"...and we reach for the stars"

I posted this quote - one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite shows of all time - last year after the bombings at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. I am re-posting it here because I think it is particularly apt for the events - and the people - we remember this week, here in New York and around the world.

"...More than any time in recent history, America's destiny is not of our own choosing. We did not seek nor did we provoke an assault on our freedom, and our way of life. We did not expect nor did we invite a confrontation with evil. Yet the true measure of a people's strength is how they rise to master that moment when it does arrive...The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels tonight. They are our students and our teachers and our parents and our friends. The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels. But every time we think we've measured our capacity to meet a challenge, we look up and we're reminded that that capacity may well be limitless. This is a time for American heroes. We will do what is hard. We will achieve what is great. This is a time for American heroes and we reach for the stars. God bless their memory. God bless you. And God bless the United States of America."

                                                          -President Josiah Bartlet
                                                           The West Wing, Season 4, Episode 2

Summer: A TV Lover's Paradise

iPad. The Good Wife. Dark Room. Summer is awesome.

Once upon a time, TV-land in the summer was a dark and desolate place. 

Every May the shows that I depended on, the ones that kept me company through a long, cold winter, came to an end. For nearly four months every year - the "hot" months, if you will - my DVR was heartbreakingly empty, my channel guide mocking me with its constant scroll of re-runs, news and baseball games.

It was as if the network heads themselves had conspired to force us all off our couches to get us outside to enjoy the season. Never much of an outdoor person unless outdoors includes a lounge-chair, a delicious drink and a book, I was relegated to watching movies and the same episodes of Law & Order: SVU, Criminal Minds, and NCIS over and over again.

It was a sad existence, friends.

But happily, that existence is no more.

Because it seems as though the people who run the networks have finally realized that not everyone has a burning desire to hike and bike and spend their summers baking under the scorching sun. They finally understand that the people who watch TV in the fall and winter watch just as much TV in the summer, it's just that, until the last year or two, there was just nothing in the summer worth watching.

But oh how the times have changed. The past two summers have served up such delicious treats as Mistresses, Under The Dome, The Night Shift, Extreme Weight Loss, Sister Wives and Falling Skies. And we can't forget the summer mainstay The Bachelorette, Jack Bauer's harrowing and illustrious return in 24: Live Another Day, and the brand new and highly anticipated Bachelor in Paradise, ABC's replacement for the beloved and dearly-departed Bachelor Pad.

And if you get sick of waiting a week in between episodes of your favorite shows, you can always do what I did and spend and entire Sunday binge-watching the first eight episodes of Netflix's incredible original series Orange Is The New Black. You might, as I did, end up with some pretty insane nightmares about being a prison inmate and wake up with a major TV hangover, but just stick with it. Any season binge watcher will tell you that it'll all be worth it in the end.

And if none of that strikes your fancy, the advent of Netflix and Hulu Plus means that you can spend an entire summer ensconced in marathons of the TV shows that you always meant to watch but never got around to. For example, a few weeks ago I jumped on The Good Wife bandwagon and have now watched my way through three and a half seasons, with a season and a half left to go. I'm not sure how I missed this one the first time around, but I'm definitely making up for lost time, and am considered a re-watch of all of the seasons of Friday Night Lights to combat my post-Good Wife blues that are sure to settle in once I finish season five.

So TV lovers rejoice! No longer do you have to tag along on those hateful outdoor events that define the summer. You can stay inside, in your air-conditioned living rooms, with snacks at the ready, enjoying everything that TV has to offer. And if you still want a little outdoor time, just do what I do and move your TV watching right outside for the very best of both worlds.

My kind of outdoor summer activity

Just make sure to bring your snacks out with you. That walk from the lounge chair to the kitchen can be awfully taxing.

Memories of a 24 Marathon

Surrounded by soda cans we sprawl on the couch, eyes glued to the TV.

We speak only to say, "just one more."

We can't stop watching. We can only hold our breaths. Until Jack finds out who gave the terrorists the bomb.

So Much To Watch...So Little Time

I think I have taken exhaustion to entirely new levels this week.

I'm not talking about your normal, garden-variety tired. I'm talking a numb limbs, word slurring, unable to concentrate kind of exhaustion. The kind borne of night after night of very little sleep. Of late bedtimes, early mornings, and nary a nap during the day. When I sleep, I sleep like the dead, but unfortunately I haven't slept nearly enough.

And where, you may ask, can I place the blame for this sudden stretch of fatigue?

On a confluence of events so rare that it has never happened before, and may never happen again.

It all began a couple of months ago when Netflix announced that the season 2 of House of Cards would be released in all of its 13-episode glory on February 14th. Then I looked at the calendar and realized that February 14th was right in the middle of the 2 week-long Winter Olympics and happened to be just before the ice dancing and ladies individual competitions began - my most favorite Olympic sports. Soon after that, a glance at my DVR's upcoming recordings informed me that the week after House of Cards was released was also the week that American Idol went to its 3-episode a week format to choose the top-13 for the finals.

So what's a girl to do?

Well, at first I figured that we would just plow through all 13 episodes of House of Cards in a single weekend, thereby eliminating one arm of the television trifecta that was threatening to take over my life. The idea of a 13-episode binge, complete with sweatpants, snacks and dirty hair, filled me with glee in a way that only people who have experienced it themselves will understand. But pesky personal lives and various errands and responsibilities over the weekend sadly made that impossible. We were relegated to watching the episodes two or three at a time, thereby ensuring that the entire series would take us at least four or five days to get through. Unchartered territory for us, as we are champion binge watchers, but we were determined not to let it get us down.

When Monday night rolled around and we still had five episodes to go, I knew I was in for a doozy of a week.

I knew that not watching all 3 1/2 hours of the NBC prime time Olympics coverage the night it aired was a total non-starter. The idea of missing some unforeseen Olympic moment made my palms sweat and my severe Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) when it comes to pop-culture events simply wouldn't allow for such a thing. So the Olympics had to make the cut.

I guess I probably could have saved American Idol for this weekend once we were done with House of Cards and I had my entire Sunday free to do nothing but watch TV, but I knew that Twitter and my favorite American Idol recappers would give all the results away, and well, we couldn't have that, could we?

So I decided to watch them all, and my nights this week have gone something like this: 

Get home from work...rummage around in the kitchen to find something for dinner...take said dinner to the couch and commence Olympics coverage until David gets home from work...pause Olympics coverage when he gets home, make cursory "how was your day" conversation while he takes off his shoes and takes his place on the couch...hook iPad up to the TV for 2 episodes of House of Cards and sit in front of the TV with mouth hanging open because Frank Underwood did what??...Go upstairs to bed except don't actually go to sleep...Finish Olympics coverage...Prop open eyes with toothpicks and start the 2 hours of American Idol...Realize I have fallen asleep in the middle of a really bad performance...Rewind said performance anyway because don't want to miss a thing...Finally finish American Idol and turn off the light...Check phone only to realize that favorite AI recap has been posted...Fall asleep with phone in hand in the middle of the recap...wake up when my alarm goes off with phone still in hand...Get up and get dressed for work...

...And repeat.

Needless to say, I'm pretty tired. But honestly, it's the good kind of tired. The kind that tells you that you have really accomplished something great. Because smashing seven hours worth of TV into a single evening is no easy feat. It takes years of conditioning and training and an unrivaled love of TV, which we possess in spades.

By this time next week the Olympics will be over, we'll be done with House of Cards, American Idol goes back to its regular twice-a-week format, and I'll finally be able to get a little sleep.

Except, starting on Tuesday, all 25 of my shows that have been on hiatus these past few weeks will be back and my DVR will once again be entirely filled up, just the way I like it.

Who needs sleep anyway?

Five Superbowl Moments

It's not that I'm not a football fan. I really, really am. I grew up in Pittsburgh, and I practically bleed black and gold. I spend every Sunday during football season in front of the TV watching games, I had a fantasy team this past season, and I read Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback column religiously.

When I turn on the Superbowl I'm not thinking about commercials and halftime shows. I'm thinking about football. I actually like to watch the game, whether the Steelers are in or not.

But last night's game was something else entirely.

I was pumped before kickoff. Since the game was in New Jersey, media week was centered in Times Square, a mere 8 blocks from my office, so there was a buzz in the air all week. There were players and celebrities roaming the streets of midtown, and during the hours of pre-game I watched on Sunday the landmarks captured by the areal coverage were ones that I see every day.

I made dinner, and parked myself in front of the TV for what was billed as a showdown of the number one offence and the number one defense in the league, battling it out for the Lombardi trophy. Except it wasn't that. Not at all. By the end of the first quarter I was bored. By the end of the first half I was contemplating going to sleep and skipping the rest of the game.

But the thought of going to sleep and missing something epic like last year's blackout, or Peyton Manning staging some kind of miraculous comeback kept me wide awake. Because there is almost nothing I hate more than missing out on a pop-culture event and having to read about it the next morning. I like my pop culture live, thank you very much.

Well, nothing like that happened. The Broncos never came back. The commercials weren't that great (except for this one, which is brilliant), The Seahawks flew themselves to victory. People got mad that public transportation was crowded. There was an amusing sign on the stadium scoreboard asking people to stay in the stadium until the New Jersey Transit station platforms had cleared off.

So, Superbowl 38 is in the books. What will I remember from the game? Probably not much.

Well, a few things.

Like these.

Guys, 24 is coming back. Did you hear the clock?

Jack. Chloe.

#JackIsBack. Can. Not. Wait.

How can I become the person who looks up these arcane facts?

Poor, sad Peyton Manning (said in the drippingly sarcastic tones of a
Steelers fan born and bred to loathe the Mannings and everything
about them)

This Person Leaving Us Tonight IS...

For some reason, Ryan Seacrest's voice saying "the person leaving us tonight IS..." is playing on a loop in my head. If you don't know what that means, well, you're probably better off. Because once American Idol gets its hooks into you, it's nearly impossible to break free. I should know. I've watched twelve seasons, and this coming January, I'll be back for lucky number 13. This show has become so ingrained into my pop culture persona that I'm not sure I even like it any more, but that doesn't seem to matter.

So why, you may ask, is the voice of the fair-haired host on my mind today? Because today at noon, voting starts for Week 1 of Blogger Idol. 

The rules of the competition go like this: Every Saturday the finalists are given an assignment, and we have until Tuesday at noon to write. The judges read the posts and score them, and then on Wednesday at 1:00pm the link goes live for all of you to read the posts and vote on your favorites until Thursday at 11:59pm. Once all the votes are tallied, the person with the lowest score is kicked off, and then it starts all over again.

The assignment for Week 1 was to write our own eulogy as a way to introduce ourselves to each other and to all of you. Morbid? Maybe. But I thought it was pretty fun.

So, if the idea of reading thirteen eulogies appeals to you, click on over to the Week 1 voting site to check them out and vote on your favorite, which I really, really hope is mine.

Blogger Idol: Because #writersarethenewrockstars

Confession: I love American Idol.

I was a freshman in college when I sat around with my friends watching as Kelly Clarkson stood under her confetti shower and tearfully sang her coronation song, "A Moment Like This," and I have been hooked ever since. I've sat through the good (anything by Jessica Sanchez), the bad (anything by Jacob Lusk), the downright horror (think, anything by John Stevens or Sanjaya Malakar), and the absolutely transcendent (think, Melinda Doolittle's "My Funny Valentine," Haley Reinhart's "House of the Rising Sun," Adam Lambert's "Mad World," and Candice Glover's "Lovesong).

I love every single thing about it, judges and all, and I will continue watching it until the show breathes its last, dying breath.

So when I heard that there was a writing competition created in the image of American Idol, I had no choice but the check it out. And what I found was rather spectacular.

It's called Blogger Idol, and it goes like this. The contestants are bloggers, who audition by submitting the blog post they think best reflects who they are and what their blog is about. The judges narrow it down to a top twelve, who compete weekly using writing prompts. Every week someone is eliminated until one blogger is left standing.

And what do we win, you might ask? All kinds of fabulous things from Amazon gift cards, to gifts certificates for blog management, Pinterest management and mobile accessories are up for grabs.

Want to join in the fun? Come check out Blogger Idol at http://blogger-idol.com/, on twitter at @bloggeridol, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/bloggeridol.

I may not have a singing voice to rival Dame Clarkson, but I can write. So here goes nothing.

The Very Best Way To Watch a Show

It started off innocently enough.

It was summer, our shows were all on hiatus, and it was about a year before the networks caught on to the fact that people still like to watch TV when it's hot outside and started a full slate of programming from June through early September.

At this point you may want to say something like, "it's summer! Go outside and do something summery! For the love of God, get up off your couch!"

And you might be right, but we're not listening.

Because we love TV. TV has been central to our relationship since it began. Our first kiss happened while we were watching TV. We bonded at first over a shared love of The Office and a mutual need to unwind at the end of the day with the TV on. As time went on we each adopted some of each other's shows so that much of our time spent together was in front of the TV, which suited us fine because talking at the end of the day gives us both a headache. When we got married we decided we were above compromise when it came to our shows, and became the proud owners of two DVRs to accommodate our habit.

But that summer we didn't have anything to watch. We subsisted for awhile on movies and some random stuff that had been crowding our DVRs, but before long we were out of shows, and in withdrawal.

It was David who came up with the idea for 24. Neither of us had seen it and we figured 192 episodes would take us all summer to watch. We figured wrong. We watched them all in three weeks, barely stopping for things like eating, sleeping and going to work.

And our era of binge-watching was born.

When Jack stared up into CTU's camera drone and the clock counted down to zero for the final time, David and I looked at each other in similar torment, wondering what to do next. We tried going back to our regular schedule of a show or two a night before bed, but we were strung out like meth addicts jonesing for a fix.

Binge watching was the only answer.

The next night we started The West Wing, and plowed our way through its seven seasons. By the time we were done with that, fall TV had started up again and we had little choice but to watch our shows like regular people. But we decided that was the amateur's way to watch TV, and we had graduated to the NFL.

So while we watched our weekly shows we also downloaded all the seasons of Fringe, Big Love, Friday Night Lights, Weeds, Gilmore Girls and a few others. And lately it's been House of Cards, Falling Skies, and Chicago Fire. Some we watched together and some we watched separately, but to both of us it was clear.

Binge watching is the absolute best way to enjoy a TV show.

There are plenty of people who disagree with me, and that's just fine. The truth is, I don't really have time to argue.

Netflix just released all 13 episodes of Orange is the New Black, and tonight, it's go time.

On The Joys of Binge-Watching TV

I am a woman of many interests.

Law, writing, running, romance novels, reading blogs, baking and cooking are all things that occupy my days in some combination. But as a mostly normal and generally healthy person, I understand that I can't fit it all into every day. I don't usually work or write on the weekends. I don't run every day. I would like to be able to say I make an actual dinner every single night, but it doesn't always work out that way and besides, that's why grilled cheese and cold cereal were invented.

But there is one thing that I do every single day, without exception. I've been known to stay up late or wake up extra early to make sure I get my fix. I spent a huge amount of my leisure time doing it, and have been known to skip nights out or cancel plans in favor of this critical activity.

And what is it, you may ask?

I watch TV. I love TV. 

From the time I get home at night until the time I go to sleep, the TV is on. I watch while I'm making dinner, while I'm eating dinner, and while I'm doing all manner of other things and nothing at all. 

David, of course, shares this obsession of mine, and it's entirely possible that his love of TV surpasses mine which is lucky because if we didn't have this in common, we probably never would have gotten married in the first place. It's impossible to count the number of hours we have spent together in front of the TV, but sufficed to say it is definitely an unhealthy amount. And we love it.

During the height of our TV season we probably watch a combined 40 shows and are never without a show to park ourselves in front of, either together or separately, but once summer rolls around and our favorite shows are in re-runs, what is this TV loving couple to do? Well, I don't know what anyone else does, but our answer is usually to find a few shows that neither of us have ever watched, download all the seasons, and spend our summers catching up.

If you've never watched anything this way, I recommend you come up with something you haven't watched, and get to it immediately, because it's an amazing way to consume a show. Normally you have a wait 7 whole days in between episodes, but when you're binge watching, all the episodes are right at your fingertips.  If you're a normal TV watcher you can probably make a decently sized series last for quite awhile, but if you're anything like us, once all those glorious episodes are just a mouse-click away you will lose any semblance of self-control.

Take the time we decided to watch 24. Neither of us had ever seen it, and the series was long over, so one day a few summers ago, we downloaded all eight seasons. We watched the first episode, and we were hooked the very first time Jack Bauer shouted "dammit" into his cell phone. You would think that it would have taken us all summer to watch the series' 192 episodes, but you would be wrong. Because once we started we couldn't stop. We rushed home from work every day to start watching and kept right on watching until it was approximately three in the morning and we were propping our eyes open with toothpicks and saying "just one more" over and over again like drug addicts jonesing for a fix. We consumed all 192 episodes in three weeks, and stopped caring about mundane things like eating and sleeping and working because there were terrorists to kill, and CTU moles to uncover, dammit.

It was, without a doubt, our finest hour. 

We've watched The West Wing all at once, the first three seasons of Fringe before we caught up to real-time, Netflix's sublime House of Cards and most recently, I myself watched the twenty-four episodes in the inaugural season of NBC's Chicago Fire in just five days. 

A quick word of caution...Watching TV this way can lead one to dispense with reality to the point where one forgets that the characters are actors playing a role and starts to think of them as living and breathing people. For example, somewhere around the middle of season 5 of 24 we had started to really believe there was actually Sentox Nerve gas hidden somewhere in the country and that Jack was the only person who could find it. Binge watching can also lead to a minor bout of depression when the series finally comes to a close and there are no more episodes left to watch. But, in my humble, TV loving opinion, the risks are far outweighed by the satisfaction you will feel at having watched an insane amount of TV in a very short period of time, and the bragging rights you get when you can say, as I can, "I watched 8 seasons of 24 and 7 seasons of the West Wing in two months. What did you do this summer?"

So you may all be out and about doing hot weather things like swimming and hiking and sitting on the beach. But not us. We'll be bringing our hamburgers and hot dogs into our air conditioned living room and eating them in front of our exceptionally large TV as we consume episode after episode of an as-yet-undecided TV series.  

I just love summer.

This is a Time For American Heroes

"...More than any time in recent history, America's destiny is not of our own choosing. We did not seek nor did we provoke an assault on our freedom, and our way of life. We did not expect nor did we invite a confrontation with evil. Yet the true measure of a people's strength is how they rise to master that moment when it does arrive...The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels tonight. They are our students and our teachers and our parents and our friends. The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels. But every time we think we've measured our capacity to meet a challenge, we look up and we're reminded that that capacity may well be limitless. This is a time for American heroes. We will do what is hard. We will achieve what is great. This is a time for American heroes and we reach for the stars. God bless their memory. God bless you. And God bless the United States of America."

                                      -President Josiah Bartlet
                                       The West Wing, Season 4, Episode 2

Won't You Be My Neighbor

"Imagine what our real neighborhoods would be like, if each of us offered as a matter of course, just one kind word to another person...One kind word has a wonderful way of turning into many"

Like every self-respecting Pittsburgher who grew up in the city between 1970 and 2001, I have a story about the day I met Mr. Rogers. I was probably five or six, and we went to see the show being taped at the WQED Pittsburgh studio that was home to Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. We all sat cross-legged on the floor and watched the magic unfold, and after it was over, we got to shake his hand.

A simple introduction to a simple man who, quite simply, changed the world.

I remember where I was when I found out that he died. It was my sophomore year in college. I was in my room studying for a midterm with the TV on in the background, and I heard it on the news. And for a moment, I was terribly sad. And I remember thinking that this day, the day everyone's favorite neighbor died, will be a day that is commemorated for years to come.

Unsurprisingly though, it is not the date of his death that is remembered each year, but this day. March 20th. The date of his birth. And it feels right, somehow, to honor this perpetually positive man not on the day that he left this world, but rather the day that he came into it. To celebrate his legacy of hope and neighborly lessons on a happy day, rather than a sad one.

In Pittsburgh, March 20th is designated as "Won't You Be My Neighbor Day." A day when the The Fred Rogers Company urges us all to wear our favorite sweaters, and do something to be a good neighbor. On this day, The Pittsburgh Children's Museum offers free admission so kids can play in the original set from the show and climb through a giant red trolley. Volunteerism is encouraged throughout the city. 

In Pittsburgh, and across the country, Mr. Rogers will never be forgotten.

Every time there is a tragic event, from the 9/11 attacks to the Newtown school shootings, our grief is eased just a little when we hear his familiar voice telling us to "look for the helpers."

And the first bars of the song "Won't You Be My Neighbor" are enough to make anyone over the age of twenty stop and smile.

His message is timeless; his legacy eternal.

Happy 85th birthday Mr. Rogers. Today, and every day, you are our favorite neighbor.

Won't You Be My Neighbor Day, 2009
Where we met Mr. McFeely and felt like we were meeting a rock star

A Hole

The Glee kids are singing and I'm enjoying a "home alone" dinner of pretzels and Diet Sprite when my tongue feels something foreign. Or rather, the lack of something.

A hole. In my mouth. 

I jump from the couch and continue probing the empty space as if it would feel different standing. As if being upright would suddenly allow my brain to say "why no, Sam, of course there's no hole. You just continue watching Glee's 500th song and eating those pretzels."

Of course, my disloyal brain says nothing of the sort.

Because there's a hole. In my mouth.

A HOLE.

I literally pinch myself to make sure I'm awake. To be positive this isn't a weird Freudian dream or something.

And it hurts, so I'm obviously awake and anyway if I was dreaming, I would probably be eating something far more awesome than pretzels.

And the Glee kids are still singing, but I can't focus on the song because THERE'S A HOLE IN MY MOUTH.

I obviously have a disease. Some horrible exotic malady. And my tongue drifts warily over the rest of my mouth to see if any other holes have spontaneously appeared. No more. For now.

I fall on my computer and google "broken teeth" and click on WedMD and wait for the names of mysterious illness to appear. 

The normally scaremongering website says it's not serious unless I feel pain, in which case I should see a dentist immediately before the nerve dies.

And oh my god, now it hurts with the pain of a thousand lashes.

I leave an appropriately panicked message on my dentist's emergency voicemail, and wait for the call back which will obviously be soon because THERE'S A HOLE IN MY MOUTH.

But my phone stays silent.

I don't brush my teeth before bed because all my teeth are probably falling out anyway due to wasting disease so who cares if they're brushed or not.

I sleep in snatches. Each time I wake up I check and see if the empty space is still there, and of course it is because mouth holes don't just go away.

At 7am my dentist calls and tells me to come in. He sounds remarkably calm considering THERE'S A HOLE IN MY MOUTH.

An hour later I sit in his chair and he snaps on those hateful gloves. He fills my mouth with tools without saying a word and his silence is deafening.

I know he is trying to figure out how to break the news to me that I'll live a sad, toothless life. And now I'm starting to squirm and sweat and wonder if I'll spend the rest of my life removing my teeth at night to soak in a glass.

"Ok," he says, removing his gloves, and I brace myself for what comes next.

"Easy fix. Stop with the hard pretzels though. They're hell on the teeth."

My tongue drifts to the side of my mouth, and the hole is gone.

Home Alone

Things that happen when I'm alone, Part I

Things that happen when I'm alone, Part II

One of the things I really loved about our house when we decided to buy it was that it is a great size. It wasn't so small that we would feel like we hadn't upgraded much from apartment life, and it wasn't so big that we would feel like we were rattling around while it is just the two of us, but it has plenty of room to expand once we need more bedrooms and more space.

Yes, it really is the perfect size.

That is, until David goes away and I am living in it by myself.

Yesterday, David flew to Austin, Texas where his company will have a booth at the South by Southwest trade show. It's an amazing opportunity for his company, and I am incredibly proud of him. But the truth is, being home alone is just weird.

When we lived in our apartment I didn't mind being alone at all because the truth is, I never really felt alone with people coming and going in our building at all hours of the day and night. But being alone in a house in the suburbs where I don't know all that many people is a whole different experience.

I'll get used to it, I know, but this is the first time I'm really alone for any significant period of time since our suburban life began, and my once perfectly sized house feels as big as a castle.

So, what's a girl to do? Bake cookies and watch a Gilmore Girls marathon of course. I may not have gotten a lot of sleep, but I was certainly well fed and constantly entertained.

And with Rory and Lorelai's delightful chatter, it was really hard to hear the wind howling outside, and the creepy settling noises my 100 year old house makes all night long.

It's going to be a long eight days. Glad I made a lot of cookies.

This is Courage

Source

There is something intensely personal about why we watch the morning shows we watch. I know people who are staunch Today viewers. I have friends who can't start their morning without a dose of whatever CBS This Morning or the PIX-11 news is dishing out.

For me, it is Good Morning America.

Some of my very first memories are of starting my days with GMA. Every morning when I would come down for breakfast my parents had the tiny kitchen TV tuned to Charles Gibson and Joan Lunden. When I was in high school it was Charles Gibson and Diane Sawyer, in law school Diane Sawyer and Robin Roberts, and a month after I started my first post-law school job, it became Robin Roberts and George Stephanopoulos, with a little Lara Spencer, Josh Elliott and Sam Champion on the side.

Each and every morning I start my day with them, and over the past twenty-five or so years, they have come to feel like family.

So six years ago when, with her sisters and Diane Sawyer by her side, Robin announced on-air that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer, I cried right along with her. I followed her journey, was awed by her strength, and celebrated when her treatments were over and she returned to work, as graceful and beautiful as ever.

And this past June, when Robin went public with her new fight, I was once again in front of my TV and, along with millions of others across the country, I joined #TeamRobin and was with her every step of the way. I mourned with her when she lost her mother, prayed with her as she recovered from her bone marrow transplant, updated my information in the bone marrow donation registry, and celebrated once again when she returned to work last week.

She is a shining example of what it means to be your very best self, and I am thrilled to once again be starting my mornings with her.

Welcome back Robin, and thanks for the constant reminder to seek out Light, Love, Power and Presence.

We have learned from you to be strong, be brave, be happy, smile, fight and hope.

This is courage.

Stormy Nights, Clear Mornings

Those of us living in the tri-state area had a bit of excitement last night.

Yesterday was a crappy weather day. It was muggy and grey, with the threat of rain looming. More April-like than January-like, I thought. News was that a monster storm was coming, and when I left my office at six to head home, the flags around the Rockefeller Center Ice Rink were already whipping in the increasing wind. 

By the time I got home the rain had already started, so what were we to do but build a fire, make hamburgers, and settle in for the night with a little Law & Order: SVU?

When I went up to bed it was still raining, but nothing too crazy. I thought maybe the weather predictions were exaggerated, although after experiencing Hurricane Sandy a few months ago and all the devastation she wrought, I am pretty cautious about underestimating any kind of weather event.

It was four o'clock in the morning when I was shocked awake by massive claps of thunder, and the sound of our outdoor shutters banging against the house right outside my window. And I sleep with super-powered ear plugs every single night, so that I could hear the storm through them was instantly a sign that this was a big one. 

Once I recovered from the unexpected jolt, we were both awake, and lay there in the dark, listening as the storm raged, until it finally settled down. It was quite romantic, really. Our first storm in the new house.

I fell back to sleep at some point, and woke up for real a couple hours later. The wind was still howling, but the rain had stopped.

And as I drove to the train, I was greeted with this view. The storm clouds drifting away, leaving clear skies behind them:

We were pretty lucky. Turns out there were bunch of power outages on the streets around us that won't be resolved until later tonight, and there were trees down everywhere in a scene uncomfortably reminiscent of the one exactly three months ago. 

And farther up the Metro North line, the storm wreaked havoc. I know because when I got to my train station this morning, I was greeted by this:

You know it's bad when they don't tell you how late the train is, just that it's late. For a train system that is almost scarily punctual, this was an strange morning.

But right now the skies are a beautiful blue, winter makes its return tomorrow, Thursday night is pizza night, and Grey's Anatomy and Scandal are new. 

So really, all is right with the world.

An Ode to TV

63 inches of awesome

On this blog, I have used thousands of words in homage to my love of reading, romance novels, and writing. My bookshelves are stacked with hundreds of romance novels, stacks of mysteries, and even the occasional non-fiction for when the mood strikes. I spend many happy hours sitting on the couch in my new family room reading page after page. And I spend many happy (and often frustrating) hours writing words on this blog. And I love all of those. Words have been an important part of me for as long as I can remember and to be able to read them and write them is a privilege for which I am incredibly grateful.

But I am a woman of many interests.

So it is not just reading and writing that consume my extra-curricular hours. There is something else near and dear to me that I don't spend nearly as much time talking about on the pages of this blog. My TV watching habits. And I use the word habit lightly, because what it really is, is a full-blown obsession matched only by my zeal to collect all the books Nora Roberts has ever penned.

I have always loved TV, but I can pinpoint exactly when TV watching stopped being an enjoyable event and started to become a passion complete with charts scheduling my shows, anxiety about missing episodes, and a full slate of programming year round.

It was 2005. The fall. College graduation was behind me, and I was about a month into my first year of law school with all the stress, sleepless nights and competition that entailed. I was living in my law school's dorm in the East Village and the air practically vibrated with intensity and barely concealed nerves. Needless to say, I only lasted a year in the dorm before I moved on to the wonder of the Upper West Side. But it was in that dorm room filled with big, scary books that I began escaping into TV.

For years and years I escaped through books. And during my first year in law school I still did, and regularly. But with all the tension that law school wrought, I needed something more. And I found that something more in a 13 inch television that sat on top of my miniature dresser in an equally miniature bedroom.

It started off innocently, as obsessions often do. I figured law school was no excuse not to keep up with the shows that I already watched, so I made sure that I was always home in time for my four or five regulars. And then one night when I couldn't settle down I discovered back-to-back re-runs of The Nanny, which quickly became appointment television for me. Then I decided to re-watch all the seasons of The West Wing in preparation for the final season that had just begun. And it was fall, so I figured I would surf around and try to pick up some new shows too. Some new shows became approximately eight new shows.

Before long I had far too much TV on my schedule to watch it when it was actually on, so I called Time Warner Cable, and three days later a delightful technician arrived to install my very first DVR box so I could start recording my TV to watch whenever I wanted. And after I started watching with a DVR I noticed a funny thing happen. My grades started to rise in proportion to the amount of TV I was watching, but not the way you think. The more TV I watched, the higher my grades were. I was on to something for sure. So I continued to study and I continued to watch, and I got my very first A+, and I was thrilled with myself.

When I was studying for finals at the end of my second year (and also catching up on the entire First Season of Brothers & Sisters, having just discovered it that spring), two things happened simultaneously to kick my TV habit up a couple of notches. The first was that I discovered TV blogs. Now, not only could I watch my favorite shows, but I could read about them too. I immersed myself in spoilers, and recaps, and news about renewals, cancellations, and new shows on the horizon.

And the second was that I met David, and in him I found my TV equal. I picked up some of his shows, he picked up some of mine, and we discovered some new ones together. In the early stages of our relationship, where most couples would go out, we often stayed in. With take-out, a couch, his giant TV, and each other we had exactly everything we needed. And by the time we got married and moved in together we were watching more than thirty shows between us. There was no way that all this TV could fit on a single DVR, and we decided that when it came to our shows we were absolutely above compromise, so our tiny Manhattan apartment boasted two plasma televisions, each complete with their own DVR. His and hers, and it suited us just fine. We own a house now, but our TV watching habits haven't changed at all. Each and every night you can still find us in front of our shows, sometimes together and sometimes apart, content down to the tips of our toes.  I sometimes wonder how it would have worked had I met someone who didn't share my passion for TV. I think the answer is, it just wouldn't have.

Sometimes people ask me how I have time for it all. A full time job, a blog, running, a serious romance novel habit and a TV obsession. I say, you make time for what's important. I guess I could be spending my time learning more law, or volunteering, or curing cancer or something like that, but Grey's Anatomy and Scandal come back from winter hiatus tonight and I love me some Shonda Rhimes, so I'm going to be pretty busy.

Top Six Reasons It's Not Bad to Work The Week Between Christmas and New Years

8:30am: Empty City Streets

I mean, I obviously wish that I wasn't working today. That I was home laying on the couch in sweat pants like I have been the past three days. But alas, here I am in my office. In the four years that I have been working I have always been in the office for the days between Christmas and New Years. I have to miss a lot of work in September and October for all of the Jewish holidays, and the people I work with really pick up the slack for me. So, since I don't celebrate Christmas, I always feel like it is only fair for me to be in the office this week, when most of my colleagues are on vacation.

But working this week isn't all bad. So here, for your reading satisfaction, are the top six reasons why I like working the week between Christmas and New Years:

6. Empty parking lots - To get to work, I drive my car to the train station and park it in a lot near the platform. Normally to get the first spot closest to the platform, one would have to get to the lot at six in the morning. I usually get there closer to eight, leaving me with a bit of a walk. But this morning, with most of the White Plains commuters still asleep, I got the first spot in the lot.

5. Empty trains - Unlike the Subway, which was my commuting method for the seven-plus years I lived in Manhattan, commuting via Metro North from Westchester is actually a pretty delightful experience. People are much calmer, and with enough seats for everyone, you are far less likely to spend your morning commute with someone's elbow jabbing into your side, or with your face smushed up against a fellow commuter's back. But there are still seats on Metro North that are more preferred than others, and they are really hard to get. Leaving from White Plains, which is a commuting hub in lower Westchester, I rarely ever get one of them. But this morning, with a mostly empty train, I had my pick of the best seats in the car.

4. Quiet office - There are approximately seven people working on my floor this week. It's super quiet. Quiet is good.

3. Quiet clients - Most of my clients are away this week, as are most of the bankers and trust companies that I deal with on a day-to-day basis. While this month has been my busiest December since I started my career as a Trusts & Estates lawyer (thanks, Congress and Mr. President for your complete inability to come to any kind of rational compromise about tax rates, leaving my clients uncertain. Uncertainty breeds fear. This is not news), this week is shaping up to be pretty quiet with most of my clients either on vacation or hunkered down with their families, so it leaves me ample time to accomplish the tasks I haven't been able to get to since December began.

2. The New York City streets are empty (at least today) - While by weeks end the streets will be crowded once again in anticipation of New Year's Eve, for today at least, the streets are blessedly empty. I know that by the time I make my way to the train tonight the crowds will be back in full force, taking advantage of the post-Christmas sales along Fifth Avenue, this morning when I was walking to work, most of the tourists seemed to still be sleeping off yesterday's festivities, making the walk a pleasure rather than the usual game of Survivor.

1. No line for coffee - Getting coffee in Manhattan on a weekday morning can really be a survival of the fittest situation. You have to be alert, guard your place in line with your life, and know exactly what you want before your turn at the register comes, lest you be subject to ridicule by your fellow caffeine junkies. But this morning, I walked into Dunkin' Donuts and went straight to the counter. No line, no wait, and no Banker-types making exasperated sighing noises just because they have to wait in line for more than fifteen seconds.

Anyone else working today, or am I the only one? What's good about your workdays this week?

Sneak Peek

So. It was a pretty quiet weekend chez Merel. My big plans were to do nothing on Saturday, spend some time Saturday night with my kitchen boxes, and work on emptying my DVR on Sunday.

I thought that last week would be the final week of our big kitchen project - and thus the final week of our remodel - but in the grand tradition of construction delays, they will still be working today and tomorrow. But since most of the heavy lifting is done, and they will just be doing grouting and some touch-ups over the next two days, I could finally set up my kitchen.

Putting my kitchen in order is a pretty big deal for me, because I love to cook. Every day after work since I graduated from law school, I have come home at night and hit the kitchen to make dinner. It's my little tradition. Cooking for me is peaceful and calming, and a way for me to signal that my day is done. And not having a kitchen for the past month, and thus not really being able to cook, has been tough. Definitely worth it in the long run, but terribly difficult in the short term.

My sister spent the night at my house on Friday night, and stayed late on Saturday to help me with the boxes. And she was a life saver. Between the two of us we unpacked every single box, and put every single dish, utensil and serving piece away, and got rid of all the boxes that had been permanent fixtures in the dining room since we moved in five weeks ago. And that dining room now looks like this:

Huge improvement over its previous state. There are still some things I can't set up due to the aforementioned grouting, but I'm hoping that by Thursday at the latest, everything will be back to normal.

And what of the kitchen that is nearly complete? Well, I made dinner last night like a normal person, and it was glorious. I barely even know what to do with my huge sinks and oceans of counter space. I think it will take a little time to get used to remembering where I am keeping everything, but I am already loving it. And I will be putting it to good use this coming Saturday night for our annual Chanukah party that this year will also be a bit of a housewarming.

I know I promised pictures of the finished product, but I want to wait until it is totally complete to do a proper before and after. But to tide you over until then, here is a sneak peek of the backsplash by the light of our newly installed hood.

Romantic, no?

Details

Two weeks from today, we are moving. We are packing up the apartment we have lived in together for two years and that D lived in for eight years before that. We are headed north to the suburbs of NYC, to our brand new house with the black shutters and the red door. I really love the red door.

Over the past few weeks there have been millions of pesky little details to attend to. We had to get out of our lease, switch our electricity account to the new house, and sign up for an account to pay for water. (In other news, did you know that in the suburbs you have to pay for water? That was a new one for me.) We had to figure out where to send our first mortgage payment, arrange for an inspection by our insurance company, and start switching our address to the new house, which, as it turns out, is a really, really big job.You would think that there would be a better way to make this address switch by now than contacting every single company and institution that might need to get in touch with you for some unknown reason at some unknown point in the future. And shouldn't everything just be digital by now anyway? My e-mail address never changes.

If those were all the details, that would be more than enough. But there is more.

Because we are not just moving into a new house, we are renovating that house before we move in. As a matter of fact, as I type this, tile is being laid, floors are being refinished, and various fixtures are being installed. There is furniture to buy, paint colors to decide on, and long meandering talks about color schemes, measurements, and appliances.

There are some of these details that I am really, really bad at. It just so happens that those are the same ones that D is masterful at. And vice versa. I am not the least bit interested in choosing movers, picking appliances, or supervising a construction crew, and I barely know how to work a tape measure. D is even less interested in interfacing with banks, lawyers, mortgage companies, insurance brokers, and the various utility companies that are banging down the door for our information.

A word of advice for anyone considering marriage and home-buying anytime in the future: marry someone who is good at the things you are bad at. After the past few months, I am absolutely certain that this is the magic pill for long-term happiness.

Anyway, despite this overwhelming crush of details currently on our plates, there is one detail - one unknown - that looms in my mind larger than all the others.

I am worried about my TV.

I haven't written much on this blog about my love of TV, but I assure you that it exists, and it quite possibly rivals my love of romance novels. I religiously watch twenty-two different shows, and re-runs of old favorites (think: Gilmore Girls) every week. Some might call me a TV fanatic. And I guess I am.

So you may ask me how I manage to fit in all that TV. There are five prime times every week, and each prime time is three hours long, which equals fifteen hours of prime time a week. Fifteen hours, and twenty-two shows, which means some of my shows overlap with each other. Here is where the invention of the DVR has revolutionized my life. My DVR is a work of art. It is programmed fastidiously, and constantly updated to ensure I never miss a thing. And I don't. In our little New York apartment we actually have two separate DVRs, one for me and one for D, because when it comes to TV, we are above compromise. We each need our own.

And next weekend, the cable company will be switching off the cable in our apartment to transfer the account to our new house. And they might be able to transfer all of the data in my intricately programmed DVR, but they might not be able to. I just don't know. And the new DVR might record my shows next Monday, but it might not. I just don't know. And there is literally nothing that gives me more anxiety than missing one of my shows. Laugh all you want. This is my thing.

And the truth is, I could let myself worry about all sorts of things. I could worry about clothes, and shoes, and various kitchen necessities getting lost in the move. I could worry about the movers transporting my prized romance novel collection. I could worry about whether our new furniture will get delivered on time. I could worry about figuring out where to do my grocery shopping in my new neighborhood, and I could worry about whether I will be able to find my way to the train station and back on the first morning of my new commute to work.

But I am choosing not to worry about these things.

There is so much change coming our way in the next two weeks, and so many details to oversee, that it would be easy to lose sight of the big picture in all of this. So I am choosing not to.

I am worried about my TV. And I figure that everything else will just fall into place.