As projected at the finish of yesterday's post, that evening I had two cans of strong (8% alcohol) beer while I watched an episode of Frontier. I had thought that I might watch an episode of something else as well, but it took me too much time to locate a satisfactory source for the Frontier episode (the second-to-last in the series) with the 'apps' that I have downloaded into our Android TV Box.
I never did have a supper, but that was by choice. I wasn't feeling particularly hungry after my late afternoon / early evening very rich hot caffeinated beverage that had followed my nap.
As it was to happen, I was upstairs here at my computer when I heard my younger brother come into the house after arriving home from wherever he had been drinking. I now forget just when that was, but it seems to me that it may have been nigh 9:50 p.m. Consequently, I was conveniently placed to just head off to bed for the remainder of the evening.
I am even more foggy on just when it was that I roused from some sleep to check the time, but it was likely sometime during the midnight hour. And so I rose to come here to my computer to get some work done.
One of those tasks was to finally add some content into a post that I set up about three days earlier at one of my two hosted websites. However, I never put as much work into the post last night as I had hoped, for I kept allowing myself to get sidetracked.
One source of recurring sidetracking was the online radio station I had quietly playing: Megaton Cafe Radio. That station claims to feature "40 years of real music", and I do not doubt that they do
At any rate, when the online option to play the station is selected (as opposed to selecting one of the media players, none of which I have ever tried out), the station will identify the artist(s) and song title for the first hour, and then it stops providing that information. But during that hour, I consistently find myself referring to the station to see who it is that I might be hearing.
And then when someone I've never heard of catches my interest, I will use Google to look them up. For example, one songstress I had never heard of before was Bea Booze. Another singer I heard a song from whose name I was familiar with was Alys Robi (I think I may even have a CD of hers somewhere).
However, I got badly involved with research when I heard a woman with a strangely unique sultry sound singing a song that was only identified as being titled "Horizontal" and by artist Pat Flowers and his Rhythm.
Well, if you click that Wikipedia link, you will see that Pat Flowers is certainly a man. So who was actually singing? ─ it was not him!
Research revealed that the singer was someone known as Bunty Pendleton, and it was the only song she has ever been credited as having been recorded singing.
You can find various online sources of her voice singing that song ─ one source at YouTube is here.
What was to truly bog me down was when I found the following references to her when I performed an Internet Archive search. After starting to get too involved in those references, I finally had to force myself out and back to work on my website post.
I at least do believe that I found her former husband's obituary, but she was not mentioned ─ only his third and current wife at the time of his death in 1975: BOB SYLVESTER, 68, COLUMNIST, DEAD.
It had to be the same dude mentioned in this brief news bit in Variety, Wednesday, February 9, 1949:
Robert Sylvester, N. Y. News drama editor, currently vacationing in Havana, narrowly escaped being shot last Sunday (30) afternoon while sitting at a sidewalk cafe table with his wife, Bunty Pendleton. Several men who had been talking at an adjacent table suddenly drew revolvers and began shooting at each other, while the Sylvesters crouched behind chairs. There were no casualties or arrests.
But here I am again, getting deeply sidetracked ─ even by merely discussing the topic!
I had early morning grocery shopping plans, so I needed to get back to bed fro some rest if I was going to hike just over 2¾ miles in time to arrive at the nearest Real Canadian Superstore (Google Map) by its 7 a.m. opening. I would want to leave here at 6 a.m. if I wanted to walk leisurely and not have to hustle.
And so it was that shortly after 3:30 a.m. I was back in bed with my cellphone alarm set for 5:15 a.m. in order to have time for a black and unsweetened instant coffee. I wasn't feeling entirely optimistic about the trip, for I had declined considerably.
Well, fortunately, I did respond favourably to the time in bed. I was in fact pulled from a most peculiar dream by the cellphone alarm. The dream featured Jean Cooper, my younger brother's former girlfriend in the late 1970s and into the earliest 1980s.
What was peculiar about the dream was that for some reason, she was transformed into a monstrously 'fat' black spider. That is not to say that she as a black spider was of some exceptional size, although she might have been the size of a thumbnail. It was her body that was monstrously swollen, as if she was going to birth a gargantuan egg sack or whatever it is that her type of spider would have birthed.
She could only crawl very slowly due to her unnatural girth, and she was doing so in the branches of a large shrub or small tree. The impulse suddenly came upon me to photograph her, so I set off to retrieve my digital camera or my cellphone that was nearby, and when I returned I at first was unable to locate where she had crawled in the foliage of the plant.
What was doubly odd about all of this was that I ─ the 'me' in the dream ─ did not seem to consider it particularly freaky that Jean was this spider. I just somehow accepted that it was her. I cannot remember that the dream included any earlier explanation for why she was this shiny black spider shaped somewhat like a black widow, but without any markings.
But back to my planned hike.
It had been raining when I had earlier returned to bed ─ sufficiently hard that I was somewhat concerned. However, I felt that things could change in the time in which I would be in bed. I almost always find ways to delay myself, so it was 6:11 a.m. when I was all set to go, but still here upstairs.
Nevertheless, I did get away smartly after that. And it was raining. Certainly not as hard as earlier, but sufficiently that I wondered just how wet I might get. I was wearing an off-black denim jacket overtop a heavy sweatshirt and a lighter short-sleeved fleece top beneath that. It was actually quite mild, so there was no 'cold' to be troubled by.
And I had to hustle, having robbed myself of the opportunity for a leisurely pace. Yet I arrived at the store just before its door were opened, and had to stand at the back of a widely spaced lineup of maybe 10 people at most ─ some were couples.
I was to get my shopping done, including a token birthday card for my wife (her birthday is tomorrow). But I had to do without heavy cream ─ there was none. There wasn't even a litre of organic heavy cream, which would have cost considerably more. Instead, I had to settle for a litre of 18% butter fat cream. The heavy cream is at least 33% butter fat, and it's what I exclusively prefer for my delicious rich, hot caffeinated beverages.
I had most of a litre at home that conceivably could have lasted me until next weekend, but I decided not to risk it and opted to buy a litre of the 18% butter fat cream, What was especially boggling to me was that this stuff actually costs over $4 a litre, whereas the creamier heavy cream ─ which I always buy two litres of in order to reduce the need for these long hikes ─ costs $3.59 a litre when two litres are bought.
So I felt doubly gypped, paying around 50¢ more for a litre of decidedly inferior cream. But it was to be even worse than that as I will explain anon.
When I left the store to begin my homeward trek, I found that the rain had essentially stopped. And even though the sky was largely overcast, it was unquestionably daylight. Over the latter Fall and then through the Winter to this point, I was blessed with the cover of night on these walks to the store, and having considerable gloom for most of the trip home.
That phase of the year has evidently ended.
I suppose that it was around 8:15 a.m. when I arrived home. No one was yet up, but my brother soon enough was. I remained up until 9:30 a.m. and then had declined to the point where I needed to return to bed, and I there remained until just after 11 a.m. at which time I rose and went downstairs for another black coffee. I take in no calories until after 12:30 p.m. in my observance of a daily intermittent fasting schedule.
I would have joined my brother at the T.V. and put our Android TV Box into operation, but he seemed to be content with some ridiculous programme ─ probably Nova ─ extolling the virtues of GMO foods. I felt insulted that he was entertaining the damned travesty.
So I left him to it and came back upstairs here to my computer.
I expect that he watched the show until its conclusion and then he came upstairs to his bedroom to seek some rest before his daily early afternoon departure to ultimately end up drinking somewhere.
I never did seek to have one of my delicious caffeinated beverages until well past 1 p.m. And this is where that third sense of being gypped came into effect.
Although my brother has little problem keeping himself supplied with beer, he had allowed his chosen coffee creamer ─ a feeble 10% butter fat swill that tastes to me like skim milk ─ run dry. My two stepsons also help themselves to that swill, while I try to keep my precious and much more expensive heavy cream out of notice inside the fridge door on the bottom-most rack.
Well, it seems that everyone had been using my precious heavy cream ─ it was about half gone. No one ever bloody buys the stuff, but I have to walk a 5.625-mile round trip hike just to keep myself supplied with it and then find that due to sheer laziness on the part of the others, I am faced with having what little I had become depleted.
My two stepsons don't even buy coffee cream ─ they just use what my brother buys. And now everyone is using my valuable heavy cream that I will be unable to replace until next weekend.
So I opened the 18% butter fat litre and left it where my brother usually keep his 10% butter fat swill. Maybe my heavy cream will be left alone.
What especially bums me in all of this is that all three of them ─ my brother and my two stepsons ─ are licenced drivers. I am the only member of the household who does not drive, so that is why I have to walk to do my shopping. And I am 71 years old. They can easily drive off to a store and buy cream, but that will not happen. My brother may buy some later today if he remembers, but my two stepsons will happily use up whatever they find in the fridge ─ they can't be bothered to help keep a supply available.
And now I am aggravating myself in the recounting this, so I must stop.
The rain never did return, but it became most chilly due to a strong breeze that is finding its way deep into the upstairs rooms where we have all of the windows open to one degree or another.
The time is now just barely after 4:30 p.m. Since I do not expect that there will be aught else worth writing about concerning my day (I am presently home alone), I am going to bring this post to a close so that I can turn my attention to other matters. Heck, I might even lie down again to help my very recent meal assimilate.
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