Update on What's Going On

Hi, everyone!  I hope you're all staying safe and well during these increasingly crazy times.  Sometimes, it's like living in Bizarro World or Upside Down Land, where up is down, wrong is right, and the orange monstrosity is still living in the White House.  I don't know about you, but being away from home is increasingly detaching me from my real life.  All I do is work and watch tv.  Seriously.  Well, every week I go to see a vestibular therapist to help me with my dizziness and inner ear troubles.  That's an hour away from the laptop.  And now and again, I get outside for a walk.  But not too often since the weather isn't really cooperating.  I have to admit I miss my life.  I miss walking around the block to the natural food store.  Or meeting my friends for drinks.  Or having Indian food delivered to my door.  Or having the local Italian market bring me imported prosciutto.  Or taking my clothes to the local laundromat.  Or being alone for a bit.  Sigh.

Moving on.  When I look at photos from last year at this time, I remember the grand time I had in Edinburgh with longing.  Will I ever be able to travel again with ease?  Between the virus and worry about vertigo coming back, I wonder.  Double sigh.  Usually at this time of year, though, I'm sitting in the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing, NY, watching the US Open qualies.  It's been a bit of normal to be able to watch some live tennis right about now - it's so interesting that the USTA decided to host both the Cincinnati and US Open tournaments back to back.  I guess it makes sense for the athletes to be in the 'bubble' to practice safety/health precautions to be able to play.  It seems that everything is going well so far...fingers crossed that everyone stays healthy and there's some good tennis to watch in the coming days.  UPDATE:  One of the tennis players planned to boycott her semifinal match because of what's happening in the world today.  Is it truly so hard for police officers to remember to stop shooting Black people??  I just don't understand.  Anyway, I admire her courage a great deal.  Apparently, so does the tennis powers-that-be.  They actually are "taking a pause" and not playing any matches in solidarity.  That is admirable.  Will it open people's eyes?  I don't know.  Tennis is such a white sport, it needs its eyes open.  I will watch and wait with anticipation and hope.

As for what I've been watching (to get back to the truly trivial, sorry)...it's a hodgepodge.  I got Apple TV so my dad could watch the movie Greyhound (he loved it, I haven't watched it yet).  When I was playing around on the home page, I was reminded that The Morning Show aired here.  Since it was nominated for so many awards, my mom and I decided to watch it (she still doesn't understand the whole 'on demand' aspect of the streaming channels, but we live with it).  It was well-acted, well-written, timely, disturbing, and extremely well-done.  Mom and I would watch two episodes on the weekend and she would say a couple of times during the week "I wonder what will happen next!", which is not a usual reaction for her.  After watching episode eight, I was extremely triggered, couldn't sleep, and had to take a couple of weeks off, but we finally finished it.  I'm glad we watched it, but I can't imagine what the next ten episodes will even be...

We watch a lot of Game Show Network - it's easy to watch and we don't have to think very hard.  I have to admit, I never realized how misogynistic Family Feud can be.  I think we can lay that at the feet of the current host, but it does give me pause.  Since The Amazing Race isn't running yet, Mom and I got hooked on Phil Keoghan's new show, Tough as Nails.  We ran through a bunch of cooking shows and eagerly await the new season of Great British Bake Off.  The Olympic Channel is a good source of interesting material. And I keep making my mom watch documentaries and she is a good sport to let me; we were both incredibly moved by Howard, the film on the great Howard Ashman.  We also enjoyed watching the docuseries on the making of Frozen 2.  We got a kick out of Perfect Bid: The Contestant Who Knew Too Much, about the time a contestant got an exact bid on the Price is Right showcase and caused a scandal; Too Funny to Fail: The Life and Death of The Dana Carvey Show was also really enjoyable - it even helped my mom forgive Steve Carell for his Morning Show misbehavior.

As for movies, we've watched and enjoyed (off the top of my head) Hustlers, Red Joan, Bottle Shock, Booksmart, The Bookshop, Best in Show, and And So It Goes (a harmless, though rather lazy, film by Rob Reiner starring Michael Douglas and Diane Keaton).  And TCM's Summer Under the Stars is always a treat, introducing us to new movies starring actor we like from the Golden Age of moviemaking.  

I think you can see now why I said all I do is work and watch tv.  Often, I'm doing both at the same time, though I still feel pretty good about the work I've been able to produce lately.  My current goal is to get back home in October, so I can be settled in before the election.  Most of the money I've managed to save this summer has been going to flip the Senate and evict the current tenant of the White House.  It has been rather dismal to see all the current regime signs in people's yards around my parents' house, so when I saw this sign the other day, I felt some hope.  And that's important now more than ever.