I'm really mad at the television.
Actually, I guess I'm more angry at the cable service, or maybe it's the TiVo ~ whatever the root of the problem, it's caused us to miss some of our favorite programs.
I'm not a huge TV fan, and for about 22 hours of the day I wouldn't care whether I even owned one or not. But it's become a part of our nighttime ritual to wind-down by settling into the big leather recliner sofa with our favorite snacks (wine and pita chips for me, lemonade and peanuts for J.) and watch some TV together. We TiVo the things we like, so we usually have a line up of things to choose from, although since Dancing With the Stars, American Idol, Parenthood, and Modern Familyhave all ended for the season, the pickings are a little slimmer.
That's another reason I'm so annoyed with this situation - there's very little to watch right now, so I can't afford to lose any of it. And for some reason, our TiVo sometimes just stops working in the middle of recording a show. There's no rhyme or reason to it, and it can happen at any point during the programming. It's become a crap shoot whether we'll "get" the entire episode of anything we record. The worst thing was the finale of Dancing With the Stars - we had recorded the episode, and were watching it semi-live (about 30 minutes behind the live version). But the TiVo zonked out exactly at the point where Tom Bergeron said "And the Season 11 Champion of Dancing With the Stars is....."
Freeze frame - then nothing.
Man, was I hopping mad.
Since then, we've lost parts of episodes of Parenthood, Men of A Certain Age, and Modern Family. It's even worse than if it didn't record at all, because you're 15 or 20 minutes into the show when suddenly the picture freezes and the TiVo blip off. Losing the network shows isn't so bad, because thanks to the internet and some great VGA cables we can see them via computer on the big screen TV. But when Jim completely missed two of his favorite car races last weekend -that was apparently the last straw. The friendly service man from our Optimized Cable Company will be here on Wednesday.
I feel like a crotchety old lady when I complain about stuff like this. But our evening TV time is one of those small pleasures that become very important in a relationship. Way back when we were first married, we'd settle out there in the same TV room and watch the Mary Tyler Moore show - and I'm talking first run episodes here, so you know how long our evening TV ritual has been in existence. It gives us a chance to relax, laugh (or sometimes cry, depending on what we're watching), and take our minds off our own problems for a while before going to sleep. You'd be surprised, but some very interesting and even intimate conversations have arisen as a result of television shows.
So I'm hoping there's a quick fix to this problem and we can get our reliable TiV0 system back in order before the new seasons of Rescue Me, The Closer, and Mad Men begin.
How about you? Do you and your partner have long standing rituals that help you relax and unwind at the end of the day?