Flat Stanley

caffection.com

Kids are great. We recently had a chance to meet 'Flat Stanley' at a concert in Cleveland. Mr. Stanley is a fairly interesting, if quite flat individual. He's part of a project by a bunch of grade school kids to show how globally connected we all are. The kids send Flat Stanley as many places as they can dream up, then journal about his travels. Often Mr. Stanley actually makes his way home to the sender! Flat Stanley has traveled the world, even getting his picture taken aboard the space shuttle. He's a very photogenic fellow, well traveled, affable, and has the added wonderful attribute of being able to fit in an envelope. Look for a Flat Stanley near you.
Above, musician Tom Goss entertains Flat Stanley, one of Tom's many devoted fans. (Hope he doesn't sing flat!)

Wellness

www.caffection.com

Health & wellness are the most critical part of a happy, gratifying life. From a few health challenges three years ago, we know that to be true. A health crisis tends to focus our attention on important things like nothing else. And nothing else helps us stay healthy and well, and to get healthy when we're ill like a great relationship. Among many other things too numerous to mention, marriage equality is important for this as well. It's no stretch to see happy couples, free of the uncertainty and stress of discrimination, as a factor in the current conversation about rising health care costs. President Obama has made reform in this area a key issue in his administration. For this and many reasons, marriage equality is an even higher priority than ever. Study after study confirm that happy couples are healthier, live longer happier lives, and are there to take care of each other in a loving, communal way. Everyone deserves this kind of certainty. Society needs to promote it as well, to protect all of us from the vagaries of ill health, and an already overburdened health care system.

Focus Group

caffection.com

To all our friends in the blogosphere, we need your help. We're able to be out and about in this exciting, somewhat turbulent time, getting all manner of opinions about the progressive issues facing this country: marriage equality; don't ask don't tell; gun control; immigration reform. And we need your opinion now more than ever. Why? One thing we feel passionate about, as you know, is marriage equality, because, quite frankly, our own marriage is such a gratifying, fulfilling part of who we are that we believe everyone needs to experience this in life, and celebrate it. If that sounds naive and/or maudlin, so be it; it's who we are. So what do we need from you? We're looking for a focus group, a segment of our readership willing to look over the caffection website, critique it for us, make suggestions, give us your opinion on how better we can offer the resources on it to people who want a great relationship. We want readers to make whatever comments and suggestions they want, anonymously if you like, and to be completely open and objective about it. In short, we really want to make caffection.com yours. We're more than happy to tend to it, and make it the resource it can be for these times. Will you help with this? Comment here, or go to the contact us page on the site and let us hear from you. Thanks, it means a lot. BE/ME

Gaps

Caffection.com

I got gaps; you got gaps; we fill each other's gaps. Rocky

Choices

caffection.com

We make choices every day--what time to get up, whether we are getting up, what to wear, what to say to the nimrod in the elevator who says "great weather, huh?" Life is about choices. We've been taken to task a number of times for this, but we really believe it's simple physics: if we choose negative, cynical, spiteful and angry, that's exactly what we'll get back. If you're expecting a bag of crap, there's no way short of a miracle you'll get butter pecan ice cream. Ain't gonna happen. And it is a Choice. What's this got to do with relationships? Plenty. If we expect to be treated fairly, gently, with respect, we will reasonably hope to get that back. If we expect abuse, disregard, sarcasm etc. there's no way short of a miracle we'll get... You get the idea. The reason this comes up today is that certain family members have once again proven that their default mode is negative, fearful, cynical. It's too bad. We want to tell them that those aren't killer alien mutants under the bed; they're only dust bunnies, so go back to sleep for Pete's sake. Oh, and great weather, huh?