I like this one..and that one...and...well, Happy Chinese New Year to all!

By the way, whenever Helen gives me that smile of hers with the one huge dimple on her left and almost no discernable dimple on the right, I'm always reminded of Tolstoy's description of the young Princess Bolkonsky, "celebrated as the most seductive woman in Petersburg." Tolstoy mentions that the only way in which the Princess's face fell short of perfectly symmetrical, classical beauty, was that her upper lip was very short, usually failing to cover her teeth. But he goes on to add, "As is always the case with perfectly charming women, her defect -- the shortness of the lip and the half-opened mouth -- seemed her peculiar, her characteristic beauty."

This made no sense to me until I spent three days with Helen on my first trip to Shanghai, came back head-over-heels in love...and whenever I would remember her smile, that one-sided dimple was the first thing I thought of, and always with delight. "Her peculiar, her characteristic beauty..." Um, yep.