Pay Attention

The end may well be nigh!

Bedtime last evening may have been as early as 9:30 p.m. Certainly, I intended an early shopping expedition this morning to the nearest Save-On-Foods (here in the greater Whalley, Surrey, area) that is not quite a mile from where I live, and which opens at 7 a.m.; but I intended to also get in something of a walk beforehand. 

The early bedtime also allowed me to avoid my younger brother who had arrived home around then from his beery socializing, for I had no desire to be sitting up watching any T.V.

My cellphone alarm was set for 4 a.m.

I slept very intermittently overnight, but always refrained from checking the time. And when the alarm finally did sound, I was not exactly sleeping.

My eldest stepson evidently was working a graveyard shift (6 p.m. to 6 a.m.) at Tree Island Steel, for his car was not here. I would not have to be concerned of him inconveniently (for me) getting up for a day shift.

The plan had been to leave here shortly before 6 a.m., but as I typically do, I failed to manage it. However, it was no more than a minute or two after 6 a.m. when I left home in the dark.

It feels so unusual to leave here at that time of morning and find it to still be fully dark.

Early into my walk, I took the time to stop at an elementary school playground to perform just two sets of pull-ups on the gymnastics-style rings featured there, managing six and then two repetitions in those sets.

It could well have been around 6:45 a.m. by the time I reached the intersection of 140th Street & 100th Avenue (Google Map) so that I could begin following the trail that you can see which meanders just below 100th Avenue through the Green Timbers Urban Forest, but it was still almost dark. I usually follow that trail to where it has its first intersection with another major trail; and at that intersection, I take to the new trail and follow it down the map to where it comes out near the intersection of Green Timbers Way & 96th Avenue (Google Map). And that is what I did this morning.

By that point the early daytime was underway and all was pretty much bright.

My usual course is to follow Green Timbers Way to where I can cut through and past the Jim Pattison Outpatient Care building, for my next target is the intersection of Fraser Highway and 140th Street (Google Map).

From there it is not too far to King George Boulevard which is very near to my Save-On-Foods shopping destination (Google Map). 

I had brought along $100 cash with which to shop, for my wife had left too little of my monthly pension remaining in the chequing account, so I dared not use my debit card to access any of that. There are a few automated debits that will likely hit the account tomorrow.

As it was to happen, I resisted getting everything I had considered buying, yet the tally still exceeded $70. I only have $160 remaining on hand safely here at home for future such shopping excursions ─ yet I only received my monthly pension last Tuesday!

It is oppressive trying to weather my wife's gambling and shopping addictions.

I suppose of note concerning my Green Timbers Urban Forest walk was that soon after I had been walking the trail while it was still relatively dark, there was a very powerfully-voiced owl sounding off in a treetop. Less disconcerting considerably later was an equally unseen croaking frog.

My eldest stepson was home by the time I was back here, for it was something like 8:12 a.m. by then. I was soon back in my bed resting up, thinking that I would be watching some T.V. with my brother a little later in the morning.

Well, that was not to be. Oh, I did join him, thinking that I would soon enough be watching our usual morning fare; but instead, he tuned in a 10 a.m. Seattle Seahawks versus Detroit Lions NFL game.

I left him to it. I far preferred working at a new post I have recently begun at one of my two hosted websites. 

Heck, there are lots of things that I would prefer doing than sitting to watch an American football game.

I see that Seattle barely won with a 48 - 45 score, so at least my brother's sacrificed midday bed rest must have been worthwhile. I took a nap late into the noon hour while he was still involved with that game, and he was gone for the day when I later rose.

The day was sunny, so at 2:05 p.m. I began 1¼ hours of sunning out in the backyard while attired in just cutoffs.

I have been feeling somewhat out of sorts this afternoon since then ─ I am lacking anything resembling verve. I also feel rather weak. 

Even so, I am going to attempt some exercise, and then see if I have time to find and watch a Christmas movie with which to enjoy a little drink.

Last year at this time ─ well, it was October 6th when I made my final post that month until November 2nd when I next posted ─ I developed a very serious pneumonia. The hospital I finally got taken to declared me to have "COVID pneumonia", but everything respiratory gets labelled "COVID", so I see no reason to gullibly accept that verdict.

In recent years, I seem to have experienced a fair number of cases of ill fortune during the Fall months of October and November, so I find myself feeling rather wary.

Perhaps this unusual sunny weather that is allowing me to sun so late into the year will help ward off anything particularly vexatious.