For sure and certain, the time has come to forsake upstairs living for the enticements of a downstairs where Housemate, the laundry room, the television room and the freezer room are conveniently located.
It is the television room that will soon experience increased activity. The new season of our favourite television shows has slowly begun, but in the coming weeks, we will be blasted with two or three programs an evening, forcing us to switch from station to station so as not to miss an exciting episode.
Of course the writers, technicians and actors are to blame for this belated TV scheduling, having talked and negotiated and gone on strike and then negotiated some more to come to terms over wages, working conditions, credits and other pertinent matters of concern to their future careers.
To the viewing public, the delays were either annoying or a mixed blessing. We could spend more time watching educational television, we could spend family time playing games or having meaningful conversations, we could watch reruns of shows we missed during the last seasons or we could binge watch shows streamed onto a variety of devices, from telephones to hand-held movie screens.
My choice was to stay upstairs: working on my laptop; watching birds visit the empty bird seed barn; reading a wonderful collection of books relating to Amish ways; doing a minimum of house-wifely chores; and basking in the sun coming through the dining room window.
I did venture downstairs at intervals to view the National on CBC, and of course right after the Canadian Thanksgiving, I found movies to watch on the W channel, and closer to Christmas marked the TV schedule with the movies I hoped to watch either on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Surprisingly, Housemate watched some with me and slept through others or simply left the room for his own computer office. I was not offended.
And just recently we watched a 1961 re-run of the Lawrence Welk show, in black and white, featuring Pat Boone and the Lennon Sisters.
It should be added that sporadic visits were made to the laundry room.
So now it is nearing February and the advertisements are front and centre about the shows that will return after the hundreds of NFL games are won and lost over an excruciating long season. I have no idea why football would take precedence over the FBI or NCIS and other alphabet-named shows but it must have something to do with viewership and network advertising dollars.
Friends and strangers have tormented me about the Christmas shows I am known to enjoy on the W channel. They say the plots are all the same and the end of every show can be correctly predicted.
So how will that be any different with the CBC, NBC, CTV and ABC shows? Good guys and gals will fight against bad guys and gals, and in the end, mostly, the white hats will overcome the black hats.
Maybe my time would be better spent in the laundry room or sorting the contents of the freezer. But I cannot resist the temptation of seeing my favourite NCIS agent in at least one new show! And then there’s the curling!
Joyce Walter can be reached at ronjoy@sasktel.net
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.
