The Boob Toob

This is the scene I walked into last night, coming home from work a little bit late because of printer issues [and on the way homeI stopped at the farm up the road for honey to make strawberry jam, and because we love honey, and the farmer and I chit-chatted a while about this and that, which is why it's nicer to buy honey (and milk and eggs and veggies) right at a farm and not at the Hannaford]: TV upside down on the floor, DVD player, rabbit ears, new digital converter box (purchased by C, because we had one of those FCC coupon things--which doesn't appear to work very well...) various DVDs watched over the last week on the floor, in addition to the usual household chaos (i.e. every toy, couch cushion, blanket and recently-worn article of clothing also on the floor) and four shell-shocked boys. The funny thing is, our house is such a mess that I didn't even NOTICE the TV until someone pointed it out--I was focused on the drawers of the TV stand lying on the floor, their contents (several dozen decks of cards and children's games) spewed all over.

Allegedly, the twins wrapped my yoga strap around one of the drawer pulls and pulled the whole thing--cabinet, electronics, everything over. Fortunately neither of them was hurt. (I would have taken a picture of the whole mess, but C started cleaning it up before I had a chance, and I would never have gotten it downloaded onto our computer, stored on my memory stick and transported to an undisclosed location with high-speed Internet by today--how do those bloggers do it?) E and Z clearly had just stopped crying (I think I could hear at least one of them when I drove in), M started crying when I asked if it made a loud noise and scared him, and C was clearly very, very annoyed.

We sat down to dinner, mess still in place. Z bounced around eating fresh pea pods from the garden, but nothing else, M kept asking if the TV was going to still work and I, because I absorb other people's emotions into my body (make that, I absorb other people's negative emotions) and try to suppress stress with food, devoured four plates of C's home-made pasta with greens from our garden and cannellini beans and lots and lots of garlic and Pecarino Romano.

As I stuffed myself, I contemplated what my reaction to a broken TV would be. First, I would be worried that the 10 pounds or so of lead and other toxic contaminants inside of the TV would have spread into our house (since the outside box and glass of the TV did not appear to be breached, I wasn't too worried). I briefly tried to relish the idea of a TV-free summer. I thought we'd have to cancel our Netflix subscription, until I remembered the laptop. I would miss my Sunday nights with Masterpiece Theater. The thing is, I would really, really miss being able to sit my kids down in front of the TV.

This sounds a lot worse than it is--we really watch very little TV in our house. We rarely turn it on between Monday and Friday. C and I watch our two Netflix a month on Friday nights, E and Z occasionally turn on PBS the mornings we're home, M tries to watch Sesame Street on Sunday mornings and watches a Superfriends episode or a movie on DVD once a week give or take. Sometimes we all get ready for bed early and put on the Muppets. This is not meant to criticize people who watch a lot of TV--we just don't have the time, and I'd rather throw the kids outside...but sometimes, sometimes, I just need these kids to sit down and turn on their meditative brainwaves (really I read that in a book!) and give myself a break.

So we all sighed a bit of relief when C set the TV back on the cabinet, plugged all the bits and pieces back together, plugged it in and...tada...it worked!

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New GEMINI on its way...

Inside Issue #8
My creative balancing act
Slipping on the ice...and getting back up
Memorial Day madness
Help Wanted
Cartoons
Meet the Gemini family
and More!!

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