What to do when you don't want to do anything

 We all have those days. Lately I've had too many of them. What does one do when productivity seems to flee and you don't feel like chasing it down? 

My recent time-waster has been watching reality cooking shows. I was really into Guy's Grocery Games with Guy Fieri, who I think is so cute and charming, a bigger than life personality. He often brings his family into his shows, which I admire. He and his wife have been married over 20 years and they have two sons who Guy is obviously quite proud of. The oldest, Hunter, has gone to college and joined his dad in his media/food business.

I was watching episodes of Guy's Grocery Games every evening on HBO Max until they found out I was in Mexico using a VPN. What the heck? That's the point of a VPN. It hides your location so you can watch shows broadcast to the US when you're in Mexico. Well, it didn't work anymore and HBO Max diverted me from the US service to the Mexico Max service. No more Guy's Grocery Games.

Fine then. On Mexico HBO Max I got into Chopped, another reality cooking show similar to Guy's, where chef contestants have to compete against each other while cooking weird things according to the game rules. Chopped is a long-running show of many seasons and episodes, except that only a few seasons are streamed to Mexico Max. 

When I ran out of Chopped episodes, I found a few interesting cooking contests hosted by Gordon Ramsey, who is also cute and charming, as long as his swearing is bleeped out. So lately it's been Master Chef with Gordon Ramsey. Unfortunately, it also streams only a few episodes to Mexico.

I'm not sure what my obsession is with reality cooking shows but they sure help to pass the time. In only a few weeks, I move back to America where I won't need a VPN and I can watch whatever the heck I want. But then I won't need to fill the empty hours because I will be near my family where there's always something going on of greater interest than TV.

I came to Mexico in 2020 on what was meant to be a three- month retreat in a tropical climate near the beach. For reasons too numerous to explain, it turned into my home for four years. And now I am leaving, more than ready to go, and simply filling the time until these few weeks pass when I get on that plane to Salt Lake. 

I like to cook and eat while watching the cooking shows. This is my stacked salad topped with spicy beans and honey mustard dressing.