Lap Quilting With Georgia Bonesteel

My dark suspicions have proven true. OU, which still sucks, has vaulted ahead of Texas in the final regular-season BCS ranking, and will play in Kansas City for a tainted Big XII championship. For a few hours on Saturday, and for the first time in my life, I will be a rabid fan of the Missouri Tigers and their bloated pretty-boy of a quarterback. Er, handsome Heisman finalist of a quarterback.

So anyway, my fiancee and I spend a fair amount of time fighting over the remote control, despite our taste in television being somewhat similar. Our latest episode started as many do - I pretended to pause with mild interest on each channel as I gradually (and so casually) made my way up the dial to SportsCenter, whereupon I'd be able to: a.) present myself as having reached a fair result by carefully considering the other options before settling on channel 254; b.) receive important, live updates on the sports news of the day; and c.) laugh at advertisements featuring professional athletes and ESPN personalities in hilarious scenarios. This time, it was going to work. We had made our way past The Girls Next Door and Bizarre Foods, and even the usually must-see Anderson Cooper didn't have much going on. The only obstacles I saw to victory were a possible last-minute bathroom emergency or Hour 3 of the house-hunting marathon on the Home & Garden Network, which had already tempted both of us earlier in the evening.

The tension in the room was palpable. Our puppy is usually aroused, and for no good reason, but this time it felt like he knew something important was about to go down. His "lipstick" in full glory as he laid askew between my lap and the back of the sofa, he waited. The cat perched atop the record player stared intently at Mommy, and then Daddy, anticipating a major happening. The television seemed to get louder, and even our normally pathetic collection of IKEA cacti in the corner of the room seemed to stand taut. There was a feeling in the room. As if scripted, my fiancee alone was oblivious. It was electric.

I was seconds away when it happened. I paused, and then flipped past the HD version of the local PBS affiliate when Pam looked up from her laptop and said the words I dreaded most: "Hey, hold on a minute. Go back."

The game was up. Sure, I could kick the dog off of my lap and fire up the computer as usual, but then I'd risk a whole new (and entirely valid) line of attack: "You spend too much time on the computer. Pay attention to me or do the dishes or something." Point pre-emptively taken. Plus, watching SportsCenter is kind of like going to the movies instead of watching the DVD - it's just a feeling you get that can't be replicated.

The only word I could muster was a weak "Seriously?" I hoped for a second that I'd accidentally skipped something good, like a Ken Burns doc or Austin City Limits or something. No, it was "Lap Quilting with Georgia Bonesteel."

Epilogue: I was hooked. It was like watching one of those instructional videos from 1986, but with worse production values. You knew it was a fairly recent episode from newish-looking cars and a couple of passing references to "green" living. Soon we were locked in intense discussion over what city in Texas Georgia had chosen for her travel segment, and whether "Citrus Daydream (or something like that)," that week's featured quilt, was intentionally psychedelic. The show was half-over by the time we found it, but it only took a minute of lap-quilting for me to forget why I was so disappointed that we'd stopped on PBS.

Check her out:
http://www.georgiabonesteel.com