We very seldom entertain. It is a rare evening when any one person or couple will call up to say they would like to come over for a visit or ask us over for coffee.
In fact, I would say that neither of the two scenarios have occurred at all in the year 2012, apart from the fact that one couple did stop in while passing through and stayed overnight just last week; otherwise, the need to attempt to make clever conversation with non family type people, along with something just as clever and even more tasty for lunch, is a rare demand upon my social psychic and cuisine art or Cuisinart as my mood may dictate.
As our company skills are rarely exercised along with a lagging and rapidly weakening social etiquette there is also a certain lag in housekeeping procedure. I would say the lag is probably in the area of the three week mark.
But I digress. The purpose of this writing is not to comment upon the distress of my housekeeping skills. It is, instead, intended to be a commentary upon the absence of friends and acquaintances not only in our lives, but indeed, in our whole physical area of the world.
There are few , near or far, who are able, and moreover actually willing, to spend their own hard earned free time in the required shunning of their own habitual premises, which quite likely are more organized, cleaner, and uncluttered than mine, and enter into the vast unknown, untidy, and if done on a spur of the moment as a hastily unannounced urge to visit, a surely unclean adobe; thus taking the chance of being either served a lunch somewhere in the range of rare and unnameable to something rare and uneatable.
When my four children were all living at home there would be a squeal and a sort of terrorized shout out that included the words, "There's SOMEBODY here." in response to a surprise knock on the door. They would all then line up behind me, peering around pieces of furniture and little peek-a - boo hideeholes, nervous giggling and geegawing abounding, as I opened the door to the unsuspecting guest. These are the same children that would ask whenever I said it was time to clean up the house, "Why? Who is coming over?"
Yes, rare and unexpected visitors are part and parcel of living in most rural areas.
It puts me in mind of the time when my Mom , who lived 5 miles from the nearest store and having no vehicle for transportation, making arrangements for a friend to stop in with her car to pick Mom and us three children up for a trip to town one summer afternoon. We had all been washed and dressed in clean clothes, hair combed and ribboned, Mom in her town dress and hat, sitting in eager anticipation at the kitchen table waiting and waiting for the expected friend to drive into the yard. Finally we heard the sound of a car motor approaching and Mom announced that it was time to go out the door and that we should hurry so her friend wouldn't have to wait.
I am not quite sure who was more surprised to see us all standing on the step and smiling-- Mom or the Watkin's Man, as he drove into the yard. I wonder if he had ever had such a welcoming group come rushing out to greet him for the rest of his salesman career.
In fact, I would say that neither of the two scenarios have occurred at all in the year 2012, apart from the fact that one couple did stop in while passing through and stayed overnight just last week; otherwise, the need to attempt to make clever conversation with non family type people, along with something just as clever and even more tasty for lunch, is a rare demand upon my social psychic and cuisine art or Cuisinart as my mood may dictate.
As our company skills are rarely exercised along with a lagging and rapidly weakening social etiquette there is also a certain lag in housekeeping procedure. I would say the lag is probably in the area of the three week mark.
But I digress. The purpose of this writing is not to comment upon the distress of my housekeeping skills. It is, instead, intended to be a commentary upon the absence of friends and acquaintances not only in our lives, but indeed, in our whole physical area of the world.
There are few , near or far, who are able, and moreover actually willing, to spend their own hard earned free time in the required shunning of their own habitual premises, which quite likely are more organized, cleaner, and uncluttered than mine, and enter into the vast unknown, untidy, and if done on a spur of the moment as a hastily unannounced urge to visit, a surely unclean adobe; thus taking the chance of being either served a lunch somewhere in the range of rare and unnameable to something rare and uneatable.
When my four children were all living at home there would be a squeal and a sort of terrorized shout out that included the words, "There's SOMEBODY here." in response to a surprise knock on the door. They would all then line up behind me, peering around pieces of furniture and little peek-a - boo hideeholes, nervous giggling and geegawing abounding, as I opened the door to the unsuspecting guest. These are the same children that would ask whenever I said it was time to clean up the house, "Why? Who is coming over?"
Yes, rare and unexpected visitors are part and parcel of living in most rural areas.
It puts me in mind of the time when my Mom , who lived 5 miles from the nearest store and having no vehicle for transportation, making arrangements for a friend to stop in with her car to pick Mom and us three children up for a trip to town one summer afternoon. We had all been washed and dressed in clean clothes, hair combed and ribboned, Mom in her town dress and hat, sitting in eager anticipation at the kitchen table waiting and waiting for the expected friend to drive into the yard. Finally we heard the sound of a car motor approaching and Mom announced that it was time to go out the door and that we should hurry so her friend wouldn't have to wait.
I am not quite sure who was more surprised to see us all standing on the step and smiling-- Mom or the Watkin's Man, as he drove into the yard. I wonder if he had ever had such a welcoming group come rushing out to greet him for the rest of his salesman career.
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