And it's Socktober

 This is a thing some knitters do, though it's less publicized back in the days of widespread knitting blogs (and yes, I still miss that, it was fun to be able to see what other people were making). Louise Tilbrook mentioned it in the e-mail she sends out from time to time (to advertise her online journal, which I get the full one is a paid subscription).

Anyway, I looked at the three pairs of socks I have on the needles (and I have a lot more yarn and ideas) and thought, "maybe this month I intersperse this with working on the big sweater."

I didn't knit any last night; it was AAUW and we also had a water main break in town which I felt compelled to keep checking up on online to see if we were going to get a boil order (I guess because the water never got stagnant in the pipes? there was a huge gusher of an open hydrant on the way to the library for the AAUW meeting, and it was still going an hour later when I went back home. So I was kind of preoccupied. (Also, my sink garbage disposal failed, and I had to figure out how to stick my old stockpot under it to catch the drips, and I will have to clean out under there before Thursday when the plumber can get in to replace it)

But tonight, after a bunch of grading, I decided to sit down and work on the "Diode" socks (that is the name of the String Theory Colorworks colorway for it) that I'm knitting with an arrowhead lace pattern. But there wasn't anything good on tv "late"

I had watched the very end of "Hocus Pocus" on one of the Disney Channels; I was already an adult when this came out but it's a likeable movie and I can see why the generation just behind mine has a lot of people with fond memories of it. (I wound up catching the part with Binx'....resolution, I guess you'd call it? And I wound up crying, it's just been a hard week, and stories of self-sacrifice [even though it did work out well for him at the end] always get me)

But after that.....nothing. Unless there's a movie I want on TCM, cable is pretty much a wasteland on Friday nights, and it's hard not to see it as "this is Date Night, loser, we're not going to waste programming on the nerds stuck at home"

But then I remembered I have PBS Passport. It's the only "paid type" streamer I have access to. I give a little money every month to PBS; I started doing it back when That Guy basically said he wanted to starve PBS and NPR, and in my state, the PBS system (OETA) was kind of hanging by a thread for a while because our governor thought he wouldn't reauthorize their license.

But you know? A lot of the time it's the only real "intelligent" tv on. Them, and TCM, and some of the cartoon channels are the main things I watch these days. 

And yes. I am old enough to remember when TLC  was "The Learning Channel" and they showed re runs of old educational programs, like The French Chef and a show with a tailor making 70s-fabulous clothes (they were out of fashion but the techniques he taught were solid). And I remember when Arts and Entertaining actually had arts programming, and things like broadcasts of stage musicals. (And I remember when MTV showed music videos....) But like everything, en....uh, enpoopification....came for cable, and everything descended to a lowest common denominator, and TLC now shows programming about couples who would benefit from either a lot of counseling, or maybe never having got together in the first place, arguing. And a lot of those channels are now a bit like modern freakshows, and it's kind of uncomfortable and it feels voyeuristic

But, as I said, I remembered I had Passport. Logged back in. Started with one of the modern-reset Sherlock episodes but noped out because it seemed sad (it was about deaths-by-suicide, apparently) and so I shifted over to what was billed as the very first episode of the Suchet Poirot.

The Poirot mysteries with David Suchet have long been comfort programming for me. First of all, the period setting is just INTERESTING. Different clothes, stylish interiors, the hairstyles, the different entertainment - an entirely different world. Second, Suchet is just SO GOOD as Poirot, so enjoyable to watch. I love the character even as I know working with a man actually Like That would probably drive me up a wall. And third: like a LOT of the "vintage mysteries," it's a show that fundamentally celebrates intelligence and curiosity and being observant of small things, and those are things it feels like our society currently devalues, so it's cheering to see the "little grey cells" work and come up with the solution. And there's the fundamental morality of a lot of these mysteries: someone did something that was Wrong, they need to be found out, and justice needs to deal with them. (There are a few - there's a Poirot mystery early in the canon - where the perpetrator decides to take "the easy way out" and that almost feels to me like a cheat). 

This one was about a cook who was given an "inheritance" (that actually wasn't), and the murder and theft involved was something she was not at all involved or implicated in (Though Poirot does note sadly, "She will probably find out there is only a six month lease on the cottage she supposedly inherited). I don't remember seeing it before but then there are lots of these I didn't see in their original runs, and my local PBS substitutes another mystery for that on Saturday nights now (I am not complaining: I enjoy Sister Boniface or Father Brown)

But it is nice to have a comfort show back, and I noticed after watching it that they have the NOVA on the Chauvet caves that I saw only the end of, so I might watch that this weekend and knit.