Calm down, I'm not advocating incest. I'm merely suggesting that some of the same identity-obscuring, affect-flattening nostrums found in modern dating guides can be useful when interacting with Grandma, Uncle Ted, and that one cousin who always wants to talk about guns. Sure, you could watch the 1950 short "A Date With Your Family" (above) to learn about how it's your duty to dress attractively for your male relatives (ew?). But for more up-to-date advice, check out the following tips:

1. Don't talk about yourself too much.

Personal information — like your political views, religious beliefs, or the fact that your name is not actually "Becky" — shouldn't be revealed until the second or third date with your family. Or better yet, not at all. You know the old rule about letting a man talk two-thirds of the time, while you talk one-third? This works well for your family, too, except that the two-thirds portion should be filled by the television.

2. Don't try to cook anything new or complicated.

You know how the way to a man's heart is through a simple yet delicious man-brisket? Families have similarly conservative tastes. This Thanksgiving, my mom made a pie with whole-wheat crust. Three aunts and six cousins broke up with her right away. Don't let this be you.

3. Just agree with everything anyone says.

Many great relationships have ended because of superfluous opinions on the part of the woman — and these opinions can be just as damaging to a family gathering. Instead of saying what you actually think, simply smile and nod, or at most say, "Interesting!" Will it really kill you to pretend you don't believe in the moon landing? No, it won't.

4. Choose inoffensive entertainment.

People have different tastes, and as a woman, your job is to satisfy all of them. Just like a romantic date, an evening with your family isn't about what you want to do — it's about what's least likely to piss off someone else. Family-friendly films include Miss Congeniality, Miss Congeniality 2: Armed & Fabulous, and any biopic that does not involve drugs. Family-friendly music includes nothing.

5. Don't talk about healthcare reform.

This one should just be obvious.

These tips may seem difficult to follow, but over years of subsuming your true thoughts and feelings, they will become second nature. And once you've mastered them, you too can land a family who loves you for who you pretend to be.

Lesson 1: Ice Pops Are Not A Sufficient Meal
D.J. Tanner desperately wanted to look good in a bathing suit for dumb ol' Kimmy Gibbler's boy/girl pool party. Sadly, she decided to obtain the perfect body by subsisting on "ice pops" and working out too hard at the gym. After passing out during a somewhat creepy family fitness excursion (who goes to the gym with their dad, real uncle, and fake uncle, at the age of 13?) , D.J. learns an important lesson: crash diets don't work. Years later she will look back on this incident as the beginning of her seething hatred for the Gibbler. The Gibbler remains oblivious to said hatred and sends D.J. a Christmas card every year with "HOLA, TANNERITO!" written in hot pink marker across the front.


Lesson 2: It Is Important To Not Leave Your Mom's Side At The Grocery Store
The entire premise of Punky Brewster is built on the horrifying incident wherein Punky's mother just ups and ditches her at a grocery store. This terrified me throughout my childhood. If I lingered too long in the cereal aisle, trying to decide between Boo Berry and Count Chocula, and my mother had wandered along to the next aisle over, I had a full out panic attack and started truly believing that I would end up an orphan living with a curmudgeonly photographer. This show is the reason why I insisted upon riding in the cart until I was about 10 years old. Thanks, Punky.


Lesson 3: For The Love Of God, Take Off That Refrigerator Door Another lesson from the crew at Punky Brewster comes to us via Cherie Johnson, who decided to hide in an abandoned refrigerator, and ended up passing out due to lack of air. She was later rescued via CPR, but not by stupid Allen, who had neglected to pay attention in CPR class. Therefore, there are three lessons here: don't hide in a refrigerator, take the doors off of your old refrigerators, and pay attention in CPR class, lest you end up looking like a total tool, Allen-style.


Lesson 4: The Nerd Next Door Just Might Have A Magic Machine That Makes Him Cool
Have a Steve Urkel in your life who won't leave you alone? Perhaps you can take inspiration from Laura Winslow, who actually fell in love with the nerd after he "transformed" into Stefan Urquelle. Because being super shallow and falling in love with someone only after they give themselves a magical makeover and lower their voice a few octaves is just a classy thing to do.


Lesson 5: Just Don't Give A F&*k
If there's one thing we can learn from Kimmy Gibbler, it is to just be the most annoying, loud, ridiculous version of ourselves we can be. Because nobody stops the Gibbler. NOBODY. And if you cross the Gibbler, you'll be labeled a "geekburger with cheese" for the rest of your life. So watch yourself!


Lesson 6: There's No Hope With Dope, Caffeine Will Mess You Up, And Driving Drunk In A Toga Is Always A Bad Idea
Over the course of the series, the kids of Saved by the Bell showed us the dangers of smoking pot, popping pills, and drunk driving. Caffeine pills derail super feminist genius basketcase Jessie Spano's geometry midterm AND her pop group, Hot Sundae; a visit to a toga party results not only in a totaled car, but a totaled lack of trust between the kids and their parents after drunk driving is revealed as the cause; and smoking pot, according to the "Johnny Dakota" episode, results in turning you into a giant Hollywood douchebag with no hopes or dreams. The episode also provides us with Lisa Turtle's best line: "You know, when I wanted to talk to you, I couldn't. And now that I can? I don't want to." OH SNAP!


Lesson 7: You can't always get what you want
That's pretty much all we ever learn from Jan Brady. Life sucks sometimes, even for kids who have their own traveling singing group. And yes, I know she is technically a 70's sitcom heroine, but I grew up watching the reruns as a child. A middle child. A sad, doomed, brace face glasses wearing middle child. I'd tell you more, but I'm late for a date with George Glass.


Lesson 8: Be Your Own Designer!
Does your brother need an awesome designer shirt? Pull a Denise Huxtable and create your own Gordon Gartrelle rip-off. So what if it's slightly ill-fitting? That's what makes it unique.


Lesson 9: If You're A True Friend, Someone Will Thank You For It
Rose, Sophia, Blanche, and Dorothy taught us several things: namely, that women don't become sad sexless beings as the age, but instead live full lives with great friends and wacky adventures. The most important lesson of the Golden Girls, however, is that a good friend means more than anything in the world. And also that St. Olaf is a slightly bizarre place.


Lesson 10: Your Family Will Stand Up For You In The Most Awesome Way Possible
With Claire Huxtable or Julia Sugarbaker on your side, even the biggest jerks will be put in their place. Here, we learn that even if you and your sister don't always get along, she will shut down a hater in your name with love and sass:

What lessons did you learn from the ladies of the 80's? Feel free to post them in the comments.

A Very Special Episode [SanFranciscoChronicle]
Earlier: 10 Cheesy TV Show Opening Credits

1.) Full House, obvs. What didn't make the list was Taradise — Tara Reid's now defunct travel show — but that's only because I scoured the internet for it and it's NOWHERE to be found. Anyway, here's the rest of the list.

2.) Here's Blossom, and her face.

3.) Bridget's Sexiest Beaches has maybe the worst/best song.

4.) I cannot even wrap my mind around the intro for the latest installment of The Real World/Road Rules Challenge. I don't know if I should mock them, or applaud them for keeping straight faces during their performances.

5.) Remember when Oprah sang her own theme song with Patti LaBelle? I tried to find the actual opening sequence used for the show, but Oprah controls the world and internet now, so we'll have to do with this.

6.) I genuinely like the theme song for the canceled soap Passions, but it gives no indication that this show involves sorcery and dolls who come to life as little people.

7.) I love to hate staged opening credits that feature cast members doing things, and then stopping and looking at the camera. Case in point: Family Matters

9.) I find Night Court to be guilty of this as well.

10.) Even though Ray Charles was obviously still alive when this Designing Women theme was filmed, it looks like they're all hanging out with him in heaven.

Bonus:I don't know why I loved Zoobilee Zoo so much as a child, because really, I should have been terrified.

Donald left Anna's mother Virgie when Anna was just nine months old, and did not have a relationship with is daughter. The two reunited 25 years later after Anna hired an agency to locate Donald and her older half-brother. He's speaking up now because he wants Howard K. Stern—who was arrested last month—to answer for his role in procuring the drugs that ultimately led to Anna's death.

The actual story, "When Grandma Can't Be Bothered," deals with grandmothers who, unlike Michelle Obama's hands-on mom, Marian Robinson, aren't intimately involved with their grandchildren. And some who are totally disinterested! Take this family:

As for Catherine Connors, before she had her first child, Emilia, three years ago, "My mother put me on notice," she said. "She told me she was not interested in baby-sitting. She said she'd come to visit but that she didn't like newborns."...True to her word, Judy Connors flew to Toronto from her home in British Columbia a week after her granddaughter's birth. "It was clear she was bored," her daughter said. "There was a lot of sitting in the living room while I struggled to figure out how to nurse. She said, ‘I don't know why you don't just give her a bottle,' and then repaired to the veranda for a cigarette."

Apparently these folks are known as "glam-mas," and because they've "put in their time" raising their own kids, feel no desire to bond with their own grandkids. There is, obviously, no happy medium between grandparents who live in and love being surrogate nannies and people who, apparently, don't really want to know their grandchildren. The article identifies some of the potential areas of tension: today's "helicopter parenting" can seem excessive to a generation of more hands-off parenting, while in turn grandparents who don't share an obsessive interest in children's doings can seem like a personal affront. Then too, some parents apparently resent having to shell out for pricey childcare when their folks are nearby and not doing much. The upshot of the piece is: people are different. Some grandparents are involved, others aren't, some people are selfish, others selfish, some people are arbitrarily resentful when their families don't conform to the standards of a First Family of whose childcare situation they weren't aware two years ago.

We kid, sorta, because it is a legit issue: there's been plenty of talk about how the economy and the First Family's example will conspire to lead to a reinstatement of the multigenerational household. But no one doubts that there are people out there who will buck trends, others who will conform, and that all of them are available for comment in the paper. Nor is either hands-on grandparenting or its hands-off equivalent anything new: I can't pretend I wasn't a bit hurt when no (perfectly healthy, mind you) grandparent came to see me speak at my college graduation and I had to give my extra tickets to folks with more doting families. But by the same token, my own folks are already stocking up the baby stuff they find at tag sales and have assured me that they'll be on hand for (completely hypothetical) childcare. People, as we have mentioned, are different. That's one trend we can bank on. Luckily, so can the 'Styles' section.

When Grandma Can't Be Bothered [New York Times]

The Washington Post reports that since the election, Barack Obama's 87-year-old grandmother, Sarah Ogwel Onyango, has been struggling to adjust to media attention, bodyguards, and crowds around her home in Kogelo, Kenya. "Mama Sarah," stepmother to Obama's late father, has had her home outfitted with new trim, running water, and electricity by the Kenyan government, which has designated the house part of a new Presidential Heritage Tourist Circuit.

But while her new fame has brought some improvements, she has also had her movement restricted. After an attempted burglary last year, an eight-foot wire-mesh fence was put up around her house and security guards were posted 24 hours a day. While her day is now filled with visits from groups of tourists and Kenyan officials, she rarely leaves her house and some of her friends have stopped visited due to the increased security. "Before, Mama Sarah used to move about freely," said her neighbor Mark Ogola. "These days she is confined at home — she can rarely be seen . . . If you have been used to mixing with people and all of a sudden everything changes, I suppose that can make you feel miserable."

Even Obama's second and third cousins, nephews and half uncles and aunts have had to adjust to being related to the future President. Many of them are peasant farmers who now take breaks from their work to talk to journalists and visitors. Obama's cousin Hussein Onyango offers tours of a mat on the dirt floor that marks where Obama slept when he visited Kenya in 1987. Jimmy Hays Obama, 18, a distant relation of the President-elect, says that his teachers now expect him to be more capable and his classmates expect him to buy them Fanta soft drinks. His grandfather, Charles Oluoch, said he tells people, "Look at me, do I look like someone who has money?" and points out his frayed pants and chronic unemployment. "The African way is that if your relative rises, he's supposed to help all his family. I try to explain to people that in America, it's not that way. In America, you can't give your relatives jobs. There are laws. But they are not convinced," he said.

Obama's closest living relative, his half-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng is also dealing with newfound celebrity status, according to another Washington Post report, though she is clearly more familiar with what being famous in America entails. On Saturday, she attended the Asia Society's inaugural reception in D.C. and was calm and steady as she addressed the room packed with people snapping pictures of her on cellphone cameras. She came prepared with a funny quip, remained unflustered when her cell phone rang while she was speaking, and coyly deflected questions as to whether the rumors that she's moving to Washington are true, saying, "It's a beautiful city. I'd love to spend more time here." Somehow we think she will be pretty soon.

A Kenyan Transition To Power [The Washington Post]
Obama's Sister Maya Is Early Inaugural Star [The Washington Post]

We've discussed sisterhood before; but mostly childhood hijinks and run-of-the-mill adolescent torture. Cyndi Hoffman is 47 years old; Peggy is 33. Are they proof that you're never too old for sibling conflict? What made Cyndi turn in her flesh and blood? Is it because, as author Vikki Stark (My Sister, My Self) said on the Today show this morning (see above clip), older sisters are the "caretakers"? Was Cyndi envious of Peggy? (It was a glowing profile in the Times that prompted Cyndi to phone Peggy's publisher and call bullshit on Peggy's claim that she was a half-white, half-Native American girl who grew up in South-Central Los Angeles as a foster child among gang-bangers and ran drugs for the Bloods.)

Times columnist Tara Parker-Pope points out: "While we choose our friends and rely on our parents, siblings remain in our lives by neither choice nor necessity." As both Parker-Pope and Stark say: The relationship between sisters can powerfully influence the outcome of the womens' lives as adults. If your sister was on her way to becoming a best-selling author in a career built on a lie, would you turn her in? Or is it important to be loyal to your family, no matter what? What do you do when being a good person means being a bad sister?

In Sisters, Love and an Urge to Wring Her Neck, Siblings Behaving Badly, Sibling Battles [New York Times]
In Sisters, Love And An Urge To Wring Her Neck [NBC News]

Earlier: Are First-Borns More Successful Than Younger Siblings?
Older Sisters Are All A Bunch Of Hilarious Sadists
An Open Apology To Our Younger Sisters
Did Faux Memoirist Peggy Seltzer Reveal A Culture Of Narcissism Or Racism?
Female Gang-Banging Memoirist Is More Fiction Than Fact

We would urge Amy's fans to send a message to Amy that her addiction and her behavior is not acceptable. Perhaps its time to stop buying records. I believe the record company have a responsibility. They can either cease the contract and say: 'Until you sort yourself out we're not doing any more work together,' or take responsibility and make the pair enter a proper rehabilitation unit where they can't leave until they're sorted out.

The facts are that the day after [Amy and Blake] came out of the facility they were at, we had a meeting with the directors of the facility and the two GPs who were looking after them. Unfortunately Giles and Georgette were due to [attend]. But instead of coming to that meeting to sit with the doctors and with me and representatives of the record company, they chose to go out for a drink to a pub with Amy and Blake.

Amy's dad also said:

This is the problem we find ourselves up against. We have two families pulling in different directions.

I think they both need to get medical help before one of them, if not both of them, eventually will die.

We are concerned that if one of them dies, the other will die. They're a very close couple, and if one dies through substance abuse, the other may commit suicide.

I think you did leave your young teenage sons [aged 13 and 14] in Blake and Amy's care didn't you, because you wanted them to experience responsibility?

Yes, I did. It will never happen again... I'm afraid they abused our trust. Tragically they both took drugs.

Transcript: Winehouse's parents-in-law [BBC News via The Insider]
Transcript: Amy Winehouse's father [BBC News]