Oh, I was angry last evening!
As written in yesterday's post, I had decided to get away between 9 - 9:30 p.m. on a five-mile walk that would see me buying a bottle of Scotch for my younger brother's birthday quickly approaching, and a half-dozen beers for myself ─ some of which to reward myself for the walk home, for the private liquor store I intended is the halfway point in that walk.
So biding time earlier in the evening (after resting up for an hour or so in bed earlier still that evening), I first tuned in a 41-minute April 2013 video on YouTube: DP/30: Pasadena, actor Alicia Witt.
I adore Alicia Witt! She sounds and looks so much like a young woman I was absolutely addicted to in the early 1980s.
I opened a can of my strong (8% alcohol) malt to enhance my mood.
I next watched a 19-minute video on YouTube of an excellent women's MMA match that originally took place December 7, 2013: Tecia Torres dominates in match-up against Felice Herrig.
The fight went the distance, but Tecia Torres was unquestionably the more formidable opponent despite Felice Herrig valiantly advancing on her for most of the match.
Both women were American; and Tecia was a mere inch over five feet, while Felice was three inches taller than Tecia.
However, Tecia was one jacked little babe! Her legs were spectacularly muscled; and even Felice's were quite good, such that when the two women were struggling together against the cage, their thighs looked statuesque!
I am less enthusiastic about Tecia now that I have learned that she is Gay and so involved with another woman that they acquired a baby together ─ I think Tecia was the one who birthed it.
As for Felice, she apparently retired from MMA last year after suffering a fourth consecutive defeat. No doubt in her mind, she had begun to eclipse as a fighter.
Anyway, I was all set to turn off the T.V. and quickly dress for my outing when I espied my contrary brother about to arrive home ─ I was trapped, and had wasted a precious beer.
It was somewhere between 9:15 - 9:20 p.m.
Furious, I was absolutely NOT going to become involved with my brother and reward him for thwarting my plans, so I turned off the Android TV Box and the T.V. and hustled on up to my bedroom where I shut myself in.
Had I only been sensible and been all dressed to leave, my brother's unexpected arrival would not have been the impediment that it was. He almost always comes upstairs to change into lounge wear whenever he gets home. Had I been all dressed to go, I could have waited in my bedroom until he had gone into his own, and then I could have slipped out and been away.
So the fault was my own.
And now I was going to have to soon get to bed and have my cellphone alarm set for 1:45 a.m. to get me up for the usual nighttime five-mile walk.
I did not get to sleep anytime soon ─ that hour or so I had earlier in the evening spent abed had largely obviated any easy sleep.
Yet that said, a point arrived in the night after I was managing sleep when I was awake enough to be curious on the time ─ it was 1:43 a.m., so my alarm would be chiming in under two minutes.
Acting quickly, I rose and cancelled the alarm, and then slowly began readying. Unfortunately, one of my two stepsons was still up, and this often inhibits my readying process, since I have to prepare surreptitiously and then attempt to sneak away unnoticed ─ my walks are my own affair, and I prefer no one be privy to them.
It was probably 2:18 a.m. once I was outside the locked front door and working my way down the driveway. I had taken the time to weigh myself sans my lightweight black denim jacket, and discovered that I was at least two pounds lower than I was two nights earlier ─ i.e., I was down to 192 / 193 pounds.
Even so, when early into my walk I stopped at an elementary school playground for six sets of pull-ups and chin-ups, I only achieved what has become my norm of late: four repetitions in the first set, and two repetitions in each of the remaining five, while holding the very last pull-up at highest elevation for a 10-count.
It looked as if there was a full moon last night.
A mile or slightly more into my walk, I saw a skunk hustle across the highway I was walking ─ it even had to cross over a median, so it knew what it was doing, wasting no time whatsoever.
I later put in some slow jogging along a fairly lightly trafficked avenue so as to make time ─ I like these ventures to be as much as a half dozen minutes under an hour. Well, this one was not to be.
While on the return leg of my walk, I had come along 96th Avenue and just turned onto Green Timbers Way (Google Map), when I coincided with a fellow who was coming along Green Timbers Way and was himself just about at the intersection.
Normally I do my best to detour from such coincidences, for as I say, I am not out on these walks to meet people, make friends, nor give away my money.
I recognized the figure as being a homeless person I have heard as being referenced as "Stickman", for he always has a long staff of sorts that he bears and can often be seen making manoeuvres with it. As usual, he had a pole of a length of maybe eight feet.
I expect that we rather surprised one another; but I had passed him by (he was barely even walking, probably because he had no urgency about getting anywhere), when he spoke out after me, asking if everything was okay?
I had been railing aloud shortly before as I walked 96th Avenue and was approaching Green Timbers Way, so I could only conclude that he had heard my approach.
Somewhat wary, I allowed myself to be engaged in some conversation. To my surprise, I found the chap to be quite genial and talkative. I had always assumed that he was perhaps 'challenged'.
He was considerably slighter than I, but just about as tall.
And could he ever talk! He was probably socially starved.
I had decided that I would probably give him the $10 that I had in my wallet, for he was attired in the drabbest of wear, including a baggy old dark sweatshirt and similar pants, old dark sneakers, and on his hands were a pair of coverings that were merely a band of fleece or other material that crossed across the palms, separating thumbs from the fingers.
Possibly these abbreviated 'gloves' were extensions of the sleeves of his old sweatshirt.
I got him to reveal his actual name: "Charles".
He cautiously asked if I would care to buy his pole for $10? If so, he would teach me various motions he had developed that somehow facilitated movement.
Man, that proved to be a topic that should not have been entered into, for Charles could almost not be stopped from performing a series of peculiar dance-like actions, none of which I would ever dare to engage publicly at 73 years of age ─ I had to impress a few times that my years of any flexibility and ease of mobility were now behind me.
Charles had the strangest understanding of the world around him ─ his views were so surreal and esoteric that I cannot even reproduce them here because I could not grasp any of his concepts. He spoke of things like being able to move ─ as in running ─ until the universe and all of his surroundings were actually passing him by, and not he they.
He spoke of it being theoretically possible to be running up trees, basically somehow stepping ─ leaping ─ from one trunk to the next. But there were all manner of spiritual associations involved.
He tried to explain how a group of people could all have a 'string' or rope and by some synchronous motion be able to abet one another into ascending things like not only tall tree trunks, but even cliff faces.
He spoke of having a few months back seen a snake thicker than his arm ─ double the thickness ─ slithering in the woods, but whose length he had no estimation of; he initially thought that it was a fallen small tree trunk until he realized that it was moving. He never saw its full size ─ just that section of it gliding along.
Then he explained that large snakes can glide through the high treetops, for they have 'trails' amongst the boughs.
Charles' dark eyes were almost glistening, and he was keenly alert ─ not in the least someone whose senses seemed dulled. He had the countenance of someone of considerable intelligence, but it was clear that it would be impossible to reign him in and keep the conversation 'normal'.
A few times he confessed that he knew he talked a lot. And a couple of times he offered to give me back my $10 if I wanted it back ─ he even said I could keep the stick.
A couple or more times he asked if I wanted him to show me some trail, or the location of another fellow (Floyd) whom I had met earlier in the year who was 'camped out' in the area, and had been resident for a year or more.
I think Charles was likely lonely, whether or not he understood that he was. I did not ask his age, but I would venture him to have been no more than half my age. He was not bearded, but he was unshaven of several days' standing.
Note that I gave him back his precious stick, and said I didn't want back my $10 when he again asked.
I finally got away from him by honestly stating that I needed to be on my way because I wanted to be home ahead of the commencement of the earliest morning commuters, and already some would be making their appearance on foot and in their vehicles. As well, the sky was losing its darkness.
So we parted ─ we actually embraced; I said that in the future (for I had seen him before several times) I would look out for him on the streets. True this was, but I would likely detour from him if I saw him and he did not realize who I was.
When I departed from Charles, he just seemed to stand and watch me as I faded into the distance. He was not on any mission, and was in no rush to be going anywhere at all.
The problem with me is that I have no time for these serendipitous delays. I walk when I do in order to avoid as much of the public as I can, and the street traffic.
By the time I was back outside the locked front door, it was 4:48 a.m. ─ a full 2½ hours since I had left home. I had donated a little over half an hour to Charles.
I have no life, but my empty life is so chock full of routine that I cannot spare the time it would take to seek out people like Charles and Floyd. I do not drive, so to conceivably visit with either of these guys intentionally is not really feasible. Thus, when it occurs via happenchance, I do not have the time for it. My time abroad is quite strictly budgeted.
And so if I do espy Charles or Floyd from a distance, it would only be inopportune, and I would detour from them if at all possible.
By the way, one reason for my lighter overall body weight was that I only had one meal yesterday. That can of malt turned out to be my supper.
My return to bed this morning was likely ahead of 6 a.m., and my day was to commence by maybe 8:15 a.m. After I joined my brother for some T.V., at 9 a.m. he bade me to put our Android TV Box to work, so I tuned in the more than half of what remained of a video we had left from yesterday.
Even though the BitChute video was over 2½ hours long (2:32:09), we were to discover that it ended abruptly and therefore the interview must have been even longer: RFK Jr. and Joe Rogan 6-15-2023.
It was excellent!
We afterwards watched three ─ no, four short videos; and then I tuned in a movie I had recorded some time ago ─ 2012's Cowgirls 'n Angels.
To my surprise, my brother had us watch the whole thing, even though it took us to something like 1:10 p.m.
I originally recorded it because it featured Alicia Witt, but her role was quite secondary. The main role went to Bailee Madison, who played a 12-year-old, and Alicia's movie daughter.
The only other 'name' actor to me was James Cromwell.
Anyone interested could watch this family movie online at WAT32, for one example. Another is Keymovies, but be sure to have a good ad-blocker.
Due to some mechanical issues presented by a couple of red warning indicators on the dashboard of my brother's van, he decided to bus away to socialize this early afternoon. Today is a statutory holiday, so he figured that he would be unable to have the van checked out until tomorrow, and thus did not care to risk driving it.
He left while I was having an early afternoon nap.
Although it was sunny, I never sunned this afternoon. Today is a bath day, and between that imminent chore and the time it takes to finish blogging, I correctly assessed that I did not have the time to sun.
I have no plans to be sitting up this evening, so there will be another early a.m. walk overnight for which I will need to retire sensibly early ─ I must ensure that my brother does not arrive home afoot and catch me unawares.
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