Thursday afforded me no opportunity to make a post here, for my wife was home the full day. However, at least the afternoon weather proved sunny such that I put in over 40 minutes sunning my front (the day was supposed to have been a mix of Sun and cloud).
Friday was to have seen me get away in the latter afternoon to run a couple of errands; but even though the day was overcast and the threatened rain never came, a necessary latter afternoon nap got out of hand and it was just after 6 p.m. when I checked the time ─ I must have been abed for over two hours, clearly demonstrating my need to catch up on some sleep.
It was too late for me to complete both errands, the first of which was to mail a letter for my wife at Central City Pearl Photo / Canada Post. My nap had left me in such a state that a necessary coffee would not work in time to vitalize me for that hike of a mile to complete my first errand; and since the Pearl Photo / Post Office is at Surrey Place (Central City) ─ the halfway point to the location of my second errand's destination ─ I felt it futile to venture off on an incomplete mission.
I would save the dual errands for today.
Of course, I could always mail the letter in a local mailbox, but there would be no mail collection until Monday. At least at Pearl Photo / Post Office, the letter would already be at a post office and not require collection. Perhaps it would even get sorted or whatever is done this very weekend and then be on its way by Monday.
So I decided that I would tackle the errands today, provided that my wife did not show up overnight. She was not here just ahead of 4:30 a.m. overnight when I went back to bed after completing some work here at my computer.
The rain had come by the time I rose again around 8 a.m., so today has been wet. However, I don't think the rain has ever been heavy. But I am still at home as my afternoon now reaches 4:41 p.m., and I am not going anywhere.
You see, while I was watching some T.V. with my younger brother in the latter morning, we saw my wife passing across the lawn in front of the living room window. She was home at last.
She greeted us as she came into the house and went directly on in to the kitchen where she put away some things she had with her; and then she went upstairs and smartly got to bed. It would seem that she had probably been partying away last night.
My brother returned to his bedroom around 1 p.m. to rest up before he headed off before mid-afternoon to eventually resume his daily drinking. I had declined and needed a nap, too, but until he left, I had nowhere in which to take it.
By the time he did leave, I had grown too hungry to avoid having my day's first meal. If I did not eat before my nap, I most likely would not be going nowhere if I were to rise and find that my wife was still usurping our bedroom ─ I would surely need to eat something by then.
Well, I was probably shut up in my brother's bedroom by 2:50 p.m. and then roused and felt rested enough by 4 p.m. to have readied and gone on that expedition, but naturally my wife was finally up and busy in the kitchen.
Her eldest son ─ who was still in bed when she first got home ─ was downstairs to keep her company (her youngest son had left for work around 8:30 a.m. and has yet to return home), but I would be going nowhere.
It is something of a sore point for me that I am the only one in a household of five who does not have a driving licence. As a result, I do not care anyone to be privy to when I seek to embark on any of these errands that I set for myself.
And I now realize that my youngest stepson is also home. I am effectively confined here for the day.
I cannot remember when my wife last spent Saturday evening and then the night here at home ─ definitely not this year of 2021. Consequently, I fully expect her to be leaving us sometime this evening.
No, I will not then have my opportunity to be tackling my dual errands; but if she does indeed leave us for what remains of the weekend, then perhaps tomorrow I can do what I have thus far left undone. The major drawback is that in the earliest morning I intend to hike to a supermarket approximately 1½ miles from here to do some shopping, so I may well never rally enough thereafter to feel up to this added challenge of an even longer outing, for that second errand also involves some shopping ─ the purchase of two dozen cans of beer that I will then have to bear the two miles home.
It is very likely that my wife's letter is not going to go anywhere except into the local mailbox for Monday's collection.
On another matter, my brother and I have been fairly keeping up with Odessa Orlewicz's videos, but she and her husband Norbert are dreadful at keeping them uploaded to their very own website Librti.com ─ they rely on Odessa's Facebook account which is in constant jeopardy of being taken down.
Due to that, I am reluctant to link to any of her videos. Only Librti.com is likely to be any kind of enduring source. I would love to have been able to link to Odessa's interview with guest Chris Sky this past Thursday or so.
By the way, I want to mention that my brother and I watched ─ over both Thursday and Friday mornings ─ the two-hour movie Mary Queen of Scots.
I knew the lead character was played by Saoirse Ronan, but not until now did I recollect that Queen Elizabeth I was played by Margot Robbie. Not once throughout the movie did it occur to me that I should recognize that latter actress ─ the character's unique nose in particular threw me off, for I thought that it was the actress's natural nose, and I could not ever remember seeing an actress with that particular facial structure.
So kudos to everyone for making Margot Robbie seem so unrecognizable. Heck, she wasn't even particularly attractive, not even before contracting smallpox. And in the latter scenes of the movie, she was as painted up as any clown ─ she looked ghastly, in fact.
I wonder how historically accurate any of that was?
Alas, I don't understand how the movie warranted the acclaim it was tendered by the critics. It was naught but a compilation of short vignettes that were often separated by days, weeks, months, and in some cases even by years.
I had to read the Wikipedia article on the movie to understand what it had all been about. The names of characters never stuck with me during the movie, so I at least have a clearer understanding of some of them. I didn't even realize that the religious zealot that kept appearing was supposed to be John Knox.
It is unbelievable to me that the real Mary would have bothered trying to be a monarch with such vile Scottish lairds and religious zealots hemming her in from all sides and controlling her life. I can only think that she must have felt too impotent to have tried to live a life somewhere else as a regular human being ─ she only knew what it was like to be a Royal, and that was all she ever cared to have to live as.
I was unable to feel attached to the characters because of the time gaps that existed between each of the myriad vignettes that constituted the movie. There was no development of characters. Only someone with a familiar historical sense and understanding of them would manage to impute any sense of identity unto them. To me, they were basically a population 'sterile' of any sort of personality that I could latch onto.
One laird who proved his vileness was Lord Bothwell. I was pretty certain that the actor portraying him was one of the leads in the T.V. series Line of Duty, and I now see that I was correct ─ actor Martin Compston portrays Detective Inspector Steve Arnott in that series.
Far, far too much was omitted from the movie, and other events so rapidly glossed over that the movie offered little to facilitate any true grasp of the actual people and occurrences the movie was supposed to be depicting and based upon.
There should not have been a movie. Instead, it should have been a series of many seasons, for a mere mini-series could not have properly detailed what needed to be revealed to the general viewing audience with only a limited ─ or mostly likely non-existent ─ knowledge of the actual history.
It is presently 7:10 p.m., and one of my wife's sons took her away just ahead of 6:25 p.m. ─ she will not be back today, for eventually she will be taking the SkyTrain in to Vancouver. And as a result, I will have the bed to myself overnight, and ought to be able to do that very early morning grocery shopping that I spoke of.
Right now, though, I am feeling some anxiety that I wish to quell with a couple of cans of strong (8% alcohol) beer while enjoying an episode of The Last Kingdom.
When I retire for the latter evening, I plan to seek to sleep for as long as I possibly can, rather than rise into the weest a.m. to sit up for several hours working here at my computer.
But we shall see what plays out. For now, that beer and its anodynic potential is my primary focus.
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