Bedtime for me last evening was approximately 8:37 p.m. ─ I had hustled upstairs upon noticing my younger brother arriving home from wherever he had been drinking. In doing so, I was thereby leaving my wife and her 23-year-old son to society with him if he felt like any.
Sleep came and went, as is usual for me. It was into the latter half of the midnight hour when I made my final check of the time and rose to get at a few tasks here at my computer. My wife was still up ─ I think she may have been seated at the dining table downstairs; but she soon enough elected to call it a day and come upstairs and to bed.
Incidentally, she knew I was up from bed because I had gone downstairs to start turning on all of the Christmas lights ─ inside and outside ─ that my brother had turned off when he so importantly went to bed.
The relatively light rain of the daytime had progressed into a steady, quite serious rain that was to last through at least the midday today before it cut back to something more reasonable.
I was to return to bed well past 4 a.m. However, while I was up, I made quite a discovery ─ I came across some information of considerable interest that I knew my brother was going to be as keenly intrigued with as was I.
To wit, I found mention of the death of the older and only sister of a trio of brothers we had known ever since my brother had befriended the eldest of the lads back when the twain were in elementary school together.
The sister ─ Audrey ─ was something over 16 months older than I was, but somehow our paths never crossed in school. It was not until I was in Grade Ⅹ at Princess Margaret Senior Secondary during the 1964 / 1965 school term that I overheard a couple of older male students talking about her in admiring fashion, for she was a very beautiful young woman.
However, she had left school by then ─ most likely due to pregnancy. And as yet, I had not laid eyes upon her. Although the oldest of her three brothers had become 'best friends' with my younger brother, I was three grades ahead of them and thus did not have much to do with them when they got up to mischief together. I certainly never went to the home of my brother's pal like my brother would do. Why would I? I had friends my own age.
Somehow as the years passed, my brother and his friend drifted apart ─ perhaps in the latter 1980s ─ even though neither of them moved far off. Something else apart from geography had allowed the rift to develop.
My brother never became familiar with computers and the Internet, but I obviously did ─ else I would not be here blogging, would I?
One time he and I encountered his old friend at a party being thrown by the youngest of the three brothers ─ my brother and the party host had bumped into one another in a pub or bar or someplace similar, and thus gotten the invitation to attend.
This may have been around 15 years ago.
My brother's old friend gave me two E-mail addresses of his, and I thereafter came to use one of them (@Yahoo), but I never got a response back. I lost the other address.
I was to locate him on Facebook, but I never solicited 'Friend' status. It seemed clear that he wished to retain the previous disconnection.
However, I did locate Audrey's daughter on Facebook ─ Connie. This younger lass and I had once been 'involved' for a very short period of time (also in the latter 1980s) ─ she broke my heart, the scamp.
But she and I did make the Facebook 'Friend' connection in 2009.
The news I found early this a.m. concerning her mother was that Audrey had died back in 2015 ─ the very day after my 66th birthday, in fact. She was in a hospital at the time, but there were no details as to why.
Yet my brother's old friend who would have had my E-mail address never bothered to reach out to us; and neither did Connie message me about her mother's death.
I sent Connie a Facebook message today to let her know that I had learned of her mother's passing ─ over five years ago, now; and I further took the opportunity to express my sorrow at that learning. I said that I had let my brother know about it; and I made a point of saying something to the effect that I hoped her mother's three younger brothers were all still very much well and alive. I'm hoping that I will eventually receive some word about that.
I will be more revealing about these details in my private blog, of course; it is difficult writing about something like this when I am unable to directly identify anyone. I shall thus say nothing more about it today.
At 10 a.m. this morning, I joined my brother for our usual weekday session of Android TV Box television. I wanted to lead things off with a movie ─ the 2016 feature The Monster.
I didn't know anything about the movie ─ I had it on a list of Zoe Kazan movies that I have been slowly working my way through. I quite like the actress.
The movie was superb at keeping one's interest, I must say! A thriller, indeed!
However, I got quite weary of the young girl's constant whimpering ("the young girl" being, of course, the daughter of Zoe's character). The girl was portrayed by actress Ella Ballantine, whom I doubt I have seen act before.
Sure, I felt enormous sympathy for her in the scenes of her past home life, but the whimpering never seemed to end. It very much started to annoy me.
Those scenes of past home life included at least one sequence involving her mother's boyfriend, whom I had no idea was played by actor Scott Speedman.
Unfortunately, the movie's penultimate scene where the monster was destroyed was ridiculous. I have no idea what was in the spray can that the young girl used to spray and then ignite said spray, but there was no way on Earth that the spray was copious enough to utterly drench the sopping wet and possibly hairless creature (it had been pouring rain all this while), and then burn it to death as if the spray had soaked deep into its flesh.
There was no more spray exiting that can than would come from a common can of any type of hairspray. And at most, the farthest limits of the spray might have been three feet. This was NOT a flamethrower!
Yet somehow the creature became engulfed in deadly flames? The only way that might have happened would have been if the can had been full, and then exploded and somehow only bathed the creature in its fluid and not the girl.
I have to say that this conclusion to the feature spoiled things for me.
Also, it never made sense to me that the girl's mother (Zoe Kazan) was going to give up her life out there in the deep, dark, and soaking wet woods, expecting her young daughter to meantime run away and be safe.
Outrun that monster that lived in the woods and would have easily tracked her down in a few short minutes? That was ridiculous.
But most viewers are unlikely to be as nitpicking as that; and it was otherwise definitely extremely exciting.
I followed up the movie with the third season finale of the BBC T.V. series Victoria. We have not missed an episode, and find actress Jenna Coleman to be adeptly portraying a most believable young regent.
We did not realize that there is yet to be another season; nor ─ until I just read so ─ that there was a Christmas special at the end of season two. I will have to be sure to tune that in for us next week.
Okay, on to this post's conclusion.
My wife had to work late this afternoon at the Thai restaurant that employs her part-time, so she set off on her drive quite shortly ahead of 4 p.m., for that freed me up to finally have a much needed nap ─ I was into bed by 4 p.m., in fact.
The nap was beneficial; and by 5:12 p.m. I was awake again and checking the time ─ things to do!
It's going to be an early evening for me again. I'm not expecting my wife home tonight, so there will be no disturbance in that arena. Natheless, I am not an especially efficient sleeper, so I will be up again ─ if not during the midnight hour, then the hour thereafter.
As already said, things to do!
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