Melina Gerosa Bellows - The Fun Book for Couples: 102 Ways to Celebrate Love

F rom the author of The Fun Book: 102 Ways for Girls to Have Some comes the next step in fundom. You became such a fun girl you attracted a fun guy. Let the games begin! As Mark Twain said, To get the full value of joy, you must have someone to divide it with.

True, fun grows when shared, but its the partnership that blossoms when two people celebrate love. Planning romantic surprises and factoring in the fun quotient to dates and downtime puts power behind the words I love you. The Fun Book for Couples offers more than one hundred eclectic ways to hot-wire romance and go for a joy ride:

• Check into a fancy hotel. Register under phony names, arrive separately, and pretend youre movie stars having an affair.
  

• Keep a boom box in the kitchen. Slow dance while you are making dinner. Or coffee.
  

• Go for his and hers sports pedicures. Bring a bottle of chardonnay and paper cups.
  

• Take him to test-drive the car of his dreams.
  

OTHER BOOKS BY MELINA GEROSA BELLOWS

The Fun Book: 102 Ways for Girls to Have Some

The Fun Book for Couples

Copyright 2003 by Melina Gerosa Bellows. All rights reserved. Printed in Hong Kong. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews. For information, write Andrews McMeel Publishing, an Andrews McMeel Universal company, 1130 Walnut Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64106.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

www.andrewsmcmeel.com

Bellows, Melina Gerosa.
The fun book for couples: 102 ways to celebrate love / Melina Gerosa Bellows.
p. cm.
E-ISBN 978-0-7407-9287-8
1. Man-woman relationships. 2. Marriage. I. Title.
HQ801.B39 2003
646.78dc21

2003051988

Star-powered Astro-Matches, pp. 2021,
courtesy of Tali and Ophira Edut, www.theastrotwins.com

Carmellas Ziti, pp. 2425, from The Sopranos Family Cookbook by Artie Bucco and Allen Rucker. Copyright 2002 by Warner Books, Inc. By permission of Warner Books, Inc.

Cover illustration by Mary Claire Smith / Roger la Borde
Author photo by Tiff Pemberton
Jacket design by Julie Barnes

Attention: Schools and Businesses
Andrews McMeel books are available at quantity discounts with
bulk purchase for educational, business, or sales promotional use.
For information, please write to: Special Sales Department,
Andrews McMeel Publishing, 1130 Walnut Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64106.

For Keith

I was not so much the author for this book as the self-appointed magnet for great ideas. An enormous roster of friends proffered their favorite flavors of romance. The best ones made it through this gauntlet of Cabernet-sipping fun police: Rebecca Asher Walsh, Karen Hamilton, Hilary Black, Meredith Berkman, Virginia de Liagre, Barbara Graham, Susan OKeefe, Sheila Buckmaster, Margaret Bergen, Annie Griffiths Belt, and Allison Smiley. Thanks so much to my agent, Claudia Cross; my editor, Kelly Gilbert; and artists Mary Claire Smith and Nina Edwards, who brought these ideas to life. Thanks to Vivian Deushel and all of our friends at the Ritz-Carlton. Thanks also to my trusty researcher, Keren Sachs. And my most heartfelt gratitude goes to my husband, Keith Bellows, my ultimate partner-in-crime for all things divine.

I n my single days, during the excruciatingly long, thirstier-than-the-Sahara dry spells between suitors, I discovered something that saved me: I was never actually lonelyas long as I was having fun. In The Fun Book: 102 Ways for Girls to Have Some, I proposed an obvious if empowering truth: Fun is a single girls best friend. Possible anytime, anywhere, even when you least expect it, fun is a Zen master when it comes to reducing stress, a zippy shortcut to living in the moment, and a stealth bomber to lifes cruelest indignities. The most chivalrous Prince Charming, fun never lets you downeven when life does.

Just when I was getting the hang of thingsriding around in ragtops with girlfriends, perfecting the dirty martini, and amusing myself by using my ex-boyfriends very favorite T-shirt to clean the bathroom flooreverything changed. It happened on a rainy night plucked from the files of when-you-least-expect-it. (And believe me, I was not ready for my close-up.) The following day I was scheduled to leave for France, where I had a writing assignment to cover the Cannes Film Festival for the New York Times Style section. I was unpacked, overweight, and more than mildly stressed.

Maintaining my commitment to fun, however, I had R.S. V.P.d to attend a book signing that night. I was grateful that the affair was for a chick book, rendering the presence of testosterone unlikely, and I wouldnt know a soul in the sophisticated, whos-your-agent? crowd anyway. My plan was to lurk in the back and slip out as soon as my book was signed. Thats when the door banged open andcue the music, pleasein walked the most beautiful man I had ever seen in my life! Tall and tan, with laserlike green eyes and longish salt-and-pepper hair, he strode toward the author with the alpha dog confidence of a movie star. I quickly hid behind a magazine.

The hostess handed me a glass of wine, leaned in, and murmured, The real reason I wanted you here is to meet Keith Bellows. Hes almost single. Now considering the only two men in room were her husband and the Tall Tan Stranger, I knew exactly whom she was talking about.

Gulp.

I hightailed it to the door. My hand was on the knob when I felt a grip on my shoulder. As I turned around, I heard the wors I was dreading.

Melina, Id like to introduce you to Keith. Both of you are with magazines and Im sure you have a lot in common, said Barbara before disappearing.

My mind zoomed to what we did not have in common. Namely, a tiara of frizz, sticking straight up from my forehead. On the way to the book signing, I had wedged in a visit to my hairdresser, who had only had time to chop my bangs without bothering to wet them down first. The effect was Rosanne Rosanadana at best. The other thing that we didnt have in common was a strange white shape above my upper lip. Thats because my mustache wax effectively eliminated the Frida Kahlo lookalong with the pre-Cannes self-tanner I had been applying all week.

Triage: Immediately, I blocked my bangs with my left hand, and strategically hid my mouth behind my wineglass. I managed a muffled Nize-to-meetu from behind my Chardonnay, calmly reassuring myself wed be out of small talk in a nanosecond.

The next thing you know, the hostess was asking us to leave. Somehow, three hours had passed, but Keith and I were so submerged in Deep Flirt that we hadnt even noticed that the entire party had evaporated. This man was so charming that I didnt care about any of the red flags he had mentioned, including that his divorce was not final, he spent every weekend with his son in Tennessee, andthe clincherhe lived several states away, rendering him Geographically Undesirable.