DEAR JEANNE & LEONARD: When you are first going to the home of someone you don't know all that well -- say, a co-worker or a distant relative -- is it wrong to look up the value of his or her home on the internet, just to understand more about him or her?
-- A.T.
DEAR A.T.: Wrong? Not exactly. After all, the information that interests you is publicly available. What would be wrong -- and incredibly stupid -- however, would be telling anyone what you did or revealing what you discovered. Because there are few things less becoming than snooping, even if the information you uncover is there for anyone with access to the internet to see.
P.S. We assume you'd take no offense if a guest coming to your home checked out your credit score, your arrest record and your ancestry -- you know, just to understand more about you.
DEAR JEANNE & LEONARD: My husband was a self-employed landscape architect. For the 15 years before he retired, his only employee was a jack-of-all-trades assistant who paid his bills, managed his calendar and took care of all the office work. "Nancy" was a hard worker and very loyal to my husband, and when he retired, she stopped working as well, to care for her ailing father. Not long after he retired, my husband died unexpectedly, leaving everything he had to me. From my inheritance, I gave each of our two children $10,000. And, knowing Nancy had recently had some financial setbacks and thinking about her years of dedication to my husband, I gave her $5,000 in his memory. She was touched and, as you might imagine, most appreciative. Then, about a month later, I happened to see her leaving an expensive spa -- the type of place that is well beyond my budget. What should I have said to her? Needless to say, this kind of extravagance was not what I had in mind when I gave her the money.
-- Diana T.
DEAR DIANA: How do you know that another kind friend hadn't treated her to a spa day?
Otherwise, though, we agree. If Nancy is having money problems, she probably would have been better served to have foregone the spa. But Nancy's budget is her concern, not yours. While your gift to her was, in part, a charitable act, Nancy is not a charity, and how she spends her money is up to her.
So try to forget the fancy spa, and remember instead what prompted your generous gift: Nancy's dedication and good service to your husband. Don't let her apparent extravagance keep you from thinking well of this person who, for 15 years, was such an important figure in your husband's life, and don't let it keep you from taking pleasure in having given her that money. You did a good deed, Diana. Enjoy it.
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Family on 06/14/2017