DEAR HARRIETTE: My neighborhood is very friendly. We greet one another when outside, help out one another when cleaning the streets (sweeping leaves, shoveling snow, etc.) and are very cordial.

However, there is one family who isn't as kind and friendly. The overall view of that particular family is one of pure disdain. When they come outside, they do not greet anyone. In fact, one of the residents there cursed out an elderly woman on the block!

In preparation for the hurricane, everyone did their part the night before to clear the streets of tree leaves and debris, except them. That family lives closest to the storm drain at their end of the block. If they didn't clean their area, there was a great chance that the leaves in their area would clog the drain and cause flooding on the block.

How do you deal with neighbors who are blatantly inconsiderate and rude? -- Fed Up, Brooklyn, N.Y.

DEAR FED UP: Now that the hurricane has passed, I pray that you and your neighbors were able to work with this family to clear the drains. Without question, in an emergency, even if your neighbors have bad manners, your community needs to come together to insist that safety precautions be followed.

When you approach a contentious neighbor as a united front while remaining friendly, you stand a better chance of being heard and heeded. In cases of life or death, you may need to engage local authorities to support you in getting contrary neighbors to make wise decisions.

Beyond that, you can continue to reach out to these neighbors, letting them know that you want them to be part of the community and doing your best to win them over with your welcoming nature.

DEAR HARRIETTE: My daughter comes home every day telling me that a child in her class picks her nose daily, eats her dried snot and never washes her hands when she goes to the bathroom. This same child apparently also touches the other children, as children do, and my daughter is grossed out by it. These girls are 10 years old, which I think is old enough to know better. I go to the classroom, so I see that the teacher has signs up to reinforce hand washing and overall cleanliness. My guess is that the teacher hasn't noticed this unsanitary behavior. Should I tell her? -- Mindful Mom, Detroit

DEAR MINDFUL MOM: Definitely speak to the teacher in private and express your daughter's observations and concerns. If it is true that this girl is not practicing good hygiene, the teacher can notice her behavior and help correct her.

Be sure to tell your daughter not to obsess about this girl. Your daughter should continue to do her best not to touch her and wash her own hands frequently.

DEAR HARRIETTE: My friend just lost her job, and she is so upset that she says she wants to go back to the job and kill her boss. I'm serious. She is fuming mad and can't seem to control her anger. I have been suggesting that she blow off steam in other ways, including doing the basics like applying for unemployment insurance and even filing a claim against him if she thinks she was wrongly fired. I'm concerned, though. Should I tell the police if she says she's heading down there to hurt him? I don't really want to be involved. -- Concerned Friend, Washington, D.C.

DEAR CONCERNED FRIEND: I know it's hard to imagine telling on your friend, but if you believe someone is about to commit a crime, you are obligated to speak up. You could do that by alerting security at your friend's workplace. You also could call the police and give the information you have, then step back.

DEAR HARRIETTE: You recently addressed a concern about a "no presents" request for a child's birthday party. Someone suggested the invited boy could make a coupon book as a gift. While I appreciate your affirmation of the value of handmade gifts, I strongly believe that misses the point. You recommended letting the host parents know that a guest intends to make a gift to clear the way for it to be received. You did not recommend asking the parents for permission to bring the gift, which is essential.

Why is it so hard in our culture to simply respect that a party host has the right to request that no gifts be brought, and that guests have an obligation to honor that request? Whether the gift is handmade or store-bought is immaterial. The parents hosting the party made that request on purpose, and it should be honored. If the boy who makes a gift brings it to the party, it makes others who actually honored the parents' instruction feel as if they, too, should have brought something. -- Respectfully Frustrated, Racine, Wis.

DEAR RESPECTFULLY FRUSTRATED: Thank you for your letter. Your general point that it's perfectly fine not to allow gifts at a party is important.

In my experience, children have many questions about gifts, especially when they are told not to bring one. Therefore, I strongly recommend that the host parents give context for why they don't want gifts so that parents of the guests can explain it to their children. The host parents may have any of several reasons -- the child doesn't need anything, they want to teach thriftiness, they are buying the child what he/she wants, etc.

As parents, I believe it is our responsibility to help our children understand why their friends make the different choices that they do. Hence, if the invitation does not explain the no-gifts policy, I recommend asking the host parents about it. In my daughter’s case, often the parents have not wanted the guest to spend money and have offered that a handmade gift would be welcome. Sometimes parents ask for gifts for charity instead of for their child. That, too, needs to be explained.

If the guests are made to understand the reasons, it will help everyone feel at ease in a society that typically encourages gift giving at birthdays.

DEAR HARRIETTE: I loved your answer to "Single and Starving," the young woman who described her frustrations with learning to cook. My mother, of blessed memory, used to tell me, "If you can read, you can cook." When I graduated college, one of the things she gave me was a cookbook. At the end of the summer, I rented an apartment with a friend from my graduating class, and we resolved to handle all our own cooking.

He and I had lots of fun honing our cooking skills, although most of the time we looked a lot more like the Muppets' Swedish Chef than like Emeril. Our apartment was in another college town, and we both made quite a few women friends. It was easy to meet them -- most of them were college and graduate students, and all we had to do was invite them over for home-cooked meals. We did all our own baking, too, and were frequently asked to bring our specialties to parties. I was known for Sacher tortes, he for his amazing chocolate-almond tortes.

I married a woman whose mother was too overprotective to give her even a basic education in the culinary arts (for fear she'd burn herself on the stove or cut herself with a knife), so I taught her how to cook and bake. We still share kitchen responsibilities.

The one piece of advice that I would add to yours would be for "Single and Starving" to find a beginner's cookbook that explains what all the cooking terms mean and identifies the basic utensils. That way, she won't be stymied when a recipe calls for her to dredge something in flour, chop and brown onions, or melt chocolate squares in a double boiler. Armed with that, she should find a friend who also wants to learn to cook, and have some fun in that kitchen! -- Self-Taught Cook, Chicago

DEAR HARRIETTE: I've been in the same boat as "Single and Starving," and the book I found immensely helpful was "Help! My Apartment Has a Kitchen" (Houghton Mifflin, 1996), written by a college guy and his mother. It chronicles how the mom gradually got him cooking when he and his roommates spent all their money ordering pizza. -- Sympathetic, Washington, D.C.

DEAR SELF-TAUGHT COOK AND SYMPATHETIC: I love it when readers share their great ideas to support one another. One more good idea that came through for this novice cook was to look for free or affordable cooking classes in her area.

This topic keeps taking me back to my youth, when I did not want to learn to cook and didn't cook for years. Now I am loving the experience of cooking, creating new dishes and feeding my family.

When my daughter asked her baby sitter if she could make my recipe for green beans and portobello mushrooms because it's her favorite dish, I nearly fell out of my chair. To go from hardly cooking eggs to having a specialty dish that my child requests says I have come a long way. The same can be true for you!