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December 3, 2005

Internet dating disaster

Now to Love

I’ve never been very lucky in love. I’ve gone from one failed relationship to the next, which is definitely not a good way to be. One year I made a New Year’s resolution to go without men for six months. I made it to two before I was back to my old bad habits. This time though, I wanted to try something new: see if I could get it right.

I invited the girls around for drinks and as usual, they were only too excited to help me with my man troubles. It was settled that Internet dating was the way to go. The next afternoon, I dragged myself to my computer, sat down and began to write a profile on a well known singles site.

This was frightening. I didn’t know who would be looking at what I had written or who’d be looking at my photo, so I decided to keep my photo for those who e-mailed me first. After putting my profile up on the site, I browsed the other profiles in search of Mr Right. Although I found Mr Rich, Mr Clingy and Mr Crazy, none of them was quite what I was looking for, so I gave up for the day.

That night I went out to dinner with my aunty who was visiting town. We had been very close ever since I was a little girl. She was also bringing my cousin Oliver. Oliver and I used to play all the time when we were children, but we hadn’t seen each other in years, so it was bound to be an interesting night. We met at a nice restaurant near my apartment and had a great night of conversation and good food. Oliver was doing well for himself. He owned his own small business and was only 27! Funnily enough, he too was Internet dating, which was an interesting topic of conversation.

When I got home, I sat down in front of the television for a few hours before my curiosity got the better of me and I decided to try the dating site again. After searching through another few profiles, I found one that sounded promising: short black hair, young, fit, handsome, businessman who enjoys tennis, movies and cuddles. Sounded perfect for me, so I sent him the default message of interest.

After five more minutes of browsing, I got a message back from tall, dark and handsome. He was interested in my profile! I couldn’t believe my luck. I hastily set up a chat room for the two of us and before I knew it, we were chatting away into the night. It was only small talk and flirting, but I was loving every second of it. He was sweet, funny and charming and I was having a great time talking to him.

I looked over at the clock and it was already two in the morning! I told him I had to go and he said he wanted to meet me. Something told me it probably wasn’t a great idea to meet him so soon, but my heart won over my brain and I began making arrangements for dinner the following night. I said good night and went straight to bed with a huge smile on my face.

The entire next day was spent fretting over what to wear, what make-up to use and what perfume to put on! My excitement was so overpowering that I hardly even realised I’d known this man for five hours and didn’t even know his name!

The time came to go to the restaurant we had chosen and if I do say so myself, I was looking hot! I brought a red rose with me and he was going to too, so that we could identify each other. During the cab ride there, my girlfriends texted me all their messages of luck and encouragement and the nerves began to set in.

I stepped into the restaurant sheepishly looking around for someone I recognised so that I might get out of this. However, after taking a few steps, I started to regain my confidence and looked around for a red rose. The man of my dreams was sitting alone in the restaurant waiting to meet me and sweep me off my feet into a life of romance and luxury, I just knew it.

Suddenly I caught a glimpse of a rose petal across the room. I walked slowly towards the table and saw a man with black hair sitting with his back to me. My heat pounding with excitement, I reached out a hand and placed it on his shoulder. His head slowly turned as his eyes rose to meet mine and I stood frozen in horror.

It was none other than my cousin Oliver. That’s right, I was out on a date with the man of my dreams, my cousin! I was so embarrassed I almost died on the spot, but he was very nice about it and we ended up having a nice dinner anyway.

I have never been able to live this down with my friends and family. It definitely was my worst dating mishap to date.

Now to Love

Home Page 5499

November 29, 2005

Cheesy trick

Now to Love

A little grated cheese sprinkled on top of their food will encourage fussy cats to eat. Works for my fussy Ragdoll!

Lynette Harper

Now to Love

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November 29, 2005

Persian

Now to Love

By Lucy Hine

The beautiful Persian is a quiet, gentle and sweet-natured cat that is well-behaved. Most think this is a cat that only enjoys a life of luxury, but the truth is this breed is happy to be anywhere where it’s loved and cared for.

The Persian’s soft and luxurious fur comes in a mix of stunning colours and markings ? it’s no surprise that this glamour puss is the most popular show cat in the world.

The ideal owners for this gorgeous cat are people who are prepared to groom and bathe their Persian’s glorious coat regularly to keep it in tip top condition. This is definitely a high-maintenance breed, so if you work long hours and have a hectic lifestyle, this may not be the cat for you. However, apart from its grooming requirements, the Persian is actually a non-demanding, no-fuss family pet.

The Persian is definitely suited to being a house or apartment cat, happy to lie around and enjoy living indoors. Being an indoor pet also helps keep its coat in good condition and tangle-free. This breed tends to be not as outgoing or friendly as other cat breeds but is more independent, choosing to play or be alone when it wishes.

This cat’s nature is placid. The Persian loves nothing more than spending time with its owner. It thrives on attention and will contentedly curl up on your lap for a nap while you read or watch television. It sometimes ‘talks’ to its owners with meows and is more than happy to get along with other family cats and pets.

The Persian may be easy-going, however it does not appreciate being taunted or having its hair pulled by young children. That said, the Persian can be quite tolerant, tending to just walk away when it’s had enough, rather than retaliating.

Any owner of a Persian will agree that this cat is far more than just a pretty face ? a great and much-loved companion.

Now to Love

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November 25, 2005

Love and Other Impossible Pursuits

Now to Love

Exclusive extract from Love and Other Impossible Pursuits by Ayelet Waldman.

In the Olivia books, it still doesn’t matter if the little white pig is not at all sleepy. She still has to take a nap. William, however, is under no such compulsion. His mother has decreed that since William’s imagination is so “activated,” since he is so bright, so creative, so highly intelligent, he is in need of constant stimulation and thus cannot be compelled to sleep during the day. I cannot help but believe that Carolyn could have issued such an edict only because it is never she who has to simulate William’s activated little self. Whenever William is not in Jack’s or my care, he is with his nanny, Sonia. Sonia’s days off are identical to the custody arrangement – every Wednesday and every other weekend. Only then does she retreat to the bowels of Queens and drink slivovitz or play the single-stringed Gusle or is a Russian gangster’s gun moll or does whatever it is that recent immigrants from Dalmatia do on their off days from catering to the needs and whims of over-privileged five year olds on the Upper East Side. Actually, I know virtually nothing about Sonia other than the name of the region in Croatia where she is from, and the fact that she once told Jack that her one of the grandfathers was Jewish before the war. I don’t know what that means, ‘Jewish before the war.’ I don’t know how long Sonia has been in America. I don’t know where she lives when she is not in the little room off the kitchen that I once glimpsed, when I was looking for the bathroom during the firm dinner in the days before Carolyn threw Jack out, before I fucked Jack in the black Aeron chair behind the desk in the office at Friedman Taft, the desk Carolyn chose for him when he became partner and was given a corner office and the money to decorate it.

Sonia decided to take care of William every day after school, except Wednesday, and I take care of William in Wednesdays, and thus Carolyn has no idea how hard it is to entertain her child for an entire afternoon. I understand from looking her up on UrbanBaby.com that Dr. Carolyn Soule is one of the few obstetricians in New York, perhaps the only one, who always performs her own deliveries, be they in the middle of the night, on weekends, or on Christmas morning, or any day of the year, in fact, except during the three weeks every August she spends at her family’s house on Nantucket. This makes her a very desirable and comforting wife. Though I didn’t get that last judgement off UrbanBaby.com. Presumably on the occasional weekends that she is not working, when she is not called to the hospital to deliver a baby or monitor a high-risk patient, Carolyn is faced with hour after hour of William’s company. Perhaps she is as excited as her son by the project of reading the dictionary cover-to-cover and debating the merits of each individual definition. Perhaps she finds it perplexing as he does that we have come to use the word “morning” for the period of time between sunrise and noon rather the more aptly-named “forenoon.” Perhaps mother and son keep matching magnifying glasses in the kitchen drawer to read the contents of every food packet, searching for the dreaded molecules of wheat, lactose, and, God forbid, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. Carolyn must love it, or else she endures no more than half an hour of it at a stretch before calling in Sonia, because otherwise she would never have banned the reliable salvation of the television.

I rarely complain about these afternoons, because after all, isn’t the weakness on my own? Wouldn’t a better step-mother have figured out a series of fascinating ways to pass the time, perhaps constructing a mathematically accurate replica of the Hoover dam from sugar cubes or starting a breeding program for genetically modified fruit flies with an eye both to finding a cure for colour-blindness and teaching them how to ride teeny weeny bicycles. I occasionally whine to my mother, who makes me swear that I will never breathe a word of dissatisfaction to Jack. I grumble, but I trust her. My mother was herself a stepmother, in fact, not because of her success in the endeavour, but rather because of her catastrophic, her epic, her operatic failure. My older sisters hated my mother from the moment they met her, years after their own mother had abandoned them to my father’s incompetent and grudging care. My mother was a young wife bursting with devotion for the forsaken, motherless waifs, the neglected daughters of the much older man who had swept her off her feet and convinced her to drop out of college and marry him. Despite the fact that my mother proceeded to devote her life to taking care of Lucy and Allison, aged eight and ten, driving them to band practice, making their dentist appointments, packing their lunches, washing their dishes, affixing their perfect spelling tests and SAT results to the door of the fridge, they never changed their minds about her. They never stopped despising her, and they never stopped telling her so.

They were, in fact, so relieved when my parents divorced almost thirty bitter years later that they were even willing to acknowledge their role on the disaster that was my parents’ marriage. Lucy said to me, “It can’t have been easy for your mom, taking care of two kids who never wanted her around.” Then she asked if my mother had gained a lot of weight since the divorce and wondered if I’d met our father’s new girlfriend yet, who was, Lucy said, “Just fabulous. And beautiful. Really thin.” And then she laughed.

Now to Love

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