As my children grew up, I discovered it takes a village to decide on a family vacation - especially after my sons learned the democratic principle of one person, one vote. Being a family of four often made it hard to get a majority vote; and because I'm the only female, we never vacationed at a spa.

Friends recently discovered that planning a wedding was a revolving door of relationships - from whom to invite to where to seat them at the reception. The groom's mother wanted to have rectangular tables at the reception so only one person would have to sit next to Cousin Walter. The groom's mother also had advice about the food, the flowers and the music. In fact, the bride got so much advice from her future mother-in-law, the minister should have said, "Do you take this man, in spite of his mother, to be your husband".

Thankfully, the weather forecast was right; and it was sunny on the day of the wedding. However, it had taken a village to predict the weather. In spite of meteorology, radar, barometer and humidity readings, as well as a window, the weatherman predicted a 40% chance of rain. Frankly, if it had rained, I think the weatherman would have been weather-beaten by the mother-in-law. When it comes to relationships, this woman sinks them. She's never let political correctness correct her life

Politicians, on the other hand - the one glad handing - are relationship wranglers. It takes supporters, contributors, staff and volunteers to run for office; and politicians have to keep them all headed in the right direction - which, of course, would be in the left direction if the politician were a liberal.

Personally, it helps to have a liberal attitude when you live in a condominium. There are eighteen condos in our building - eighteen opinions about how things should be done. Lately, there's been a lot of gray area about what color to paint our building because we can't decide what color gray. To some light gray looks dirty white, medium gray looks dark gray and dark gray looks black. Unfortunately, this village sees red about painting the village.