Little Ado

'Twas likely well past 11:15 p.m. when I got to bed last evening, so remaining in bed until my 4 a.m. alarm chimed was not an ordeal.

My youngest stepson was still up. His older brother was to rise around 4:40 a.m. to begin readying for his 12-hour shift at Tree Island Steel beginning at 6 a.m., for he has a fair drive to get there.

It may have been as late as 6:15 before I was away on my five-mile+ walk that would see me do a little shopping at Save-On-Foods about ¾ of a mile from here as I was returning, and still my fool youngest stepson was up when I left. He had retired by the time I was back home, but right now it is 4:22 p.m., and he has yet to rise for the day.

I no sooner wrote that statement when I was to get involved with my younger brother's girlfriend Bev via cellphone ─ she wanted to submit her latest Employment Insurance (E.I.) fortnightly claim online, which I do for her because she has no computer nor even Internet.

Well, we tried and tried by submitting her Social Insurance Number (S.I.N.) and her access code, but the result was always the message that 'we' did not have an active claim. It never said the information was invalid ─ only that there was no active claim.

I may have tried a half dozen times.

She even phoned a former co-worker who began her own claim a week or so ahead of Bev, and this woman received her latest cheque this past week.

All Bev can think to do is to visit the nearest branch of offices, but doing so even for simple information will require a lengthy lineup wait ─ and maybe even waiting after that if she is only issued some stupid ticket number in the lineup.

There is no 'Help' telephone number that people can call ─ the government does not want to make anybody's life easier.

Anyway, I noticed when I finished with Bev that my youngest stepson had finally risen ─ it was not before 4:30 p.m.

Ya think he'll be getting to bed tonight by anything like midnight? Not bloody likely.

Anyway, following my morning walk beneath fairly clouded skies, I returned to bed around 8:45 p.m. because my brother had not yet risen and I had grown rather sleepy and weary by then.

I doubt I was abed a full 45 minutes, by which time he was watching T.V.

We hadn't watched any of our usual morning videos yesterday, so I was rather eager to get back into the routine.

Well, silly me! He was watching American football (NFL) games, switching the channel about when there were commercial breaks. I waited maybe 20 minutes at most and then gave up on the weak-minded pleb ─ it's "bread and circuses" for him, despite his above average awareness through me of what is going on in the world.

It diminishes him even further in my regard (although little else could possibly match the drunken senility he drinks himself into each evening).

So I spent the remainder of the morning here at my bedside computer, and into the noon hour I fixed up a relatively decent first meal of the day.

Yesterday I made an involved post at one of my two hosted websites ─ my first post at that website since April 24, 2023 (yes, April 24 of last year, and not this year!): Case of Curvature of the Spine.

I wish that I had checked the date of the post on the website I have been working on today ─ that website's last post was the very last day of 2022. I should have posted there yesterday.

My brother's main football game ran into overtime, so he watched until well past the end of the noon hour before finally going to his bedroom for some rest, first apprising me that 'his' team barely managed a win, so he was content.

He had his rest and then left for the day before I suspended work on the website post and sought a nap.

The afternoon was sunny enough that I could have attempted sunning if I had the time and properly allotted it; but this is a bath day, so between blogging and a fourth-day bath ─ along with a planned evening walk in store ─ that sunning time simply does and did not exist.

I have been progressively working on this post since its inception, and it is now 8:26 p.,m. and dark enough that I can ready and head out on that walk. I'm actually impressed with how early it has been getting dark ─ it has been dark for quite some while already. Soon I will be able to buy my beer once more at a government liquor store (they close at 9 p.m., except 6 p.m. on Sundays) during the week instead of a private liquor store where I always feel obliged to supply tips that I can ill afford.

I will be sitting up this evening having at least two of those beers ─ Cariboo Malts at 8% alcohol ─ once both my brother and I are back home and watching some T.V. via our Adnroid TV Box.