I Don't Got No TV

After last week's digital changeover, I get only 3 TV channels and they are channels of nightmare: one broadcasting over and over, in English and then in Spanish, the message that if I'm seeing this message I am f----d and should call some number that never answers; and two digital channels owned by, run by, and featuring the best-known local evangelist. (And his toupee.) (Whatever it is about toupees, I can't take my eyes off 'em.) The only entertainment offered is reruns of "I Spy." I sh-t you not.

Getting any signal at all proves my antenna and TV do receive digital -- without a converter box -- but most signals from the city, 35 miles away, are too puny now to reach me. AT&T U-Verse doesn't serve this area. Guess I'll try a company a day until I find one that will. Wonder how many people are diggin' through their pockets to do the same as I.

In the meantime I let the TV mumble through its repeating nightmare. For company. To fill the dark corners of the house and the mind. And I don't chide myself. I've seen TV all my life and can't be expected to go without it for the remainder.

Got Water?

Sunday I get up and the water heater's leaking. Oh mercy. Mopped it up. Had to shut off the valve to the house and phone the handyman on his day off. He'll be here tomorrow morning. To get water today I make do, stepping outside to the pump house with some saucepans and buckets. I consider this a great privilege, not the holy terror it is when the plumbing's not working in the city.

Too bad I couldn't wash clothes or dishes or floors today. Instead, I relaxed and saw a rose-breasted grosbeak I will try to photograph for you.