In my experience, Cupid's arrows rarely strike two people with the same definition of cleanliness. One partner usually feels like he or she is being asked to live in a furniture exhibit in the British Museum. The other partner remains convinced that he or she is forced to contend with the human version of Hurricane Gilbert.

Truth is funnier than most things you can make up.

Besides, the only thing you can control in life is your wardrobe. Cars break down when you least expect it. Boats eat money and gas. Your house, your mate, your friends, your family, even your career, are beyond your control. However, you're in total command of what you put on your back each morning.

At the beginning of a remodel, money is everything, but as you go along, it becomes secondary to the vision. You can't have the house looking like a glorious jewel and leave the cracked linoleum or the icky light fixture, so you spend and spend and spend. Then one day it suddenly occurs to you that all that play money you've been throwing around is real - and it's in someone else's bank account.

I asked my vet what kind of dog he'd get. He told me, 'I'd get a Chihuahua, because when it died, I wouldn't care.

... blueprints are like pets and children -- difficult to appreciate or understand unless they're yours.

Call me an alarmist, but there are certain words I don't like to hear together: cheap fireplace, discount brakes, cut-rate surgery.