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Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Playing nurse and téléréalité

I've been worrying about the Chat. He hasn't eaten anything since yesterday morning and has just now started to drink a bit of water. Plus he's taken to hiding again. Under the bed, in the litter box (nice one that). So I schlepped the 12 pounder to the vet again and she did an X-ray. He appears to have a little fracture of the sternum and perhaps some swelling. So she gave him a cortisone shot and told me to try to get him to eat more. I even bought that special milk for cats. But all he'll let me do is put a bit on his lips then he licks it slightly. Well, we're doing the best we can for the little fellow. Thanks for everyone's get well wishes.

To distract me from worrying there is always Internet (surprise) and a little reality TV à la française. I am a bit addicted to this one show called Un dîner presque parfait (An almost perfect dinner). The concept is that five people take turns inviting each other over to eat during one week. They all try to outdo each other in terms of cooking, decoration of the table and/or room and finally ambiance.

It has become my little guilty pleasure. I sometimes try to do the ironing at the same time so I won’t feel like I’m totally vegging, but then again, what’s wrong with some vegging?! Sometimes I actually get some recipe ideas, but come to think of it, I haven’t actually incorporated any of them into my cooking. Maybe it’s more fun just to see how other people cook and clean and decorate their homes. Plus you get some folks who are just too serious about their food and you want to tell them to take a break and eat like the rest of us. Like this snooty lady who owns a restaurant and therefore thinks she can openly criticize the other hosts if they don’t make their own mayonnaise or raspberry purée.

My other reality show at the moment is called L’amour est dans le pré (Love is in the prairie). My husband gets into this one, too. The idea is intriguing: take some single farmers, vineyard owners, goat cheese makers, what-have-you, and try to hook them up with someone willing to live out in the middle of nowhere. It’s mostly men who are still single and hoping to find their better half through the concept, but there is usually one lonely cow-girl, too. In our household it’s practically interactive TV, because my husband keeps talking to the screen and saying, oh, no, that girl’s not prepared for country life/her eyes are too small/she’s too aggressive, etc.

It is pretty interesting to see how the farmers and their candidates try to get to know each other. This one clueless guy didn’t even bother to pick up the two girls he’d selected to spend a week with him (yes, two at the same time, in separate beds, mind you). They had to call him from the station and he told them to rent a car. Plus that evening he had a meeting about some bicycle outing so the girls had to fend for themselves for dinner. What a catch! Another guy still lives with his mom, so he and his potential lovemate spent their first evening over an awkward dinner of crêpes and Nutella in the presence of maman.

Now there is also the summer junky one: Secret Story (the English name gives it that special something over here). I watch snippets now and then. I’ll mostly catch up on this one through the tabloids, no doubt. Don’t know if they have it in the US, too. The idea- some largish number of highly photogenic people live together in a mod house with, of course, a swimming pool. They all have secrets they must successfully keep from each other and they try to discover the other candidate’s secrets to win money. So far the audience knows that there is a mom and daughter in the household, plus a lesbian couple, and a fake couple. Mostly this show seems to be a jumping off point for aspiring models, weather girls, singers and actors. At least that’s what the tanned and cute candidates are hoping.

With the wasteland that is summer TV, I’ll probably be spending more time than I’d like to admit watching this type of entertainment.

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