RED ALERT! (How to make your house presentable for unexpected guests)

My high-school friend Cathy had a very clever mother. Mrs. Watt designed a system for doing an inst-tidy on the house in the event of unexpected guests that she called the "red alert." If Mrs. Watt hung up the telephone right after saying, "Oh, it will just be so lovely to see all of you!" depending on the state of the household at that moment, her next words, addressed to the family were "RED ALERT!"

This was the signal for everyone to hastily drop whatever they were doing and go to whatever station in the house had been assigned to them and start cleaning like they'd just heard that Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and the Pope were coming over to discuss the defeat on communism. (Yes, this was the 1980s.) I don't remember specifically what Mrs. Watt had everyone do, but I was reminded of the red alert when I was reading a magazine article titled "How to Get Your House Ready for Guests." I won't name the magazine because I generally like it very much, but this particular article was just all kinds of bogus.

First of all, the piece laid out plans for what to do if you had two hours to prepare, one half-hour to prepare and fifteen minutes to prepare and one of the suggestion for the half-hour scenario was "Wipe down the kitchen cabinets."

Huh? So I should wipe down the kitchen cabinets to impress my guests, but ignore the skillet with cooked-on scrambled eggs soaking in the sink? If unexpected guests are coming over to my place and I've got a bare thirty minutes to prepare for their arrival, wiping down the fronts of my cabinets is about the last thing on my list, coming right before "Wax the mailbox" and "Paint the house."

There were a few other boneheaded instructions, one of them being "Change the sheets on the guest room bed." Now, listen to me. I've been keeping house since I was twenty-two years old, for five years as a single lady and twenty as a wife, and never once in all that time have I had an unanticipated overnight guest. I don't know: maybe word has gotten around about the comfort level of the mattress on that bed. But anyway, of all the overnight guests we've had, I knew about them enough in advance to change the sheets well before the two-hours-til-arrival stage. I might not wipe down the fronts of my kitchen cabinets more than a couple times a year, but I know what's what when it comes to having a freshly-sheeted bed ready for guests, and I bet you do too.

So I made my own list. Here it is:

FOR GUESTS ARRIVING IN 15 MINUTES:

If your house has that lived-in look ours invariably gets -- magazines and newspapers and books flung higgledy-piggledy on every available horizontal surface, a few dishes in the sink, crumbs on the counter, offensive globs of toothpaste clinging to the interior surface of the bathroom sinks, a light layer of dust, an empty toilet paper spindle on the holder -- here's my advice in one simple step:

1. Go to the shed out back and retrieve the can of gasoline you have stashed there - you can tell the fire chief later that it was meant for the lawn mower -- and after all family members and pets are safely out of your home, douse the downstairs in gas and set the place ablaze. When your inconsiderate guests arrive, they'll find you weeping and wringing your hands on the sidewalk in front of your residence, and be forced to take you to the Olive Garden for a sympathy meal. Because we all know that, unless your family consists of fourteen Navy Seals, there's no way the place is going to be presentable to guests who have the temerity to give you only fifteen minutes' notice of their arrival.

You can sort everything out with your insurance agent later, at a time when you're expecting no company.

FOR GUESTS ARRIVING IN HALF AN HOUR:

1. Grab a laundry basket and tear through the house, picking up clutter and tossing it in. Don't forget your desk. Put the laundry basket in the laundry room and SHUT THE DOOR FIRMLY. Put a gun in the waistband of your pants at the small of your back so that you can sweetly threaten to shoot any non-immediate family member who tries to go in there. Dead guests tell no tales.

Dirty dishes in the sink? My advice is to obtain RIGHT NOW one of those Rubbermaid plastic dishpans. Use it to stack dirty dishes in. Carry it to the laundry room, put it on the washer or wherever. If you want to, cover it up with a dish towel. Shut the laundry room door.

2. Grab the duster - I have ones made of that lamb fluff because I think they work the best - and give it a spritz with Endust, which is a miracle product equaled only by the Swiffer line of housekeeping products. At a brisk pace, go through the downstairs and run that duster over all tables, the fireplace mantel, the piano, the bookshelves.

3. Light some scented candles. Because that's what they're for, after all: to remove your funky family smell. Did you think they were designed to create a homey ambiance in your home? Well, that too, but trust me: Yankee can cover up a multitude of stinkiness.

4. Fluff up the sofa cushions and throw pillows. Either neatly re-fold any sloppy-looking throw blankets or take them back to the laundry room and dump them in the basket.

5. Go to the classical music channel on your cable and turn on something erudite yet soothing. It will make you seem cultured and unflappable. Who would ever dream that the same woman who has Mozart or Debussy playing ebulliently through the speakers is the same woman who, mere moments before, was galloping around her house shrieking, "PICK UP THOSE SHOES RIGHT NOW OR YOU ARE DEAD!"

6. Go to the guest bathroom. Put out a fresh hand towel. Empty the wastebasket. Get that container of disinfectant wipes out and wipe down the toilet and the sink. Get out a Windex wipe and go over the mirror, any under-glass artwork on the walls and the faucets. The back of the toilet tank is a dust-magnet: wipe it down too. Note that when you have to do something fast, those containers of wipes are a fabulous thing to have on hand. Got a nice candle for the bathroom? Light it.

7. If you can manage it, run the vacuum in the living room and entry way if you have carpet. If you have "hardwoods," as the House Hunters so often say, get out your Swiffer dust mop, attach one of those cling-sheet thingies to it and go over the floors fast.

8. Don't forget yourself. Take a look at your hair, your top, the state of your makeup. Do whatever you can do as quickly as you can do it.

9. Because it bears repeating: DO NOT LET ANYONE IN THE LAUNDRY ROOM.

Naturally, all this will go faster if you have family members to pitch in and help, but I have proved that these things can be accomplished by one woman in one half hour, and I even managed to look moderately sane when the doorbell rang.

FOR GUESTS ARRIVING IN AN HOUR:

1. Do everything on the above list, except at a slightly slower pace.

2. If you haven't made your bed, go make it. Unless your bedroom is upstairs, in which case, keep everyone on the first floor.

3. Here's a new thing I just learned: Keep some of these cute little hors d'oeuvres from Nancy's on hand in the freezer. They are delish and so easy: Just pop them on a baking sheet and put them in the oven. I try to have a couple of bottles of white wine available ( always Barefoot, always chardonnay or Moscato ) for my drinking friends and some two-liter bottles of Sprite and Sprite Zero for the teetotalers. That always seems a little classier than plunking a can of Coke down on a coaster beside a visitor. You will look like some kind of Martha Stewart whiz-kid, and it won't be any trouble at all.

4. Still don't let anyone in that laundry room. Keep that gun ready.

All I want for Christmas

When my husband saw this "as seen on TV" product on, well, the TV, he immediately called me into the room. "Hey, honey!" he yelled from his cozy seat in the recliner. "You've gotta see this thing!"

I was out in the kitchen loading the dishwasher and I sighed as I dried my hands off, thinking that if I had a dime for every time someone hollers, "MOM, C'MERE!" or "HEY, HONEY, YOU'VE GOTTA SEE THIS!" I could hire a maid to do my dishes and I could comfortably loll around in a swivel chair so that I could turn myself this way and that, amiably viewing whatever my family wanted me to see. Unless it was something upstairs, and then they'd have to wait.

My husband was happily zooming back the action on the DVR so that I could see whatever-it-was from the very beginning, and I was betting on some kind of football action that was going to involved lots of men running on a field, one of them carrying the ball (which I can never see) and nearly all of them doing pugilistic things to one another (which I can see, and which makes me cringe.) "You'll never believe this! As soon as I saw the first few seconds, I knew this was for you."

Here's what he saw:



At first, I was a teeny bit honked off, because can I be honest here? The women in this video appear to be very young - definitely under thirty. And this product seems designed for the over-eighty demographic, doesn't it? I mean, how many twenty-five year olds are worried about losing their balance in the tub and toppling over the edge while trying to wash their feet? I, on the other hand, being (*ahem* ) what the French politely call "a lady of a certain age," am indeed worried about falling over in the tub, mostly because I don't have a great sense of balance due to injuries suffered in a car accident back when I was the age of those CHILDREN in the Easy Feet commercial. Plus Beth once told me about a colleague of hers -- a woman in her thirties -- who slipped in her shower and went crashing through the glass shower doors with unpleasant results. So evidently washing one's feet can be unexpectedly hazardous.

Besides, there's just nothing I like more than a foot massage and my family members are surprisingly reluctant to oblige me in this comfort. I recently told Aisling that I'd just love it if she'd give me some coupons for free foot rubs as a Christmas gift. That way, I explained, she wouldn't have to spend any money on me and the foot massages would be something I would totally enjoy.

Aisling eyed me apprehensively and said, "I'd rather just spend the money, thanks."

I'm not sure why they all balk so much at this. I don't think my feet are any smellier than anyone else's and thanks to my husband's generous nail spa gift certificate for a Mother's Day present, I don't have unsightly calluses. My toenails are always nicely painted and trimmed and my feet themselves are actually one of the best looking parts of my whole pumpkin-shaped body, featuring lovely symmetrically aligned toes that are not bony or otherwise weirdly shaped. But anyway, the Easy Feet foot washer seems like an idea whose time has come, and at only $14.99, the price is certainly right.

I've dropped several broad hints and I'm hoping that I will be the happy recipient of an Easy Feet massager this Christmas. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

FEAST DAY: Happy St. Nicholas Day!

Today is the feast day of St. Nicholas of Myra, the good man who served as the bishop of that region (in Asia Minor) in the third century during the time of the Roman emperor Diocletian. He was the son of wealthy Christian parents, orphaned at a young age, and as he grew older his desire was obey Jesus' words: "Sell what you own and give the money to the poor."

Nicholas became a priest and was appointed a bishop while he was still a young man. He cared for the poor and the sick in his diocese, was exiled and imprisoned by Diocletian for his Christian faith and attended the Council of Nicaea in AD 325.

One of the stories told about his goodness is the one of the father who had three daughters of marriageable age. The father was poor and couldn't afford dowries for his daughters, which pretty much meant that his daughters were going to be living at home forever mourning because their beaus had gone off to marry other girls, because back then, unless you came with a goat and a pile of quilts and some gold pieces tucked in your shimmy, you weren't wanted and all I can say is thank goodness for the good new days.

Nicholas heard of the father's predicament and instinctively knowing how hard it was going to be for that poor papa to have to listen to the three of them weeping and whining because he was a selfless and generous person who loved to help the poor, he went to the house in the night when the fire's embers were banked up and tossed three pouches of gold coins down the chimney, although I don't think chimneys were invented for a few more centuries, so more likely it was the fire-hole. Although some stories declare that he tossed the pouches of coins in through the window of the man's house. Since this isn't Church doctrine or dogma, it probably doesn't really matter. What does matter is that the three girls got their dowries and went off to marry their young men and the man was able to grow old gracefully in his peaceful house, bouncing fat grandchildren on his knee when the girls dropped by to visit.

When Nicholas died, there were miracles associated with his relics. He was buried in his cathedral church in Myra, which is part of modern-day Turkey. During his life, he was known for his many kindnesses to children, which gave rise to his patronage of them and to the spread of his good deeds and generosity throughout Europe. As the stories of the good bishop spread, he became known by many different names in many different regions: San Nicola, Sao Nicolo and Father Christmas are three of them. In the United States, we took our name "Santa Claus" from the Dutch who settled New Amsterdam; their name for him was Sinterklass, the Netherlands version of St. Nicholas, which brings me to another story.

I have a friend who attended a home schooling conference here in Indiana. There was, as always, a vendors' hall, but there were also lots of workshops available for the attendees. My friend was interested in one titled "Keeping Christ in Christmas," so she went to it, hoping to hear some good advice on how not to let materialism rule your family's life during the season of peace of earth and goodwill to men.

Instead, she got a lecture on, let's see....COULD IT BE SATAN??!! Oh, yes, it certainly could!

"We should have known that allowing our children to believe in Santa Claus was evil," the workshop presenter told the assembled group of mothers, her eyes wide and serious. "Because if you re-arrange the letters of the word 'santa'? You get S-A-T-A-N." Then, according to my friend, the presenter crossed her arms, gazed beadily at the moms and nodded her head smugly.

"Did you...?" I asked.

"Sort of," she sighed. "I said, 'But the word 'santa' is actually an honorific that means 'saint.'"

"What did she say?" I queried.

"She said, and I quote, 'Same thing.'"

"Oh," I said.

"Exactly," she nodded. "So if you're the kind of person who believes that a saint is the same thing as a demon, there's no way I'm going to be able to convince you that Santa Claus is not evil, even if you'd actually prefer not to tell your kids that some jolly old elf is going to fly his magical reindeer onto the roof and come into the house in the dead of night to leave presents under the tree."

"Exactly," I said. "And they don't need to know who really eats the cookies then either, right?"

Christmas cuties

Nanny and Poppy had their annual Christmas Tree Decorating Party a week ago Friday, complete with snacks and ornaments and snacks and festive music and snacks and goody bags and snacks and games. And snacks. Just in case anyone was hungry.

Anyway, these are my parents' five gorgeous grandchildren, standing in the living room of the same house they've lived in since I was six years old and Pat was six months old. From left to right in the back row they are Meelyn (17) and Aisling (15), of course, and my oldest nephew, Kieren (17). In the front row is Kiersi, who will be five in January and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named-on-the-Internet, that boy who just turned ten in November. Aren't they cute? And just look at all those expensive-looking teeth!

Jack o' Lantern time

 'Twas pumpkin-carving time here last Saturday, because what better way is there to spend an hour on the weekend than in the harmless pursuit of digging the slimy guts out of a gourd?

We like happy pumpkins at our house, but Meelyn's smile is even brighter, although she isn't orange.

 Aisling screamed, "I LOOK UGLY!" when I pointed the camera at her and I said sharply, "I AM MAKING MEMORIES HERE" and took the picture anyway. So there you have it.

 Here's my little guy, a pie pumpkin I have named Binky.

Boo to you!

FOODIE REVIEW: Martha Stewart's Classic Stuffing

Well, the opinions have come in fast and furious from my experimenting with a new recipe for my traditional Thanksgiving dressing and the word is that is sucked and I should never, ever make it again because it was a major disappointment.

Meelyn said it was "slimy." I don't know if that's what I would have said, but I do agree that it was way too wet. By the time you get two pounds of onions, sixteen celery ribs and a quart or so of chicken stock, you have PLENTY of moisture, believe me. Celery, when cooked down, produces one heck of a lot of water. Considering that the instructions required me only to cook the diced onion until it was translucent (which didn't take very long) there wasn't much time available for the liquid to reduce.

So! I leave this Thanksgiving weekend with the happy knowledge that my own dressing recipe is better than Martha's. Mine is buttery, crispy on the top, and golden brown, a handful of golden raisins nicely balancing the savory with some sweetness; Martha's was wet, gluey and a strange greyish color from the three cups of fresh parsley. Even the toasted pecan pieces couldn't rescue it.

Blame it on Martha

This year, just because I can, I changed the recipe for turkey dressing I usually use and switched over to the Classic Stuffing recipe from Martha Stewart's recipe file.

It is significantly different from my usual recipe, not so much in the actual ingredients (butter, onions, celery, bread, sage, salt, pepper and chicken or turkey stock) but in the amounts. Traditionally, I use about four celery ribs, two loaves of bread, four onions, a tablespoon of sage, two sticks of butter and a couple of quarts of stock, plus two eggs to kind of hold everything together -- my family definitely prefers dressing instead of stuffing. And dressing has to remain integrated so that it can be served up in slabs, layered with slices of ham and turkey, slathered with gravy and eaten with gusto on the day after Thanksgiving.

Martha's recipe called for slightly less butter, which I immediately overruled. She might be the CEO of Martha Stewart Omnimedia, but she needs to get a clue about dressing, which is that it needs to be as buttery as possible. But her recipe called for slightly less sage, the same amount of bread, onions, salt, pepper, but instead of my usual four ribs of celery, Martha's calls for sixteen ribs, which is a whole stalk.

I cooked a little bit in a small dish so that I could taste it and it tasted great, but we'll have to see whether this comes across like turkey dressing when combined with all the other Thanksgiving dinner elements, or whether it tastes like a screwball celery casserole.