Maggi, I'm not sure what kinds of food you or your guests are comfortable eating but here are some of my easy favorites. My guests generally enjoy meals that aren't your typical steak and potato items. And as I mentioned, I like to serve dishes that can be prepared ahead of time that I can keep warm. 1.BBQ shrimp; white rice;steamed broccoli; crusty bread and a tossed salad. 2.Eye of Round cooked Spanish boliche style; white rice; frozen baby artichokes; Caprici salad with tomato, mozzarella cheese and avocado 3. Roasted chicken with store bought mojo sauce; roasted potato cubes; fresh spinach w/mushrooms and garlic..drizzled with olive oil 4. Scallop and shrimp with a garlic basil sauce over linguini; string beans; salad 5. Chicken cutlets breaded Italian style; farfalle pasta tossed with fresh garlic; basil and grated parmesan cheese, zuccini with garlic marininara sauce; salad 6. Seafood gumbo; white rice; crusty bread and salad 7. Crab filled crepes drizzled with a white wine cream sauce; fresh asparagus; rolls and salad 8. Lasagna; roasted Italian sausage, string beans, salad 9. Linguini with clam sauce; fresh green vegetable, salad and crusty bread For dessert I often make a ricotta cake or a flan and offer a fresh fruit compote for those who aren't into desserts. Do any of these appeal to you? Mona

I use to be a fearful flyer. I would not sit next to the window if I had a choice, and if that was my assigned seat the shade was always pulled down. My seatbelt was always buckled and I never left the seat unless it was to go to the bathroom. I would spend the hour before leaving the house to go to the airport in the bathroom. It was pretty bad. I finally got tired of it all and scheduled an appointment with a hypnotherapist. She is a R.N. and a massage therapist also. Her relaxation techniques and replacing the bad images in my mind with good images did the trick. It took just 2 sessions. She gave me a tape of the sessions and relaxation music and words to listen to when I did fly. My doctor not to be out done when he heard of this wrote me a prescription for Alprazolam tabs. 2 little pills an hour before lift off and I'm fine. Good luck to your cousin, she is certainly not alone in her fear. NancyLouise

Lydia, you beat me to it. Phobias cannot be excused away or understood. They're there. I have phobias for heights, ladders and for doctors and no idea why. I went to doctors as a kid, climbed ladders and was in many high places. I really don't know why I have the phobias now but I do. And yes, I also know it's stupid, irrational and doesn't make sense. But when I had to go to the dentist a few years back, I had a panic attack. Never had one of those before in my life either, which certainly doesn't help matters. Try to tell someone that it's safe. Sorry folks, it doesn't work. The person does have to deal with it and people telling them "there's nothing to worry about" is not too bright. How many times to you see people telling kids there's nothing to worry about when going to the doctor? Or doing something else and then they say "it's not like going to the doctor!". I don't understand the fear of flying, claustrophobia, fears of spiders, bugs, snakes or the like, but I do understand that phobias are not rational and I do understand that the fear and panic, the anxiety, is very real. I think most everyone has a phobia whether they'll admit it or not. One doesn't have to understand the individual phobia to understand that they do exist and are very real. I just hope the fear isn't as bad as it's assumed here. Sometimes it's not such a big thing. Obviously it is exaggerated, but by how much, since "scared to death" of something would make it a non-issue. (Wouldn't it be ironic if someone were scared to death, of death?) The anxiety level could be controllable though. Let's hope it is. Deep breathing exercises are very effective for me. A form of "self-hypnosis" is also helpful. Talking to yourself and talking yourself through it. Telling yourself that it's irrational and not worth getting upset about. Control your breathing and deep, consistent breaths. Reminding yourself it'll be over in ___ hours/minutes and think thoughts to distract yourself. Close your eyes and repeat I will not be controlled by____. Even things like crossword puzzles, math tests, trivia challenges - things to keep the mind busy and distracted can be helpful. Why do you think doctor/dentist offices have magazines? Pharmacy waiting rooms don't need them. (Very often anyway.) Also, the less you say, the better. Let your cousin know you'll do what is needed but don't address it again. Bringing it up will often do more harm than good. Reminds them of the issue and again, maybe it's not as big a thing as you think. My mother was afraid to fly. She liked to fly when she was in the air but the takeoff and landing scared her tremendously. But she wanted to see her dying sister more than she was bother by flying so she flew down there several times. Now me, I really enjoy flying and the takeoffs and landings are my favorite part of the flight. But that's me. Oh and definitely tell the flight attendants. They've dealt with it before. And just in case there is an issue where the panic is too severe it could possibly help keep criminal charges or something from happening. That's a worst case scenario, but depending on what the situation is, better to be aware than wonder why later. Good luck to you and your cousin. I can certainly empathize with the situation.

While a power interruption of a few hours isn't of great consequence to people with a freezer ... longer periods can be rather hair-rising. I've thought that it might be good idea for people where they have power interruptions from time to time to gather a group of, say, four to six or so, to share in buying a generator, possibly of somewhat better quality and capacity than one person would wish to, alone, to move from house to house when the power is out, to keep the food in the freezers intact. Some people where I visited with a generator wanted me to fire up their furnace, but most have an unbreakable connection to the power box and I was unwilling to risk the possibility of the main switch getting reconnected inadvertently, thus pushing power back out on to a line that the linemen understood to be dead, possibly with drastic consequences. Where codes allow, I think that it would be advisable for people to have a push-and-twist connection between the power box and the furnace. When the power is down for an extended period, most people are not going to their place of employment, so would be free to move the generator from member's house to member's house during the day and night ... or even to help an outsider, should they so choose. It would be necessary to have at least one member who had an establishment large enough to store the generator without its being a nuisance. Such a plan would provide cheap insurance for people with a substantial amount of expensive food in their freezers ... and have you noticed how the price of that food has escalated in recent times ... while the wage increases earned by most ordinary workers have been much more ... meagre? Does anyone foresee a substantial change in that scenario, any time soon? ole joyful