…it must be time to announce this week’s SHaQ Attack winner! Woo hoo!

I asked you to name the first cover of mine featuring both hero and heroine. The answer is my 1994 Loveswept, Tango in Paradise. A whole slew o’ Blog Babes got this one right, but there can be only one winner…and she is Marie E! Round of applause (and a big wave of the ice cream scoop) in Marie’s general direction. She wins her choice of a book from my website. Tune in next week for the next SHaQ Attack hunt.

Okay, last night was double heaven. No, not just because my oldest is back in college and my youngest is packing to head out to Oregon to ski with family for five days (the brat.) No, last night was double heaven because both Grey’s Anatomy AND Men in Trees were back with new episodes. More ice cream for me!

Grey’s was the first of a two parter and sort of a mixed bag for me. George’s dad has his surgery and it’s not looking so good for him. Bailey teaches Callie how to do the Dr. McStareDown, which works on getting McDreamy to do a consult on a patient with a spine curved so badly she walks bent over at a 90 degree angle, but not so good on George, who does finally seem to pull his head out of his ass and realize what he has with her. Izzy finally deposits her check in a scene that totally cracked me up, and we get some seriously heavy foreshadowing that she wants to do something good with all that money, and that something good will probably involve the 90 degree bent-over girl…except, Izzy, getting emotionally and directly involved with patients like that is what got you in trouble in the first place. Her heart is in the right place, but you can’t write a check for everyone in trouble. Well, she could write a bunch of em, true, but even eight million dollars will run out at some point. I both applaud and worry about our Izzy.

McDreamy can’t sleep because Meredith snores. Meredith keeps running into her father in the hospital, being forced to watch him be the doting, loving grandfather to his new born, seriously ill granddaughter in a way he was never a father to her. Burke and Christina continue their very strange stand-off, which is so juvenile as to be seriously pissing me off to the point that I honestly don’t care about them anymore. But I do love how Burke is there for George and Christina is there for Mere.

And Addison and Mark are having some kind of anniversary of something Really Bad that is pissing him off, which, by default, pisses off Alex who defends her honor with vanilla cappuccino (you had to be there) which then leads to a very hot almost-kiss. Which is where Shonda leaves you hanging until next week. I hate it when she does that.

On Men in Trees things are either really great, or they really suck. Talk about your emotional roller coaster of an episode. I loved it. I think what I love most about the way this show is written is that a) it’s unapologetically a relationship show, first, last, and always, and doesn’t pretend to even need anything else. And it doesn’t. And b) it involves a lot of the standard relationship cliches, then doesn’t allow the characters to fall into any of them, but rather has them communicate, speak their minds, stand up for themselves…and still find themselves wading through dangerous emotional territory. Sort of like, you know, life. I think it’s funny that everyone talks about this show being fluffy and light, when I think its humor and quirkiness balance out the relationship truths beautifully. And that, despite it’s locale and oddball-isms, it reflects a lot of what we all go through in dealing with our various relationships.

To bring you up to speed, during this one hour, Marin decides to give Jack space while Lynn packs up and leaves, refurbishing her strength of will by constantly listening to his voice mail. You know, the one where he tells her in the absolutely sexiest gravelly voice ever, that he’s falling in love with her. They reunite, kiss madly, and know it’s just a matter of time before they can resume figuring out what’s going to be what between them.

Only, of course, true love doesn’t run smoothly. Lynn, who doesn’t know they’re an item, decides to stick around Elmo while she gestates… and comes to term with her feelings for life-long friend and recently ex lover, Jack. Which leads to a dark room kiss that Jack abruptly ends as he is up front that he has feelings for Marin. Only the kiss confused him. He doesn’t know what he wants now. Lynn is up front with Marin. Jack is up front with Marin. And Marin wonderfully stands up for herself and tells them both to essentially take a flying leap. I loved her home run speech. A lot.

In other Elmo-ian news, Patrick is pining away for Annie, who wants him to be a man, not a mama’s mouse, but mama finally remembers that being single isn’t all its cracked up to be and lets her hair down with her supervisor, a scene which I totally loved, and both she and Patrick realize it’s time to move on with their lives. I loved it when Patrick told her they should start seeing other people. Great lines in this show!

Then we have Ben, who is romancing his wife…only to have the show end with the other woman in his life getting off a bus, back in town again. That should be interesting! (And where was her son???)

But, my most favorite part was the Jane and Plow Guy…when he sent her the picture of all the boats being shipped out into the harbor on the darkest night, lighting the way toward a more hopeful dawn. I want a Plow Guy. I really do.

Can’t wait to see what happens next!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Tags: Writing //