Guilty Pleasures

I have deep seated pleasures in my life that aren’t so good for the environment, my bank account, or my body.

Deeply chilled flavored water in pretty plastic bottle bring me such happiness and taste so very good. I like the square shaped bottles or those with plastic ones dyed blue. Call a drink Mango Memory, pump it into a pink plastic bottle and chill it for two days – and I’m mad for to have it and to heck with environmental warnings.

I love the feel of greeting cards – especially the ones that sell for $5.95 each even without the postage. An why bother with e-cards or Christmas letters on-line when you can open your real snow-covered mail-box to find a heavy red foil envelop with a beautiful postage stamp affixed to its right hand upper corner? The money I spend on sending Christmas cards is utterly selfish. And I honestly don't care!

At least once a month, but usually a lot oftener, I download a game from Big Fish. They send me an announcement of a new game a day and I pay for a monthly membership so I can get the games for $6.95 each (or less if they are having a sale). Sometimes, like during the summer, I even download a game a day. I now own over 125 of their games (only a couple reside on the Mac – all the rest are PC games). I started playing the “find” games – the programmer hides pictures of all sorts of things in a pretty setting and you seek it out before the timer runs out. Often these “find” games are set around a story line (shift through all the rooms of the haunted house to rescue the beloved maiden). Lately though, I’ve just been mindlessly playing the “match 3” games. Fine 3 matches in a row (or 4 or 5 or 6 or 8), highlight them, and collect points (or bonuses to help you find more matches). Most of the games I play require one to accomplish a task within a set time frame, but I find that frustrates me greatly so lately I’ve only acquired games that could be played in the “untimed” mode. It’s very relaxing after a hard day’s teaching to find 5 daisies running vertically across your screen.

My DVR gets quite a workout when I’m not in grad school. I don’t watch any reality shows, though, unless you count House Hunters and Property Virgins as reality TV. I record all the house buying shows and goggle in amazement that people are still paying $350,000 for a dump townhouse in Chicago that also carries with it high monthly tenant fees. Didn’t people learn anything from the recession?

I’m totally hooked on NBC’s Parenthood. What a wonderful show! What a superior cast! What great story lines! I’m convinced that since I love it so much it will be cancelled before a second season can run. Just as Lauren Graham captivated me on Gilmore Girls, I'm totally in love with her all over again. And then to have Jason Ritter as her two-show love interest blew me away. I adored Ritter in Joan of Arcadia, another show I was passionate about.

Finally, if you love doggies as much as I do, please go check out the wonderful photos of my friend in Singapore's two sweet babies. Snugpug had some great black and white photos taken of her poochies and these shots will brighten your day as much as they did mine. Finally -- something healthy to recommend.