HAPPENINGS
If you or your spouse proposed
in a unique or creative way,
let us know. Cali The Scene,
(248) 354-6060 Ext. 303.
Saturday, Nov. 8
Ruach annual hay ride and bonfire.
7:15 p.m. At the Maybury Riding
Stables, 20303 Beck Rd., Northville.
Cost: $8. S'mores and hot chocolate
provided (b.y..o.b.). Call Michele
Chapnick, (810) 258-0145 or Karen
Davis, (313) 455-2502.
Havdalah program with Jewish
Professional Singles. 7:30 p.m. At
Dorian Gluckman's home, 1111
Dorchester St., Birmingham. Cost: $8.
Call Dorian, (248) 646-9196.
Sunday, Nov. 9
Brunch, gallery tour, with Second
Sunday Schmoozers and Jewish
Professional Singles. 11:30 a.m. Meet
at Zanzibar Restaurant on State
Street in Ann Arbor. Call Susan,
(248) 626-7246. Followed by an
anthropological tour of the
Sepphoris of Galilee exhibit, Kelsey
Museum and Ann Arbor Art
Museum. No charge. Tour begins at
1:30 p.m. Call Sandy Maurer,
(313) 449-7246 or Joel Dorf,
(248) 398-3987.
Prepare and serve lunch at COTS
Shelter in Detroit with the B'nai B'rith
Leadership Network. Meet at the Oak
Park JCC at 8:45 a.m. Call Michelle
Hubert, (248) 661-7815 or (248)
788-NEWS.
12 Mile Road west of Coolidge. Call
David, (248) 398-9370.
Friday, Nov. 14
Single table at the Temple Beth Emeth
Shabbat dinner. Call Dion Frischer,
(313) 971-3280.
ALLISON KAPLAN
Saturday, Nov. 15
Dinner and movie night, Jewish
Professional Singles. 6:30 p.m.,
Pasquales Restaurant, Woodward
north of 13 Mile Road. Deep Crimson
at the DIA Theater. Call Dorian,
(248) 646-9196.
Sunday, Nov. 16
Singles Extension Group installation
pizza party. 7 p.m. Temple Israel's
Korman Hall. Cost: $12 members,
$15 non-members. Call (248) 661-
5700.
Wednesday, Nov. 19
Shabbos for the Novice, featuring Ron
Wolfson: How to make Shabbat dinner
when you work 50+ hours a week. 7:30
p.m. At the Max M. Fisher Federation
Building in Bloomfield Hills. Call Jodi
Berger, (248) 642-4260.
Jewish spouses: best of lovers, best of
friends. Rabbi Steven Weil from Young
Israel-Oak Park will speak to the
Congregation Shir Tikvah Sisterhood.
Call (248) 619-9669.
Coffee night, Jewish Professional
Singles. At Borders Books & Music in
Birmingham. 7:30 p.m. Call David,
(248) 398-9370.
Monday, Nov. 10
Thursday, Nov. 20
Author Brad Meltzer discusses his book
"The Tenth Justice," sponsored by
Jewish Professional Singles, at the
Jewish Book Fair at the Maple/Drake
Jewish Community Center. 8 p.m.
RSVP by Nov. 9 to Jackie, (248) 399-
2283.
Young adult lunch with Rabbi Paul M.
Yedwab. At Big Daddy's Parthenon,
West Bloomfield. 12:30-1:30 p.m.
Cost: $12. Call (248) 661-5700.
Wednesday, Nov. 12
Dinner at Max & Erma's, Orchard
Lake Road, with the B'nai B'rith
Leadership Network. 7 p.m. Call
(248) 788-NEWS.
Coffee night, Jewish Professional
Singles. 7:30 p.m. At Muddee Waters,
Putting a relationship to the test
consecutive days of shaving.
Murder Mystery on the Michigan Star
Clipper Dinner Train. Temple Israel's
young adult night. 6-10 p.m. Train
departs at 7 p.m. from 840 N. Pontiac
Trail in Walled Lake. Cost: $39. For
information, call (248) 661-5700.
Dinner with Jewish Professional Singles.
7 p.m. At Chianti Italian Restaurant,
on Northwestern Highway. Call Harry
Pevos, (248) 357-8850.
Special to The Jewish News
lir
hat worried my boyfriend
most about coming along
on vacation with my fam-
ily was shaving.
You see, daily shaving is a practice
my mother holds in extremely high
esteem. Yet, it leaves my boyfriend's sen-
sitive skin extremely irritated. Bad
enough when he comes home with me
for a weekend and has to shave two
days in a row. But a whole week, he
whined, was liable to turn his face into
a blotchy mess.
Of course, my mom would never
force my boyfriend to shave.
Disparaging comments, however, I have
to admit she is not above. Many a past
beau has been scared into removing
untidy whiskers by my ever-so-sweetly
conniving mother. And being that my
current boyfriend still thinks in terms of
needing to win points with my parents,
he knows smooth, clean cheeks score in
the double digits on my mom's card.
Why do mothers have such a
hangup about facial hair? I know no
mom who actually likes a young man
with a beard. .
Personally, I think scruffy men can
be very sexy. Take Charlie on TV's
"Party of Five" or even George Michael
(music aside). The appeal is the perfect-
ly groomed facial hair.
What a lot of regular guys miss is
that emphasis on groomed facial hair.
The goatee which fails to connect along
the sides of the mouth we women do
not find at all attractive. It's pretty gross,
actually. Why men think goatees are
cool is beyond me. Most of them look
like they forgot to wipe their mouths
after a big swig of chocolate milk.
I hate to be insensitive to those many
young males whose facial hair grows in
unfortunate patches, but some men just
aren't meant to wear beards, mustaches
or any variation thereof. And yeah, we
know all about how painful shaving can
be. I've got scars up and down my legs
to prove it.
I happen to be dating a guy with
very good facial hair. This is not some-
thing I like to admit very often, because
dwelling on it only guarantees another
few hours of him admiring his rugged
good looks in the bathroom mirror.
But even with his evenly distributed
whiskers, I can only handle about two
days without asking my boyfriend if he
plans to shave before we go out to din-
ner. He finds it frustrating, I know,
since I'm always drooling over Charlie's
perpetually perfect, spiky whiskers. That
television beard is a fantasy, he tells me
— they probably paint it on. Real men
have hair that grows. Quickly.
Enough nagging led to my
boyfriend's discovery of an amazing
invention called the trimmer. (You'd
think guys would know about this
stuff). Now he too can have a perfect
beard, until I complain. Men's shaving
products should probably be directed at
women, because we're really the ones
controlling the market. Behind every
clean-shaven man is a woman threaten-
ing to withhold kisses until the whiskers
disappear.
Mothers have a different motivation
for hating facial hair, but their violent
reaction actually has some very under-
standable roots. I began to sense this
parental desperation when my own
brother's peach fuzz began — very, very
gradually, mind you — turning dark
and bristly. Now my mother follows
him around to test the skin that was
once smooth as a baby's tushie.
She tells him to shave around five
times a day. His facial hair tortures her,
I swear. The whiskers are like aliens that
have possessed her precious baby. When
he shaves, she can pretend this six-foot
beer-drinking monster is still her little
angel.
All this gives new significance to my
brother's bushy sideburns, which seem
to creep longer each week, and the goa-
tee that appears sporadically.
Enjoy it now, I tell him, because
some day you'll have a girlfriend. (A
really outspoken one, if there is any jus-
tice in this world). Aggravating Mom
alone might be manageable, but with
two women breathing down his neck,
those hairs won't last a day. O
Allison Kaplan is a columnist for the
Chicago Jewish Star whose mother only
lets her date Jewish guys.