The ‘welcome’ make thet IN THE dreary days of winter, how many people did you selves casually invite to ‘‘come and see us this summer’? And how many of those invitations will you come to regret, now that we have begun the season of the house guest? House guests come in two varieties — the welcome and the unwelcome. This latter group in- cludes free-loaders, any relative with an alcohol problem and car- penter ants. Not much needs to be said about welcome guests. These you encourage by repeated invitations. You can’t wait till they come and you hate to see them go. What makes these people so special? First, they’re people you love. They're the kind that you never give a thought to ‘‘entertaining,’’ knowing that just being together, "- no matter what, is entertainment enough. No catastrophe can spoil their visit — if the sewer backs up or the roof collapses, they'll scramble out of the debris and lend a hand. As a host, you know these peo- ple. For example, { know that when our friends Tom and Olive come to visit that Olive will be up at 6:30 a.m. with me and we'll drink 2 gallon of black coffee. Tom may be.up but he likes to be left alone in the morning — he likes my library and often finds a comer and reads for a couple of hours. I know what kind of bread they like for breakfast (12 grain with Becel'and my homemade jam) and that they don’t like eggs. They en- joy big dinners with lots of vegetables and thrive on desserts. Walt and Nancy are completely different. Walt sleeps half the morning and considers it an insult if ali of our cats aren’t in bed with him. He likes. golf courses (Brian's department) and .Chinatown (1’m the guide), Nancy adores lunch at the Park Royal Hotel and naps for an hour every afternoon. . What do we appreciate in a house guest? : - @ Give me a few days' warning about your time of arrival. ® And tell me exactly when you plan to leave. It’s not that I want to be rid of you but I have sched- ules to meet and appointments to schedule. & Easy on the hostess gifts! 1 love being taken out for lunch, though. §B My guests, generally, leave my equipment — radios, TVs, tele- phones and so on — alone. Walt is one exception — he’s a TV addict. But he isn’t offended when I yell, “‘Turn that damn thing off!” Ef I’ve never had a house guest who spreads his belongings all! over the house. Lucky me! This is one of the complaints I hear often from readers and friends. 8 My guests strip their beds and put the sheets, along with their towels, in a basket by my washing machine. I've never asked anyone to do this but I really appreciate it. @ Our house have a few idiosyn- cracies. For example, hot water. It is essential that you announce when you are planning to shower — if someone turns on a tap the person in the shower gets an unwelcome blast of hot or cold. If you prefer not to sleep with a cat or four you.must keep your bedroom door shut.. * Once the house is iccked up for the night, you must not open a door or window or you'll trigger two police sirens. See what I mean? Regular guests have no problem with any of this but others may run into TRAVELWISE aunt came for a visit. She opened a window, set off the alarms and alerted the entire neighborhood and the RCMP. Aunt Rose was so profoundly deaf that she didn’t hear a thing! I enjoy invited house guests and try to make their stay comfortable BUT I do everything I can not to make it obvious that I’m exerting ° myself, That means I do all of the shopping and most of the cooking before they arrive. Fortunately, this’ isn’t much of a chore as my freezers are well stocked with stuff like homemade ‘bread, muffins, jam .as well as meat and vegetables. I usually have a cake or two ready for top- Pings as well as cupboards fuil of tins. It’s fun to stock guest rooms with convenience stuff like ’ Kleenex, nice soap and matching towels. Speaking of towels, I don’t think there’s anything a guest ap- Preciates more than a lot of them and a rack to hang them. I discovered by accident that certain guests like funny, individ- ual things. All like good reading lights but Tom likes big, graphic natural history books. Olive loves travel magazines and decorating books. suests can at home Walt is awed by fresh flowers. Others like bedside radios while Nancy loves unusual coffees. Some guests love to be sur- rounded by our family — especially big family dinners. Others like smaller doses and dinners just for the four of us. ] hope we're good guests — we must be half decent because we do get invited back! We come prepared to amuse ourselves part of the time and will say something like, ‘‘We’d plan- ned to go to the (fill in the blank) on Tuesday, if that’s OK with you.’ That gives our hosts a chance to be rid of us long enough to do their own things. We only stay with very close friends and I usually chuck all our sheets and towels in the washer on the morning we leave, dry them and put them back in place. I try to do helpful things without intruding but that’s one helluva fine line. The last time we visited our friends in California, they were called away by a death in the fam- ily. While they were gone | made dinner but that’s not as obvious as it sounds! Nancy is possessive and territorial about her kitchen and I agonized over intruding. I found out only recently that it was the right move — Nancy remarked, ‘‘No one has ever done that for me and you'll never know how much I appreciated coming home to a good meal after such an awful day.” Bearing gifts is another tricky task. For some, funny ones are best -- one dog lover got droopy- looking doggy pot holders and still chuckles, Plants? Only if your host likes them and then only something unique. Who needs another Boston fern? But not too many people have potted saffron crocus. In other countries, some of the _oddest things go over. B.C. salmon may seem dull stuff to us but drag a fish to Engtand and you'll be loved. American friends tell us that our ‘‘Coke Classic’? and Imperial cheddar are far superior to theirs so we haul some along. Use your imagination but try not to overwhelm your hosts. NORTH VANCCUVER 380-8004 trouble. OUvE Some years ago, my elderly { WEST VANC R926-4304 - the Price of 1! MAZATLAN 5799 p5-pa $759 pos. PLAYA DE ORO PLAYAMAZATLAN Depart Vancouver On May 29 & June 12 dete EAI Per 2 Weeks for PUERTO VALLARTA featuring two Down Under back to back crulses on the “Royal Odyssey”. . . AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEALAND rep. 11) SYDNEY TO SINGAPORE (Feb. 23) Go “down under” and ao izbulous ports in Now Zoaiond and Austrafia, Snortad! tha Great Bonler eof, plus Ball and Singnporo SPECIAL PRICES & AMENTES Wednesday, May 5, 7:30 p.m. INTERNATIONAL PLAZA 1999 tdartns Drive (at Captiano Rd.) SHOP THE FLYERS » wednesday oe / *Little Caesars Pizza *Sears / *Consumers Distributing *Eatons / The Bay friday *Real Esiate Weekly Watch for our Real Estate Homes section sunday *Super Valu / *Zellers *London Drugs *Reaj Canadian Superstore Safeway / Save-On-Foods Shoppers Drug Mart / IGA Plus Hedonics Catalogue H you miss any of these flyers call North Shore News Distribution 986-1337