Castle

My favorite show on TV these days is Castle. Mostly because Nathan Fillion is dreamy (and an amazing actor), but also because the writing and the acting are all excellent.

But sadly, I couldn't help feeling a little cheated by the conclusion of the two part "Target/Hunt" story arc. (If haven't seen it, and intend to and want to be surprised, stop here.) The Target part of the story, I loved. Nathan totally sold "Dad willing to do anything to get his daughter back" without over-acting it and I totally bought Molly Quinn as "scrappy, smart, and scared." Pretty much everything about this episode was great.

Which is why I was a little disappointed with the "Hunt" part. The whole things had done such a great job of building tension, selling character reactions, and just crafting a generally superb narrative only to ruin it with "Missing Dad is Missing Because He's a Secret Agent" trope. Gag me. The season had started to touch on the "missing dad" theme a little, so I'm not surprised that it came up, but Come on? A secret agent who loves his son but can never actually be a part of his life?" Maybe that happens. But... I'm not buying it. Plus, I feel like it weakens everything that will follow with Castle exploring the implications of "who Dad really is."

And I wasn't sold on "revenge kidnapping" either. The back story wasn't built up enough for me to believe that a guy who's so powerful that even the bad guys are in his power, was going to expend so much time, energy, and thought to kidnapping the granddaughter of Guy Who Killed His Wife even though there's really nothing to suggest that Guy Who Killed His Wife is vested in the relationship at all. There are other, better reasons Alexis could have been a target.

That said, I do give A-pluses to the cast, all of whom took this terrible plot point and at least made character reactions to it believable and wonderful. And Nathan as "determined dad" was exceptionally dreamy.

And Then it Was February

The good news is that I have definitely written in my journal every single day this year. The bad news, is that I've totally neglected Ye Olde Blog. I'm trying to decide if I actually care about neglecting the blog or not, so you people may have to be all "But Jules! We love reading your blog! Even more than your facebook posts!" in the comments section to remind me that I have a cadre of loyal readers who would be sad to see me go.

But how about an update on my life, eh!?

First of all, I think we should talk about how awesome I am. So awesome that I locked myself out of the house twice this last week. I really should get a spare set of keys made and deposit them with someone that I know and trust who lives close, but that would require leaving my house in one of the few unbooked hours of my week and going to the store, and kids, I haven't even made it to the grocery store (My fridge currently contains 2 almost dead zucchini, half a carton of cottage cheese, half a dozen eggs, and assorted condiments).

Or there was also that time that I went to the gym this week, and totally failed to pack hair product or makeup, so had to rock a ponytail/no-make-up look at work. That was also awesome.

Otherwise, I have been kept busy with volunteering at a nearby free medical clinic. I've been interpreting, which has been really fun, and also really good practice speaking Spanish. I go right after work, so volunteering makes for a REALLY long day, but I love it.

My other major weekly time commitment is ballet class on Thursdays. And, honestly, Thursday is the perfect night for ballet class. I'm usually starting to get that end-of-week drag going on and its lovely to set it all aside for a few hours and totally focus on beautiful music and beautiful movement.

Also, I don't think I mentioned that I got a calling, but I did, and it's Relief Society Instructor, and I taught my first lesson a week or so ago and I loved it. My lesson was on Ann Dibb's October General Conference talk, I Know It. I Live It. I Love It. and my lesson included an etymology lesson, so you know it was amazing.

Um... that might be it. I'm going on a cruise next week, though, so there will definitely be some exciting things to share about that.