For love of the mundane.

Thank Christ the writer’s strike is apparently ending. Sure, I’ve been able to entertain myself pretty well with a nightly dose of political commentary from the talking heads over at CNN, but I’m ready to have something else to watch again besides Max Headroom and his team of political hacks. So imagine my surprise last night when, after just winding up a Tivoed episode of House Hunters International, I flipped over to what appeared to be a brand new episode of Brothers and Sisters! Oh, happy day! And even better, despite a progressive sub-plot of the liberal Sally Field and Republican operative Danny Glover supposedly falling in love even while they clearly have no chemistry, there is another new one next week. Yay!

Speaking of House Hunters International, do you watch that show? It’s fun to see real estate in all sorts of different international locations, and it is ever so much better than the bizarrely mundane, original House Hunters set here in the U.S. of A. The American version seems to show people with not a lot of money circling classified ads for one bedroom condos and places with tacky, outdated kitchens. Why would I want to see that? R. and I tried watching one the other night, and it was like watching paint dry. A cheesy-looking young couple in Wisconsin wanted to move out of their beige rental into a house that would provide him with more “man-space” (“Look! Plenty of man-space for my two grills!) and her with more “girl-space” (“I loved my walk-in closet, but now I have my own room where I can sew and talk on the phone with my mom!”). Yes, it was truly fascinating. You know, like descriptions of what’s on TV these days.

So my mom left today for the annual arbitration competition in Paris that she helps to judge, and to which I accompanied her last year, and I am very, very jealous. She arrives tomorrow and her program doesn’t start for a couple of days, which means she has blessed time alone to do things like stroll, check out museums and SHOP. If I were there, I would throw Weight Watchers to the wind as I washed down my morning baguette slathered with Nutella with a lovely grand crème, knocked back my lunchtime croque monsieur with a nice glass of Sancerre, and shoved in my evening serving of foie gras with at least half a bottle of a St. Julien or St. Estèphe (not to mention the actual dinner and probably some profiteroles). Sure, I’d feel like shit by the end of each day, but so what? It all tastes so, so good. And then I’d bring home the magic with gourmet items like Monoprix-brand salad dressing and canned sauce for steak au poivre (Monoprix is like, oh, maybe Target?). Because like I’ve said, I’m all about the grocery shopping in foreign lands.

I can hardly wait until May.