Just For Fun

It was ten minutes before the guests were supposed to show up for supper. I had the house cleaned, the food ready, and the table set with the good china. I walked into the dining room to find the cat, up on the table, licking the brand-new stick of butter. Did I mention it happened to be the last stick of butter we'd had in the refrigerator?

I tossed the cat outside, grabbed a sharp knife, neatly sliced off the cat-sampled top of the butter, and put the butter dish back on the table. Yes, I put butter on my mashed potatoes. And no, I never said a word about the minor cat-astrophe. If any of that evening's guests are reading this, please accept my belated apologies, and I only hope you don't know who you are.

For those of us who are neither Emily Post or Martha Stewart, the finer points of kitchen etiquette tend to be a mystery. I know the proper behavior expected of a guest when a meal isn't exactly to one's taste—you sample, smile, and wash it down with lots of water. Except, perhaps, in extreme cases, like the time my uncle stopped at the house of an elderly neighbor and was invited to stay for lunch. The bread seemed to have flecks of whole grain in it, or possibly raisins. A closer look, though, revealed that it was crawling with ants. The neighbor's eyesight wasn't the greatest, and he hadn't noticed. As I remember the story, my uncle brushed the ants off of his as best he could and ate his sandwich. And after that he made sure never to stop by at mealtime.

Maybe he should have said something. But how do you tell someone you've known since you were a child that he has ants in his sandwiches? Even Emily Post might have had a little trouble with that one.

While I've never served ant-flavored bread to anyone, as far as I know, I have pondered bread-related ethics questions. If one slice of bread has a moldy spot on it, do you toss that slice or ditch the whole loaf? If you burn one side of the toast, do you put the scraped side down and hope they won't notice it, or do you try to hide it with jelly and peanut butter? Maybe it's better just to avoid the whole issue and let people make their own toast.

I do have a clearer answer to another matter of kitchen protocol. Is it acceptable to feed leftovers to your guests? Absolutely, especially if you're creative enough as a cook to disguise them (the leftovers, not the guests) as something new. If you're not a creative cook, another approach is to be clear ahead of time that the menu is an "encore presentation."

In fact, leftovers can turn out to have unexpected benefits. I once invited friends over to eat leftover Thanksgiving turkey and to make pie out of some wrinkled apples. Only a few people were able to come, but one of them showed up early and stayed long enough that we eventually got married. It was probably safe to assume he didn't marry me for my cooking. We did, though, debate for years over which of us turned out to be the leftover turkey.

There's just no disobeying the law of gravity. As we get a little older, every time we look in a mirror we can't help but notice gravity's effects in various places. As the years go by, things just start to settle a bit.

The same, of course, is true for houses. And whether you are human or habitat, there is only so much that can be done with plaster, paint, and patching. Sometimes it becomes necessary to do something more fundamental to shore up the foundations.

I mean the house's foundations, of course. It has been settling over the 30-something years since it was moved here, sliding ever so slowly, millimeter by millimeter, downhill toward the septic tank. It has made some progress over the years, as evidenced by the cracked drywall in the basement stairway, the gap between the kitchen counter and the wall, a couple of noticeable cracks in the concrete in front of the garage door, and a definite tilt in the sidewalk behind the house.

This must be a bit embarrassing for a geologist, who presumably would like to think his house had been built on a foundation of solid rock. Of course, it would take a hundred years or so before anything drastic happened, but in geological time that is the merest blink of an eyelash.

All this is by way of explaining why the mudjacking guys were at our house this week, jackhammering, caulking, and doing whatever mudjacking is, exactly. They drilled several holes in the concrete, including one inside the garage that was uncomfortably close to the water line that comes in from the well. As the crew leader admitted after they were done, "Yeah, I was a little nervous about that."

But they missed the water line, so we were spared the excitement and drama of our very own flood. They pumped goop into a hole under the sidewalk where water from the eaves had washed out a bunch of dirt, they filled in the cracks in the concrete, and they leveled things out as much as possible. Then they tidied up after themselves and headed off to the next project.

The garage is safe from gravity for a few more years. Right now we're all square with the world, at least that one particular corner of it. It feels so—uplifting.

Part of the fun of a Saturday-night dance, while taking time to catch one's breath after a couple of jitterbugs followed by a polka, is watching other dancers. It's amazing that so many couples can be doing the same step to the same music, with so many different results.

There is the young guy in baggy jeans, arms pumping, elbows and shirttail flying, who windmills his slender wife around the floor with such energy that they pass everyone else at least twice. From their matching grins, they enjoy every lap.

In contrast, an inconspicuous older couple dance as nonchalantly as if they've only dropped by for a few minutes on their way to somewhere else. They are so smooth and relaxed that it takes a while to notice just how good they really are.

A looming man in cowboy black from head to toe, who must be six foot five with his hat on, always hunches over his partner as if he's afraid she might try to escape. (Not likely, from her smile. Besides, she wouldn't get far in her three-inch heels.) His right hand, fingers spread, stays parked on her lower back just high enough to stay within the bounds of respectability. His motive appears to be locomotion rather than lechery, however. The touch might be a bit personal, but he steers her around the floor with great efficiency.

Then there is the slim couple who are excellent dancers, moving gracefully together with lots of spins and flourishes. What makes their accomplishment all the more remarkable is that they both chew gum. While their feet are waltzing in three-four time, their jaws are moving steadily in four-four time. It's one thing to be coordinated enough to dance and chew gum at the same time—but in different tempos? Don't try this in public until you've practiced it at home.

Then there are a couple of dancers who aren't quite ready for Saturday night yet. For one thing, it would keep them up past bedtime. Last week I saw a video of my two-year-old grandsons, dancing in their pajamas. They both twirled and hopped around and around in circles, always in the same direction, until they got dizzy and fell down. Then they'd giggle, scramble to their feet, and do it all over again.

Maybe they should wait a while before they try it with gum.

Someday I'd like to meet Genevieve. We've never been introduced, but she does seem to have remarkable insights into my daily life. She writes—or intuits or channels or whatever the process may be—the horoscopes that appear in our daily paper.

The essential quality of a good horoscope, of course, is to be simultaneously specific and vague. It needs to appear to be targeted for each individual reader, yet ambiguous enough to be open to interpretation. Genevieve usually manages this balancing act quite well.

Since she seems to know a lot about me, it would be nice to make the relationship a little more balanced by knowing a little more about her. Of course, it is possible to imagine a few things about Genevieve's life from skimming all 12 of the horoscopes.

One day might have a lot of five-star days in the cards, with several entries along the lines of "let yourself go," "your fiery side emerges," or "open yourself to new possibilities." That's a clue that Genevieve has met a wonderful new guy.

Another morning might reveal three-star days for almost everyone, with six out of twelve signs warned to "be wary of new relationships" or "others are not always who they seem." Oops, apparently Genevieve's new boyfriend didn't turn out to be Mr. Right after all.

A lot of recommendations to "be sensitive to your budget" or "let go and worry less about your finances"? Genevieve opened her credit card bill just before she sat down to cast the horoscopes for the day.

Genevieve's true genius, however, may be her gift for meshing couples' horoscopes. Before launching into the day, it's always a good idea to read, not only your own horoscope, but also your spouse's. The other day, for example, mine told me to "speak your mind and aim for exactly what you want." His cautioned, "You might want to mellow out. A boss or loved one may seem demanding and unreasonable."

If that was what the stars and Genevieve said, of course, it must be so. Too bad I had a five-star day and his was only two.