Staying In

Is there anything better than laying in a cozy bed, with no plans to pull you away, while the outdoors gets scrubbed clean by the first spring rain?  

Some days are made for staying in.

True, Finn and I still managed a wind-whipped morning walk between gully washers, made all the more successful because neither of us was terrorized by tumbling tree limbs calling "uncle."  But, as soon as we got back home, we both knew it was likely a one-and-done kind of day.

It is a good thing when the weather occasionally sabotages our self importance and washes out our weekend wish lists.  

It is a good thing to idly stare out the rain-spattered back window, gape-jawed at the Cedar Waxwings eating breakfast in our Crab Apple.  It is a good thing to have the delicious task of riffling through the bookshelf, pondering which untouched title to pick up next.  Heck, this morning, it even is a good thing to dawdle on the dwindling want-ads pages, wondering if I have what it takes to be a Night Distribution Coordinator at the paper (I don't). 

Surely, this year--of all years-- we've learned to appreciate the "pause" button a bit more, begun to understand the importance of being able to pivot in the midst of disruption.  And what ruption will be dissed for you on this rainy day?

Will you replace tending your garden with writing a friend a letter?  Swap tallying your taxes for taking a long, hot bath?  Is today the day you give yourself over to the joy of music played too loud, of dance moves that erupt without forethought or shame? 

Finn may disagree, but I'm rather looking forward to seeing what unfolds within these walls that hold me today.  

The Arc and its Covenant

Last night, a flash of light punctuated itself between the slats of our blinds, followed by thunder--low and rumbly.  It was all I could do not to trip over Mark's outstretched feet as I tore open the front door, breathing in the metallic scent of something both ancient and new. 

Already drunk from successive days of southerly winds and bright, sunlit afternoons, the evening's prelude for spring storms left me thick-tongued and delirious. 

Such are the effects of earth's rotation within the vast universe, the orb's spring-ward arc and its beloved covenant.  

Early last month, I decided to alter this year's calendar, pushing New Year's Eve to March 10, 2021, a year to the day when I shed the last of my innocence.  By dinnertime the following night, I'd learn that Tom Hanks was holed up in Australia, with something called COVID-19, and I felt a subtle yet seismic shift in the arc of things. 

What followed is both inexplicable to and known by all--a devastating year of disease, death, discord.

But still, this beautiful earth held to its well-worn path, spinning lopsidedly on its axis while bending its way around the sun.  

And still, the Sandhills Cranes came, alighting on the sandy fingertips of the Platte, hungry and honking.  

Still, the Honey Locust out front stretched its limbs skyward, its tiny, new leaves filling up on light-filled fuel. 

Still, the fireflies brought their magical light shows to our summer lawns.

Still, the milo fields burned orange, under the umber light of a September sunset.

Still, the quiet storm of endless snow told us it was okay to stay in and just watch.

Come March 10th, amidst the mixed microburst of crocus and vaccine, I will don a silly hat and raise a glass to this beautiful, steady earth that has held me this long year, remembering those who have gone and those who have yet to come.  

Amen and allelujah. 

Joy and Justice

"Joy, I think, is a kind of self justice."
        --J. Drew Lanham, ornithologist and poet

What could possibly top the wonderland of yesterday morning, our world transformed into an icy, walk-through Ansel Adams photo framed in iterations of grey?  By lunch yesterday, my neck was sore from looking up and my toes were frozen from walking through.  What a way to go, though!

This morning could not have been more different.  Clear and calm, almost spring-like, my walk was punctuated by long-silented birds. Cardinals had swapped their short-chirping winter soundtrack for the trilly love songs of spring, while the Blue Jays shrieked warning of the low-flying Sharp-Shinned Hawk trolling for breakfast.  Also chiming in were Black-Capped Chickadees (chick-a-dee-dee-dee!), White-Breasted Nuthatches, sparrows (who generally deserve no capitals, except for the White-Crowned, Harris and White-Throated varieties) and House Finches.  It was a choral performance for the ages.

Halfway through the walk, the low, golden arms of a February sun alit on my head, stretching my shadow across 33rd Street, until I covered both sides of it.  And, as so often happens when I walk, I felt the low, happy thrum of endorphins pulse through me.

Yes, I've seen the forecast.  I'm aware that today is as good as it gets for awhile.  Plummeting temps likely will shorten my walks for the next few weeks, but they won't stop them.  And I'll be darned if I let something that is not here yet take away the joy that this morning has already brought to me.  That would be squandering a gift and, if I've learned anything in the past year, it is to savor the good that finds me.  

Joy, for me, is the best fuel I can burn as I walk into the unknown of a thousand tomorrows.  If I were you, I'd head outdoors today and fill up on it.  Your engine will thank you.

"I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in."
    --John Muir

 

Doggone These Dog Days

Apparently, for about twenty minutes today--while we were wandering Woods Park--Finn was dead, which would have surprised both of us, had we noticed, especially considering how diligently he was stalking the squirrels.  Halfway through the walk, my brother called to tell me about Finn's untimely death.  Or at least what people had perceived as his untimely passing.

My bad.  

I consider myself a halfway decent wordsmith, but I had clearly botched things up with this morning's Facebook post.  I thought I was being playful with the concept of time, referencing how the past four years had felt like a decade, how--heck!--the past week had felt like a year and, yet,  how I couldn't believe the speed with which nine years had passed since we'd first gotten Finn.  I posted it and then we went went galumphing on our way.

One condolence quickly snowballed into a small collective of digital grief, until I pulled the plug on the post, post haste.  A few awkward PMs and a revamped post later, and we'd mostly cleared things up.  Good news for Finn!

But I was left with a sense of how quickly we go dark these days, and what a price our lightness pays because of that. 

Worn down by endless days of repellant rhetoric, fractured factions and calamitous COVID, we eventually find ourselves stripped of nuance.  No more subtle greys--just black and white.  But mostly black.  I've certainly seen it in myself.  My dull brain has missed many a pun this year, for example, and I recently interpreted a yelp from Finn as proof of a sinister disease ravaging him. One meant a missed opportunity to giggle, while the other became a wasted visit to the vet, nuance but a wispy memory.

We all seem to be on edge right now, quick to misinterpret and slow to celebrate.  Boy, am I ready for a return to lightness, to a time when I once again can discern intent, pick up on subtlety, bust a gut with my buds.  Because this?  This is an unsatisfying place to be.  Especially if you're a dog, just trying to celebrate your "gotcha day" with an extra walk or two and maybe another handful of kibble. 

 

Warmth

I write this during the early-morning hour of a blizzard.  As you can see, Finn is making the most of it, cozy beneath the how-can-they-make-material-so-soft warmth of my fleece blanket.  What you can't see is that my own form is also comfy under said comforter.   

Earlier--just after the call from the district that I should stay in bed (apparently, even people who only very occasionally collect wrinkled dollar bills at school sporting events still qualify for The Call) --Finn thought that perhaps I'd abandon my book and head downstairs, so he scurried off the bed to begin his doggy calisthenics on the carpet in the other room.  That's when I reached my hand over to the spot he'd just abandoned and relished the warmth of his imprint. 

Good lord, I love that sensation...the thermal memory of someone I love who now is somewhere else.  Three mornings each week, weekend warrior Mark abandons me before 5 a.m., readying himself to do things for airplanes that I still don't quite understand.  Often, I let my arm drape over his pillow, his warmth still pooling there for me.  

I love that all of my friends and all of their students also got the early-morning call to stay in bed and savor the hard-earned warmth of skin-on-sheet. 

And when I finally swap pjs for something only slightly more public-appropriate, donning coat and boots for a walk around the block,  I'm certain I'll find that warmth again, the imprints of those I love, showing up in the least-expected places and ways.  In the brilliant red flash of a male cardinal darting for cover.  In the uplifted swirl of snow, the resilient bend of little bluestem, the crunch of snow under tires.

The warm imprints of our beloved are everywhere, mixed up in and moving through this ridiculous life, whispering their breathy incantations, reminders that we most certainly aren't alone, even in the storm.   

The Longest Month

When I taught (I know, I know. I should be wary of using that term, lest a dozen former students PM me, frantically typing up myriad examples of all the times I did not, in fact, teach), anyway. . . . When I taught, I always considered February--stunted though it may be on the pages of my Sierra Club weekly calendar--to be the longest month of the year. Void of vacation days, punctuated by the pap of a day Hallmark created to bump up sluggish sales, the sun still too low in the sky to ignite anything but ennui, February offered little in the way of hope.

Now retired, and wrapped in the poly-blend blanket of politics and pandemic, I'd be forgiven for mistaking this January for any February. And we just now got to double digits, for crying out loud.

Thank goodness I found this swamp-oak leaf the other morning, resting on the pavement at Woods Park, so neatly outlined in the remnants of an overnight fog. That tiny discovery jolted me. First, I thought, what is something with the word "swamp" doing in Nebraska? And, as someone who has always struggled to use scissors deftly, or to outline decently, I wondered how on earth the fog fell so perfectly along the leaf's edges. What was it about those edges that called to the rimy crystals to alight on them?

Later in the walk, my eyes follow the footprints of a fox--propelled by hunger or curiosity or horniness--and I admire the curved line of its path as it bent towards the northwest corner, where backyards abut the pines.

How is it we spend these short winter days doom scrolling, frightened by our worst instincts and fearful of invisible invaders, when, just up the street, brittle leaves sparkle in crystalline finery and the foxes turn their sights toward family?

Even as we wonder how we will see this brutal winter through, the landscape changes and the sun stretches upward, its arms growing longer each day.

Feeling Funny Bone-less

 

Earlier this week, a friend sent a text to Mark and me.  She was snarky and I was black-and-white in my stodgy, unappealing response.  So, she answered back: "Sarcasm.  Don't ever forget my sarcastic nature." 

At some point in the last few months, I done broke my funny bone.   

My God.  I might as well have lost both legs, a major organ and my hair. 

I so hanker for a gut-busting laugh these days.  I am deeply hungry for an inane, fart-filled giggle fest in which there is no mention of news or loss or anything at all that is serious and relevant.  I mean, I'm 58 and retired. You'd think I could find irrelevant more easily. 

Instead, I mumble horrible things to Mark while we walk the dog, conjuring imaginary, "Tennis anyone?" Monty Python episodes of a politician's unfortunate downfall.  Sure, we laugh.  But it's a hard laugh, one that has sharp edges and lacks the silliness of my favorite kind of humor.   

I guess I just want to be goofy again. 

Oh, I get close.  

Lately, I've been getting the giggles on the pickleball court, some absurd image flitting through my head while I should be concentrating on the serve.  Really, if it weren't for pickleball--the court filled with my kind and easy-going peeps, all of whom sweat less than I do--I might find myself in a corner, sucking my thumb. 

Humor has served me so well throughout my life--forgiving my adolescent stupidity,  softening the loss of beloved family and friends, providing a much-needed break during cancer treatments.  I'd like to lean on it a little more right now.  

Maybe I should quit the news for awhile and play my music a little louder.  Somehow, I think that'd help my funny bone to heal a bit.  

I always live larger and better when my funny bone is fully functional. 

 

The House that Jane Built

I think I'm a pretty flexible person, but, when it comes to walks, I'm incredibly predictable.  In fact, one neighbor refers to a certain time of day as "Finn o'clock." ( Finn is my dog.)

After 16 years of walking essentially the same route each day, you'd think I'd know the neighborhood pretty well.  I certainly thought so.  But I was reminded recently that habit does not equate knowledge.

I've walked past one corner house at least a thousand times, and, each time I look at it, I'm always left thinking the same thing.  "No one lives there."

The other day, I asked our mailman Trey about the house, certain he'd confirm my hunch. But he said he delivers mail there every day.

How is that possible, I thought to myself.  I've never seen anyone in the yard.  Never seen a car in the drive.  Never seen evidence of a newly planted garden or even a newspaper on its stoop.   And yet, Trey knew otherwise.

Yesterday, when I passed the house--a house I now knew had at least one human shuffling around inside--I realized that, in all these years I've walked this route, I've only spent maybe 15 seconds a day in front of it.  And, almost always, that passage has taken place in an amazingly predictable time span--usually between 6 and 7 a.m.

My God. What if this person is normal, and sleeps past the crack of dawn?!

I'd written a story that didn't take the mundane and probable into account.  Instead, I'd constructed a story of abandonment, of loss of some kind, based upon a series of tiny 15-second exposures, typically occurring at the same time of day. Not a good reportage technique, yet still I was flabbergasted to know how wrong I'd been.

And, while I now know that the house is occupied, I still know nothing about its occupants.

In the past month, I've come to realize that my understanding of African-American lives in the United States is as flimsy as the story I'd written about that house.  For 58 years, I've kept to my reliably predictable route, one with brief interactions, simple stories, quick observations and predictably limited results.

Finally, it seems, I've arrived at "BLM o'clock."  Yes, that clock has been ticking a long time.  Yes, I should have noticed these things much earlier.  Those facts won't change.  But what has changed is this path that now takes me forward.  It's a new route, one filled with different faces, important histories, personal reckonings and lots and lots of paying attention.

I'm gonna need a new pair of shoes, because I have a lot of ground to cover.

Making the Global Local: A Late-July Update

 As I write this, over 150,000 people in the United States have died from COVID-19--still, nearly a fourth of its

victims worldwide.  But what does that number mean to me?  How can I make sense of such a large number?

Below is a list of U.S. cities in each state whose populations come closest to 150,000.  Since I first wrote this post on April 25 (when the U.S. reported over 52,000 deaths), this new figure is big enough that I have to include multiple cities in many states.  That is unimaginable.  In Nebraska, 150,000 means no Grand Island, Fremont, Bellevue or Kearney.  Wow. 

By the time you read this, these numbers will be old.

What Does 150,000 Look Like In Your State? Imagine these cities, gone.

ALABAMA

Tuscaloosa 103,000

Madison 52,000

ALASKA

Juneau     31,000

Fairbanks 31,000

Badger     19,000

Knik        17,500

College 14,000

Wasilla      11,00

Tanaina     10,500

Lakes         10,000

Sitka            8,500

Ketchikan    8, 200

ARIZONA

Yuma    98,000

Lake Havasu    55,800

ARKANSAS

Fort Smith    88,000

North Little Rock    66,000

CALIFORNIA

Salinas    155,400

COLORADO

Lakewood     157,000

CONNECTICUT

Bridgeport    144,000

Canton        10,000

DELAWARE

Wilmington    70,000

Newark        38,000

Dover           33,000

Middleton     23,000

FLORIDA

Hollywood    154,800

GEORGIA

Macon-Bibb    153,100

HAWAII

East Honolulu    48,000

Hilo   46,000

Pearl City    46,000

Waianae    14,000

IDAHO

Meridian    114,000

Post Falls    36,000

ILLINOIS

Peoria    110,000

Oak Lawn    55,000

INDIANA

South Bend    104,000

Elkhart    52,000

IOWA

Sioux City    82,000

Iowa City    75,000

KANSAS

Kansas City    153,000

KENTUCKY

Bowling Green    70,500

Owensburo    60,000

Paducah    25,000

LOUISIANA

Lafayette    126,000

New Iberia    28,400

MAINE

Portland    66,000

Lewiston    36,000

Bangor    32,000

South Portland    25,000

MARYLAND

Columbia    103,000

Aspen Hill    52,000

MASSACHUSETTS

Springfield    153,600

MICHIGAN

Ann Arbor    120,000

Lincoln Park    36,000

MINNESOTA Rochester    120,000

Richfield    36,300

MISSISSIPPI

Gulfport    71,700

Southhaven    55,700

Greenville    29,000

MISSOURI

Columbia    123,000

Liberty        32,100

MONTANA

Billings 109,000

Butte    34,600

Belgrade    9,700

NEBRASKA

Bellevue    53,500

Grand Island    51,200

Kearney    33,800

Fremont    26,300

NEVADA

Sparks     105,000

Carson City    55,000

NEW JERSEY

Lakewood    106,000

Plainfield    50,000

NEW MEXICO

Las Cruces    103,000

Carlsbad    29,000

Gallup    21,000

NEW YORK

Syracuse    142,000

Ulster        12,600

NORTH CAROLINA

Wilmington    123,000

Cornelius        32,000

NORTH DAKOTA

Fargo    124,000

Williston    29,000

OHIO

Canton    70,000

Youngstown    65,000

Ashland    20,275

OKLAHOMA Norman    125,000

Shawnee    31,000

OREGON

Bend    100,000

Tigard    55,500

PENNSYLVANIA

Allentown    124,000

Ross    30,000

RHODE ISLAND

Cranston    81,400

Pawtucket    72,000

SOUTH CAROLINA

Charleston    137,000

Wade Hampton    20,000

SOUTH DAKOTA

Rapid City    77,500

Aberdeen    28,200

Brookings    24,400

Watertown    22,100

TENNESSEE

Clarksville    158,000

TEXAS

Midland    146,000

Ingleside    10,000

UTAH

Provo    116,000

Spanish Fork    40,900

VERMONT

Burlington    43,000

Essex    22,000

South Burlington    19,500

Colchester    17,000

Rutland City    15,000

Bennington    15,000

Brattleboro    11,000

Essex Junction    10,800

VIRGINIA

Roanoke    100,000

Leesburg    54,000

WASHINGTON Olympia    53,000

Lacey    53,000

Burien    51,000

WEST VIRGINIA Charleston    46,500

Huntington    45,000

Morgantown    30,500

Parkersburg    29,300

WISCONSIN Green Bay    104,000

LaCrosse        51,000

WYOMING

Cheyenne    64,000

Casper    58,000

Laramie    32,700

Here Be Dragons

While I appreciate the wanky geographic muscles of Google Maps--especially as I enter a city new to me--I will forever love the feel of its analog cousin, the accordian-fold map, stretched out across my lap.  Running my finger across its well-worn surface, I feel like an explorer, pondering the infinite possibilities before me.

Terra incognita ("unknown lands") is the term early mapmakers gave to those otherwise unexplored areas.  Sometimes, they filled these spaces with fantastical, out-of-place animals--strangely-shaped elephants or lions.  Some were even said to include the phrase "Here be dragons" in the otherwise blank space.  It is strange to look at one of these early maps of a now-familiar place, the outlines smudged or simply not there.

Every map, though,  is a fluid representation, a best guess of what it is that is before us right now.

And where is it that we are right now, the once-confident edges of our known lives losing their hardness?

Hunkered down, awaiting the slow, menacing wave that grows towards us, our maps are unspooling. Unnamed days run together, and we find ourselves taking our cues from nature--the angle of the sun, the early song of the robins, the shocking pink of the first tulip unfurling in the garden.

We are making new maps these days, erasing the familiar and replacing it with Terra Incognita, lands unknown, stretched across the now-emptied spaces.  I think I will use a pencil and write lightly, drawing these new landscapes with love and care, knowing that their contours will continue to evolve. 

The Dis-comfort of our Days

I started to feel it Wednesday night, a vertigo, of sorts, like someone had applied a Snapchat filter when I wasn't looking.

After a simple dinner of rice and beans with the kids, I'd suggested we go to Woods Park to catch the sunset.  There, folks were walking their dogs and swinging on swings, kicking a ball and enjoying the view.  Ordinary things on a warm March evening.

Later, back in our living room, between sharing dance moves and TikTok videos, we learned that Tom Hanks had tested positive for coronavirus.

And, for just a moment, I felt the earth lurching on its axis, a low moan escaping it, nearly undetectable.

Thursday, another familiar scene took on a new filter.  I was sitting with pickleball friends at El Chaparro, our conversations as varied as the food before us, when I wondered aloud if we'd see each other next week. An unexpected dis-ease settled on me, as I pondered the effects of this new invader.

On Friday, the unwelcomed filter returned yet again as I felt dis-placed at HyVee, the store bustling, even though it was midmorning on a work day.  In the produce aisle, mid-squeeze on the fifth avocado (I like them just so), I was overcome by the sense of menacing microbes lurching in the folds of that strange skin before me.  I wiped my hands on my jeans and wondered if I had unleashed something irreversible.

Dis- is the name of these strange days we find ourselves in, a prefix of not applied liberally--like Dial and Purell.

We are dis-pleased and dis-turbed as we dis-infect these once familiar lives of ours.  We establish dis-tance between us, feeling dis-combobulated, although we cannot recall having ever felt combobulated, which just makes things seem even more dis-orienting.

How is it that the cranes continue to alight each morning, their long shadows stretching across now-empty blinds?  Who bears witness to their ancient songs?

It will not be me, I know.  I am too busy singing the doxology, my hands sudsy and chapped, my thoughts dis-persed in a hundred different directions.

Feeling Ver-Clipped

I reached into my back pocket and brought out the crumpled list:

Bananas, peppers, milk, bread, coffee

Considering that they weren't on the list, it's a miracle that I even remembered to look for paper clips.  And, if a person can be allowed two miracles in one day--even two lame ones--I'd go so far as to say it's a miracle that I actually found the paper clips.

HyVee, after all, isn't exactly in the paper-clip business.

But, most grocery stores--even smaller ones--have an aisle (or, more likely,  a shelf or two) set aside for what might be called the widows and orphans--those odd things that, every couple of years or so, we need and hope to God we won't have to run to Menards or Office Depot to get.  Think ream of paper, handful of screws, highlighters, and paper clips.  Like Rudolph's island of misfits (er, make that aisle of misfits), it's an easy aisle to miss, which is why I was so pleased to find it yesterday.

Scanning the myriad oddities, I found three options--three!--for paper clips--jumbo, color-coated and standard.  Settling on the standards, an odd thing happened when I grabbed the box of 200.  Immediately, I had the strangest feeling that this would be the very last time in my life that I would buy paper clips.  Ever.

Why, I wondered, would a box of paper clips cause me to have an existential moment, if not an actual full-blown crisis?  What was it about these ordinary items that jarred loose the notion that I would not always be here?

I suspect that, had there been only 50 in the box, my life would not have flashed before my eyes.  Likely, nothing would have flashed before my eyes, and I'd have scratched myself, yawned a bit and tossed them into my cart, zombie-like in my uncaring.

Apparently, 200 is my mortality-rate tipping point for paper clips.  Which makes sense, if I generally use 5 a year, because I can't imagine myself as a 98-year-old person heading to HyVee to get some more.

Maybe this explains my lifelong resistance to big-box stores. 

Most people love big-box stores for all those eye-popping savings wrapped up in mind-boggling quantities.  I hate them, though.  I always thought I hated them because they were big and  crowded and it was weird to be able to buy trampolines and t-bones all in the same place.  Now, though,  I think maybe it's because big-box stores are overwhelming reminders that I'm going to die and there ain't no way I'll be able use 400 rolls of scotch tape between now and then!

Before heading to the checkout lane, I had a fleeting, secret longing.  Safety pins!  Rare and precious, I can recall only three safety pins that I've had in my house in the past 20 years.  I have no idea how any of them came my way, but the two larger ones frequently accompanied me to work, holding together a gaping shirt or keeping closed another buttonless pair of pants, so that I might keep my job.  I'd be hard pressed to find even one of those safety pins today.

Alas, HyVee doesn't carry safety pins.  Thank goodness I'm so over caring about bulging button-ups and dysfunctional denims!  Now, I've just got to be really careful these next thirty or so years.

Making a Clean Sweep

My Defcon 5 kitchen sink.

In my house, the level of cleanliness generally confers the depth of friendship between us.  Below is the chart I use before pulling out the vacuum from the closet.

DEFCON 1: Cocked pistol--maximum readiness and immediate response.

For distant relatives or practical strangers I'm forced to entertain, I have (somewhat grudgingly) pulled out all the stops, Holt-style.  That means I will have dusted and vacuumed that day, picked up the kitchen and wiped down the counters that day, cleaned the first-floor bathroom with actual products as well as swapped out the dirty hand towel for one with fewer stains and holes--again, that day, and vacuumed the fur balls off the stairs.  Depending on the time of year and the level of judgment I anticipate, I may even spritz the kitchen-sink window to try to get rid of some of the water spots on it.

DEFCON 2: Armed forces ready to deploy and engage within 6 hours.

If you are a new friend, or a person I hope will become a friend, you will be greeted by a living room whose rug bears recent vacuum streaks and whose fireplace mantel has been pretty much swiped of dust.  Evidence of Finn will be limited to his actual body, all fur piles either in the vacuum bag or kitchen garbage can.  You will find the kitchen tidy and wiped down and the stove top scrubbed to the point where the marks that remain are simply unremoveable.  Believe me, I've tried!   I'm willing to spend a little more time on the kitchen because we likely will spend some social time there. The first-floor bathroom will smell of 409 and soap, and the towel will be folded smartly atop the rack, though you still will feel awkward using the bathroom, since it is tiny and has two doors that seldom close at the same time.  Some things cannot be addressed without a contractor and a good loan.

DEFCON 3: Ready to mobilize in 15 minutes.

For old friends who are stopping by for a visit, Finn fur has been picked up, by hand, and thrown into the library garbage can.  Dirty dishes are loaded into the dishwasher.  While the kitchen counters may show evidence of morning's toast crumbs, visitors will still feel relatively confident that they will not contract anything serious by eating or drinking whatever is offered.  The bathroom also can be used with relative confidence.

DEFCON 4: Above-normal readiness

Neighbors popping over for a beer will be greeted by minor tweaking. The dining-room table is mostly cleared, Finn fur is visible along the floorboards, although the most copious piles have been shoved into a dark corner near the church pew.  Dirty dishes are neatly piled on kitchen counters and spaghetti-stained kitchen towel has been swapped out for a clean one.  Magazines have been stowed in drawers although the morning's half-done crossword sits pathetically atop the footstool in the library.

DEFCON 5:  Lowest state of readiness

Here for a game of Scrabble?  Virtually no effort has been made to impress you.  After all, what's the point?  If you are thirsty or hungry, you will have to serve yourself and be willing to rinse out a glass or fetch a dirty fork from the dishwasher.  Likely, you also will have to flush the toilet before you use it.  Best to just go ahead of time.

It's with some trepidation that I share this chart with you, especially if you will be coming over some time in the next year.  What if you consider me a good friend yet you find my house sparkling clean when you pop in?  Will such foreknowledge threaten our friendship?  Will you be offended that the toilet has been swished, the dog hair hidden away?  My hope is that you'll excuse me for the transgression and trust that I'll do even less for you next time.  You are a good friend, after all.