Valley of Death

My cellphone alarm roused me at 6 a.m., although soon after 5 a.m. I was so wakeful I wondered if I should rise then. But I felt that if I was going to do some local grocery shopping at No Frills half a mile away, it was best not to risk burning out by getting up too much beforehand.

The store does not open until 8 a.m.

After rising at 6 a.m., I went downstairs and watered front yard garden plants. I don't think I checked on the backyard plants because I had watered them quite late yesterday, which is what I will do again later today.

Nor did I bother with any tool shed exercising.

I hate gloriously sunny mornings when I want to go public anywhere, but at least I had two recent afternoon sunning sessions of about 1½ hours apiece to my credit, so I was looking good and healthy despite my damaged right leg.

It was probably 7:50 a.m. by the time I was on my way. Blessedly, neither going to the store nor returning home was I to coincide with any other pedestrians.

My right leg is definitely a problem ─ any degree of downward slope is risky. Sometimes if I am not focussed enough, I will find myself almost reeling or flailing for balance, for although my lower quadriceps are quite capable with the sort of work involved in stepping forward, or in squatting and rising, they lack all ability to support me if I lean backwards.

I am still unable to elevate my leg and have the lower leg extend directly outward in line with my upper leg ─ the lower leg sags several inches. I cannot use it to support me for doing something like push-ups, nor can I do many leg-raises because of this damned lower leg sag.

I have not attempted to lie on my back with my feet planted firmly on the ground and then endeavour to raise up my haunches as in the beginning of a sort of bridge, but I do not believe it would be possible.

It is not possible to assume a sprinter's getting-set posture with my bad leg extended rearward ─ I could do it, but I would not dare seek to put weight on it as in attempting to drive myself forward.

I cannot imagine even trying to do a gentle jog across a street because I would need to be able to use my bad right leg to push off as my good left leg was essentially reaching forward. Although walking is almost similar to a gentle run, but with less stress; walking does not really require my bad right leg to be extended behind me to help launch me forward like is required in running or even jogging.

I'm buggered. And I am clueless on how to exercise myself to recover what is lost ─ if it can be recovered.

But enough of that topic for today.

I shopped, needless to say, and made it back home without mishap, though sometimes I wondered on that.

It has become so Summer-like hot that I never returned to bed for a rest, and instead watched some T.V. downstairs after 9 a.m. ─ no one else was yet up.

My younger brother never emerged from his bedroom until around 9:40 - 9:45 a.m., and by then the only video of any interest to me that I had watched was 16 minutes (16:36), and had been streamed yesterday to Rumble's Stew Peters Network channel: MEDICAL INDUSTRY SLAVES: America - A Nation of the Walking Wounded.

Weight-loss transformation drugs like Ozempic are wreaking havoc on bodies across the world. Once the standard for beauty and sexuality, Hollywood celebrities now look like Auschwitz inmates on the verge of dying from typhus. Kelly Hatch joins Stew to discuss using X39, a clean way to get healthy and cure ailments, including vision impairments.

Intriguing. I have since taken a look at cost, though, and presently am in no position to be purchasing any. It looks to me that a 30-day supply (30 patches) might be in excess of $2 a patch.

Thus, it shall go untried.

With my brother having joined me, I used our Android TV Box to play the final third of a BBC Play for Today episode from 1980 titled The Imitation Game. Thankfully, it was apparently not based upon a living "Cathy Raine".

I wish that I had read up on the movie before watching it, for it was not until after the second third of the movie had been watched that I discovered that central character Cathy Raine's best friend "Mary" in the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) was played by Brenda Blethyn (Vera herself) ─ I never noticed anything at all familiar about "Mary" when my brother and I had watched those first ⅔ of the movie, and she was unfortunately not to appear in the final third for us to look for her.

If you are interested, the movie can be watched at this OK.ru link. You will likely have to activate the player's sound.

We finished our morning T.V. together with 1923 ─ episode four ("Journey the Rivers of Iron") of season two.

Wow! This is the very best series we are presently following.

My wife had risen fairly early into 1923, and soon enough headed off to do some shopping, although she said nothing to us.

My brother had his bed rest, and made a liquor store run for beer for himself and a four-litre box of wine for Bev.

I made an early afternoon try for a nap, but by then it was possibly as late as 1:30 p.m., and I knew that I would not be happy with myself if I forwent afternoon sunning. And so I could not relax enough to sleep.

My wife was also an emotional distraction preventing full relaxation. For one thing, she apparently had to work the latter part of the day.

Unable to nap, I checked the time as I rose ─ it was 2:08 p.m.

My brother was still home, but soon to leave on foot to catch a bus to take him away to social drink.

By the time I was outside to sun, at most my session began at 2:37 p.m., and I was to gain maybe 1½ hours of exposure ─ it was 4:06 p.m. when I started wrapping things up for the afternoon. My wife had long gone without a word to me.

Man, it's hot!

I am jumping ahead now, for it is presently 8:14 p.m. and I fairly recently finished watching The Flash here on my bedside computer ─ 'twas episode 14 ("Funeral for a Friend") of season eight.

The episode revolved around how "Team Flash" was coping with the death of 'Killer Frost' in the previous episode ─ I had entirely forgotten that she had been killed off.

This episode had its emotional moments, but I wasn't feeling it so much for 'Frost' as I was for events present and still future in my life ─ how similar loss is going to affect me. At this stage of my life, I know that it is going to be pretty much insurmountable because of where and whom I have come to be.

Anyway, I watched over the first half of the episode at this Tvids.net link before the player seemed to stop playing at just past the 28-minute mark, so I finished up by watching what remained at this uFlix.to link.

Note that both websites threw up a new browser window for gambling website Stake that hid behind the window I was using.

My brother was not yet home, so I risked another show. This time, Superman & Lois ─ episode 12 ("Through the Valley of Death") of the first season.

My source was this Tvids.net link, and although it played all the way through without issue, it left that damned Stakes gambling website calling card in a new browser hidden behind the one I was using. As well, I noticed that my computer's internals were absolutely raging ─ the fan or something was roaring at high gear. I attributed it to both the room's heat and the effort of playing the video. But as soon as I shut down that Stakes browser after the episode was over, the fan (or whatever it was) overdrive calmed.

I will have to try to remember this the next time.

It was a very good episode, incidentally. Even though I am 75, I can still stir in an emotional response to imagining being heroic instead of a colossal ageing loser like God has allowed me to become.

Did my life really have to waste out to ... this? 

I drank another beer, plus a little red wine.

My brother is now home, so I am going to surreptitiously brush my teeth and shut down everything here on my computer once I wrap up everything I feel that I need to do on it first.

I am hoping that I will be getting up at 3 a.m. so that I can walk over to the nearby elementary school playground for some proper exercising there instead of settling upon the backyard tool shed.

We shall see ─ like I said, it is darned hot here in my westward-facing upper floor bedroom.

At present, it is 9:44 p.m.