingdom, and the premier episode of season three. I declined his invitation to tune in and watch yet one more episode, even though I love this incredibly arresting series.

As I said to my brother, I am in no rush to get through it.

We both knew that the character "Baz" was killed quite early in the Australian movie that the series is based upon, and that police had pretty much executed him in the daytime in his vehicle in the parking lot of a shopping centre or plaza.

The T.V. series developed Baz into one of its major characters, so we were surprised when he got killed as summarily as he did by a lurking hooded assassin who ran away in the night.

But just as in the movie, the Baz character was the first of the family to die.

In the movie, Craig is next to die (and at the hands of murderous police), and then awhile after that Pope kills young Nikki. Pope himself is killed at the movie's conclusion.

So we're hoping that the T.V. series entirely breaks from that sequence, even though it did have Baz be the first to die. We like all of the Cody family members ─ they all have their very decent sides ─ except for maybe the conniving matriarch who seems to delight in pitting her sons against one another.

My brother thinks that there are only the four seasons. I have not let on to him that there is to be a season five.

As I type these words at 11:00 a.m., the day seems solidly overcast, so any afternoon sunning does appear unlikely.

I shall now take a break from this post.

oooooooooooooo

I had a reasonably productive 'at home' day, but I could have done just a wee bit more, I know.

Early in the evening I had a bath, hoping that I would manage to be getting to bed early this evening. However, not two minutes after I exited the bathroom, I heard my younger brother come into the house, so the T.V. is now on.

He might as well be living in the 1950s, for all the good a computer is to his understanding. All he can do is watch T.V. to entertain himself at home ─ and drink.

Okay, bitch over. I might as well get this post published.

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Holistic Careers Salary │ Lost River

I got to bed quite early last evening ─ I do not recall exactly when, but for some reason 9:24 p.m. has just popped into my mind. My younger brother had not yet arrived home from wherever he had bused to do his drinking.

I did not easily fall asleep. Still, perhaps I did for a short time before becoming aware that my wife had come home and entered our bedroom, turning on the bedside table lamp at her side of the bed.

I wear earplugs and a bandana blindfold.

When she exited the bedroom and shut the door, she left the light on, but that wasn't a bother for me.

Perhaps some further sleep visited me. Whatever the case, I was awake when my wife finally came to bed ─ whether it was nearly 11:30 p.m. or 12:30 a.m. now eludes me, but it was one or the other.

I was to lapse into some more sleep. And then when it was nearing 2:00 a.m. and I was again awake, I decided to rise and get to work on the post I wanted to finally complete and publish at Lawless Spirit, one of my six hosted websites.

It was to take a fair amount of work, but I got the task completed: Holistic Careers Salary Ⅱ.

I was not to return to bed until well beyond 5:00 a.m.

I drifted in and out of sleep, but remained in bed until around 8:30 a.m., by which time my brother was newly downstairs and involved with his weekly laundering. He had not yet turned on the T.V., but was soon to do so.

I remained upstairs here at my computer until the approach of 10:00 a.m., and then I went downstairs to prepare a mugful of my day's first hot caffeinated beverage. Then I joined my brother at the T.V.

For two or three days this week, I have unsuccessfully tried to locate a working source for a specific 2014 movie through the various 'apps' that I have downloaded into our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box. But in the early a.m., I gave the Kodi 'apps' a try ─ specifically, one called Marauder.

This proved unexpectedly fruitful ─ Marauder located perhaps at least nine source links.

Granted, I think that I had to try a third link before I met with success, but the movie was to play flawlessly: Lost River.

I confess that I had to read the Wikipedia article to understand how the movie finished ─ nothing was clear to me.

For example, I had no idea that the fool character Face died in Rat's house (Rat was played by actress Saoirse Ronan) after he set it ablaze for his brutal leader Bully. Until reading that article just now, I had been wondering all this time what had become of Face because I could only see Bully dying all by himself near the movie's conclusion ─ Face was not there.

I thought Face was called Face because Bully had cut off Face's lips as punishment for not catching the young character Bones (played by Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.D. 'Fitz' actor Iain de Caestecker) when he was supposed to have.

Wikipedia also says that Bones succeeds in getting villainous Bully to crash his car that fateful night by throwing a dinosaur statue's head at Bully's windshield ─ I had no idea that was what he had thrown. In fact, I did not even know he had the dinosaur head ─ I was entirely unable to understand what the underwater sequence involved. It was too visually unclear to make sense of.

Wikipedia correctly says that Bully dies because he drowns after being "stuck head first in the lake". That is true, but he was lying atop a car hood at the time, with his feet up at the windshield. Only his head was immersed into the lake, and he was kicking his legs while his pants burned.

So obviously his feet were not pinned. I don't understand, then, why it was that he was helpless and could not just elevate his head from the lake.   

Bones' mother was played by beautiful actress Christina Hendricks whom I have become very familiar with through the T.V. series Good Girls. I also remember her from the second Bad Santa movie. 

Quite curiously to me, I believe that it was just yesterday that my brother and I watched the movie Animal Kingdom. A U.S. T.V. series is based upon that movie. In the movie, one of the characters ─ Pope ─ was played by actor Ben Mendelsohn, whom I was utterly unfamiliar with.

And now here I see the same guy again in Lost River, playing Christina Hendricks' boss.

By the way, the scene where she seems to have stabbed him in the side of the head or the ear was also something I was unclear about until I read the Wikipedia article. I did see her make the strike; but as she ran away, he seemed to just be standing there. I never saw him fall to the ground to "bleed out" as described by Wikipedia.

Yes, I figured he probably was to die if he had indeed been stabbed, but that was just not apparent enough.

Thanks to Wikipedia's clarifications on those final scenes, I will rate the movie more highly than I otherwise would have. I'll give it a 60% rating.

My wife rose late this morning; and not too long after 3:00 p.m., she left to go to work at her friend's Thai restaurant. That freed me up to have a needed nap.

My brother was already having his; and when I later rose from mine, he was gone for the afternoon. It would be nice to get to bed early again this evening.

However, my youngest stepson surprised me by coming home quite late this afternoon and passing over to me the mortgage renewal paperwork that I had E-mailed to him last evening so that he could print it all out where he works ─ our printer is useless.

I had not expected that he would be printing out the documents until sometime this evening, and that I would not have them until late tonight.

The bank agent wants me to E-mail back to her as soon as possible the pages requiring signatures from my wife and I, but I invented a story as to why I likely would not be able to do this until as late as Monday evening or early a.m. Tuesday.

Normally, my wife spends her weekends somewhere in Vancouver (such is my sorry marriage), and does not come home after she finishes work on her Fridays when she happens to work that day.

But with that mortgage renewal paperwork now in our possession, my youngest stepson said that he would text her to let her know she ought to make a point of getting the paperwork signed, so maybe she will be showing up after all.

And the bank agent can have the signed documents far sooner than she ever expected. 

I want to mention today's exercise session ─ it was scheduled for out in the backyard toolshed. I got at it after my brother had sought his bed rest around 1:30 p.m.

To my great pleasure, I found myself feeling unusually strong and able out there. I cannot recall when last I felt that good. 

When I returned into the house, my wife had quite a large protein-rich luncheon awaiting me.

Then of course after she left for work awhile later, my meal helped me to enjoy a most deep nap.

The day has been wholly overcast, so no time in the Sun has been possible.

It seems that for a second consecutive weekend, I shall be unable to go shopping. Canada Revenue Agency has still not gotten around to processing the tax returns for my wife and I that I delivered to them on March 8.

I have never had to wait this damned long for a refund.

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Financial and Personal Duress

My wife was home most of yesterday, so I had no chance to blog here. Early in the evening I had myself a bath, and emerged to find that she had disappeared. I'm sure her two sons knew something, but I did not deign to enquire of them.

Yesterday was a financially stressful day.

For starters, I discovered that both the monthly mortgage debit and the cheque for our annual utilities payment to the City of Surrey both were negotiated that day, but there was just over an $80 insufficiency to cover both hits.

Fortunately, I suppose, the mortgage was the first to be applied, so that got paid. But the annual utilities cheque bounced.

And my banking institution hit me with something like a $48 NSF charge on top of that ─ the damned rats.  

I don't get my monthly pension until sometime next week, so unless a miracle presents itself, I can not make that payment before then.

I am hoping that because of COVID-19 shutdowns, the City of Surrey does have an option to delay making this payment for 90 days. Its original due date had been April 2nd, and our cheque was dropped off at city hall that day. 

So maybe I won't be hearing from them, and once I get my pension next week I can make the payment. 

We had the money in our account originally. Had the cheque even been negotiated two days ago, all would have been well. Then I would have seen that the account was that $80 short for the mortgage, and I could have done something about it.

The second stressful strike yesterday came when I was watching some T.V. late in the morning with my younger brother. A telephone message on the house line was left from the insurers for our home insurance. The agent calling said that our current coverage will end June 14, and she wanted to learn if there had been any sort of changes here since last year.

She also said that the new package was being prepared and would get sent out next week.

I was in no frame of mind to take the call, nor have I called her back.

Complicating everything is the need for secrecy about these matters from my brother. However, I can only say that it is vital ─ I am not going to detail why. Let's just say that he has a hugely vested financial interest in the house.  

The third stressor arrived after my brother had sought some bed rest in the early afternoon yesterday  ─ my wife got a call on her cellphone from the bank that holds our mortgage. 

This was a call that my brother absolutely was not to know anything of. 

The woman calling indicated that our five-year mortgage agreement was coming to a close in early July, and she wanted to talk about renewing the mortgage.

This became quite involved. I was eating at the time, as was my wife ─ she was actually holding her phone for me to speak into because my hands were very greasy.

My wife asked the woman to call us back in a half hour.

Meantime, I kept hoping that my brother would not emerge from his bedroom during the returned call.

Well, he did come downstairs before the returned call; but happily, he then left us for the afternoon. I was free to speak openly to the woman.

This was to take a few back and forth calls, for as I said, the matter was rather complex.

I finally settled upon a three-year mortgage arrangement that also includes the very large line of credit that my wife foolishly exhausted through her gambling addiction last year. According to the bank agent, all I have been doing is paying an interest billing ─ the principal on the line of credit was not being reduced.

The new mortgage agreement is to include the line of credit. We'll be paying a larger monthly mortgage payment; but in view of what we are paying now for both the mortgage and the interest on the line of credit, the new mortgage payment will actually be smaller overall.   

The gal wanted my wife and I to both come to our nearest bank branch to sign the documents, but my wife balked. She exclaimed to me that she has driven by that branch and there are large line-ups of people awaiting entry into the bank.

The agent had said that we could do this anytime after 2:00 p.m. today, or else tomorrow.

My wife tends to spend her free time ─ notably her weekends ─ somewhere in Vancouver (such is my sorry marriage). I imagine that she also knew that she was not going to be here today during the banks afternoon hours, but I did not know that at the time.

She had wondered to me why the agent did not just E-mail us the documents. We don't have a functioning printer, but her youngest son can use one where he works.

However, he was enjoying his 'weekend' ─ i.e., he has Wednesdays and Thursdays off work, and would not be returning to work until Friday afternoon. Obviously he would not be able to print out the paperwork before then.

So last evening I composed an E-mail to the bank agent, asking if she could E-mail us the documents. I further explained ─ I fibbed ─ that my wife had promised a friend of hers who runs a restaurant (some distance away from here) that she would help the friend over the weekend.

And as a result, she was probably going to be absent until late Monday.

In view, then, of when my stepson would be printing out the paperwork, I would not have it in my hands until late Friday evening. My wife would probably be gone by then ─ would it be okay if we didn't E-mail the agent the signed paperwork until after my wife was back home?

Apparently that worked ─ the agent was okay with this. After all, the current mortgage agreement is still valid until early July ─ there is no rush.

Anyway, with all of this hassle going on, and personal issues as well, it was definitely a bad day for me yesterday.

We are under considerable further financial duress because my wife has hardly any income now that the restaurant she works at is closed to the public, and is only taking take-out or delivery orders.

She had gone part-time in February due to what I believe is serious tendinitis in one of her elbows ─ her doctor prescribed the part-time status, and further said that she was not to continue working in the kitchen as she had been. Instead, she was only to perform server duties.  

So in mid-February my wife applied for Employment Insurance (E.I.) benefits.

Well, as yet, she has received nothing.

And her application was made a month or more before Canada invited a flood of E.I. benefit claims by offering the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB).

My wife applied for that, too, hoping that at least she might receive some recognition. After all, she cannot visit any Service Canada offices to enquire about her E.I. delay. And anytime she tries to phone them, a message declares that due to the sheer number of calls being placed to them, her call cannot be put into a queue, and so she must call back later (and hope for the best).

But she has received nothing through the CERB, either. Yet friends of hers who applied for it a month or more after my wife had applied for her E.I. in February, have already received three CERB payments.

On top of this, I filed our income tax returns on March 8 in paper ─ that is, March 8 was the day that I dropped off our paper tax returns at the local Tax Services Office. 

Usually our annual refunds only take a month or so to appear as direct deposits.

But there has been absolutely nothing. I am expecting that hardly anyone is working at the taxation centres processing paper tax returns. So ours are languishing in limbo in a storage area. 

And we only have my monthly pension income as anything that is reliable. 

My wife's boss is also her friend, so my wife can still get in some kitchen work even though she is not supposed to be performing that sort of toil. What choice has she? She cannot serve anyone when the public cannot enter the restaurant and order a meal. She either works on occasion in the kitchen, or she does not work at all and has absolutely no income. 

It galls me that she legitimately applied for E.I. back in mid-February before the government opened the floodgates of financial relief to almost everyone, yet her legitimate E.I. claim has been frozen or ignored while the few people actually working at Service Canada try to deal with the untold hundred of thousands of new E.I. (CERB) claims.

I learned today that our province of B.C. is opening up the opportunity for residents unable to work (because of the COVID-19 shutdowns) to be able to apply for a one-time $1,000 B.C. Emergency Benefit for Workers ─ folks can apply on May 1.

That sounded very hopeful for us.

However, one of the requirements, I discovered, is that the applicant must have filed for ─ and been accepted as qualifying for ─ the federal CERB.

My wife has bloody well filed and qualifies for it, but she has no proof that her application has been accepted. It has been weeks, and she has heard nothing from the feds.

So she probably cannot even apply for this provincial one-time benefit, even though she has as much legitimate need as will most of the other people who will be applying.

It is after 8:00 p.m. ─ I don't want to blog anymore today.

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Self-Isolation

With my brother away last evening and the time surpassing 8:00 p.m., I forsook the T.V. with an eye toward getting to bed early.

In fact, it was only 8:24 p.m. by the time I had settled into my bed.

But I found myself vividly awake.

Exacerbating matters were that one of my stepsons had decided to start laundering ─ the laundering facilities are downstairs directly beneath my bed. The load was clearly unevenly distributed, and the annoying sound of this fact penetrated even my earplugs.

Then I got a text on my phone. Wondering if it was from my wife, I checked; but it was only from my youngest stepson who was here at home!

When the load of laundry was finished, it went into the dryer ─ along with two of those hard-plastic, spiked dryer balls. I then had to listen to those constantly banging and banging just beneath my bed.

It all began to make me feel rather furious that I was being subjected to this inconsideration.

I eventually heard my brother arrive home ─ I don't think it was too much beyond 9:00 p.m.

And not too terribly long after that, my wife was home. She came into the bedroom where I was still trying to sleep with my ineffective earplugs and a bandana blindfold, and she left the table lamp on at her side of the bed as she exited the bedroom and shut the door.

I suppose something akin to sheer exhaustion ultimately did bring me some sleep, but by midnight I was wide awake again, and so I decided to get up. My brother had by this time retired to his bedroom; and my wife was downstairs at the dining table, entertaining herself with noisy videos on her iPhone.

I remained upstairs ─ I came here to my computer which I keep in a small room next to my bedroom. And soon I was at work adding content into the post I want to have finished by Friday for publication at one of my six hosted websites.

It was not too very long when I heard my wife say something in Thai to one or both of her sons that sounded to me like it might be a good-night, and then upstairs she came.

She said nothing to me upon seeing that I was up. She used the bathroom, and then shut herself up in our bedroom.

Such is our sorry marriage.

I was to remain up for approximately four hours before finally returning to bed.

I ought to mention that I was undergoing a recurrence of the condition that I wrote about in my blog post of two days ago ─ piercing, jabbing pains occasionally striking at the lower right side of my skull, and even my right ear.

My belief is that these have their provenance in undue and prolonged stress I undergo, including that of unattainable and badly needed sleep.

Fortunately, even though I did not sleep spectacularly well after returning to bed in the pre-dawn, the condition subsided completely in time.

I was to remain abed until maybe 8:20 a.m., deciding then to rise because I no longer seemed able to gain any further small bouts of sleep.

My brother emerged from his bedroom less than a half hour later, and he soon had on the T.V.

I waited until 10:00 a.m. before joining him, putting our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box into operation, and fully expecting to be watching shows with him until possibly 1:00 p.m. or a little later.

My wife rose late in the morning, and as she came downstairs she offered a collective good-morning to my brother and I.

He and I had watched an episode of The Jonathan Ross Show; and we were just finishing an episode of 13 Reasons Why, when he stood up and remained stationary until the episode had concluded. And then he went upstairs to his bedroom and closed the door. 

It was not yet quite noon. I concluded that he must have some errand ahead, and was catching an early bit of further bed rest.

I shut down the Android TV Box and the T.V. The day was overcast, so I had no sunning intentions. However, I did have some exercise scheduled for out in the backyard toolshed.

Even so, I was still not feeling quite right ─ whatever the cause may be of those piecing stabs of pain to my head.

My wife was busy in the kitchen, so I went out to the shed to see how I fared. And to my pleasure, I actually performed quite well.

After coming back into the house, I came upstairs here to my computer for a time, and then I decided to seek a needed nap.

My brother and his van were gone when I finally rose. My wife was in the bathroom, showering and apparently washing her hair.

I heard her talking on her cellphone in Thai to someone I could only suppose was her friend and employer at the Thai restaurant where my wife works ─ my suspicion was that my wife was to be putting in some time there late in the afternoon and over the evening.

The restaurant is closed due to the COVID-19 lockdown, but it still takes orders and will deliver.   

By this part of the day, there were lots of sunny breaks outside. I finally decided to go out into the backyard to see if conditions were pleasant enough for me to sit out there.

Then, deeming that it was indeed nice enough, I went and sat in a lawn- or deckchair and faced directly toward the Sun ─ it was 3:29 p.m.

I spent just over a half hour out there, by which time a great ugly cloud had obscured the Sun. We've supposed to have rain overnight.

Anyway, I came into the house and ─ just as I had anticipated ─ I found myself here alone. My wife had left without a word to me.

So ─ since her arrival home last evening and until her departure after mid-afternoon today ─ the only communication I have had from her was that "good-morning" directed at both my brother and I. 

Alas, she and I are very similar. We do not communicate when there is a difficulty between us. Instead, we shut right down and ... well, essentially we self-isolate from one another.  

I have made many mistakes where she is concerned. I probably should not have even married her ─ or at least, I should not have brought her here to Canada after we did marry. Life here in the West has mutated her forever.

I knew that this often enough happens ─ I had even been warned that she would change. My simple village girl would become highly status-conscious; and the selfless, loyally dependent young woman that she was would forever disappear.

I am married to someone else now. Someone who does not need me, nor respect me.

Enough. I don't want to keep dwelling on this today. 

Two or three days ago, I posted a couple of very poor selfies that I took of myself just before I engaged some exercising while wearing blood flow restriction bands.

Well, I took three more selfies early last evening after I had exercised using the bands:

As I said when I posted the previous pair of photos, I just cannot seem to take a decent selfie. But I am sure that it would help if I had a properly wide mirror.

I confess to having 'flexed' my abdominal wall for the photos. But I do feel myself entitled to a liberty or two of that sort ─ I did turn 70 years old a little over six months ago, after all.

Before I publish this post, I just want to observe that if my younger brother is not home before 8:00 p.m. this evening, then I will again get to bed early. I feel myself capable of getting to sleep.

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Animal Kingdom ─ the Movie and the T.V. Series

My younger brother seems to have relapsed into driving after he has been out doing some drinking. 

Last evening as I was watching some T.V. after having just finished eating my supper, I saw his vehicle about to back into the driveway ─ he had been away since before mid-afternoon. 

It was no later than 8:10 p.m., and I made the immediate resolution that I was not going to become enmeshed with him, having to sit up later than I ever would have otherwise in operation of our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box that he has no skill managing.

I shut everything down and hightailed it upstairs for one final use of the toilet, and then I hustled into my bedroom to get to bed exceptionally early. He was on his own.

It took me awhile to find any sleep, but I was never uncomfortable in bed. I would nap, awaken, then nap anew. I may have eventually checked the time around 11:30 p.m., but my brother never quits the T.V. and his drinking until at least midnight.

I did check the time at midnight, but I decided to wait awhile longer before rising to put work into the post I hope to finally have finished in another four days' time. 

When next I checked the time, it was after 12:30 a.m., so I rose to get to work. My brother had gone to bed.

I was to remain up for a full four hours.

Yet even so, after getting back to bed, sleep was not easily obtained. And even when it arrived, it was temporary ─ I kept dancing in and out of it.

I pretty much had to discipline myself to remain in bed until around 8:30 a.m. before I gave up and rose. In doing so, I did not emerge from my bedroom much before my brother did his.

Of course, he went directly downstairs to watch more T.V., but I never joined him until 10:00 a.m. at which time I had two shows I wanted us to see.

The first was the series finale of The OA. I knew that the series had been cancelled without a finish to the story, but I never indicated so to my brother and thus we were to watch every episode. 

He never much liked the series, and it definitely had some ridiculous, senseless episodes.

But it mystifies me how a series can end like this one did without there ever being an eventual 'wind-up' episode bringing a closure to everything, even if the finish is not what had been originally intended for a longer series.

And come on! Brad Pitt was one of the series' producers! Why not have him act in the finale if that's what it was going to take to get the backing to produce it?

This sort of inconsideration of the fans is abominable. I, for one, wanted to see main bad-guy character ─ multiple-murderer "Hap" Percy ─ meet his miserable end. But there is never to be any such resolution.

I still haven't let on to my brother that the series is over with ─ he likely thinks another season is in production. But he'll soon enough forget about it, so I shall say nothing.

The next show I tuned in was the 2010 Australian movie Animal Kingdom upon which the successful U.S. T.V. series Animal Kingdom is based. 

Unfortunately, I suppose, I only learned of the movie late this past week, whereas my brother and I are roughly midway through season two of the T.V. series.

We love the T.V. series, and are deeply interested in all of its characters. As a result, the movie seemed so very weak in comparison ─ something we were not able to stop from doing.

None of the movie characters came to matter to us ─ unlike the T.V. series where there is something to like in every one of them.

We're hoping that characters who met their ends in the movie are not going to be similarly done away with. In fact, we're hoping that the general storyline of the series is going to veer off entirely from the movie ─ as it already seems to have done.

One thing struck both my brother and I ─ how the actor playing the T.V. series character Andrew "Pope" Cody deports himself almost identically to how the movie actor moved, postured himself, and even held his head. 

Even his habit of looking askance at someone or something is similar.  

I had thought that this deportment of character "Pope" was just a peculiarity of the series actor (Shawn Hatosy) himself ─ I did not realize that the actor was entirely stylizing himself upon how the movie actor (Ben Mendelsohn) carried himself in portraying the character.

The T.V. series is so darned good that it made the original movie look like a poor knock-off. I wish that I had known of the movie before my brother and I got involved with the T.V. series ─ we would probably have valued the movie far more than we did in watching it today.  

And speaking of today, it's been a mix of Sun and cloud ─ the cloud prevailing, I think. I never bothered trying to sit out in the backyard to benefit from what sunshine there has been, but I probably would have if I did not have to create this post and the other one that I've already published in my private blog.

Also, I was abed for something over an hour early this afternoon in search of another nap. My brother was gone for the afternoon by the time I rose.

I have some exercising scheduled that I would like to get at before my brother returns, and / or before my wife potentially shows up. Consequently, I am going to bring this post to an early closure and get it published.

However, I want to post two photos that I took yesterday at 4:41 p.m.:

Those sparse tulips are the best that are likely to be offered in that small stretch of garden alongside the sidewalk leading to our front door ─ I took a photo from each end of the strip of garden.

We can't seem to get anything to grow well in that patch of garden. And as you can probably tell, even the lawn has its issues.

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