25 posts tagged “life”

Good

• Post yoga donut
  
• Light in the evenings
• Long weekend is imminent
  
• Chuck got renewed
• Tim Roth on Lie To Me
• Swedish detective novels
• Kenneth Branagh as Wallander (thank you Masterpiece Theater)
• Wentworth Miller has finally been released into the wild again and can hopefully start making good tv again

• No more Life or Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles
• NBC have given up on drama for their fall schedule and are solely relying on Jay Leno (this makes no sense I tell you!)
  
• Falling asleep during the last few minutes of a tv show
  
• Latent jet lag
  

I just burst into tears on the escalator at the PATH station because I realized that I had left the hot cross buns I bought for breakfast tomorrow at yoga. The combination of a roller coaster of a week and really not wanting to have to have bagel for breakfast again tomorrow led to the minor melt down at Exchange Place.  It's not as if it was best hot cross bun - no sticky glaze and just fruit not spicy-fruity.  But, given that hot cross buns are not as wide spread in the US than they are in the UK I consume them whatever I can find them. This week sucked and I am glad tomorrow is Friday even if that means I have to confront not getting a fraction of my school work done during the week. Tomorrow after work I will head to Wholefoods, and stock up on all the good stuff that will keep me through a weekend of essays and index cards, and Alex through a weekend of scrum training (not rugby) and HALO.  Then we'll settle down to watch the final two hours of Battlestar Galactica; an emotional end to an over emotional week.

I use to think it weird that in December all my favorite shows would go into hibernation until the new year. In the UK Christmas is when the BBC et al come out all guns blazing to wow a nation but now I cherish the respite.  The heart grows a little fonder for some shows and forgets others.  I thought that we were on the cusp of welcoming 24 back onto our DVR but Alex just veto it (sorry Jack). Let's be honest when you peek the list below we have more than enough shows to be going on with, and 24 is no Battlestar Galactic. Five days until BSG's season 4.5 kicks off - woo hoo!

• Battlestar Galactica (1/16/09)  - Who is the fifth cyclon and what happened to Earth?
  
• Burn Notice (1/22/09) - Highly addictive, and the Miami setting eases winter blues
  
• Chuck (2/2/09) - It has more than the touch of the Walter Mittys about it and a definitely a guilty pleasure
  
• Dollhouse (2/13/09) - Josh Wheldon's new show so will give it a whirl but I get Ibsen flashbacks every time I think of the title
  
• Fringe (1/20/09) - MASSIVE DYNAMIC and the wonderfully inappropriate Walter
  
• House (1/19/09) - Duh!
  
• Lie to Me (1/21/09) - Mr. Orange reads people
  
• Life (2/4/09) - Quirky crime drama with Band of Brother's Captain Winters
  
• The Mentalist - Simon Baker reads people
  
• NCIS
  
• Psych - fake psychic reads people
  
• Supernatural (1/15/09) - Mythology, monsters and classic rock
  
• Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2/13/09) - The end is neigh and John might meet his dad
  
• United States of Tara (1/18/09) - quirky comedy about a suburban mum suffering from spilt personality
  

Thank the gods for staggered start times otherwise I'd never have anytime for anything else! Quite an alarming list and only time will tell which shows get left on the DVR.

Hurrahs

• There is nothing new from Apple for me to drool after so bank balance is safe (for the moment)
• Going to Seattle in February
• 99c shampoo is just as good as the fancy $6 stuff
• Alex is home between assignments
• Booked ticket for a panel discussion on looting of Greek art
• Renewed apartment for another year
• Starting to plan holiday to Greece (if finances allow)
  

• No pleasure reading
• Iodine
  
• Jealous of Alex being at home
• Need to order groceries
• Still have 3 more seasons of TNG before we are allowed to start re-watching DS9
  

I think I had a pretty productive long weekend. Did some cooking. Watched some TV. Bought some sweaters. And, most importantly finally started to get a handle on my Greek & Roman Architecture course. It's been rather overwhelming up until now. The huge 800 lb gorilla in the room, if you will.  All the new terminology made my teeth go on edge, and the thought of having to memorize all the plans and photos - aarrggghhhh. I think last year I had it easy (barring the Roman lit course) Greek history was a direct follow on and covered much material that I was familiar with, and Homer. Well, Homer is my homeboy so no worries there. It really help just being able to spend 4 days slowly working my way through 5 topics. I had wanted to start on Tony and Cleo for my Augustus class but it wasn't to be. As pediments and Corinthian columns started to make sense I wanted to persevere onwards.

The good news is that I have Friday off so I can switch focus, and hunker down with naughty Tony and Cleo. (Though my biggest problem with that time period is separating fact from HBO sanctioned fiction!)

Terribly mundane but such is 99.9% of life.

• Tidy and vacuum flat
• Tackle laundry mountain
• Make Nigella's chili topped with cornbread for lunch
  
• Visit farmer's market
• Buy tinned pears from local deli (why does Fresh Direct not stock this basic item?)
• Make Nigella's pear-chocolate sponge for pud
  
• Drop off dry cleaning
  
• STUDY (must break the back of Greek Architecture course)
  

I've had a fairly productive day. Finished the latest McCall Smith novel, four loads of laundry, swapped my wardrobe over from summer to winter, two topics on Augustus, and a slap-up lunch of roast beef, cabbage, cauliflower and cheese, and the all important roasties. I didn't need to worry about making desert because I made an apple layer cake on Thursday night. Actually, I made two layer cakes because we went to see our friends who had a premie baby, and I felt compelled to feed them.  I was toying with the idea of going to the Met tomorrow since Alex is taking off to play golf but I think I am going to skip it to make sure I get caught with school work. I finally got my password to my school site so I am easing back into study mode. I swear the whole time I was cooking I was thinking about James Purefoy Mark Antony.

By all rights this should be 'Study: The week ahead' but I don't want to bore you as I am not at the exciting bit yet. I am still at the preliminary background reading stage even though my schedule states that I should be on topic 4 'Antony and Cleopatra. I don't quite understand how I can be behind even before I have officially begun. I fear it could be one of those pesky time paradoxes like in the Terminator. Reading about Tony and Cleo should be a big carrot for me to get my arse into gear as it is the perfect excuse to re-watch Rome, and savour James Purefoy.  With regard to the small screen I am not sure what I am more excited about the VP debates (I hear Tina Fey will be subbing) or Mitch Pileggi appearing as the Winchester brother's grandfather in a flashback episode. Oh it's a toughie!

Monday

• Heroes - I'll DVR this for the weekend as it really isn't as "sticky" as the first season, and I only keep watching because I have a soft spot for Noah (aka HRG dude)
• Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - No sophomore slump on the horizon for these terrorists, and who knew that Dean Austin Green could act?
• Life - Loved the truncated first season but will need to bank this in the DVR until Alex has caught up

• House - It's painful that Wilson has dumped House but makes for great snarky television
  
• NCIS - A classy guilty pleasure, and I totally guessed the twist with last weeks episode. But, I don't know who the spy is working for.
  
• The Mentalist - I didn't think I had capacity for yet another procedural drama but this one is worth dumping Bones for
• Fringe - I am committing to Pacey et al with a season pass this week

• Pushing Daisies - Despite one of the central characters being a zombie the show does leave you with a warm tingly feeling

• SUPERNATURAL - All shades of awesome wrapped in an Impala
  
• VP Debates  - You just don't know how this will play out. Perhaps Palin has been faking it for the last few weeks to give Biden a false sense of security...
  

• Life - Another episode for the DVR. Now are NBC trying to engage with a new fan base with two episodes this week or burn through them...
  

It's been a really weird week. The yoga goddess inside would put it down to the seasonal shift. The student would classify it has been related to courses starting, and a certain level of frustration building up because her virtual learning environment not been up and running yet. The pragmatic office drone puts it down to not being able to complete the things on her to do list from Monday because every single day something has come up that dragged her away from what she should have been working on. The wife is starting to feel guilty about ignoring her husband because school is starting. And best not touch upon politics and the situation with Our Lady From Alaska and the First Dude. (I always thought that if anyone was going to be the First Dude it  would be Keanu.)

The bottom line is that I am a tad overwhelmed. My brain feels like it has been shot out of a high velocity rifle and fractured into an infinite number of pieces. I need to start getting out of bed at 6am to hit the books. I need to take a step back from work. I need to stick with yoga twice a week. And most of all I need to stop worrying about November 4th because good sense will prevail. I mean the last 8 years was just an aberration, right? 

I should prefix this by saying that I am not the secret smoker nor is it my brother. My brother is the not-so-secret-smoker who is currently annoyed with me because I wont airlift him any more jeans until he gets his drivers license. Tough love from the colonies and how many pairs of Levis does the boy need? Any way, the secret smoker is our neighbor who seeks refuge in the bathroom to puff away on a cancer stick. How do I know that my neighbor occasionally indulges in a crafty fag - we share a vent. So every couple of weeks or months (depending on what the triggers are for our neighbor) we get hit by the pong of stale smoke in the bathroom - lovely.