God bless...beautiful women in your family.  Too bad for the fellow that Judaism is matrilinear.  He might have thought of that prior to exchanging vows.  Good for Ariel!  You go girl!

By the way, he's an idiot, but I guess you know that. 

...and thank G-d the baby resembles her mother so much that even I can't tell photos of them apart %^)

Her dad was an eejit too, but he wasn't around after she was about 18mos old, and thank G-d - Ariel got all of the good stuff there was to get, and I beat the rest of it out of her mercilessly...

...trouble was, as all girls seem to do with their first marriage: She married a clone of her dad, even though she's only met the bio-dad like, 4 times, and every meeting ended badly. But now he's a semi-famous artist, and he's mentioned in several places on Wiki, and she got that part - and the looks: OMG Walking out in public with her is like parting the sea. Cars screach to a halt. Strangers accost her just to tell her what they used to tell me - but at least now that has the baby as a fist line of defense; "That baby is the most beautiful baby I've ever seen!

When she was 8 mos pregnant she took my younger daughter shopping in SF on Union Sq., and some guy pulled over to the curb, blocking traffic, and said "You are the most beautiful woman I've ever seen - can I get your number?" She said "I'm 8 MONTHS PREGNANT AND I'M WEARING A WEDDING RING - DUH!. He didn't even apologize.

It's some kind of recessive gene in my family. My younger brother got it. He used to look like Tom Cruise back in the 80s, and he modeled (reluctantly) to get money for his motocross bike hobby. My Aunt Sue got it too. My mother and I, alas, didn't.

I guess traffic-stopping beauty is both a blessing and a curese. It's sort of a "blurse"...

Your stories are so so funny, Suzy.  Your candor and energy have been missed here on iThou as there has been a lapse since you posted fairly regularly.  Your daughter is exquisite and the baby delightful in every way, from the sound of things. Today is a day I have little tolerance for male shortcomings.  I know it isn't their fault, and nine days out of ten I am immune to frustration with the opposite sex, maybe even nine and a half!  Today though, just don't get me started.

Peter Bogdanovich wrote about Dorothy Stratton, and I remember him sharing that she always felt as though she had something on her face, like a bit of food that she should wipe away.  She could not fathom that people were so often riveted by her beauty.  It was a distraction.  Like any work of art, God-given or manmade, beauty can touch us deeply and move us almost reflexively, instinctually.  It is good to have our mundane existence shaken like this from time to time.

I like how you refer to women marrying their father in the first husband.  Amen to that.

It's a blessing and a curse: It a blurse...

When Ariel was in high school during the OJ trial she went through this whole "It's a Black thang - you a can't understand" because she kept whining and complaining "WHY is everybody staring at me? I bet it's 'cause I'm Black"

No matter how many times we would try to tell her it was because she was just so gorgeous people couldn't help it, she refused to believe us, and then started speaking "ebonics"... badly (I know because I grew up until I was 13c in suburban Dee-troy-it, and she didn't even know the diff between "He done it", "He be done did it.", and "He be done done it.".) and saying "It'sa Black thang - you just can't understand.".

I said "Your bio-dad doesn't even consider himself to be "Black". He says he's Portuguese from Cabo Verde in the Azores. Even Jason's mom thought it was ridiculous (She's an RN and considers herself to be "multi-racial").

It's that recessive gene on my maternal grandfathers side: HE was gorgeous, like a "Jewish Clark Gable" My grandmother; not so much. My brother had it too. Girls in his high school used to call him for dates. He even did some fashion modeling (reluctantly) to make money for his motocross bike hobby. He was the model in the very first full page ad for the Apple Mac in 1980. And my mother's sister, but not my mother or me: WE had to work for it.

Neither he or Ariel have ever been rejected: For a job application, for a date, for an apartment rental. My brother was tapped as a frat, even though he had failing grades. Then after he flunked out, he was immediately hired for the first job he applied for; Flight Attendant on American Airlines.

Since he was one of the only straight male attendants back then, he had it made socially. Only downside was whenever there was a surly passenger, they always called him to deal with the situation.

Now that he's 45, it gives me a great deal of schadenfreud to know that underneath that baseball cap, he's bald as a cue ball...

You are too funny.  My son has it.  Gorgeous.  It has always been girls girls girls for him. You should see his Facebook page..."Sam, come see me!"  "Sam, it's been tooooooo looooong!" etc. etc.  Every once in a while a fella posts between scads of female comments.  He knows that all he has to do is smile...at least at females, at least to get what he wants.  When he was in town this summer he used it on waitresses, sales clerks, doctors, dentists, you name it.  He came away from the dentist with a gift bag - coffee mug, chap stick, Starbucks gift card.  I've been going there for almost ten years and I have never gotten anything but a bill!  Go figure!  It's a family joke around here, so I know what you mean.  That recessive gene should be disseminated with more equity and less extremity. 

Sigh...oh well; My parents always told me that I got the brains...

Thing is, my brother flunks out of college, gets a great jobs with perks, has all of the flight attendants fawning all over him, all the free travel he wants, and then after 10 yrs they have this union "early opt-out" so that they don't have to double his salary, so he opts out with full benefits and health insurance, and moves to Winter Park CO to be a ski bum with is former flight attendant wife.

They buy a piece of land in the then-nowhere, now Foodie center of the universe: Beaver Creek CO. and builds a house himself from scratch using "how-to" books from Home Depot (You ain't been to Beaver Creek til you get your Beaver Liquors T-shirt and a case of Mary Jane beer from the next hamlet over; Mary Jane CO.)

Some woman knocks on their door and says she LOVES the house, since it's NOT a log cabin, so he agrees to sell it to her, and he builds another one next door on the other half of the property. Now he's a licensed contractor working on all the big hotels in the Aspen, Vail, Beaver Creek and Breckenridge areas, and he's swamped and making $$$.

Meanwhile I slog through a dual degree from Univ of SF, 20 yrs in the investment and banking biz that make me miserable, go to Esalen, and decide to give it all up to go to the Ca Culinary Academy in SF when it was bought by Le Cordon Bleu and after receiving a big tall hat and a bleu cordon with a medal on it, and a diplome and a crisp white coat, I am now qualified to work in the Bay area for appx $12hr. OR: If I wanted to move anyplace else in the world, I could work and make a decent wage with benefits, just not here...

So much for brains: After my friend's kid was tested for ADD, ADHD, Aspergers,yada, yada, I finally suggest to her "Maybe he's just really bright, and he's bored and can't sit still.". So they IQ test him, and he's off the charts, and she asks me "Should we send him to that private gifted and talented school on the Peninsula, or let him skip grades?.

I said: "Don't do it: I was skipped, started college at 14, got two degrees for the price of one, had all kinds of expectations heaped on me to save the world, or at least cure cancer, and all I really wanted to do is what I like to do."

The minute you graduate from school, nobody gives a shit about "brains". In fact, I've been reprimanded by at least 3 different bosses that I can recall clearly who said "Your problem is that you think you're smarter than me." I wanted say "I KNOW I'm smarter than you (asshole), because if you had any brains, you wouldn't be complaining about it like it was a bad thing - especially since you get a bonus on my production, you stupid twit.".

If I were say - a baseball player who had scored more home runs than my coach, would he complain?

OR: If I was a grrl/women he wanted sleep with, would he complain?

I told my daughter; "If you think that beink Black is hard, wait til you see what being a woman will do for you and your aspirations, and then doen't come back and tell me that I didn't warn you. Nobody warned me".

Another fabulous story.  Guess you could write a book when all is said and done.  Nora Ephron can't keep a handle on the market forever, and she's done all right for herself.

 At least not yet...but it could happpen:

*The Stark fist of removal.