The Burrow

"Did you have trouble turning on the tv?  TBG asked me the first night he was gone.   I laughed.  The notion that I would voluntarily turn on the television amused me.  "i told you - left to my own devices I would never turn on the tv." The second day began with a sunrise trip to the airport, hours of deep cleaning the kitchen, and a delightful early afternoon playing mah jongg at Scarlet's round table.   Then I was home and without a plan or a large print book.   I looked at the tv.  It looked at me.  It smiled the way only an inanimate object can smile - that I know what you're thinking and I can help you..... come closer.... come closer.....   And so I opened the pretty wooden box which hides the remote that only I understand.  I pressed all on  and, surprisingly, everything I needed was powered up and ready to go.  Netflix took its own sweet time buffering itself into existence on my scree...

I love the end of football season.  Not the time when it's over, but the month or so leading up to the end.  Hour after hour of talking heads blathering about formations and roster changes and coaching decisions and TBG fascinated, focused, glued to the screen.  I'm amazed at the intensity he brings to it all.  Without much thought, he can bring up statistics from seasons gone by.... long long ago and just last year... comparing and contrasting and explaining to his uneducated wife the ins and outs of large men running into one another, carrying a pigskin.  He's a great teacher and I'm an avid listener and it works for us - when I pay attention. I enjoy Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon on Pardon the Interruption, and their 30 minutes of (usually) adult conversation keeps me in the sports loop, able to converse with my son and my husband and the young man behind the bagel counter.  The VW service reps were surprised to find themselves talking about NFL...

I used to get a lot of reading done between September and the Super Bowl. My guy watches a lot of sports, sometimes the same game over and over again, dissecting strategies and reveling in joyous moments, all the while leaving me free to work a crossword puzzle or read a book... or, sometimes, lots of books.   Kate Shugak and I became acquainted  during a football soaked December when TBG and Big Cuter sat, transfixed, by grown men chasing a pigskin. I wanted their company, but not their entertainment. Click, click, open and read - I had a twenty volume series in my Kindle without moving more than a forefinger. I was headed that way again, my left thumb making a weird clicking sound which I diagnosed as Kindle Page Turning Syndrome, my eyes accustomed to a bright page with an ever larger font as the nights wore on and my eyes grew weary. And then we found Breaking Bad  on Netflix and realized that there are alternatives on the television screen. Let me point out that,...

I've never seen television like this before. I've tried to write two other posts for you since I sat down, but my mind is stuck with Walter and Jesse and Skylar and Hank.  If you haven't seen the series, I apologize in advance.  I can't think of anything else today. Not one single thing. The kids have been encouraging us to watch it for years. We started on our family vacation at Little Cuter and SIR's house last month; a television marathon because it was hot and muggy and mosquito-y outside and air conditioned and comfy on Cozy Rosie, inside.  It didn't matter what we were doing; we just wanted to be together. And, together we were, til the early morning hours, unable to tear ourselves away. It's a slow burn , as Little Cuter kept reminding us, as one episode flowed seamlessly into the next, picking up the story exactly where it had been left behind. Gale Ann Hurd, of Terminator and  Walking Dead  fame, told us at BlogHer'13 that "all the best...

Aaron Sorkin is back and he's better than ever.  In fact, I think my new favorite four words might be written by Aaron Sorkin.   Did we like the first episode of his new HBO series, The Newsroom ?  We watched it twice last night. Aaron Sorkin is a true American patriot, and his rants on the topic are the stuff of legend, at least in this household.  Democracy isn't easy is the backdrop as I listen to opposing viewpoints.... or try to listen to opposing viewpoints even though all I am offered is screeching on the news and the talk shows.  In The Newsroom , Sam Waterston, outraged, but with a twinkle in his eye, plays the boss who shares my sentiments, exactly.  He creates a show that he would want to watch, a program that is tough and fair-minded and answers the questions he was asking himself, the questions TBG and I ask one another as, once again, the evening news devolves into fluff and nonsense.  Walking into the newsr...

As a very young and very new social worker on the neurology service of a major metropolitan cancer hospital,  I was befriended by the Chief Resident.  He was short, dark and handsome and enjoyed the fact that my office always had a bowl of hard candy on the visitor's table.  I enjoyed the fact that he could sit silently in my office, quiet with his own thoughts, but there, reminding me that I was not alone. His wit and his compassion and his willingness to actually listen to the patients were added bonuses.  He was, in short, a mensch .  For those of you unfamiliar with hospital hierarchies in the 1970's, a brief tutorial may be in order. Basically,  it was all about power.  Hospitals were color coded. Maintenance, janitorial, food service, nurses, assistants and physicians of all levels of training and certification, all the ancillary services -- each had its own color or style and, except for pediatrics, where Winnie the Pooh was popular across bo...

There's comfortable free fun in the heart of Beverly Hills. Inside the Paley Center for Media are nearly 150,000 media experiences and all you have to do is walk in the door. They asked for a donation, but, this being Beverly Hills and all, my wallet contained only one lonely $50 bill nestled behind my plastic. The volunteer at the desk smiled and waved me inside, with vague instructions about going up the steps. There are lots of steps on several different staircases. I was having a Zero Mostel moment, humming " one long staircase just going up, and one even longer coming down" when I honestly came to "one more going nowhere, just for show". Just a little freaked out, I found the front desk and started all over again. Walter Cronkite had just died, and the tv in the big front window was running loops of him being famous and fatherly. The walls had Hirschfeld drawings and I spent more than a little time feeling nostalgic for Sunday mornings with the Arts...