My wife's presence last evening prevented me from getting to bed relatively earlier than I was to, for my younger brother was not home until around 9:00 p.m. from wherever it was that he had gone drinking.
I had been watching news channels on T.V. for an hour or more prior to that, and my wife had also come into the living room to watch some of the news while she enjoyed a meal and a hot drink of some sort. She would get up from the coffee table and leave betimes, but she always left her plate and / or her drink tumbler there as if to display her intention to return ─ which she would do.
As well, she had the bedding pulled off our bed, and might have been laundering some of it.
Consequently, even if our bed was available for me to seek out for an early bedtime, I always felt an obligation to not leave the living room and go off and abandon her ─ even if she was not actually there, but with her plate and / or tumbler indicating that she intended to return.
If she had instead been eating in her two sons' den area, then I would have gone to bed had its blankets been available. But they were of course not.
And so it was that I had resigned myself to having to sit up later than I wanted when ─ through the living room window ─ I saw my brother arriving home. I was going to have to operate our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box to fetch an episode each of three of the T.V. series that he and I follow.
My wife made herself scarce after my brother's homecoming, but it was too late for me.
When finally I took leave of my brother just after 11:00 p.m., my wife was busy in the kitchen and had her back to me. I considered letting her know of my intention to retire, but at the last second I decided not to and I simply went on upstairs and was soon to bed.
In her fashion, my wife seems to sleep as poorly as do I. Whenever I find myself awake, it is often the case that she also seems to be stirring restlessly.
It may have been just after 3:00 a.m. that she rose to use the bathroom. I was already planning to get up for awhile to begin preparing the groundwork for a new post at one of my six hosted websites, so I took the opportunity to rise and begin dressing.
When she returned into the bedroom, she questioningly observed if I was getting up, and I confirmed that I was ─ for a few hours.
This preparatory work for a new website post is rarely accomplished in a single day, and that has been the case with this post. I was to put more work into it in the early afternoon, and I still am not set to begin adding content ─ I am still researching and amassing the references that I will be supplying.
It was well after 6:00 a.m. when I returned to bed this morning, and my poor wife was awake and just about to get up again to use the bathroom, complaining piteously that she had not been able to sleep.
I find it quite heartbreaking. At least I am retired ─ she still works, albeit at her close friend's Thai restaurant.
The day was overcast, and I concluded (wrongly) that perhaps it would remain so throughout.
It is always difficult for me to fall asleep, but I eventually did this morning. However, toward 10:00 a.m. I was awake and opting to rise for the morning.
I expected to find my brother already up and watching T.V., but even though his bedroom door was open, the T.V. was not operating downstairs.
When I went downstairs to fix up my day's first hot caffeinated beverage, it was apparent that he was not in the house.
I was to later find out that he had gone to get a haircut ─ he was back home by 10:40 a.m. or so. And from that point, I again put our Android TV Box into operation and we watched an episode each of two of the series we follow, as well as an episode of a comedy.
This took us late into the noon hour, and by then he was set to return to his bedroom for some bed rest before driving off for the afternoon to 'socialize' with some of his drinking crowd, as is his wont.
My wife had risen just after 11:00 a.m., and soon left us to do some grocery shopping.
She was not back as yet when my brother returned to his bedroom, so I gathered together a meal from some of her cooking of yesterday, and I then had it eaten ere at last she did return. By this time I would have otherwise sought a nap of my own, but I deferred it and put some further preparatory work into that website post.
Then barely after 3:00 p.m., my wife announced that she was leaving for her drive to work. My brother was long gone by this time, so I had my opportunity to finally get the nap I quite badly needed.
By that point in the afternoon, the day seemed to be almost perfectly sunny. I could have sunned, but I was just too tired. I needed that nap. After all, I still had some exercising to do later in the afternoon or early evening, and there was this blog post ─ without a restorative nap, I would not have it in me to tackle either task.
If I lived somewhere far from here where I had no nearby neighbours, and miles and miles of solitude in which to walk, I would have an entirely different routine. Any napping would be displaced by my delight in getting outdoors to benefit from the day.
I have no such environs. And since I do not drive, I cannot even transport myself to somewhere in which I could enjoy outdoor activity in privacy and serenity. All I have hereabouts is stress ─ there is nothing around me but overdevelopment and overpopulation.
I am presently unsettled because I have not yet alerted my wife and stepsons to the fact that our new monthly mortgage due date is a day earlier than it used to be ─ it is now on the 21st. As well, because I acceded to having the new mortgage agreement tie in with the associated line of credit that my wife foolishly exhausted last year when she was in the throes of a gambling addiction, the due mortgage is $200 more than it used to be.
At present, the chequing account that the mortgage payment will be debited from is almost $600 too insufficient to meet the required payment. I should have brought up the topic while my wife was home, but I neglected to ─ and now I realize that she likely will not be back until at least late tomorrow, if not even sometime on Thursday (such is my shabby marriage).
I will definitely be alerting my eldest stepson to this financial plight ─ it is a monthly worry he is well familiar with. But as I said, no one but me as yet realizes that the mortgage due date is no longer the 22nd.
I have my tax refund of $1,500 in a separate account, but I don't intend to waste it by covering the full mortgage shortfall. At best, I will supply $200 toward the needed $600 shortfall.
I will be receiving my monthly pension sometime next week, but our annual home insurance is due June 14, and I believe that it tops $1,400. There again, I am not going to expend my tax refund in its entirety ─ my wife and stepsons are going to have to really step up, for not only will we have another mortgage payment later in June, but our annual property taxes will be due in earliest July.
That final nightmare has yet to be mailed to us, but it's going to be well over $2,000.
All I seem to have are grief and worry and regret ─ there is never any true relief from it.
It is already after 6:30 p.m. ─ I must get at my exercise session now, for my brother could be showing up from this point on. However, at least my wife will not be home to hinder my early retirement should he prove to be as tardy at showing up as he was last evening.
If he is not here before 8:00 p.m., I will evade him and get to bed as soon as I realize that he has come home.
What a pathetically sorry existence I lead as a 70-year-old with an ever shrinking future.
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