Just think of all those women on the Titanic who said, 'No thank you' to desert that night. And for what?!

As a child, my number one best friend was the librarian in my grade school. I actually believed all those books belonged to her.

Our teen-agers withdrew to their bedrooms on their thirteenth birthday and didn't show themselves to us again until it was time to get married.

Onion rings in the car cushions do not improve with time.

Someday, when my children are old enough to understand the logic that motivates a mother, I'll tell them: I loved you enough to bug you about where you were going, with whom and what time you would get home. ... I loved you enough to be silent and let you discover your friend was a creep. I loved you enough to make you return a Milky Way with a bite out of it to a drugstore and confess, 'I stole this.' ... But most of all I loved you enough to say no when you hated me for it. That was the hardest part of all.

Friends are "annuals" that need seasonal nurturing to bear blossoms. Family is a "perennial" that comes up year after year, enduring the droughts of absence and neglect. There's a place in the garden for both of them.

The mole rat is the only rodent born without a fur coat. With a good lawyer, someone would pay for that little oversight.