Planning a Christmas weekend of entertaining guests, I made a list of things I needed to do, including taking food out of the freezer and grocery shopping. As it happened, a friend whom I had been promising to take to lunch asked if we could go for lunch that Friday.

So, hopping into the car, I taped my "to do" list to the dashboard and went to pick her up. As she settled into the car, her face dropped.

"Thanks a lot!" she sulked.

Then I glanced at my list and saw the first item: "Take out the turkey."