A Woman's Place

My bedtime last evening was ahead of 11 p.m.; and I was so enfeebled and listless that I was quite eager for my bed.

Even so, I slept in broken fashion until finally I felt so awake that I had to peek at the time because 4 a.m. ─ my cellphone alarm setting ─ seemed impossibly distant; I had to keep forcing myself to lapse into another block of sleep, and this time it just didn't seem as being easily done.

It was 3:57 a.m.

I was quite enthusiastic to rise and soon be downstairs to boil up water for a 1½-litre mug of strong instant coffee with the works.

The plan was to try and be away by 6 a.m. on the 5.625-mile round trip hike to Real Canadian Superstore in Guildford.

I think that as I passed time, I might have heard a little rain. There had been some before I had retired.

I am superb at losing time, so I never got away until possibly as late as 6:20 a.m. By then my eldest stepson had risen and gone to work for his 6 a.m. start, and his younger brother had finally gone to bed when his older brother had risen.

It was spitting some rain still, and the air was heavily humid although fairly mild. It was also perfectly dark ─ dawn was not yet arrived.

Had I gotten away by 6 a.m., likely I would have had three sets of pull-ups and chin-ups at the elementary school playground no more than three blocks from here, but it was too late for that now.

Anon the spitting rain ceased, but the ominously heavy cloud cover was my companion.

I only bought three items, but they were heavy: a litre of liquid whipping cream; a two-kg container of Himalayan pink salt; and a three-kg tub of creamed honey. Even dividing the load such that only one hand ever toted the honey, it did get to be a bit of a workout ─ the scapula area across my upper back especially felt the ongoing strain, for not once did I ever set down my load and have a break.

Unfortunately, the cloud cover began lifting and it was unpleasantly sunny by the time I was back home no later than 8:30 a.m. It would have been far preferable if I had the spare 20 minutes I wasted before leaving on my walk ─ I would have not had to endure as much daylight.

My wife had not come home last night, so I didn't have to be concerned about her having to get up later in the morning to begin readying for work.

My younger brother was still in bed, and would be spending time ─ once he was up ─ to read through the Sunday morning edition of The Province that I subscribe to. He might even have a late-morning NFL game he wanted to watch. So I decided to return to bed and drift off into a nap for as long as was comfortable.

Perhaps I was there until almost 10:30 a.m.

By then he had the T.V. on and was watching some documentary. I watched a bit of it with my day's second coffee, and then chose to look through The Province myself.

It was then that my brother offered that I should put our Android TV Box to work.

And so I led us off with a 29-minute video uploaded yesterday to YouTube's Moose on the Loose channel: Is the BC Election being RIGGED? + Trudeau Caught Funding STUPID Projects (You Won't Believe These).

I was to miss the late portion of the video because my wife both texted me and Facebook Messengered me about a transaction receipt a bank had E-mailed her for a September 24 deposit ─ she had no idea what it concerned. She was afraid that she might be getting threatened over insufficient funds or something similar.

Her texts can be very difficult to comprehend ─ this was her text:

Hi , how are you ? Can you talk a look my email , then one send from Cibc , I don't understand what dose mean ?

I studied her attachment thoroughly, and even went to my computer to check her Hotmail / Outlook account to see if she was failing to send me everything that had been in her E-mail from CIBC, but I could not find any such message.

I believe that she has a Gmail account, too, but I have no easy access to it.

So I replied back that I could not find the word "dose" anywhere in anything she sent me.

Eventually I was able to figure out that she simply did not understand that she had been sent an electronic ATM transaction slip instead of getting a paper one at the ATM. There must have been some sort of option like that.

Or maybe she made the deposit in person and the teller asked her if she wanted an electronic receipt?

As for the word "dose", I only now realize that it was simply another of her atrocious misspellings ─ she must have meant that she did not understand ─ what "does" the attachment mean?

But it was that troublesome word "dose" of hers that put me onto an involved period of fruitless research.

In the end, all was well ─ she understood that the attachment meant nothing, and was just confirmation of her deposit.

The second video I was to tune in for my brother and I was nearly three hours long, but I never pointed this out. I figured we would just watch it for however long my brother felt interested, and then maybe that would be that.

It had been uploaded two days ago to YouTube's PowerfulJRE channel: Joe Rogan Experience #2219 - Donald Trump.

We didn't get 50 minutes into it because by then we were approaching 12:30 p.m. and my brother wanted some bed rest, but he was very much interested in the interview ─ as he explained, he was seeing a side of Donald Trump that he had not gotten to see before.

So he just asked that we postpone the rest of the interview ─ I'll ask him tomorrow if he still has that interest, and we'll continued from where we left off.

By the way, this morning before my return to bed, I had gotten a Facebook Messenger text from an old friend of my brother's ─ Frank H.

All the message said was that Frank wanted me to let my brother know that Frank's wife Sandra had died yesterday evening at 8:30 p.m. ─ there were no other details.

So I passed along the news.

Let's skip ahead now.

I'm unsure, but I may have noticed a touch of rain at some point in the day.

Regardless, I plan an evening grocery walk ─ the 5.972-mile hike to Fleetwood's Save-On-Foods that closes at 10 p.m. There is a branch of my main financial institution immediately adjacent to the store, so I will be withdrawing $200 for the nonce.

It has been dark for some while as I type these words, but I had flagged. Despite knowing full well that indulging in brew will incur the necessity of relief during the excursion, I was at a crossroads. I lacked the stamina to face the public ─ even after dark ─ without some alcoholic fortification.

Thus it was that I tuned in ─ here at my bedside computer ─ an episode of DC's Legends of Tomorrow ─ episode seven ("A Woman's Place Is in the War Effort!") of season seven.

Lord, I have grown to love those characters ─ especially ALL of the women. They are all so inspiring! Hell, they can make me cry! And make me feel so alone in my pointless, largely unshared, life.

If at all interested, I watched the episode at this link at MoviesJoy.onl, and it played flawlessly.

I must now hustle and get away on that trek. I can hear some rain outside.

Once I am back home and my brother is also home by then, I will be sitting up late watching at least a couple more shows with him ... and having further drink, for I downed a can each of Cariboo Malt (8% alcohol) and Bumper Crop Crisp Apple cider (7% alcohol).

I wish there was more to my limited life than this, but there is not. I am just a 75-year-old sitting duck waiting for the end to arrive.