I'm addicted

I have said for a long time how much I hate reality TV. Hate, hate hate it. I think it plays to our basest instincts. I think it's the networks phoning it in. And the people who go on those shows as participants....well, let's just say I don't get it.

But somehow I ran across Clean House recently. This show finds people whose homes are a wreck -- not natural disaster wrecks, but cluttered wrecks -- and forces the folks to part with possessions at a massive yard sale. Then they use the proceeds to redecorate and organize the house. It is just magic.

I should explain, I'm a reformed packrat. I used to save everything. Tickets. Programs. Corsages. Everything. Now I keep less than I should, and I'm pretty obnoxious about it. I'm quite holier than thou about not being tied to "stuff." Except for dishes. I have four full sets -- 12 place settings each -- and two sets of party plates. I can only justify by saying that I use them all. I do recognize it for the little bit of greed that it is, however.

Now -- and I know this continues to amaze my parents -- even a little clutter on the floor drives me crazy.

But Clean House. What I love most is these people live much more cluttered than I ever did. Almost anyone could feel superior watching the show. Try it.

I miss my TV. Can you help?

So, just over a month ago, I canceled my Comcast subscription. I had digital TV [it's not fancy-schmancy HD, it's just what Comcast calls it when you get an extra nice menu and search functionality, so far as I can tell], and a DVR. I didn't have any premium channels. And it was costing me almost $100 a month.

That's outrageous.

Which I finally realized, and thus canceled the whole shebang.

But here's the thing:
After 6+ weeks of no TV [don't have rabbit ears], I DO miss it. I no longer think of the days in terms of "House is on tonight!" or some such nonsense, but I do wonder who House has been yelling at lately. I think I'm cured of Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives, both of which jumped the shark last season if not before. But I wouldn't mind a little Boston Legal now and then. And I hate I missed the season finale of Mad Men, some of the finest TV to come along in my lifetime.

I'm not opposed to TV, for me or my kids. I AM opposed to paying almost $100 a month to watch a few hours a week and fight with my kids about it being time to turn off the TV, NOW!

So I'm hoping you can help me out.

Here are my requirements:

• Must be lots cheaper than Comcast's $80+ bucks a month. I'm interested in the REAL price, not the promotional deal. In two years, what will I be paying each month?
• I'd like a service with a nice menu system with different options for finding programs.
• I want a DVR. Having had one, I can't imagine TV without it. It definitely lets you unchain yourself from the TV gods' schedule. Also, I no longer have a VCR. :) I don't need massive amounts of recording space, however.
• These are the cable channels I, or someone in my family, like:
  • A&E
  • Bravo
  • CNN
  • Comedy Central
  • C-SPAN
  • Discovery
  • Disney Channel
  • ESPN
  • FX
  • Hallmark [So sue me, I'm a sap.]
  • Lifetime [See above.]
  • Nick
  • TCM
  • TNT
  • USA
  • The Weather Channel
• I'd like to get the local channels, and I do like Channel 3 [the Metro government channel]. Channel 3 is not a deal-breaker. Everything else is.

Tell me, is this even possible???

What we're up to

We are waiting, waiting, waiting for the new stove. It was supposed to come tomorrow, but the plumber [who is installing all the gas lines, including to my new water heater and YAY to my gas grill] had to resked for next week, so I moved the stove delivery too so as not to be without one at all for several days. Unreliable and old as the current stove is, it does at least cook stuff. Mostly.

The big news here at Fixin' Supper is that I canceled the cable earlier this week.

"What?" you say. "I know that's not possible, because all we've been getting here all week are links to articles on del.icio.us. What the @#$#@ are you doing, if you're not watching TV and you're not blogging??"

Hahaha good point you have there, in the conversation we're having in my head. Whoever "you" might be.

Well this week the 8yo is here, so I'm sure you realize, this week is all about homework.

I have actually cooked several things in the past couple of days, in a last-minute frenzy, as if I'd miss this awful stove once it's gone.

* Chocolate peanut butter treats [They probably have a real name but I'm too lazy to go look it up.]
* Roasted butternut squash soup. To.Die.For. Don't be fooled by the time to make this in the recipe: It takes all day. First you make the toasted spice mix, then the roasted squash and only THEN the soup. Worth every minute.
* Green beans with cracker crumbs. I must have expounded on these before here. [Apparently not. I will share the secret with you soon.] It makes no sense why these are so good, but they are.
* More chicken and rice.

And I've spent most of today and tonight reading about the weather online, of course. Someone at work asked me what the heck I'd do about tornadoes, without cable.

Pause.

I thought the whole point of a tornado was to interrupt your cable access, but maybe that's a unique phenomenon in East Nashville. Of course, as a long-time East Nashville resident, I have both my battery-powered weather radio, and intimate knowledge of every weather website on the web. So whether we're having a lose-the-power storm or a freakishly-didn't-lose-the-power storm, I'm all over it.

See me on TV!

Live in Davidson County? Have cable??

See me on TV tonight! I'm one of the dozens of people slated to address the school board about standard attire. The meeting starts at 5 p.m. and I think I'll get to speak sometime between 5:30 and 6:30.

My bizarro dream, for your entertainment

First off, I will say, this is all my fault. I wandered into a hallway conversation yesterday about dreams, and one of my only contributions was to say, "I never have bad dreams anymore. I really haven't since I was a kid."

So, then last night I had a bad dream. But more than bad, it was just strange.

First, I was in Las Vegas. I was apparently supposed to be there having some sort of romantic interlude with Jon Stewart, but in classic dream fashion, it never actually happened. It's just what was supposed to be happening. Instead, I ended up being the fly on the wall in a hotel room while someone was murdered. I don't know why this crime took place, except people in my dream kept saying, it was a crime of passion. [This ties in with another recent random conversation, in which people were discussing the laws for murder in many other countries allow for a "crime of passion" and they lower the charges in such cases. They all seemed quite sure of themselves but I haven't fact-checked which country has the most lenient laws for such crimes. You're on your own.]

At any rate, the dream was really about my knowledge of this crime, and the fact that I felt compelled not to tell anyone. And there was a lot of pressure on me to do so....police, media, people I knew. They all seemed to know that I knew [though I wasn't arrested or questioned by the police] but I had this overwhelming knowledge that I would go to jail if I didn't spill, and yet I couldn't spill.

There was also something complex about a flood on the interstate, meeting people I knew at the airport, etc. I have no idea what that was all about.

And I know you're waiting for it, so here it is: the food connection. Throughout the entire dream, in all of those strange scenes listed above, everyone was eating blueberry muffins.

I am not kidding, and I have no idea what repeated ingestion of blueberry muffins signifies in a dream.

Happy Saturday!