I want my TV

No, not my M-TV, just my TV. And my sofa, and all my other belongings. They're all back in Arizona until this stuff with my old townhouse gets worked out. To recap, the situation is this:

1. I'm not moving my stuff until the townhouse sells, because homes sell better with stuff in them (especially when they have a big purple wall).
2. My townhouse hasn't sold, even though I have an enthusiastic buyer, because a structural engineer decided, at the last minute, that the garage was about to fall down.
3. The garage will cost $15k to fix, and at the moment there's polite but painstaking work being done to find out whose responsibility that is (not the buyer's--maybe mine, maybe the HOA's, or maybe it belongs to the inspector who told me the house was perfectly fine when I bought it only a couple of years ago--or maybe to the insurance company of any of those potentially responsible parties).
4. We're now going to have to pay summer rates to the movers in Phoenix. Not that you should care, but it makes me a teeny bit more bitter.

I've been watching TV on my computer (most networks make the programs I want to watch conveniently available online, which is nice). This is fine insofar as it goes, although "Lost" has taken a turn lately where I'm constantly missing the frame-by-frame function of my Tivo. But what I really miss is the ceremonial aspect of watching television.

I don't worship TV, but I am a creature of habit. I like stretching out on the sofa and browsing the Tivo. I like Sundays--I prepare for them all week by having my Tivo find horror movies that I can watch while I do laundry and clean. Then when I'm done I pause an old movie while I make popovers, eating the popovers with butter and cheese in front of the last few minutes of the film. (Yes, really. An ideal Sunday double-header would be something like "Halloween" and "Woman of the Year," only with movies I hadn't seen before.)

I like my ceremonies, and I was quite aware of them before I moved. I think I've done pretty well for a couple of months without them. And it's not just the TV that's missing. It's the sofa (I wish I had a comfy place to read, too) and the popover pans and a knife that will cut cheese (although my friend recently sent me the knife, which was nice). I'm ready for this bit to be over. I'm ready to clean and decorate my apartment, to lie on the sofa waiting for my laundry, and to feel at home.