True story: Somewhere between our initial flirtations over email and the end of our second date, I found out that my fiance-to-be’s surname was not Jaffe; it was Lorre. Thank goodness his friends tend to call him by his last name, so that all I had to do was listen to another one of his long, boring stories (j/k, babe!) to realize that I’d remembered it wrong.

But if you don’t get lucky like that, Tango’s got a short list of other memory tricks that just might work. One comes straight from ex-Prez Bill Clinton, who reportedly repeats a person’s name back at him or her while looking him or her in the eyes… I’m guessing this explains much about Slick Willie’s usual effect on the her’s.

Of course, as the story points out,  you can always just ask. I like to ask while feigning a moment of memory-escaping befuddlement (hand to forehead, squeeze eyes closed a sec), and then when I ask “What’s your name again?” and inevitably receive the person’s first name, I say, “No, no, no, I’m sorry — I meant your last name.” It works!

Just one more thing — as promised — about John Edwards, now that BG is back from her trip to Elizabeth. I hesitate to add even this, given that we, as a blog (thanks, commenters!) and a nation, have said plenty. But just for the BG record, here goes.

Cheating is bad. GIVEN. No argument there, no intention of diminishing it on its face. Painful, too, is disappointment: finding out that those (dwindling few) whom we admire — for helping the humble! — have fallen slave to their own hubris.

But in the political, national, even human picture, this has only as much importance as we give it, which was way too much even before the maudlin mea-culpa-fest (which, huh, no one watched). It is not possible to name a political perpetration from the last eight-ish years that is less important than this. And yet we don’t hear Dick Cheney saying, “…All of which fed a self-focus, an egotism, a narcissism that leads you to believe that you can do whatever you want: you know, like lie your way into war” while he wells up to Woodruff. “Also, the baby? I ate it.”

Okay? Done. Keeping focus, readusting priorities; moving on. But — on the subject of oldish news about politicians and their spice — I’ll be happy to talk about this (or, hey, this) anytime.