By GAIL ROSENBLUM, Minneapolis Star Tribune

A hunt for land confiscated by the Nazis started in Minnesota with two students using high-tech geographic mapping.
Now it is an international property dispute involving cryptic maps, deeds and farmland taken decades ago.

Elizabeth Brantley has developed a sudden midlife fear of strangers -- the kind walking through her office, unannounced, in suits.

Mike Pitts, 19, can't wait to get to Minneapolis for Thanksgiving, where he'll load up on stuffing (his favorite), pumpkin pie and lively conversation around the table. The only bummer for Pitts, a sophomore at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., is that two key elements of the holiday will be sorely missing: Mom and Dad.

Emma Holly has no trouble explaining the "Twilight" phenomenon or, more specifically, why Stephenie Meyers' vampire-book series is turning adolescent girls across America into hysterical, shrieking balls of putty."It's the bad-boy fantasy," says Holly, the Minneapolis-based creator of the "Midnight" vampire trilogy.

Mary Ann Hinnerichs, 76, spends most days caring for Howard, 75, her husband of 56 years. Last July, Howard had triple-bypass surgery and now, taking 15 steps "is a lot for him," she says. They watch what they eat ("no meat, no dairy") and enjoy the company of their six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

Dominique Hines has been following media coverage of 17-year-old Bristol Palin's pregnancy with great interest. Dominique, 16, is the single mother of a 3-month-old son, Da'Marion. She's also a high-school student with big dreams.

Becky Feyder rarely ate breakfast before her first pregnancy. Before trying for Baby No. 2, though, she did eat breakfast -- a lot of it. Scrambled eggs with cheese, hash browns and sausage. A banana, too. "I was pretty hungry from chasing around child No. 1," Feyder said.

Some are funny, some are goofy. And some are just painful. But most of the confessions in "Dirty Little Secrets From Otherwise Perfect Moms" (Chronicle Books, $12.95) will be a relief to women who have lost their Mother of the Year title more times than they can count.