High Treason

Perhaps it was a little past 10:30 p.m. last evening when I put myself to bed, my cellphone alarm set for 3:30 a.m. to get me up to ready for some exercise at the elementary school playground maybe three blocks away.

I had much trouble winding down enough to fall asleep, but I do not recall hearing my wife come home following working the latter part of the day at the Thai restaurant where she is employed part-time. Nor did I hear my younger brother get home following his daily social drinking.

At one point after some sleep, I needed to visit the toilet. I never checked the time, but I found the house in darkness ─ my wife's bedroom door was pulled closed, so she had by then come home and even gone to bed. But my brother's bedroom door was still open ─ he was not yet home.

When my alarm chimed, I was not eager to be getting up, for I could easily have gotten back to sleep.

As I dressed, I was certain that I was hearing the T.V. downstairs. Was my brother actually still sitting up watching T.V. at that point in the night? My bedroom door was still shut as I dressed; and then somewhere between 3:40 - 3:45 a.m., I heard him coming upstairs to his bedroom.

Then he shut his bedroom door.

Once I was dressed to go for my walk and ready to weigh myself while fully clothed, I opened my bedroom door to discover that my besotted brother had left the T.V. running, and the kitchen light on.

Why does the 72-year-old fool still drink to this degree? It sure isn't because of any job-related stress any longer.

It seems to me that I weighed in at 188 pounds, encroaching upon 189.

It was cold outside, and anywhere from 1 - 4 degrees Celsius below freezing. At the school playground, the sawdust base was frozen into a crunchy surfacing, but happily none of the equipment was touched by any moisture ─ frozen or otherwise.

And so I was able to exercise bare-handed without need to wipe any of the jungle gym monkey bars dry ─ all I had to deal with was cold metal.

Yet I managed six pull-ups in the first set. And so with the initial two sets of pull-ups, 6-2; then two sets of chin-ups at 3-3; and two sets of pull-ups between a pair of gymnastics-style rings, 2-2.

Then it was back to the monkey bars for a set of two pull-ups between two bars. I would then have normally held a loose dead hang after completing the final of those pull-ups, but the metal was intolerably cold to be gripping for a minute or more. Instead, I returned to the plastic-coated rings as my 30-count set break expired and I was able to achieve a hang for a 75-count.

Certainly, I may well have counted faster than one a second, but I am confident that I did well exceed a full minute with the hang.

Then it was over to the nearby cement ramp where after the expiration of what became a 60-count, I performed 10 slow full-range push-ups while wearing gloves (even then, the cold of the cement was apparent).

And so back home I went.

I had done my best to walk without any favouring of my left foot due to its plantar fasciitis (or whatever else may be amiss with it), but it has been rather sore this afternoon. This condition has been with me now almost a full two months!

Since I did not expect that my brother would be rising too very early, I did not return to bed until possibly 6:30 a.m. Yet I still found myself rising just after 8:30 a.m., if I am remembering aright.

And my brother emerged from his bedroom before 9 a.m.

I heard him turn on the T.V. even though he would be working his way through the Saturday morning edition of the Vancouver Sun that I subscribe to. However, I was sufficiently deked that I actually came downstairs a little after 9 a.m. in case he was actually going to be watching T.V., but I could see that he was not ─ he was engrossed in the newspaper at the dining table.

So back to my bedside computer I went.

Around 9:30 a.m. sounds downstairs led me to believe that he had finished with the newspaper, so I started back downstairs with the intention that we could still watch some videos via our Android TV Box, but I found him just settling upon some fishing programme he had located on T.V.

So back upstairs I went yet again.

I managed to dally with two miserably tough Microsoft FreeCell games such that it had to have progressed well past 10 a.m. ─ maybe even nearer 10:30 a.m. ─ when I had deteriorated to such a degree that I only wanted to return to bed. I had no desire to watch T.V.

This has to do with the weakness I experience during my Sabbath fast that also sees me abstain from caffeine.

I believe that I remained abed until after 1:30 p.m. By then my wife ─ who had risen before my return to bed ─ had done some cooking, and I was to see my brother downstairs just reclined in his chair and staring out the living room window into the sunny day outside.

After a half hour or so I did go downstairs to chat with him and reveal what I knew of his folly last night.

All he had to offer was that he had gotten a ride home with someone, and that he probably "fell asleep" while watching T.V. I held my tongue and did not counter that the term is more correctly "passed out".

Anyway, he soon enough left afoot to catch a bus and yet again engage in his daily social drinking. I was to thereafter have some small chat with my wife who wondered how Bev ─ my brother's girlfriend whom he is going to give shelter here to her at month's end because she can no longer pay her rent ─ is going to manage to enjoy living here when he abandons her to go 'social drinking' like he does every single afternoon.

As my wife observed, Bev is not going to be happy here with us all on her own. I am not going to sit and watch T.V. with her each day until my brother shows up drunk to bless her with his company.

I only watch evening T.V. with him three nights a week. The other four evenings see me getting to bed relatively early because I have plans for the very early a.m. Tomorrow I will be getting out to do my usual Sunday grocery shopping, so depending upon the state of my foot, I will be leaving home at 6 a.m. if I think that I can walk far at long last, or else I will settle upon a more local store and not leave here until maybe 7:45 a.m.

In the former case I would want to rise at 4 a.m.; in the latter scenario, 5:30 a.m. will probably suffice.

Sure, Bev can always go off with my brother each afternoon, but she has very poor health and often just remains home. As well, at least two days a week he rendezvouses at a pub with one or more drinking buddies, and he has always considered these days his time to be out 'with the boys' and not her.

So things are going to be getting rather complicated around here by next weekend at latest.

Incidentally, my wife asked me if I was feeling unwell, apparently concerned about my lengthy time napping. Even so, just ahead of 3 p.m. she was to leave for work without a word to me ─ another partial workday for her.

At least she alerted me that there is lots to eat once I feel myself free to do so.

○○○○○

I took a break and as the afternoon daylight faded, I watched DC's Legends of Tomorrow ─ episode nine ("Lowest Common Demoninator") of final season seven.

The episode did not affect me as much as some of this and last season have done ─ possibly partly due to watching it sober this time? No matter ─ I still love the series, and am relieved that there are several episodes left before it's all over with.

After the episode, I had a bath, this being a bath day. While stripped naked just before I got into the tub, I had a weigh-in to see how my fasting was paying off ─ I was barely over 175 pounds at very most!

That was uplifting!

Following my bath, it was nigh 6:30 p.m. and definitely dark enough for me to finally have a meal. And so I did, brining my meal to the living room coffee table so I could use our Android TV Box to tune in a 1½-hour video published yesterday at Rumble's A Warrior Calls channel: High Treason In Every Country / Awaken Fight Evil.

The video was a little over 1½ hours, but I chopped off a few minutes by jumping forward through the opening head-banger rock performance, Christopher James Pritchard's advertising, and the closing famous Mel Gibson Braveheart sequence ─ so for me, the video was well under 1½ hours.

I'll not reproduce the tell-nothing usual bombast that is supposed to serve as a description, for the video was little different from Christopher's usual long rants.

I am giving serious consideration to making the 5.625-mile round trip hike in the morning to Real Canadian Superstore despite how irritated my left foot feels from my short early walk today before dawn. This will mean rising at 4 a.m. so that I will have plenty of time to enjoy a mug of strong instant coffee with the works, and otherwise psyche up for the approximate 6 a.m. hike.

I may well decide in the a.m. that my foot is just too inflamed, and that I will only be crippling myself for the next few days if I undertake the journey.

Meantime, I hope to be to bed by 10:30 - 11 p.m. Right now, it is 9:26 p.m.