SO, apparently in addition to the need for hospitality training (see prior blog here), people need to be informed of how to give directions that actually bring people to your house. Today we trekked two hours away to visit DH's mother's sister's neighbors' son and his family. Convoluted, yes, but the short story is this woman is a longtime friend of MIL, she and her husband were visiting their son who also lives here (relatively speaking), and they insisted we come to visit them with the kids, since their kids are the same ages. Ho-kay.
DH asked for directions a few days ago, and we received an email with a link to an online map, but no actual address (hmmm) and the added information that "no search engine we've found" has been able to properly map their address. Upon reading this forwarded email from DH, my brow wrinkled momentarily but I figured we would get the address and then see for ourselves what we could turn up.
Today we piled into the car hurriedly, as we were leaving about 20 minutes later than we thought we should, and even though the Irish are notoriously lax about timing we didn't want to assume that courtesy (or lack thereof!) extended to the unknown expat son and fam. So we were in a rush and I didn't print up the map. DH had his Blackberry, he could pull up the email, and besides we had the hand-me-down GPS unit which my parents gifted us with on their last trip. No problem.
So the first problem was the GPS unit did not recognize the house number and street which we entered in, which DH had pried from the son in a last minute email yesterday. Ok, we can wing it, right? Second problem was DH's Blackberry could not load the online map which was contained in the email. Apparently it does not have the right interface for Blackberry (I could hint as to what corporation provided this online map system but I will be polite and refrain, as the aforementioned neighbors' son works for it). Gee thanks.
DH used a GPS program on his Blackberry to locate the general vicinity to which we were headed, and we picked a random address that the hand-me-down GPS unit recognized in the same neighborhood and just went with that. The hand-me-down unit started failing us due to the incorrect address, and then we relied solely on the Blackberry's GPS program. We got to the correct, supposedly last street before the turn-off for their street, and drove up and down it for five minutes before concluding that we would require their assistance and rang.
That is when we were told that we had to look for Xth Street, and turn onto that street before we turned onto THEIR street. Ah, you see, that is a critical bit of information. If the last street before you turn onto your street is in fact, the second to last street, don't you think it would be polite to mention that to guests? Would you not have noted down the name of this street in the, oh, seven years you've lived there? So you can tell people how to get to your house without issue?
Oh yes, and what is wrong with using some other recognizable landmarks? Such as, the clearly printed name of your subdivision which is visible from the name of the road you DID give out as the "last street" before you turn onto the street which your house is actually on? When that "last street" is really the second-to-last street? Hmmm? Or even saying, "It's a very quick right onto Xth Street, then another very quick right"? Is that so very difficult to do?
I guess we are just odd. We give directions in terms of right and left, as well as compass directions (north, south, etc), and also give some clues as to landmarks (near this store/gas station/strip mall; up the big hill, etc). Basically, when we invite people over to our house, we sincerely want them to arrive on time and having been able to easily find us. We don't like to find frazzled guests on our doorstop, late, and irritated by the hassle of trying to decipher poor directions to find us at long last. But I suppose it's yet another indication of thoughtlessness at best and apathy at worst!
Now we are going to reciprocate with an invitation for them to come to visit us soon, but I don't know if they will come. The connection being tenuous at best, coupled with the 2 hour drive, makes it a bit of a stretch under the best of circumstances. However, we do feel obligated to do so, and I'm sure MIL and her friend will be badgering both of us (both families) to "get together again soon". So we will invite them and we will be happy for them to come. I doubt there will be lifelong friendships born, but it is always nice to have a touchpoint for DH in terms of a fellow countryman who knows what life is like in a big, nosy Irish family. That is worth some bungled directions, I suppose. *LOL*
Showing posts with label friends. Show all posts
Showing posts with label friends. Show all posts
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Being Good Hosts & Good Guests
DH & I have commented on how few of our friends actually host parties these days. It seems that it is too much work to have a bunch of people over to your house at the same time, so no one does it. In the five plus years that we lived in Arizona, we attended exactly *five* parties hosted at someone else's house. One was a Halloween party, one was a birthday party, one was a work party, and two were housewarming parties. I'm not talking about kiddo birthday parties, I'm talking about for adults, general conversation and chatting and wine & cheese, grown up parties.
What is so intimidating about hosting a party? You clean your house (which hopefully isn't that much of a disaster area to start with), you arrange chairs, buy some party platters or make your own, ask your friends to bring something to share (our favorite way to keep costs down), and throw on some tunes when people start showing up. Is that so difficult to organize? Oh, I suppose you should send an email or actual invitation to the party, too, but thanks to websites like evite, etc, that is easier than ever. Phone calls work too for informal invitations.
Perhaps it's not the mechanical aspects of hosting (clean house, organized food/drink, etc), but rather the gross inability of people to organize their own schedules and commit to a specific date. We've mused to some friends about this oddity, and they say, "Oh, but a party is so much work...who has time for that?" Um, it's not that much work, folks.
Do people just not entertain any more? Even getting invited to someone's house for dinner is pretty rare nowadays, in our experience. I don't think it's just us--maybe it is, maybe we are just unpopular! *LOL* Nope, seriously, I don't think so--we had over 50 people in our house for our St. Patrick's Day party, so we aren't *that* disliked. We invite people over all the time, and they are always shocked that we actually cook for them, you know, from scratch! It's like the response is, "I have heard of this thing you do, this 'cooking from scratch'...how do you find time to do it?" Em, we would have asked you over anyway if we were having take-out, it's just not a big deal to us to have some extra folks at the dinner table. We do make an effort to pick up, unless it's our best friends, in which case, well, they've seen our house at its worst so it doesn't matter what state it's in! Heck, during grad school we even had friends over for take-out pizza & a rented movie, and we were all in our PJs because it had been one of those weeks, and damn, we were tired! As I recall 2 spouses dozed off during the movie and when #3 fell, the movie was declared done with 20 odd minutes to go and they toodled off home.
I guess I am just puzzled because people seem to be lacking in the training or desire to host others at their homes. The best friends we've made here since moving a year ago are those people who have actually offered the hospitality of their table to us and we have reciprocated in kind. There is something very satisfying about breaking bread with others, and it's a very nice gesture of respect and friendship.
People also seem to not know how to be good guests. Right now we have a standing invitation to 2 couples for dinner & a board game night--we are putting our eldest kiddo to bed early, babies are welcome, and we are just going to enjoy some good food and chill out over a game of Scattergories or the like. First, one of the couples was unsure about the date we suggested. We told them we are very flexible, no problem, just let us know. It took almost 2 weeks to get a date, and even then, there was some uncertainty because the wife had some commitments earlier in the day and wouldn't be home until late. Hokay...you can just say it's a bad day, you know...that's ok! Hemming and hawing, "no, no, that's fine, it will work"; and we trudged along with that date in mind. Then, the Sunday before that date, couple #2 tells us at church, "I'm so sorry, DH forgot to tell me about this appointment he made months ago for that night, can we possibly move it to next weekend?" I said, "Sure, no problem--that's Memorial Day weekend, though. I will have to check with Couple #1 to see if they are going to be in town. Are you guys going to be in town?" "Oh yes, we are going to be here--that would be great. Thank you so much!"
So I go and talk to Couple #1, and they say, "Yeah, sure, no problem, we are going to be here." I feel horrid changing it at relatively late notice but Couple #1 is very nice about it.
Now, today, guess what? I have heard nothing from Couple #2, in fact we haven't even seen them at church and as they are busy and we are busy we just assume (as you do) that all is well and we are heading toward dinner & games this coming Saturday--and now I get an email. "I'm sorry, DH forgot to tell me about this arrangement he made to see some friends of ours, we are going to be out of town this weekend! We haven't seen them for a year, so we really have to go--is there any way we can move it again? We can't make it the weekend of June 2nd, how about June 9th? Would that be okay?"
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! No, it's not okay!! We are going to be going on vacation! And how is it that you didn't talk to your husband last week when I specifically asked you if you were going to be in town this coming weekend??? And we have another commitment on June 2nd! Arrgghh! I am not cancelling or moving on Couple #1 again, we are just going to go ahead and have them over without Couple #2. Maybe we will try to get another couple too, or we will just go ahead with just Couple #1. We have had several nice dinners/lunches with them and I think it will be another nice night regardless.
Another recent example of being bad guests. We invited our neighbors over to dinner while my ILs were here, because we knew they would have a good time chatting and we had been to their house several times and we wanted to reciprocate. So I called and arranged for them to come over on a Sunday night for dinner (a holiday weekend) and our neighbor said, "Ok, just let me know what I can bring," to which I replied, "Well I don't know what we are making yet, and we will probably have everything covered--but if I think of something I will let you know." So we went ahead with our lives and I bought a pot roast, all the trimmings, lovely bread, and baked a great cake, everything. My brother and his family happened to decide, spur of the moment, to come down that weekend to visit with my ILs (they love them, it's a long story but suffice it to say they wish they were directly related!) and spent Saturday night. I had told them we were having company for dinner, so they cleared out at about 4 pm to go back to their hometown and we (me, DH, FIL, & MIL) set about frantic house cleaning and dinner preparations for the neighbors, who were due at 6 pm. The appointed time came and went, and I called our neighbors at 6:15 to find out if I had misspoken and said 6:30 or 7 instead. Our conversation:
"Hi X, it's Y from next door. Listen, I was just wondering if I told you 6:30 tonight instead of 6?"
"Oh, hi Y. Oh...oh--oh I'm so sorry. We'll be right over. Let me talk to (DH)."
"Ok, great, we'll see you in a few minutes!"
I hung up, and the phone rang again about 30 seconds later.
"Hi Y, it's X. Listen, I'm so sorry, but DH is tired and to be honest we already ate our dinner, so we're not going to come over."
(a brief moment of stunned silence from me) "You ate dinner? Oh. Did you forget about dinner tonight here?"
"No, I saw you had company and you never called me back to let me know what I could bring, so I just assumed you changed your mind."
"Uh, no. Obviously there has been a miscommunication. I'm sorry, I should have called you to confirm. I just thought it was all squared away. We'll try again another time." (I really fumbled around because I was just stunned that someone would assume that because I hadn't told them to bring something and saw a strange car in the driveway that it was cancelled!!)
"Yes, really sorry about that Y. Enjoy your dinner."
Um, words cannot express the irritation and anger that we all experienced over that one. My ILs thought we should never invite them over again! A bit melodramatic, and certainly how we felt at the time, but fortuitously we have smoothed over that little incident and have a perfectly friendly relationship with them still. However, I still am amazed that someone would just assume that dinner plans were cancelled without at least picking up the phone to ask, "What can I bring for dinner on Sunday?" or "Hey, I saw you have company--are we still on for dinner tonight?"
I admit that I have my faux pas when entertaining, too. I have forgotten to offer guests drinks or something to snack on when they are visiting us, and I have forgotten to ensure that enough toilet paper was available in the bathroom. But really, is it *that* difficult to be a host, or a guest these days? Come on, people, let's learn how to do hospitality again!
What is so intimidating about hosting a party? You clean your house (which hopefully isn't that much of a disaster area to start with), you arrange chairs, buy some party platters or make your own, ask your friends to bring something to share (our favorite way to keep costs down), and throw on some tunes when people start showing up. Is that so difficult to organize? Oh, I suppose you should send an email or actual invitation to the party, too, but thanks to websites like evite, etc, that is easier than ever. Phone calls work too for informal invitations.
Perhaps it's not the mechanical aspects of hosting (clean house, organized food/drink, etc), but rather the gross inability of people to organize their own schedules and commit to a specific date. We've mused to some friends about this oddity, and they say, "Oh, but a party is so much work...who has time for that?" Um, it's not that much work, folks.
Do people just not entertain any more? Even getting invited to someone's house for dinner is pretty rare nowadays, in our experience. I don't think it's just us--maybe it is, maybe we are just unpopular! *LOL* Nope, seriously, I don't think so--we had over 50 people in our house for our St. Patrick's Day party, so we aren't *that* disliked. We invite people over all the time, and they are always shocked that we actually cook for them, you know, from scratch! It's like the response is, "I have heard of this thing you do, this 'cooking from scratch'...how do you find time to do it?" Em, we would have asked you over anyway if we were having take-out, it's just not a big deal to us to have some extra folks at the dinner table. We do make an effort to pick up, unless it's our best friends, in which case, well, they've seen our house at its worst so it doesn't matter what state it's in! Heck, during grad school we even had friends over for take-out pizza & a rented movie, and we were all in our PJs because it had been one of those weeks, and damn, we were tired! As I recall 2 spouses dozed off during the movie and when #3 fell, the movie was declared done with 20 odd minutes to go and they toodled off home.
I guess I am just puzzled because people seem to be lacking in the training or desire to host others at their homes. The best friends we've made here since moving a year ago are those people who have actually offered the hospitality of their table to us and we have reciprocated in kind. There is something very satisfying about breaking bread with others, and it's a very nice gesture of respect and friendship.
People also seem to not know how to be good guests. Right now we have a standing invitation to 2 couples for dinner & a board game night--we are putting our eldest kiddo to bed early, babies are welcome, and we are just going to enjoy some good food and chill out over a game of Scattergories or the like. First, one of the couples was unsure about the date we suggested. We told them we are very flexible, no problem, just let us know. It took almost 2 weeks to get a date, and even then, there was some uncertainty because the wife had some commitments earlier in the day and wouldn't be home until late. Hokay...you can just say it's a bad day, you know...that's ok! Hemming and hawing, "no, no, that's fine, it will work"; and we trudged along with that date in mind. Then, the Sunday before that date, couple #2 tells us at church, "I'm so sorry, DH forgot to tell me about this appointment he made months ago for that night, can we possibly move it to next weekend?" I said, "Sure, no problem--that's Memorial Day weekend, though. I will have to check with Couple #1 to see if they are going to be in town. Are you guys going to be in town?" "Oh yes, we are going to be here--that would be great. Thank you so much!"
So I go and talk to Couple #1, and they say, "Yeah, sure, no problem, we are going to be here." I feel horrid changing it at relatively late notice but Couple #1 is very nice about it.
Now, today, guess what? I have heard nothing from Couple #2, in fact we haven't even seen them at church and as they are busy and we are busy we just assume (as you do) that all is well and we are heading toward dinner & games this coming Saturday--and now I get an email. "I'm sorry, DH forgot to tell me about this arrangement he made to see some friends of ours, we are going to be out of town this weekend! We haven't seen them for a year, so we really have to go--is there any way we can move it again? We can't make it the weekend of June 2nd, how about June 9th? Would that be okay?"
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! No, it's not okay!! We are going to be going on vacation! And how is it that you didn't talk to your husband last week when I specifically asked you if you were going to be in town this coming weekend??? And we have another commitment on June 2nd! Arrgghh! I am not cancelling or moving on Couple #1 again, we are just going to go ahead and have them over without Couple #2. Maybe we will try to get another couple too, or we will just go ahead with just Couple #1. We have had several nice dinners/lunches with them and I think it will be another nice night regardless.
Another recent example of being bad guests. We invited our neighbors over to dinner while my ILs were here, because we knew they would have a good time chatting and we had been to their house several times and we wanted to reciprocate. So I called and arranged for them to come over on a Sunday night for dinner (a holiday weekend) and our neighbor said, "Ok, just let me know what I can bring," to which I replied, "Well I don't know what we are making yet, and we will probably have everything covered--but if I think of something I will let you know." So we went ahead with our lives and I bought a pot roast, all the trimmings, lovely bread, and baked a great cake, everything. My brother and his family happened to decide, spur of the moment, to come down that weekend to visit with my ILs (they love them, it's a long story but suffice it to say they wish they were directly related!) and spent Saturday night. I had told them we were having company for dinner, so they cleared out at about 4 pm to go back to their hometown and we (me, DH, FIL, & MIL) set about frantic house cleaning and dinner preparations for the neighbors, who were due at 6 pm. The appointed time came and went, and I called our neighbors at 6:15 to find out if I had misspoken and said 6:30 or 7 instead. Our conversation:
"Hi X, it's Y from next door. Listen, I was just wondering if I told you 6:30 tonight instead of 6?"
"Oh, hi Y. Oh...oh--oh I'm so sorry. We'll be right over. Let me talk to (DH)."
"Ok, great, we'll see you in a few minutes!"
I hung up, and the phone rang again about 30 seconds later.
"Hi Y, it's X. Listen, I'm so sorry, but DH is tired and to be honest we already ate our dinner, so we're not going to come over."
(a brief moment of stunned silence from me) "You ate dinner? Oh. Did you forget about dinner tonight here?"
"No, I saw you had company and you never called me back to let me know what I could bring, so I just assumed you changed your mind."
"Uh, no. Obviously there has been a miscommunication. I'm sorry, I should have called you to confirm. I just thought it was all squared away. We'll try again another time." (I really fumbled around because I was just stunned that someone would assume that because I hadn't told them to bring something and saw a strange car in the driveway that it was cancelled!!)
"Yes, really sorry about that Y. Enjoy your dinner."
Um, words cannot express the irritation and anger that we all experienced over that one. My ILs thought we should never invite them over again! A bit melodramatic, and certainly how we felt at the time, but fortuitously we have smoothed over that little incident and have a perfectly friendly relationship with them still. However, I still am amazed that someone would just assume that dinner plans were cancelled without at least picking up the phone to ask, "What can I bring for dinner on Sunday?" or "Hey, I saw you have company--are we still on for dinner tonight?"
I admit that I have my faux pas when entertaining, too. I have forgotten to offer guests drinks or something to snack on when they are visiting us, and I have forgotten to ensure that enough toilet paper was available in the bathroom. But really, is it *that* difficult to be a host, or a guest these days? Come on, people, let's learn how to do hospitality again!
Thursday, May 3, 2007
The Correspondence Burden
I am just sick of thank you cards. I know they are for a good thing, and serve a useful purpose. I am just sick of writing them.
My husband doesn't like to write thank you cards. Well, uh, I don't think anyone likes to write them, the last time I checked... I usually don't mind writing them, but I have written so many lately, I am suffering from thank-you card burn-out. Ha! No, really, I am. I had to write a zillion cards for a baby shower the kind folks at church threw for DS, and that kind of burned me out on them for a while. All right, maybe not a zillion, only a thousand or so...it sure felt that way at the time, so that has to count.
Now we have a bunch of thank you cards that need to be written to DH's extended family. The Irish hospitality gene is strong--we have gotten baby gifts from DH's many cousins, who have all been kind and thoughtful with their gift selections. I have one lingering thank you card to write on behalf of DD for an Easter gift. And if I don't write a thank you card to FIL's best friend and his wife for their baby gift, that will be strike 2 on the baby gift front, as I don't recall writing them a thank you card for their gift for DD.
Hmmmmm. I also feel waves of guilt occasionally about the lack of emails I have written to friends that I want to keep in touch with. DH just updated our website with new photos, so now we are getting a new wave of correspondence seeking to reconnect & update. *sigh* I don't know when I'll get to those, either!! Jeez, I thought this SAHM gig was supposed to involve plenty of leisure time for eating bon-bons and composing chatty cards & emails to all and sundry. I think I've been gypped!
My husband doesn't like to write thank you cards. Well, uh, I don't think anyone likes to write them, the last time I checked... I usually don't mind writing them, but I have written so many lately, I am suffering from thank-you card burn-out. Ha! No, really, I am. I had to write a zillion cards for a baby shower the kind folks at church threw for DS, and that kind of burned me out on them for a while. All right, maybe not a zillion, only a thousand or so...it sure felt that way at the time, so that has to count.
Now we have a bunch of thank you cards that need to be written to DH's extended family. The Irish hospitality gene is strong--we have gotten baby gifts from DH's many cousins, who have all been kind and thoughtful with their gift selections. I have one lingering thank you card to write on behalf of DD for an Easter gift. And if I don't write a thank you card to FIL's best friend and his wife for their baby gift, that will be strike 2 on the baby gift front, as I don't recall writing them a thank you card for their gift for DD.
Hmmmmm. I also feel waves of guilt occasionally about the lack of emails I have written to friends that I want to keep in touch with. DH just updated our website with new photos, so now we are getting a new wave of correspondence seeking to reconnect & update. *sigh* I don't know when I'll get to those, either!! Jeez, I thought this SAHM gig was supposed to involve plenty of leisure time for eating bon-bons and composing chatty cards & emails to all and sundry. I think I've been gypped!
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