I wish John Forsythe was my dad

Andy Taylor used to be my fantasy father, but he's been replaced by Bentley Gregg, the main character of Bachelor Father.

Played by John Forsythe, Bentley is a well-to-do, never-married Beverly Hills attorney with a beautiful ranch house, a house boy named Peter, a dog named Jasper, and, suddenly, a teenage daughter. His niece, Kelly. She moves in with Bentley and Peter after her parents are killed in a tragic car accident.

The show ran from 1957 to 1962, and ended with Kelly enrolling in college. I imagine that Bentley was something of a heart throb back in the day. The show's plots all seem to revolve how irresistible he finds women, and how they feel the same way about him.

But I love how he talks to her. He always calls Kelly, "darling" or "dear." He takes her seriously and listens to her. He knows all her friends and all her friends' parents. He encourages her in everything she tries to do.

Sigh. When I watch reruns and find myself jealous of a girl on Bentley's arm, it's always Kelly I'd like to switch places with.

I like my doctor

She's so great. She's the one who discovered the problem that had been plaguing me for months last summer, the one that my gynecologist had dismissed as menopause or depression but was really a very long, very fat cyst.

Today I had my regular old physical, no big deal. We have no reason to suspect anything is wrong, but she took a blood panel anyway, just to see if I still need cholesterol meds. While we were talking, she revised the order for blood work to check for some other things. My "incipient fatigue." While I'm feeling better than I was a year ago, I still tire so easily. She thinks it might be thyroid or, failing that, she'd like to investigate my sleep patterns. She thinks that a sleep disorder may be interrupting my restorative sleep and messing with my metabolism.

She listens to me. She doesn't give up until she gets to the root of the problem. She wants me to have the best quality of life I can.

She's so cool.