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.