Of course my vacation didn't start as relaxing as I had planned it. At least not in every regard. This week I'm on snow duty, which means I have to get up early and clear the sidewalk in front of the house. Of course I could just go to bed early so that I get enough sleep, but where is the fun in a vacation if you go to bed early ;-)? I went back to bed yesterday and this morning but I never fell asleep again so that didn't really help. I'm so so tired already and it's just 4 PM.
Besides the lack of sleep I have som problems with my left shoulder. At first I thought I somehow had cricked it in my sleep on the weekend, but the pain and the resulting restricted movabilty of the shoulder didn't get any better. I went to see my GP this morning i was afraid it might be an inflamation of some sort, similar to the hip problems I had in May. My GP doesn't think it is, but that it's "only" (hahaha) an irriation, but not yet inflamation of the tendon of the biceps muscle. The tendon is attached at the back of the shoulder and that's where the pain occurs. Treatment? Ibuprofen, heat and rest. I'll do my best. I even just build my own sling to put the arm in, so that I don't automatically use this arm for everything. I'm lefthanded so I naturally tend to do things with the left hand and thus move the left arm and shoulder into all directions and it really sucks, when the most common movement results in a soaring pain at the back of the shoulder.
I was pretty lazy over the last few days and I guess my only accomplishment (and some might not even call it that *g*) was to catch up with season 5 of "Brothers & Sisters". I watched all eight missing episodes within two days and I'm sure I will continue to watch the show once it returns in January. It's not the same show it has been in the first four years.
Some storyline are so so so bad (horrifiyingly ridiculous) and unfortunately quite a few of the other storylines have over-the-top slapstick moments, which made me cringe a lot. My biggest complaint after the first 10 episodes of season 5, is that the storytelling seems choppy. I can't think of a better term in English. But it's not consistent, some of the characters actions and behaviours make no sense whatsoever and would have needed a lot of more introduction or character insight. Kitty is sleeping around (sort of), Justin asks the nurse out for coffee and in the next episode makes out randomly with staff at Luc's restaurant, only to get back to the nurse in the episode after that. Nora all of a sudden has an audition as radio host, without having anything of that being mentioned in the episode before? Luc has a crazy mom and is going to paint a mural in china... it all seems so random and incoherent. The christmas episode obviously was supposed to be their version of "It's a Wonderful Life" which I know is one of the most classic US christmas movies and liked the sentiment, but once again I thought it was just written badly.
I still enjoyed quite a few of the scenes and I still like the Walker family a lot with all their typical siblings rivalry, their overbearing mother, the usual up and downs of work and life and famiiy. And of course the fact that when it comes down to it they support each other no matter what. But today I'll most probably give another TV Family a chance to woe me. The Bravermans :-) I managed to watch the first two episodes of "Parenthood" on the plane back from Canada and I enjoyed it, so I'll check out some more of this show and see where they will take me...