You're at a critical phase of the courtship ritual, Tommy. I implore you to thoroughly debrief your cousin Steve to find out exactly how he would approach this situation -- and whatever he advises, you make sure you do the opposite.

Not that I'm any better -- all I can come up with is suggestions for various foods you might take along to share at this event.

"Glad to be here with you, Nikki. Want some of my prosciutto and provolone sammich? It's got roasted red peppers!"

Would she see this offer as the transparent test it really is? And if you had such a sandwich with you, could you really bring yourself to offer to share it (a test within a test).

The sandwich approach (especially when it involves that particular sandwich) is for high-rollers only: the outcome is totally binary, with no possibility of a middle-ground response. She will either be completely disgusted by you forever (in which case good riddance) or she will immediately want to marry you (and you want to watch out for that too).

Here at Berea-Rose, Christmas is about to be kicked off. Got Bootsy Collins on the stereo right now, blasting his holiday tunes. Soon I will venture to the attic to take down the boxes with all the decorations. Also need to make my list and check it twice.

We woke up this morning to the tiniest of snowfalls -- a minuscule dusting of white that settled loosely on grass-blades and car hoods but could hardly cling to any pavement. Cookie and Mojo went berserk -- put on their snowsuits and are out there now. I watched Cookie from the back window as he walked stooped over with his mittens against the asphalt -- he had to scour the entire end of the driveway just to scoop up enough to make one meager snowball. But you should have seen the joy on his face once he had it.

Tommy, there's a lesson in there somewhere. My advice to you would be, is to pay attention to me.