Leah and I got a babysitter last night and went out to dinner. It was really nice, after some initial turbulence. Our meals were good, and it was half-price wine night where we dined, so we got a nice bottle for not a lot of money.
The sitter we used last night is Ava’s favorite at daycare. They get along great. We hadn’t used this girl before, which means we had to give her a little tour of the house and provide a rundown of all the information she’d need while she was there, including how to work the TV.
I brought the TV home theater at our house to the marriage from my old life as a single man. When I met Leah, she was watching TV on a little 19″ job with a no-name VCR set atop a small bookcase. It was fine for her. My setup is considerably more complicated, but not fancy at all, really, by present day standards. The thing that is a bit of a stumbling block is the remote. It runs everything, from the receiver to the DVD player to the SLiMP3 player. There are buttons all over the remote and even a little screen that tells you what’s going on. It’s a whopper. The upside is that we have only one remote in the house, and that — to me — makes any shortcomings of the Marantz MKII more than worth the trouble.
I’ve programmed the remote with two macros, one that turns everything on, and one that turns everything off. I was hoping this would make things easier for Leah, who tends to confront new technology with a wary eye, but she still manages to have some trouble now and then. It’s also difficult to demo the remote to someone who’s never used it before, like a new babysitter. It’s sorta like pulling someone off the street and asking them to fly the space shuttle. The sitter last night was happily watching TV when we got home last night, though, so at least part of my crash course had taken hold.
My watch is telling me that my weekend starts in 30 minutes. I can’t wait.