Rummage through a used-book store and you might encounter two forbidding volumes with the anodyne title “North America.” In his autobiography, the author of those books, Anthony Trollope (1815-1882), said that this work was not worth the time needed to peruse them. “I can recommend no one to read it now in order that he may be instructed or amused,” he said.
DEAR HARRIETTE: I’ve received an invitation to stay at a friend’s house over the holidays, but I feel uncomfortable about the living conditions. Their place tends to be messy, and I’m unsure how to handle this situation without offending them. I value our friendship, but I’m hesitant about staying in an environment that makes me uneasy. How can I navigate this situation tactfully while expressing my concerns? – Uninhabitable DEAR UNINHABITABLE: “No” is a complete sentence. Remember that. You have no obligation to stay at anyone’s home if you don’t want to, and you don’t have to explain why. You can simply thank them for the invitation and decline. If you decide to visit your friend’s town and stay with someone else, that’s fine, too. Or you may choose to stay in a hotel. As an adult, you have the right to park your body wherever you choose without feeling guilty.
The children were in the pew in front of me. We had not arrived early enough at my sister’s church for the Christmas Eve service to secure a seat in the back, so we were in the fourth row. The first row is never used by anyone; the second row is only for people who arrive impossibly late. The third row is, for all intents and purposes, the front row, and that’s where these two wild-looking children were.
Clark Kerr, who was fired as president of the University of California in 1967 for defending free speech on campus, had a good answer for his critics. “The University is not engaged in making ideas safe for students,” he liked to say. “It is engaged in making students safe for ideas.”
DEAR HARRIETTE: My husband is an entrepreneur. Over the past five years or so, his company has really taken off, and I couldn’t be happier for him.
Dear Doctors: I am a 46-year-old woman, and I recently moved to be closer to my family. I have a new doctor who surprised me by talking about grip strength. She said it’s an important measure of health. I have never heard of this. Can you explain?
30 YEARS AGO
CLINTON DAILY NEWS EDITORIAL
E arly in the premiere episode of Norman Lear's sitcom 'Sunday Dinner,' the beautiful environmentalist T.T. Fagori raised her eyes to heaven and, with a sigh, entered a spiritual minefield.
It was once said, 'Christian, remember your dignity.' Pope Leo I, or Pope Leo the Great, as he's also known, ruled in the mid-fifth century, but his words have plenty to teach us in our current moment. Every Christmas Day, Catholics read his sermon, in which he implores: 'Dearly beloved, today our Savior is born; let us rejoice. Sadness should have no place on the birthday of life. The fear of death has been swallowed up; life brings us joy with the promise of eternal happiness.'