New Year's Eve 2021

Well, the final hours of 2021 are trickling out as my late afternoon nears completion. And I am not too sure as to what is ahead for the evening.

Both of my two stepsons are home as I type these words at 5:16 p.m. My younger brother left much earlier this afternoon, and will be hooking up with his girlfriend Bev once she finishes work ─ which may be around 6 or 7 p.m. 

I am fuzzy on whether he will be bringing her here ─ logically, it seems unlikely. 

To explain, he has said that they will be preparing a ham roast for supper tomorrow, anticipating its readiness for around 6 or 7 p.m. What makes me skeptical that he will be bringing her here this evening is that she has to work tomorrow.

Granted, I believe she does not have to start work until quite late in the morning ─ probably 10:30 or 11 a.m. But that would mean that she would have to go to work from here.

My brother has been driving her to work ─ she only works part-time, and just three or four days a week. She works in a bowling alley with a small bar or pub attached.

She would not have to work on Sunday, so it is reasonable that she would spend tomorrow night here to celebrate the New Year a day late. Nevertheless, that is going to depend, I imagine, on how strongly she wants to be with company over the course of this evening, n'est-ce pas? She lives alone, after all. Maybe the attraction of being with pleasant company will be too much for her to resist and she will show up with my brother anon.

However, typically when she is here, she overindulges in her favoured white wine, and thus would be at risk of having a rough go of it tomorrow morning ─ a significant count, then, against coming here this evening.

And thus it is that I have no sure idea on what to expect this evening ─ company other than my brother? My two stepsons ─ both in their 20s ─ essentially spend their time in their den area, and do not watch T.V. as do my brother and I each evening via our Android TV Box.

It seems surprising to me if both of my stepsons will remain home all evening anyway ─ they both have jobs and thus a little spending money, so it seems reasonable that one or both may have social plans outside of home.

As for my wife, she had to work the full day today beginning at 11 a.m., so when she left here around 10:30 a.m. for the frigid and fairly long drive, she let on that she would not be returning home tonight, and was not even able to commit to being here for supper tomorrow.

Normally she spends a lot of her weekends somewhere in Vancouver. She is only a part of my life for economic reasons, I am sure.

By the way, yesterday I had intended to post two further photos of the snow hereabouts, but I managed to forget. I took the photos that day from the vantage of the backyard tool shed where I had gone for a little exercise ─ it was around 1:58 p.m., and I was facing towards the house. 

Unfortunately, the Sun was brilliant on the snow, but most of the house was still shaded, so that specific subject is not at all distinct:

There was at least five or six inches of snow on the ground at the time. And since we have yet to reach temperatures above freezing, no thawing has begun.

I feel obliged to mention an interesting movie that I tuned in last evening ─ 2014's The Fault in Our Stars with Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort in the lead roles portraying two teen cancer victims who fall in love after coming to know one another at a support group they both attended.

Normally I do not like young male characters who are extroverts and confidently glib with members of the opposite sex, but I was able to like the young fellow Ansel portrayed.

I understood that Shailene's character was supposedly suffering terminal cancer, whereas Ansel's character ─ albeit with a leg amputated ─ was supposedly a cancer survivor. And so because Shailene's character did not want to cause Ansel's character grief after her eventual death, she resisted having a romantic relationship with him.

What I did not expect was that Ansel's character would have a resurgence of cancer that metastasized widely, and he was the one who died in the course of the movie.

He didn't expect it either.

It was all very touching. And of course with his passing, the movie did not have to extend on until the day Shailene's character inevitably also died.

So that was quite a plot switch for me. All along I was anticipating that her character would die, and we would then see how well or badly Ansel's character dealt with it once they had committed to one another. 

I definitely recommend the movie.

Well, it is now after 6 p.m., so I am going to close up shop and publish this post. As I said earlier, I have no idea if my brother will be bringing Bev home; but if he does, that could occur at any time now. We would then watch a few movies and drink as we passed away this last evening of 2021.

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A Dreadful Workout With a Snow Shovel

It is presently 6:05 p.m., and I have just finished shovelling our fairly long double-lane driveway, as well as 15 or 20 feet of sidewalk.

It snowed last evening and long into the night, adding as much as five inches to the possible three that we already had.

As for the shovelling, keep in mind here that I am 72 years old; and I spent just over 11 days in a hospital in October ─ diagnosed with "COVID pneumonia" ─ after becoming so helplessly ill here at home that I could no longer stand let alone walk.

I lost the strength and ability to walk, and for the first few days in the hospital I was not even able to do aught but lie in bed ─ initially peeing via a catheter, and then using special 'bottles' made of the same type of cardboard that egg cartons are comprised of.

If I needed to defecate, I was assisted to get up from bed and eased onto a wheeled 'commode' and had to do my business on that contraption. It was not until my fifth day that I decided that I had undergone enough of that indignity, and late that afternoon I cautiously manoeuvred my way to the actual toilet there in my room.    

This was without authorization, for I was not supposed to be getting out of bed without supervision.

But that was the beginning of the pathetically slow recovery of my ability to walk again.

My lungs were diagnosed as being scarred, and there is still a type of 'burning' when I breathe deeply.

Anyway, I did all of that shovelling ─ no one else was home ─ and avoided a heart attack; now I will think positively that one will not strike over the course of my evening or even my night in bed.

I have a few photos to attempt to illustrate the area I had to shovel.

I took these first two on Boxing Day (December 26, 2021) ─ supposedly around 8:15 a.m. and 8:18 a.m. respectively, but how could it possibly be dark at that time of morning? Anyway, I was standing at the mouth of the driveway and facing towards the house to capture our Christmas lights display:

 

The sky does seem to be brightening in that second photo ... and at this time of year, it still is dark at 7 a.m., so maybe that time is not really illogical after all.

I took this next collection of five photos just this afternoon, around 1:33 p.m., and while looking out from our living room window. Note that the sidewalk ends to the right just where that last small fence post is just by the stretch of bushes. We live in a cul-de-sac, so from there pedestrians find themselves at the mouth of a very short alleyway that is blocked off to vehicles, but which people can use to access a nearby main avenue. I had to shovel the sidewalk from our driveway to that post:

Had I not undertaken that chore, I would have gone to a pharmacy about four blocks from here. I do not drive, so I would have walked. However, I no longer feel like tackling the extra exercise, minor as it might be.

Actually, I came into the house fully intending to locate a Christmas movie via our Android TV Box and the apps that I have downloaded into it, and enjoying some dark rum as I watched the feature; however, in choosing to work on this post, I deprived myself of that opportunity, for I cannot watch a Christmas movie once my younger brother arrives home in the evening after he has done some drinking. He has no romance and imagination in his heart for that sort of fare.

We did watch a pleasant enough movie today from roughly 11 a.m. till nigh 12:30 p.m. The movie was 2001's Doc Martin. Last week we had watched Saving Grace, the movie that introduced the character in a minor supporting role. (A somewhat better description of the movie Doc Martin than is offered by IMDb can be found at either Letterboxd.com or Trakt.tv.) 

My design is to eventually watch the Doc Martin TV. series, but there is still one further movie featuring the character that I feel must be watched first.

Martin Clunes as the character Doc Martin is delightfully endearing. His wayward wife was played by a very attractive actress named Lynsey Baxter. 

Also of note was the very attractive actress ─ Neve McIntosh ─ who played a mother with an undiagnosed asthmatic son. It is unfortunate that this character seems not to be repeated, for Neve appealed to me strongly ─ I would have lost my heart to her character if I had ever been exposed to someone like her.

Supposedly the character in the movie was married, but she stated something to the effect that her husband was often absent for long spans of time ─ whatever that was about. She gave the impression to me of wanting someone who was far more available.

It is now already after 7:30 p.m., and I must yet have some supper, so I am going to bring this post to a close. I just wish to record the confirmation that my wife provided late last evening that there is evidently a mouse in the house. She uncovered a collection of droppings beneath some white rice sacks that were stored beside out refrigerator.

I had speculated to my brother and wife a day or two earlier that a potential rodent had gotten at four or five fairly small or medium-sized tomatoes that had been left on the floor in a tray ─ the tomatoes seemed to have had sections chewed down to their cores.

Apparently that same night while my wife was up, she claimed that she could hear some sort of stirrings that she thought came from the living room / dining area, but she found no evidence to support the brief noises when she investigated.   

And now late last evening she has finally found the proof of the uninvited and unwanted presence. My brother left a mousetrap by the fridge where the dropping had been.

Anyway, that's that for the nonce.

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Touching on My Ancestry

Another frigid day, but at least I am now able to access the interior of the backyard toolshed for some exercising. The door lock to the shed had been frozen; but better than a full day after a fairly thorough dosing of the lock's insides with WE-40 on Monday afternoon did the trick, for I discovered late yesterday afternoon that the key was finally able to unlock the door.

It was too dark by then to do any proper exercising, but around 10 a.m. today I did go out to the shed and finally resumed my toolshed exercising after at least a five-day layoff.

My wife has not had to work today, so I have limited blogging time. Also, this is a bath day; and that along with some further exercising that I wish to engage today also require time that I refuse to yield over to blogging.

Ere my younger brother left around 3:15 p.m. ─ he daily removes himself for the afternoon to get in some drinking away from home, and returns in the early or middle evening ─ I tuned in a movie that he got to watch maybe 15 minutes of. It was the genre of movie that he would otherwise have bitched at me for tuning in during our regular viewing time, and for which he would have thereafter sulked throughout its progression.

Well, I broke off from the movie once he left, and I will resume it at 8 p.m., or as soon as I become cognizant that he is arriving home ─ whichever occurs earliest. We shall see which of these scheduled resumptions hold sway, for it is only 3:57 p.m. as I type these words.

Since I have yet to watch the movie, I am not going to identify it. The movie was of course made available via certain apps that I have downloaded into our Android TV Box. Since I will finish watching it later today, I fully anticipate reporting on it to some degree in a post tomorrow.

I want now to speak something concerning my great-grandmother Sarah Anne née Bird. 

Only back in August did I obtain the last link proving something I had never known before, but which I had become aware of earlier this year. Actually, there were two rather huge discoveries.

The first major discovery was that despite tracing my paternal ancestrage potentially back to the 1500s in France, I can see absolutely no connection to anyone in Spain. I am 72 years old, and all of my life have believed that my ancestors came to North America from Spain, for this is what my father always maintained.

And so the possibility exists that there is no Spanish connection to my line whatsoever ─ it has always been French.

The second major discovery is that my great-grandmother's father's parents were the mixed blood ultimate descendants of 'Indian' or Native American ancestors.

Her father was Thomas bird, born February 9, 1843 in Manitoba. 

Thomas's father was also named Thomas Bird, born March 10, 1815 in Alberta; and his mother was Ellen Helen McDermott.

Thomas Bird senior was a son of the historical James Curtis Bird; and his mother was Elizabeth Montour, identified as being Swamp Cree. She was born around 1779 in Alberta.

Both of Elizabeth's parents were of Native American stock, for her mother was named something like Oo-Meria-How-ish, born around 1775; and her father ... oh, this is consuming too much time.

If anyone has any interest in this genealogy, contact me. I may eventually blog in more detail about it, but I just do not have the time now ─ it is already 4:45 p.m., and I have yet to exercise or bathe.

💀☠💀☠💀☠ Two Pull-Ups

This post will be short ─ it is already after 7:30 p.m., and my brother could arrive home at any point obliging me to perform my duty and put our Android TV Box into operation (he doesn't understand how to operate it).

I thought that I might have a productive day today. My wife had to work the full day at her friend's Thai restaurant, so that very much freed me up. However, upon an early afternoon nap this sunny, frigid day, iniquity was allowed to consume me and I thereby lost my afternoon. 

Otherwise, I would have probably experienced a full day's exercising schedule, and maybe even gotten some work done on the post that has largely been languishing since September at one of my two hosted websites.

Beneath the weight and disappointment of my actions that carried me well into the darkness of night which now falls in the latter afternoon, I at very least wanted to see if perhaps the WD-40 worked some magic since yesterday ─ I had used the product unsuccessfully yesterday to try and unfreeze the lock to the backyard toolshed, a venue where I engage some exercises that I cannot otherwise participate in.

To my pleasure, the key was able to unlock the shed door. However, the shed is unlit (and unheated), so I was not going to be tackling my current exercise schedule out there even if I had wished to. Nevertheless, I at least wanted to attempt to perform a pull-up from the child's playground slide ladder that I have laid across rafters in the shed.

To my near astonishment, I managed to perform two pull-ups. What is remarkable about this is that the best I have managed since falling severely ill and being hospitalized in October with a diagnosis of "COVID pneumonia"  is that at very best, I may have only managed one full pull-up thus far.

To suddenly have achieved two was buoying beyond my ability to tell. It erased the predominance of my shame over how I lost my afternoon. 

But I have little time to post, and I am dragging this out inexcusably.

I primarily wish to record that last evening, my brother and I finally watching the two-season and series finale of Bless This Mess.

The series had some good moments, but it was otherwise weak. Lead actress Lake Bell looked quite fetching betimes, and I found it credulous that the neighbouring young man found her provocative.

My favourite character was the young man's mother, played by actress Lennon Parham. Many of the quips this woman would blurt out were incredibly hilarious, and at times she actually came across as acceptably sexy.

I must admit that I was not exactly starved for appearances by lead actor Dax Shephard. I say that because for quite some time I was simultaneously seeing the guy with a main role in two other T.V. series ─ The Ranch and Parenthood, and I am still working my way through that latter series.

In short, I am hardly at risk of going into withdrawal just because I now no longer have him on the roster in two of those three series.

I might as well mention that this evening my brother and I watched the final episode of the current season of American Ninja Warrior; and last week, the same for Australian Ninja Warrior. Those two series are making the winning of their competitions look just about impossible.

As for Australian Ninja Warrior, I think that I may be more drawn to Olivia Vivian than I am to Jessie Graff. And believe me, that is saying one huge amount!

All else I wish to report is that I have drunk at least five ounces of dark rum, and two cans of beer (one was 8% alcohol). I began the rum first, while watching the Christmas movie Elf-Man.

That movie was better than I was anticipating. And why it is that actress Mirelly Taylor does not currently have her own Wikipedia bio strongly escapes me. Certainly, I am unfamiliar with her name; however, her good looks and general physical appeal are very familiar, even if I was unable to recollect any of her other roles without research.

Okay, it is almost midnight ─ I must get this post closed and published.

The Road to Some Normalization

It was after 2:30 a.m. before I got to bed last night, and I had first drunk a can of strong (8% alcohol) beer because I was feeling the anxiety that comes of alcohol and social withdrawal. I was even missing the wife I once had, but whose love and respect for me are now gone.  

The late night did not much matter, for I was soon enough awake and rose for the day just after 7 a.m. My brother managed to remain in his bedroom until well past 9 a.m. despite having retired to his bedroom last evening at 11 p.m.

He was to be driving his girlfriend Bev to work today, so he left here shortly before 10 a.m. to make the slightly more than two-mile drive to her home; and so it was that he and I did not watch any morning T.V. together until he later returned ─ which may have been nigh 10:30 a.m.

Employing our Android TV Box and the apps that I have downloaded into it, I tuned in Dr. Joseph Mercola's latest video that had been uploaded to BitChute on December 22: The Quazi Approval of Comirnaty- Interview with Alix Mayer.

I followed that with the three-part video set totalling something under 50 minutes and which each featured a different doctor speaking on December 8 at some manner of forum being held in Victoria, B.C.:

1. Dr. Stephen Malthouse - Doctors on Tour - Victoria 
2. Dr. Daniel Nagase - Doctors on Tour - Victoria 
3. Dr Charles Hoffe - Doctors on Tour Victoria

At this moment, it is 3:47 p.m. and my brother has yet to leave for the afternoon; and my wife arrived home maybe 15 minutes ago. I will not have much time for blogging.

I had hoped to resume my exercise schedule by performing some attempts at chin-ups and pull-ups out in the backyard toolshed, but the door lock out there is frozen. I tried heating the key with a lighter; and I also used some WD-40, but neither treatment has been successful.  

I will make a final check of the lock once my brother leaves to hook up with his girlfriend Bev, who only works until around 4 p.m. as a rule.

What I had hoped to do after discharging my exercises for the day was to tune in a Christmas movie and do some drinking while I was alone, but my wife is here for the remainder of the day. Nonetheless, I may yet manage to log in a Christmas movie ─ it's not like my wife will be suddenly 'chatting up a storm' and require both my attention and participation.

It is supposedly -11º Celsius (or 13º F.) here in Surrey, according to Google; and the two or three inches of snow that we accrued yesterday has not even begun to start melting. 

I am going to pause this post for now. I may only come back to it to announce that I have nothing more worth reporting on, and to just get on with publishing it.

oooooooooooooo

As conjectured, I have neither the time nor the cause to report further concerning this frigid day. I will, nevertheless, comment that my wife became conversant; but this was due to her need to have use of my credit card to place an order (nearly $980) to Thailand for some health-related products that she will resell ─ she is quite deeply involved with TheiConGroup.com, but that involvement only seems to be deepening the owed credit balance on my credit card.

I seem fated to die in debt.

Incidentally, I did not attempt to watch a Christmas movie.

Boxing Day 2021

I will need to antedate this post because it is already 11:23 p.m., and I will not be able to complete it before midnight and the arrival of Monday, December 27 (2021).

Bev's presence did not prove to be as joyous as I anticipated ─ she and my brother spent far too much time watching NFL games. In fact, today their viewing commenced at 10:30 a.m. and continued until dusk when my brother finally drove her home. She lives a little over two miles from us, and has to work tomorrow ─ my brother will pick her up around 10 a.m. and drive her to work, I expect.

Bev's health is poor. She only lives a half mile or so from her place of part-time employment, but in recent weeks my brother has been picking her up and driving her to work ─ usually Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. However, I think she has since graduated to some extra time.

Last evening on Christmas Day, she foiled my movie choices once she and my brother were done with football. I now do not clearly recall if I even got in the first movie (via our Android TV Box) that I had planned before she proclaimed that she hoped we could watch something really old.

This was no great problem, for I already had Wikipedia's list of Christmas films chronologically set up in a browser on my computer, so I referred to it and settled on the 1947 movie The Bishop's Wife.

It proved to be quite a decent choice, for even my brother seemed to find it of interest. He and I would otherwise be unlikely to ever be tuning in a Cary Grant or David Niven feature. 

Loretta Young ─ the "Bishop's wife" ─ didn't have any sexual appeal initially; but speaking for myself, I came to wholly understand how a male angel (as portrayed by Cary Grant) could fall ─ or grow to find himself ─ in love with her.

Unfortunately, Bev had gone outside to smoke a cigarette late into the movie, and then upon coming back into the house, she went directly upstairs to my brother's bedroom and apparently 'crashed' for the night. She does not handle the white wine well that is her preferred drink, but I did not suspect that she was already at this extreme.

My brother seemed to be caught off guard by this as well.

And so we were on our own.

Just prior to tuning in The Bishop's Wife, I had gotten Merry In-Laws begun, but Bev had then opined her desire for an older movie, so I cancelled out. Now with the older movie finished, I tuned Merry In-Laws back in. (You can find a far more comprehensive description of the movie at ChannelGuideMag.com.)

Perhaps I am failing on recollection, but I cannot remember watching any other movies that evening with my brother. We had sat up until the dawning (at midnight) of Christmas Day the night before; and this time we did the same for Boxing Day's arrival. Nevertheless, I have the impression that it was around 1 a.m. before I got to bed last night.

I had notions of hiking off early this morning to participate in the Boxing Day sale at the nearest outlet of Staples perhaps 1½ miles from here ─ if I was able to rouse early enough. Well, I found myself awake no later than 7 a.m. this morning, so I dutifully rose.

Alas, by the time I had some coffee and had dressed, it was 8 a.m. once I had set off. I walked maybe a half block at most in the powdery two or three inches of snow and the definitely frigid air, and then I lost all resolve and returned home. Already, I had seen as many as five different people abroad (I crave privacy and anonymity), and there was also some traffic on the streets despite conditions.

I was additionally lured by the image of watching some early Christmas fare and having some drinks before anyone else was yet up here at home. It appealed to me to try and get emotional from a movie or two ─ and 'lit' on some drink ─ and then return to bed for a restorative nap.

My endurance proved greater than expected. 

My wife had failed to show up yesterday, but the snowy weather justified this failure. The party she was at was probably a drive of 15 or even 20 miles from here; and no doubt, she was most likely well into drink.

Well, she showed up late this morning just when I was contemplating that return to bed. I had already surrendered the T.V. to my brother and was here upstairs at my computer. 

I do not wish to belabour this matter, but apart from some involvement with her when she voiced to me that she was lacking a couple of those special holiday gift envelopes or packs that people use when they present a bottle of liquor or wine as a present, she and I had not communicated.

I helped her out, and she was able to make a presentation to my brother and to Bev. She also had a bottle for me. I have no idea if she also had anything for her two sons, but it seems logical that she might have.

Anon, she wordlessly retired to our bedroom to catch up on some lost sleep, and I soon enough did the same in this room where I keep my computer. The room is immediately adjacent to what had been the bedroom shared by my wife and I, but we have been sleeping separately ever since I fell ill in early October and eventually ended up in a hospital for just over 11 days with "COVID pneumonia". 

I am 'unvaccinated', but my wife has been, due to her part-time employment in the restaurant industry. I still wonder if perhaps I became ill as a result of sharing a bed with her ─ the so-called 'vaccine' shedding.

Anyway, following my nap early this afternoon, I found that my wife was also up from hers. I had it planned to have a bath, so I alerted her to my intention in case she needed to use the bathroom ─ she was busy doing some sort of sorting on what had been our common bed.

Then I had my bath ... and emerged from the bathroom to find that not only was my wife gone, but Bev was just about to leave ─ my brother was already out in his van. Bev has to work tomorrow.

I had a farewell embrace with Bev, and then I was alone ─ apart from one or the other of my two stepsons, who basically spend all of their time in their den area.

I felt too sober ─ and I was longing for the 'feel good' and poignantly painful emotions of some more Christmas movies. Thus, I tuned in a movie called Holidaze that I have found identified as having been released anywhere from 2012 to 2014.    

The movie did turn out to be quite involving, but initially I almost tuned out of it. For one thing, it seemed like it was only going to be a Thanksgiving movie. And I am not any kind of Jennie Garth fan. Even so, she looked entirely different from the actress I was aware of; and I even found myself becoming quite attracted to her.

Just as the movie concluded, my brother returned home. It was maybe 6:40 p.m., and a full hour earlier than I would normally have expected him to be showing up when he has been to Bev's home.

Apparently he must have been drinking this afternoon while watching football with her. After he came into the house, he got himself a drink and settled into his favourite chair in the living room, and then imperiously growled at me, "Put on something interesting!" 

He added that he was done with anything to do with Christmas.

Well, screw that ─ I had no intention of spending the evening with 'back to normal' T.V. shows. And so I shut down the Android TV Box and switched the T.V. over to its basic cable package, announcing to my brother, "Watch what you like."

And I left him. He is unable to operate the Android TV Box, so he was going to have to make do with the basic cable programming.

I came upstairs and located a source here on my computer for the movie All I Want Is Christmas, and I became rather inebriated while watching and enjoying this delightful feature. (According to Wikipedia, the movie is also called Switchmas.)

I soon enough saw that my brother had passed out in his chair.

Ultimately, once my movie was done, I took a nap, hoping to sleep quite long so that I could rise after my brother had retired for the night. I did nap rather nicely, but I roused around 10:40 p.m. and he was still downstairs watching T.V.

I pondered on how to spend my time, and then decided to seek some further sleep. However, soon after getting back to bed, I became aware that my brother was shutting things down for the night, turning off the outdoor Christmas lights. 

It was around 11 p.m.

He resorted to his bedroom, and I rose and emerged from this room. I turned the Christmas lights back on, but I did not access any more drink. Instead, I fixed myself a mug of hot coffee, and then got to work on this post.

It is presently after 1:30 a.m., and I have not brushed my teeth in a couple of days. I am going to do that right after publishing this post, but I recall another old movie that I have watched but not mentioned ─ I viewed it in two sittings on Christmas Day. The first sitting was with my brother until he had to leave late that morning to go and pick up Bev to bring her here; I later watched the remainder of the movie here on my computer that afternoon while they were watching football.

The movie was the 1946 film Never Say Goodbye.

I never before realized just how big ─ that is, tall ─ actor Forrest Tucker was. He didn't show up in the movie until its final 50 or so minutes, but he was worth waiting for ─ he dwarfed actor Errol Flynn.

I do not have the time to discuss the movie, but I do want to express that I found actress Eleanor Parker to be most beautiful!

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Christmas Day 2021

My younger brother and his girlfriend Bev are presently watching football (NFL) as I type these words at 4:09 p.m., and thus my opportunity for this quick post attempt ─ I have even had a nap!

My brother came home alone last evening ─ he and Bev had arranged for him to pick her up around 11:30 a.m. this morning, and that afforded me the opportunity to tune in the 1945 short (22 minutes) feature Star in the Night. It was quaintly touching, and a nice Christmas morning pastime for two senior brothers.

No one in the short was familiar to me, although the name of actor J. Carrol Naish seemed to be.

My brother had to leave during the second movie that I tuned in. I will report on it another time, for I have yet to finish watching it.

I was first up this morning, shortly after 7 a.m., and discovering it to be snowing. It has never really stopped, although what is presently falling is so very fine that it might even be mainly rain ... but not necessarily so, for it is darned chilly out there.

I suppose we have three inches on the ground ─ the only time I went outside, though, was after getting up when I decided to turn on all of the Christmas lights ─ inside and outside.

My wife never came home, but she has texted and even phoned, saying that she intends to show up by 7 p.m., which is the estimated time my brother has given for the readiness of our Christmas turkey supper.

Both of my stepsons are present, and no doubt awaiting that turkey feast. They rose and made a simultaneous appearance around 1 p.m. at most, and that was when the general gift-giving ensued. The lads seem to have at least matched what I spent on them (which was not quite $40 apiece).

To be honest, I think they bested my outlay, and probably my brother's as well. The lads have been exceptional, I must say!

My wife will certainly have enough wine to drink (as well as a number of lottery tickets). I got her four bottles of various imported red wines, while my brother bought her a four-litre box of her current red wine favourite (Domaine D'Or Red). 

She is presently celebrating Christmas at the home of her friend (and employer) where there is evidently a party in progress ... as there so often is.

Due to the NFL game, I have only had time to tune in one Christmas movie for Bev, my brother, and I: 2020's The Christmas Chronicles 2. Both Bev and my brother soon busied themselves with other matters, mostly relating to the feast preparations. Normally that distancing from a movie would have irked me, but I cannot blame them ─ it was something of a loser.

What made the movie especially unpalatable for me was when Santa (Kurt Russell) magically inspired a huge musical number in a 1990 Christmastime Boston airport. What was especially ludicrous was that Santa and a rather stern airline receptionist (portrayed by Darlene Love) were the lead and extremely energetic vocalists. Somehow, there was unbelievable dancing taking place by travellers and airport personnel, and too much else that was impossible to suspend belief could ever have been magically caused ─ even by God Himself, let alone Santa.

Hey, I can handle rival flying sleighs, daemonic creatures, elves, and on and on. But people suddenly losing themselves into professional-quality song and dance is beyond anything I can suspend belief over.

Nevertheless, Kurt makes for a magnificent-looking Santa, and his wife Goldie Hawn a most comely Mrs. Claus.

Say, that reminds me that last evening I watched with my brother a 2010 Scandinavian (Finnish) Christmas movie titled Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale. For perhaps the first half at least, it was almost a perfect horror movie; and then it became ridiculously fantastic with the silly and impossible 'derring do' of the boy (played by young actor Onni Tommila) who became the heroic lead character.

I followed that movie for my brother and I last night with a 1994 'spaghetti Western' featuring the acting duo Terence Hill and Bud Spencer; it was titled Troublemakers (also known as Botte di Natale, and also The Fight Before Christmas).

Terence would have been around 54 years old when this movie was released, Bud a decade older.

It was pure 'camp' escapism and absolutely unrealistic. However, I confess to being tickled to think that the mother of the two brothers (who were the main characters) resembled the purse-wielding spinster in the old Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In T.V. series ─ I thereafter discovered that it was indeed the same woman, Ruth Buzzi.

Okay, this has gone on long enough ─ it is now 5:17 p.m., and I must join my brother and Bev.

Christmas Eve 2021

Well, things did not go quite as planned where the final Christmas shopping was concerned. As I wrote yesterday, I hoped to get out with my younger brother in the reasonably early afternoon when he headed off as he does every day. However, I had eaten a rather weighing breakfast / lunch, and I did not care to be having to walk around in a mall feeling the discomfort of that meal.

As well, I wanted a nap.

So around 1 p.m., I returned to bed. My brother was gone when I came out of it.

However, I had myself a stiff instant coffee, got ready, and then at 3:16 p.m. was on my way to the nearest shopping mall no less than a mile from here. I had to walk because I do not drive.

Anyway, I got a couple of bottles of booze and a batch of lottery tickets as finalizing gifts, and thus I feel content where tomorrow is concerned.

We got maybe an inch or so of snow overnight and well into the morning ─ it has still been trying to snow all day, but a very light rain has prevailed because temperatures are so relatively mild. All pavement is clear of any snow ─ even sidewalks. It only exists on lawns and other natural ground.

Before I close ─ I am expecting my brother is likely going to be coming home with his girlfriend Bev to spend the night with us, so we'll be watching Christmas movies and having drinks together if this is the case ─ I want to link to the two videos that my brother and I watched late this morning and through the noon hour.

We watched them on T.V. via our Android TV Box and the browser apps that I have downloaded into it.

The first video was Odessa Orlewicz's latest effort from yesterday, a 1¼-hour interview that she hosted: Dec 23rd- Four Vaccine Injured Canadians Tell Their Story And Are Left High And Dry By Our Corrupted Health System.

The second video ─ 51 minutes in duration ─ was uploaded to Rumble on December 8: Must watch - Dr. Sherri Tenpenny With Special Guest Dr. David E Martin. 

Dr. David Martin always has much to say as he does his best to expose the COVID-related hypocrisy and lies infesting the world today ─ they are the true infection that we need eradicated, and not some influenza whose strains are seemingly growing milder and milder.

Finally, I want to mention that today's mail brought a Christmas card from my old friend Bill's ladyfriend, Sandy. I mention this just for my own record.

Talk about cutting it close, though ─ I don't know when she mailed it, but she couldn't have timed it nearer!

Just One Christmas Shopping Day to Go!

I so badly intended to get out late this afternoon to hike the mile to the nearest shopping mall, but my resolve dissolved by the time I was standing outside the locked front door not much after 5:45 p.m.

It was of course dark, and no one else was home. My wife had to work at full day today at her friend's Thai restaurant; my younger brother had left for the afternoon while I was having an early afternoon nap; my youngest stepson was working; and my eldest stepson had left at dusk's approach to probably go snowboarding with a friend who left his van here in place of my stepson's car.

I was feeling maybe three ounces of rum and instant coffee, but I just could not compel myself to go anywhere. And now I am left with tomorrow as the final day in which to at least get some scratch lottery ticket packages as top-up presents for family and for Bev, my brother's girlfriend, who is to be spending Christmas with us.

In the hopes of adding some inspiration for that hike (I do not drive), I had just finished watching the 2012 Christmas movie Love at the Christmas Table (a far richer description of the movie is on offer at RissiWrites.com).

Did I enjoy it? Yes ... but I have no desire to ever watch it again. I was unable to surrender to the premise that two young people could be together since the age of four and not reveal their profound love for one another until after they had entered their 30s.

Granted, once the male character left town for post-secondary education, the two would only ever get together when he returned to have Christmas with his parents (actually, I am unclear if the woman married to his father was the character's actual mother, or else his step-mother).

The movie kept flashbacking consecutively to the various Christmases since the first one when the two little kids were thrown together when their fathers formed a business partnership, but the movie first opened with the main male character returning home in 'the present' after a four or five year hiatus ─ we were then treated to all of the Christmases that led up to this key final homecoming.

As I said, I enjoyed it, but it just did not 'grab' me. 

The lead female character was played by Danica McKellar, whom I am reasonably familiar with. I thought she was pretty damned cute back when she was a main fixture in the old T.V. series The Wonder Years.

The only other actor I could name was Back to the Future's Lea Thompson. I solidly recognized 'laid-back' actor Scott Patterson, but I had no idea what his name was, nor could I remember what T.V. series it was that made him so familiar (I now see that it was Gilmore Girls).

Lead actor Dustin Mulligan was vaguely familiar, but his name meant nothing to me. I now understand that he was a semi-regular on Schitt's Creek as the veterinarian to whom gorgeous-but-ditzy Alexis eventually becomes engaged.

Anyway, I am glad to have watched the movie.

Incidentally, late this morning my brother and I watched a 57-minute video uploaded to Rumble yesterday titled DR. ANDREW KAUFMAN "THERE IS NO DISEASE SUCH AS COVID19"!

I realize that there are both a germ theory and a terrain theory to explain transmissible or infectious diseases, and that Dr. Kaufman maintains that there is no such thing as a SARS-CoV-2 virus ─ or at least, not anything that has yet been isolated and proven to exist.

I was hoping that this interview would further help me to fathom precisely how Dr. Kaufman can be convinced of this, but he only generalized. 

According to him, as I understand it, viruses may not even exist. But how, then, explain something like smallpox and how its telltale symptoms devastated the North American Indian populations? 

I feel no more informed than I was before.

In the Christmas spirit, I followed that video with the classic 1944 musical Meet Me in St. Louis. 

I have of course been familiar with Judy Garland since I was a boy (I am now 72 years old), but I am only coming to realize in recent years that she was a very beautiful young woman.

I hoped that the movie might have historical / nostalgic appeal to my brother, but he gave up on it with about 40 minutes to go and supposedly retired to his bedroom to rest.

I sympathize ─ even I found the movie a little too much of a struggle to allow myself to become immersed into. There is nothing realistic about old musicals, and I did not realize that there were to be as many musical numbers in this one as there turned out to be.

Unfortunately, my brother departed from the movie just before it finally undertook a Christmas theme ─ and it was for the Christmas element that I tuned in this old feature. And so he never got to witness Judy singing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas", nor experience any of the emotions that only became aroused around that point in the rather long film (seven minutes shy of hitting two hours, although credits did eat up several minutes).

Again, I am glad that I watched the movie ─ one which I know I have watched decades ago, and probably more than once, but which I remember nothing of. But as I said, the musical numbers made it impossible for me to immerse myself into the story, and that becomes a problem ─ I need to be able to do that to truly enjoy this sort of movie.

And so I cannot imagine myself ever choosing to watch it again.

Well, it is approaching 7:20 p.m. right now, so I am going to sign off for today. Tomorrow, which will be my final chance to get out and shop, I will do my best to accompany my brother in the early afternoon when he goes to hook up with Bev. I will have him drop me off at the mall I spoke of.

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Christmas Booze Bought!

Since my younger brother arrived home last evening a little earlier than he has of late, I opted to add a movie to our viewing schedule ─ I had read that a minor supporting character in it became the basis for a somewhat comedic British T.V. series (Doc Martin) that I will one day add to our viewing roster.

The also comedic movie was released in the year 2000: Saving Grace.

What I did not realize was that I was very familiar with the actors portraying the two lead characters, and my brother immediately recognized the name of one of them: Brenda Blethyn. We have watched every episode to date of the British T.V. series Vera ─ Brenda has the lead role as Detective Chief Inspector Vera Stanhope ─ and deem ourselves to be fans of the actress.

As Vera Stanhope, Brenda pretty much always wears the same dowdy clothes, and herself appears to be some plodding, modest, maternal figure. Only late into the movie Saving Grace did I realize that she was likely a rather attractive woman in her younger years. As Vera, the impression is given that she was always plain.

Anyway, the movie was quite fun, and it was nice seeing former talk-show host Craig Ferguson in an acting role. As well, my brother never bitched over my movie choice.

I think that I am going to try to add Brenda Blethyn's entire T.V. and film acting credits as potential future viewing for my brother and I.

As for the T.V. series Doc Martin, I now see that there are two other movies (Doc Martin and Doc Martin and the Legend of the Cloutie) that feature the character and therefore will have to be watched first, for they predate the series. 

By the way, we watch our shows on T.V. via the apps that I have downloaded into our Android TV Box.

My wife had worked the full day yesterday at her friend's Thai restaurant, and was scheduled to work the latter half of today (i.e., a 4 p.m. start). She thus could have slept in, but she rose as if she had the earlier start yet again. Her full days commence at 11 a.m., so she will try to be up around 10 a.m., for she has a fair drive to get to the restaurant.

The reason for her early rising this morning was that she professedly wanted to get out to do some shopping; it was not until the early afternoon that she returned.

Shortly after 9 a.m. this morning, I tuned in a 51-minute video that had been uploaded to BitChute earlier today: CHRIS SKY EXPOSES BILL GATES, GEORGE SOROS, AND THE MEDICAL TYRANNY CABAL. My brother and I always enjoy what Chris has to say.

I knew that my brother was going to have to pick up his girlfriend Bev at 10 a.m. and drive her to work, so I ensured that I was prepared to go along with him in order for him to stop at the government liquor store near where she lives.

The store is two miles from here, and consequently the walk ─ or at least, the walk back home toting my purchases ─ is more than I presently feel like undertaking anymore.

This time I was not after any beer. My target was a second bottle of Scotch as part of the Christmas gift package intended for my brother; and I also bought four bottles of imported wines for my wife ─ these will serve as her Christmas present.

The full bill came to $105.10.

And now I have two shopping days in which to get whatever it is that I shall be getting for my two stepsons. I also want to get some scratch lottery tickets ─ I want to get a gift pack of tickets for my brother's girlfriend Bev, for she will be spending Christmas with us.

It was while my brother and I were away that my wife rose. 

All else that he and I were to watch was a 35-minute video titled The Librti Show Ep. 30 - From Zeros to Heroes – Ezra Wellness:

Ezra Wellness was established in Sept 2021 in response to the ongoing long-term erosion of the integrity of the government’s healthcare system and ultimately in response to the coercive vaccine mandates imposed on healthcare professionals.

Ezra Wellness will restore non-discriminatory, universal access to health services for all Canadians. 

Initially I had gone online to EzraWellness.com and found myself quite disappointed with what I found. Only later did I realize that the correct URL is EzraWellness.ca. 

As far as I can tell, the two Ezra Wellnesses are entirely unrelated. The proper Canadian Ezra Wellness is founded by a rather attractive woman named Svetlana Dalla Lana. 

I have some exercising that I want to perform, and then I intend a bath. Otherwise, I likely would have tried to fit in a Christmas movie before my brother arrives home in the evening ─ he left here ahead of mid-afternoon to eventually hook up with his girlfriend Bev. I expect that they have some drinks and watch T.V. at her home, since my brother is unvaccinated and thus unable to frequent the small bar where Bev is employed part-time. 

He has nowhere near that he can frequent ─ most such businesses obey the unlawful provincial mandates concerning these false vaccines.

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💀☠💀☠💀☠ An Unfulfilling Dawning of Winter 2021

And so the vile self-destructive cycle continues as I live my version of a lifelong 'Groundhog Day'. 

I remained home last evening, just as I will be doing this evening ─ in other words, I am reducing my Christmas shopping days to a mere three.

I cannot lay any blame upon my wife for last evening, even though she did arrive home reasonably soon after dark. I had already surrendered ─ I had given up all further notion of hiking anywhere to do any kind of shopping.

In my defence, I do not drive, so hiking is all that is left to me. And I am 72 years old. I had no desire to confront the world during the exceptionally sunny day; but I lost my courage when it came time to venture anywhere after dark. However, the shopping mall I intended to visit a mile from here closes at 7 p.m. Mondays through Wednesdays, so I was not up to the challenge of fighting any sort of deadline.

But enough of yesterday.

My wife had to work the full day today at the Thai restaurant where she is employed part-time, so she left here just after 10:30 a.m. to make her 11 a.m. start. It looked rather icy out there.

At the time, my younger brother and I were watching a very long (2¾ hours) video interview by Joe Rogan that had been uploaded to BrandNewTube on December 15: Dr. Peter A. McCullough | ⁣#1747 - The Joe Rogan Experience. Dec 13, 2021.

Had my brother only mentioned early on that he was to be heading out to pick up his girlfriend Bev around 1:30 p.m. to do some shopping, I could have geared myself up for the opportunity and gone with him ─ we could have parted company in downtown Whalley and I could finally have begun my own specialized shopping. But he said nothing until nigh noon, by which time I had eaten a rather heavy breakfast and bore no inclination to be thrust into the world. 

After all, I foolishly reasoned, I could always get out on my own later after a bracing nap, for the day was overcast and it actually began to rain lightly in the afternoon. Unlike yesterday, I would not be oppressed by the wearing glare of oppressive sunshine.

Upon informing me of his schedule, he then sought some bed rest. There was still a half hour or so of the video remaining, so I continued with it. And then instead of napping, I began to self-destruct, entering into that aforementioned cycle.

I never did nap.

In the vain hope that two or three ounces of rum and some instant coffee consumed while watching a Christmas movie would inspire me to get out around 5 p.m. or soon thereafter, I used our Android TV Box to tune in 2012's A Christmas Wedding Date. (Better descriptions can be found at CountdownUntilChristmas.com and FilmBlanc.info.) 

The movie was pleasant enough, and I got a kick out of George Wendt as a cab-driving Christmas angel; however, the main character as played by actress Marla Sokoloff just did not appeal to me. Certainly, she was most definitely extremely pretty; but her physical type otherwise was not biologically attractive to me. 

Was that why I did not respond to the movie such that I have no interest in ever re-watching it? Perhaps. It has been a long, long time since I failed to find the lead actress in other Christmas movies sexually appealing.

Marla looked somewhat familiar as an actress, but I could not pinpoint anything that she acted in before as being why. Nevertheless, in referring to past posts, I see that I posted about her back on December 6, 2020 when I reported on the watched movie Gift of the Magi. 

But even so, I have no memory of her. 

Once A Christmas Wedding Date was done, I did ready myself and actually set off for the mall a mile away. Yet I had no appetite whatsoever for the undertaking. And when I had barely walked beyond the house and discovered that I had left my wallet at home, that was all it took to fully deflate my flaccid balloon.

I was defeated.

I returned home to stay, and got to work on this post.

I want to mention discovering (while working on this post) that a fourth season finale of a T.V. series I follow and had watched last week was actually the series finale ─ I had no idea. The series is Good Girls. 

Articles about that series finale episode at both TVFanatic.com and TVLine.com seem to me to be indicating that the episode was two hours long, but that was not the case when I watched it ─ the episode seemed to me to be of normal duration.

Ahh! I think that maybe the final two episodes ran in sequence on the same evening ─ I would not have realized that, for I can choose to watch a single episode anytime I might want, and thus I would not have any idea the the penultimate episode was originally aired on the same evening right ahead of the ultimate or finale episode.  

Oddly, though, I don't recall character Annie (played by Mae Whitman) being arrested and facing an indeterminately long prison sentence, thereby sacrificially taking the fall for her sister Beth and their friend Ruby. 

Maybe I saw the arrest, but it didn't register as mattering, for I figured that it was just part of the continuing story and she would be free in the next episode?

Lord, it's after 7:30 p.m. ─ I have to stop blogging and get this published.

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Movies With My Brother

There is little to report this sunny, cold day. Certainly I could extend the post with general blather, but I am choosing not to become so engaged and would prefer some far more productive activity such as getting out of the house and at least seeing about perhaps buying scratch lottery ticket packages for the five people who will be part of the coming Christmas weekend.

Unfortunately, the nearest mall or shopping centre with one or more lottery kiosks or stations is a mile from here, and I would have to walk there (I do not drive). The complex closes at 7 p.,m., and it is already 4:22 p.m. as I type these words.

I could have gotten out earlier this afternoon had I felt better, but I was too in need of a nap, and the brilliant sunshine was thus a huge deterrent ─ my weary eyes wanted nothing to do with the glare of the day. As well, I prefer some anonymity as is not found in the brilliance of a sunny day.

I could have gotten a ride with my younger brother when he left here for the afternoon around 2:30 p.m., but I was simply too in need of that nap.

And so I wish to create this token post to clear away any cause or excuse for remaining home.

I think that all I really have to report is the movie that I watched last evening with my bitching brother. He bitched as soon as he realized that I was tuning in a movie via our Android TV Box and not one of the series we normally watch. However, he withheld commentary once the movie got underway, for it was clearly not some 'teen flick' ─ the miserable 69-year-old is so far removed from his young adulthood that he can no longer identify with 'coming of age' films.

The movie I tuned in was 2018's Anon.     

I was barely vaguely familiar with male lead actor, Clive Owen, but female lead Amanda Seyfried was wholly unfamiliar.

The futuristic police detective story was suspenseful and even violent enough to normally be of interest to my brother, but he has this perpetual 'hard on' to be as damned supercritical as he can of any movie I select. His horizons have closed in, perhaps from too many years of daily drinking that have reduced too much of his brain.

Whatever the case, he watched the movie sans further complaint, as I said; and then when it was done, he had to throw the usual barb / insult by growling, "I don't know where you find these things."

Then he soon added, "Why don't you watch them in the afternoon when you're home alone?"

What the shallow-brained dolt is unable to fathom is that until a movie is watched, there is no way of knowing if one is going to find it enjoyable or not. He actually complained at the sight of the movie's poster icon when I was selecting it that it "already did nothing for him" ─ that was when he adjudged it to be yet another movie directed at teenagers:

He clearly works in overdrive to be as unforgivingly critical and censorious of me as he possibly can whenever it comes to a movie ─ even a decently entertaining movie will get discounted when it has run its course, and I will get insulted for having the most foul and / or feeble movie-sense that it is possible for anyone to develop. 

He is unable to be complimentary ─ never has he done aught but bitch and complain about anything I have tuned in by way of a movie. He only wants to watch T.V. series. 

Nevertheless, I will not be cowed, and neither will I spend my afternoons watching my movies just because my bitter brother has become so infernally shallow. I will continue to opt for a movie on the occasional evening despite his protests and infantile complaining ─ heck, I don't even choose as many as two movies a week, for Pete's sake! 

He has never learned how to operate our Android TV Box, so I claim every right to watch an occasional movie on any evening of my choosing. He can go to bed if he doesn't like it.

Our Christmas Lights Aglow

In perusing my wife's Facebook account, I came across a photo that she had posted that was reportedly taken by her youngest stepson after he finally set up some Christmas lights under the upper storey eaves at the front of our house ─ we have never had Christmas lights up there before.

All of the other Christmas lights in the following photo are my handiwork, but most of them are left up year round ─ all I had to do this season was set up the lights of that archway in front of our front door:

Perhaps I will also include this bit of Facebook advertising for my wife ─ she posted this yesterday as a struggling agent for various health-related products from Thailand's The iCon Group:

Anyway, I downloaded that Christmas lights photo after using Online-Convert.com to enlarge it, and then I uploaded it to this post. If I had access to the original photo, I know that it would be far sharper and probably larger as well, for that stepson has quite a fancy camera with a tripod. He had set it up on the carport roof as he worked at stringing the unfortunately subdued lights that are apparent in the photo, so he likely also took video footage.

I just have no idea what he does with the images he captures. Perhaps he has some, most, or even all stored somewhere in "the cloud", for he has had the camera for a couple or so years. He's very secretive online with his accounts. 

When he bought those lights that he set up along the eaves of that upper storey, he had no idea that the fairly large bulbs were going to be as dim as they turned out to be. I bet that is not a feature prominently advertised on the product box (two boxes, actually, for he bought two sets of the light strings).

It was around 5:30 p.m. by the time we were all finished, and we left the lights ablaze for passersby to see. I was to finally unplug them just before going to bed, so I probably did so around 11:30 p.m. last evening.

Earlier that evening before my younger brother had gotten home, I tuned in a so-called Christmas movie from 2012 titled Holiday Spin. 

As Christmas movies go, it was a considerable disappointment. Certainly, Christmas music and decor abounded as the movie progressed, but an article at TheMovieScene.co.uk ─ Holiday Spin (2012) ─ identifies the problem: 

But whilst "Holiday Spin" has more TV movie cliches than you could shake a tail feather at it is also a Christmas movie as well as a dance movie. But the thing about "Holiday Spin" is that like all Lifetime movies it puts the emphasis on the cliches so as a Christmas movie I don't rate it with it really only used as a backdrop for the drama whilst being a dance movie means we have a variety of training cliche scenes and enough giving Garrett Clayton to appear shirtless. Maybe for fans of Clayton this will be enough but for me it wasn't and sadly "Holiday Spin" is one of those movies you watch, waiting for something good to happen and finding yourself still waiting when the movie is over.

What this all boils down to is that "Holiday Spin" didn't do it for me and in truth was a bit of a disappointment as it failed to deliver on the Christmas whilst the dancing side of the movie was often far too cheesy. 

Amen! Heck, there was a scene at a huge Christmas party where people supposedly were spontaneously dancing, but it was clearly intricately rehearsed and far too involved to have just been impromptu coordinated moves that were 'spur of the moment' as we the viewers were supposed to accept.

There was absolutely no feel or sense that this was a Christmas movie despite its trappings. 

I also found the acting at times to be amateurish and overdone. Ralph Macchio spent most of the movie looking ridiculously pained emotionally. And the closing scene where his character and his character's erstwhile estranged adult son embrace in reconciliation for a ludicrously long time ─ there is no telling how long the embrace endured, for the movie slowly faded out while that unnaturally lengthy embrace was still on strong display ─ was more than I could credit as being plausible.

Should I mention that I have never been a Ralph Macchio fan? It's not that I dislike the guy, but the fuss about "The Karate Kid" never managed to get passed along to me. When that first movie came out in 1984, I was 34 years old and with absolutely no interest in what I knew of the plot. I don't even know if I would have had any interest in it had I been 12 years younger (and thus around Ralph Macchio's age). But movies about some martial artist "kid" just didn't appeal to me in my middle age. And so I have never sat down to watch one of them. 

The actor (Garrett Clayton) playing the 17 - 18-year-old son in Holiday Spin was probably 21 years old, and he looked it. When I saw him delivering something to his character's mother's dance studio while she was teaching a group of youngsters, I honestly thought that they supposed to be a couple. He had quite a prominent 'five o'clock shadow', and the early part of the movie had him sparring in a boxing ring MMA-style with another dude. There was absolutely nothing indicating that this was some 17-year-old teen ─ I wholly accepted that he was a young adult into his 20s. And that seemed all the more certain when he learned after that sparring match that there was an MMA scout who wanted to arrange to check him out.

To be honest, apart from the fact that I had poured myself a dark rum to watch the movie with, it was actress Allie Bertram who alone held my interest. What a lovely young woman! It was easy to accept that her character was still a virgin. 

And I couldn't get enough of those nicely-muscled legs of hers!

The most comprehensive biography I can find on her is at WikiCelebs.com where I see that she is just shy by about three months of being two years older than her co-star Garrett Clayton.

Alas, I have no intention of ever again watching this movie. Sure, it was interesting enough, I suppose; but it was definitely NOT a Christmas movie. And thus I have no reason to ever bother seeing it again.

By the way, I did not realize that the movie was filmed very near to where I live in Surrey ─ apparently in nearby Langley and Abbotsford. See this December 21, 2012 North Shore News article: Talented dancers go for a Holiday Spin. 

I think that drink of three or more ounces of dark rum ─ which I later followed with two cans of beer (one at 8% alcohol, the other at 5%) ─ likely adversely affected me. I did not have a particularly good sleep overnight, and there was no motivation to try to rise early to do some shopping.

The day has been sunny and rather chill, so what little frozen snow remains is not much thawing and melting. We will most likely be having a freezing night tonight.

I watched quite an interesting interview performed by Dr. Joseph Mercola ─ I tuned it in during the latter morning to watch on T.V. with my younger brother: VAERS Data and What it Reveals About COVID Jab Safety- Interview with Jessica Rose, Ph.D.

It was uploaded to BitChute on December 15, and is just under 1½ hours in duration.

As with the movie I discussed above, we watch most of our shows on T.V. for free via our Android TV Box.

My brother and I have seen Dr. Jessica Rose on several videos in recent months, and I have grown quite attracted to the woman ─ I really love her girlish laugh. Sometimes I will become so enrapt while watching her that I will focus overmuch on her and not what she is saying, and then I will pull myself out of the state and resume paying attention.

Both my brother and I sought some further bed rest during the noon hour ─ perhaps I waited until 1 p.m. or soon thereafter; I rose from that nap to find that my brother had already left for the afternoon. My eldest stepson was home, but his younger brother had left for work during the mid-morning.

I am unclear, but I may yet do some shopping at some point soon after dark. But whether or not, I will definitely have to get cracking during the week, for I have yet to get my Christmas shopping done. I do have a 750-ml bottle of Scotch for my brother, but I would like to get him another. And I would also like to get a good bottle of merlot for my wife, and some sort of appealing bottle of drink each for my two stepsons. I also want to get everyone some scratch lottery tickets ─ and that will include my brother's girlfriend Bev, for she is to be spending most of the Christmas weekend with us.

I have some exercising that I want to do, and I also have to have a bath. it is already nearing 5 p.m., so it may well be that I am going to remain home and obligate myself to somehow get my Christmas shopping done during the coming five days.

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