Tuesday Nights

The other day I asked Andy what he will miss most about the US. (He said Mexican restaurants, by the way). Well I was thinking today about what I will miss. I know there will be many things, but what came to mind today, this Tuesday, is TV. Not to say that most South Africans don’t have TV’s and watch all the same shows and movies we do - for many of them do, even though our shows are aired on a bit of a different schedule. It’s just that for us as missionaries living on a missionary budget, we are choosing to not have television. Really I am excited about this. Having a TV can be a precarious situation - you always have to balance how much you watch, you have to actively monitor what you or your family may see. It’s so easy to waste an evening away (especially after an exhausting day) watching the screen instead of doing things, spending time together, or even reading. So lately, whenever I start to think of this, I feel relieved that in South Africa we won’t need to worry about it, because we just won’t have one! (We will have Internet for communication purposes, so we will be able to watch shows online or DVD’s from time to time).

But the thing is, it’s Tuesday. And you see, every Tuesday, we have this routine. It’s Andy’s first day back at work after the weekend. He has a long day of meetings at work, and I catch up on cleaning, cooking, doing things around the house, and of course spend time playing with Norah. In the evenings, we go to the gym to work out. Then we come home, make and eat dinner, feed and put Norah to bed and - collapse on the couch for our two favorite shows, American Idol and LOST. To be perfectly honest, Tuesday is my favorite day of the week. And I look forward to our shows ALL DAY LONG. (Wow, I’m laughing at how ridiculous I sound, but you all know you do the same thing with whatever it is that you watch). Tuesday evenings at the gym I take a 55-minute long Pilates class. It’s wonderful, and it’s hard. But as I do my Pilates, I think about all I got accomplished during the day, and then, I eagerly anticipate our dinner and our shows and our little pieces of dark chocolate that we let ourselves have for dessert each night. As soon as 8 pm rolls around, we kiss little Norah and lay her down, and Andy gets out his laptop and signs into Twitter so he can share his judgments of all the American Idol contestants. We judge them together.

We catch up on reading the blog by Doc Jensen for last week’s episode of LOST. Then as soon as it’s 9 pm, we turn off the computers and any distractions and become silent as the familiar LOST music begins. We hang on

every second of the show (flipping back to American Idol during commercials) and then discuss it afterwards.

And as dull and silly and mundane and worldly as it does sound, I’m going to miss our Tuesday TV nights. :)