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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