— 1 —

Advocating for Brett and Kaia. We have a new Facebook group for Brett as well as one for Kaia. Click on their pictures for more information.

— 2 —

O.M.G. NCIS!!!! It was an emotional episode this week and of course, it’s a two-parter so I have to wait until next week to get some resolution. Argh… **SPOILER ALERT** It was almost tear-jerking to see Ziva holding her father’s dead body and to see Vance when he found out his wife was dead. I’m sure this will cause an international incident of some nature and I can’t wait to find out what the two sides are.

— 3 —

I want to be Rachel Held Evans when I grow up. I finished A Year of Biblical Womanhood on the drive to Claremont as well as reading Evolving in Monkey Town. I’m currently re-reading the Biblical Womanhood book for the simple reason that she manages to strike a balance between being faithful to Scripture and decrying practices that are wrong. She also takes Debi Pearl to task which makes my heart sing because Michael and Debi Pearl are sick people whose books have caused deaths from child abuse and domestic violence.

— 4 —

Holy basketball franchise, Batman! The Sacramento Kings might be moving to Seattle so the news tonight (Wednesday — I write my Quick Takes over the period of Tuesday to Thursday) is pretty much all focused on the fact that it might happen. Their owners are a bit of a joke here so I think it’s 50/50 in terms of how people feel about this. I think it would be a bummer for Sacramento to lose the Kings but I’ve also never been tempted to go to a game so it’s one of those things that I wouldn’t miss.

— 5 —

The People’s Choice Awards. I missed the People’s Choice Awards tonight because I was at Ladies’ Night Out for church so I went online to see who won. I thought it was kind of a mixed bag. I’m glad that “The Big Bang Theory”, Steve Harvey, Nathan Fillion, Emma Watson, and the Hunger Games won. However, Twihards winning? Gag me! I also think that the Potterheads, Jim Parsons, Kaley Cuoco, Emily Deschanel, CSI, and NCIS were shortchanged. Oh well… it’s viewers voting and there’s no accounting for taste.

— 6 —

The state of Jen’s hand. I really should have bitten the bullet and headed to the ER on Thursday because my hand was locked up and throbbing by the time I got into see my nice LCMS PA on Friday. She gave me antibiotics and a tetanus shot. I like her but her medical assistant is a wench. It’s like she hates patients because she was incredibly testy with me when she found out that I hadn’t filed an incident report about the bite. (I’ve been bitten 15 million times by my cats.) Miss Congeniality also had to give me my tetanus shot and while it didn’t hurt, I had to lie down to do it (upper arm) and I have a knot in the spot where she gave me the shot. When I asked her about pain, she dismissively told me to take Tylenol or Advil. Given that they gave me Darvocet the last time I had one of these (which also included a 102F fever for a week), I was not feeling happy about that and sent her to ask the PA. She acted like I was giving her an impossible task and I told her sweetly that I was going to occupy her waiting room until I got a satisfactory answer. (I know how to be a condescending wench when it suits my purposes.) After 5 minutes, she grudgingly came out and told me what my PA had said about the dosing (which is what I expected — 600 mg ibuprofen 4 times a day). The antibiotics and shot helped to unlock the joints in my hand and helped with most of the pain. Driving is still horrific and I’m still having pain in my fingers. Thankfully, this shall pass.

— 7 —

A Compelling Question. One of my Facebook friends posted an article from the New York Times that posits the question of whether forgiveness can play a role in criminal justice. I highly recommend the article as it asks a question that effectively turns the justice system upside down, especially when it comes to capital cases. The defendant still ended up serving a large chunk of time but the victim’s parents got closure and forgiveness. It was fascinating and I recommend it as reading material.

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at ConversionDiary.Com.