Why Him? Why Her?
Brain info linked to love that lasts
By Heather Warlick
Look at your fingers. Is your ring finger longer than your index finger? You might be a “Builder.” Are you a Democrat? So are many “Explorers.”
“Negotiators” are skilled at emotional expression and dealing with people and “Directors” are competitive and want to be the top-dog.
Says who? Says Helen Fisher, PhD., a biological anthropologist who has been studying love and personalities for 30 years. Through a questionnaire of 40,000 people she created for Chemistry.com, she concluded that there are four predominant personality types and that your genetic traits determine your type. Click here to take the quiz.
“I’ve written five books, I’ve worked on love for over 30 years and I finally understand people,” Fisher said. “I finally understand them on a level I never thought I would. I also understand why various relationships just never end up really working.”
In her latest book, “Why Him? Why Her?” Fisher reveals the results of her two most recent studies — one defining personality types and the other describing the nuances of romantic relationships between individuals of different and the same personality types.
But before you can analyze your relationship based on your personality type, you have to learn what type you are. Your personality type, Fisher says, has everything to do with your brain chemistry.
In “Builders,” serotonin is more prevalent. “Explorers” express higher levels of dopamine. Estrogen and testosterone influence the personality traits of “Negotiators” and “Directors” respectively.
“What was surprising was how real these patterns are,” Fisher said. Through an ongoing study of saliva and urine, she’s finding an amazing consistency with the personality types and the predominant brain chemicals that influence them.
Everyone has a primary personality type and a secondary type, Fisher said.
Fisher explains that personality is made of two major components: biology and character, much like nature and nurture. Your temperament is the biology or nature side of your personality — those traits you inherited from your parents such as curiosity, aggressiveness and stubbornness. Your character is everything you’ve gained from experiences — the “nurture” side of your personality.
Fisher even discovered by analyzing profiles on Chemistry.com that each personality type tends to use certain words more often in their self-descriptions. Explorers favor the word “adventure.” Builders use the word “family” most often. Directors like “intellectual” and Negotiators love “passion.”
Learning your type can help you understand both your strengths and your weaknesses and can ultimately help you function better in all your relationships. Go online to www.Chemistry.com to take Fisher’s quiz or just read the following descriptions to find out what type you are.
What’s Your Type?
Builders are relaxed, social and family-oriented people. Common traits of the Builder are a strong sense of duty, respectability, morality and traditions. They respect authority and rules and are trustworthy with plans and schedules.
Builders are strongly influenced by serotonin, the “mother of all neurotransmitters.” No personality type is ruled solely by one chemical. Serotonin can elevate levels of estrogen and can trigger the release of oxytocin which together contribute to the Builder’s affability, need to attach to family and community and their tact and managerial skills, Fisher writes.
“Moreover, serotonin can suppress testosterone activity, particularly in a brain center associated with fear, anger and aggression — the amygdala,” Fisher writes. This explains the Builder’s tendency to be calm and self confident. And since serotonin suppresses dopamine activity, Builders tend to be far more cautious than Explorers.
The down side? Builders always know the “right” way to do something and can be closed-minded and stubborn. They are emotionally rigid, ultra-realistic and cautious. These traits can turn into pessimism that can turn to fatalism. Builders can be stoic, a trait that can evolve into self-loathing or feelings of moral superiority.
The Director is ruled by the testosterone system in both men and women. Directors are competitive and strive to be the top dog. They’re pragmatic, tough-minded and decisive. They are objective, rational and logical and pay close attention to details.
Directors are persistent and willing to take unpopular and even dangerous steps to find the truth. Directors understand what makes things work. They are skilled at understanding machinery and other rule-based systems and they often excel at sports. They pursue their interests with focus and a thoroughness that can become exclusive of everything around them.
Directors prize self-control, are independent and exacting. Oddly, Fisher writes, many are musical and particularly adept at understanding the structure of music. Directors are the heroes that run into burning buildings to save strangers.
The fact that fewer women are Directors indicates that the traits of the Director are associated with the predominantly male hormone testosterone, which both sexes produce, but men produce more.
The down side? Directors often have trouble containing their emotions. Though they prize self control, they are prone to anger, exploding into rage when they’re hurt, disappointed or frustrated. An uncontrollable impulse to “fight or flee” can cause Directors to lash out and even become violent.
Explorers are the adventurers. They prefer the “road less traveled” and thrive on the unpredictable. In “Why Him? Why Her?” Fisher writes, “These people seek the thrills of physical adventurer. Some teeter on the brink of bankruptcy as they invent the newest widget. Some gravitate to wild sex, gambling alcohol or street drugs; they like being out of control. Some revel in bizarre music, exotic art, counterculture social activities or avant-garde ideas. And many simply collect stamps or antiques, stay at home and read, or take advantage of every theater, movie or musical event in town.”
Exporers are curious and creative, generous and restless, energetic and spontaneous and often impulsive. Their adventure-seeking disposition is largely inherited, Fisher writes, and the contributing genes involved have been discovered and labeled DRD4. This gene controls much of the dopamine activity in the brain.
The down side? Explorers can be easily bored, narcissistic and reclusive when forced into tedious social schedules. They can be unpredictable and unreliable because of their spontaneity. They tend to be poor planners and disorganized. Disorderliness, Fisher writes, is associated with dopamine.
The Negotiator is “the philosopher king.” These individuals see the big picture and instinctively know what others are thinking or feeling. They are emotionally expressive individuals, keen at reading facial and physical cues in others and also in themselves.
They are introspective and self-analytical and take great pleasure journeying into the depths of their thoughts and motives. Fisher calls the Negotiator’s thought processes “web thinking” which she defines as “the natural ability to collect many bits of data as you think, weigh the importance of these variables and envision the relationships between them — the ability to think in webs of factors, not straight lines.”
Negotiators are skilled at finding patterns, reading between the lines and seeing the larger concepts and principles from assembled facts.
Estrogen is the influential brain chemical in negotiators, a fact that is reinforced by Fisher’s study which found that more women are Negotiators than men. People who were exposed to more estrogen in the womb often have more connections between the brain’s two hemispheres.
“In short, fetal estrogen constructs a well-connected brain — contributing to the Negotiator’s ability to collect and integrate a broad range of information,” Fisher writes.
The down side? Negotiators are so skilled at seeing the big picture, they can ignore important details. They can appear scatterbrained and indecisive. Their emotional expressivity can make them seem fussy and they can become overly trusting and gullible.
Their aversion to confrontation can result in back-stabbing and they can be vicious with words. Because they seek connection, they can seem needy and need constant reassurance. They can be easily offended and hold a grudge for a long time.
Who Loves Whom?
Why are we attracted to some people and not to others? When all things are generally equal: looks, education, socioeconomic status and religion, why do some people find an instant connection? Chemistry.com asked this question to Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist who has been studying love for 30 years. The results of her mate choice study of 28,128 people are part of her newest book, “Why Him? Why Her?”
“I started to think that maybe your biology contributes to who you love. I mean, maybe we’re naturally drawn to certain chemical types and not other types,” she said. Based on the four personality types she identified, Builder, Explorer, Negotiator and Director, she began to see that certain combinations of types are drawn together more often than other combinations.
Opposites attract, right? Or, maybe we’re looking for someone just like us. According to the results of Fisher’s mate study, some people are attracted to their opposites and some are attracted to their matches.
“We know that you tend to fall in love with somebody from your same socioeconomic background, same general level of intelligence, same general level of good looks, same religious values,” she said. “We tend to fall in love with somebody who can give us what we need in exchange for giving them what they need. Timing is important, proximity is important.”
But beyond those particulars, Fisher says that some types naturally gravitate toward each other. Great marriages exist between members of all types, but in “Why Him? Why Her?,” Fisher analyzes all the possible combinations, comments on the strengths and weaknesses of those matches and gives couples insight into their relationships.
So, who loves whom and why? Here are Fisher’s most winning romantic combinations of types.
Explorer/Explorer
Explorers are attracted to other Explorers because they crave excitement; they want optimism, impulsivity and curiosity in their partner. The Explorer/Explorer match is generally strong because Explorers love adventure and want a partner to share their spontaneity. But this match can have problems. Since both are willing to tolerate risks, two Explorers can find themselves in disastrous situations. And Explorers are not usually very introspective so the pair often avoids difficult discussions.
Builder/Builder
Like Explorers, Builders are attracted to each other. They are most likely to marry each other, to say they are happy in their marriage and less likely to divorce than other combinations. Builders like bringing people and community together and enjoy working together. They are successful at building large circles of close friends, making sensible decisions about money, family and feelings together and value security above almost everything.
Director/Negotiator
Unlike Builders and Explorers who are often attracted to people of their own type, Directors and Negotiators are often drawn to each other. They compliment each other as Negotiators see the big picture while Directors focus on smaller pieces of the puzzle. Negotiators are skilled at seeing all angles without taking action and Directors are decisive yet don’t often analyze ancillary data. The two types are also compatible socially. Negotiators are good at smoothing over Directors’ inappropriate comments and Directors admire the diplomatic nature of Negotiators.
Oprah’s round table
“How did I let this happen again?”
This quote from Oprah Winfrey is splashed across the January issue of O, The Oprah Magazine over photos of Oprah at her current weight and in 2005 at a more svelte weight.
“I’m mad at myself. I’m embarrassed. I can’t believe that after all these years, I’m still talking about my weight,” she said in the article.
Her recent revelation that she is back up to 200 pounds elicited many responses from Oklahoma women. Some identify with Oprah’s dismay because they are going through similar struggles. Some think women suffer from unattainable expectations of how they should look. And others think Oprah should be embarrassed for losing her battle to maintain her weight.
I met with four of these women to discuss their weight issues and Oprah’s struggle.
Glenda Mumford, 51, said her New Year’s resolution is to lose weight. She and her co-workers have started a “Biggest Loser”-type contest. Each person paid $20 to enter, and whoever loses the most weight at the end of the contest wins all the money.
“I’m not a pretty girl. I want to be a pretty girl in my pretty things,” said Mumford, who wants to lose 80 pounds. She said she suffers most from lack of motivation and love of cooking. “I think there are some ladies, Oprah included, that are gorgeous being heavy. Me, myself, I don’t feel that way.”
Motivation is also a challenge for Teresa Asbury, who has trouble finding time to exercise. She has lost weight using Weight Watchers but can’t seem to maintain her weight losses. For her, weight loss is a health concern.
“I’ve gotten high blood pressure, and my doctor says it’s because I’m overweight. If I were to lose that extra 20 pounds, I would probably be able to get off the blood pressure medicine,” she said.
For Asbury, who turns 60 next week, it all comes down to self-worth.
“I just think we need to love ourselves more to take care of our bodies and our health,” she said. “I’m trying to love myself more. I think when you do that, you’ll eat better, get into portion control. I think we all know what we’re supposed to be doing; it’s just doing it that’s the hardest thing to do.”
Jane Maytubby, 63, knows what she needs to do, and she does it. Motivation is no problem for her. Since 2005, she has lost 62 pounds and kept it off. She calls her journey “Jane’s Lifestyle Change” and said changing her eating habits and running or walking up to 10 miles every day have changed her life.
“One of the things I’ve noticed since coming back to Oklahoma is the number of hugely obese people that I see around,” Maytubby said. She recently moved to Oklahoma from Hartford, Conn. “To me, it’s not about image necessarily; it’s about looking your best. And I’m sorry, obese women, obese men do not look their best, and from a health standpoint, it can’t be healthy.”
Maytubby said Oprah should set a better example for the millions of people who look up to her.
But Joann Yeager, 57, strongly disagrees with Maytubby. She believes too much importance is placed on women’s bodies.
“I think the words ‘ashamed’ or ‘embarrassed’ have no place. Why do women need another adjective to describe them that is derogatory?” Yeager said. “Oprah is beautiful. I don’t care which side of 200 pounds she’s on. That woman is a knockout no matter what she weighs.”
For many years, Yeager struggled with her weight and battled depression that came along with her weight gain.
“I watched the weight creep up. I just keep getting fatter and fatter.”
She knew something was wrong. Finally, a doctor confirmed her suspicion: She was diabetic. When she started taking medicine to control her disease, she lost much of the weight she had gained.
“If you feel in your gut that something’s wrong, it probably is. If it isn’t just the matter that you’re sucking down banana splits and all these desserts all day long, there probably is a reason.”
Bonsai inspiration
Our new home is very modern…. it’s architecture is reminiscent of Frank Lloyd Wright. We’ve abandoned all our “old world” traditional furniture from our former home and turned in a more zen, Asian inpsired decor direction. To keep with the theme, we’ve purchased two bonsai trees. We bought one a few weeks ago at TLC and the other we picked up at the Oklahoma City Home and Garden Show yesterday.
That pretty little tea tree bonsai inspired us to get adventurous and try our hand at making homemade sushi for dinner. I’m a pretty experienced cook and not afraid to try new recipes and to invent my own. So, Andy, Amber and I headed out to “Chinatown,” the Asian market. What an experience! From the moment you park outside the store, you feel like you’re in another country. The sights, smells and sounds are so foreign, we couldn’t help but just giggle at everything. It was cool.
We were on the hunt for items for our sushi adventure. We purchased short grain rice, Nori (paper thin seaweed in which you roll sushi) bamboo mats for rolling, cute little dishes for dipping soy sauce (29 cents each!), a huge stainless steel cleaver for cutting the sushi rolls (only $10.99–a great deal for a killer knife), Miso soup mix, a beautiful little tea set and several varieties of tea.
About an hour and $90 later, we giddily headed out of the market laden with bags full of random Asian items. We headed to Wal Mart for a few other items we would need–tempura shrimp, avocado, cucumber, red bell peppers, cream cheese, wasabi…
Back home, it was time to dive in.
First step: rinse 2 cups short grain rice several times until the water runs clear. You have to use short or medium grain rice to acheive the required level of sticky. Don’t even bother trying Minute Rice–your rolls will fall apart.
Boil 2 cups of water and add the rice. Turn the burner way down and cover the pan to let the rice steam up. Check it periodically, tasting for texture and take the rice off the burner as soon as it’s soft enough.
Next, in a small sauce pan heat 3 tablespoons of rice vinegar with 2 tablespoons sugar and 2 teaspoons salt (you can vary those amounts to taste) until the salt and sugar dissolve.
Add the vinegar mixture to the rice and mix it in thoroughly, taking care not to break the tender rice grains. Then, spread the rice on a large plate to let it cool down. Don’t refrigerate the rice, it will become dry and hard.
While the rice cools, chop up your veggies and prep whatever meat you’ll use. We decided to stay safe and simple for our first foray into sushi and opted for tempura shrimp, cooked tilapia, cucumber, avocado, red bell peppers abd cream cheese.
Lay out your bamboo mats and cover each with a piece of plastic wrap. Then, lay a piece of Nori over the plastic wrap.
When the rice cools, spread a thin layer of rice on the Nori using your hands. If you wet your hands, it will be much easier to spread the rice as it is very sticky.
If you want the rice to be on the outside of your sushi roll, California style I guess, place another piece of plastic wrap over the layer of rice and carefully flip the Nori and rice over so the rice layer is on the bottom. Remove the layer of plastic wrap that is now on top.
Now is the fun part: add your filling along the center of the Nori. We had enough rice to make three large rolls. In one, we used shrimp, avocado and cucumbers. On the second, we used tilapia, bell peppers and cream cheese. The third was shrimp, cream cheese and avocado.
Now, roll. Hold the filling in place with your fingers and bring the end closest to you up with your thumbs. Tightly tuck the end over the filling, making sure the plastic wrap and bamboo mat don’t get rolled in. Once you’ve got the end tucked in it’s pretty simple to continue the roll. Just make sure you’re compressing the roll tightly enough to stick together and be compact without squishing the ingredients out the ends.
You can roll your sushi rolls in roe or sesame seeds to coat the outside. We left our rolls naked:)
Now, you’re ready to pull out that giant cleaver and slice your rolls. I found that this is the hardest part and demands a little technique. WET your fingers and the cleaver between each slice or every other slice. The wet cleaver will glide through the sticky rice and wet fingers will keep you from sticking to the rolls. Use a slight sawing action to ease through the Nori.
Well, that’s about it. I am sure there are some different techniques out there but this one worked for us! Our first rolls were a little big because we used too much rice but=they turned out beautiful and delicious.
Happy rolling!
To skimp or not to skimp? That is the question.
My wedding is just around the corner. Plans are going smoothly and I am only stressing out a little — so far. If you’ve been reading my column, you know that I am throwing a spectacular wedding on a shoe string budget and have done a pretty good job of staying on budget. How have I done it?
I have prioritized the details to spend money on and the things that I consider less important. It’s important to me to have great photographs of the wedding and reception, so that’s on my list of items not to skimp on. I will actually have two photographers shooting the wedding — both pros though one specializes in weddings (Hydenphotography)and the other specializes in editorial photography. And a family member with great video cameras will shoot video for free.
Not a huge priority? My dress. I know, that’s a strange thing for a bride to say, but I will only wear that dress for a few hours of my life so why spend massive amounts of money on it? I found a great website with beautiful wedding dresses at wholesale prices. Yes, you take a chance on the dress showing up and looking like a burlap sack, but for only $130, it was worth the risk. And guess what? It showed up on time, fits me perfectly and is just as pretty as the photo online.
Another detail on which I am saving big is flowers. I have found a wonderful supplier online with some amazing deals. I was directed to the site by a friend who had great luck with them for her wedding. I ordered 25 bouquets with four-stems of orchids and greens for under $200! And for vases, I went to an online “dollar” store and found beautiful glass decanters for $1 each.
Table coverings have been a big headache. The venue has 30 small round tables. rent tablecloths is about the same price as buying them — between $7 and &10 per table. So, we’ve decided to cover the tables with fabric-like black plastic table cloths ($1 each at dollar stores) and to dress that up with colorful tulle over the tops. This will end up costing about $3 per table.
And for the wedding cake, I’ve decided to create a fun cupcake wedding cake. With the help of one of my bridesmaids, we will decorate 140 cupcakes with colorful icing and beautiful little sugar orchids, stargazers, calla lilies and roses. This will also save us from needing a server to serve the cake.
I love shoes.
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What do you dream about?
I have some commonly recurring dreams… In one, I am slowly losing my teeth. It will start with one falling out and the others becoming loose and by the end of the dream, I have no teeth left. I usually bolt awake from this dream and, when I realize that I still have a full set of teeth, I am so relieved, I just laugh the dream off. But it is disturbing.
Before I went back to finish college, I commonly dreamt that I was back in school, I’m not sure if it is high school or college, but I can’t get my legs to move. It’s like I’m trying to walk in quick sand and getting nowhere fast. When I started back to college, I stopped having that dream and recently, I dreamt that instead of not being able to move forward, I was rollerskating almost out of control through a school campus. The symbolism of those two dreams seems pretty self evident.
I don’t know if I really believe that every dream is significant and means something or not but I recently wrote an article on the topic. I interviewed Ivy Norris from the Oklahoma School of Metaphysics and I also watched a seminar by G. William Domhoff, a professor at U.C. Santa Cruz who has been studying dreams for three decades. The two have very different beliefs on the topic both of which are very interesting.
I think the topic of dreams and what they mean is especially interesting because, like some other topics such as what happens after death, it’s almost impossible to know the truth. People can speculate all they want but until some real, solid science clears up the question, it will always be speculation.
Anyway, what do you dream about? Have you had any of these common dreams? What do you think dreams mean?
Here’s my article that was published in The Oklahoman on Jan. 4, 2009. There is a sidebar about G. William Domhoff’s studies below.
Subconscious is often a key to sleep-time imagry
By Heather Warlick
What did you dream about last night? Did your teeth fall out or did you fly? Maybe you died or someone you know did. Or maybe you were back in high school and realized suddenly that you were naked. These are among the most common dreams people report, said Ivy Norris, field director for the Oklahoma Schools of Metaphysics, and they all mean something.
Many dream researchers, Norris included, think that understanding your dreams can lead to significant improvements in your waking life.
“If people know what the symbols represent, then they know what part of themselves that they’re running from or that they need to face or need to embrace,” Norris said. For example, dreams of death represent changes in your daily life, as do babies in dreams. Cars in dreams represent the physical body and can indicate health problems. And animals represent habitual behaviors that can be detrimental and need changing.
People in dreams represent aspects of the dreamer. People of the opposite sex represent subconscious aspects of the dreamer while people of the same sex represent aspects of your conscious mind with which you’re more familiar.
Dreams are a universal connection, Norris said, because almost everyone dreams and a “symbolic universal language of mind” applies to anyone at anytime. Many dreams have very specific interpretations. Here are some of the most common dreams and their interpretations or symbolism.
→Dreams of flying. Dreams of flying represent feelings of freedom that may result from an instance when you overcame a limitation or obstacle. Usually, children have more flying dreams than adults, Norris said, because children are more open to their possibilities, and adults have often accepted limitations imposed by society.
→Teeth falling out. Food in a dream is symbolic of knowledge because food nourishes the physical body and knowledge nourishes the soul. Teeth are a means to break down food or knowledge. When your teeth fall out in a dream, it could signify that you feel ill-equipped to break down the knowledge that you have available, that the way you break things down has changed. That change can be either positive or negative.
→High school dreams. Either you’re woefully unprepared for a big test or you’re naked. High school is a place of learning from the past, Norris said, and dreaming of being unprepared for a high school test can indicate a struggle to access information you need to handle in your life.
Being naked in a dream indicates open and honest expression. Clothes represent how we express ourselves and the face we show the public. If your dream nudity makes you feel embarrassed, this could mean that you need to work on being more open and honest in your daily life. If your nudity doesn’t bother you, you are more comfortable with your self expression.
→Recurring dreams and nightmares. Recurring dreams are your subconscious mind’s way of trying to get your attention. A recurring dream is a step down from a nightmare that is a louder, more insistent way your subconscious mind communicates. If you have a recurring dream, Norris recommends trying to stop in the dream and identify what the dream is trying to tell you. That could mean asking someone who is chasing you what he or she wants as in the case Norris recalls of a woman who dreamed for years that an old, haggard woman was chasing her around her home. When she finally stopped in the dream and asked the old woman what she represented, the old woman suddenly turned into a beautiful young woman and replied, “I represent your question of ‘what if?’”
Researcher says dreams correlate with age, gender
By Heather Warlick
Published in The Oklahoman, Jan. 4, 2009
Not all dream researchers agree about the symbolism of dreams.
Ivy Norris, field director of the Oklahoma School of Metaphysics, said she believes almost all dreams are important and can be interpreted. But some researchers believe dreams are more a result of waking concerns.
One such dream researcher is G. William Domhoff, an author and professor in psychology and sociology at theUniversity of California, Santa Cruz, who has been studying dreams since the 1960s
In April 2008, he gave a lecture titled “The Awesome Lawfulness of Your Nightly Dreams” in which he outlined the results of his most recent research. In the lecture, Domhoff discussed some consistencies he found in his dream studies that led him to believe that dreams are usually based on plausible situations, are less bizarre than is often thought, and that dreaming is a gradual cognitive achievement that increases as people mature.
Dreams correlate with age, gender, culture and personal preoccupations, he said.
With his findings, he refuted the popular dream theories from Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Freud’s belief that the function of dreams is to preserve sleep is contradicted by the fact that babies and some adults rarely dream but sleep well, he said.
Jung’s theory that dreams compensate for underdeveloped aspects of the psyche rings untrue to Domhoff because several studies indicate that people most often dream about things they are concerned with in waking life.
Wizards rock!
The Oklahoma Wizards League (OWL), in conjunction with Oklahoma City University Department of English and the Omega Phi chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, will host its Mistletoe Masquerade, a wizard rock Yule Ball to benefit The Harry Potter Alliance and the Genocide Intervention Network, Jan. 17 in the Grand Ballroom on the campus of Oklahoma City University.
The Harry Potter Alliance (HPA) is a nonprofit organization that seeks to motivate young people to political and social action by relating the events of the popular book series Harry Potter to events in the real world. It’s a “Dumbledore’s Army for the Real World,” raising awareness about genocide, poverty, AIDS and global warming and fighting discrimination on the basis of sexuality, race, class, religion, gender and ethnicity. More information about The Harry Potter Alliance can be found at www.thehpalliance.org.
OWL, a local HPA chapter, has booked seven popular wizard rock bands – including The Whomping Willows, Oliver Boyd & The Remembralls, and The Remus Lupins – to play a benefit concert. Tickets are $35 for adults, $15 for children, and can be purchased from the O.W.L. Web site. Attendees can also bid on items in the Muffliato Auction, a silent auction featuring autographed band merchandise, books, Hogwarts house-themed gift baskets and more.
The event will start at 5 p.m. The show is for all ages, so attendees can bring their younger sisters, brothers, nieces, nephews and/or kids, although some songs have adult themes. Refreshments will be served.
Oklahoma Wizards League is a Harry Potter meet-up group and Harry Potter Alliance chapter devoted to fighting the “Dark Arts” in the real world. Their motto is “The weapon we have is love.” More about O.W.L. can be found at http://www.okwizards.com/.
My dog, David Blaine
We’ve renamed my dog. Buddy is now David Blaine. No, he hasn’t attempted any death-defying acts involving ice, water or hanging upside down, and he hasn’t learned to levitate. But he is a consummate escape artist.
His most recent exploit was New Year’s Eve. We recently moved to a new home, and I thought the backyard was secure. Leave it to David Blaine to find the fence’s weakness. I put him out to potty that morning, and he was gone 20 minutes later.
I walked the neighborhood and drove around searching for him, to no avail. And, alas, I had to go to work. All day, I worried about David Blaine; I left work early to continue the search.
I pulled into my driveway and noticed a big sign on my front door: Found terrier. There was a number to call. It felt like a New Year’s Eve miracle!
I called, and the nicest man, Kurt Sampley, answered and said that yes, his wife, Andrea, had found David Blaine meandering in the middle of the street. She opened her car door, and David Blaine just hopped in.
Andrea and Kurt are self-proclaimed neighborhood dog rescuers; Andrea walked house to house trying to find David Blaine’s home. Apparently, she learned we were the new kids on the block, and when she approached our house, David Blaine got excited. She figured it must be his home.
So, Andrea printed signs and posted them at the neighborhood’s entrances and on my front door. Kurt even offered to shore up our fence so crafty little David Blaine couldn’t get away with his street magic.
The Sampleys’ selfless act touched me. The New Year’s Eve timing of the event inspired me to adopt a resolution to be more like them. For 2009, I plan to go above and beyond to help my friends and neighbors more.
Now, I’m not recommending you go out and grab up every stray dog you see. Some strays, especially hungry or scared dogs, are dangerous, and you should call an expert. I am suggesting that if you see a need in your neighborhood, step up! Ask yourself, “What would the Sampleys do?”
