This is not the chummy interlude it appears to be, but a quiet struggle for cushion hegemony. Left Shark prevailed.*
Up early this morning to prepare a rack of pork spareribs and hit the gym. By preparing ribs, I mean pulling the membrane off the back, coating them with dry rub, and wrapping them in foil. Later today I’ll bake them in the oven, then finish them off on a gas grill. Of the two ways I cook pork ribs, this is the easy one. The other way is to put them on the smoker with charcoal and wood chips, but that’s more work than I care to do today.
They told me not to exercise for a couple of weeks after skin cancer surgery. One week off was all I could stand. This morning, on my way home from the gym, I stopped at Safeway for corn on the cob to go with the ribs. While there I stopped at the DVD kiosk and rented My Big Fat Greek Wedding II, thus ensuring myself a couple of uninterrupted reading hours after dinner. Donna and Polly will have the family room and their movie; I’ll be in the auxiliary reading chair in the master bedroom. The important thing is we’ll all be happy.
I generally read two or three books at a time, but right now I’m concentrating on Jim Webb’s excellent Vietnam war novel Fields of Fire, which I’m reading on my Nook. I recently had a problem downloading that book and a couple of others from Barnes & Noble. There was a lot of back & forth over the phone and by email, and somewhere in there they promised to send me a newer Nook as a replacement for the old one. They didn’t follow through, so early last week I called again. Three to five business days and I’ll have it, they say. That’s how long they said it would take to correct the downloading problem, but after eight business days they’d done nothing and I had to call and start all over again. I’ll believe I’m getting a replacement Nook when it’s in my hands. Will I be surprised if they stiff me again? No.
Tell you what, I never experience this level of aggravation with Amazon. There’s a problem, they fix it right away. There’s gift card money in the B&N account that can only be spent on Nook books, but when that’s gone we’re done. All my future ebook purchases will be through Amazon. Good thing Donna has a Kindle she’s not using, eh?
As for TV, the political conventions are over and we’re back to regular programming. Well, not quite: we no longer watch Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, which was our nightly ritual before. Now we go straight to Netflix or Amazon streaming. Streaming TV’s not all it’s cracked up to be, though. Netflix and Amazon have both taken shows away before we’re done watching them. I was really into a Belgian series called Salamander, but it disappeared when I was only halfway through. Last night we wanted to put on one of the old black & white Julia Child cooking shows, but what was once included with our Amazon membership is now pay per view. I thought about watching Breaking Bad again, but it’s the same story there. I could live without TV. I love to read. Donna likes to read but loves to watch, so giving it up wouldn’t work for us.
*Judging by feedback, not all my readers get pop culture references and memes, hence the link. Don’t say I never did anything for you, baby!
I remember Rachel had done something you disagreed with, but was there something that broke the camel’s back? I thought her take on the Bill Clinton’s speech was very odd!
The convention coverage alienated me, true. But both before and after the conventions, her and Chris Hayes airing everything Trump said that day while generally ignoring Hillary. They’re so obviously doing it for the ratings, and so obviously on board with their MSNBC masters, I’ve lost a lot of the respect I used to have for them. I wonder when they will have had enough and will jump ship.