ROMANTIC NOTIONS

Life, Love, Etc...

Greetings, All!
     Remember the early 1970's movie "Love Story?"  Despite being
extremely popular, it just about ruined the careers of Ali MacGraw
and Ryan O'Neal.  My girlfriend at the time just LOVED that movie
and we saw it about three times.  Of course, that was in the years
B.C. (That's _B_efore _C_arol, kids - I'm not THAT old!).  More
important to our topic is that the tagline of the movie was "Love
means never having to say your sorry."  Now, if there is one thing
I've learned in twenty-four years of marriage, it's that love
really means having to say you're sorry over and over and over
again - even when you are pretty sure that you're not really that
sorry.  That's not insincerity, it's just that men and women don't
always understand each other so accepting the blame is a very
practical move.  Especially for men, since we do seem to be wrong
more often than not.  Even when we are right.  You guys know what
I mean.
     A great many books over the past few years have taken great
pains to detail how very different men and women are.  Women buy
most of these books, because most intelligent men already
understand that they will never understand.  Understanding your
spouse isn't at all like understanding some logical process,
because any attempt to analyze the process changes the process.  A
little known science fact is that quantum mechanic Werner
Heisenberg had his great insight into the nature of atomic
structure just after a fight with his wife.  And all of these
years, you thought that the Heisenberg uncertainty principle had
something to do with atomic structure, right?  It makes you wonder
what other great discoveries were products of troubled
relationships.  Did Columbus' wife tell him to go away and leave
forever?  And why was Newton out sleeping in that apple orchard?
     Greetings and Thanks this week to: Carol J. Becwar (sorry,
Honey!), Laura Hong Li, Jerry Taff, Dennis & Fumiko David, Fumiko
Umino, The Macarenos, Timothy T. McChain, Meredith & Yasmin
Leischer, Beth & Jim Butler, Joshua & Anna Brink, Kerry Miller,
Shawn Mullen, Howard Lesniak, Rosana Leung, Peter Adler, Patricia
Vanderveen and newlyweds Junji & Miki Taniguchi.  Love may not be
the answer to everything, but it sure is a good place to start. 
Unless you're Ryan O'Neal or Ali MacGraw.
     Have A Great Week!


--:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)--

I'LL BE JUST A LITTLE LATE DEAR...
-------------------------------
     Nobody can say that Sakineh isn't a patient woman.  The 68
year-old Iranian woman from Teheran waited for her husband to
return.  She sat patiently listening for the doorbell to ring, but
the truth finally became obvious.  After seven years together, her
husband had abandoned her.
     "We had a quiet life, but seven years after our marriage he
just disappeared," she told the local newspaper, who agreed to
identify her only by her first name.
     Sakineh has filed for divorce - the patience of even the most
tolerant wife isn't infinite.  But it is very close, since her
husband left 43 years ago when she was 25.
     Despite the difficult time women have divorcing their husbands
in Iran, the court said that they would grant the divorce within a
short time.  The judge didn't have to worry about an complaint from
Sakineh over the delay.  She is very patient.  (Reuters)


--:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)--

     "If the world were a logical place, men would ride side-
     saddle."
                            - Rita Mae Brown

--:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)--

FOR LOVE OR MONEY...
-----------------
     Weddings can be very expensive.  It is especially hard to
afford all of those special touches when a couple is just starting
out, right?  Well Pennsylvanians, Tom Anderson and his new bride
Sabrina found a way around that dilemma - for their $34,000
wedding, they followed the lead of the Olympics and race car
drivers: they got corporate sponsorship.
     Everything from the wedding rings to a honeymoon in Cancun,
Mexico was donated by 24 different companies in exchange for having
their names and corporate logos attached to the event.
     The bride drew the line at having advertising banners draped
across the aisle, but advertisers had their names appear on the
invitations and thank-you cards, on cards at the buffet and on
scrolls at the dinner table.  The couple also advertised their
corporate sponsors in an ad placed in a local independent newspaper
and in a verbal "thank you" that followed the first toast. 
(Reuters)
          [  I can hear the minister asking the bride
          now:  "Do you take this man to be your
          lawfully wedded husband?"  Her answer after
          this message from Keepsake Diamonds. 
          Remember, diamonds are forever... " ]


--:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)--

LOVE IS...
-------

     ... a serious mental disease.  
                            - Plato

     ... a state in which a man sees things most decidedly as they
     are not. 
                            - Friedrich Niestzche

     ... an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired. 
                            - Robert Frost

     ... an ocean of emotions entirely surrounded by expenses.  
                            - - Thomas Robert Dewar

     ... a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered
     by imagination. 
                            - Voltaire

     ... a friendship caught on fire. 
                            - Northern Exposure

     All you need.  
                            - Paul McCartney

     ... a better teacher than duty.  
                            - Albert Einstein

     ... a cunning weaver of fantasies and fables. 
                            - Sappho

     ... a fool's paradise  
                            - A Song

     ... a four-letter word  
                            - Bob Dylan


--:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)--

OOPS!
-----
     Up to 50,000 couples married in Bulgaria since 1990 got a
shock earlier this year when they discovered that their marriages
were not legal.  It turns out that, in the confusion at the end of
Communist rule, distribution of married licenses was farmed out to
private companies.  Unfortunately, no one in the government noticed
at the time that the law didn't allow that.
     "The citizens are not to blame because they did not know that
the people who married them did not have the legal right to do so," 
said Snezhana Georgieva of the Public Works Ministry's Civil
Registration Department.
     All of this came to light during a divorce proceeding when the
lawyer of one of the partners argued that the couple couldn't be
divorced because the weren't legally married.  What the other
50,000 couples thought about this isn't known.  (Reuters)


--:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)--

TOP TEN REASONS EVE WAS CREATED
-------------------------------

   - God was worried that Adam would frequently become lost in the
     garden because he would not ask for directions.

   - God knew that one day Adam would require someone to locate and
     hand him the remote.

   - God knew Adam would never go out and buy himself a new fig 
     leaf when his wore out and would therefore need Eve to buy one
     for him.

   - God knew Adam would never be able to make a doctor's, dentist,
     or haircut appointment for himself.

   - God knew Adam would never remember which night to put the
     garbage on the curb.

   - God knew if the world was to be populated, men would never be
     able to handle the pain and discomfort of childbearing.

   - As the Keeper of the Garden, Adam would never remember where
     he left his tools.

   - Apparently, Adam needed someone to blame his troubles on when
     God caught him hiding in the garden.

   - As the Bible says, "It is not good for man to be alone!"


And, finally...

   - When God finished the creation of Adam, He stepped back,
     scratched his head, and said, 'I can do better than that."


--:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)--

IT'S IN THE BOOK!
----------------
     As part of an ongoing effort to reduce the divorce rate and
improve parenting, the State of Florida recently passed a law
requiring that all couples applying for a marriage licenses in that
state be given a self-help booklet on raising children.  This gave
newlyweds Max Gordon and his fiance, Mollie Levy quite a shock. 
When the clerk gave them the book, they asked what it was about.
     "Parenting," the clerk replied.
     "Parenting?" Mollie said.  "We don't need to read the book, we
can write it."
     She is probably right; between the two of them, she and Max
have six children, 14 grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren. 
And at age 82, Mollie is pretty sure she isn't interesting in
starting a new family.  Ninety-year-old Max agrees.
     Worse yet, the couple found that, under the new law, their
marriage license would cost $88.50 instead of the usual $50, unless
couple takes a four-hour long pre-marital course.
     "Can you picture us sitting there with a bunch of 19 and 20
years olds trying to learn about marriage?" Mollie laughed.
     Sen. Tom Rossin, the West Palm Beach state legislator who
sponsored the new law, said he hadn't thought about newlyweds like
Max and Mollie.
     "But anybody could learn from the class," Rossin said.
     Max and Mollie don't agree, deciding to pay the for the more
expensive license and skip the course.  (AP)


--:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)--

     "If you want to say it with flowers, a single rose says: 'I'm
     cheap!' "
                            - Delta Burke

--:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)--

TRADING PLACES...
--------------
     About the most common - and maybe best - advice that married
couples receive is to try to put yourself in the other person's
place, in order to better understand what they mean.  It is a good
and useful technique.
     But now we have proof that even that can be taken too far,
with a couple in the city of Szekesfehervar, Hungary who have
decided to take the advice quite literally.  The transsexual
husband and wife have both had sex change operations, according the
Hungary's Kossuth Radio.  (Reuters)
          [ At least the wife will never be able to
          argue that the husband couldn't possibly
          understand what it's like to be a woman. ]


--:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)--

DATEBOOK...
--------
     Over breakfast one morning, a woman said to her husband, "I'll
bet you don't know what day this is."
     "Of course I do," the answered with a little hurt in his
voice, while leaving for the office.
     At 10 AM, the doorbell rang and when the woman opened the
door, she was handed a large box containing a dozen long stemmed
red roses.  At 1 PM, a foil wrapped, two pound box of her favorite
chocolates arrived. 
     Later, a boutique delivered a designer dress and two tickets
to a concert that night.
     The woman couldn't wait for her husband to come home.
     "First the flowers, then the chocolates and then the 
dress!" she exclaimed.  "I've have to say, this is the most
wonderful Groundhog Day I've ever had in my life!"


--:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)--