Rainy Day, How I'm Spending my Time

Today so far I have:
Cleaned the bathroom, sort of dusted the living room (it's futile, will never win the War on Dog Hair), swept up more than enough hair to manufacture a new pet, took a bubble bath, cooked pasta sauce with sausage, cooked a small vat of potato soup per odd new craving for All Things Potato, and watched the last three episodes of "Desperate Housewives." And no, I'm not trying to be themey. Honestly, the cooking part especially is relaxing. Except for that moment where the sauce was bubbling so hard it was splattering hot little tomato daggers all over my skin, t-shirt, and stove, and the temperature was on low. Now that pissed me off a little.

We have to start making lists of what we're going to do with our primetime over the summer. Move this task to the top of your to-do lists, people, because every good show is now Officially Over. We have to face it. Gone is "Survivor," "The Apprentice" (which sucked anyway--the prize is to either work with the Miss Universe pageant or makeover a mansion? what happened to Chicago's next skyscraper?), gone is "Lost," "Gilmore Girls," "Gray's Anatomy," "Desperate Housewives" (which I only watched after everything else was done with). "The OC" isn't on anymore, for pete's sake. I'll even miss "American Idol," even though this time I barely kept up with it, and basically just TiVo'd the finale and fast-forwarded to the end, just before the confetti release. That should have been a Summer Show. I have noticed this new show on VH1 featuring Mick Jagger's ex and these unpolished boys who wish to date her. That could be some mindless fluff. Then there's "Surreal Life," with Bronson Pinchot, Omarosa, and Janice Dickinson, of all people. Which only reminds me that "America's Next Top Model" is also over, and here I am sad again. "Real World: Austin" starts in a few weeks, and that should be amusing in the perpetual frat party/soap opera way the "Real World" always is. There's some show called "The Scholar" that seems somewhat compelling. However, for the most part, good, solid hour-long dramas and reality television events worth watching are going to be at a minimum. For like, three and a half months.

Penelope's Summer 2005: Operation Live through the Unfortunate but Apparently Necessaray Hiatus of Jeff Probst is...

• Read books. Like, actually read them. Instead of watching TV, and especially on the back porch, under the twinkly lights.
• Do more crafts, i.e. mod-podge/finally finish Recipe Project 2004, with mindless things like TBS movies, i.e. Pretty Woman for the thousand and fifth time, on in the background.
• Rent lots and lots of movies.
• Continue letter-writing campaign to Rat Bastards at CBS, beg them to bring back "Joan of Arcadia."
• And also, rent TV SHOWS. Such as..."Survivor: The Australian Outback." Which, actually, I fully intend to buy. Eegad, Brain, it's brilliant! This way we can move even beyond the brilliance of TiVo, watching exactly what we want, when we want, with no commercials AND no schedules, i.e. no waiting for Thursday nights! At Penelope's house, it's a party every night!

I must get moving immediately on this mission.