At the end of a dinner party, my fancy dinner napkins are sometimes lacking one or two. It couldn’t be the maids who mistakenly throw them away. I have had my staff for years and they can literally clean up with their eyes closed. Is it polite to call up my guests and inquire if they "accidentally" pocketed the napkin, thinking it is their handkerchief? It might be a petty item to some, but I take pains in custom-ordering my table linens and having them exquisitely embroidered that I really hate losing them. Aside from the fact that they ruin the set, it is also a bother to reorder them as sometimes they cannot get the same color or design, etc.
I agree with you that losing exquisite dinner napkins is irritating. You may call your guests to ask them. Wording it thus, "Did you or Benny accidentally bring home my dinner napkin mistaking it for a handkerchief?" I don’t think your dinner guests will get offended by that. And if she or her husband did bring it home, the kosher way to do is to return it clean and ironed with a little note of apology for the unintentional faux pas.
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Which Blue Pill Will Solve This Husband’s Blues? |
My husband is 46 years old and I am 38. Twelve years ago, he discovered an early onset of diabetes. He did everything to ward off the bad effects of diabetes. He exercised daily and kept away from sugar and up until now, has remained healthy in all aspects. Recently, coupled with stress in our business, my husband has been experiencing a curse worse than death to a young, healthy man: Erectile dysfunction. I have so much compassion for him because we had always enjoyed our intimacy and now it is gone. He is not open to the idea of taking the magical blue pill called Viagra because he heard that there are side effects. Are there other drugs that could help him? Our marriage is at stake here because despite my trying to be the most understanding wife, his pride has been wounded and his ego battered especially on occasions where he tried but in vain.
There are some pills now for erectile dysfunction and your husband does not have to suffer a fate "worse than death," to quote you. Many men in this situation have been prescribed these sexual enhancing blue pills by their doctors and with a lot of success. In fact, there has been a scientific experiment done on three groups of men with ED: One group took Viagra for a whole year, whether or not they had intentions of doing the act, another group took it only when they felt sexual, and another group did not take it at all. Those who took it daily for a whole year normalized their dysfunction 80 percent of the time (meaning they could perform without the aid of the pill), those who took it only on occasions did not improve and those who did not take at all even got worse. This experiment was done in the USA. A couple in London, Mr. and Mrs. Hendersen, tried Viagra and Levitra, another blue pill. Mr. Hendersen is diabetic, too. Levitra worked great for them and now they claim to be on their second honeymoon. Most doctors prescribe these pills to be taken on a regular basis, claiming that it is asking a lot to be restored to your former glory if you take it only once every six weeks. And the good news from the Medical School of Yale University is that these magic pills don’t cause heart failure. In fact, these drugs relax the arteries and improve blood flow through the heart. There is a third magic pill with longer potency period: Cialis. It claims a 24-hour strength period. So, the first thing you must do is to send your husband to a urologist and have those drugs prescribed in order to put your marriage back on track. Why suffer a no-sex marriage when there are modern-age remedies!
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New Technique For Fat Reduction |
I am young but chubby. I plan to seriously enroll in a weight loss program after which, I plan to have a liposuction. I read very recently that there are now other alternatives to the old-fashioned liposuction which are also effective. Like injections on troubled areas to melt the fat. Not invasive with less pain. Creams and gels, too, that can melt fat. I was so deadset on doing lipo, but now that there are other alternatives, I am confused. Have you a friend or two who can testify to the effectivity of these new procedures?
You have heard of the saying no pain, no gain. Beauty is its own excuse for being, but unfortunately, most of the time, staying beautiful involves pain, money and vigilance. Friends who have gone through liposuction can boast a fat-free abdomen, thighs, backs and arms. Those who did non-invasive procedures like massages with fat-melting creams did not achieve much results.
The lipo injection procedure you are inquiring about is called lipostabile, which is the short term for phosphatidylcholine. It is supposed to melt fat without surgery. It could be applied also on the lower lids, if a person has eyebags. In the USA, that method has been experimented on some 30 women with some success. However, the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery claims that the traditional liposuction is the only proven method for permanent reduction of fat deposits. There is also another new technique which uses ultrasound or sound waves to dissolve fat before it is suctioned out, thus making it easier to suction. Typically, doctors reserve ultrasound to assist lipo, either to remove large volumes of fat or to remove fat from difficult areas such as the back, flanks, or from oversized breasts of men.
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Helping A Poor Performing Kid |
My husband is always nagging our son to perform better in school. I think it is putting pressure on our 10-year-old boy and as a result, he is becoming a nervous child. Last school year, he was an underachiever and this really made my husband furious. This summer break, he did not allow our son to have a vacation: He got him a tutor for his weak subjects like math and science. Four hours a day, my poor son is studying. I don’t approve of pressuring a child to study more than what his brains can take, but for the sake of peace in the family, I allow him to take control of our son’s educational progress. We had a big fight the other day because my son was crying as he wanted to take some time off to play basketball but my husband would not allow him. I pitied my son so much because his friends were there waiting for him. My son had 30 minutes more of tutoring to go and my husband wouldn’t budge. Sports, in my opinion is good for a growing boy’s physical development. How can I convince my husband that his last name is Hernandez and not Hitler?
Research shows that the best thing you can do to help a struggling child perform better in school is to back off. The study shows that parents who scolded or punished their poor performing kids or who intervened in a controlling way – by, for example, demanding better grades or doing the work themselves – only made matters worse. The children performed best when parents offered positive support but did not intervene. In one study, 110 mothers with children in grade school were observed as they helped their kids with homework. Researchers found that when mothers assisted in a controlling manner by directing their children’s behavior, children who initially performed the task poorly became disengaged and did even worse in later attempts. Struggling children tended to do better at the task when their mothers offered autonomous support, such as discussing the problem but letting the child work it out on his own. In a second study, the researchers recorded real-life successes and failures of 121 children and their mothers’ reactions to them for two weeks. They found that children who performed poorly in school were more likely to perform worse if their mothers responded in a controlling manner, such as punishing them or expressing disappointment, while those children whose mothers responded with encouraging support tended to improve. Researchers conclude that autonomous parental support is uniquely beneficial for poor performing children because it helps them attain badly needed confidence.
For your questions, write to Mayenne Carmona, StarGate Media, 6th floor, Jaka Bldg., Ayala Ave., Makati City. 
