The plan for the pre-dawn was to get away on the two-mile round trip hobble to deposit $1,000 in cash at my financial institution's nearest ATM. My chequing account was shy by hundreds of dollars to meet the cheque I had written out to pay the property taxes due two days ago. If that cheque got negotiated today ─ the banks open on Saturdays, after all, and some even on Sundays for a short time ─ then I was hooped.
The $1,000 is not a result of some wealth in cash on hand. Half of it was a cash portion of my younger brother's contribution to the property taxes, and the other half was cash my wife had given me in return for an e-Transfer she had asked me to make to her of that amount so that she could send money to her mother over in Thailand.
At one point overnight I was conscious enough to be wary of the time ─ perhaps I had risen and used the toilet. At any rate I checked the time in near dread that my cellphone alarm setting of 3:30 a.m. was nigh and I was going to have to bite the bullet and remain up, but I still had well over 1½ hours to go before the alarm sounded.
This allowed me a little further sleep.
When the alarm did sound, I rose and wasted little time in readying, and I was likely on my way barely past 4 a.m. Already the eastern night sky was turning from black to a vague bluish colour. There didn't seem to be much cloud, and I was expecting a sunny day.
I got to the ATM and made the deposit without incident, but some insane and/or stoned probable street person I had been hearing roaring out the word "ππ²ππ¨" every half minute or so hove into view pushing a shopping cart down the street. He was seemingly fairly short, and attired in black, including a black hood. As my luck had it, he was headed in the direction I needed to go, for the intersection I could use to take me away from him was just ahead of him.
However, the guy stopped short of it where there must have been a bag or something of empties he began rooting through and adding to whatever he had in his cart. Meantime, he was quietly talking to himself, and maybe even singsonging.
This forced me to stand and waste time as I awaited him to continue his journey, which he did after a two or three minutes.
I was to hear him yell "ππ²ππ¨" maybe three more times before I was sufficiently removed from him that I no longer took notice.
Incidentally, as I awaited the intersection light change, what appeared to be a couple of girls coming from behind me on the intersecting street ─ they were some distance off yet ─ were advancing in my direction, while every number of seconds one of them kept calling out very loudly what sounded like, "Nikita?!"
I got my light and crossed the main highway down which the cart-pusher had gone, and was on my way and likely unseen by the time the noisy girls got to the intersection. They seemed to stand there, the one still shouting out the name.
I had made this very hobble exactly two mornings earlier, so like I did back then, I stopped in at the elementary school playground to see if I could match the half dozen sets of pull-ups and chin-ups performed at that time.
I did ─ sure, it was only two repetitions in each of the sets, but usually I can only manage one repetition after an opening set of two.
I also held a dead hang for an 80-count before working my way over to a metal wheelchair or accessibility ramp that leads up to a portable or modular classroom's door, and there I managed to hold out for 10 slow full-range decline push-ups.
So I almost perfectly reproduced Thursday's exercise session.
However, once back home I completely forgot to weigh myself fully clothed to see if I was the 190 pounds I was two days earlier, or maybe even slightly heavier.
It was maybe 5:08 a.m. by the time I was upstairs and here in my bedroom where I keep this bedside computer, but I didn't make it back to bed for around an hour ─ my cellphone alarm set for 8 a.m. so that I would not miss any of the usual morning T.V. time with my younger brother.
I was up again at 8 a.m. as planned, and he emerged from his bedroom towards 8:30 a.m. to watch his T.V. news shows and drink instant coffee. As usual, I waited until a little past 9 a.m. before joining him.
It was not until 9:20 a.m. that he invited me to tune in something with our R69 Plus Android 14 TV Box, but he cautioned that at 10 a.m. he intended to watch the scheduled FIFA Canada versus Morocco game (I just now checked and see that we got our asses kicked 0-3, so we're done).
We were to watch two videos, beginning with a nine-minute (9:02) video uploaded yesterday to YouTube's AnitaK channel: Bryan Adams Blowing it with New Song "51st State".
Bryan Adams has been living in the UK for 30 years but releases cringy new anti-Trump, anti -51st state song.
Then I settled with a 21-minute (21:40) video uploaded earlier today to YouTube's PortuguesePai channel: Cabinet Civil War: Carney’s Inner Circle is beginning to Fracture.
And that was it. I may even have been back to bed by 10:30 a.m., but certainly well before 11 a.m. And although it seemed to me I was sleeping long, it turned out that I was rising fairly early into the noon hour.
Note that ever since my first return to bed following my outing, I have felt enfeebled and foggy-headed because I am doing without any caffeine today, nor am I taking in any calories, for I do not intend to eat until after 6 p.m.
Consequently, when I was back to bed late in the morning, I felt myself to be in a pathetic daze, dreaming much.
Last evening just before I got to bed, my wife managed to catch me after she arrived home from working the latter part of the day at the Thai restaurant where she is employed part-time ─ she appropriated my newly opened four-litre box of Sommet Rouge red wine (12% alcohol).
She had the same workday in store today, so she didn't emerge from her bedroom until shortly after I had finished my late morning nap. She immediately went downstairs to the kitchen and began cooking.
Around 2 p.m. she called to me if I wanted to eat. I certainly did, but I was going to stick to my fast until 6 p.m. Nevertheless, I did go downstairs and was dished up a bowl of the Thai noodle dish she had stir-fried. I kept that out of sight here in my bedroom so as not to be too teased and tortured.
As she was about to leave around 3:10 p.m. on her longish drive to work, she let me know that another dish on the stove apparently contains lamb.
Yum!!!
The afternoon was a mix of blue sky and sunshine, plus masses and masses of huge greyish-white clouds. Tomorrow is supposed to be our purely sunny day, and then we'll be back to more of the cloud and Sun that makes sunning too troublesome for me. I will have to do my best to get out into the backyard tomorrow afternoon if indeed there are no interfering clouds drifting about.
It appeared that I was going to get an extra early start on the usual three T.V. series I intended to watch, thereby doing some drinking ─ this indulgence would be the technical breaking of my fast, I suppose; but I have no other means of anything like enjoyment here in this house that is my economic and societal prison.
Then just as I was seeing no further impediment to that activity, it suddenly dawned upon me that this was a bath day ─ a chore that consumes a full hour from the time I close the bathroom door until I open it again.
Before stepping into the tub, I had a naked weigh-in ─ I was at most 181 pounds.
At least the very hot bath invigorated me, accelerating my vital systems and purging much that had been sluggish.
At the present it is 4:46 p.m., so I am going to have that break now. I will conclude the post in the latter evening.
π’π’π’
With considerable delight, I saw that my first show was to be Titans ─ episode three ("Hank & Dove") of season three. My source was at MoviesJoyTV.co.
The ending was quite touching ─ I never imagined that they would kill off Hawk (Hank). And to have poor Dove be the unwitting executioner? This was wicked, and I don't like it. Jason has to die, as does whomever brought him back. I used to like that cocky kid ─ no more.
I watched the show along with about a dozen ounces of the (my) red wine in my wife's bedroom, and the show was over by 6:03 p.m.
Free to eat, my meal looked a little inadequate to meet what my appetite was ready for. Even so, by the end, I was stuffed ─ even before I had quite finished. I do not have the stomach of my younger self back in my 20s in the 1970s.
My next show proved to be S.W.A.T. ─ episode 14 ("The B-Team") of season two. My source this time was at TVids.tv.
It was better than I expected, and a couple of times even touched me emotionally to some degree. I didn't expect that. Still, I will place Titans in the lead with one show to go.
The can of Cariboo Malt (7.9% alcohol) I drank during S.W.A.T. was not much enjoyed ─ I just wanted the buzz it would add to the wine. The show was done by 7:53 p.m.
The same scenario played out with my second can of beer while I watched an excellent episode of Humans ─ the first season or series episode seven. My source was at this VK.com link.
Perhaps I will edge Humans above Titans, with S.W.A.T. last because it is too 'real life' and doesn't offer the escapism I crave or need.
I have too much to say relating to my profound social isolation, so I am not going to attempt it. I will only say that Humans was done by 8:55 p.m.
I then took the 15 or so minutes required for me to brush my teeth, and in exiting my bedroom for the bathroom I noticed that my brother was home from wherever he had bused in the early afternoon to social drink ─ he appeared to be passed out in his chair in the living room 'watching' T.V. with Bev.
Right now it is 9:51 p.m.and I am going to commence shutting down everything on this computer requiring it, then I will get to bed. I cannot easily do without liquid whipping cream for my coffees, and my litre carton is nearing half empty. Since I only shop for groceries on Sundays, I must make the venture tomorrow despite my low financial resources. I will just have to skimp on my purchases.
I would normally only rise at 6 a.m. for this, but I feel I should water the front yard garden areas, so 5 a.m. it is.
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