Caught

Yet again, I was unable to flog myself and get up overnight for an outing. This time the reason was that after being awake a while, I checked the time at 2:14 a.m. ─ my cellphone alarm was set for 3 a.m.

So I cancelled the alarm. I was already in need of sleep, and would be fortunate if I managed to get back into any before 3 a.m. ─ only to have my alarm break it off?

No ─ I couldn't do that to myself.

What am I going to have to do? Go to bed at 9:30 p.m. or even 9 p.m.? It was barely past 10 p.m. when I got to bed last night.

That isn't the problem, though, is it? Remaining asleep is the issue. I keep waking up and spending long periods before again finding my way back into proper sleep.

My morning began ahead of 5 a.m., though. And just past 5:30 a.m. it was easily light enough to water the front yard garden plants.

I had an interesting experience while doing so. At the time, I was crouched and bent over to carefully water plants in a strip of garden alongside the 10 or so feet of sidewalk leading to the front door.

As I was so engaged, just to my right I recognized that a raccoon was encroaching that I had failed to notice until it was at the strip of garden I was watering ─ the strip is maybe 1½ feet wide at very most (maybe not much over a foot). I could have reached forth and touched its inquisitive head. And there were at least two others very near by.

We have a very large bowl of water right near the front door that raccoons often visit to drink from. The others were more intent of drinking, but this close one seemed fascinated by the wee spray of water coming from the hose. It sniffed the drenched wooden edging of the garden strip, pretty much putting its bit of snout gently onto the wetness.

I acted for all the world as if I could not care less that these wild visitors were present, and I slowly stood and moved a little forward along the sidewalk away from them, feigning that I was busily engaged with watering that area ─ but it was all done, and I had been working my way towards the front door.

I had my cellphone in a back pocket, but by the time that I had it out and managed to activate the camera, the family of visitors had finished their short drink and disappeared into the thick shrubbery all along the front of the house beneath the large living room window.

So all I have is memory ─ no visual record.

Maybe I will be remembered as the human they could come near without generating any kind of alarmist reaction or even uncomfortable attention, and in the future they will be more willing to expose themselves instead of practicing total avoidance.

Anyway, after finishing the watering job, I went into the backyard and gradually eased into my current exercise routine in the tool shed: two sets of pull-ups (five and two repetitions); two sets of chin-ups (three repetitions in each set); and two sets of pull-ups between a pair of bars (two repetitions in each set), with a dead hang at the completion of the final pull-up for a 50-count.

My hands have been hurting, though.

The two crossbars are no longer attached to the ladder that I had years ago stretched across some tool shed rafters, so I only use the side bars. That's fine for pulling up between the two sides; but they are too thick to comfortably grip for pulling up or chinning up on a single bar.

I suspect that whatever issue I have causing hand pain would not result in the pain being as pronounced if I had a proper chin-up bar that I could securely grip. In the past I attempted to chisel off some of the glossy paint in a bid to make my hold more secure, but even the bared metal is not much improvement. Because I cannot wrap my hands tightly around the thick bar like one could do with a proper chin-up bar, then whether I am doing pull-ups or chin-ups, my hands immediately begin to slowly slide off the bar.

I hate having to explain this so often when I make these daily posts. It wastes so much time.

I finished the exercising with the usual 31 full flat-footed squats intended to work my damaged right leg: 20 assisted; 10 unassisted; and one unassisted held in the squat position for a 100-count before the very uncomfortable rise.

I had a very early protein-rich meal that was also quite light.

Had my younger brother not risen ahead of 8 a.m. for coffee and T.V., it is possible that I would have sought further bed rest. Still, I did not join him until possibly as late as 8:50 a.m.

He was pretty quick in turning the T.V. over to me so that I could put our Android TV Box to work. I led us off with a 20-minute video uploaded yesterday to YouTube's AnitaK channel: Carney Fails to Get a Deal but backs a Two State Solution.

Carney Fails to Get a Deal but backs a Two State Solution. between Palestine and Israel.

Next I tuned in the second half or so of the excellent two-hour Tucker Carlson interview of Candace Owens that I cut short yesterday: Candace Owens: Macron, Harvey Weinstein, and Why “Christ Is King” Totally Broke People’s Brains.

That young woman is absolutely fantastic! But as I observed to my brother, it is a shame that her discerning mind does not pursue a 'deep dive' into the origins of the Catholic Church.

Our third and final video was Bosch ─ episode eight ("Follow the Money") of season two.

It ended before 11:10 a.m., but already my brother desired bed rest, claiming that he had "things to do".

I wasn't too very long in resisting my own bed, and never found it in me to get back up until 2 p.m. Both my brother and Bev had gone off on whatever errands they had.

I wanted to sun, for the next two days are expected to see some rain. But the cat's ear in the backyard lawn has become tall and abundantly-flowering with lots of bees displaying considerable interest, so I had concerns that lawn-mowing might yet be on my brother's agenda.

And so I withheld, figuring that even if I got out there later than usual in the afternoon, I could at least sun my front and sides, ignoring my back.

Well, the couple did not return until almost 3 p.m., at which time I heard my brother tell Bev that he was going to rest again before tackling the weeds.

He was to remain in his bedroom for an hour, effectively cancelling my last hope ─ for at least another two days ─ of sunning. He was to mow both the back and front yard lawns; and by the time he was finished, he was home to stay.

No sunning for me today.

At this point in my evening (6:42 p.m.) I have exercised in my wife's vacant bedroom and had my day's second meal, so I am going to take a break from blogging to watch a couple of shows here on my bedside computer and have some Jim Beam Black Extra-Aged Bourbon (43% alcohol) and the remaining three or four ounces of Chilean SEN red wine (12% alcohol).

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My first selection was Westworld ─ episode seven ("Metanoia") of season four.

So one more episode and the series is done.

These later episodes are interesting enough, but I feel too detached. I am finite, and singular. That the main characters can relive over and over destroys my sense of them as mattering ─ I feel little anytime one of them is killed. And three of the main characters died in the episode.

Big deal.

Heck, even the reunion of Aaron Paul's character with his now-adult daughter as portrayed by actress Aurora Perrineau was disappointing because I felt absolutely nothing ─ it just seemed so pathetically cliched ... and I had long been looking forward to it.

I am more than ready to have the series finish.

If interested, my source for the episode was this GOOJARA.to link.

My next show was The Carrie Diaries ─ episode seven ("Caught") of the first season. I admit that initially this evening this show was so pedestrian compared to Westworld that I wondered on my ability to involve myself in it, but I knew that such has happened before ─ and I have grown to enjoy the series.

Fortunately my appreciation of the main characters took over and soon Westworld was washed away for the unrealistic nonsense that it is. Nonetheless, some truly cornball decisions and conclusions were made in The Carrie Diaries that frankly are ludicrous, and that was disappointing.

I did very much enjoy the outcome of the night out to ''The Nutcracker" performance that cute 14-year-old character "Dorrit" and her father had ─ it was honestly gratifying to see the lass bonding with her dad so hearfeltedly.

My episode source was this GOOJARA.to link.

Overall this evening I had two large shot glasses of bourbon ─ I have no idea how large, for they seem impossibly large to be a mere ounce ─ and more of a glass tumbler of SEN red wine than I expected was left in the bottle.

So I'm good ─ nicely boosted.

At present it is 9:16 p.m., and I still have to brush my teeth before shutting down everything on my computer and getting to bed.

I found this morning that my brother had left me a $365.70 monthly expenses reconciliation cheque that I hope to deposit in the wee a.m. ─ a round trip walk of nigh two miles; so I want to rise at 3 a.m..

We'll see, won't we?

By the way, today was a provincial statutory holiday called British Columbia Day.