The Spectating Owl

I am quite confident that I was to bed before it was yet 9:30 p.m. yesterday, and my cellphone alarm was set for 1:30 a.m. to get me up to ready for a five-mile+ walk.

I was not to hear my wife arrive home; and the chiming of my cellphone alarm pretty much roused me from some sleep ─ which is a far better state than me just lying there sleeplessly.

I was to find that no one else was up, although my eldest stepson was not home ─ possibly he had a graveyard shift.

When fully garbed to leave on my walk, I weighed about 185 pounds; and it was 2:30 a.m. once I was outside on the driveway and set to go. It was not freezing, but the temperature was not much above.

The sky might have been overcast ─ I don't remember. But all was dry.

When I got to the elementary school playground three or four blocks away, I was not to fare any better than the previous two nights: three and then two pull-ups in the first two sets; then the same with chin-ups.

However, I was not to use the gymnastics-style rings for the final two sets of pull-ups ─ I instead opted to use two of the bars on the jungle gym monkey bars.

The reason for this was because when I had completed the second set of pull-ups that I had started the session with, I was standing at the top of the relatively low ladder allowing the monkey bars to be reached when I noticed something most awry with the crossbar that the chains of the rings are attached to.

I had seen the the rings were all hanging properly ─ that is, vandals had not managed to wrap any of them around the very high crossbar.

But there was something piled atop the bar regardless. As I stood peering at the foot-high 'mound', I suddenly recognized that it was an owl. There it was ─ 10 feet at most from me, and not much higher than was my head.

So I performed the two sets of chin-ups without making too much of a show of it, doing my best not to breathe over-loud or groan or anything of that sort.

Then when those two sets were done I was going to quit the sets because the rings I would have used for the final two sets were of course immediately below my dark spectator.

Only then did it occur to me to instead just use two of the bars where I already was.

I had left my tote bag on the ground almost midway between the two pieces of playground equipment, so when I was done I measuredly dropped myself the short distance to the ground and then nonchalantly went and collected my tote bag, moving off in the direction from when I had come where I could finish with 11 slow full-range push-ups on a decline using a nearby cement ramp.

And away I went thereafter, leaving the owl in the dark on its playground perch where I had a close encounter with this odd human doing what must have been unimaginable activity in the ken of the owl. But I had posed no threat to it, so it merely felt content to observe.

This experience made me feel very good ─ it still does.

I expect that it was likely a barred (or hoot) owl.

I recall nothing else of note about the walk, and I think that it was 4:27 a.m. once I was back home. I believe that I may have been back into bed about an hour later.

Apparently my younger brother rose earlier than he wanted to due to sleeplessness, so around 8:50 a.m. I rose and quietly opened my bedroom door to ensure that he was not still in his own bedroom.

He was not; but he already had the T.V. on, which meant that he was finished reading through the Saturday morning edition of the Vancouver Sun that I subscribe to.

I joined him well past 9 a.m., and he was not too much longer in inviting me to put our Android TV Box into operation.

I led us off with Odessa Orlewicz's video (1:20:52 in length) from two days ago: 850 Million NDP Gov Payoff To Nurses Union To Go Rogue On The Nurses?

Blocked FOI's, very unusual massive amounts of $$$ promised from the NDP gov to the nurses union at the time of vax mandates, and leaders stepping down who were bullied to do the unthinkable. The soap opera of the BC, NDP/Healthcare corruption continues...Interview with BC nurse (who wouldn't take the juice) Corinne Mori who has a lot to say about what is truly going on behind the scenes...

Then it was over to Rumble's A Warrior Calls channel for a video added there yesterday: Corruption for Dummies.

It was typical Christopher James Pritchard fare, so I jumped through a good lot of the first part of the video, and cancelled out at its concluding Bravehart sequence that I have long ago gotten very tired of constantly having to watch at the finish of just about every A Warrior Calls video.

The last show my brother and I watched was an episode of the BBC Ghosts ─ episode three ("Pineapple Day") of series or season five. That brought us into the noon hour, so my brother returned to his bedroom for some bed rest.

I was undergoing my usual Sabbath fast, so I did not delay in getting to bed for a needed nap, and my brother was gone for the day when I rose a little past 2 p.m.

My wife had risen rather early this morning, but she did return to her bedroom in the late morning, so I was able to seek my nap without guilt.

It is possible that she remained in her bedroom until after I had risen from my nap and gone downstairs.

She had to work in the latter afternoon, but she was to leave no later than 2:45 p.m., it seems to me. She had lots of plant watering instructions for me, for apparently at some point she had gotten busy with a little gardening. Anyway, I gather that she will not be back until at least Monday night.

I spent my latter afternoon involved in blogging and a lengthy E-mail to my cousin Doug In Edmonton, and so was able to progress well into early evening's darkness and therewith my liberty to break my fast.

Prior to breaking my fast, a nude weigh-in resulted in 173 pounds at very most.

I chose to break my fast in the accompaniment of a Christmas movie ─ 2017's Christmas Next Door. I tried three different apps in our Android TV Box, but one came up dry, and the other two offered me some foreign-language dubbed version, so I shut down both of those two apps in disgust and used the Firefox app to fetch up the Yandex browser and the website UpMovies.to be able to watch the proper English version of the movie ─ see this link.

I enjoyed the movie a lot. Not quite as much as last evening's Christmas Inheritance that UpMovies.to has at this link. Christmas Inheritance had me emotionally reduced halfway through, whereas Christmas Next Door took at least 75% of the movie before my eyes began to burn.

Christmas Next Door was more 'interesting' over its course than it was what I most need in a Christmas movie to break me down to a sobbing mess.

I was home all alone, too. And besides my supper, I had two cans of Cariboo Malt (8% alcohol).

The lead actress bore the unwieldy (yes, I like that word over 'unwieldy') name of Fiona Gubelmann ─ I do not recall the name previously, although the actress did look somewhat familiar. She was cute, fit her jeans beautifully, and had a natural way about her that I felt was beyond just acting.

I liked her.

The actress portraying her sister was Brittany Bristow, and she was quite a looker, too. And although I thought that the two sisters were contemporaneous ─ or maybe even Brittany's character was slightly the elder ─ it turns out that actress Fiona is not much shy of being 10 years older than Brittany. Brittany had her 34th birthday just nine days ago, where late next month (i.e., March 30), Fiona will turn 44.

I liked Brittany, too.

Well, neither of my two stepsons have yet contributed anything towards next Thursday's mortgage payment, so all I dare risk buying by way of groceries tomorrow morning is a litre ─ possibly two ─ of Dairyland whipping cream.

I will not be rising ahead of 4 a.m., but since it is presently just after 9:30 p.m., I had best get this post over with and published so that I can be set to get to bed when I realize that my brother has shown up following his socializing.