I read the Globe and Mail, National Post, and London Free Press on my lunch break pretty much every day, or as much as I can get through of them. Today in the Globe and Mail I read this advice column, and I really loved the response to it… so much that I searched for it when I came home from work and now I am putting it on here to share with you. I bolded the parts that are the reason why I like it:

A reader writes: I am a well-established professional in my mid-40s and am currently going through a difficult divorce after 20 years of marriage. The first 10 years were very good, but then our relationship deteriorated and she became abusive. With the help of good counselling, I found the courage to leave. We have been separated for 10 months and I do not intend to reconcile.

Recently, I met an incredible woman. We have been dating on and off for about four months. I feel this incredible connection to her. She is, however, 20 years younger than me, but very mature for 26.

Do we have any hope for success as life partners given our disparate ages? Should I continue to pursue this relationship? And should I tell my ex? I have never lied to her, but telling her about my new love interest would destroy any chance of a negotiated divorce settlement. Any advice?

Dear Lucky in Love,

Kiss. But don’t tell.

Huzzah, as the cowgirls say, huzzah! Luxuriate in your new paramour. You deserve her.

Fly her to the desert when the rare Mexican poppy is in bloom. Rent a cabin and fish lake trout for dinner. Recite The Cinnamon Peeler in the middle of the night. Start smoking Century Sams. Join her punk band. Surrender to the adventure and the abundance of her youth. After a decade of living in Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? you are in a Noel Coward play. There is no doom. And everyone lives in bathrobes.

A new lover is the antidote to the last. After so much poison, you have found your anti-venom. While I want you to fall in love with a monk’s rapturous devotion, I also want you to remember that youth has a catch: the propensity for sudden flight. Despite her maturity the world is, in her brief experience, composed only of open doors. And she must, like the heroine of her own fairy tale, walk through them and experience the contents of every room. You may be one of the rooms or you may be all of them. Only time, that belligerent truth serum, will tell.

Age gaps can be the source of some rubbernecking. People stare as though the couple, like any physical aberration, is a mismatch. When really our ages, in their crudest form, are only numbers – shapes on a page. Harold and Maude taught us that an age gap can be a prescription for living – higher than any spiritual order.

You Owe Her Nothing Tytler and Just Be Firm Stern say it: Do not tell your wife. You have no obligation. It would be like presenting a piece of heirloom lace to an ogre. She will tear it apart. Break that long-standing habit of full disclosure and finalize your settlement intact.

Jejune Chatter Frolick makes a keen point: “Go to India for at least three months. Alone.” India being the catchall for seekers, I will interpret this more broadly to mean: Insist on some self-reflective solitude. Allow your paramour’s appetite to be contagious. She is not the only one living in a world of open doors.

No related posts.

What I intended to write about is how I need to get my cat fixed.

Max is almost 10 weeks old (and so cute!). Sooner or later, as Bob Barker used to remind me, he needs the ‘chop chop’. I guess I could get Mom to do it (she does it to piglets everyday), but a cat isn’t the same as a pig, and I hope Max will live a lot longer than your average pig. I mean, it took me TWO YEARS to convince D that we should get a kitten!

Off I went to my trusty Google search toolbar in Firefox (which took only two months of convincing D that it was safe to install) and decided to ask Google, “When should I get my cat fixed”?

I typed “When should I” when Google started suggesting. While I’m not sure how the suggestions are determined (most searched first? What they think is applicable to you?), they sure can be amusing. In order, here’s what Google suggested that I search for:
When should I…

• Get a pregnancy test?
• Refinance?
• Feel my baby move?
• Take my Christmas tree down?
• Get my w2?
• Take creatine?

To people who searched for those terms and ended up here, I don’t have your answers. However, if you’re asking about your Christmas tree, the answer is LONG AGO!

I love Google memes. Let’s start one!

Erica

No related posts.

To the visitor who searched for “where is nudge button scrabulous“: alas, Scrabulous has altered the use of the ‘nudge’.  No longer can you nudge at will; now they make you wait a few days.  Personally I enjoy that feature as I have had up to 12 games on the go at once.  It can be hard to keep up!

For our many visitors who arrive with inquiries on how to keep track of who has visited your Facebook profile page:  I must redirect you to Facebooking101.com.  They note that there is currently only one FB (same initials as FiveBlondes…coincidence? Yeah, prolly) app that tracks who visited your page – and those viisting must also have that app for it to work properly (if at all).  Anyway, it’s called Trazkor, and it doesn’t seem to work.

Looking for Erica Lauren, adult film star?  Well, we have Erica and we have Lauren, but sadly (for you) no Erica Lauren.

Lastly, we have what is perhaps my favorite source of traffic.  Those of you looking for “Lululemon Butt Pics”.  While we do love our Lulu, if there are any pictures of our butts in them, it is not intentional.

So, to all you disappointed visitors I extend my apologies and st the same time I thank you for visiting.  I hope you found something you liked.

Related posts:

1. Feeling Scrab-U-Lo-Riffic! FiveBlondes + Scrabulous = Love
2. It’s Blog Day! Celebrate with the FiveBlondes
3. Googling Five Blondes

Yesterday, Facebook announced that they “are making limited public search listings available to people who are not logged in to Facebook. “  What does this mean exactly?  It means that any Tom, Dick or Harry on the internet who can type in a search bar and hit “Search” might be able to find your Facebook listing and poke you, send you a message, see your profile picture, and view your friends list.

This is not so cool. I am not impressed. First Facebook opened registration to everyone who wants to sign up – but it was still a ‘closed network’ to the rest of the online world and gave the illusion of security.  It must be secure if you need to login before you can see anything, right?  Yes and no.  We gave all of our information to Facebook.  Do you know the guys who run FB? I don’t. I don’t know anyone who does. How about all of those checkboxes you have to ensure are selected before you can add an app? Have you thought about what they mean? They mean that you are giving all of your information to the creators of the app, whoever they may be.  Whatever they may use your information for.
I know I’m a hypocrite. I use Facebook every day. I have a couple of apps on my profile (one being the WordPress app).  I wasn’t too concerned, because I’ve been very selective with the apps I’ve added, and so far I’ve had no reason to mistrust Facebook – until my boss pointed out this fact to me at work today:

BY DEFAULT, YOUR PROFILE IS ACCESSIBLE BY SEARCH ENGINES.

Now, Facebook is no more ‘secure’ than Myspace. It makes sense though, doesn’t it? Do you know anyone who would say “why yes, I’d love my Facebook profile to be available from [insert search engine here]!!”  I’m sure they are out there (like those Facebookers who use their profiles as marketing tools), but it’s not your average user.

As soon as you are done reading this post, go login to your Facebook profile.  Click “privacy” in the upper right hand corner.  Click on “Edit Settings” for “Search”.  If you do nothing else, at least make your profile unaccessible by search engines.

If this information hasn’t compelled you to take any action, I ask you: What does your profile picture look like? Do you look like someone that you would consider ‘employable’ by a respectable company?

If your answer is ‘no’, please realize that a potential employer is very likely to search for you in Google, or in Facebook.  Now go change your privacy settings.

LINKS

Facebook Profiles Will Appear in Google Results Next Month – Mashable

Related posts:

1. How Would You Classify Your Facebook Profile Picture?
2. A Letter to Those of You who Arrived at FiveBlondes via Search Engines
3. Fiveblondes & Facebook: Behind The Scenes

After a month (and not-too-many posts), the results are in.

Google: “fiveblondes”

We are first! Not surprising. We are also second, third, fourth…of the two pages of results, only the last two links are not us. The last link is, unfortunately, a porn film titled “5 blondes”. Seeing that makes me very happy that we didn’t use “5 Blondes” as our blog name (it was in the running).

Google: “five blondes”

We are…third. Second link is the aforementioned adult film’s listing on IMDB (here titled “Five Blondes” – but I know that’s wrong, I saw the cover of the DVD). The film apparently sucks – that may be the wrong word to use – let’s go with ‘is not very good.’ The film is apparently not very good, judging by the 3.5/10 rating.

The first link is a blonde joke on someone’s Geocities page that was added over seven years ago. Nothing dies on the internet! The webmaster’s page hasn’t been updated in over a year, as far as I can tell. I haven’t visited a Geocities page in years.

What about those inferior links under us? Well, they’re mostly blonde jokes, as well as a few links about that, um, film. So, in honor of those blonde jokes and in good humour (we like to laugh!), I am adding a blonde joke to this post.

In fact, I’ve found a blonde joke titled “The Blonde’s Sister.”

A blonde goes into work one morning crying her eyes out. Her boss, concerned about all his employees’ well being, asked sympathetically, “What’s the matter?”

To which the blonde replies…..”Early this morning I got a phone call saying that my mother had passed away.”

The boss, feeling very sorry at this point, explains to the young girl, “Why don’t you go home for the day…..we aren’t terribly busy. Just take the day off to relax and rest.”

The blonde very calmly states……”No, I’d be better off here. I need to keep my mind off it and I have the best chance of doing that here.”

The boss agrees and allows the blonde to work as usual, saying “If you need anything, just let me know.”

Well, a few hours pass and the boss decides to check on the blonde. He looks out over his office and sees the blonde hysterically crying!! He rushes out to her, asking, “Are you gonna be ok??”

“No,” exclaims the blonde. “I just got a call from my sister. She told me that HER mom died too!!”

BA-DUMP-BUMP!

Umm…love you, Mom! Link love you too!

A final note: If you google all of our names at once (“erica micaela katelyn leah lauren“), we are first…of 48,000!

Related posts:

1. Five Busy Blondes
2. Welcome to Five Blondes.
3. Five blondes, no mass suicide pact.