About ER

Funny, how some things just put us in a time or place or maybe just a feeling, puts us there so truly that all of a sudden we remember -- or we are -- who we were -- and we realize we are different now. And maybe we miss that ourselves, a little. Or miss a time, or a place.

I haven't watched ER in four or five years, probably, yet, at one time, it was the highlight of my week. I'd get errands done, chores dones, and let everyone know that for the next hour, the TV was MINE.

Then the music would start and I was lost, lost in a stupid TV show for an hour, my once a week mental vacation.

But tonight, watching -- it's 1990-something, and I'm not 50 anymore, and my kids aren't grown up, and I live in a different house. Just for a sec.

Although I'm watching on a DVR ... on a flat-screen TV ...

Wondering, in 10 years, what will trigger my memory of this time, this place?

About Oprah, again. Or still.

I'd blogged before about my aversion to Oprah--the magazine, that is. I've just had to quit reading it--I always feel kind of depressed and inadequate in the face of its unrelenting self-actualization.
And until we got the DVR, I didn't watch the show very often, either--it was on before I got home from work.
But now, not only can I DVR it, I can watch it at 10:30 p.m., after the early news. So I guess I'm becoming an Oprah-watcher.
But when she has a how on like How to Look Good Naked and this one: Shlumpadinka Makeovers, well, what can I say? Anyone who likes fashion is okay with me.
That one about the Shlumpadinkas, now that was fun. I love the 10 basics everyone should have, and the lady who recommended the Brooks Brothers white shirt--brilliant! I wanted one immediately and so did everyone else who saw it.
And a show with Carol Burnett on it--I grew up on The Carol Burnett Show! How could I resist THAT?
And last night, when I needed to get to bed, what did she have on? This: Exclusive: Valerie Bertinelli Comes Clean About Living a Lie! I mean, Valerie Bertinelli! EDDIE VAN HALEN! Sex, drugs, rock and roll, and weight loss. How do you turn that off? Thank goodness for the DVR.
And even this one had its moments: Raising Sextuplets and Twins, Plus Sean Combs and TV Legend Phylicia Rashad. Those sextuplets people--I think they need an intervention from Dr.Phil. Those kids don't act too happy, and the parents seem stressed.
I signed up for the Eckhart Tolle class--I'm afraid the book will be lame, but, technolgically speaking, I want to see how they do the class.
I cruised the "be on the show" listings--who knows when they'll need a 52-year-old blogger from Fort Wayne? I need to be ready--all the more reason to watch the show!
I only watched half of that Valerie Bertinelle show. I've got it on the DVR. Gotta go!
How about you? What are you watchin'?

About bad TV

I'm finding it more than ironic that, during a short period of time when 1) I'm getting over being sick and trying to rest more and 2) have some time in the evenings, that there is just absolutely nothing on TV I want to watch.
If I were in the full bloom of my usual health, I would be using these hours for the project list I keep that keeps growing longer and longer. Like, I'd be cleaning out that computer desk I'm not going to use anymore, or emptying my pantry shelves and putting down shelf paper (which I've had for two years, ouch), or organizing all my filing.
Instead, I'm "recuperating" (doesn't that sound like something I should be doing to chickens that have gotten loose? [If, indeed, I had any chickens.] "Hey! Somebody! Help me recuperate these loose chickens! They got out!)
Greg keeps complaining it's the worst time of the sports year--baseball over (his main complaint), college basketball not yet in full swing, football concentrated on weekends.
And here we are, with new FIOS TV, and a DVR, and a shelf full of DVDs, and a 42-inch DLP to enjoy, and here's what I was reduced to watching last night:
The Parent Trap. The old one. On The Hallmark Channel.
And I enjoyed every minute.
I'm not into crime shows (that seem to be so popular with everyone else on the planet), I have reached my limit of being able to withstand lame sitcoms, and my reality show addition has been narrowed to American Idol (reality, such as it is) ever since The Amazing Race did the family thing and lost me.
I am a bad cook, my house decorating sucks, and the news is depressing (ruling out HGTV, Food Network and CNN).
The Parent Trap on our TV was beautiful--the colors and cinematography stunning. Haley Mills is no Lindsay Lohan (thank God) and Brian Keith and Maureen O'Hara perfect as the parents. The way of life that's depicted --the clothes, the manners, the lifestyle -- in both Boston and California--that is so gone, it's like watching a period piece.
Did you know the movie was nominated for two Academy Awards?
Here's the bad part: I had to go to bed before it was over, in the name of recuperation (have to keep chasin' those chickens). The good part: I sure know how it ends (my kids watched this movie over and over again as they grew up in the '80s).
Anyway, it was fun, and maybe by next week I'll worry less about what's on TV and more about what I can cross off my to-do list.
Well, what about you? What bad TV are you watchin'?

About I need a Hero

So all last year and now this fall, I kept hearing about the show Heroes and what I heard was so intriguing I thought, well, I should watch it. If I had a minute or so at the right time, or remembered to DVR it, neither of which was happening.
So I read something in USAToday, and finally remembered to come home and DVR the next couple of episodes. Only to discover, with a little surfing, that I could watch episodes online. Which, amazingly, I actually had 45 minutes to do.
There weren't many episodes available, and they were numbered, and what I really wanted to watch was the first one. Which didn't seem to be there. And the lowest numbered one was, I think, 123. So I clicked on that...
...treating myself to 45 minutes of incomprehensibility.
Oh I know--my bad. I should have taken advantage of the wealth of backstory on the NBC website, explanations and videos and forums and God knows what else.
But I just wanted to watch TV.
Which turned out to be a mistake.
What a mishmash of characters, story line, violence, blood, lameness, guns, swords, geography, time travel, invisibility, inevitability (and lack of it), vulnerable children, and pretty faces. Oh and self-sacrifice too. With nice cinematography.
The highlight of the show for me was, at the denouement, this line was actually uttered, in all seriousness, by one of the two brothers on whom the show seemed to turn:
"You saved the cheerleader so we could save the world."
Oh, please God, save me from these Heroes!
By then I'd deduced I was watching the season finale, just from the sheer number of murders and gallons of blood, plus a quite few people jumping out of windows.
And maybe if I had watched the entire season, that cheerleader/saving the world line would have made me feel noble and whatever, instead of wanting to laugh out loud and oh yea maybe barf (like all that blood hadn't done the trick already).
I think I'll go cancel my DVR recordings.
Well, how about you? Do you have any Heroes?

About dancing with, or without, stars

So I missed the performances Monday night because my priority was watching the Indians BEAT THE EVIL EMPIRE, er, I mean, Yankees, and I forgot to DVR "Dancing."
But who needs to watch performances when they do everything but replay them on the results show?
And since the results show is padded like an overstuffed sofa, if I were smart I would DVR it and cut to the chase.
But at the same time, one reason I watch is, a kind of nostalgic longing for, I am so sorry, old-fashioned variety shows.
For I am of the generation that grew up watching Ed Sullivan, Carol Burnett, Laugh-in, Sonny and Cher, Dean Martin, and more.
And I miss those shows. Of course I was less selective in my youth; I'd watch about anything -- but then, we all did. Far fewer choices, then.
And I maybe I couldn't watch them now; oh maybe Carol Burnett might hold up, maybe Laugh-in, maybe the Smothers Brothers.
But a show with a little song, a little dance, a little selzer in the pants (thanks to MTM), now that was the way to spend a Saturday or Sunday evening back in the day.
And of course shows like Dancing and Idol are more focused. A little song, a little dance, but not much selzer.
If the musical is making a teensy comeback (yea, I'll mention High School Musical), maybe the variety show won't be far behind.
What do you think? Is there room in the world for another Jackie Gleason?