Reviews

Ryan and I have a small TV/VCR combo apparatus that we keep in the closet and pull out only to watch How The Grinch Stole Christmas, which we have on videotape, every year. This often leaves me pretty out of the loop on what Mass Media has to offer.

The benefit of this is, of course, that I am spared a lot of wasted time watching TV. The cost is that I retain the level of TV-watching restraint that I possessed when I was eleven. That means that when I start, it's rather hard to stop. My green, soft brain just sucks up the entertainment like a sponge.

In my group counseling class this semester we watched a clip from The Office. Although I have heard fervent testimony of how funny the show is, the only clip I had ever seen on Hulu was wildly offensive, far too much so to be amusing, and I thought my inability to enjoy The Office was just another way my personal tastes depart from the norm. However, the clip my professor showed in class had me singing another tune. Being essentially unacquainted with the show, after just seven minutes I had laughed myself into an endorphin rush and become eternally invested in the eventual matrimony of Pam and Jim.

I have started obsessively watching the show on NetFlix. Several episodes a day, starting with Season One. Ryan has already seen many of them and has attempted to forcibly screen those episodes which he predicts will offend me beyond my ability to cope. The rest of the episodes are mine to enjoy with addictive abandon. As I said, I possess no restraint.

Yesterday, in addition to several episodes of The Office, I also watched The Fantastic Mr. Fox, which was charming and delightful and a film called Crips and Bloods: Made in America, which was informative and thought-provoking and just depressing enough to make me want to work harder.

It was a real media success story kind of a day.

Someone please tell me to do my homework. I possess no restraint.

Big Lots

When Pumpkinfest came around, I needed a lot of pumpkin decorations and I didn't have any money to spend. Thankfully, my sister spent an entire evening with me, combing the streets on the prowl for pumpkinesque paraphernalia. Big Lots paid the highest dividend, being the only place in town with orange lights, and for two dollars a strand. I remembered the jackpot and have held it close to my heart in anticipation of the coming holidays.

I just got back from Big Lots again, with an equally excellent haul. I got a tree for twenty bucks (it looks emaciated, but serves its iconic function), four strands of Christmas lights, some red taper candles, a tree skirt and a package of ornaments for sixty three dollars. If I hadn't sworn to Ryan I would do my best to keep it under fifty, I would have also bought the miniature lavender tree with lavender lights, too.

In fact, I may go back and get it. Ten dollars isn't much to pay for a PURPLE CHRISTMAS TREE.

I love Big Lots.

Thanksgiving

I had a rough night last night, woke up feeling queasy, and have a fridge full of ingredients that I am supposed to recipize. Naturally, I decided to use my blogger dashboard to check out of reality for a few minutes and several of you had posted things you are genuinely thankful for. I figure it won't hurt me to do the same.

I am thankful for:

• a home that is only 800 square feet so the possibility exists that I will be able to keep it clean

• a spouse who merely raises an eyebrow when I announce I will no longer be requiring shampoo

• parents who I want to call, and not only on the holidays when I am expected to

• siblings who know all my flaws and find most of them wildly entertaining

• in-laws who make me wonder what is going on in other families where in-law jokes make sense
  

• ingredients and enough know-how to reasonably expect the recipes to end up successful

• a yard big enough for a garden

• old friends I love so much that thinking about how they are reunionating this weekend without me causes actual physical pain

• newer friends who the promise of spending time with gets me out of bed sometimes

• the means to keep in touch with so many more friends than I could without a phone and internet

• a body whose health makes me intolerant of even a belly ache

• a job where I get paid to do something I would happily do for free

• the books I've read and the people I've known without which I wouldn't be any fun at all

Thanks!

The Solution: Eavesdropping

It seems there is a general cultural consensus that solution-focused is the way to be. Tragically, I am not solution-focused. I am process-focused, which means that I prefer talking about my problems rather than fixing them. In fact, when I meet people who are all solutioney, I end up thinking they are fun-haters. The whole point of having problems is so you can talk about them and make jokes about them and bond with other people. Duh.

That said, there are a few problems I wouldn't mind solving, and most of them involve changing things that are arguably out of my sphere of influence, such as other peoples' behavior and laws of physics.

Today I have stumbled upon a solution.

Ryan is, at this very moment, chatting on the phone with a cousin. I have no idea what precipitated a conversation about the Emerald Isle, but I heard him say "I saw online that the largest zucchini in the world is in Ireland, and it made me want to go there."

One of my grievances with Ryan is that he is less keen to fritter away our savings on world travel than I. He seems to think that money will be worth more in a brokerage account than BUYING ME A TICKET TO TIBET. While I submit he has a point, my caged-bird syndrome persists. Today, by a simple act of eavesdropping, I have discovered that all I need to do to con my financial comrade into travel abroad is promise him Very Large Vegetables. Awesome. I hear that Madagascar has Radishes of Unusual Size. Right?

Perhaps I will devote more blog posts to being solution-focused and see what all the hype is about.

Who needs it?

I am obsessed with this website, which makes me think I am only moments away from joining the John Birch Society.

The Pudding*

Pumpkinbefore:
Pumpkinafter:
Pumpkinwhack:
Pumpkinleaves:
Pumpkinfriends:
Pumpkinlove:

*I hear that's where the proof is.