Guests

Hotels will be required to provide information on their guests to police, under a bill approved by the County Council Monday night.County Executive Robert R. Neall proposed the bill on behalf of county police, who wanted access to information on hotel guests to help themcatch drug dealers operating out of county hotel rooms.But the bill approved by the council has some protections not included in Neall's bill. Neall's bill would have required innkeepers tohand over guests' registration and phone records whenever a police officer asked for them.

There was a time when having house guests wreaked such havoc on my schedule and pocketbook, you might have thought I was entertaining royalty or running for Innkeeper of the Year. Weeks before the big event, I would scrub every nook and cranny not only of the guest room, but of the entire house. If my visitors had arrived with magnifying glasses and white gloves, they would have given me an A in Housework 101.The bed linens were starched and ironed; thick, fluffy bath towels were folded with T-square precision and fresh-cut flowers resembled a Cezanne still-life.

The No. 1 rule to being a good host is to stay out of the kitchen as much as possible. In other words, when guests walk through your front door, you should be "ready, impeccably dressed and calmly waiting, all preparatory struggles over," says Margaret Visser, author of "The Rituals of Dinner: The Origins, Evolution, Eccentricities, and Meaning of Table Manners" (Grove Press, $22.95).Meals that are less time-consuming to prepare may free you up to spend time with your guests. "Take the emphasis off the food and the setting, and put it on the people," said Elizabeth Mayhew.

More than 100 people who dined at the Turf Valley Resort and Conference Center in Ellicott City on Saturday have been stricken with food poisoning, local and state health officials announced yesterday.Officials said an estimated 1,500 guests attended about a dozen events, ranging from wedding receptions to anniversary dinners to birthday parties, at the banquet facility at the center on U.S. 40 that day.Officials said they didn't know which events might have caused the outbreak of gastroenteritis.

The cookies could not be resisted. Boy Scouts grabbed fistfuls. One girl took four and then came back for more. An officer from the Department of General Services filled up plastic bag for her co-workers. Any time a cookie tray appeared light on treats, Gov. Martin O'Malley's staff whipped out a fresh batch. On Saturday afternoon, as part of a Maryland tradition, O'Malley threw open the doors to Government House for the holidays, allowing visitors to wander through the public section of the executive mansion and admire decorations free of charge.

Let's assume that you have earned or inherited a bunch of money, or you wish to behave for a few days as if you have.You find your way to the Honolulu or Maui airport. You step away from the masses into a small plane, which half an hour later drops you at a tidy new airport on a small green island, where low clouds cling to pine slopes: the island of Lanai. Someone takes your bags. Someone else helps you into one of two waiting hotel vans, and soon you're whisking along a few miles of two-lane road, past acre after acre of grassy, sun-kissed plantation fields gone wild.

With state law for the first time banning General Assembly members from accepting free Preakness tickets from the owners of Pimlico, Gov. Parris N. Glendening has stepped in and invited legislators to attend Saturday's race in style -- courtesy of the taxpayers. The governor has invited all 188 legislators and one guest apiece to spend the day in the state government's hospitality tent, which will feature an open bar and a buffet serving roast beef and crab cakes, at about $180 a person.

An imposing antique forms a backdrop behind the reception desk at the Boar's Head Inn in Charlottesville, Va. The bottom portion contains shallow drawers, while the top half displays several rows of cubbyholes that once functioned as hotel mailboxes. Thick brass discs, each bearing the carved likeness of a wild boar, dangle from cup hooks at the tops of the cubbyholes. The golden ornaments form long, neat lines that gleam in the overhead light. When I ask the receptionist if I can take a closer look, she hands me a hefty fob attached to a brass key, and the heavy, glittering disc covers my entire palm.

William Kennedy Smith married girlfriend Anne Henry Saturday in a picturesque white chapel on Tilghman Island, then treated busloads of wedding guests to a reception and fireworks display at the $1.1 million waterfront farmhouse he bought in September. That's according to a real estate agent and inn keeper who, like many people on the 3-mile island, were aware of the goings-on. Smith, a nephew of President John F. Kennedy who was acquitted of rape and battery in 1991 by a Florida jury, did not respond to an e-mail message seeking comment.

The world was a very different place when Clayton Dorn, founder of Forest Oil, built a country lodge for his family in the mountains near Bradford, Penn.In the late 1920s and early '30s, when the Hansel-and-Gretel-style Big House and secluded family cabins at Glendorn were built, there were plentiful hardwoods, like chestnut and butternut, to panel the walls. There were leisurely family trips to Europe, where Dorn's adult children, Forest and Erla, bought crystal and china and chose tile in the latest art deco patterns to lavish on bathrooms, kitchens and 41 fireplaces.