The Least Stinky Fish: The Top 5 Ways to Be a Great Guest

Posted on August 31, 2010 by lisafindley

Benjamin Franklin, founding father, scientist, author, diplomat, and turkey advocate, once said, “Fish and visitors stink after three days.” As usual, he gets it exactly right with this pithy pull quote. Whether you’re visiting friends or family, after three days of living in close quarters, sharing every meal, waiting impatiently for the bathroom, staying up later than usual, and all while trying to maintain your friendship, it’s very easy for the visit to feel less like a welcome break and more of a drag on both of you.

I’m stretching this principle to its breaking point this weekend, as I’m staying three full days and four nights with my friend Mike in Boston. So how can I make sure that when I get on the airplane to head back home, both of us will be planning our next get together and not crossing each other’s names out of our address books? I’m sure you will not be surprised to find that I have a list, dearest fellow travelers, and I’m sharing it with you!

The Least Stinky Fish: The Top 5 Ways to Be a Great Guest

1. Set expectations ahead of time. This hearkens back to my advice on hosting couch surfers; if you both know what you’re getting into, you’ll both have a lot more fun. Don’t think that just because you’re family or friends with your hosts, you don’t need to set expectations — sometimes they’re the ones you most need to have these conversations with, to make sure you’re all on the same page and feelings don’t get hurt. For example, I wrote Mike last week to say how excited I was to visit, and to warn him that my knee and ankle injuries have resurfaced, with two unfortunate results: 1) I am now the least fashionable person ever, as I dress in bright white walking shoes no matter my outfit, and 2) I walk slower than a sloth on a lazy summer day. Mike was sorry to hear about my injury, of course, and no doubt he will regret being seen with me and the Great White Sneakers, but he was happy to know this vital piece of information enough ahead of time to reconsider how we should get to the various places we’re going.

2. No matter how short the trip, set aside some down time. Don’t wait until you’re halfway through your second marathon day of museums, hikes, street food, wacky local mode of transportation, tourist attractions, and shopping to realize you need to sitdownrighthisinstantoryouwillpassout — plan for it. Sure, your schedule will be different than when you’re at home, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t need time to rest when you’re away, same as you do at home. (Younger folks than I, I promise this is not an old person talking, just someone who knows what traveling while exhausted feels like — not good.) You don’t always have to crash back at the house, either; find a nice park and take a nap or stake out a corner of a local café to re-energize.

3. Pick up the tab. Not on everything, mind you, but it’s a great reciprocal gesture to pick up the tab somewhere along the way. Don’t bankrupt yourself, but do what you can, whether that’s a whole meal, or a round of drinks, or even an ice cream cone. Of course your loved one is happy to see you, but they are putting aside their normal life and opening up their home in order to do that, so show them your appreciation by paying for some food or drink during your visit.

4. Research where you’re going, even just a little. Trips based on visiting friends or family are inherently different from trips based on visiting new places; your purpose is different, so the way you prepare and the way you spend your time while there is different. I’m not going to be doing a Great Sites of Boston tour this weekend — I’ll be doing a Hang Out in Parks and Have Drinks tour with Mike. But that doesn’t mean I can’t see some of this city. So I’m checking out a guidebook from the library, I’ve poked around on some websites, and I’ve asked Mike what he might want to sightsee. So far we are going to the Mapparium and taking a swan boat ride.

5. Plan for some solo time. This is sort of similar to #2, but it’s specifically designed to separate you from your host for at least a couple hours. One of the stinkiest things about visitors, I suspect Mr. Franklin would agree, is their tendency to stick to your side for the duration of their visit. Nothing smells good when it’s been that close to you for that long. You’ll both enjoy your visit a lot more if you set aside some time to do your own thing — write some postcards, buy some souvenirs, go to that one tourist attraction your host can’t bear to visit one more time. This gives your host time to tend to their daily lives and needs as well, and the end result is that you appreciate each other all the more when you are hanging out.

So voila! Those are the top five ways to plan a trip to a friend’s or family member’s house so that not only do you have a great time, but your host does too — and best of all, you get invited back.

Spotlight on… Emily

Posted on March 22, 2010 by lisafindley

Dearest fellow travelers, you know I like to keep you apprised of good tunes. This here is another installment of Music You Might Very Well Enjoy, and it has the added benefit of being made by someone near and dear to me — my sister. My entire family is talented in many ways, and as I’ve mentioned before, we’re all musical. But today, let’s focus on Emily, the songwriter and performer among us. Dad taught Emily the guitar when she was in eighth grade, and only one year later, she’d written her first hit, “Whoever Said.” She’s been writing songs ever since, and performs at open mics and the like in whatever town she happens to live in, be it Ann Arbor, Avignon, or New York City.

I’m sure that writers of every kind get tired of being asked where they get their ideas, what they think about when they’re writing, and what their process is. The answers even remain mostly the same — ideas come from a small seed somewhere and get under the writer’s skin, the writer has to give over to what wants to be written when they’re sitting down with paper and pen, and they have a pretty good sense of when it’s working. But the variations on that theme are still interesting, and if you’re a writer yourself, often informative.

I asked Emily to write a bit about how she writes the wonderful songs she writes. I’ve included videos of some of my favorite tunes — “Release Me,” “For You,” and “A Story.” As she says, they’re all love songs, and they’re all ones you’ll want to listen to again and again. Enjoy!

“Songs — I like writing ’em and I like singing ’em. I write the song that gets stuck in yer head; the one to which each person in the audience can relate. My favorite kind of song is the one that makes your mom (or dad!) cry but it’s written right for you and your heart. I like to write love songs — the love that grows, the love that changes, the love that ends.

“I’m no poet like Bob Dylan or Carole King but I write what I know and I write from experience. So there isn’t a single song in my repertoire that doesn’t make me think of a person or an event or a potential or something like that. I guess each song is its own story for my bag of memories. Which is nice, as I have the worst memory in history so if I have something written down with a tune, I can carry that with me always.

“My songs are written in both ways — with words first or with music first, it really just depends. Sometimes it depends on the challenge I’m setting for myself… whether I need to fit a certain chord progression in or rhythm… whether I’m trying out a new trick with finger picking or not. Then I lace words into the music and figure out the song from there. Other times I get a line (usually something cheesy) stuck in my head that runs in a loop until I finally get other lines to go with it. Once that’s secured that’s when I’ll get out the guitar and see what fits with it. Sometimes the melody I start with becomes the song’s chorus or bridge or it’s thrown out altogether for something completely different and that is so exciting.”

ETA: I can’t believe I didn’t get into this earlier, but watch the videos, because as good as Emily’s songs are (and they are good), they are transcendent when she sings them. Her voice is strong and beautiful, and although she prefers harmonizing over singing the melody in just about everything she sings, she sticks to the main tune in these videos.

The Media of a Merry Christmas

Posted on December 22, 2009 by lisafindley

My love for the Christmas season runs deep. I’m lucky in that our family Christmases were fun and full of people I love. I know a lot of people have to struggle through a Christmas dinner of intoxicated relatives, inquisitions on their personal lives, and a replay of every fight they ever had with their siblings. I’m fortunate; we all get along and we’re happy to see each other. Especially now that we’re grown and living in various places across the country, we appreciate having the one time of year when we get together and celebrate in much the same way we have since I was little.

Welcome to my home -- currently a winter wonderland

So I’m off to Michigan in a couple days for a little church, a little eggnog, and a lot of contented lounging about the house. In the meantime, I get in the holiday spirit with a bunch of Christmas media — music and movies that make me smile every year. What kinds of things do you listen to and watch each December?

For movies, the list goes something like this (in no particular order):

A Charlie Brown Christmas
While You Were Sleeping
A Christmas Story
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
Scrooged
It’s a Wonderful Life
Miracle on 34th Street
Home Alone
How the Grinch Stole Christmas

There’s a little more pleasure in others’ pain there than you’d think/hope for a Christmas list, but ah well. I said we were a happy family, not a particularly kind one.

The music! Of course there are the hours of angelic choirs singing hymns from across the centuries, and there are also the old standards from the last 60 years. And the entirety of the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack. But there’s the other category — the dance party Christmas music. Seeing as how I just threw a wildly successful Christmas party, I take it upon myself to give you a playlist of excellent, non-cheesy tunes that’ll keep everyone grooving long after Santa shimmies back up that chimney.

Run, Run Rudolph–Chuck Berry
This Christmas–Donny Hathaway
Purple Snowflakes–Marvin Gaye
Father Christmas–The Kinks
Everything’s Gonna Be Cool This Christmas–The Eels
Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree–Brenda Lee
Merry Christmas, I Don’t Want to Fight–The Ramones
Jingle Bell Rock–Bobby Helms
Blue Christmas–Elvis Presley
Santa Claus is Coming to Town–The Jackson 5
Soulful Christmas–James Brown
I Want a Beatle for Christmas–Becky Lee Beck
Merry Christmas–The Ramones
Boogie Woogie Santa Claus–Patti Page
Santa, Teach Me to Dance–Debbie & the Darnels
Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)–Darlene Love
Just Like Christmas–Low
Baby It’s Cold Outside–just about anyone, but I like the new one from Marah
I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus–The Ronettes
All I Want for Christmas Is You–Mariah Carey
Jingle Bells–Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters
Merry, Merry Christmas–Koko Taylor
White Christmas–The Drifters
Feliz Navidad–Jose Feliciano
Christmas Wrapping–The Waitresses
Santa’s Beard–The Beach Boys
A Fairytale of New York–The Pogues featuring Kirsty MacColl
What Christmas Means to Me–Stevie Wonder

Under no circumstances should you ever play Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime.” Your guests will immediately feel transported to the blue light sales on the night after Thanksgiving, and nothing spells the end of a party quite like a claustrophobic feeling of synthesizers and commercialism. If you want to have a Beatle on your playlist, go with John Lennon’s “Happy Christmas (War is Over),” which is a lovely tune and sentiment all in one.

What’s on rotation at your house?

Merry Christmas, a belated Happy Hanukkah, joyful solstice, and happy holidays. I’ll be back with further adventures in travel, music, and the like after the New Year. Safe travels to you all!

And family — little full, lotta sap. See you soon.

Better Than Expected

Posted on October 26, 2009 by lisafindley

Dearest fellow travelers, how often have you been obligated to do something that sounded dreadful, only to find yourself having a wonderful time? Or maybe it wasn’t even going to be dreadful, merely kind of dull, like a coworker’s wedding or your second cousin’s bar mitzvah, but the DJ played MIA and ABBA and other artists whose awesomeness requires that their names be in all caps, and the buffet had those tasty bacon-wrapped dates and slabs of Gouda (none of that cubed stuff), and you spent the night dancing with a highly attractive friend of the family who was very willing to share their hotel room with you at the end of the evening? In these situations, you might look back on the experience and conclude, “Well, that was better than expected.”

My mom is very fond of the phrase “better than expected,” and it’s become somewhat of a thing in our family to admit our pessimistic outlook was proved wrong and we were pleasantly surprised. Why, just a few weeks ago, when I was visiting EL, H and I went to a church party with our parents and had so much fun talking to people we hadn’t seen in months that we stayed an hour and a half later than we’d planned to. Better than expected.

When I went to New York City this past May, it was a classic case. I was, of course, immensely excited to visit my sister E, but that was separate from how I felt about visiting the city itself. See, I’ve had a bias against the East Coast for over ten years now, based on all the literature and movies that assume everyone is aware the Midwest is for uncultured oafs, and the only place to be, if you’re going to be anybody, is New York (followed by Boston or DC if you have to settle). Unfortunately, many of the people I’ve met from New York support this theory, and I can’t stand their smug superiority.

I’ll be damned if people are going to tell me my city is second rate to any other, especially a city as overblown and overdone as New York. People in New York are proud to be assholes to tourists, whereas people in Chicago might get annoyed at having to point out the Sears Tower over and over, but we’re still going to say excuse me when we bump into you on the street. Everyone in theater knows that there are two towns for theater in the US — New York and Chicago. New York has a giant park and a dirty ocean, but Chicago has miles of park running alongside a lake you can actually swim in. Bands might move to New York when they need to cut a record deal, but they’re just as likely to record that album in Chicago. And if you’re a hip hop act, Chicago is the place to be. If you want to eat at one of the hot restaurants in New York, you have to make reservations before the place even exists. In Chicago, I’m pretty sure I could get a reservation at Alinea or the Publican a week or two out, and in the meantime, there’s Kuma’s Corner. Chicago has the perfect combination of Midwestern manners and big city excitement, and I honestly don’t want to live anywhere else for at least a few years.

Oops. I got off on a tangent there. But that’s exactly what I mean — I get so defensive about Chicago when I’m talking to East Coasters, and New Yorkers in particular. Of course I still wanted to go to New York. It’s not that I think there’s nothing special about the place, or that it’s inferior to Chicago, or that I wouldn’t enjoy myself. Not at all! New York has many unique sights and a fascinating history. That’s what I had to keep reminding myself as I prepared to go there. I had a mental block about the people I’d meet and the city’s relation to my city, but if I could just get past that, there was a world class city waiting for me.

Indeed, I had a wonderful time. Granted, E introduced me to her friends, so everyone I met was friendly, but I was kind of expecting to get straight up shoved into the street for walking too slowly on the sidewalk, and that did not happen. I was also fairly confident that I’d get “tourist” hurled at me as an angry epithet when I stopped to take my 400th photo (in five days. not kidding.), but instead, I was twice stopped for directions from other tourists who took me for a native. And the sights did not disappoint. I am a firm believer in seeing lots of tourist sites when visiting a new place, since you never know when you’ll be back, and there’s usually a reason something got famous enough to be a tourist destination in the first place. Accordingly, I packed it in: Empire State Building, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Staten Island Ferry, Central Park, Greenwich Village, Little Italy, Chinatown, a show on Broadway, Times Square (for ten bewildering and terrifying minutes), the Modern Museum of Art, and even Coney Island when my return flight was delayed by several hours.