Grey's Catastrophe

Okay, so I have a confession to make which might cost me all of my cyber friends: before last night, I had never seen an episode of Grey's Anatomy. I'm not sure what rock I was hiding under last year; perhaps I was so torn up about the ending of West Wing and the whole Rori/Logan debacle on Gilmore Girls that I was simply blind to the rest of the TV world. (You'd think I would have at least followed along via my beloved Television Without Pity. But no. ) Anyway. My cluelessness came to an end last night - we got home from the gym (yay!) and there it was at 8:00pm - a chance to acquaint myself with the source of 90% of all pop culture references from the past nine months.

I'm not sure what I expected, but my overall first impression was....this show is kinda grim. I mean, sure, the characters are attractive, and they make me feel quite sane and normal in comparison, but honestly...even the dog has cancer??? It felt a little like Party of Five, if Charlie, Julia, and Bailey all went to med school and now watched other people's parents die. I have to ask, does ANYTHING happy ever happen to these people? In two episodes, I saw two babies born to dead or dying mothers, a doctor purposely stopping her boyfriend's heart so that another doctor - who she's sure is on his way - can restart it and give him a new one...only THAT doctor gets shot on his way into the hospital...and all these women doctors live together with a surgeon who can slice people open but doesn't have enough of moxie to ask them to leave the bathroom so she can pee???? I mean come on... I freely admit that I'm way too far behind to try and dissect the Patrick Dempsey love triangle (although I kinda dig the name Addison) Anyway, it was a less-than-stellar introduction. But if you're one of the people who love, love, loves this show, please tell me why!!!

In other news, how much of a DORK am I that in my extended raving about Andrea Seigel's dance at Tuesday night's reading, I completely failed to mention the OTHER author I saw that night, who was also amazing: Kiran Desai. Her latest book, The Inheritance of Loss is short-listed for the Booker Prize, which is a fairly big deal. Much is being made about the fact that Kiran's mother has been shortlisted for the Booker in the past, but I think that's a little silly. My father was a nationally ranked golfer in his younger days and yet I chose to twirl a baton - brilliance doesn't always translate down thorough the generations! I bought Kiran's first book, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard based on title alone, but now I will save it for my flight to St. Louis next week, so that if anybody asks I can say, "Yes, she's a wonderful author. Shortlisted for the Booker, you know..." And no one but you and I will know that I Googled "Booker Prize" a few minutes ago to figure out what, exactly, it is :)

Last, but not least, TODAY is the last day for voting on my website contests. There are two: the first is for the best lawyer jokes, and there is some competition in this catagory. Some folks have emailed their entries rather than posting them (I guess to avoid other people stealing their jokes?) but if you make me laugh really hard, there's still room for victory. Prizes are brand new copies of Philip Beard's Dear Zoe and Beth Orsoff's Romantically Challenged. So bring over a good joke (if it's really funny and doesn't contain lawyers, go ahead and post it) and make my day :)

The second contest (scroll down a bit) is WIDE OPEN: make a guess as to my dog's gentic heritage. Previous guesses have ranged from daschund to rottweiler, and I'll say this much: neither of those are (as much as I can tell) part of her pedigree. I'm upping the stakes here: if anyone guesses correctly, you've earned yourself a copy of ANY book I list on my booklist.

Winners will be announced on Monday. Why should Rosie and Oprah be the only ones who get to give stuff away ??? :)