Downton Abbey and OCD

It's a joke in my house that we don't call OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) by it's proper initials.  We call it CDO - that way it's in alphabetical order of course.  No one in my family has the condition in a way that is debilitating, and I feel for anyone who does because I think I teeter on the edge of it some days, but all of us girls seem to be afflicted with a slight case of it anyway.  It's kind of funny that my "free-spirited" little one that everyone always assumed would just skip through life without a care in the world may have ended up with the largest dose of it as time goes by.

It's that feeling when the house gets messy, or the to-do list gets too long or the calendar too full - you have to do one of 2 things.  Either clean until everything is scrubbed and polished to perfection or completely retreat and become so absorbed in a project that you can't notice anything else.  Of course if you try to clean your way out of it
everything seems to fall into place and you feel like you can tackle the world no matter what comes, until you see that spot of dust that you missed behind that picture, then oh, I forgot to dust the tops of all of those pictures, and I wanted to clean the shelves in the fridge, etc, etc.  And then if you escape it's all well and good until you finish the book or the entire TV series or trilogy or whatever you've gotten hooked into and then you look up to find that every messy piece of laundry or stack of dishes etc are all still there and no fairy-godmother came by to "poof" it all away so you're no better off than before.

I'll say it one more time and then I'll try to put it away for a while at least - I hate moving.  I am still going through boxes and trying to get everything put away in our new house.  It has been overwhelming to the point that I ended up using the escape method recently.  Oh I tried to tell myself I'd be good and just watch one movie while I unpacked some boxes.  But that quickly turned into 2 and then I was looking for a series to keep me occupied.  Now, I did go through boxes but I'm sure I could have done it much faster without the distraction but I was getting bored and frustrated with the mess.

I had heard so many things about the TV show Downton Abbey - both good and bad actually - that I decided to go ahead and watch a couple of episodes for myself and see what it's all about.  I don't think I need to say it, but, I watched all the seasons within only a few days.  I found myself so drawn into it and getting all wrapped up in the culture, the costumes, the characters. . . that I watched it all.  I laughed out loud, I cried - a lot, and dreamed about what part of the house I would have lived in during that time.  I figured it out too.  I wouldn't have lived in it at all.  My family would have probably been more likely one of the poor tenant farmers, or someone that they hired.  Then we would have risen in society a little and become merchants until the son of an Earl fell madly in love with me and we got married.  Of course moving into the large family estate, raising our children to be kind, loving aristocrats that do good and make the world a better place.

Yep, I watched the whole series.

I was quite disappointed too when I looked up and found myself in the middle of a bunch of boxes and no ladies-maid to help me!  Then I needed to find out exactly what a Dowager was and why did Matthew have to die!  I think it was very short sighted for Dan Stevens to decide to leave the series but I guess he will do well in the theater and we can see Mary be strong and independent again.  Poor Sybil, I miss her too but it was well-written in how she went out that it made sense and I think I liked it all the more because of it.  Then to be so on-edge waiting to make sure Bates got safely out of prison and now worried that it changed him too much.

I've never been a fan of Masterpiece Theater or public television at all really, after I graduated passed Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers that is.  But this series has awakened my curiosity for the classics.  I can't look passed the fact though that Julian Fellowes has written it all wonderfully and the actors out-perform themselves continually.  They are wholly believable and incredibly well cast.  I think it is the tendency to overact a period piece like this that I've witnessed before or it becomes so "Shakespearean" that it is dry and hard to follow.  While it has a lot of liberal topics and opinions compared to my very conservative take on things, it's done so tastefully and well that I'm completely taken with it.

I must go now, I'm sure someone is going to come in and tell me dinner is served at anytime now.  After all I've dressed for dinner and I'm waiting here in the drawing room.  Oh. . . . dang.