The Lost Petersons

Neal and I enjoy watching a good series together. During the Christmas season right after Sally was born we had a lot of free time and a little baby that slept a lot. With the help of Neal’s family, we discovered the “Horatio Hornblower” series (a BBC work) and dove in. It was at times cheesy and predictable, but fun just the same. We enjoyed the down time together, and would work together to get things done around the house and with Sally so we could start each next episode. The next Christmas season we got into season 1 of “24”, which I initially resisted but ended up getting hooked on. Over the past few years we have also taken on “The Lost Room” (a short series, something that Neal’s mom lent to us), “Crusoe” (an NBC mini-series), “The Winds of War” (an ABC miniseries from the 80s), “The Flame Trees of Thika” (a British miniseries) and “Love Comes Softly” (from Hallmark, and the only series we never finished).

Our most recent series of interest is “LOST”. I’m not sure why we started, but after just one episode of season 1, we both wanted to continue. While we didn’t watch every night, most evenings we’d watch at least one episode (and sometimes two or three). It was fun looking forward to that time together in the evenings, and fun to talk about the story and characters together. We were both motivated to take care of our responsibilities as quickly as possible in the evenings so we could have more time to watch together. After season 1 was over, we took a few months off and then tackled season 2. While we both really enjoyed seasons 1 and 2, we’ve decided not to continue with the rest of the seasons. In addition to feeling guilty about spending so much time in front of the tv night after night, I didn’t like turning a blind eye to the raciness that was starting to creep into the show just because I wanted to see what happened next.

So now, without watching “LOST” in the evenings, our evenings feel a bit, well, lost! They are certainly a lot less fun and a lot less predictable. It isn’t that we currently do nothing together in the evenings—we do. We enjoy crossword puzzles, working on our finances, playing games, or just talking, but we also commonly get pulled into our own responsibilities and interests and spend less time together than we’d like. I work quite a bit for my job in the evenings, and Neal always has things he can do for work—such as reading the millions of medical journals/anesthesia textbooks that the department would like him to read. I suppose we are just in a bit of a rut right now and the solution is just planning (or a good dose of fun spontaneity, which neither of us have ever been great at), but often lately while I’m sitting at my work computer realizing that the evening has slipped away without much spouse time, I long for the evenings with LOST on the tv, Neal and my side, and a bowl of ice cream in my lap.

While I could take the easy route, (cave in and go get season 3 from the library), I’m looking for ideas and suggestions about other series that are not quite so long (or addicting, or racy), but more especially about other ways for Neal and I to spend time together in the evenings that we’ll be as excited about as we were about “LOST.” Any ideas? (Ideas involving exercise are especially welcome. Goodness knows I need more of that!).