Back to Basics

So I’ve been without Internet access for the past two days (more on that debacle to come). And here’s what I did with time I would have spent checking emails and visiting random web sites:

• Read a book. Actually, I finished a book I had started on Sunday. This isn’t quite the accomplishment it seems, given that the title in question, “On Chesil Beach” by Ian McEwan, is really more of a novella, with the large print and small-sized pages one usually associates with books for the very young or very old. Normally I would feel guilty spending a couple of hours with a book. I don’t know why, but reading sometimes feels like an indulgence. As if the aforementioned emailing and web surfing are justifiable activities but reading somehow isn’t.
• Baked bread. Not something I normally do in the summer, what with our condo already feeling like the inside of an oven. And not wanting to waste precious July hours on something I could do in February. But yesterday’s temps were on the pleasant side…and I had the time to just sit and watch the dough rise. Here’s what I learned—summer is actually the perfect time for baking bread. The warmer air proved a friendlier environ for the yeast and I turned out a pair of kick ass whole wheat loaves.
• Took a walk in the park with Dave.

It was like I had traveled back in time to 1854 or 1998. And then I blew the whole “getting back to basics” theme by turning on the television and tuning into the train wreck that was “Victoria Beckham: Coming to America.” Sample quotes from the once and current Posh Spice: “I wouldn’t normally answer the door” and “It’s exhausting being fabulous.” Her criteria for a personal assistant: “She can’t be too pretty and she can’t be too thin.” VB, of course, while not necessarily the former is certainly the latter. If the camera adds 10 pounds, I’d estimate VB’s weight at 70 pounds.

This one-hour special was supposed to be a series, and I can see why that idea was kiboshed. Not only were the scenarios hopelessly contrived—the Dodgers just happen to call and ask VB to throw out the first pitch; a group of Beverly Hills socialites ask Posh to lunch, and one of the overly made-up matrons just happens to imitate a dolphin call—but the star of the show was so unlikable, she managed to make employees of the DMV look like charmers. (Why the ruse of getting a U.S. driver’s license when we later see her being chauffeured everywhere?) I was not amused.

Tonight I think I’ll take up needlepoint.