Tired of ads? Subscribers enjoy a distraction-free reading experience.
Click here to subscribe today or Login.

I have an unfortunate habit of getting into things too late. From fashion statements to television shows, I miss the boat every time.

Colleagues in the newsroom consider me an old soul. I like to polka, eat pierogi and watch movies from the 1940s.

I was born in the wrong era. I still listen to Elton John and Elvis Presley on vinyl. I wasn’t really one for up-and-coming trends, especially in grade and high school — except for the time my parents didn’t let me go see Good Charlotte and Simple Plan at the arena when everyone in my eighth-grade class went.

Getting into the car with dad meant listening to artists like the Temptations and the Four Seasons, not listening to Panic! at the Disco or the aforementioned bands.

Maybe that’s when I received my “day late, dollar short” lifestyle.

Take for instance my love “NYPD Blue.”

After one of the medical exams leading up to my cancer diagnosis in 2014, my father was watching the show on Audience Network. When I came home from the procedure, I watched with him. Consider me instantly hooked.

When the show first came out in 1993, I was 2. It lasted until 2005, but I was still too young to watch. I remember my mom and dad sending me to bed before the show came on at night during my elementary school years.

And then there is David Caruso.

I can vaguely remember my friends talking about him on “CSI: Miami” in the mid-2000s. I don’t know what I was doing — probably watching CNN or Fox — but I never watched hit television shows.

After watching Caruso on “NYPD Blue,” I started watching him on “CSI: Miami.” That show ended in 2012.

Within weeks I had amassed the nine seasons on DVD. It took over a year, but my DVD collection has grown exponentially because I’ve also bought everything Caruso was in the 1980s and 1990s. He became my hero.

Since then, I’ve seem to have evened out and have come to watch more current shows.

Because I was home from surgeries or had hours of chemo, I’ve binged watched (thank you, Netflix) shows. It took me weeks throughout last summer to get caught up on “Criminal Minds,” and this winter to get caught up on “Blue Bloods.” Thankfully, both crime shows are still on television and I can feel in-the-know during water-cooler talks.

I recently acquired a Wanderer bracelet and a Lokai bracelet. These bracelets were all over my social media feeds last summer: friends, celebrities, my sister — you name it, they were wearing it. Not me.

The cool thing about Lokai is they are still in fashion. They come out with new colors to match different nonprofit awareness groups almost monthly.

I first heard about Wanderer bracelets when I was in Los Angeles in January 2016. It took me until my friend’s Janelle birthday in September, nearly nine months later, to actually buy one.

Let’s hope as I get older I remember to not miss the boat so much.

8/1/2014 The Times Leader AIMEE DILGER
https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/web1_Melanie-Mizenko-2.jpg.optimal.jpg8/1/2014 The Times Leader AIMEE DILGER

By Melanie Mizenko

[email protected]

Reach Melanie Mizenko at 570-991-6116 or on Twitter @TL_MMizenko