This is what's amazing: That Loretta Motz Cook has a hair left, what with the way she tears it out this time of year.

        Ms. Cook, recall, is the Mariemont woman who for the past 29 Christmas Eves has found a puzzlement on her doorstep. Always elaborate, hand-crafted and containing a truly awful play on words, it comes from an anonymous perp.

        She got another this year in her new home (the perp has followed her through four moves) a few days ago when she got home from a diving vacation in Mexico.

This yearıs riddle is a Ken doll wearing holly and fishing. Thereıs a lure at the end of Kenıs fishing line and a fish-shaped hunk of ³Lindberger² nearby. (Joseph Fuqua II photo) | ZOOM |

        Past riddles have included:

        • A bullet in a leafless tree: A cartridge in a bare tree.

        • A toy truck full of tiny cows crashing through cattle stalls. The truck had Parton Cattle Ranch on the side: Wreck the stalls with cows of Dolly.

        • Two Volkswagen engine heads with springs in the piston bore holes and gumdrops atop the springs: Sugarplums Danced in Their Wee Little Heads.

        • A naked Ken doll with a halo, a nickel glued to his bottom, a deck of cards and a rowboat: That one's 15 years old and she still hasn't figured it out.

        So now comes a new one with another Ken and, sniff, more limburger. It's a 4-foot by 4-foot hunk of plywood with Ken in a row boat. He's wearing a shirt with clumps of holly on front and holding a fishing pole. There's a lure at the end of the line and a fish shaped hunk of limburger nearby.

        “I'm totally baffled, but I've hardly had time to think about it yet. What happens is it comes to me about 3 in the morning. Maybe your readers have an idea?”

        Hmm. So any new ideas on who does the deed? She has none, but there are plenty of suspects: Seems she's a merciless practical joker with a cast of a zillion victimes, including husband David,

        “Somebody's getting even and doing a good job of it.”

        We'll say.

        Making babies: Speaking of puzzlements, here's Mady Gordon's Christmas card showing her and four babies. Odd, since she doesn't have kids.

        Turns out the kids are success stories from the Madeleine Gordon and Jerome Gordon Gift of Life Foundation, a charity she and her former husband founded to help couples with fertility problems.

        “We started in 1995 for my 50th,” she says. “I didn't want more gowns and hankies, so we got money from family and friends, especially my mother-in-law Vera (Gordon) and set this up.

        “I know from experience what an emotional roller coaster it can be. Our goal was to at least take the financial stress out of the process.”

        The rules: Financial need and the couple must never have had children together, though it's OK if one has kids by a previous marriage.

        “People write letters to the foundation and I answer them, then forward them to a team of doctors. They select candidates.”

        There are 12 success stories out there and could be more if the foundation had more money. “I'm always beating the bushes looking for dollars.”

        Couples looking for help can write the foundation at P.O. Box 6945, Cincinnati 45206.

       Contact Jim Knippenberg at 768-8513; fax: 768-8330. Read his previous columns at the Enquirer Web site on Cincinnati.Com.

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