Defining Forfent

I'm sure feeling 'off' today ─ I don't feel far from having an eyestrain-type headache.

I think that I was to bed last evening a mere minute or two past 9:30 p.m., my cellphone alarm set for 1:30 a.m. to get me up for a five-mile+ walk.

My effort to relax deeply into sleep was disrupted by my phone chiming at 9:44 p.m. Initially I wondered if the alarm setting had gone haywire, or I didn't set it properly; but then I realized that it was a phone call. However, it wasn't from anyone identifiable, so I let it be.

I discovered today that the culprit left me a 'voicemail' ─ it was my late old friend Bill's ladyfriend Sandy. She apparently also phoned the house phone and left a message, both times instructing to phone her back as soon as I heard the message.

She always says that, so it's not of importance ─ she's just bored.

I haven't the free time on my hands that she does, since I do not live alone and must accommodate my life to four others in this household.

She even sent me a Facebook message, and an E-mail! In those, she spoke of having talked by phone with Roberta, recently turned 82 ─ Roberta is the widow of someone I first got to know around 1973 who was familiarly called "Duck".

Anyway, Sandy commented that Roberta sure liked to talk ─ and that's the danged kettle calling the pot black! Sandy even had this to say about Roberta in Sandy's E-mail:

I block people anyone I feel I need too.
If I need to be alone and not bothered.
I don’t care who they are I do it.
I blocked Roberta. Because I have a funny feeling she’s gonna call too much.
Because she gets lonely and bored.
Anyways I’ll unblock in few days. Then back on block after so long again.

This is unbelievable! I have to ignore Sandy's phone calls and texts or she will run rampant by taking advantage of me. One fellow she knew once slapped a restraining order on her because she would not let up with her phone calls.

Yet she feels it necessary to block Roberta because Roberta might be too lonely and call her too much?

Such hypocrisy. So no, I feel no guilt over not responding to Sandy.

(Roberta probably out-talks Sandy, allowing her little opportunity to say much ─ that's what she wouldn't like! Roberta also has possible poor or selective hearing; so Sandy might attempt to say something, and Roberta would not recognize that Sandy was speaking, thereby continuing on with what she had to talk about and leaving Sandy feeling excluded and unfulfilled.)

Anyway, when I eventually became aware that my cellphone alarm was chiming, it was 1:31 a.m. At the time, I was lying upon my right side with my blocked left ear upward and failing to hear aught. Anytime I lie upon my left side my left ear clogs up. Lately, throughout the day it has been remaining slightly or partially blocked as well, and it is quite annoying.

I think that my right ear may have detected the vague chime despite the muffling of the mattress.

I rose and saw that my wife had safely come home following her full day of work at the Thai restaurant where she is employed part-time, for her bedroom door was pulled tight. I think that both of my stepsons were still up, but the eldest seemed to finally go to bed.

I likely made my departure unnoticed after a fully-clothed weigh-in of possibly 189 pounds. It was only 2:02 a.m. once I was outside and set to go.

Everything was dry under a thickly overcast sky, but every minute or two upon setting out I could feel a speck of moisture. By the time I was nearing the elementary school three or four blocks away, I was feeling two or three specks of moisture each minute.

I had my usual-of-late half dozen sets of pull-ups and chin-ups (repetitions of 5-2-3-2-2-2) with the final pull-up between a pair of gymnastics-style rings held for a 20-count; and then a dozen slow, full-range decline push-ups on a ramp or sloped walkway leading to a side door at the school.

I thought thereafter that I was making good time. Sometimes the threatening rain would seem to have ceased; but other times, there were numerous specks of it during each minute. After halfway into my walk I noticed that the parked cars had visible raindrops all over them, and even the pavement was looking dark with damp.

With maybe a third of my walk remaining, my lower left leg and foot began going lame. I could no longer move apace and dramatically slowed.

By the time I made it back home, it was 4:06 a.m. That was not good time whatsoever; and had my early pace not been as smart as it was, my arrival home would have been even later.

I don't know what the Hell I can do about this defect of my lower left leg ─ it is enormously discouraging. I want to have an evening walk so that I can watch some T.V. shows with my younger brother when we are both home ─ and to also have some beer; but will I again be stricken?

I would be wise to not attempt irregular terrain.

My return to bed this morning was likely not too much ahead of 6 a.m., but I suspect that I was foolish to have treated myself to a coffee ─ I do not usually do so after these walks. I think it may have forfent* some sleep I might otherwise have enjoyed.

*[Concerning "forfent", it seemed plausible to me that the word might actually exist as a past tense of the word "forfend". And that sent me upon some divergent research, thereby interrupting my post. It seems I was right, for I located this definition in a footnote to The Lyrics of the Henry VIII Manuscript by Raymond G. Siemens :─ forfent    Forfended, forbidden (OED ppl. a. of "forfend" v. 2, "to avert, to keep away or off, prevent").]

My brother already seemed to be rising for the morning, which was rather perplexing.

I did sleep some, and rose anew well past 8 a.m. My brother was watching T.V.

Towards 9 a.m. I went downstairs to boil water for a coffee, and he therewith headed on upstairs to his bedroom and seemed to be freshening up. Again, rather perplexing. But I took advantage and activated our Android TV Box to set up a video to play once he rejoined me.

Well, soon past 9 a.m. he did come back downstairs ─ but only to announce that he was headed over to Surrey Place (Central City) to get passport photos taken and see what he would be faced with in applying to have his passport renewed.

Yesterday we had checked online so that he could make an appointment at one of the several reasonably nearby locations dealing with passport renewals, and discovered that not only did some of these places not accept online bookings; but a couple that did had no vacancies before late July, if I am remembering correctly.

He needs his passport renewed for his daughter's marriage in August where she is living in Washington State with her fiancé.

So he must have 'bit the bullet' this morning and perhaps braved the possible two-hour waiting time to actually be able to submit his application in person. His only other option would have been to have mailed it in ─ and if he had chosen to do that, then he would have returned back home this morning.

He remained away.

So I watched an hour-long (1:06:24) update published May 23 to Rumble's Action4Canada channel: A4C Chapters In Action, H5N1 Vaccine, Math Is Racist?, Weakening Wokeism, Multiculturalism Has Failed, May 22, 2024.

Tanya Gaw is just fabulous as far as I am concerned. I just wish that I was not almost smothered in debt, and had the cash to spare to perhaps even tithe to her work.

The woman speaks fearlessly!

I also watched this very short (55 seconds) and titillating old car commercial that was published May 25 to Rumble's We The People - Constitutional Conventions channel: 1970 Dodge Charger 500 Banned.

The last video I watched on my own was the remainder of a 52-minute (52:08) video uploaded October 9, 2020, to YouTube's Free Documentary - History channel: Ismael: The Last Guardian of an Ancient Library | Free Documentary History.

Over 500 years ago, driven out by the Spanish Inquisition, Ismael Diadié’s ancestors left Al-Andalus for Timbuktu. They were guardians of an ancient Islamic library, a legacy of over 12,000 scientific, poetic and religious manuscripts, which they wanted to protect at all cost. But in 2012, Ansar al Din salafist fighters and their al Qaeda allies surrounded Diadié’s house and threatened to destroy his library. Desperate to save the manuscripts, Diadié returns to Granada…

This was actually my third sitting in trying to get through the rather tedious feature, for the dialogue was not in English, so everything had to be subtitled. And apart from that, I have never heard of anything the documentary was about ─ except of course some of the locations. The people named, the so-called library or its manuscripts ─ it was all meaningless to me.

On top of that, I am no fan of Islam and its insanely cutthroat militants. If these maniacal idiots want to destroy their own historical documents, that's unfortunate; but it does not affect me too much.

My brother's failure to return meant I was able to have my day's first meal and then my nap earlier than usual, but that latter seems insufficient as I type these words after 7 p.m.

I was later sustained a little further in the latter afternoon when my eldest stepson brought me two slices of a pizza he had brought home.

By the way, my wife had another full workday today, rising and leaving after my brother had left. But her only conversation with me was a "good morning" and a "bye" ─ such is our marriage and former friendship.

With that said, I am going to deem this post complete and seek some further bed rest ─ my eyes are worn out. The wet and overcast morning did eventually result in a fair amount of sunshine as the afternoon wore on.