Memorial Day Weekend TV Viewing Recap - Girls Only Edition

Oh, what a blissful holiday weekend this has been for me! Y'all may get tired of hearing this but Austin being able to drive has CHANGED MY LIFE! Not only do I not have to take him to work but I can send him out to pick stuff up for me. Consequently, I have not left the house since Friday morning. It's glorious!

Because I have literally done nothing this weekend except watch tv and lounge about... there's nothing really interesting for me to share on my blog. Since I'm grasping at blog-writing straws, I thought it might be fun to look back over my recent television viewing history in case you're looking for something to watch - or something I would recommend you NOT watch. As always, I love suggestions about shows that you're enjoying so feel free to share those... and for the record, because this comes up every time I do a post like this, I have already watched Frankie and Grace, Call the Midwife and Downton Abbey. Bonus points for correctly choosing those as shows that I would enjoy watching because HECK YEAH!

Here are some things I've watched recently by myself - these are chick flick / girly / I'm just a geek programs.

Tulip Fever (movie from 2017) and because I watched that I fell down a rabbit hole of researching stuff on the bursting of the "tulip bubble" in the Netherlands in 1637. Yes, this was a major historical event. I watched two documentaries on Amazon Prime Video - Tulipmania and The Tulip Bubble.

I watched a documentary on Amazon Prime about West Point (the military school). That's the title of the documentary, by the way, West Point.

I started watching The Good Wife. I know a lot of people love it but I'm not really... I'm in maybe the tenth episode and... meh.

Every now and then Netflix or Amazon Prime will mess with me and suck me into a show that isn't in English. In that vein... I started watching 3rd Reich Mothers.... about women who were intentionally impregnated to breed for Germany during Hitler's reign and... then I realized it was in German. It had English subtitles but that's just too much work.

This weekend I have started about a dozen shows that didn't catch my interest. I may go back to them but... we'll see. Being Ginger was one. I started watching Band of Brothers and fell asleep. Monument Men - The Road to Rushmore... zzzzz.... Same with Eric Brown, A Pilot's Story. I'm going to feel really bad if someone google searches their show that they worked for years to develop and put out there and I'm categorizing it with ... too boring... my apologies to any film makers that I'm offending with this blog post. Honestly, what do I know?

Especially when you consider some of the shows that DID hold my interest... things like The Grange Fair - An American Tradition,  The Tents (about the history of fashion week in NYC) Chicken People (about people who raise and show chickens), Men of the Cloth (documentary about tailors in New York City), Dealers Among Dealers (about the diamond trade), Inside Asprey: Luxury By Royal Appointment and lots and lots of episodes of Lock Up. Lock Up is my default program that I have playing at night while I'm sleeping.

I watched a documentary on World War I because, you know, Memorial Day. For giggles I watched Ali Wong's new Netflix special and Tig Notaro's comedy special. Both were edgy but funny.

West By Orphan Train was interesting. Did you know that for a period of about 75 years, kids from orphanages back East would be put on a train and sent to the West / Midwest to work on farms? The vetting process was random and not closely supervised and I just can't imagine what horror some kids must have faced.

I can still see some of the shows I watched last weekend... there was definitely a British Royalty theme at work:
Whatever Happened to The Windsors
Princes of the Palace
Prince Harry at 30
Fergie: Downfall of a Duchess
Princess Diana - A Life After Death
My Mother Diana - Prince William's Story of the Princess Diana

So... I know you're thinking I should probably get a hobby and you're probably right. There are a lot of days for me that pain makes it too hard to concentrate on anything like embroidery or genealogy and physically I just don't feel like moving. Laying still and half watching/half listening to the tv is about all I can manage at times and this weekend was one of those times. I'm also using my down time at home when I don't have Cosy - because it's a completely different viewing lineup when she's around - and when I'm not with Marvin, because he's a guy.

What did you do with your long holiday weekend? What are you watching when it's just you? Leave a comment here or on the Facebook link?

What I'm Watching With My Fella

I have a lot of down time... a lot of "don't feel well enough to do anything except rest" time and that means I watch a lot of tv. Since I hang out with my fella on his "weekend" we also do a lot of tv watching together. I'm not exactly the kind of girl that he can go roller blading or mountain climbing with... so tv watching is our jam.

He discovered (and I realized) that I have missed out on a LOT of movie standards that most people of our generation have seen. I can only say that I have been single for most of my adult life and have been too busy raising kids and working to watch a lot of movies. Marvin has made it his mission to educate me on those movies / tv shows that he thinks I should have seen. Here are a few that we have watched together and my thoughts on them:

• Silence of the Lambs  - glad to finally understand the references to this movie and there are SO MANY. It was suspenseful and interesting... but not my favorite movie ever, for sure.
• Sling Blade  - worth watching just for the amazing voice that Billy Bob Thornton gives to his character. So many great, great lines in this movie! 
• Pulp Fiction - not my favorite. I found it really confusing and Marvin had to sort of reconstruct it to help me understand. I would be embarrassed that I needed help but it's like all the times that my niece Jamie has had to explain Disney movies to me. Sometimes I just don't get it.
• Shawshank Redemption - I love a movie that gives you closure. I felt like this was such a great story and I loved the ending.
• About Time - this one had us both in tears, like, a pile of kleenexes stacked up between us tears. It's the sweetest story but I'm not going to give you the plot, I'm going to just say, go watch it! 
• Safety Not Guaranteed - it was a bit science fiction, a bit chick flick. It had a really sweet story line and I think you would like it. 

He has also introduced me to several television shows that he enjoyed and we have watched them together... or I have watched them and discussed them with him. Those include:

• Shameless (he was watching it in real time so I started at the beginning and binge watched until I caught up so we could watch new episodes together)
• The Wire - this is sort of a police drama but it's a good story line and the actors are really amazing. 
• Breaking Bad - Everyone knows what this one is about. I had sort of written it off but I'm glad I ended up watching it. It's one of those that makes you think. 
• Better Call Saul - It's the prequel to Breaking Bad. I'm not caught up to current on this show because it isn't up to date on Netflix yet and that's where I've watched it but so far, I think it's as good as, maybe better than Breaking Bad. 

We just recently finished watching a show set in Post-Katrina New Orleans, Treme. We love the show for a lot of reasons... it includes the music that he loves - sort of a jazz / blues / R&B / second line / funk genre- and artists that he loves and I have come to love like the guy we saw in concert on New Year's Eve, Tab Benoit (pronounced Ben-wah).  Treme delves into a lot of the New Orleans traditions such as Mardi Gras and the Mardi Gras Indians - I could do a whole post on my fascination with the Mardi Gras Indians. It includes a lot of footage of New Orleans food. Treme gives you more of an inside look on life in Post Katrina New Orleans and although it is fictionalized, a lot of what they show is based on true stories and things that did happen. It's been such an enjoyable show. We watched it on Amazon Prime Video, I'm not sure where else you might find it but if you're looking for something to binge watch, Treme is a good 'un.

We have also discovered / enjoyed a number of programs together... some of my favorites have been:

• Black Mirror (although, trust me, you need to watch this with someone because you're going to need to have a little debriefing, therapy, or discussion afterwards)
• Big Mouth - it's animated and I'm not a fan of anything animated but this show is about puberty and it is HILARIOUS. Very honest and a bit graphic so, maybe don't watch it with kids, at least not little ones. 

Marvin is a huge... HYUUUUUJJJJJJ!... music fan. He's worked in radio for a long time, although he is currently at a sports talk radio station, he has worked for music stations in the past which exposed him to a lot of music that you might otherwise miss. He loves such a wide spectrum of music and he loves introducing me to things that he enjoys. He fixed up an iPod for me with over 3,000 songs... and he even included some of my favorite musical theater for my listening pleasure! Sometimes we fall down this rabbit hole of watching music videos, usually on YouTube and although I don't always love the music he shows me, I love his passion for music. I love seeing things that excite him and hearing the stories behind the music and learning what makes it special for him.

Speaking of YouTube... Marvin made the switch from cable to YouTube TV last fall. YouTube TV offers most of the channels he had on cable for a fraction of the price. The only thing they didn't have was the MLB (major league baseball) channel, which my guy watches every night to fall asleep during baseball season. They finally added MLB network this Spring and he was all set! At my house we still have satellite tv but honestly, it is so rare for me to watch broadcast channels in real time. Mostly I watch Netflix or Amazon Prime or YouTube. On the odd occasion I watch broadcast tv, it's usually something I've recorded. I think I could easily live without satellite and I wonder how far away we are from doing away with that kind of programming altogether. It's as outdated as land-line phones now. Not an ad for YouTube TV but I think it's worth checking out if you're trying to spend a little less money on  your tv viewing.

I'm interested in knowing what you're watching... especially what you watch with your significant other. Leave a comment here or back on my Facebook post about this blog entry! Love and hugs, y'all!