Host And Guest Quotes

For a host, above all, must be kind to his guests.

We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better.

It is good to dress in fair clothes to dine with friends. It honors your host, if you are a guest; and your guest if you are a host. And both adorn the feast, and so celebrate the gifts of the world.

THE soul should always stand ajar, That if the heaven inquire, He will not be obliged to wait, Or shy of troubling her. Depart, before the host has slid The bolt upon the door, To seek for the accomplished guest, -- Her visitor no more.

A guest never forgets the host who has treated him kindly.

So this is the dance, it seems to me: to be the kind of host who honors the needs of the people who gather around his or her table, and to be the kind of guest who comes to the table to learn, not to demand.

The Friendship is not a reward for our discrimination and good taste in finding one another out. IT is the instrument by which God reveals to each the beauties of all the others. They are no greater than the beauties of a thousand other men; by Friendship God opens our eyes to them. They are, like all beauties, derived from Him, and then, in a good Friendship, increased by Him through the Friendship itself, so that it is His instrument for creating as well as for revealing. At this feast it is he who has spread the board and it is He who has chosen the guests. It is He, we may dare to hope, who sometimes does, and always should, preside. Let us not reckon without our Host.

Overflowing with the milk of human kindness, the family had invited everyone they could think of, including people they cordially disliked.

Willy, one of the guys at the distillery, comes up with what Oliver and I agree is the best definition of what a 'dram' actually is: 'A measure of whisky that is pleasing to both guest and host.

Host: For those of you just tuning in, our guests tonight are the amazing Murder Magician, and his lovely minion, The Assistant... Assistant: Charmed, I'm sure Host: Who recently killed The Rumor. And you were awarded the Oppenheimer prize for villainy at last week's annual summit for dastardly deeds-- what are you going to do with all that money? Murder Magician: Well, I'm so glad you asked that-- because I spent all the money on this giant MURDERBOT, and I've been dying to show it off! Assistant: It's true... every penny. Host: Wow! That's impressive! So what does it do? Murder Magician: Well, Mr. Clark... it murders people. Laughter. Murder Magician: I'm serious. Assistant: He is.

It was an awkward moment. We were burning down our host's house, a situation which any guest seeks to avoid.

Mankind is divisible into two great classes: hosts and guests.

But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking, no chances. A secret Master of the Ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you," can truly say to every group of Christian friends "You have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another." The Friendship is not a reward for our discrimination and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each the beauties of all the others. They are no greater than the beauties of a thousand other men; by Friendship God opens our eyes to them. They are, like all beauties, derived from Him through the Friendship itself, so that it is His instrument for creating as well as for revealing. At this feast it is He who has spread the board and it is He who has chosen the guests. It is He, we may dare to hope, who sometimes does, and always should, preside. Let us not reckon without our Host.

The ornaments of your home are the people who smile upon entering time and time again.

Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines. It is not to lead our neighbor into a corner where there are no alternatives left, but to open a wide spectrum of options for choice and commitment. It is not an educated intimidation with good books, good stories, and good works, but the liberation of fearful hearts so that words can find roots and bear ample fruit….The paradox of hospitality is that it wants to create emptiness, not a fearful emptiness, but a friendly emptiness where strangers can enter and discover themselves as created free….not a subtle invitation to adopt the life style of the host, but the gift of a chance for the guest to find his own.

I remembered how guest rights worked from our last time in Jotunheim. If you made it inside the house and claimed you were a guest, supposedly the host couldn't kill you. Of course, when we'd tried that before, we ended slaughtering an entire giant family after they attempted to squash us like bugs, but it had all been done with the utmost courtesy.

But you have said it too often, Mr. Benedict!" said Mrs. Perumal in an imperious tone that was quite out of character. "And if you continue in this vein, I'm afraid we'll be compelled to cut our visit short. Surely there are other establishments that would host an entire troup of guests - indefinitely and without reward - and not feel obliged to apologize for it!

If you look at the media now all of the hosts of these other shows are interviewing themselves. The guests are a prop for the hosts on these cable networks. The guests for me are always the paramount.

A Parting Guest What delightful hosts are they— Life and Love! Lingeringly I turn away, This late hour, yet glad enough They have not withheld from me Their high hospitality. So, with face lit with delight And all gratitude, I stay Yet to press their hands and say, Thanks.—So fine a time! Good night.

There are dinner parties ruined by guests, and there are dinner parties ruined by hosts, and then there are dinner parties when everyone contributes to the disaster.

A Tibetan aphorism states, “Let your mind be a gracious host in the midst of unruly guests.

When you traveled with company, the country would shrink away; your companion would become the subject of your voyage as much as the country itself. As for group travel, the country would end up being the silent host whose presence one forgets like one does an overly timid guest, the principal subject becoming the backdrop.

In theory, taarof means putting others before yourself. In practice, it means when someone comes to your house, you have to offer them food; but since your guest is supposed to taarof, they have to refuse; and then you, the host, must taarof back, insisting that it's really no trouble at all, and that they absolutely must eat; and so on, until one party gets too bewildered and finally gives in... It's not an American Social Cue. When Mom met Dad's parents for the first time, they offered her a drink, which she politely declined- and that was that. She really did want something to drink, but she didn't know how to go about asking.

I want to change the world in my own way. So I do stuff that’s artificial. I don’t really like being the guest at someone else’s party, because then I have to be entertaining. But I’ll host parties because it puts you at the center of things without actually being a social person.

Now I have performed the part of a good host,” pursued Mr. Rochester, “put my guests into the way of amusing each other, I ought to be at liberty to attend to my own pleasure.

A good host is the one who believes that his guest is carrying a promise he wants to reveal to anyone who shows genuine interest.

Kamaswami entered, a swiftly, smoothly moving man with very gray hair, with very intelligent, cautious eyes, with a greedy mouth. Politely, the host and the guest greeted one another.

Don't just stand there and nod. The mind observes and cogitates, the heart engages, and I would encourage you to engage with the process.

It is law that guests must be fed before the host’s curiosity.

We see our customers as invited guests to a party and we are the hosts.

They spread before us their riches of gold and silver, of ivory and ebony, and we spread before them our hearts and our spirits.; And yet they deem themselves the hosts and us the guests.

The trick of being a good guest is never to ask any questions about the composition of the household. Hosts, even the grandest, are nervous creatures and interpret curiosity as evidence of dissatisfaction.

I don’t really like being the guest at someone else’s party, because then I have to be entertaining. But I’ll host parties because it puts you at the center of things without actually being a social person.

Later, someone explained that in Moldova the relationship between host and guest is reversed. It is the guest’s obligation to make the host feel at ease. Reverse hospitality. One of the many peculiar customs in this country.

Once when I was young-maybe more than once-when I was extremely disrespectful to my mother, my father angrily called me "garbage" in our native Hokkien dialect. It worked really well. I felt terrible and deeply ashamed of what I had done. But it didn't damage my self esteem or anything like that. I knew exactly how highly he thought of me. I didn't actually think I was worthless or feel like a piece of garbage. As an adult, I once did the same thing to Sophie, calling her garbage in English when she acted extremely disrespectful toward me. When I mentioned I had done this at a dinner party, I was immediately ostracized. One guest named Marcy got so upset she broke down in tears and had to leave early. My friend Susan, the host, tried to rehabilitate me with the remaining guests. "Oh dear, it's just a misunderstanding. Amy was speaking metaphorically-right, Amy? you didn't actually call Sophie 'garbage.'" "Um, yes I did. But it's all in the context," I tried to explain. "It's a Chinese immigrant thing.

Willy's Definitive Dram Definition Willy, one of the guys at the distillery, comes up with what Oliver and I agree is the best definition of what a 'dram' actually is: 'A measure of whisky that is pleasing to both guest and host.

Good teaching is an act of hospitality toward the young, and hospitality is always an act that benefits the host even more than the guest. The concept of hospitality arose in ancient times when this reciprocity was easier to see: in nomadic cultures, the food and shelter one gave to a stranger yesterday is the food and shelter one hopes to receive from a stranger tomorrow. By offering hospitality, one participates in the endless reweaving of a social fabric on which all can depend—thus the gift of sustenance for the guest becomes a gift of hope for the host. It is that way in teaching as well: the teacher’s hospitality to the student results in a world more hospitable to the teacher.

Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, Wherein he puts alms for oblivion, A great-sized monster of ingratitudes: Those scraps are good deeds past; which are devour'd As fast as they are made, forgot as soon As done: perseverance, dear my lord, Keeps honour bright: to have done is to hang Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail In monumental mockery. Take the instant way; For honour travels in a strait so narrow, Where one but goes abreast: keep then the path; For emulation hath a thousand sons That one by one pursue: if you give way, Or hedge aside from the direct forthright, Like to an enter'd tide, they all rush by And leave you hindmost; Or like a gallant horse fall'n in first rank, Lie there for pavement to the abject rear, O'er-run and trampled on: then what they do in present, Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours; For time is like a fashionable host That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand, And with his arms outstretch'd, as he would fly, Grasps in the comer: welcome ever smiles, And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek Remuneration for the thing it was; For beauty, wit, High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service, Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all To envious and calumniating time.

RESISTANCE AND FEAR Are you paralyzed with fear? That's a good sign. Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. Remember our rule of thumb: The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it. Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance. Therefore the more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certain we can be that that enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our soul. That's why we feel so much Resistance. If it meant nothing to us, there'd be no Resistance. Have you ever watched Inside the Actors Studio? The host, James Lipton, invariably asks his guests, "What factors make you decide to take a particular role?" The actor always answers: "Because I'm afraid of it." The professional tackles the project that will make him stretch. He takes on the assignment that will bear him into uncharted waters, compel him to explore unconscious parts of himself. Is he scared? Hell, yes. He's petrified. (Conversely, the professional turns down roles that he's done before. He's not afraid of them anymore. Why waste his time?) So if you're paralyzed with fear, it's a good sign. It shows you what you have to do.

When we are too functional, we forget the point of hospitality in the home: fellowship, not entertainment. Don't let pride stop you from opening your home. Ignore the cat hair on the couch (or in the mac and cheese). It likely won't kill anyone as decisively as loneliness will. Add as much water to the pot to stretch the soup. If you run out of food, make pancakes, and put the kids in charge of making that meal. See how much fun that is. And know that someone is spared from another humiliating fall into internet pornography because he is instead walking with you and your kids and dogs, as you share the Lord's Day, one model of how the Lord gives you daily grace and a way of escape. Know that someone is spared the fear and darkness of depression because she is needed at your house, always on the Lord's Day, the day she is never alone, but instead safely in community, where her place at the table is needed and necessary and relied upon. Know that someone is drawn into Christ's love because the Bible reading and psalm singing that come at the close of the meal include everyone, and that it reminds us that no one is scapegoated in this Christ-bearing community. Know that host and guest are equally precious and fragile, and that you will play both roles throughout the course of this life. The doors here open wide. They must.

When I am a good host, I can order the world precisely as I believe it ought to be. It is a world that I have created in my mind and in my own image, and it gladdens me profoundly to see it unfold without original sin, without expulsions and floods and disobedience and illness. When I am a good guest, I have returned to Eden, where everything I need is provided for me, including companionship and a benevolent deity at my shoulder serving me and protecting me. The concept of paradise may be backward-looking but the concept of heaven is anticipatory. Perhaps this is what heaven will be like? A great table of oak worn smooth with age and candle wax; a dimly lit room, a quartet of angels playing Sarah Vaughan in the corner; this blissful throb of quiet, intelligent conversation; bubbling pots and aromatic stews that no one seems to have worked to prepare; and you - you have nothing to worry about, not now, not here, not for all eternity. Leave it all behind at the threshold, forget everything, for here in heaven, you are my guest.

But for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking, no chances. A secret Master of Ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples, 'Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,' can truly say to every group of Christian friends, 'You have not chosen one another, but I have chosen you for one another.' The friendship is not a reward for our discrimination and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each the beauties of all the others...At this feast it is He who has spread the board and it is He who has chosen the guests. it is He, we may dare to hope, who sometimes does, and always should preside. Let us not reckon without our Host.

Have you beauty, that leads the heart from things fashioned of wood and stone to the holy mountain? Tell me, have you these in your houses? Or have you only comfort, and the lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and becomes a host, and then a master? Ay, and it becomes a tamer, and with hook and scourge makes puppets of your larger desires. Though its hands are silken, its heart is of iron. It lulls you to sleep only to stand by your bed and jeer at the dignity of the flesh. It makes mock of your sound senses, and lays them in thistledown like fragile vessels. Verily the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul, and then walks grinning in the funeral. But you, children of space, you restless in rest, you shall not be trapped nor tamed. Your house shall be not an anchor but a mast. It shall not be a glistening film that covers a wound, but an eyelid that guards the eye. You shall not fold your wings that you may pass through doors, nor bend your heads that they strike not against a ceiling, nor fear to breathe lest walls should crack and fall down. You shall not dwell in tombs made by the dead for the living. And though of magnificence and splendour, your house shall not hold your secret nor shelter your longing. For that which is boundless in you abides in the mansion of the sky, whose door is the morning mist, and whose windows are the songs and the silences of night.

Gold is the kindest of all hosts when it shines in the sky, but comes as an evil guest to those who receive it in the hand.

This Proto-Indo-European term ghosti (from which we get the words guest, host and ghost) referred to a kind of unspoken etiquette, a notion that on seeing strangers on the horizon, rather than choose to fell them with spears or sling-shots, instead we should take the risk of welcoming them across our threshold – on the chance that they might bring new notions, new goods, fresh blood with them. Over time this word-idea evolved into the Greek xenia – ritualised guest–host friendship, an understanding that stitched together the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds.

Assholes are found daily on cable news, where hosts repeatedly interrupt their guests, and also on talk radio, where airtime is given to commentators who thrive on falsehood and invective. Even

I was a guest in the home of a conductor when I was in my early twenties. They turned on the gramophone and played a popular record of a foxtrot. I liked the foxtrot, but I didn't like the way it was played. I confided my opinion to the host, who suddenly said, 'Ah, so you don't like the way it's played? All right, if you want, write down the number by heart and orchestrate it and I'll play it. That is, of course, if you can do it and in a given amount of time: I'm giving you an hour. if you're really a genius, you should be able to write it in an hour.' I did it in 45 minutes.

The "apparently normal personality" - the alter you view as "the client" You should not assume that the adult who function in the world, or who presents to you, week after week, is the "real" person, and the other personalities are less real. The client who comes to therapy is not "the" person; there are other personalities to meet and work with. When DID was still officially called MPD, the "person" who lived life on the outside was known as the "host" personality, and the other parts were known as alters. These terms, unfortunately, implied that all the parts other than the host were guests, and therefore of less importance than the host. They were somehow secondary. The currently favored theory of structural dissociation (Nijenhuis & Den Boer, 2009; van der Hart, Nijenhuis, & Steele, 2006), which more accurately describes the way personality systems operate, instead distinguishes between two kinds of states: the apparently normal personality, or ANP, and the emotional personality, or EP, both of which could include a number of parts. p21

he was known for throwing elaborate parties, known as “freak dinners”—perhaps most notably the “Gondola Party” he hosted in 1905 at the Savoy Hotel in London, where he filled the hotel’s courtyard with water, dressed everyone in Venetian garb, and served dinner to guests aboard a giant gondola. Lest this be deemed insufficient, he arranged to have a birthday cake—five feet tall—brought in on the back of a baby elephant.

More wine for me, pour me some more!" "You smart girl, I knew you're a smart girl, just teasing...” Faces turn red, the dark earth blood is rising. They wink at Pelka, wink at the host: "He knows his goods!" The women feel the buttons constricting them - they undo one, another, a third. By twos the guests go outside to get some air. "Well, my dear guests, are you soaked to the gills? Eh? And now-to dance! Get lively!" The table and the chairs vanish. The middle of the room is empty. Ivan the Monk jumps out of his hole, a tambourine in his hands: "Tim-ta-a-am! Tim-ta-a-am!" “Eh-hey!" the redhead suddenly snatches the tambourine and sweeps off, tapping wildly in a circle. Eyes closed: a white sleepless sun-a white night on the meadow-white columns of smoke swaying over fires... "Eh-ah!"-to whirl herself to death, to whirl out everything, to empty herself - nothing has ever been... Heavy boots are thumping on the floor, beards fly in the wind, the frock-coat tails go flying... hey, get going, faster, faster - a hundred versts an hour! ("The North")

The last time I visited LA, I was at a cool Hollywood party where suddenly the host directed guests to look outside. Why? Because it was raining ash and if you tilted your head and hated Greta Thunberg, it looked like snow.

the test for a meaningful reason for coming together: Does it stick its neck out a little bit? Does it take a stand? Is it willing to unsettle some of the guests (or maybe the host)? Does it refuse to be everything to everyone?

And I thought, You know, Fran, you could go away and you could be in a very beautiful place with a cook, but then you’d have to be a good guest. I would much rather stay here and be a bad guest. And, believe me, I am being a bad guest.

When Christianity says that God loves man it means that God LOVES man: not that He has some 'disinterested'; because really indifferent, concern for our welfare, but that in awful and surprising truth, we are the objects of His love. You asked for a loving God: you have one. The great spirit you so lightly invoked, the 'lord of terrible aspect', is present: not a senile benevolence that drowsily wishes you to be happy in your own way, not the cold philanthropy of a conscientious magistrate, nor the care of a host who feels responsible for the comfort of his guests, but the consuming fire Himself, the Love that made the worlds... ...How this should be, I do not know: it passes reason to explain why any creatures, not to say creatures such as we should have a value so prodigious in their Creator's eyes. It is certainly a burden of glory, not only beyond our deserts but also, except in rare moments of grace, beyond our desiring; we are inclined, like the maidens in the old play, to deprecate the love of Zeus.

Before Westcliff could launch into an unwanted diatribe regarding Annabelle, Simon sought to distract him. “You don’t seem to rub on well with Miss Bowman,” he remarked. As a diversionary tactic, the mention of Lillian Bowman was supremely effective. Westcliff responded with a surly grunt. “The ill-mannered brat dared to imply that Miss Peyton’s mishap was my fault,” he said, pouring a brandy for himself. Simon raised his brows. “How could it be your fault?” “Miss Bowman seems to think that, as their host, it was my responsibility to ensure that my estate wasn’t ‘overrun with a plague of poisonous vipers,’ as she put it.” “How did you reply?” “I pointed out to Miss Bowman that the guests who choose to remain clothed when they venture out of doors don’t usually seem to get bitten by adders.” Simon couldn’t help grinning at that.

Talk show host Charlie Rose asked folk rocker Neil Young about following his own muse. “So if you get an idea at, say, a dinner party, if you hear a tune or a lyric, do you excuse yourself from the party?” Charlie inquired. “Of course. You never know when she’ll [the muse] come again. I’m responsible to her.” Sometimes, Neil would hide out in a bathroom to scratch out a song that was coming to him and return to his dinner guests after he felt he’d captured it. When you feel an idea comin’ on, excuse yourself. Pull over to the side of the road. Get lost in the creative flow. Be late. Barge in.

Whether you are attending someone else's or holding your own dinner party, your main objective should be to lead guests away from the usual road of predictable behaviour and tedious conversation, and towards a shared voyage of epicurean delight. In much the same way as caged animals in zoos are kept mentally healthy by being set mealtime tasks by their keepers, dinner guests will find their repast far more satisfying if it is presented as a challenge and an opportunity for self-expression. For example, instead of the dry old formula of a plate flanked by serried ranks of knives, forks and spoons, today's modern host should show a little more ingenuity when selecting eating utensils. The novelty of using a Black & Decker two-speed drill to sheer flakes of the roast beef or a 15-inch spanner to negotiate the foie gras, will firmly place your party in the minds of your guests as a night to remember.

He hosted a series of lunches – Les Dejeuners de Gustave Le Bon – for politicians and prominent society people. He’d sit at the head of the table with a bell by his side. If one of his guests said something he disagreed with he’d pick up the bell and ring it relentlessly until the person stopped talking.

I was on a radio talk show in Vermont one January and the host was giving me a hard time about organic food prices. “I had a party at my house last week and wanted to serve corn on the cob, so I went down to the supermarket and the regular corn was $2.49 for a dozen ears and the organic was $4.89. How can you justify that?” Wrong question. The question is, “Why do you need fresh sweet corn in Vermont in January? You should be eating canned, frozen, or parched corn that you made late in the summer when farmers could scarcely give their corn away because people were over that and going for the fall squash and potatoes.” He should have been feeding these guests from his own larder, amassed months earlier when farmers’ market vendors were feeding half their late-season success to the compost pile. It happens everywhere and all the time. Restoring normalcy is our problem—you and me—not somebody else’s problem.

It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of performing these small ceremonies regularly, and being as nearly accurate as possible with regard to the times. You must not mind stopping in the middle of a crowded thoroughfare—lorries or no lorries—and saying the Adorations; and you must not mind snubbing your guest—or your host—if he or she should prove ignorant of his or her share of the dialogue. It is perhaps because these matters are so petty and trivial in appearance that they afford so excellent a training. They teach you concentration, mindfulness, moral and social courage, and a host of other virtues.

Sometimes one is better off misled. The host may be better off thinking the guest enjoyed himself; the wife happier believing that she can tell a joke well. The liar’s false message may not only be more palatable, it may also be more useful than the truth. The carpenter’s false claim “I’m fine” to his boss’s “How are you today?” may provide information more relevant than would his true reply, “I am still feel terrible from the fight I had at home last night.” His lie truthfully tells his intention to perform his job despite personal upset. There is, of course, a cost for being misled even in these benevolent instances.

As a host, you set the tone, and you set it right away. It’s so easy to get carried away with an ambitious menu, and then spend the whole night flinging things around your kitchen and being annoyed with your guests for having the audacity to try to talk with you. Terrible plan. Everyone would rather have a simpler meal and a happier host.

Such were the proofs of valour given by the Lacedemonians and Thespians; yet the Spartan Dienekes is said to have proved himself the best man of all, the same who, as they report, uttered this saying before they engaged battle with the Medes:—being informed by one of the men of Trachis that when the Barbarians discharged their arrows they obscured the light of the sun by the multitude of the arrows, so great was the number of their host. He was not dismayed by this, but making small account of the number of “the Medes, he said that their guest from Trachis brought them very good news, for if the Medes obscured the light of the sun, the battle against them would be in the shade.

He hosted a series of lunches—les déjeuners du mercredi—for politicians and prominent society people. He’d sit at the head of the table with a bell by his side. If one of his guests said something he disagreed with, he’d pick up the bell and ring it relentlessly until the person stopped talking. All over the world, famous people began declaring themselves LeBon fans.

When people have different ideas about which of these four modes of interacting applies to a current relationship, the result can range from blank incomprehension to acute discomfort or outright hostility. Think abut a dinner guest offering to pay the host for her meal, a person barking an order to a friend, or an employee helping himself to a shrimp off the boss' plate. Misunderstandings in which one person thinks of a transaction in terms of Equality Matching and another thinks in terms of Market Pricing are even more pervasive and can be even more dangerous. They tap into very different psychologies, one of them intuitive and universal, the other rarefied and learned, and clashes between them have been common in economic history.

Entertaining is not my area of expertise, I’ll admit that, but surely, if you are a host, you are responsible for ensuring that your guests are provided with a libation? That’s a basic principle of hospitality, in all societies and cultures, and has been since recorded time. In the event, I drank tap water—I rarely imbibe alcohol in public. I only really enjoy it when I’m alone, at home.

My father, father!' - she might pray to the winds; no innocence moves her judges mad for war. Her father called his henchmen on, on with a prayer, 'Host her over the alter like a yearling, give it all your strength! She's fainting - lift her, sweep her robes around her, but slip this strap in her gentle curving lips... here, gag her hard, a sound will curse the house'- and the bridle chokes her voice... her saffron robes pouring over the sand her glance like arrows showering wounding every murderer through with pity clear as a picture, live, she strains to call their names... I remember often the days with father's guests when over the feast her voice unbroken, purees the home her loving father bearing third libations, sang to Saving Zeus - transfixed with joy, Atreus' offspring throbbing out their love.

Thereafter the host took his guests to look at a young wolf which he had got tied to a chain. “He is fed on nothing but raw meat,” he explained, “for I want him to grow up as fierce as possible.” Then the party inspected a pond in which there were “fish of such a size that it would take two men all their time to lift one of them out.” This piece of information was received with renewed incredulity on the part of the brother-in-law.

Relax!” “Don’t go to so much trouble!” “Why don’t you use plastic glasses?” “Take off your jacket!” “Why don’t you use paper napkins?” “Don’t be so formal!” “Sit down!” “Why don’t you use paper plates?” “You don’t have to impress us!” Guests who make such remarks to their hosts must fondly imagine the effect they produce: “Whew,” the host must think. “I don’t have to strain myself pretending to be something I’m not. These people love me just as I am, without all this fancy stuff.” Or maybe not. Miss Manners is afraid that the effect might be more like this: “Try and do something nice for people, and look what you get. They come into my house, call me pretentious to my face, criticize my stuff, complain about the way I do things, bark orders at me and try to foist their own slobby standards on me. How would they like it if I came to their houses and suggested that they try a little harder?” Yet

HYGGE TIP: CREATE A COOKING CLUB A few years ago, I wanted to create some kind of system that would mean I would get to see some of my good friends on a regular basis, so we formed a cooking club. This was in part prompted by my work, as the importance of our relationships always emerges as a key indicator of why some people are happier than others. Furthermore, I wanted to organize the cooking club in a way that maximized the hygge. So instead of taking turns being the host and cooking for the five or six other people, we always cook together. That is where the hygge is. The rules are simple. Each time there is a theme, or a key ingredient—for example, duck or sausages—each person brings ingredients to make a small dish to fit the theme. It creates a very relaxed, informal, egalitarian setting, where no one person has to cater for the guests—or live up to the standards of the last fancy dinner party.

There is one thing that ought to be taught in all the colleges, Which is that people ought to be taught not to go around always making apologies. I don't mean the kind of apologies people make when they run over you or borrow five dollars or step on your feet, Because I think that is sort of sweet; No, I object to one kind of apology alone, Which is when people spend their time and yours apologizing for everything they own. You go to their house for a meal, And they apologize because the anchovies aren't caviar or the partridge is veal; They apologize privately for the crudeness of the other guests, And they apologize publicly for their wife's housekeeping or their husband's jests; If they give you a book by Dickens they apologize because it isn't by Scott, And if they take you to the theater, they apologize for the acting and the dialogue and the plot; They contain more milk of human kindness than the most capacious diary can, But if you are from out of town they apologize for everything local and if you are a foreigner they apologize for everything American. I dread these apologizers even as I am depicting them, I shudder as I think of the hours that must be spend in contradicting them, Because you are very rude if you let them emerge from an argument victorious, And when they say something of theirs is awful, it is your duty to convince them politely that it is magnificent and glorious, And what particularly bores me with them, Is that half the time you have to politely contradict them when you rudely agree with them, So I think there is one rule every host and hostess ought to keep with the comb and nail file and bicarbonate and aromatic spirits on a handy shelf, Which is don't spoil the denouement by telling the guests everything is terrible, but let them have the thrill of finding it out for themselves.

The contradictions within Pakistan became still more apparent at my next event, a luncheon hosted in my honor by Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and attended by several dozen accomplished women in Pakistan. It was like being rocketed forward several centuries in time. Among these women were academics and activists, as well as a pilot, a singer, a banker and a police deputy superintendent. They had their own ambitions and careers, and, of course, we were all guests of Pakistan’s elected female leader. Benazir

The nature of living and loving is the act of reciprocity. As women, we are told that to be the guest is to receive. We are told that to be the host is to give. But what if it is the reverse? What if it is the guest who gives to the host and it is the host who receives from the guest each time she sets her table to welcome and feed those she loves? To be the guest and the host simultaneously is to imagine a mutual exchange of gifts predicated on respect and joy. If we could adopt this truth, perhaps we as women would be less likely to become martyrs.

We are like guests in this world. I do not mean this in the worn-out mystical sense. I mean it literally. In the course of every visit a point comes when one feels it is time to go. If one misses this moment, things become problematic. One's hosts try to persuade one to stay the night. The last Underground train has gone, topics of conversation run out. One has too much to drink, finds oneself in an uncomfortable bed, can be confident of never being invited back again. I did not want to be an uninvited guest in Berlin, nor to become a tolerated long-term guest.

Across the street at the New Orleans headquarters of the Lighthouse for the Blind—a two-story building attached to a four-story stucco lighthouse—another Christmas party was under way, and Wright watched as the sightless guests arrived. Then, before his eyes, a curious scene unfolded. As they were greeted by their hosts, the blind whites were escorted to a large room at the front of the house, whereas the blind Negroes were taken to the rear, where they stayed. Separated. Transfixed, Wright had to look twice before it dawned on him: 'They couldn’t see to segregate themselves

He never spoke to me. He never touched me. We stood beside one another, the host and the hostess, and we were not together. I watched his courtesy to his guests. He flung a word to one, a jest to another, a smile to a third, a call over his shoulder to a fourth, and no one but myself could know that every utterance he made, every movement, was automatic and the work of a machine. We were like two performers in a play, but we were divided, we were not acting with one another. We had to endure it alone, we had to put up this show, this miserable, sham performance, for the sake of all these people I did not know and did not want to see again.

Overproduction of gas is not a pleasant thing—it bloats the gut, making us feel uncomfortable—but passing a bit of wind is not only necessary, it is healthy, too. We are living creatures with a miniature world living inside us, working away and producing many things. Just as we release exhaust fumes into the Earth’s atmosphere, so must our microbes, too. It may make a funny sound and it may smell a bit, but not necessarily. Bifidobacteria and Lactobacilli, for instance, do not produce any unpleasant odors. People who never need to break wind are starving their gut bacteria and are not good hosts for their microbe guests. Pure prebiotics can be bought at

Roosevelt fought hard for the United States to host the opening session [of the United Nations]; it seemed a magnanimous gesture to most of the delegates. But the real reason was to better enable the United States to eavesdrop on its guests. Coded messages between the foreign delegations and their distant capitals passed through U.S. telegraph lines in San Francisco. With wartime censorship laws still in effect, Western Union and the other commercial telegraph companies were required to pass on both coded and uncoded telegrams to U.S. Army codebreakers. Once the signals were captured, a specially designed time-delay device activated to allow recorders to be switched on. Devices were also developed to divert a single signal to several receivers. The intercepts were then forwarded to Arlington Hall, headquarters of the Army codebreakers, over forty-six special secure teletype lines. By the summer of 1945 the average number of daily messages had grown to 289,802, from only 46,865 in February 1943. The same soldiers who only a few weeks earlier had been deciphering German battle plans were now unraveling the codes and ciphers wound tightly around Argentine negotiating points. During the San Francisco Conference, for example, American codebreakers were reading messages sent to and from the French delegation, which was using the Hagelin M-209, a complex six-wheel cipher machine broken by the Army Security Agency during the war. The decrypts revealed how desperate France had become to maintain its image as a major world power after the war. On April 29, for example, Fouques Duparc, the secretary general of the French delegation, complained in an encrypted note to General Charles de Gaulle in Paris that France was not chosen to be one of the "inviting powers" to the conference. "Our inclusion among the sponsoring powers," he wrote, "would have signified, in the eyes of all, our return to our traditional place in the world." In charge of the San Francisco eavesdropping and codebreaking operation was Lieutenant Colonel Frank B. Rowlett, the protégé of William F. Friedman. Rowlett was relieved when the conference finally ended, and he considered it a great success. "Pressure of work due to the San Francisco Conference has at last abated," he wrote, "and the 24-hour day has been shortened. The feeling in the Branch is that the success of the Conference may owe a great deal to its contribution." The San Francisco Conference served as an important demonstration of the usefulness of peacetime signals intelligence. Impressive was not just the volume of messages intercepted but also the wide range of countries whose secrets could be read. Messages from Colombia provided details on quiet disagreements between Russia and its satellite nations as well as on "Russia's prejudice toward the Latin American countries." Spanish decrypts indicated that their diplomats in San Francisco were warned to oppose a number of Russian moves: "Red maneuver . . . must be stopped at once," said one. A Czechoslovakian message indicated that nation's opposition to the admission of Argentina to the UN. From the very moment of its birth, the United Nations was a microcosm of East-West spying. Just as with the founding conference, the United States pushed hard to locate the organization on American soil, largely to accommodate the eavesdroppers and codebreakers of NSA and its predecessors.

So how, you might ask, do I exclude generously? This issue comes up a lot when I’m organizing large, complicated meetings for clients. These are some of the questions I ask them: Who not only fits but also helps fulfill the gathering’s purpose? Who threatens the purpose? Who, despite being irrelevant to the purpose, do you feel obliged to invite? When my clients answer the first two questions, they begin to grasp their gathering’s true purpose. Obviously people who fit and fulfill your gathering’s purpose need to be there. And, though this one is harder, people who manifestly threaten the purpose are easy to justify excluding. (That doesn’t mean they always end up being excluded. Politeness and habit often defeat the facilitator. But the hosts still know deep down who shouldn’t be there.) It is the third question where purpose begins to be tested. Someone threatens a gathering’s purpose? You can see why to keep him out. But what’s wrong with someone who’s irrelevant to the purpose? What’s wrong with inviting Bob? Every gathering has its Bobs. Bob in marketing. Bob your friend’s girlfriend’s brother. Bob your visiting aunt. Bob is perfectly pleasant and doesn’t actively sabotage your gathering. Most Bobs are grateful to be included. They sometimes bring extra effort or an extra bottle of wine. You’ve probably been a Bob. I certainly have. The crux of excluding thoughtfully and intentionally is mustering the courage to keep away your Bobs. It is to shift your perception so that you understand that people who aren’t fulfilling the purpose of your gathering are detracting from it, even if they do nothing to detract from it. This is because once they are actually in your presence, you (and other considerate guests) will want to welcome and include them, which takes time and attention away from what (and who) you’re actually there for. Particularly in smaller gatherings, every single person affects the dynamics of a group. Excluding well and purposefully is reframing who and what you are being generous to—your guests and your purpose.

I saw her as soon as I pulled into the parking lot. This beautiful woman with a gigantic smile on her face was just about bouncing up and down despite the orthopedic boot she had on her foot as she waved me into a parking space. I felt like I’d been hit in the gut. She took my breath away. She was dressed in workout clothes, her long brown hair softly framing her face, and she just glowed. I composed myself and got out of the car. She was standing with Paul Orr, the radio host I was there to meet. Local press had become fairly routine for me at this point, so I hadn’t really given it much thought when I agreed to be a guest on the afternoon drive-time show for WZZK. But I had no idea I’d meet her.

Philip Conwell-Evans, who three years earlier had witnessed the book burning at Königsberg University with such equanimity. Choosing to operate discretely behind the scenes, Conwell-Evans had been instrumental in bringing together a number of influential British figures with leading Nazis. It was he, for instance who in December 1934, had been the driving force behind the first major dinner party Hitler ever hosted for foreigners and at which Lord Rothermere had been guest of honour. And it was now Conwell-Evans, in harness with his close friend Ribbentrop, who was masterminding the Lloyd-George expedition. 'He is so blind to the blemishes of the Germans,' Dr Jones wrote of his fellow Welshman in his diary,' as to make one see the virtues of the French.

Fine,” I answered. “Now what about a drink?” I followed him up the corridor once more, across the entrance hall, and on through a swing door at the far end. I heard the light clack-clack of ping-pong balls, and braced myself for frivolity. The room we entered was empty. The sportsmen, whoever they were, were playing in the room beyond. Here there were easy chairs, a table or two, an electric fire and a bar in the far corner, behind which my youthful companion installed himself. I noticed, with misgiving, two enormous urns. “Coffee or cocoa?” he asked. “Or do you prefer something cool? I can recommend the orange juice with a splash of soda.” “I’d like a Scotch,” I said. He looked distressed. His expression became that of an anxious host whose guest demands fresh strawberries in midwinter.

I live in tranquility and trembling…there is not a guarantee in the world. Oh, your needs are guaranteed, your needs are absolutely guaranteed by the most stringent of warranties, in the plainest, truest words: knock; seek; ask. But you must read the fine print. “Not as the world giveth, give I unto you.” That’s the catch. If you can catch it, it will catch you up, aloft, up to any gap at all, and you’ll come back, for you will come back transformed in a way you might not have bargained for-dribbling and crazed. The waters of separation, however lightly sprinkled, leave indelible stains. Did you think, before you were caught, that you needed, say, life? Do you think you will keep your life, or anything else you love? But no. Your needs are all met. But not as the world giveth. You see the needs of your own spirit met whenever you have asked, and you have learned that the outrageous guarantee holds. You see the creatures die, and you know you will die. And one day it occurs to you that you must not need life. Obviously. And then you’re gone. You have finally understood that you’re dealing with a maniac. I think that the dying pray at the last not “please,” but “thank you,” as a guest thanks his host at the door. Falling from airplanes the people are crying thank you, thank you. Divinity is not playful. The universe was not made in jest but in solemn incomprehensible earnest. By a power that is unfathomably secret, and holy, and fleet. There is nothing to be done about it, but ignore it, or see. And then you walk fearlessly, eating what you must, growing wherever you can, like the monk on the road who knows precisely how vulnerable he is.

If I know the classical psychological theories well enough to pass my comps and can reformulate them in ways that can impress peer reviewers from the most prestigious journals, but have not the practical wisdom of love, I am only an intrusive muzak soothing the ego while missing the heart. And if I can read tea leaves, throw the bones and manipulate spirits so as to understand the mysteries of the universe and forecast the future with scientific precision, and if I have achieved a renaissance education in both the exoteric and esoteric sciences that would rival Faust and know the equation to convert the mass of mountains into psychic energy and back again, but have not love, I do not even exist. If I gain freedom from all my attachments and maintain constant alpha waves in my consciousness, showing perfect equanimity in all situations, ignoring every personal need and compulsively martyring myself for the glory of God, but this is not done freely from love, I have accomplished nothing. Love is great-hearted and unselfish; love is not emotionally reactive, it does not seek to draw attention to itself. Love does not accuse or compare. It does not seek to serve itself at the expense of others. Love does not take pleasure in other peeople's sufferings, but rejoices when the truth is revealed and meaningful life restored. Love always bears reality as it is, extending mercy to all people in every situation. Love is faithful in all things, is constantly hopeful and meets whatever comes with immovable forbearance and steadfastness. Love never quits. By contrast, prophecies give way before the infinite possibilities of eternity, and inspiration is as fleeting as a breath. To the writing and reading of many books and learning more and more, there is no end, and yet whatever is known is never sufficient to live the Truth who is revealed to the world only in loving relationship. When I was a beginning therapist, I thought a lot and anxiously tried to fix people in order to lower my own anxiety. As I matured, my mind quieted and I stopped being so concerned with labels and techniques and began to realize that, in the mystery of attentive presence to others, the guest becomes the host in the presence of God. In the hospitality of genuine encounter with the other, we come face to face with the mystery of God who is between us as both the One offered One who offers. When all the theorizing and methodological squabbles have been addressed, there will still only be three things that are essential to pastoral counseling: faith, hope, and love. When we abide in these, we each remain as well, without comprehending how, for the source and raison d'etre of all is Love.

William’s weekend with his friends, Geoffrey and Maggie, was turning out to be neither restful nor enjoyable. Things could have been worse, of course: there must be weekends during which the hosts’ house burns to the ground, one of the guests murders another, the hostess is arrested in extradition proceedings or the guests are all poisoned by the inclusion of death’s cap mushrooms in the stew. Such weekends must be very difficult indeed, not least because of the wording of the thank-you letters that one would have to write. The disaster, whatever it was, could hardly be ignored, but must be referred to tactfully in the letter, and always set in proper perspective. Thus, in the case of the mushroom poisoning, one would comment on how the other courses of the meal were delicious; in the case of the hostess’s arrest, one would say something comforting about the ability of defence lawyers in the jurisdiction to which she was being extradited—and so on, mutatis mutandis, trying at all times to be as positive as possible.

demand absolute cooperation and attention.” Roughly two-thirds of the guests looked frightened, but a scattered third looked both frightened and puzzled. These were the ones leaning towards the man with the gun, instead of away from him. These were the ones that did not speak Spanish. They whispered quickly to their neighbors. The word atención was repeated in several languages. That word was clear enough. General Alfredo had anticipated his announcement bringing about a sort of pricked, waiting silence, but no silence came. The whispering caused him to fire into the ceiling again, carelessly this time, hitting a light fixture, which exploded. The room was dimmer, and slivers of glass settled into shirt collars and rested on hair. “Arresto,” he repeated. “Detengase!” It may seem surprising at first, such a large number of people unable to speak the language of the host country, but then you remember it was a gathering to promote foreign interest and the two guests of honor did not know ten words of Spanish between them,

How generous is your mistress,’ said the light, mocking voice of Prince Dmitri Ivanovich Vishnevetsky, ‘who said that as your guest I might hunt where I pleased.’ Half veiled by the blossom, he leaned against the opposite wall: a man strongly made with cleft chin and soft chestnut hair and moustache, and all the arts of a courtier. In his hands was a small Turkish bow; and across the spangled silk of his shirt hung a quiver. He smiled as he ceased speaking, and bending the bow, took aim, lightly, at a fluttering host of birds calling from the cherry tree over his head. The Voevoda smiled. ‘I am more generous still,’ he said, and drew back his arm, the fingers brushing his girdle. A flick of silver, arching through the air, touched Vishnevetsky’s bow with a click, and the Prince made a sound, cut off at once, as he stumbled off-balance, the sliced wood and hemp whipping about him: his arms flung involuntarily apart. Lymond’s knife, its chased hilt gold in the lamplight, lay on the cracked tiles at his feet. Lymond said, ‘I give you both weapon and quarry.

At length the party arrived at the residence of the Chief of Police. The latter proved indeed a man of spells, for no sooner had he learnt what was afoot than he summoned a brisk young constable, whispered in his ear, adding laconically, “You understand, do you not?” and brought it about that, during the time that the guests were cutting for partners at whist in an adjoining room, the dining-table became laden with sturgeon, caviare, salmon, herrings, cheese, smoked tongue, fresh roe, and a potted variety of the same — all procured from the local fish market, and reinforced with additions from the host’s own kitchen. The fact was that the worthy Chief of Police filled the office of a sort of father and general benefactor to the town, and that he moved among the citizens as though they constituted part and parcel of his own family, and watched over their shops and markets as though those establishments were merely his own private larder. Indeed, it would be difficult to say — so thoroughly did he perform his duties in this respect — whether the post most fitted him, or he the post.

Sunday brunch is an easy, pleasant way to entertain a largish group, especially in the country. Americans who overslept invented the word brunch, but the ingredients and the casual atmosphere bear a strong resemblance to breakfast in an English country house or to a French midnight supper. The choice of menu can be as wide as the imagination. Practically anything goes — from hearty breakfast dishes such as filled omelettes, kidneys, chicken livers and bacon, sausages, and eggs Benedict. Something pretty in aspic, or a salmon mousse in a fish-shaped mold, makes a lovely centerpiece. Best of all, most of the meal can be prepared way ahead of time and it can be managed without outside help — if, that is, the hostess puts in a lot of work the day before and early that morning. People can wander in when they feel like it, so there’s no need to tint this one. Drinks are no problem. A big punch bowl with chunks of fresh fruit makes a nice starter, and mixings for bloody Marys, screwdrivers, or bullshots can be left on a table for guests to serve themselves. Of course there should be a big pot of very good coffee.

I cooked with so many of the greats: Tom Colicchio, Eric Ripert, Wylie Dufresne, Grant Achatz. Rick Bayless taught me not one but two amazing mole sauces, the whole time bemoaning that he never seemed to know what to cook for his teenage daughter. Jose Andres made me a classic Spanish tortilla, shocking me with the sheer volume of viridian olive oil he put into that simple dish of potatoes, onions, and eggs. Graham Elliot Bowles and I made gourmet Jell-O shots together, and ate leftover cheddar risotto with Cheez-Its crumbled on top right out of the pan. Lucky for me, Maria still includes me in special evenings like this, usually giving me the option of joining the guests at table, or helping in the kitchen. I always choose the kitchen, because passing up the opportunity to see these chefs in action is something only an idiot would do. Susan Spicer flew up from New Orleans shortly after the BP oil spill to do an extraordinary menu of all Gulf seafood for a ten-thousand-dollar-a-plate fund-raising dinner Maria hosted to help the families of Gulf fishermen. Local geniuses Gil Langlois and Top Chef winner Stephanie Izard joined forces with Gale Gand for a seven-course dinner none of us will ever forget, due in no small part to Gil's hoisin oxtail with smoked Gouda mac 'n' cheese, Stephanie's roasted cauliflower with pine nuts and light-as-air chickpea fritters, and Gale's honey panna cotta with rhubarb compote and insane little chocolate cookies. Stephanie and I bonded over hair products, since we have the same thick brown curls with a tendency to frizz, and the general dumbness of boys, and ended up giggling over glasses of bourbon till nearly two in the morning. She is even more awesome, funny, sweet, and genuine in person than she was on her rock-star winning season on Bravo. Plus, her food is spectacular all day. I sort of wish she would go into food television and steal me from Patrick. Allen Sternweiler did a game menu with all local proteins he had hunted himself, including a pheasant breast over caramelized brussels sprouts and mushrooms that melted in your mouth (despite the occasional bit of buckshot). Michelle Bernstein came up from Miami and taught me her white gazpacho, which I have since made a gajillion times, as it is probably one of the world's perfect foods.

My dwelling was small, and I could hardly entertain an echo in it; but it seemed larger for being a single apartment and remote from neighbors. All the attractions of a house were concentrated in one room; it was kitchen, chamber, parlor, and keeping-room; and whatever satisfaction parent or child, master or servant, derive from living in a house, I enjoyed it all. Cato says, the master of a family (patremfamilias) must have in his rustic villa "cellam oleariam, vinariam, dolia multa, uti lubeat caritatem expectare, et rei, et virtuti, et gloriae erit," that is, "an oil and wine cellar, many casks, so that it may be pleasant to expect hard times; it will be for his advantage, and virtue, and glory." I had in my cellar a firkin of potatoes, about two quarts of peas with the weevil in them, and on my shelf a little rice, a jug of molasses, and of rye and Indian meal a peck each. I sometimes dream of a larger and more populous house, standing in a golden age, of enduring materials, and without gingerbread work, which shall still consist of only one room, a vast, rude, substantial, primitive hall, without ceiling or plastering, with bare rafters and purlins supporting a sort of lower heaven over one's head—useful to keep off rain and snow, where the king and queen posts stand out to receive your homage, when you have done reverence to the prostrate Saturn of an older dynasty on stepping over the sill; a cavernous house, wherein you must reach up a torch upon a pole to see the roof; where some may live in the fireplace, some in the recess of a window, and some on settles, some at one end of the hall, some at another, and some aloft on rafters with the spiders, if they choose; a house which you have got into when you have opened the outside door, and the ceremony is over; where the weary traveller may wash, and eat, and converse, and sleep, without further journey; such a shelter as you would be glad to reach in a tempestuous night, containing all the essentials of a house, and nothing for house-keeping; where you can see all the treasures of the house at one view, and everything hangs upon its peg, that a man should use; at once kitchen, pantry, parlor, chamber, storehouse, and garret; where you can see so necessary a thing, as a barrel or a ladder, so convenient a thing as a cupboard, and hear the pot boil, and pay your respects to the fire that cooks your dinner, and the oven that bakes your bread, and the necessary furniture and utensils are the chief ornaments; where the washing is not put out, nor the fire, nor the mistress, and perhaps you are sometimes requested to move from off the trap-door, when the cook would descend into the cellar, and so learn whether the ground is solid or hollow beneath you without stamping. A house whose inside is as open and manifest as a bird's nest, and you cannot go in at the front door and out at the back without seeing some of its inhabitants; where to be a guest is to be presented with the freedom of the house, and not to be carefully excluded from seven eighths of it, shut up in a particular cell, and told to make yourself at home there—in solitary confinement. Nowadays the host does not admit you to his hearth, but has got the mason to build one for yourself somewhere in his alley, and hospitality is the art of keeping you at the greatest distance. There is as much secrecy about the cooking as if he had a design to poison you. I am aware that I have been on many a man's premises, and might have been legally ordered off, but I am not aware that I have been in many men's houses. I might visit in my old clothes a king and queen who lived simply in such a house as I have described, if I were going their way; but backing out of a modern palace will be all that I shall desire to learn, if ever I am caught in one.

The next day we booked a three-hundred pound sow for a most unusual photoshoot. She was chauffeured to Hollywood from a farm in Central Valley, and arrived in style at the soundstage bright and early, ready for her close-up. She was a perfect pig, straight from the animal equivalent of Central casting: pink, with gray spots and a sweet disposition. Like Wilbur from Charlotte's Web, but all grown up. I called her "Rhonda." In a pristine studio with white walls and a white floor, I watched as Rhonda was coaxed up a ramp that led to the top of a white pedestal, four feet off the ground. Once she was situated, the ramp was removed, and I took my place beside her. It was a simple setup. Standing next to Rhonda, I would look into the camera and riff about the unsung heroes of Dirty Jobs. I'd conclude with a pointed question: "So, what's on your pedestal?" It was a play on that credit card campaign: "What's in your wallet?" I nailed it on the first take, in front of a roomful of nervous executives. Unfortunately, Rhonda nailed it, too. Just as I asked, "What's on your pedestal?" she crapped all over hers. It was an enormous dump, delivered with impeccable timing. During the second take, Rhonda did it again, right on cue. This time, with a frightful spray of diarrhea that filled the studio with a sulfurous funk, blackening the white walls of the pristine set, and transforming my blue jeans into something browner. I could only marvel at the stench, while the horrified executives backed into a corner - a huddled mass, if you will, yearning to breath free. But Rhonda wasn't done. She crapped on every subsequent take. And when she could crap no more, she began to pee. She peed on my cameraman, She peed on her handler. She peed on me. Finally, when her bladder was empty, we got the take the network could use, along with a commercial that won several awards for "Excellence in Promos." (Yes, they have trophies for such things.) Interestingly, the footage that went viral was not the footage that aired, but the footage Mary encouraged me to release on YouTube after the fact. The outtakes of Rhonda at her incontinent finest. Those were hysterical, and viewed more times than the actual commercial. Go figure. Looking back, putting a pig on a pedestal was maybe the smartest thing I ever did. Not only did it make Rhonda famous, it established me as the nontraditional host of a nontraditional show. One whose primary job was to appear more like a guest, and less like a host. And, whenever possible, not at all like an asshole.

Erienne had avoided the final pat of Lord Talbot and left the flushed and overexcited elder stewing in frustration. She was most happy to welcome the return of her appointed escort and to entrust her virtue to their truce. They met in the maze of guests, and from then on Christopher kept the larger part of the dance floor between them and their host while Talbot stood at the sidelines and, like an anxious stork, craned his neck for a sight of the one who eluded him. “You’re being obvious,” Erienne cautioned her partner. “So is he,” Christopher replied, “and if he persists, he’ll be lucky if I don’t lengthen his stride by a boot in the rear.” “Why are you so determined to harass Lord Talbot?” “You know my reasons for disliking the man.” “Me?” she asked incredulously. “What little time I have with you, I am loath to share with him.” “Why, Christopher,” the blue-violet eyes flashed with puckish humor, and the barest hint of a smile curved her lips to mock him. “Methinks thou dost protest the man overmuch.” He went mechanically through the steps of the dance while his mind plunged to a depth beyond her insight. When his attention returned to her, he nodded and agreed. “Aye, the man! Him, I do protest. I protest his arrogance, his careless flaunting of his power. I protest the wealth he wallows in while his tenants grub for a meager subsistence. Aye, I protest the man, and I decry the possibility that anything entrusted to my care should fall to him.” -Erienne & Christopher

Tina was hosting. She's a thirty-five-year-old version of Sienne, only bottle blonde.Same blind-you lipstick, same taste in clothes,same complete disregard for anyone else's opinion on anything. They hate each other. "You hate me!" Sienna wailed. It wasn't Tina's voice that snapped back, but Dad's, "Oh,no. I am not playing that game with you. Do you have any idea what a hundred pounds of filet is gonna cost me? And now you want lobster?" "But it's my wedding! Daddy-" "Don't you Daddy me, princess! I'm already five grand in the hole for the damned hotel,not to mention two for the dress, and every time I turn around, you and your mother have added a new guest, bridesmaid,or crustacean!" First of all,Dad was yelling.Almost. Second,he was swearing.Even damn is fighting talk for him.I set down my pizza and debated the best route for a sealthy escape. I'd seen the dress.Pretty, in a Disney-princess, twenty-yards-of-tulle, boobs-shaped-into-missiles sort of way. Sienne looked deliriously happy in it. She looked beautiful.The less said about the bridesmaids' dressed, I'd decided, on seeing the purple sateen,the better. "No lobster!" he yelled. There was a dramatic howl, followed by the bang of the back door. When I peeked out,it was like a photo. Everything was frozen.Dad was standing over the massive pasta pot, red-faced and scowling, wooden spoon brandished like a sword. Leo and Ricky had retreated to the doorway of the freezer. Nonna had her eyes turned heavenward, and Tina was halfway through the dining room door, smirking a little.

I saw her as soon as I pulled into the parking lot. This beautiful woman with a gigantic smile on her face was just about bouncing up and down despite the orthopedic boot she had on her foot as she waved me into a parking space. I felt like I’d been hit in the gut. She took my breath away. She was dressed in workout clothes, her long brown hair softly framing her face, and she just glowed. I composed myself and got out of the car. She was standing with Paul Orr, the radio host I was there to meet. Local press had become fairly routine for me at this point, so I hadn’t really given it much thought when I agreed to be a guest on the afternoon drive-time show for WZZK. But I had no idea I’d meet her. Paul reached out his hand and introduced himself. And without waiting to be introduced she whipped out her hand and said, “Hi! I’m Jamie Boyd!” And right away she was talking a mile a minute. She was so chipper I couldn’t help but smile. I was like that little dog in Looney Toons who is always following the big bulldog around shouting, “What are we going to do today, Spike?” She was adorable. She started firing off questions, one of which really caught my attention. “So you were in the Army? What was your MOS?” she asked. Now, MOS is a military term most civilians have never heard. It stands for Military Occupational Specialty. It’s basically military code for “job.” So instead of just asking me what my job was in the Army, she knew enough to specifically ask me what my MOS was. I was impressed. “Eleven Bravo. Were you in?” I replied. “Nope! But I’ve thought about it. I still think one day I will join the Army.” We followed Paul inside and as he set things up and got ready for his show, Jamie and I talked nonstop. She, too, was really into fitness. She was dressed and ready for the gym and told me she was about to leave to get in a quick workout before her shift on-air. “Yeah, I have the shift after Paul Orr. The seven-to-midnight show. I call it the Jammin’ with Jamie Show. People call in and I’ll ask them if they’re cryin’, laughin’, lovin’, or leavin’.” I couldn’t believe how into this girl I was, and we’d only been talking for twenty minutes. I was also dressed in gym clothes, because I’d been to the gym earlier. She looked down and saw the rubber bracelet around my wrist. “Is that an ‘I Am Second’ bracelet? I have one of those!” she said as she held up her wrist with the band that means, “I am second after Jesus.” “No, this is my own bracelet with my motto, ‘Train like a Machine,’ on it. Just my little self-motivator. I have some in my car. I’d love to give you one.” “Well, actually, I am about to leave. I have to go work out before my shift,” she reminded me. “You can have this one. Take it off my wrist. This one will be worth more someday because I’ve been sweating in it,” I joked. She laughed and took it off my wrist. We kept chatting and she told me she had wanted to do an obstacle course race for a long time. Then Paul interrupted our conversation and gently reminded Jamie he had a show to do. He and I needed to start our interview. She laughed some more and smiled her way out the door.

Elizabeth glanced up as Ian handed her a glass of champagne. “Thank you,” she said, smiling up at him and gesturing to Duncan, the duke, and Jake, who were now convulsed with loud hilarity. “They certainly seem to be enjoying themselves,” she remarked. Ian absently glanced the group of laughing men, then back at her. “You’re breathtaking when you smile.” Elizabeth heard the huskiness in his voice and saw the almost slumberous look in his eyes, and she was wondering about its cause when he said softly, “Shall we retire?” That suggestion caused Elizabeth to assume his expression must be due to weariness. She, herself, was more than ready to seek the peace of her own chamber, but since she’d never been to a wedding reception before, she assumed that the protocol must be the same as at any other gala affair-which meant the host and hostess could not withdraw until the last of the guests had either left or retired. Tonight, every one of the guest chambers would be in use, and tomorrow a large wedding breakfast was planned, followed by a hunt. “I’m not sleepy-just a little fatigued from so much smiling,” she told him, pausing to bestow another smile on a guest who caught her eye and waved. Turning her face up to Ian, she offered graciously, “It’s been a long day. If you wish to retire, I’m sure everyone will understand.” “I’m sure they will,” he said dryly, and Elizabeth noted with puzzlement that his eyes were suddenly gleaming. “I’ll stay down here and stand in for you,” she volunteered. The gleam in his eyes brightened yet more. “You don’t think that my retiring alone will look a little odd?” Elizabeth knew it might seem impolite, if not precisely odd, but then inspiration struck, and she said reassuringly, “Leave everything to me. I’ll make your excuses if anyone asks.” His lips twitched. “Just out of curiosity-what excuse will you make for me?” “I’ll say you’re not feeling well. It can’t be anything too dire though, or we’ll be caught out in the fib when you appear looking fit for breakfast and the hunt in the morning.” She hesitated, thinking, and then said decisively, “I’ll say you have the headache.” His eyes widened with laughter. “It’s kind of you to volunteer to dissemble for me, my lady, but that particular untruth would have me on the dueling field for the next month, trying to defend against the aspersions it would cause to be cast upon my…ah…manly character.” “Why? Don’t gentlemen get headaches?” “Not,” he said with a roguish grin, “on their wedding night.” “I can’t see why.” “Can you not?” “No. And,” she added with an irate whisper, “I don’t see why everyone is staying down here this late. I’ve never been to a wedding reception, but it does seem as if they ought to be beginning to seek their beds.” “Elizabeth,” he said, trying not to laugh. “At a wedding reception, the guests cannot leave until the bride and groom retire. If you look over there, you’ll notice my great-aunts are already nodding in their chairs.” “Oh!” she exclaimed, instantly contrite. “I didn’t know. Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” “Because,” he said, taking her elbow and beginning to guide her from the ballroom, “I wanted you to enjoy every minute of our ball, even if we had to prop the guests up on the shrubbery.

Ione I. AH, yes, 't is sweet still to remember, Though 't were less painful to forget; For while my heart glows like an ember, Mine eyes with sorrow's drops are wet, And, oh, my heart is aching yet. It is a law of mortal pain That old wounds, long accounted well, Beneath the memory's potent spell, Will wake to life and bleed again. So 't is with me; it might be better If I should turn no look behind, — If I could curb my heart, and fetter From reminiscent gaze my mind, Or let my soul go blind — go blind! But would I do it if I could? Nay! ease at such a price were spurned; For, since my love was once returned, All that I suffer seemeth good. I know, I know it is the fashion, When love has left some heart distressed, To weight the air with wordful passion; But I am glad that in my breast I ever held so dear a guest. Love does not come at every nod, Or every voice that calleth 'hasten;' He seeketh out some heart to chasten, And whips it, wailing, up to God! Love is no random road wayfarer Who Where he may must sip his glass. Love is the King, the Purple-Wearer, Whose guard recks not of tree or grass To blaze the way that he may pass. What if my heart be in the blast That heralds his triumphant way; Shall I repine, shall I not say: 'Rejoice, my heart, the King has passed!' In life, each heart holds some sad story — The saddest ones are never told. I, too, have dreamed of fame and glory, And viewed the future bright with gold; But that is as a tale long told. Mine eyes have lost their youthful flash, My cunning hand has lost its art; I am not old, but in my heart The ember lies beneath the ash. I loved! Why not? My heart was youthful, My mind was filled with healthy thought. He doubts not whose own self is truthful, Doubt by dishonesty is taught; So loved! boldly, fearing naught. I did not walk this lowly earth; Mine was a newer, higher sphere, Where youth was long and life was dear, And all save love was little worth. Her likeness! Would that I might limn it, As Love did, with enduring art; Nor dust of days nor death may dim it, Where it lies graven on my heart, Of this sad fabric of my life a part. I would that I might paint her now As I beheld her in that day, Ere her first bloom had passed away, And left the lines upon her brow. A face serene that, beaming brightly, Disarmed the hot sun's glances bold. A foot that kissed the ground so lightly, He frowned in wrath and deemed her cold, But loved her still though he was old. A form where every maiden grace Bloomed to perfection's richest flower, — The statued pose of conscious power, Like lithe-limbed Dian's of the chase. Beneath a brow too fair for frowning, Like moon-lit deeps that glass the skies Till all the hosts above seem drowning, Looked forth her steadfast hazel eyes, With gaze serene and purely wise. And over all, her tresses rare, Which, when, with his desire grown weak, The Night bent down to kiss her cheek, Entrapped and held him captive there. This was Ione; a spirit finer Ne'er burned to ash its house of clay; A soul instinct with fire diviner Ne'er fled athwart the face of day, And tempted Time with earthly stay. Her loveliness was not alone Of face and form and tresses' hue; For aye a pure, high soul shone through Her every act: this was Ione.

To Lillian’s surprise, she had been seated near the head of Lord Westcliff’s table, only three places away from his right hand. Occupying a place so close to the host was a mark of high favor, very seldom given to an unmarried girl with no rank. Wondering if the footman had make a mistake in seating her there, she glanced cautiously at the faces of those guests nearest her, and saw that they too were puzzled by her presence. Even the countess, who was being seated at the very end of the table, stared at her with a frown. Lillian gave Lord Westcliff a questioning glance as he took his place at the head of the table. One of his dark brows arched. “Is something amiss? You seem a bit perturbed, Miss Bowman.” The correct response would probably have been to blush and thank him for the unexpected honor. But as Lillian stared at his face, which was softened by the influence of candleglow, she found herself answering with brazen frankness. “I am wondering why I am sitting near the head of the table. In light of what happened this morning, I assumed you would have me seated all the way out on the back terrace.” There was a moment of utter silence as the guests around them registered shock that Lillian would so openly refer to the conflict between them. However, Westcliff astonished them all by laughing quietly, his gaze locked with hers. After a moment, the others joined in with forced chuckles. “Knowing of your penchant for trouble, Miss Bowman, I have concluded that it is safer to keep you in my sight, and within arm’s reach if possible.” His statement was delivered with matter-of-fact lightness. One would have to search very hard to find any innuendo in his tone. And yet Lillian felt a strange liquid ripple inside, sensation passing from one nerve to another like a flow of warm honey.

The first signal of the change in her behavior was Prince Andrew’s stag night when the Princess of Wales and Sarah Ferguson dressed as policewomen in a vain attempt to gatecrash his party. Instead they drank champagne and orange juice at Annabel’s night club before returning to Buckingham Palace where they stopped Andrew’s car at the entrance as he returned home. Technically the impersonation of police officers is a criminal offence, a point not neglected by several censorious Members of Parliament. For a time this boisterous mood reigned supreme within the royal family. When the Duke and Duchess hosted a party at Windsor Castle as a thank you for everyone who had helped organize their wedding, it was Fergie who encouraged everyone to jump, fully clothed, into the swimming pool. There were numerous noisy dinner parties and a disco in the Waterloo Room at Windsor Castle at Christmas. Fergie even encouraged Diana to join her in an impromptu version of the can-can. This was but a rehearsal for their first public performance when the girls, accompanied by their husbands, flew to Klosters for a week-long skiing holiday. On the first day they lined up in front of the cameras for the traditional photo-call. For sheer absurdity this annual spectacle takes some beating as ninety assorted photographers laden with ladders and equipment scramble through the snow for positions. Diana and Sarah took this silliness at face value, staging a cabaret on ice as they indulged in a mock conflict, pushing and shoving each other until Prince Charles announced censoriously: “Come on, come on!” Until then Diana’s skittish sense of humour had only been seen in flashes, invariably clouded by a mask of blushes and wan silences. So it was a surprised group of photographers who chanced across the Princess in a Klosters café that same afternoon. She pointed to the outsize medal on her jacket, joking: “I have awarded it to myself for services to my country because no-one else will.” It was an aside which spoke volumes about her underlying self-doubt. The mood of frivolity continued with pillow fights in their chalet at Wolfgang although it would be wrong to characterize the mood on that holiday as a glorified schoolgirls’ outing. As one royal guest commented: “It was good fun within reason. You have to mind your p’s and q’s when royalty, particularly Prince Charles, is present. It is quite formal and can be rather a strain.

In Classical mythology, righteous wrath was the province of old women. Three very specific old women, in fact: the Furies (or the Erinyes, in Greek). Fragments of myth featuring the Furies are found in the earliest records of ancient Greek culture. These sisters were much more ancient than any of the Olympian deities, indicating the persistence of an older, female-dominated tradition which endured here and there even when later, more patriarchal, mythologies set in. The role of the Furies was to preside over complaints brought to them by humans about behavior that was thought to be intolerable: from lesser misdemeanors such as the insolence of the young to the aged, of children to parents, of hosts to guests — to crimes that were very much worse. It was their role to punish such crimes by relentlessly hounding their perpetrators. The Greek poet Hesiod names the three sisters as Alecto — “unceasing in anger,” the punisher of moral crimes; Megaera — “jealous one,” the punisher of infidelity, oath-breaking, and theft; and Tisiphone — “avenger of murder.” They were, he said, the daughters of Gaea (the goddess who personified the Earth), who conceived them from the blood of her spouse, Uranus, after he had been castrated by his son, Cronos. They lived in the Underworld, and like other chthonic deities, like seeds that lie buried beneath the Earth, they were also identified with its fertility. The wrath of the Furies manifested itself in a number of ways: a tormenting madness would be inflicted on the perpetrator of a patricide or matricide; murderers usually suffered a dire disease, and nations which harbored such criminals could be stricken with famine and plague. The Furies could only be placated with ritual purification, and the completion of a task specifically assigned by them for atonement. It’s important to understand that although the Furies were feared, they were also respected and perceived to be necessary: they represented justice, and were seen to be defenders of moral and legal order. The Furies were portrayed as the foul-smelling, decidedly haggish possessors of bat-like wings, with black snakes adorning their hair, arms, and waists, and blood dripping from their eyes. And they carried brass-studded scourges in their hands. In my menopausal years, I certainly had days when I could have gone with that look. I’m happy to admit that the existence of seriously not-to-be-messed-with elder women like the Furies in our oldest European mythology gives me great pleasure. And it’s difficult not to see them as the perfect menopausal role models, because sudden upwellings of (mostly righteous) anger are a feature of many women’s experience of menopause