Friends

Thank God for Joan and Don. Without their lunchtime escape from the office, replete with witty, sexy banter, this episode, the worst of the season, would have been pointless. Nothing else quite worked here, in what clearly was a transitional throwaway leading up to the final few episodes this season. I, for one, do not care about Lane's financial issues (though, surely him forging Don's signature on a check to pay debts will come back to bite him). Anything involving Harry is sort of blah, even though his subplot this week brought back and old friend, Paul Kinsey, who has, ahem, gone through some changes.

The Rev. John F. Guidera, a Jesuit missionary who lived in India for six decades while retaining close ties with his Maryland benefactors, died of septicemia May 16 in Jamshedpur. He was 86. Born in Baltimore and raised in Govans, he was a 1943 Loyola High School graduate. He then entered the Jesuit seminary in Wernersville, Pa., and attended Weston College in Weston, Mass. "It was on a November evening in 1950 that the SS Chusan took him to Bombay harbor ... a young Jesuit far from his home in Baltimore, dispatched as a missionary to work for the rest of his life in the land of the poor, the leprotic, the dying and the hungry," a 1986 Evening Sun column said.

This episode begins with Emily meeting for “girl talk” with her best “gal pals.” She mentions that all her friends are the mothers of her daughter's playmates. Can't Emily form meaning relationships by herself? While she hangs out at the park these friends that are twice her age, the guys indulge in a pool party reminiscent of a Schmitts Gay commercial . Only two of the 19 bachelors have chest hair! Ryan Gets the First Date Card Sarah: Ryan “Fluff Head” spent a lot of time getting ready for the date - except he forgot to comb his hair.

The Friends of Patterson Park are holding their 8th annual Wine Tasting at Sunset event on Thursday night around the historic Marble Fountain and Pagoda. Wine tastings and food samplings are coming from Chesapeake Wine Co. , DiPasquale's , Bistro Rx , V-No and  Todd Conner's . The evening includes an acoustic performance by Rob Fahey and silent and live auctions. Tickets are $50 and can be purchased on the Friends website or by calling the Friends office at 410-276-3676.

On January 19, 2006, LAKESHIA D. BAYLOR, beloved daughter of Gale Tucker and Darryl Baylor. Friends may call at the family owned MARCH FUNERAL HOME EAST, 1101 East North Avenue on Thursday after 8:30 a.m. The family will receive friends at River of Life, 5225 Hamilton Avenue on Friday at 10 a.m. Funeral Services will follow at 10:30 a.m. See www.marchfh.com.

I watch with interest the parade of character references that vouch for the integrity of state Sen. Ulysses S. Currie ("Lt. governor calls Currie 'a man of strong integrity,'" Oct. 25). While something can be said for being a "stand-up guy" when your friend is in trouble, to say that he is "a man of strong integrity," as Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, did dishonors Mr. Brown and his office. The court will adjudicate the charges of bribery, but the senator was employed by Shoppers Food Warehouse and did not claim it on his required disclosure forms and did not recuse himself from legislation affecting Shoppers.

The pleasure and complications of no-strings-attached sex In “Friends With Benefits,” opening Friday, Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake navigate the choppy waters of a no-strings-attached sexual relationship. But is Hollywood's version of this alternative relationship option realistic? What are the complications that arise from being friends with benefits? b got in touch with Jacq Jones, the owner of Sugar in Hampden and a sex and relationships educator since 1994, to give us the lowdown on what it takes to be FWB. In your experience as a sex educator, have people asked you for information or advice about what being in a friends with benefits situation is like?

Yes, even millionaires want friends. The percentage of American millionaires on Facebook jumped to 46 percent this year, up from 26 percent a year ago, according to Spectrem eZine. These are people with $1 million to $5 million in net worth, not including their house. Even 47 percent of  the ultra wealthy, those with $5 million to $25 million in net worth, are on Facebook. Spectrem, which tracks the affluent, says that nearly half of the wealthiest investors like treading blogs by trusted financial advisers.

Friends and family of Ellison McCall Jr., who was brutally beaten and set on fire after earlier intervening in a bar fight in Northeast Baltimore, held a vigil Sunday to celebrate his life and press for answers on the year anniversary of his death , The Sun's Tricia Bishop reports. "This was a good guy," said friend Floyd Benton Jr. "He had no enemies. " McCall, 30, was working as a bartender at the New Haven Lounge a year ago and got into an altercation with some patrons, friends told The Baltimore Sun at the time.

There's one question that makes me cringe and instantly start doing the la-la-la, I-can't-hear-you thing with my ears: "Can I tell you how I really feel?" No, dear God, no! Anything but that! It's not that I don't care what other people think. In fact, being a reporter, I've spent a good deal of my life asking people what they think about something. (Well, usually I'm asking what they know, but people generally want to tell you what they think — big difference.)

When they graduated from River Hill High School in 2008, Jonathan Hill , Rajiv Stone and Daniel Thyberg had a grueling summer of physical training awaiting them as they prepared to attend the U.S. Naval Academy together. Four years later, the three friends, all Clarksville natives, are looking forward to graduation and impending commissions as officers. Hill, a history major, will board the USS Ramage, a destroyer based in Norfolk, Va., in June as the ship's auxiliary officer.

They were best buddies who didn't want to risk losing their friendship by dating, but then they took the plunge and have been together since. Wedding date: May 27, 2012 Her story: Jaime Leiner, 27, lives in Owings Mills, which is also where she grew up. She is a graphic designer at Medifast. Her father, Mark H. Leiner, is a computer scientist for theU.S. Department of Defense. Her mother, Mindy Leiner, is a teacher in the Jewish Community Center's early childhood education department.

When Maryland lacrosse coach Cathy Reese told her 5-year-old son Brody last week that the Terrapins might play Loyola and coach Jen Adams in the NCAA quarterfinals, Brody was all smiles. "Mommy, that's so great. You can play each other and tie and both go to the championships. " Unfortunately for the close friends, Brody's wishful scenario cannot come true. Only one can move on from Saturday's noon quarterfinal in College Park to the final four Memorial Day weekend in Stony Brook, N.Y. Facing each other won't be easy.

The mother of slain Florida teenager Trayvon Martin will speak Sunday at a Baltimore mega-church about how she's coping with her son's death, according to the church's pastor. Sybrina Fulton's appearance at Empowerment Temple Church in Northwest Baltimore will be her first in the city, and an opportunity for local parishioners to hear from "a mother who has grieved but still has strength," according to the Rev. Jamal-Harrison Bryant, who founded the 8,000-member church in 2000. Martin, an African American 17-year-old, was shot in February in a gated community in Sanford, Fla., by Hispanic neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman.

Stephen Sondheim's Broadway musical "Company" has a title that refers to the companionship provided by the main character's friends, but it also essentially refers to the acting company that's called upon to do so much singing, dancing and acting. In that respect, it plays to advantage that two of the couples in the enjoyable Silhouette Stages production at Slayton House Theatre are played by real-life married couples. The banter flowing on stage may have been rehearsed across their kitchen tables.

Regina Friend will don her son's ceremonial cap Thursday morning and take footsteps that were supposed to be his. The mere idea of those steps gives her chills, but she will take them. Her only child worked 41/2 years to earn a diploma from Temple University, and she will collect it, proud as any other parent in the room. "He's not here to accept it," the Cockeysville resident said. "So as his mother, and I'm still his mother, I need to get it for him. " Last August, Roswell Friend — Dulaney High graduate, college athlete, selfless friend, soon-to-be Temple alum — went for a run over a Philadelphia bridge and never came back.

At Sykesville's Merry Main Street holiday celebration early in December, Burke Holbrook and his buddy Benjamin Skalka seemed like just two of the many kids that night enjoying the sights and sounds of the holiday season. The two 5-year-olds attended the festivities with their parents, walked along the decorated Main Street, enjoyed the town's Christmas tree and visited Santa Claus as part of their preparations for Christmas. But Christmas 2011 has a special meaning for these two, who started their lives a world away, literally, in an orphanage in Nepal.

What girl doesn't love a sleepover with her friends? It's all about giggling and being silly together. It's a time for sharing secrets, painting each other's nails, and munching on cheese curls and chips while watching the latest Disney princess DVD or teen romance. So it also is for the young women of the ARC of Howard County, the nonprofit that supports people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Twice a month, they gather at the ARC's respite care house in Columbia for their own version of a sleepover, Ladies' Night Out. And while the girls are mostly 20-somethings, with a variety of intellectual and physical disabilities, they are, in many ways, typical girls who love to hang out with their friends, away from their parents.

They remembered Mary-Marguerite Kohn's enthusiasm and service, even her style - one mourner recalled "a large, bright yellow brimmed hat, terrific dangling earrings. " There was hardly an empty seat Tuesday inside the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Baltimore, as family, friends, colleagues and congregants packed a memorial service for Kohn, who died from gunshot wounds sustained from a Thursday shooting at her church in Ellicott City. Kohn, 62, the church's co-rector, and Brenda Brewington, 59, the church's administrative assistant, were shot inside St. Peter's Episcopal Church offices.

In June 2007, a woman named Ruby Pulley was attacked by two pit bulls in East Baltimore. The dogs were owned by a teenager who bred them for sale; neighbors thought he might fight them, though no one wanted to go on the record saying so. An animal control officer wisely confiscated his other dogs, including a puppy whose ears had been cropped down to nubs. This is all public record: The Sun covered the incident and the dog-fighting culture that directly led to it. We don't know what happened to the other dogs, but the puppy was taken in by Recycled Love and spent her first year of life with a devoted foster family.