Possibly I never sought my latter evening bedtime until as late as 10 p.m. yesterday ─ I frankly do not remember. But I must have been running a sleep deficit, for I was not to check the time thereafter until something like 1:52 a.m.
Neither of my two stepsons were up, and my younger brother had evidently opted to spend the night at the home of his girlfriend Bev, for his bedroom door was open and he was not downstairs ─ the house was in darkness.
I had an early morning shopping expedition intended that would require me to be seeking some further bed rest before the 5.625-mile round trip hike's undertaking to shop at the Real Canadian Superstore (Google Map), so I had to embrace the fact that I was not going to have any time overnight to work on the post I have in progress at one of my two hosted websites.
My priority was going to have to be for the post at my private blog, a feat that proved so demanding that I never had time to offer the detail in it that I otherwise would have. The post was going to feature the journal report that I had written exactly 40 years before, and in it I mentioned many businesses that no longer exist in Surrey ─ places such as the Flamingo Hotel, the Dell Hotel, the Tropic Isle restaurant, Scandinavia House restaurant, Royal Chalet restaurant, and even a former Whalley motel-like residential complex just slightly downhill from 108th Avenue along the King George Highway that I wrote as being called either the Hillside or Hillcrest Motel.
It was then a Saturday, and my father had paid $195 for an upstairs suite in that two-storey complex that he intended or hoped to move into come the Monday.
I also mentioned the Broadway Rooms in the Mount Pleasant area of Vancouver ─ he may well have lived there until he had moved out sometime in the previous December, but his 'on-again / off-again' girlfriend Maria Fadden would have still been living there if it is the structure that I am thinking it to have been. However, apparently it still exists, so I was at least able to add a map link to the place, whether or not it still operates as it did back in 1981.
But there is no sense in me becoming involved in the research of that history here, for as I said, it all related to a journal entry that I wrote exactly 40 years ago that I reproduced in my private blog. Virtually anyone is free to request access to that blog, but no one has ─ I am its sole visitor ever since I was obliged to make the formerly public blog private early in 2019.
That blog has existed since September 2008, and contains every journal entry that I wrote from the day I began keeping that record sometime in 1973 right up until that entry that I reproduced today representing what I wrote back on March 7, 1981.
I kept writing in the journal until sometime in ─ I think ─ 1996, so I have years yet to go at the rate of one journal entry relevant to whatever date matches it in the present. And since I am presently 71 years of age, it is unlikely that I am going to ever reproduce that final journal entry.
But I have badly digressed.
I had to vastly abbreviate my description to that specific journal entry that I reproduced in my private blog overnight, for even when I signed off and returned to bed for an attempt at a nap, I was not going to have even an hour in bed ─ I had set my cellphone alarm for 5:15 a.m. That would leave me 45 minutes in which to have a cup of plain instant coffee, and to start readying for my journey to get some shopping done, since I wanted to try and leave here at 6 a.m.
And it was going to be a wet journey.
I also had the monthly expenses reconciliation cheque that my brother had written out to me for something like $179 ─ I would be depositing it at an outdoor ATM of the Coast Capital Savings headquarters building over by the King George SkyTrain Station approximately a mile from here.
Rarely do I ever manage to get away when I hope to, and that was the case this morning. I wanted to leave at 6 a.m. so that I could walk leisurely, but it was at least 6:10 a.m. ─ maybe even 6:15 a.m. ─ before I was on my way.
It is essential to arrive at the store as near to its morning opening (7 a.m.) as I can so as to best avoid the crowds that haunt that place; also, I do not like being out in the public, so I do my best to do my travelling before the world hereabouts becomes too oppressively busy.
And so not only did I travel at a very brisk pace, but I even undertook an uphill jog of perhaps just over a block from just above Whalley Boulevard (Google Map) up a steep section of 100th Avenue ─ I reached a little way beyond 138-A Street, although I was on the side of the avenue opposite to it. I was bagged, but the only reason I stopped the jog was because I saw someone coming along the sidewalk in my direction ─ he must have come from that paved 'greenway' that you can see intersecting with the avenue a little further on. The night as yet had not entirely lost its hold, so it was still very gloomy.
My fast pace along with that bit of a jog proved successful, for I arrived at the store just in time to come up behind a line-up of maybe eight people at most who were awaiting the opening of the store's doors, and that opening was just about to occur.
Unfortunately, one of the two primary reasons I had gone shopping was not stocked yet ─ the heavy 33% butterfat whipping cream that I love using in my coffee. This same thing happened two weeks ago when I made that trip to shop, so I am now wondering if this is going to be a bloody regular Sunday issue.
I have no idea why, but that 33% butterfat cream in the litre carton is only $1.59; yet the 18% butterfat coffee cream is far over $4 for a litre! Maybe the store is coming to realize this pricing disparity at long last? It has been in effect for the 1½ years that I may have been going there to shop, and I have never been able to understand why anyone would buy the weaker butterfat product.
But that's what I was forced to do this morning.
Anyway, I got the expedition over with ─ there was no rain for my homeward haul; and I was probably back in bed by maybe as early as 9 a.m. Even so, let me here declare that these ventures take just about everything out of me ─ I am so not my younger self! I have felt disabled all day from the punishment.
I don't know when my younger brother finally got home this morning, but he was watching T.V. when I rose just after 10.30 a.m. And since I wanted to watch some videos that I have downloaded into a USB flash drive ─ our Android TV Box makes it possible to do so on T.V. ─ I went directly downstairs to boil up some water for a coffee and to boil a couple of eggs.
When all of that was done, the show he was watching had finished, so I joined him. We were to watch an assortment of different 'truther' videos until shortly after 1 p.m. at which time he was ready to head on upstairs to his bedroom to rest up before heading off for the afternoon to start his daily drinking somewhere.
We had a pretty decent bit of a hailstorm in the early afternoon that was soon rain, but it was only a passing storm.
I still have not phoned Sandy W., whose father died a few days ago. I've talked about this in previous posts, so I am not going to do so again now. But I feel I need to make the call, and thus I want to bring this post to a close.
Before I do, I wish to amend the claim I made at the finish of yesterday's post ─ I never did make the short hike to the pharmacy that I had said I was going to undertake. I now recall that by the time 9 p.m. had arrived, I was both too weary to go anywhere, and also too concerned that my brother was going to be showing up before I was back home.
I also now recall that it was not much after 9 p.m. that I sought my bed. Consequently, to have remained there until finally checking the time at 1:52 a.m. is exceptional ─ I do not normally sleep anywhere near as well as that.
I also want to mention that after getting home from that early shopping this morning, I weighed myself while stripped down to just my undershorts ─ I was around 178 pounds (at not quite five feet and 11 inches in height). Apparently 40 years ago on this day, I wrote that I weighed 181 pounds around midday and following some early a.m. rather intensive activity.
But I was a far, far more vigorous version of myself than I am today, alas.
No comments:
Post a Comment