My younger brother arrived home last evening about an hour earlier than usual ─ 8:20 p.m. at most, as I recall. I had to cancel out of an old episode of Cybil, shut down our Android TV Box, and turn off the T.V. while also turning on the stereo, before hightailing it upstairs to my bedroom to hide away for possibly 40 minutes ere going to bed.
I had no intention of becoming involved in any T.V. with my brother ─ I had plans to get up at 2 a.m. and undertake a 5½-mile walk while also depositing the monthly expenses reconciliation cheque he had given me two or three days ago.
I am glad that I was not to be watching T.V. with him ─ I could tell that he was plastered. He phoned an old friend of his, and the loud language and vocal mannerisms customary of his inebriated persona were exceedingly apparent.
He even has a fake laugh that he constantly uses when in this state ─ something like, "Heh, heh, heh, heh, heh." It starts off rather loud, and descends in volume with each "heh" until it peters out.
It is a deliberate affectation of a drunk's perceived concept of what a laugh is supposed to be, for he is too far removed from being able to be affected by actual humour. He is actually speaking the words, and not spontaneously laughing.
Well, kudos to his old friend Frank for weathering the call. He and this Frank have been friends since the late 1970s when they both were working at some remote logging camp ─ my brother was the first-aid man / timekeeper, and Frank the camp cook.
I was able to slip in and out of sleep; and as often does happen, when my 2 a.m. alarm went off, I was into a wakeful period.
For once when I got myself up I was to find that neither of my stepsons was still up ─ I would not have to sneak away on my walk.
By the time I was out at street side and on my way it was 2:15 a.m.
I was to experience some spittings of rain over the course of my walk, but never was there a threat of me getting wet ─ even though all was dripping from earlier rain.
I had weighed myself just before leaving home in full attirement, including boots: easily, I was 200 pounds, and possibly just topping that figure. This was well in my mind when I stopped early into the walk for six sets of pull-ups and chin-ups at an elementary school playground.
The metal bars were wet, but I had a bandana with which to wipe them dry enough for me to be able to use my bare hands, managing three repetitions in the first set of pull-ups and then two repetitions in each of the other sets of both pull-ups and chin-ups.
Not too poor a showing for a 73-year-old working with as much overall weight as was I.
The ATM I intended to use is nigh a mile from home, but to my considerable annoyment, as I neared it I saw that an armoured car service ─ Brinks or whatever ─ was present at the ATM doing whatever it is that these people do.
So I had to continue on and make a return visit when on my way back home ─ I was a little uncomfortable about carrying my brother's cheque that I had already endorsed, even though it was only for something under $203 (as I remember). I bear a knife on these walks, but one never knows to what degree of thuggery one may be exposed.
Oddly, in the same vicinity of a skunk encounter when I had my walk fully 48 hours earlier, I was to probably encounter the same wee beast again. This time, it was in a stretch of grass between the sidewalk and 100th Avenue and near where Quibble Creek Greenway intersects with 100th Avenue (Google Map).
On my previous walk, I had been travelling 'up' the Quibble Creek Greenway as one looks at the map; but this time because I had gone to the ATM adjacent to King George Boulevard, I was walking directly up 100th Avenue ─ so, from the left of that same map.
I was left no choice but to cross over the avenue to the opposite side until I had given the skunk ─ busy rooting in the strip of grass ─ the prudent berth that it warranted.
There was not really aught else of note about my walk, apart from at one point as I travelled along the Fraser Highway and was approaching where Whalley Boulevard terminated onto it (Google Map). As one looks at that map, I was coming from the right, and was walking along the 'bottom' side of the highway.
A couple who had been scavenging came 'up' through a bit of a park and began walking my way ─ they had likely worked their way up from 137B Street (Google Map).
The young man was in the lead, bearing whatever he had earlier managed to bag, and the young lady was some feet in back of him and also bearing a load.
He looked askance at me as we silently passed one another, but my age is not obvious, and I present as being rather husky ─ he was a few inches shorter than my nearly five feet and 11 inches.
The ladyfriend some ways behind him did not apparently look at me, although she might have done so without turning her face. They both wore hoods, but I could tell from what I saw of her face that she was young and definitely attractive. I think that she was also a bit taller than her male companion, and seemed to be looking after her physique ─ no tendency towards any disregard on her part in that area.
She was young enough to have been my daughter, I am sure.
This sort of thing does affect me; and if I lived alone, I do believe that I would risk reaching out to some of these people after first assessing them in some studied conversation.
But I do not live alone.
My ATM was at most two blocks from there, and I was to get my deposit done safely. And by the time I was standing outside the locked front door of home, it was 4:16 a.m. Despite my route having been somewhat different than the previous one as a result of that ATM fiasco, there was only one minute's difference in the duration of the two walks.
And I was probably back into bed by 5 a.m. at latest, but not achieving much easy sleep. Even so, I remained abed until possibly as much as 8:45 a.m., by which time my brother was downstairs watching T.V.
When I soon enough joined him, and he thereafter invited me to put our Android TV Box into action, I tuned in the January 29 Rumble upload to the Vaccine Choice Canada channel ─ the video was just over an hour long (1:01:09): ENG SUBTITLES: STEVE KIRSCH - EXPOSING THE TRUTH.
ENGLISH SUBTITLES: Steve Krisch is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and philanthropist. He founded the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation in response to skyrocketing adverse events from the Covid-19 vaccine. The VSRF conducts research and raises awareness about the safety and efficacy of the Covid-19 vaccine. Steve has become an outspoken advocate for transparency in science and is exposing the truth about the dangers of all vaccines.
Steve Kirsch on Substack: https://stevekirsch.substack.com/
Vaccine Safety Research Foundation: https://www.vacsafety.org/
Then I tuned in a 58-minute documentary on BitChute: Henry VIII's Enforcer | The Rise and Fall of Thomas Cromwell.
A 2013 BBC History Documentary hosted by Diarmaid MacCulloch.
Thomas Cromwell has a reputation as one of the most notorious thugs ever to hold power in England. But Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch of Oxford University reveals another side to Henry VIII's chief minister. Cromwell emerges as a pioneering and principled statesman who ignited a religious and parliamentary revolution which laid the foundations for the modern British state.
We finished our viewing with an episode of Jack Irish.
My brother thereafter sought some bed rest, and was gone for the day by the time I was in my own bed seeking a nap.
That nap was most difficult to achieve. After settling into my bed, I was soon weeping hard.
My wife is presently in Rome, Italy, visiting a sister of hers who lives there. She left early in the evening of January 23.
As I have detailed often enough, my wife has a gambling addiction, and is incapable of staying out of casinos hereabouts. We are scores of thousands of dollars in debt, and her two sons are aware and quite unforgiving of her addiction, for it is alien to them that anyone could be that way ─ it makes no sense.
Well, she has been imploring me the past two or three days to transfer her $800. It would seem that she owes the money to someone ─ whether over there, or someone around here. My wife even gave me the E-mail address of this person so that I could directly make the transfer to her if I did not trust my wife to behave with the money.
In beseeching money for one reason or another, my wife always promises that she will repay it soon ─ usually before the next monthly mortgage due date. I only have a monthly pension for income, and already I try to pay three credit cards that she is responsible for having racked up ─ in total, I do my best to try and pay out $725 towards them.
As well, my wife has me on a life insurance policy that I am paying nearly $210 a month towards.
Obviously these payments devour a great amount of my available or net pension; and of what remains, the major part has to go towards the monthly mortgage. Fortunately, I get contributions from my brother and both of my stepsons.
Well, last month my wife's flight was on what was supposed to be the day the mortgage was going to be debited from our chequing account. But she had some days before taken most of what available pension money I had for the mortgage and gambled it away at the casino.
The evening before her flight, she kept promising me that this same night she would be transferring back enough money to make the mortgage payment possible, for she was expecting a $1,000 loan from her eldest son.
I sat up until around 4 a.m. on mortgage day, and had texted and phoned (she claimed later that I called something like 28 times) throughout, desperate to find out what in blazes she was doing ─ for all I knew, she was partying and maybe even gambling.
At the end, I left her two voice messages ─ and the second one was extremely loud and furious.
My eldest stepson heard me from his bed, and texted to ask what was wrong. So I told him. The mortgage debit might be attempted later than morning, and we were hundreds of dollars short on the mortgage.
So he got up and transferred me what was needed to comfortably cover the shortfall.
He later was furious with his mother ─ who claimed to have gone to bed early the previous night because her flight was imminent and she had much to do.
Maybe. But why did she not supply the needed mortgage shortfall?
So now she wants $800 to pay to somebody.
The only way I can send her $800 is if I tap the mortgage account ─ I certainly do not have $800.
And if I did that, and she failed to repay it before mortgage day, then her eldest son would once more have to be liable to make the mortgage payment possible ─ and he absolutely refuses to want to be in that position any longer.
He has now told me several times to not give her any money.
I have resisted her implorations. I had been doing so via text and also through Facebook Messenger, but it is so damned difficult to say very much coherently in those two media.
So this morning, I typed up the following and pasted it into Facebook Messenger and sent it to her at 10:20 a.m.:
J***, I know that you are sincere when you promise that you will repay money; but being sincere about repaying ─ and how soon you will repay ─ does not mean that you can actually do it.
Also, anything can go wrong ─ you have no control over that. Something can and usually goes wrong, and the repayment cannot be done on time or even at all.
Tho would have to pay again to cover the mortgage just like he did last month, and he does not want to take that risk. The $800 is pretty much mortgage money. What I would really be doing is once again forcing him to make up for that money if you fail to make good on when it can be replaced ─ I do not want to do that to him.
He has asked me not to make the transfer ─ your promises have had to be broken before, even if you did not mean for that to happen.
And like me, Tho probably wonders why you owe someone $800.
Did you buy something that you absolutely do not need ─ it was just something that you wanted, but did not actually need?
Once again, this need for status in the eyes of your friends and other people ─ you seem so weak because status is so important. You must have it, no matter what the price is to pay.
I remember when you would talk about a woman you knew who had a bad reputation among your friends and people you knew ─ this woman was always trying to borrow money, and hardly ever paying it back. She made a bad name for herself.
This is now who you are becoming. You are becoming that woman ─ if you have not already become her. The only reason that you might not yet be her is because you have used us to cover for what money you owe people.
I love you, Jack, but you are incapable of saving money, or even handling it safely ─ you throw it away, even when there is little of it and it is precious. You also treat credit like it is real money. It is not. Credit is exactly like borrowing ─ it is spending the money you will get in the future.
You get that future money, but in truth you do not really have it ─ you have already spent it as the credit you got earlier. You have worked for nothing, so you need to get more credit ─ borrow ─ because you have nothing.
And now you owe again. The next time you get paid, it is already gone because you already spent it as the credit or the borrowing debt you got last time.
And on it goes.
This is where you are, and you refuse to see it. You bury yourself in debt through credit and borrowing, and make it impossible to have the money that you earn or later get because it is all owed. You get paid … but none of it is yours anymore. You are already broke.
And on it goes again. You need to borrow or get credit to make it to the next payday.
In your desperation, you try to make us carry the responsibility for the mess you make of the money you have thrown away. Gambling is not your only addiction ─ spending is one too. You spend like crazy on things that you do not need ─ you just want them.
And you are bored. It is fun to get out and spend.
I don’t know how to help you.
She sent me a simple response at 11:28 a.m. (which would have been 8:28 p.m. this evening in Rome):
It was heartbreaking to have to send her what I did, but to get this in response was equally hard.
Was she being sarcastic and was fed up with my denial of financial help? ... or was she agreeing and saying that she understood that I was right?
I could only respond back at 1 p.m:
And so it was that when I sought that early afternoon nap soon afterwards, I dissolved emotionally.
I love my wife, and feel impotent in every sense of the word. How am I a provider? I am only a partial provider, reliant upon everyone in this household to make ends meet.
And I feel as if I have abandoned her.
I do not want to blog any further today.
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