Storming The Castle.

Even before the Hookers and Hangers challenge/contest, I have been thinking a lot about what makes good story. For me, good story is good story. The format doesn't really matter so much. It can be a book, TV show, movie. They are all designed to tell a story. I like TV shows because the intent is that the story goes on... at least, until it doesn't. But, it goes on for a while. And if it is written well, you get to peel back the characters, just a bit at a time, to fully know them. Life is this journey, and they are always in a process of discovering who they are, as the new things that happen to them change them. And we also find out, just a bit at a time, how they got to be the way they were. Or still are. For anyone interested strictly in character development, it is fascinating.

The other thing that I like to watch is the choices that the writers make. Sometimes there is *something* hanging out there from the previous season that MUST be addressed this season in a television series, BUT the ways that they can do it.... Well, they are too many count. Just like in life. Some will go well. Some medium well. Some badly. Some even worse.

So, I have been putting some of my mental resources into thinking about what I considered to be the best scene of the season for My Shows. That is really hard, by the way. Sometimes you have a scene for each set of characters blah blah blah. Narrowing it down to what is approximately the best three minutes of the whole season... aagghhh.

You are going to watch this three minutes and think to yourself.... hmmmm. Especially if you don't watch the show. But, watch it anyway. Focus yourself on Castle primarily. Beckett secondarily. And then I am going to break down how this applies to EVERYONE. That is what makes it the best.

You have to click here to watch.

The hanger at the end of last Season was the Trauma that Kate referred to: she was shot and nearly died. When she was shot, and losing consciousness, Castle finally told her that he loved her. He had come *thisclose* to telling her many times, but didn't.

So, when the season starts the question on everyone's mind is, "Where will they go from here?"

Turns out, they didn't really need to go anywhere. Beckett claimed that she had no memory of anything surrounding the shooting. It was the Trauma.

We find out later that isn't the case. She confesses to her shrink, or a friend, or both, that she always remembered everything, but it was just too much to deal with at the time. She was dealing with PTSD from the shooting (true) at the beginning of the season. And the feelings for Castle were just too much THEN. However, by the time Castle overheard this confession (not the one he was expecting, btw) Beckett was nearly ready to discuss her feelings for him. Let's say she was gathering her courage. Or gearing up. The conversation itself might have still been a few weeks out.

Now, the writers could have allowed Castle to find out Beckett remembered any number of ways. They CHOSE this one.

Maybe you didn't see blood on the floor. Or a proverbial arrow shot through the heart.... what you did see was the look on his face. He looked like someone gut punched him. Someone did. The person he cared about most had been lying to him for about eight months. Bam. Right to the gut.

At this point, everyone does what everyone does. Castle immediately moved into self protection mode. Beckett decided that she'd missed her chance; Castle no longer cared. And it could have gone on like that, but that circumstances forced some confrontations.

The beauty of this scene is that I don't know a better way that Beckett could have done it. She needed to take care of her PTSD before she took care of her love life. When you are losing it psychologically, that is not the time to be worried whether or not the boy likes you or not. She is a detective on the NYPD and melting down could cost her life. So, battling those inner demons and coming out on top had to be the priority. Had she told Castle that she heard what he said, it would have been unfair to say that I need to put you on hold for eight months... but I sure do like you a lot... I might even love you.... I just don't know. Probably because she wasn't admitting that she had PTSD in the first place to anyone but herself. Bah. You admit that and they take your gun. So, she worked it out while she worked. Stubborn lady.

However, don't we all do these things? Take your own issue and sub it for PTSD. Put on hold things or people that matter. Continue to do something that you feel you need to do because it is who you are even if it now scares you to death. Or hurts you in some way. And that is Life.

What makes Castle who he is.... well, that one is harder. He is the guy who after he has his man tantrum knows this woman. And he understands everything I just wrote. And it is why no matter how crazy she makes him, it's still the best crazy ever. Plus, he's a writer. Writers tend to see inside things in a way that the average person misses.

And, for the record, the last episode of the season was AMAZING. The whole darn thing.


image found at www.googleimages.com

Hangers Aren't Just for Closets

Remember when I posted about hookers? Actually, it was just about good hooks for the first chapter of your novel, but hookers got your attention, did it not? Today we are jumping to the end of the chapter and seeing what grabs you... the hanger. It is that pivotal sentence that decides whether or not you keep on reading. Hopefully, the storyline is so good that you keep on reading even if your hanger is only mediocre, because I have turned a lot of pages over the last few days and discovered that even the best writers don't always pull off excellent hooks or hangers every chapter. Instead, they rely on that little thing called character development and strong storyline to push the whole thing along. However, it never hurts to start and end your chapters with punch. At least sometimes....



So, Falling for Fiction and Cassie Mae are running a bloghop/contest looking for submissions of our best Hangers of our current Work In Progress. The top three get judged and winners get selected. Works get critiqued. It is kinda sorta a big deal. Anyone who has even this tip of this iceberg figured out understands that they need lots of eyes on their writing in order to whip it into shape. Edit Edit Edit is the name of this game. And if you can get someone to look at it to help you actually figure out some of your excesses, plotting errors, etc. you can really start to make things happen with your WIP. So moving on to my Hangers for this Event...


I had no idea what I was going to tell him, but the truth was out of the question.


He was so solid. I felt so amorphous. I hoped that what he had was contagious.


It made me so mad I nearly socked him in the eye.


and just for fun:
Was that really all that was left to me? I realized that it was.


Like the last time, I went sifting through my book collection to see what Hangers the published authors came up with to see how it was "done." Here are their offerings:

Richard Bach in The Bridge Across Forever:

Grounded and rich and homeless, I hit the streets on a planet of four billion five hundred million souls, and in that moment I began looking full-time for the one woman who, according to the best people who ever lived, wasn't there at all.


After that, when I looked for him, everything went dark.


Don't forget! I shouted wordless, across decades. Never forget this moment!


Janet Evanovich in Three To Get Deadly:

We all stood staring at door number three.


"That's Lula," I said. "She's got the runs."


Our eyes met, and Vinnie laughed his nasty little laugh and I knew he had something good for me.


Deborah Smith in A Place To Call Home:

Some brands of kindness are hard to abide.


The world is spanned by small bridges between people. He'd crossed another one.


I exhaled as if I'd been holding my breath for years.


And that gives you some idea as to how hard it is to find good hangers. I had a terrible time finding good hangers in THREE TO GET DEADLY, and it is my favorite Plum book in the series. But the hangers were, by and large, terrible. Even Richard Bach's book was tough to pull a good hanger from, which shocked me. Deborah Smith's book was full of them. Of course, I really love her books; they almost always make me cry. But that is really neither here nor there. The point was hangers.

It made me feel better that even published authors have a tough time with writing a good hanger. Or maybe I should have gone to the library and pulled out a Patterson novel. All of mine are in storage. Don't know. In any event, this was definitely a learning experience. Win or lose, I learned something. So, that makes it a win. Yay!

Let's Talk About Hookers

Well, I was just doing some innocent blog reading when I came across Gossip Girl's most recent post. She is participating in this hop thing wherein you post hooks from the beginning chapters of one or more books you are reading/have read. I suppose the idea is to make you think about what makes a good hook for the budding writer or even a writer withering on the vine.



I learned a couple of things in trying to do this exercise. First, this is not as easy to do on your Kindle as it is with a real, live book. Second, be careful of paper cuts with a real, live book when you are flipping around like a crazy person just trying to find the next chapter. Lastly, I inwardly bemoaned the loss of so many of my real, life books. Space has become a SERIOUS ISSUE, and almost all of them have been donated to the library. Hence the luxury of spending the money on a Kindle. I love my Kindle because I can make the print as large as I like, but rebuilding my book collection would essentially take forever. Of course, I tell myself I can always check out any book I really want to read again at... the library. *sigh* And that works most days. Most importantly, after I came up with ten hooks by other authors I finally understood that they wanted ten hooks that I had written from my own writing. Ugghh. That left me with quite the conundrum. The only serious writing I have done is my book I started and put down because I just got LOST in it.

However, I knew where it was.

And I only had to find three decent hooks at the beginning of three chapters. And I had done a LOT of writing. Of course, you want excellent, outstanding, fabulous hooks. But you get what you get. And, once again, I find that one sentence often doesn't tell the tale. Sometimes you really need two to SINK IT. Better yet, that first paragraph. If it is SHORT.

So, here are my hooks from the novel I thought I might never pick up again...

"Two years," Jake said.

It was all I could do not to hold out my hand and make him pinkie promise. I smiled at the thought of Jake's reaction to that. He would think I was certifiable. I wondered if he even remembered the pinkie promise made so long ago.


The knot in my stomach had settled in at 9:00 and was becoming increasingly painful by the minute.


Jake grabbed my arm as I turned into the empty room. "Explain that. What do you mean by ALL OF IT?" he thundered. His words echoed around the room.

Yep. Those are the hooks from the long-forgotten novel. Or so it would seem. Now I am thinking about it again. Buggers. I know my brain. It will work this until I can find a way to bridge the gap from the middle to the End. Egads.

I didn't see any specific rules about how many hooks you needed for this post. It appeared to me that ten or so was sufficient. So, I set that as my goal. I picked out three books. Two I have read before. One several times. One only once because it just broke my heart. And the last I picked up at the library today. Some books are just too darn expensive for my Kindle! And I so enjoy actually turning the page. *bigger sigh*

It has occurred to me that I need a fourth book because I only have nine hooks, so I am adding one from my all-time favorite series by Janet Evanovich. Yep. Stephanie Plum. That series cracks me up. So we will start with that one.


Favorite Series Ever:
One For The Money by Janet Evanovich

There are some men who enter a woman's life and screw it up forever. Joseph Morelli did this to me- not forever, but periodically.



And the one that I have read numerous times:
Running From Safety by Richard Bach

My truth has been a long time refining. I've explored and drilled for it with hope and intuition, filtered and condensed it the best I could with reflection, then run it through my engines, wary at first, to see what would happen.


It must happen to us all, I thought. We pack up what we've learned so far and leave the familiar behind. No fun, that shearing separation, but somewhere within we must dimly know that saying good-bye to safety brings the only security we'll ever know.


"Leslie, why don't I forget the whole thing? I have a lot better things to do with my life than to play with my own imagination."


Every word in my mind shattered, I was silent for an answer. He's right, I thought at last, this is his country. Those few times I reached for an old memory, here is where I came: dry, dead, lost, everything that used to be, turned to dust. After a while I had shrugged, happy childhood but a terrible memory, and learned to live without my youth, most of it. Here it lay.

I know that some of them offer more than one sentence hooks, but I think that they are short enough to qualify for a hook. So.... moving on.



Haven't read yet, but next up:
City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare Book Four in The Mortal Instruments series

"You know what's awesome?" said Eric, setting down his drumsticks. "Having a vampire in our band. This is the one thing that's really going to take us over the top."


"Your girlfriend?" Alec looked astonished. So did Maryse. Simon couldn't say he was unastonished himself. "You dated a vampire? A girl vampire?"

"It was a hundred and thirty years ago," said Magnus. "I haven't seen her since."



This is the book that broke my heart:
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

CLARE: It's hard being left behind. I wait for Henry, not knowing where he is, wondering if he is okay. It's hard to be the one who stays.


HENRY: Matt and I are playing Hide and Seek in the stacks in Special Collections. He's looking for me because we are supposed to be giving a calligraphy Show and Tell to a Newberry Trustee and her Ladies' Lettering Club. I'm hiding from him because I'm trying to get all of my clothes on my body before he finds me.


HENRY: I wake up in the middle of the night with a thousand razor-toothed insects gnawing on my legs and before I can even shake a Vicodin out of the bottle I am falling.


And there they are... 10 hooks. Some took a few sentences, rather than just one, to really make the hook great. And, of course, some are only really funny if you are familiar with the characters. Anyone who has read the Mortal Instruments series will appreciate those hooks. The rest of you probably not so much. Ah well. I like how she mixes the humor into the seriousness of her subject matter, but that is just me. Anyway, the exercise made me appreciate the art of a well written hook. If you would like to participate, go to Cassie Mae's page or Falling for Fiction and jump on the hop. Granted, you don't have much time... so hurry. Of, course there is still Hangers in a few days (whatever the heck that will be!), and I have no doubt it will be interesting.

It Went Down Just Like This

I promised you with an update about *something* in my last post. I had my doctor giving so many of my crazy symptoms a name. And some promise for understanding some of my other more painful symptoms. It is like the jigsaw coming together. And I told you I had a purpose for that day. BTW, that felt really good, and reminded me that we need a purpose every day... no matter how large or small.

First of all, I know the medical speak can get confusing. And I don't want to explain something to anyone who is going to say, "Well duh." But I don't want to not explain and leave someone scratching their head, either.

So, I am going to go with the easiest possible terminology whenever possible and over explain. For those of you who have no contact with autoimmune issues. It means it is the body attacking the body. That simple and that complicated. For whatever reason, the antibodies in the body decide that specific tissue, organs, etc. are the "enemy," even though they are not, and launch an assault. You are literally being attacked from within. Not without. And, from my limited experience with this... I have a few of these suckers... the doctors have no real clue what they can do other than band-aid. They have yet to find any "cure." Do I think there is a cure? Yes. When Eastern meets Western medicine and works together, they will find a cure. Until then, not so much. (Thanks to all who have sent me ideas to check out. I am open to alternatives!)

The other thing about autoimmune diseases... if you are diagnosed with one... Be prepared. Slowly but surely, various systems start to turn. It often doesn't happen all at once. But it is the RARE individual who only has one autoimmune issue.

Last, in any health situation stress makes everything worse. For autoimmune cases, I think that stress might be the trigger that fires the gun that turns a specific set of antibodies against you. My theory.

I believe I wrote a blog about The Pain Circle I was in with my migraines back in 2006. That was when I Fell Through The Floor. I really hadn't been able to work in the better part of a year. I had been suffering with a daily migraine since 2003. I was existing on painkillers. But I financially hit the wall in 2006. That was just about the same time that my doctor eliminated everything else EXCEPT an adrenal problem.

I did this saliva test that is way more reliable than a blood test over a 24 hour period of time to measure the cortisol that my adrenal gland was producing. It also measured all of my other hormones. Basically, my adrenal gland was shot and unable to produce much of any cortisol. However, I had this horrendous migraine all of the time. You must understand this: all pain triggers a fight or flight response. The brain immediately sends a message to the adrenal gland for cortisol that IT CANNOT IGNORE even though it has nothing to give. So, it goes to the only source it has: the other hormones. It borrows from them and turns them into cortisol, fulfilling the brain's request for cortisol, but creating an imbalance. That imbalance only made my migraine WORSE. Pain triggers a fight or flight response... And that is THE PAIN CIRCLE. I had been living in that for three years by the time we figured it out.

I sold my house, quit my job, moved out of state to live with my parents, started a vitamin program, also started a 3 month internal hydro cortisone program to help my adrenal gland make cortisol, and hoped for the best. It was better. Not great. But better. The severity of my migraines lessened. Although I could never get off the pain pills. I maybe didn't take as many, but the migraine just wouldn't go away.

When we moved back here in 2009, I had a terrible allergic reaction that completely blew my recovery. Every positive step I made I lost... and then some. I can't begin to tell you how discouraging that was. The body perceives everything as stress. Allergies included. My lesson book was getting bigger. (Relationships, jobs, allergies (food and the other kind), pain, heat, smells.... how big was this list going to get???)

It became clear very quickly that I wasn't going to be able to work at all and filed for SSD. That meant that I became completely reliable on my dad to pay what bills I had. Stress. It also became clear that I was sinking his ship. Once I realized that I filed for Bankruptcy. Add Money/Bills to the List. Or maybe Bankruptcy.

With an SSD claim, you have to see your doctor and a specialist monthly to prove you're sick. But you can't work. This drags on for years. My insurance was terrible. My bills were piling up. Money continued to be Stress. Add to that... the doctors couldn't actually DO anything to get me better because that would really cost something. Uggghhh. Treading water.

Then my dad was diagnosed with cancer in Feb 2011. Stage 4. He died in May that year. Grief, Misery, Death. Add those to the List. Stressed Out.

My aunt was diagnosed with cancer in Feb this year and died week later. Death stays on the List. Stressed Out.

A couple months ago, my dog went through months of pain limping around before being diagnosed with cancer and having her leg amputated. The cancer was bad. Making the decision of how to deal with it was equally bad. Stressed Out.

I look at these as Stress Dominoes. Some were knocked over quickly and some slowly. Some have been set up as early as my childhood since I have been plagued by allergies since I was a kid. My immune system has been at war my whole life. I think my adrenal gland has been fatigued since I was a kid. It just became SERIOUSLY, CHRONICALLY fatigued starting in 2003. The migraine was the screaming symptom. And I Fell Through The Floor in 2006. I have been trying to climb out since.

Vestibular therapy for my inner ear problem alerted me to the problem that things had really gotten BAD. Funny how things work. Because I was there 2x a week, I was getting my BP taken that often. After my aunt died, it dropped. It has always been low, but it became so low that they couldn't work on me. It was regularly 75/50, 79/53, 74/52, etc. Sometimes my top number would jump into the 80s. But then my bottom number would do this: 80/60. My therapist would say, "Robin, there should be more distance between these two numbers. There is almost literally no blood moving." Or should we get lucky and my top number would be higher, but my bottom number would still be hovering around 50. No matter what, it was BAD.

I saw a cardio guy. No heart problems. He said it was probably adrenal. And that was when I saw an adrenal specialist.

Mind you, I already knew going In to see him that I was hypothyroid (under active thyroid). I had been diagnosed with that about six months ago and have been taking the thyroid medication (more or less). Honestly, I wasn't that worried about it because my blood test indicated my case was mild. So, the doctor set me up for this infusion thing. Takes blood and then infuses me with cortisol and then takes blood again for the next hour and a half over half hour intervals.

What I didn't tell the doctor was that I was taking Dr. Wilson's Herbal Adrenal Support Formula. This is something I have taken in the past off and on. I have to get it online and I usually forget to order more. So years can go by without me taking it. Yeah. I know. Anyway, when the blood pressure junk started, it occurred to me that it was probably adrenal, and not heart. I went online and ordered some more and started taking it. I was drinking it that day in my juice as they were doing the infusion. It never occurred to me that I might skew their test.

So, my doctor was very puzzled by my results. The thyroid was a disaster. My levels were off the charts bad. My antibodies were autoimmune. In other words, they are actively attacking my thyroid. Worse news, there is nothing doctors know to treat this... bah. I have my own ideas. My adrenal results shocked him. I know he was expecting those antibodies to be also autoimmune, but they were not. My levels were low, but within the normal range. Not great. And based upon my BP issues, he still thinks it is Schmidt's Syndrome. So do I.

That is when I told him about what I was taking. We went online. When he saw some of what was in it, he became convinced that it was possible that I had skewed his test and we are doing it again in a couple of months. If I am right, and I messed up his test, and my results flip: to me, that says the Herbal Adrenal Stress Formula is working. Yay! To him, I am not sure he is ready to come around. The traditional treatment is to put someone on hydro cortisone. Well, I know from talking to my doctor that it is all well and good in the short term, but not the long term. So I am really not down with that. Of course, what this means is that it would turn into Addison's Disease left untreated. But, I am not considering doing that.

I am just considering going a different way.

My original plan was to order the thyroid equivalent that Dr. Wilson's site offers and see if I can flip his test on the thyroid result. Unfortunately, right now they are out of the product. I will keep checking back. But, if that is possible, that would be *something to see*.

This doctor is a researcher. He works at a research hospital. The way to make someone research anything is to make them believe. If I can flip his test, that would be an awesome first step.

It would be one more domino falling into place. Not all dominoes are bad. It is how Big Ideas come to fruition.


found at www.weheartit.com

It's Got A Name Now

I just got test results back that should be soul crushing. The doctor gave them to me not knowing that I would get on the web and research and research and research. And the more I researched the worse the news would be. The irony is that I am not feeling remotely crushed. I could be if not for a series of circumstances that altered his test making him think one thing and me knowing another. More on that later. Probably a lot more. Turns out I am more like my dad than I would have ever believed. Schmidt's Syndrome. The source of at least some of my problem. It is autoimmune. Of course. Turns the antibodies in your system against you and attacks things like your thyroid and adrenal gland. (Accept for one hitch here which I will explain later, hence my lack of soul crushing as noted above.)

It can also go after the rest of your endocrine system. And you should be checked out regularly, because you can be okay one day and not so much the next. The antibodies can just decide that your pancreas is the enemy one day. Or your liver. Or your kidneys. Or, get this... your vascular system. You know that lovely system that shrinks tight and causes... migraines. You can develop antibodies that attack your vascular system. Who knew?

It sucks being sick. It really sucks being sick and not knowing why.

In other news, I have found a purpose. At least for today. I will share it with you later. It is a small one. But no one changed the world in one giant swoop. It was always with tiny footsteps. Little bits of courage change one life at a time.

HERE'S TO YOU FRIDAY

SURPRISE. Drum roll please. I present to you HERE'S TO YOU FRIDAY. With love. I bet you are thinking that this post is NEVER going to land on a Thursday again. LOL. Well, it almost did. I nearly had it together for yesterday. Oh well. It just wasn't quite right and I wasn't willing to post it until it was. Sometimes I have a really hard time finding the footage that expresses what I really WANT. Other times I really want to do a lengthy explanation of why I chose it, but I don't. Just because that is not how this works. Sticking to your own rules can be a real pain. Anyway, things do work out if you give it enough time. And here we are.

Here is the recap of what is going on...

This used to be a weekly event landing typically on Thursdays. It is my hope that it will be a weekly event again some day... The best (or worst) part is that I am not going to explain why I chose "whatever" footage for each of you. If, you watch your footage and are scratching your head at the end, well that means I didn't do a very good job. However, all is not lost. You can email me at rarichards68@gmail.com and ask me what I was thinking when I chose that particular piece of footage off of youtube and connected it to you. And then I will tell you. Then I will start sending up prayers that I haven't offended the crap out of whoever is on the receiving end of that email....lol. Because, honestly, I will tell you right now... I admire all of you enormously so I really hope that doesn't happen.

Also, this is not an exclusive venture by any means. I hope that you will take the time to watch ALL of the footage because I don't pick bad footage:-) I also hope that you might check out the blog of the person I dedicated the footage to because they are pretty darn awesome. If you haven't figured this out yet... I pick the footage based on something that you've written or something that I've gleaned from your personality. Think on that for a while... If you are having trouble watching the entire video (meaning it is being cut off on one side), click on it a couple of times and it will take you straight over to youtube. If you click on the four squares at the bottom corner of the video, it will enlarge it to fill your screen. The escape key will bring it back to normal size. The back arrow will bring you back to my page.

Now, let's get this PARTY STARTED!!!!

This one is for everyone:




This one is for Shoes at Red Shoe's Chronicles:




This one is for Mitzi at Homespun Chronicles:




This one is for Phoenix at Res ipsa loquitor:




This one is for Jasmine at A Yellow Rose of Texas:




This one is for Yenta Mary the Food Floozie:

Sorry this one won't embed. Click here to watch.
Always worth the watch:-)

This one is for Chris at A Deliberate Life:

Sorry this one won't embed. Click here to watch.
You won't be sorry for watching:-)


image found at www.weheartit.com

Freedom of Speech

It being the 4th of July, I feel like I should post a Big Way To Go America post.

But I don't feel like that. In fact, the more time I spend on social networking sites, the more convinced I am that people are plain intolerant of other people's opinions. Period. More and more, it is their way or the highway on everything. I learned early on that Politics and Religion were Hot Water topics in real life. I often found my stomach churning when they came up. Usually, I could find something valid in the opinions of most everyone. But no one else could. They were right and everyone else had shit for brains. Uggghhh. Well, the world hasn't changed at all. People are just uglier about voicing their opinions on social networking sites because they don't have to look you in the eye when they do it. Honestly, it doesn't speak well for America. It doesn't really matter who wins, because we have already lost. Our decency. Our morality. Our good judgment. Our respect for others.

I feel a bit like Margaret Mitchell. Maybe it was Gone With The Wind a long time ago. It was just that we were so busy trying to get by that no one noticed.

I also just read that the TV Show Private Practice was only picked up for 13 episodes thus far next season. And Kate Walsh is thinking about opting out after the 13. If so, the series is definitely done. Tim Daly's option to return wasn't even offered. What is going on at ABC??? Actually, the better question is what is going on at Private Practice? That show is chock full of amazing actors, and the writers continue to eff it up.

One of the worst writing plot points has been with Taye Diggs' character. He was the only GP in their medical practice. First, every medical practice NEEDS a GP. But, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, he is a cardio surgeon even though he dropped out of the program in his residency... AND he's the best. WTF???? I wouldn't want a cardio dropout anywhere near my heart. And his residency was at least ten years ago. Who is writing this crap? Plus the practice no longer has a GP. They have a pediatrician, but no GP. So, what do they do with someone who comes in with a sinus infection? Sorry. Can't help ya. Dumb writers.

So, they bring in a new doctor this season. Is he a GP? Nope. Fertility specialist. Why? Because Addison is trying to get pregnant. Well, that is all well and good. But, this office NEEDS a GP. Desperately. On the plus side, Addison finally got a decent love interest. When the series started it looked like Pete, but that didn't work out. And then she was with this hot police guy. Didn't work out. And then she got involved with Sam (Taye Diggs), but he is adamant about not wanting more kids. Well, there is nowhere to go with that. She wants a baby more than anything, and he doesn't want kids. Dealbreaker. And then Jake Reilly arrives. And he is one hundred shades of fine and there is chemistry that they can probably feel over in Seattle. In other words, he is a much needed shot in the arm of interesting for this show.

Even so, Charlotte King, Cooper, and his newly found son carried the show this season. Add to that drama, the mother of the kid is dying of cancer. And there's all your good drama. Haul out the tissues. Every week. The previous year the show was carried by Charlotte King all by herself. Are you sensing a theme? I started thinking about the names. Addison Forbes Montgomery Shepherd. The shepherd is supposed to lead the flock. She was supposed to be the star. But she has been outshined the last two years by Charlotte King. I guess you just can't beat out royalty.

I digressed. Anyway, this is NOT the best scene of the season because the best scene featured the above-mentioned Charlotte King. However, this is my favorite Addison (and Jake) scene of the season. Private Practice needs to start doing more of what they do well (and stop writing the ridiculous) or all we will see next year are 13 more episodes. And, frankly, I will miss Charlotte King. And I really want this Addison-Jake romance to get off the ground.




Didn't you love that response? I could get ready. You bet your a$$. I am surprised she was able to move. I would have just been riding the elevator up and down because my legs deserted me and I couldn't get up off the floor.... LOL.

Now that's what I call Freedom of Speech.