Single Married Widowed Divorced

The E-ternal Optimist

by Alex Vagelatos

From: Todd Heffelfinger To: Jennifer >jenn@hotmail.com
Date: Nov. 5, 2007

Dear Jennifer:

It was a pleasure meeting you at the Singles At the Grocery Store event last week. You looked so charming, pretending to inspect the artichokes while pretending not to notice me.

I know that you gave me the wrong phone number by mistake that night, so I took the liberty of Googling you when I got home and finding your e-mail address. Also your street address, real phone number, place of employment, driving history and medical records. I hope that infection has cleared up.

I'll come to the point. Will you have dinner with me this Saturday night? I think we would make a great couple. Please let me know what you think.

Sincerely,

Todd Heffelfinger (the guy in the Packers jersey, Packers hat and Packers sweat pants)

###

From: Todd Heffelfinger To: Jennifer >jenn@hotmail.com
Date: Nov. 7, 2007

Dear Jenn:

How are you? I was sorry to see you are not longer employed at FingerNailsPlus. I hope you will be successful in your job search, although those unpaid speeding tickets might be a “red flag” for future employers. My cousin, who is a night watchman at traffic court, could help fix those right up. Just let me know.

I'm sure you've been too busy to answer my previous e-mail, so I thought I'd repeat my invitation to dinner this Saturday night. Do you prefer Mexican or Ethiopian? Mexican gives me gas, so that might not be a good idea.

I'll make reservations at the Ethiopian Haus as soon as I hear from you.

Sincerely, Todd Heffelfinger

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From: Todd Heffelfinger To: Jennifer >jenn@hotmail.com
Date: Nov. 9, 2007

Jenn:

Quite the weather we've been having, isn't it? I'm a little scared of storms, so I've been staying in my parents' basement for two nights. That's probably why you couldn't reach me by e-mail.

The Ethiopian Haus is filling up fast! The Meerkat Glace with Figs is so popular! Let me know when you would like me to pick you up.

Sincerely, Todd

###

From: Todd Heffelfinger To: Jennifer >jenn@hotmail.com
Date: Nov. 12, 2007

Dear Jennifer:

Well, Saturday night has come and gone. I stayed home, waiting to hear from you. Apparently something is wrong with your computer, or you would have answered me by now. Is there something wrong?

Todd Heffelfinger

###

SYSTEM ERROR!
YOUR E-MAIL TO >JENN@HOTMAIL.COM CANNOT BE DELIVERED.
REASON: THIS ADDRESS NO LONGER EXISTS. PLEASE DO NOT SEND ANY MORE E-MAILS TO JENN.

###

From: Todd Heffelfinger To: Jennifer >jenn@hotmail.com
Date: Nov. 12, 2007

So, can I call you?

Todd Heffelfinger

Guest Blogger Laurie K. Glass: And Tucker Makes 3 (Part 2 of 2)

I began to list the differences between acquiring a puppy and adopting a child. When we tired of following the puppy around we put him in a crate; can't do that with a baby. He ate the same thing every day and only twice a day. This made the grocery shopping easier. At least he fed himself. This aspect of pet care was certainly easier than spooning peas into a 9-month-old baby. And taking him out into the back yard was certainly cheaper that buying Pampers. He needed his first haircut at five months and it cost $32, much more that I paid for my son's first cut at four months.

I found myself approaching this motherhood much as I had the other. I've always been one to buy "the informative book,” one for each stage or age. To the store I went in search of the best guide to puppy care. The puppy is now a year old and I continue to build my "puppy care" library. We've added training books, interesting doggy fact books, and personal storybooks on "how I raised my dog.” I even picked up a "new parent guide" at a local pet fair. While the books can be helpful, they are also entertaining. There is one that says you shouldn’t let your dog sleep with you because it will think its human. My daughter's response: "No, he doesn't think he's human; he thinks you're a dog! "

Learning to cut a dog’s nails and clean his ears sets up a challenge that surpasses doing the same with a child. First, there are two additional feet that fidget, shake and want to run away. The guillotine-type clippers threatened to cut more than the nail. Ears require cotton balls, not Q-tips, that disappear into unknown territory. We also got a hairy-eared dog which requires skill in twisting and pulling out hair on the inside of the ear. I'm glad I never had to do that with a child!

I've been up all night with an ear infection, and wrestled the dog to administer the antibiotics. Each night I pick up the living room where toys are scattered wall to wall and bones buried in the afghan. The kitchen floor is always wet as he dribbles after a Slurpy drink. Not even a bib would help! Now, when my children no longer need a sitter, I find I need a dog sitter or minimum, a walker. Taking the dog with us on a trip requires filling the van with equipment and supplies, a doggy bag rather than a diaper bag.

On the other hand, we have met lots of people, and dogs, on our walks. We get more exercise and fresh air than we would without our furry friend.

Also, there have been noticeable changes in the family. First, there was the puppy voice. Each person talked to the dog in a high-pitched tone, close to coochy cooing with an infant. Within weeks the dog had endearing nicknames: Puppy Wuppy, Fuzzy Butt, Tuckaroo, Tucker Wucker to name a few. Then there was the sibling rivalry. My children -- Jason and Kari -- competed over holding, playing with and walking the dog. (1 should be so lucky as to have that last a few years.) Tucker competes with the other two. He can't tolerate seeing one of the kids hugging me. He either jumps on us, sticking his nose between our faces, or he squirms in between our legs. He clearly knows I'm the "alpha dog" but he's not sure about those other two humans, maybe they're his sister and brother, or litter mates?

Certainly we now have a distraction, even a common conversation topic for the dinner table. As the mother of two teenagers, I'm committed to having a dog until they are grown and out of the house. After all, Tucker doesn't talk back, he cocks his head and listens to me intently, and goes wherever I take him without a complaint.

Ahhh, the ideal third child.

ON THE PODCAST
Single Married Widowed Divorced goes to the dogs in our October 2 podcast. Listen in as we call people and ask if they have photos of their dogs, if dogs are, in any way, superior to spouses and more.

Guest Blogger Laurie K. Glass: And Tucker Makes 3 (Part 1 of 2)

My life was never planned. Everything that was important just seemed to happen.
That is, until I was a 38-year-old professional with a PhD and two careers running concurrently. I was a tenured university professor and a Navy nurse. I had traveled, skied, danced, done all that stuff that single professionals do. I had been loving and caring for my friend' s children. I decided I wanted my own. Two years later I was on a plane to Chile to pick up my 10-week-old son. Four years later I traveled to Paraguay to retrieve my 1-year-old daughter. I was 43 years old.

Approaching my mid-fifties, I felt another midlife crisis coming on. They seemed to come regularly since I turned forty. My two children were 12 and 15, yet I still had a crib and high chair in my basement. I thought I might do infant foster care in my retirement. Family life had been fairly stable for a while now and I was looking for something new, something to put a spark in our lives. Maybe I should adopt another child.

We had never had a pet, even though my children begged for one periodically. After all, I was a single parent with two kids, a house, and a lot and a half of flowers and bushes. Did I mention my full time job? We were surrounded by dogs, 17 on our block. That's more than the number of kids. If the children wanted to play with a dog, I sent them to the neighbors.

My youngest child had her first job, dog walking a little black poodle named Ellie, the cutest thing you ever saw. We all became attached to this dog. It wasn't long before we were talking to everyone we saw about their dog. Eventually we heard about a local breeder whose dogs were no shed, low allergy and low energy -- a lap dog. Ah, this was my kind of dog. I called the breeder, asked a lot of questions and answered a lot of questions, which later I discover was my interview to apply for a puppy. A light fog of deja vu spread over me as we discussed the house I live in, the care I would provide and the cost. Where had I experienced this before?

The puppies were born and we had decisions to make. If there were no girls would we take a boy? Would any color due if there were not any black ones? A boy with black fur was to be ours. We visited him in his home twice before the call came that we could take him home. I was told to allow an hour for care instructions and don't forget the money, in cash. I laughed out loud. Then, it hit me! This process had been quite similar to the one I endured during the adoption of two children.

This similarity between raising puppies and raising kids was just the beginning of many. While many people were excited about the new addition, no one threw us a new puppy shower. We had decisions to make: where would he sleep, who would get up with him at night, who would come home during the day, what kind of food, toys and clothes would we need? To prepare for the homecoming, my daughter and I made a trip to the local pet store. $120 later we thought we had the necessities for the nursery. Little did we realize that we would be making weekly stops at this store.

The day had come to pick up Nicholas, who was now Tucker Roy. In his new crate with its sheepskin bedding, he cried all the way home in the car. His favorite thing at home was to be carried around and to pee all over the floor. This potty training was going to be a challenge. Tucker just couldn't adjust to standing still. He wouldn't stay on the newspapers we provided. Were doggie diapers a possibility? We went back to the store in search of supplies and found the magic spray that eliminates the odor of "doggie accidents.” To my disappointment, the doggie diapers were for that "time of the month" and not potty training. It wasn't long before caring for this 4-pound animal consumed hours a day. I felt like I had a third child.

TOMORROW
Laurie compares parenting a puppy and a baby.
I began to list the differences between acquiring a puppy and adopting a child. When we tired of following the puppy around we put him in a crate; can't do that with a baby.

ON THE PODCAST
Single Married Widowed Divorced goes to the dogs in our October 2 podcast. Listen in as we call people and ask if dogs are, in any way, superior to spouses, who gets the most kisses in their family, and more.

How To Be a Girl: Part 2 of 2

By Susan Bennett Holmes

Your second move is to restrain yourself. Having achieved a chance to be near him or having come upon one unexpectedly, you will, if you don’t hold onto your head, overdo it in one direction or another. Depending on your temperament and the state of your emotions, you may either collapse on the nearest hassock and gaze at him, limp with adoration, or you will talk a blue streak while the talking’s good. This can only make him think you come from a long and distinguished line of train announcers. Men are rarely as stirred by deep thoughts, expressed or written across your face, as they are by the fun going on around the piano, or the neat backhand driven crosscourt. Naturally, you can’t turn yourself into an Alice Marble, but you can tie yourself in with activity. You can sing while someone else bangs on the piano. You can help put together the eats in the kitchen and nonchalantly offer him a tasty hot dog. You can offer to start the magnetic darts if the inhabitants don’t mind risking an ancestor on the wall. But in any case, you are a girl of in action. Where you are, there’s something going on. And that’s where he wants to be.

And suppose it works, say you. Suppose you succeed in bringing yourself into focus as a girl who is fun to be with and he asks you to dance or for a whole date. Then what? What’ll you ever say?

This always delights us. It proves the fallacy of all the bromide cracks about women doing all the talking. Every girl in the world has wondered what to say at the serious moments of her life. Men can always go on and on.

If possible, forget you picked him out for yours. Above, we made the distinction between clutching at him and talking his ear off, and doing something. But now you’ll have to consider your conversation carefully. If you forget how wonderful he is, you’ll relax and enjoy yourself. That’s contagious. Back in your mind is stored a whole tangle of gags, stories, things that happened on the football schedule last fall, of which you could unsnarl and bring out if you don’t feel self-conscious. On the whole, you won’t have trouble if you are on the quiet side. Men prefer silent attention – they find it more flattering than any you can put into words.

From here on out you are on your own. Whether or not he’ll settle on you as the only girl in the world worth parting with his gold basketball for, no one can predict. But in the process of getting this far, you will have gained something else – and possibly somebody else. For a gal who is fun and eager to be out doing things is a gal that more than one guy could go for. You will wake up to find that you’ve a spotlight all your own. And the exciting thing about life is that at your age there is more than one man you could die for.

Stag-line view. How do you look when you’re dancing? Oddly enough, you can do more damage to yourself as a dancer with your face and posture than with your feet. (Extreme cases excepted!) Peering hopefully at other men over the shoulder you are now draped on denotes-um-uh-hopelessness. A Greek mask expressing confusion and despair placed over your normally happy countenance is well-nigh fatal. But if you stand up, talk once in a while to your partner, and show a little interest, if you can smile or laugh with some conviction, and if, above all, you can keep your eyes on a level higher than the supercilious speculative gaze of the stag line, you will be considered worth risking a cut-in. And if you can manage to be a heavenly dancer having a heavenly time, you’ll look angelic!

END

How To Be a Girl: Part 1 of 2

By Susan Bennett Holmes

This article originally appeared in the June 1949 edition of “Woman’s Day” magazine. Other articles that month included “Lard for Baking” and “Waltz Me Around.”

# # #

May is glamour month in our lives. To others, May is for moth prevention. Tugging tired woolens out of one closet, whacking them and sealing them up in another is called moth prevention. You must have seen it going on in the springtime. A lot of people gather nuts in May, although no one we know happens to. May is the time to be ready for a fresh crack at the world. There’s an expectancy in the air; something terrific is just around the corner, a wonderful, wonderful guy for instance. (There are probably other examples -- this one just came to us!) Little tiny flowers blossom out. Why can’t you? And so we are going to devote this column entirely to your coming out.

How are you going to make him notice you? One of the most despairing moments in your life is the one in which the man you could die for walks across your horizon for the first time. One look and you’re gone. First your heart stands still and then you come to: why on earth would he notice you?

He will, but it is going to take action.

We choose the word action. We use it with emphasis. For it is our conviction that your chances of success lie in what you do, the things you’re interested in, the fun you create around you, more than in how you look. Of course you want to look your most gorgeous, of course you love clothes and want them to really show you off, but the problem of making yourself stand out as an attractive person, a gal to be reckoned with, will be more easily and better solved by action. Because men are doers. Men play football, take machines apart and put them together again, paint boats and make scale models of airplanes. Rarely do they just look. Or if they do – it’s only for a minute.

What can you do first? Essential to the whole campaign is your being within seeing, and preferably speaking, distance of this character. Dumb admiration in the depths of your room will prove your devotion, but it won’t move him. You are not as helpless as you feel. You can create a few chances to see him. This does not mean lurking deliberately, casually in the hot-fudge-nut dispensary for two hours in the hope of just running into him. But you can include him in some plans. You can suggest to your date, if you are arranging a gang gathering for Saturday, that he get the victim for Mary Jo as her date. (Don’t be too unselfish about this – but pick somebody nice.) Or you can find out what he does and pitch in on some of the work yourself. Maybe he runs the Saturday-evening parties at the church and a girl to string crinkle paper around the rafters is just what he needs.

Never set up what you hope will be a situation for two. At your age you travel in groups. He’s going to think it’s abnormal and faintly tedious if he is singled out. Stick to your original purpose – to be within noticing distance.

TOMORROW
Excerpt from Part 2: You can help put together the eats in the kitchen and nonchalantly offer him a tasty hot dog.

Always a Bridesmaid

After seven weddings, all she wants is a KitchenAid mixer. In purple

by Carolyn Alfvin

Jeri Vatne, 39, (pictured at left) has been a bridesmaid seven times, but never a bride. This hairdresser/college student/homeowner is too polite to say so, so I’ll tell you what I’d be thinking if I were her. “I’ve spent money, time, effort and emotion on other people’s weddings, and some of them have left me at the altar, disappearing behind the walls of marital and parental lives, and it has fallen on me, the single person whom is assumed to have more free time and less obligations, to maintain relationships and I’m just a tad miffed.”

Jeri has spent more than $4,500 for the dresses, gifts and travel associated with affairs such as the I’m-Not-Worried-About-the-Cost-of–the-Wedding wedding. (Of this event, she says, “Identical white shoes that all bridesmaids had to have, and that were hidden under Scarlett O’Hara-type dresses – forty five dollars.”) The I-Can’t-Believe-You’re-Marrying–This-Person-and-Bringing-Her- Into-Our-Family wedding. (“Her family made my dysfunctional clan look like bastions of emotional health.”) And the I-Can’t-Believe-How-Many-Good-Looking-Guys-are-at-This-Wedding” wedding. (“Oh, I liked that one.”)

Four thousand, five hundred dollars is a lot of money for most of us.

The first time I heard this story I was sitting in the sole chair of Jeri’s salon. Jeri – blue eyed, brown haired, girl-next-door cute -- is the type of hairdresser who snips a bit then freezes as she tells a story, one hand on your head, one posed in mid-air. I remember a lot of pauses that haircut and a story that ended with her daydream of registering, just like all those brides. What she wanted most was a KitchenAid mixer. In purple.

“Do you have to have a husband to be worthy of new appliances?” she wondered. “I could use a gas grill. My TV is 14 years old. I want to pick things out and have people buy them for me – things I like, not things people think I like. This would mean I never need anything again that has a cat imprinted on it. I have more cat shit than you can possibly imagine.”

The exchange of gifts among people shouldn’t be viewed as an even-exchange program, which would undermine the spirit. But for the growing number of singles in America, that spirit is being put to a test. People are staying single longer than ever; in 1970, 7.8 percent of people in Jeri’s age bracket (30 to 39 years old) had never married, while in 2003, that percentage had risen to 27.9. Unless these single people have chosen friends whom all remained single, there are a lot of people in Jeri’s shoes.

Jeri’s attitude is positive and I admire her. As I listened to her story, I wondered if I could have nurtured such a positive attitude. I’m divorced, but something in me says, “At least you were married.” In middle age, living as a D seems easier than living as an S.

Jeri tells me about her friends and it’s clear she has plenty. She’s lost touch with some of the marrieds, but for the most part, she’s continued to build her friendships with her married friends and extended it to their spouses.

When it comes to gifts, Jeri’s not looking for the even exchange. She’s looking for acknowledgment in the form of a KitchenAid mixer. In purple.

So we decided to register her at Target.

On May 1, I drove to Jeri’s bungalow for the big event. She said goodbye to the two cats strutting across her dining room table and ten minutes later, we were standing behind the electronic bridal registry of her neighborhood Target. The machine looked like an ATM but Jeri, familiar with this gizmo by now, didn’t hesitate. She started punching in her data –name, date of wedding, address, address where gifts should be sent. Before she could create a gift list, however, the registry asked for the groom’s name. “Hmmmmm,” she said and froze a moment, one hand on the registry, one in mid-air. “I’ve got it.” She talked aloud as she typed. “J-A-C-K S-I-M-O-N. Jack Simon! The names of my two cats!”

With that, Jeri forged on to the next question: Do you want gift cards?

A couple things had changed since I was a bride. The electronic registry and the species of the groom, for example. But one thing was stable -- there were still helpful people to applaud the bride along her journey. In Target’s case, the helpful person came in the form of Nate, a shiny-faced young man who approached and greeted Jeri and, smiling sincerely, presented her with an electronic scanner and a tote bag that read To Have and to Hold.

Jeri beamed like any bride to be. “To have and to hold,” Jeri read aloud. “Like cats!”

With that, she headed deep into the store in search of KitchenAid mixers. And cat toys.

QUESTION OF THE WEEK

Do you want to help make Jeri and Jack Simon’s November 5 wedding shower an unforgettable event? Send Jeri your thoughts through this blog’s comment page (just below) or privately through the Single Married Widowed Divorced mailbox. Target's Club Wedd. (Click on "Gift Registries" from Target's home page.) Let’s unite and buy her that KitchenAid mixer. In purple!

Or send her a gift or gift card through

All appropriate messages, gifts, and their senders will be recognized when we podcast and blog about the bridal shower this fall. All gifts will be opened at the shower.

ON THE PODCAST

Jeri’s full story, “Always a Bridesmaid Part I” and “Always a Bridesmaid Part II” can be heard on the May 30 and June 5, 2006 episodes of the “Single Married Widowed Divorced” podcast. www.singlemarriedwidoweddivorced.com