When I brought up the idea to my mother a few months ago, she was against it. She said if I do this it will change my relationship with her. My boyfriend and I are college graduates, have good jobs and are self-supporting. If things work out between us, we will most likely be getting married next year.

I am an only child and I don't want to hurt my mother or have our relationship change, but I want to be able to live my own life. I would like her support, but don't know how to tell her what we have decided or if it would be worth breaking the special bond between my mother and me. -- ONLY CHILD IN CALIFORNIA

DEAR ONLY CHILD: Stop beating around the bush and tell your mother what your plans are. At 25, you are old enough -- and this relationship has gone on long enough -- that moving in together is a natural progression toward a permanent commitment. Her resistance is based on fear of what your independence from her will mean -- to her.

However, if you truly can't decide whether cutting the umbilical cord is worth it, then keep things as they are -- and remain her little girl forever.

DEAR ABBY: I am a teenager who has liked this guy for a long time. We've been best friends forever, and I have liked him for two years. Recently he asked me out, and I was ecstatic -- at first. I still like him, but every time I think about him or I'm around him, or anything about him comes up, I get this horrible nausea. I have actually vomited because of it. How can I like him but he makes me feel ill? Is there a way to remedy this? -- LOVESICK IN PHOENIX

DEAR LOVESICK: Severe anxiety can cause someone to have the symptoms you have described. It's not unlike the feeling one has when riding a roller coaster. You appear to be suffering from an extreme case of young love, and there is no medication that can cure it. Try to remain calm, and your symptoms should subside over time.

DEAR ABBY: Your column often provides helpful tips to your readers. May I suggest that you remind those who are, or know someone who is, college-bound never to hesitate to apply for as many scholarships as possible -- regardless of how small.

My local conservation association has been giving scholarships for 11 years. Some years we get no applicants! The amounts are $500 and $1,000. This money could pay for books, lab fees or go toward tuition, but we get few applicants. Many fraternal organizations also give out numerous small scholarships. These all add up and can help to reduce the college debt burden we hear so much about.

It's never too soon to start. There are middle school and high school contests, too. Now is the time for students to start their college funds with all the prizes and scholarships they can accumulate. -- HELPING THE NEXT GENERATION

DEAR HELPING: I'm sure many families will thank you for this reminder. Readers, many small scholarships are available -- and the thing to do is talk to your school counselor and research online or at your local library. Indeed, it's never too soon to start looking.

Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Write Dear Abby ator P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.

For everything you need to know about wedding planning, order "How to Have a Lovely Wedding." Send your name and mailing address, plus check or money order for $7 (U.S. funds) to: Dear Abby, Wedding Booklet, P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, IL 61054-0447. (Shipping and handling are included in the price.)

Folks like Van Arkel, who live in the stately homes lining the perimeter of Merion Golf Club, suddenly have 25,000 new best friends for drinks and nibbles and hanging out in genteel surroundings.

Who knew, the block party of the summer could be found on Golf House Road.

Then again, there was little choice.

To pull off the U.S. Open, which hadn't been played at Merion since 1981, club officials needed help from members, many of whom live on properties practically flush against the course. Back then, there may have been a few tents sprinkled here and there. Now, they're everywhere, for merchandise, sponsors and sprawling hospitality villages.

So when the call went out for tennis courts, front yards, and driveways, the neighbors didn't need much time to say yes.

"Hey, it's all part of the deal," said Van Arkel, who works in investment services. "If you want to have the U.S. Open after 32 years, this is what you've got to do."

You've got to look away when your yard starts looking like a Monster Truck rally tore through.

You've got to get used to those giant white tents.

You've got to turn a deaf ear to the air conditioning units and generators now a whisker away from your flower beds.

Van Arkel, a club member who lives on College Avenue, has lost his backyard tennis court for about a month. The oversized "Welcome to the 113th U.S. Open" entrance tent for media and volunteers was plopped on the court, complete with baggage scanners and ID checks.

His yard was fenced in about a month ago and he was recently told he'd probably have to live with it another month before it's removed.

The USGA rented a vacant property near his house and cleared a path for carts to whisk VIPs away.

He refused to disclose how much he was paid for use of his land in one of the priciest areas in suburban Philadelphia. But Van Arkel called estimates of six-figure rent checks absurd.

Not far down the road, Bob and Joanie Hall's driveway just off the 16th tee morphed into Party Central. And every party needs a few good rumors.

The juiciest: Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson or Rory McIlroy would take over one of the sprawling tent compounds and hang out there.

Nope. Just dozens of fans swigging beers, smoking cigars, and eschewing high-def TV for the real deal just across the street.

And in any case, it's been a bit of a nuisance trying to drive anywhere so residents were issued ID badges so they could move freely around their own neighborhood.

Championship director Hank Thompson said they could expect inconveniences for about another 45 days.

The USGA called Merion a "boutique Open" and the charm is apparent everywhere.

The first hole tee box is next to the clubhouse patio, where the tinkling of glasses rings through the air before the first drive of the day. Wicker baskets, the official symbol of Merion, have replaced flags on greens.

And forget lockers and podiums for post-round interviews. Most are held in the backyard of a home with a pool and a slide as a backdrop.

When the interviews are over, players hop a short shuttle ride to local businessman Tom Gravina's compound, which is now their hospitality area.

"We'll see in the end if everybody would do it again," Van Arkel said. "We would, and I'm guessing the majority of the neighbors would."

Hold on. Not everyone.

Suzanne Goodwin, who has lived on Golf House Road since 1975, can't wait for the circus to leave town.

Reached by telephone when a security guard (provided by the golf club) wouldn't allow a reporter to knock on the door, she said, "''Wait one second! I want to tell you the other side."

She complained of construction noise in the middle of the night and traffic turning her road into the "New Jersey Turnpike."

Goodwin said she didn't mind living through the 1981 Open because the takeover simply involved a few tents and beefed up security.

Now, it's life under the big top.

Goodwin is not a Merion Golf Club member, and claimed that's why the USGA didn't bite on her offer to rent her house.

Officials erected a 6-foot high fence in front of her property cutting a hole for her mailbox and Goodwin has a 24-hour security detail at the end of her driveway.

"We're basically prisoners in here," she said. "They just have all this nonsense. It's different when you actually live here.

" Now, if they were paying me for that," she conceded, "I wouldn't be so annoyed."

Hasan Rowhani's surprise victory in Friday's elections puts him in charge of an executive branch that traditionally has taken the lead in handling the economy, but nuclear efforts, defense and foreign affairs remain primarily in the hands of the ruling clerics and their powerful protectors, the Revolutionary Guard.

This creates a challenge for Rowhani, as Iran suffers from more than 30 percent inflation as well as 14 percent unemployment rates linked to Western sanctions for Tehran's suspect nuclear program. Rowhani has called for reaching out to the international community but has little authority over the nuclear activities tied to sanctions.

The semi-official ISNA agency said Rowhani discussed inflation and unemployment as well as possible members of his cabinet with Ali Larijani, speaker for Iran's conservative dominated parliament.

"Today, we took the first step for cooperation between two branches of power," Rowhani was quoted as saying. Rowhani will take office in August and needs parliament to approve his proposed nominees for 18 ministries.

Meanwhile, the Revolutionary Guard declared its willingness to cooperate with the president. "We announce our comprehensive readiness for interaction and cooperation with the next administration in the framework of legal duties and assignments," the Guard said on its webpage.

The outward displays of cooperation by Iran's establishment reflect its desire to close the political rift caused by unrest over disputed election results in 2009, and signal to world leaders that the ruling clerics are not publicly standing against Rowhani's call for outreach and dialogue with the international community.

Iran's stock exchange meanwhile climbed for the second continuous day. The rise came after a night of a celebration in Tehran, as the announcement of Rowhani's victory sent tens of thousands of jubilant supporters into the streets. Cars honked and blared music ranging from patriotic songs to the Lambada.

Riot police, who were frequently deployed on Tehran streets in the run-up to Friday's vote, were conspicuous in their absence. State TV showed footage of the celebrations and rebroadcast a speech he made after his victory was announced Saturday, asserting Iran's readiness to improve its ties with the world.

The website of the Tehran Stock Exchange said the market jumped 1,194 points by its closure at noon on Sunday, reaching 47,460 from its Saturday close of 46,623, almost a 2.5 percent increase.

On Saturday the stock exchange index improved by 2 percent while Iran's national currency, the rial, strengthened by 9 percent against the U.S. dollar.

Foreign currency shops Sunday traded each U.S. dollar for 34,600 rials compared to 36,300 rials Thursday, the eve of the election.

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Bilbo seems to be psyching himself up to go face to face with the dragon in the new teaser poster for "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug."

The new look at the hotly anticipated return to Middle Earth was released on the film's Facebook fanpage by Warner Bros. on Sunday night and attracted nearly 70,000 "likes" within hours of its debut.

The captivating art finds the titular hobbit preparing to enter the gates of what appears to be the Lonely Mountain. Smoke is wafting out of the doorway, signaling that a less than warm welcome is likely in store for our hero.

In addition, Warner Bros. revealed that the first trailer for the film will be unveiled Tuesday at 10 a.m. PST / 1 p.m. EST.

"The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" hits theaters on December 13, 2013.

With his younger brother following along and constantly pushing him, Moore became a rising talent in action sports.

The innovative freestyle snowmobile rider, who was hurt in a crash at the Winter X Games in Colorado, died Thursday morning. He was 25.

Moore had been undergoing care at a hospital in Grand Junction since the Jan. 24 crash. Family spokeswoman Chelsea Lawson confirmed his death, the first in the 18-year history of the X Games.

"He lived his life to the fullest. He was an inspiration," Lawson said.

A former all-terrain vehicle racer, Moore switched over to snowmobiles as a teenager and quickly rose to the top of the sport. He won four Winter X Games medals, including a bronze last season when his younger brother, Colten, captured gold.

Caleb Moore was attempting a backflip in the freestyle event in Aspen last week when the skis on his 450-pound snowmobile caught the lip of the landing area, sending him flying over the handlebars. Moore landed face first into the snow with his snowmobile rolling over him.

Moore stayed down for quite some time, before walking off with help and going to a hospital to treat a concussion. Moore developed bleeding around his heart and was flown to a hospital in Grand Junction for surgery. The family later said that Moore, of Krum, Texas, also had a complication involving his brain.

Colten Moore was injured in a separate crash that same night. He suffered a separated pelvis in the spill.

The family said in a statement they were grateful for all the prayers and support they have received from people around the world.

X Games officials expressed their condolences and said Moore, a four-time X Games medallist , would be remembered "for his natural passion for life and his deep love for his family and friends."

B.C. Vaught, Caleb Moore's agent for almost a decade, said he first saw Moore when he was racing an ATV in Minnesota and signed him up to star in some action sports movies.

Later, Moore wanted to make the switch from ATVs to snowmobiles and Vaught helped him. A natural talent, it only took Moore two weeks to master a difficult backflip.

Moore honed his skills in Krum, a town about 5,000 people 50 miles northwest of Dallas that rarely sees snow. Instead, he worked on tricks by launching his sled into a foam pit. After a brief training run on snow ramps in Michigan, he was ready for his sport's biggest stage the 2010 Winter X Games.

In that contest, Moore captured a bronze in freestyle and finished sixth in best trick. Two years later, his biography on ESPN said, "Caleb Moore has gone from 'beginner's luck' to 'serious threat.'"

That was hardly a surprise to Vaught, who said, "Whatever he wanted to do, he did it."

Vaught said Moore didn't believe his sport was too extreme, but rather "it was a lifestyle." He was good at it along with ATV racing as he accumulated a garage full of trophies.

Fellow snowmobile rider Levi LaVallee recently described Moore as a "fierce competitor."

"A very creative mind," LaVallee said. "I've watched him try some crazy, crazy tricks and some of them were successful, some of them not so much. But he was first guy to get back on a sled and go try it again. It shows a lot of heart."

X Games officials said in a statement that they would conduct a thorough review of freestyle snowmobiling events and adopt any appropriate changes.

"For 18 years, we have worked closely on safety issues with athletes, course designers and other experts. Still, when the world's best compete at the highest level in any sport, risks remain," they said, noting that Moore was hurt performing a move he had done several times before.

Now the oversight has been rectified.

The one-word verb "galocher" to kiss with tongues is among new entries added to the "Petit Robert" 2014 French dictionary, which hit the shops Thursday.

It may surprise many that France a country famed for its amorous exploits and which gave the world sex-symbol Brigitte Bardot, romantic photographer Robert Doiseau and even scandal-hit former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn is only just linguistically embracing the popular pastime.

Yet Laurence Laporte of the Robert publishing house says that it's just the way language evolves.

"We always had many expressions to describe 'French-kissing,' like 'kissing at length in the mouth,' but it's true, we've never had one single word," she said.

The term "French kiss" once also called a "Florentine kiss" is popularly considered to have been brought back to the English-speaking world by soldiers returning from Europe after World War I. At the time, the French had a reputation for more adventurous sexual practices.

Laporte said "galocher" was a slang term that's been around for a while "but only now is it being officially recognized in a French dictionary."

"La galoche" is an ice-skating boot, so the new term riffs evocatively on the idea of sliding around the ice.

The word expert added a caveat about the power of language. The lack of a specific term "never stopped us from doing it," Laporte noted.

LONDON (Reuters) - American short story writer Lydia Davis won the fifth Man Booker International Prize for fiction on Wednesday for a body of work that includes some of the briefest tales ever published.

Davis, a professor of creative writing at the University of Albany, is best known for work that Observer critic William Skidelsky once said "redefines the meaning of brevity".

She is also an accomplished translator whose English versions of Marcel Proust's "Du Cote de Chez Swann" (Swann's Way) and Gustave Flaubert's "Madame Bovary" helped earn her a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters in France.

Davis said it was Proust's monumental work and famously long sentences that helped inspire her succinct writing style.

"Actually, when I was translating Proust was when I thought 'how short could a short story be?'" she told Reuters after receiving the 60,000 pound ($90,800) award in London. "I thought 'how little could you say and still have it work?'"

Some of Davis's longer stories may run to two, three, as many as nine pages, while others can be as brief as a paragraph or even just a sentence.

"Idea for a Short Documentary Film" in the 2009 "Collected Stories of Lydia Davis" reads:

"Representatives of different food products manufacturers try to open their own packaging."

Davis - who has only written one novel - beat out a shortlist of 10 contenders for the prize that included two authors banned in their home countries, the youngest ever nominee and one shortlisted for the second time.

Booker International panel chairman Christopher Ricks said 65-year-old Davis's stories embraced so many literary structures that it was hard to narrow them down to a single label.

"Should we simply concur with the official title and dub them stories?" Ricks said in a statement announcing the prize.

"Or perhaps miniatures? Anecdotes? Essays? Jokes? Parables? Fables? Texts? Aphorisms, or even apophthegms? Prayers, or perhaps wisdom literature? Or might we settle for observations?"

Davis' one novel is entitled "The End of the Story" and she has written seven story collections including "Break It Down", "Almost No Memory", "Samuel Johnson Is Indignant" and "Varieties of Disturbance".

A new collection, "Can't and Won't", is due to be published in the United States in 2014.

Davis is considered hugely influential by a generation of writers including Jonathan Franzen, David Foster Wallace and Dave Eggers, who once wrote that she "blows the roof off of so many of our assumptions about what constitutes short fiction."

The Man Booker International Prize is presented once every two years to a living author for a body of work published either originally in English or available in translation in the English language.

Previous winners include U.S. novelist Philip Roth in 2011, Canadian novelist Alice Munro in 2009, the late Nigerian poet and novelist Chinua Achebe in 2007 and Albanian writer Ismail Kadare in 2005.

(Reporting by Paul Casciato and Ana Nicolaci da Costa; editing by Mike Collett-White)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - A privately owned asteroid mining firm, backed in part by Google Inc's founders, launched a crowd-funding project on Wednesday to gauge public interest in a small space telescope that could serve as a backdrop for personal photographs, officials said.

Planetary Resources, based in Bellevue, Washington, plans to build and operate telescopes to hunt for asteroids orbiting near Earth and robotic spacecraft to mine them for precious metals, water and other materials.

It also plans an educational and outreach program to let students, museums, armchair astronomers and virtual travelers share use of a telescope through an initiative on Kickstarter, a website used to raise funds for creative projects.

Planetary Resources aims to raise $1 million by June 30 to assess public appetite for participating in a space project. It expects to launch its first telescope in 2015.

For a pledge of $25, participants can make use of a "space photo booth" by sending a picture to be displayed like a billboard on the side of the telescope with Earth in the background. Its image would then be snapped by a remote camera and transmitted back.

Starting at $200, participants can use the telescope to look at an astronomical object.

The Kickstarter campaign complements the company's ongoing efforts to design and build its first telescope, called ARKYD. Investors include Google Chief Executive Larry Page and Chairman Eric Schmidt, as well as Ross Perot Jr., chairman of the real estate development firm Hillwood and The Perot Group.

"All we are asking is for the public to tell us that they want something," company co-founder Eric Anderson told reporters during a webcast press conference on Wednesday.

"We're not going to spend our time and resources to do something if people don't want it and really the only way to prove that it's something people want is to ask them for money," he said.

Planetary Resources is not the first space startup to turn to crowd-funding. Colorado-based Golden Spike, which plans commercial human expeditions to the moon, has launched two initiatives on Indiegogo, another Internet-based funding platform.

Golden Spike exceeded a $75,000 goal to start a sister firm, called Uwingu, designed to funnel profits into space projects, but fell far short of a $240,000 target for spacesuits for Golden Spike's first moon run.

Hyper-V Technologies of Virginia turned to Kickstarter to raise nearly $73,000 to help develop a plasma jet electric thruster. STAR Systems in Phoenix, Arizona, raised $20,000 for work on a hybrid rocket motor for its suborbital Hermes spaceplane.

Last year, Washington-based LiftPort ended an $8,000 Kickstarter campaign with more than $100,000 to demonstrate how robots could climb a 1.2-mile long tether held aloft by a large helium balloon.

The company is working on an alternative space transportation system called a "space elevator" that uses tethers or cables instead of rockets.

"I think crowd-funding is a new kind of bike and people are trying and willing to ride it, some successfully, some not as successfully, but I think it's here to stay," said Golden Spike founder and planetary scientist Alan Stern.

"These companies like Kickstarter and Indiegogo and RocketHub, they seem to be some kind of marketing distribution system that lets people with an idea put it out there. Previously people didn't know how to do that except run an ad in a newspaper. It's a capability we just didn't have five years ago," Stern said.

(Editing by David Adams and Richard Chang)

''This must be great for you guys,'' he said through his laughter. ''Come out to the PGA Tour and every week they hand you another story.''

And he wasn't talking about Adam Scott winning the Masters.

The debate over anchored strokes and long putters. Deer antler spray. Rule 33-7. A player cleared of an anti-doping violation on a technicality, and then suing his own tour. Players hiring an attorney over a new rule related to the long putter.

And this was before the public spat between Sergio Garcia and Tiger Woods took an ugly turn that brought overtures of racism back into golf.

''It's been quite a controversial year for golf,'' Lee Westwood said.

Woods already has won four times on the PGA Tour going into the Memorial, a tournament he already has won five times in his career. So when someone asked Westwood on Tuesday if there was a sense that the No. 1 player was on the verge of going on a big run, Westwood looked mildly perplexed.

''I think he's on one, isn't he?'' Westwood said. ''How many tournaments has he played this year? He's won more than 50 percent.''

But any talk of Woods is sure to include the illegal drop he took at the Masters, the two-shot penalty he received the next day, the incorrect scorecard with his signature on it and Augusta National invoking Rule 33-7, which gave it discretion to disregard the penalty of disqualification for the incorrect scorecard.

That debate lost steam when Vijay Singh sued the tour the day before The Players Championship began at TPC Sawgrass, where the Fijian spent years honing a game that brought him nearly $70 million in earnings and a spot in the World Golf Hall of Fame. Lawsuits against the tour are rare, but the details of this one were bizarre.

''Nobody has ever sued the tour for being cleared of getting a drug violation,'' Padraig Harrington said.

WADA warned against deer antler spray. Vijay Singh used deer antler spray. The tour proposed a six-month suspension. Singh appealed. WADA said deer antler spray was no longer the same concern. Singh was off the hook. And then Singh sued the tour.

The good news for PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem was the lawsuit was largely forgotten three days later. The bad news for the tour was why it was forgotten.

Singh vs. PGA Tour felt like an undercard compared with Garcia vs. Woods.

The Spaniard threw a sucker punch during a rain delay by suggesting Woods was the cause of a commotion in their final group of the third round. Woods fired back by calling out Garcia for his constant complaining, which led Garcia to say Woods wasn't the nicest guy on tour. And with no interest by either side in a truce, Garcia tried to make a joke about having Woods over for fried chicken, and he wound up with egg on his face.

Garcia threw out the racial stereotype the same day that the Royal & Ancient Golf Club and U.S. Golf Association introduced Rule 14-1b, effective in 2016, that would ban the anchored stroke used for long putters - like the one Scott used when he won the Masters, or the one Els used at the British Open, and Webb Simpson in the U.S. Open, and the ones used by Tim Clark and Carl Pettersson their entire pro careers.

At least three players, including Scott, have retained a lawyer as they wait to see whether the PGA Tour goes along with the new rule. The tour met with its Player Advisory Council on Tuesday at Muirfield Village, the first step toward figuring out which direction it will go.

According to one PAC member at the meeting, there was passion on both sides of the debate, which was not surprising. And there was no consensus, also not surprising. This was only a conversation, and from all indications, no one called anyone names.

So much for golf's reputation as a genteel sport.

''Is it bad for golf?'' Nick Watney said Tuesday afternoon. ''It depends on your theory of publicity. If you had the Kardashian feeling that any publicity is good publicity, then it's good. If you're a purist in terms of golf, then it's bad. The lawsuits, the rule change, the little feud going on. My view is that it's bad. This is supposed to be a gentleman's game. We're different from a lot of other pro sports.''

This isn't the first time golf has gone way beyond birdies and bogeys.

There was the lawsuit involving Ping and the square grooves in the 1980s. There was Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, leading the breakaway from the PGA of America to start what is now the PGA Tour at the end of the 1960s. Imagine if Woods and Phil Mickelson did something like that today.

''It's not a perfect game,'' Curtis Strange said. ''Some people believe there's no such thing as bad press, but it seems like we're still having growing issues. We're learning how to handle doping issues, although nobody has learned to do that yet. I'm been reading about Lance Armstrong all day.''

It always seemed like some other sport's problems, and now some of those problems belong to golf.

''It's been great on the golf course - fantastic, really,'' Geoff Ogilvy said. ''Tiger has won four times. The Masters was amazing again. Any time golf is in the newspaper, it's a good thing for us. Obviously, the Sergio-Tiger thing wasn't good. But it has been a tumultuous year.''

And it's not anything Finchem can make go away with a wave of his hand. Considering that golf is a niche sport, maybe that's not the worst thing.

''Outside the ropes, golf is probably more interesting than it ever has been,'' Robert Garrigus said. ''I don't think it's all that bad if it makes our sport more interesting. There might be a few more people come out to the U.S. Open.''

That would be good for golf. Maybe not so much for Garcia.

No decision has been made regarding dates of the NFL Draft in 2015 and beyond, the NFL said in a statement on Tuesday.

Teams were told that a variety of alternatives were being explored for future drafts, including continuing at Radio City, moving to another New York location or other cities.

The change in the date of the 2014 Draft will not impact any other parts of the offseason schedule for teams, the NFL said.

(Reporting by Larry Fine in New York; Editing by Frank Pingue)