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A PLACE CALLED MARRIAGE? PASS THE MAP HONEY

Only a wedding cartographer knows the road to a place called marriage.   Alain de Botton wrote “Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person” for the NY Times. As a married man with two kids, what does Alain’s wife make of his prediction? If he’s the wrong person, is she the right one? These are […]

ADD YARD WORK TO ANY CRIME AND IT’S NOT A CRIME

The ‘get out of jail free’ card? Yard work. Rob a bank, steal a car, and do some yard work? Ok. Murder and pillage and do some yard work when I get back? Ok. It might sound easy, but adding yard work to your list of activities means doing yard work. If your yard needs […]

SHARE THE BURDEN, NOT ADD TO IT

Relationship talk turns into Share The Burden talk. Marriage works if you work at it. Baby boomer marriages get plenty of work. It’s built into the ceremony. To have and to hold, in sickness and health, and talk everything into the ground until it’s covered with dirt then pick it up and shake it out […]

COMPASS ROSE CITY PORTLAND

Compass Rose As Eight Ball? You Are Correct. The eight ball works with some people better than others. Ask a question. Smack a stooge. Repeat. For these explorers it works best. Not so much for the rest of us. We need direction. We need a compass rose city Portland sort of direction. And there’s only […]

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE AND NURSING HOME RESCUE: HOW TO GET A ‘RELEASE’

It started out well, then turned into a nursing home rescue. If you’re married, chances are good you have in-laws. Maybe a mother-in-law, a father-in-law, or both. If you like one better than the other, don’t hold it against yourself. They probably like their kid better than you, so it breaks even. In long-term marriages […]

BABY BOOMER BLOGGER RAG

When you’re a baby boomer blogger, you rag, that’s what you do. But are you good at it? If you’re a baby boomer blogger and you’re not good at ragging it out, find a way. You don’t want to be left behind, the one who didn’t rag enough. Like Robert Kennedy said, “If not you, […]

MARRIAGE COUNSELING MATTERS

Who can explain a thirty year marriage. One woman? One man? Thirty years? And no one talks about it. No one wants to talk about it when Time Magazine asks if monogamy is dead. That’s part or the deal, or at least part of what I understood when I took the vow. Took the vow. […]

THE FIGHT FOR LOVE?

Not All Relationships Start In The Sunshine When You Fight For Love. What happens in the dark eventually determines how things work out in the long run. Be sure that’s what you want. 1. The guy dates a lot of women. He’s in his late twenties and still dates high school girls. He went to […]

A DEMANDING AND CONTROLLING WIFE

How Do Women Change From Sugar And Spice To Demanding And Controlling? Ben Affleck was going the distance with Jennifer Garner. He was the right guy in Hollywood to show the rest of us how it’s done. And she was the right girl. My bets were down on them celebrating their tenth anniversary, their twentieth, […]

THE BAD SIDE OF TOWN

It Matters When The Bad Side Of Town Is Better Than Your Town Now. Remember those days, those second bike days, the days after your first bike? You moved up. You were cool. You were road worthy. And you knew how to cruise with the quarter you stole from your mom’s purse. You’d leave through […]