"'Ich bin ein Berliner' means 'I am a doughnut.'"

Uncle Jimmy brought some disturbing news from back home. He tells me that the food of choice at the Dixie Classic Fair this year is a cheeseburger with two Krispy Kreme doughnuts used as the bun. A quick Google search is telling me we're a bit behind the curve on this one, but still...

...This offends me on so many levels, I feel that I might need charts and graphs to fully express my disgust. And this isn't just those 50 pounds I seem to be missing talking.

The Krispy Kreme donut is the best proof for the existence of a benevolent god that I can find on this planet. Served warm under the glow of the "Hot Doughnuts Now" light, they are melty and sweet and heartbreaking in their beauty. I don't eat them often, because nothing that wonderful should be an everyday occurrence.

I had one in London this summer, just to be sure that the people at Harrod's hadn't corrupted the magic. After seeing what they did to the lemon filled (which is the only thing in the wide world better than plain) in the Tesco kiosk (meringue on top), I had to be sure the basic message hadn't gotten lost in translation. I am happy to report that the Harrod's counter passed muster.

But the problem with the fair people, and the ratfinks responsible for putting meringue on the UK lemon filled, is this. You do not screw around with perfection. This goes beyond "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." You run the risk of angering whatever deity was kind enough to bestow the precious combination of yeast and sugar upon us mere mortals. There's just no reason to add a cheeseburger. Or meringue. And I think a world of history and literature has shown us what happens when you anger the doughnut gods.

The Manda Welcomes You To Her Freudian Nightmare

Right now my dad's brother, my Uncle Jimmy, is sleeping in a van in my driveway. I have always known my Uncle Jimmy as one of The Responsible Ones in the family.

Uncle Jimmy is not homeless. He's got a pretty nice little house in the Piedmont Triad in N.C., even though it does look a little like time stopped in 1975 on the inside. He worked a steady job until he retired a few years ago, and now he works in his garden and on various indoor building projects involving wood and tools I don't understand.

We are do-it-yourself, make-do-and-mend kind of people. Comes from the years on the farm, I'm sure. My grandmother once repaired her coffee percolator using an old fuse. These are my people.

But yesterday morning, my Uncle Jimmy woke up at 2 a.m. and decided to, as he puts it, "go riding around." He has a van that he's tricked out for this purpose, with a gas generator and a fold out bed in the back. So yesterday morning he took off up I-95 and spent the night in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Connecticut, because the van in a Wal-Mart parking lot is his preferred accommodation on the road.

He called me up this afternoon, because he's on his way up to Maine in the morning and thought it would be nice to take his niece out for dinner. I tried to insist that he sleep in the spare room in my house, but he would have none of it. Mom, if you're reading this, I tried.

As I said, though, he's the responsible one.

His brother, a.k.a. Dad, "went riding around" once when I was in college, which would make him about 60 at the time. He went riding around on a Honda Gold Wing. To Alaska. I didn't know where he was for 6 months, because he left strict instructions with his friends not to tell me. He didn't want me to worry.

Then there was the year after Hurricane Andrew hit Florida and the surrounding areas when he lived on a sailboat in the Bahamas, doing repairs on other sailboats.

Apparently Dad and his sister-- also a Responsible One, a retired English teacher-- just got back from a long trip out West. Today would be the first I'm hearing about it.

After my mom and dad split up when I was about 3, he hitchhiked to Florida, which is where he has lived since, off and on anyway.

I've had many people who have told me this messed me up, and I assume they mean it created some kind of convoluted issues of trust and abandonment for me. I've never bought that. But I do wonder sometimes which is worse. For a girl to have a father like mine and resent his absence? Or to have a father like mine and totally idolize him?

But here's how I'm starting to think it might have messed me up. The Kiwi says I'm having a midlife crisis right now, but what if it's more like I've reached the age where a genetic marker gets switched on? Only instead of a terminal disease, this marker makes you want to do things like leave your job, home and family and ride a motorcycle across North America?

It has not escaped my notice that when I was about 3, the Old Man would have been about the age I am now. And it's got to be nature, not nurture, because in our history, talking 8 times a year would be considered frequent. And then my Uncle Jimmy shows up in my driveway on a Monday afternoon.

And don't get me started on the great grandfather who was about the same age as me when he got shot. Family legend says it was a horse deal gone bad-- I swear I am not making this up-- but my aunt (the English teacher) maintains it was probably over a woman.

We're also pretty sure he changed his last name at some point, but the details of Grandpa James's (he's my uncle's namesake)early years are unclear.

So these are also my people. And, Suz, compared to these people, we are rank amateurs.

And for the record, our surname is Smith, not Buffett.