My Sunday mornings of late have not been going as previously planned.
Of course it is good that my younger brother has been coming home fairly early in the evenings on recent days while still possessed of most of his senses ─ instead of remaining out late drinking; or alternatively, quaffing heavily in a short span of time while he is out so as to make up for an imminent early homecoming.
But it is obliging me to sit up late with him in the operation of our Android TV Box to locate episodes of some of the numerous T.V. series that we follow.
It was so last evening. I was not into bed until nigh midnight, and by then I had consumed a can of strong (8% alcohol) malt beer and a can of regular strength (5.5% alcohol) beer.
I rose somewhere around 3:30 a.m. to put some work into the website post that I ought to have published in two more days at very most, but I was in a sorry state. Perhaps it was a combination of a slight hangover and the accumulative toll from inadequate hours of sleep during the course of the past week.
It was good that I got out yestermorn to do the grocery shopping that I managed to accomplish. There was not to be a repeat on this early morning.
However, as I wrote in yesterday's post, what I had in mind for this morning was the four-mile round trip hike (I do not drive) to replenish my strong malt beer supply at the nearest government liquor store ─ of late, it does not open until 10:00 a.m. on Sundays.
So there was still hope. If I returned to bed, I might yet manage the feat, for I would not have to leave here until after mid-morning.
My return to bed was around 5:30 a.m.
As is my norm, I slept in fractured fashion, but I was distinctly comfortable in bed and always managed to fall back into sleep during the times that I would find myself awake ─ even if I did twice (I think) rise to use the toilet.
Nevertheless, when I made my final check of the time after feeling further sleep was an unlikely prospect, it was something like 10:28 a.m., and the morning a mix of sunshine and heavy floating clouds.
I would not soon be going anywhere. I was depleted. My only immediate concern was my day's first hot caffeinated beverage; and already, my brother and at least one of my two stepsons were up.
I have just now finished that beverage at 10:58 a.m. Any hike is still a long way off. Further, I find myself feeling that I am not immune to the need of a midday or early afternoon nap.
Regardless, my best opportunity to get out of here will be when my brother seeks his own midday or early afternoon bed rest to restore himself for his usual afternoon departure that will find him eventually resuming his drinking.
I may have to skip today's planned exercising out in the backyard tool shed ─ it may fall down to being a matter of preeminence. Yes, the exercise session is important to me. However, the hike would accomplish an errand, and it would also result in both exercise and exposure to the vital light of day.
There is no denying that the homeward walk of two miles whilst bearing a dozen cans of beer from each hand will be an effort in itself, for the malt beer replenishment would involve the purchase of a cardboard tray containing 24 cans. I then typically halve the load and put a dozen of the cans into a tote bag that I bring along with the backpack that I have which can accommodate a full tray of beer.
The pack has a thick, looped handle at its top by which it can be carried upright, and that is how I tend to bear my pack about ─ I hardly ever wear it as a backpack. The only time I do so is when I have the hugest of loads, for I am self-conscious about donning it.
Years agone ─ primarily the latter 1980s and the 1990s ─ when I used to cycle, I would of course wear the backpack. But I have not had a functional bicycle now in over a dozen years, back when I was still a working man. I can no longer afford one as a pensioner.
But allow me now to abruptly changer topics.
One of the shows that my brother and I watched last evening was the series conclusional episode ("Occurrence Reports") of Ripper Street.
I think we are both rather sorry to see the finish to the series, for we enjoyed the characters. However, since most of the main ones have been killed off or else have betaken themselves far from the Whitechapel setting and would no longer figure in any continuation of the series, the folks behind the production of the series have effectively painted themselves into a corner where storytelling is concerned. The series essentially has to end with this episode.
I suppose the foremost main character is Edmond Reid, who is based upon an actual living person. However, the Edmond Reid of the T.V. series was quite an imposing figure in height and size, whereas the genuine article was reportedly only 5½ feet tall.
It was rather disappointing that the fictional Reid could not assume the life of a normal man, and instead felt himself shackled to a lifelong sentence in servitude to the demanding and all-consuming policing of Whitechapel.
He ─ the fictional Reid ─ seemed to be condemned to a life of loneliness, having basically forsaken everyone who mattered to him who were still alive at the series conclusion, and who had moved away to find lives elsewhere. Reid even forsook his daughter and eventual granddaughter.
Heck, he even gave up a chance of love, letting Hermione "Mimi" Morton slip away to potentially become involved with and married to a much, much older man. She could no longer bear life in ─ and the painful memories of ─ Whitechapel.
Yet as excruciating as those very things were to Edmund Reid, he was helpless to remove himself to find a life anywhere else.
It was actually quite pathetic. Perhaps he deserved the loneliness that seemed would be his lifelong lot in the final scene as the series closed where he is seen "spending the turn of the century alone in his office reading daily occurrence reports."
His personal life had become so barren that he had nothing better to do on New Year's Eve 1899 than to sit and read ─ and sign off ─ on the various precinct incident reports that I would assume the various members of the force underneath him had written up.
Supposedly, this betokened all that was to come of his life ─ thankless and unfulfilling routine such as this with nothing ever to be achieved in his life outside of Whitechapel police work.
Okay, I am going to take a lengthy break from this post. I hope yet to get that liquor store hike over with.
oooooooooooooo
Mission accomplished.
I was able to ready and surreptitiously leave home at 1:36 p.m. without my resting brother nor my two stepsons being privy.
I normally detest being abroad during the fullness of day, but Sundays can be more tolerable in that regard. Besides, I have long been wanting to visit a lottery booth in Surrey Place (Central City), halfway to the liquor store. I had a couple of lottery scratch tickets that had been gifted to me at Christmas which were collectively worth $15 plus a new free $2 ticket, but I had not since that time been into the mall.
So now I have those cashed in, and some actual money in my wallet for a change of pace.
My experience in the liquor store was pleasant, for I had a very nice lass as my cashier. I often find the staff there to be very nice people.
I had feared that the task of toting home the two dozen cans of beer would be excessively telling, for it has been nigh seven months since I have last undergone this experience. However, I must be getting enough exercise here at home ─ as well as an occasional weekend shopping excursion of some distance requiring the bearing of considerable weight.
I found myself nearly comfortable with the load I was bearing. And not once did I feel that I needed to set down my cargo to take a rest. Truly, this was wholly unexpected and most welcome.
I was back home by 3:15 p.m. Both of my stepsons still seemed to be home.
I changed into a pair of gym-style shorts and then went out into the backyard to spend just over a half hour lounging low in a lawn- or deckchair while I faced into the Sun, my bared feet on the grass. I wanted both the extra sunshine, and the chance of reducing my body's systemic inflammation by maintaining a direct connection with the Earth itself, thereby flooding my body with healing electrons.
If you are unfamiliar with earthing (or grounding), then at least read the Abstract and the Conclusion of this 2012 research paper titled Earthing: Health Implications of Reconnecting the Human Body to the Earth's Surface Electrons.
No one can convince me that this backyard therapy I underwent did not dramatically help me recover from my afternoon outing.
Once I was back into the house from the sunning and earthing, I fixed my day's second hot caffeinated beverage and created a post in my private blog.
Incidentally, anyone curious about that blog can request access from me. It contains a few thousand posts, and was created by me sometime in September 2008. That was the month that my Thai wife returned from a trip back to Thailand to bring her two young sons here to live with us.
The blog was public right up until early last year when my youngest stepson discovered it, and was appalled that I had been identifying him by name, as well as talking about matters relating to him. At most, he was only around 10 years old when I first began that record detailing my life in this household, but he had finally found it out.
So I rendered the blog as private, and then started up this anonymous public blog to replace it. The private blog now concerns itself with the reproduction of journal entries of mine that I wrote 40 years into the past when I was a much younger man (I am now 70).
Those journal entries actually began sometime in 1973, and I am now up to the current July date in 1980. It does not seem feasible that I will ever get to reproduce the journal entries up to the final one, for I think that I stopped making such entries back in 1996. Thus, I cannot imagine that I will still be sitting in front of my computer 16 more years into the future creating posts to reproduce all of that old record to its final word.
I am going to bring this day's post to a close here, even though it is only approaching 6:15 p.m. Those two hot caffeinated beverages that I spoke of have been the entirety of my day's sustenance ─ I have not yet eaten anything.
I wish to do so now. Once fed, I have little doubt that I will no more feel able to blog ─ more likely, I will finally have to lie down to recover from the burden that this one and only meal today will impose upon me.
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