Category Archives: How To

It’s 5 O’Clock Somewhere

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Always be Ryan Gosling or Emma Stone

Always be Ryan Gosling or Emma Stone

So you think you know about cocktails. They have alcohol and you like them.

But there is so much more to it!

Technically a cocktail is a drink with sugar, water, spirits, and bitters. Though a more modern definition is a spirit a mixer, and bitters or other flavoring. Whereas a rum and coke is a highball, or just an alcohol and a mixer. They are called highballs because they are served in a tall, highball, glass.

Other ways to take your alcohol are neat (just the spirit, in a glass), “on the rocks” (just the spirit, over ice), straight (just the spirit, chilled), or up (in a stemmed glass- a martini “straight up” would be a chilled martini in a stemmed glass). A fun way to refer to a measurement of alcohol is by fingers. If you put your finger up to the bottom of the glass and pour enough alcohol into the glass to reach the top of the finger, it’s about one ounce of alcohol, then you can ask for one finger, two fingers, etc. If you are a jokester, you can put your pointer finger and pinky finger out and call THAT two fingers, ha-ha.

There are generally two designations of spirits: top shelf and well. Top shelf is the premium expensive liquor and well is the least expensive. It took me a couple of years of going to bars in college to figure out what well meant. Usually any happy hour specials will note that they apply to well drinks. And that is generally what you will get if you ask for a whiskey and ginger or whatever. If you have a preference, you will have to specify it, or the bartender may ask.

 

How to stock a bar

To create most basic cocktails, your home bar should have:

  • Vodka
  • Rum
  • Whiskey
  • Gin
  • Tequila
  • Vermouth (both white and red)
  • Bitters
  • Mixers (should include plain club soda or seltzer, coke, 7up, ginger ale)

Barware:

  • Short glasses (rocks glass)
  • Tall glasses (highballs)
  • Wine glasses
  • Stemmed cocktail glass (a martini glass)
  • Champagne flutes
  • Cocktail shaker
  • Ice bucket/tongs
  • Jigger (you can use a regular shot glass too)

Good beginner drinks

Highballs are a great introduction to drinker liquor because they are fairly sweet and diluted. Rum and coke, whiskey and coke, whiskey and ginger ale, 7&7 (bourbon and 7up), cranberry vodka, pineapple vodka, etc are all good choices.

When you want to move up to something a bit more sophisticated, whiskey sours and margaritas.

It’s also a great idea to have something fancy and mature in your pocket for when you might be taken out to a really nice cocktail bar. Of course, it’s great if they have a menu you can pick off of, but a Manhattan, Old Fashioned, or French 75 will impress.

Etiquette:

Knowing what everything is and knowing what you like to drink is the cornerstone of drinking etiquette, but there are a few more tips to keep in mind:

  • Don’t whistle at or snap your fingers at a bartender. Be patient and they will get to you.
  • Have your order ready when they do get to you.
  • Running a tab means that you hand over your credit card and they keep track of what you are drinking and then you settle up at the end of the night. Many bars have a minimum you have to spend to run a tab. When you run a tab, you add the tip at the end.
  • If you are paying in cash, you pay when you receive each drink. Tip a dollar or two per drink each time.
  • Don’t get belligerent. If the bartender cuts you off, accept it. Relatedly, just don’t get THAT drunk anyway (but these things happen, I know.)

Etiquette In The Apple Orchard

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Fall means it’s apple picking season, and apple picking season means it’s war. Oh, you thought you’d have a photo opportunity with your toddler where you can get them to wear a fuzzy coat and sit on barrel? That’s cute. Have fun with that while you’re left with all the mushy McIntoshes, loser. We pick to win where I come from. But you do have to be subtle, lest some helicopter parents accuse you of making things not “fair” and you’re banned from all the apple cider donuts.

  • Plan ahead. If you’re going just for “fun,” whatever, but if you actually want the good apples that means knowing which weeks are their peak seasons. Being prepared is never rude.
  • Get one of those picker sticks that looks like a lacrosse thingy. I don’t know what they’re called but you know what I’m talking about. They give them out at the orchards so it’s totally fair game.
  • Learn to climb for those apples on the insides of the tree no one can reach.
  • If you see a child reaching for an apple, let them struggle. It’ll build character. But do tell their parents the kid is adorable so no one gets suspicious.
  • Know how much you need, and don’t take more than that. Apple picking is about quality, not quantity. Okay, it’s a little about quantity, but be careful otherwise you’ll end up with 20 pounds of apples, which turns into 20 pounds of applesauce when you can’t eat them in time, which turns into 20 pounds of applesauce that stays in your freezer for a year because applesauce is sorta meh.
  • Don’t cut the cider line.

The Etiquette of FOMO

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FOMO (fear of missing out) is real. I know a lot of people like to say that it’s just another thing millennials or whatever generation coming up behind us likes complaining about, but it’s absolutely a thing. Two generations ago, if your friends went out without you, you either 1. wouldn’t know about it until afterward or 2. maybe would feel a little hurt but could easily ignore it. Now, often those events you’re left out of are flaunted in your face on social media, or just with people talking about them because they forget it’s sort of rude to talk about shared experiences if not everyone in the circle has shared it. It’s easier than ever to see exactly how much fun everyone is having without you, and your dumb brain naturally concludes that they’re having that much fun specifically because you’re not there. Quit it, brain!

Anyway, let’s talk about how to deal with it, both from the perspective of the person involved and the person feeling left out.

  1. Try to include everyone: This comes with a lot of caveats. Obviously in a perfect world everyone would be welcome and present everywhere, except that wouldn’t be a perfect world because that’d be fucking exhausting. You know when you go to a big party and you’re like “that was fun and now I need to wait a month before I interact with that many people again”? TOO BAD, NO WAITING PERIOD. This is all to say sometimes you just want to hang out with one or two or five people instead of every one of your friends at once, and that’s reasonable. But if you’re planning a party and invite everyone except one person in your friend group, that sends a message, so try to at least keep groups together. This changes if there’s limited space, but you know, do your best.
  2. Ask yourself if you really wanted to be invited:  If you’re feeling left out, try to figure out if it’s because it’s really something you would have enjoyed, or if you just want to be included. Maybe you weren’t invited specifically because your friends knew you wouldn’t like that particular activity, or thought you were busy and didn’t want to make you feel overwhelmed with choices.
  3. Don’t flaunt: This is tricky, because obviously you have the right to post as many picturesque mountain views or selfies with all your friends as you want, but if you know someone wasn’t invited who would have liked to be invited, or has a tendency to feel left out if they couldn’t make it to something, maybe take it easy. Because it is hard to see all your friends enjoying themselves somewhere if you didn’t know about it.
  4. Don’t whine: The temptation to call someone out and go “why wasn’t I invited?” is strong, but generally it is not a good look. Instead, talk to your friends after the fact if you’re feeling raw about it. There may be a reason why you weren’t invited (limited space, other relationship dynamics that have nothing to do with you, email problems), or you could use it as an opportunity to say it’s something you’d be interested in next time around.
  5. Plan your own shit! The easiest way to avoid FOMO is to come up with your own plans. I also think the more people who make plans, the more people understand how tricky it can be. If you email 15 friends, and 5 are gone that weekend, do you change plans for them or forge ahead? If your apartment can only fit 6 for dinner, how do you do it so no one feels left out? It’s hard! And there are no right answers but planning at least makes everyone a little more empathetic to the invitation process.
  6. Mix it up: One great social habit to pick up is to be mixing up which and how many of your friends you interact with, so it doesn’t have a chance to turn into one stagnant “group.” Of course big group parties and outings are great, but plan smaller things too. Get dinner with friends A and B, then next week see a movie with B, C and D, and later invite A and C over for drinks. That way you set a standard of not everyone being invited to everything all the time. People have a chance to get used to seeing their friends doing stuff with out them, knowing that it wasn’t because they weren’t missed, but because sometimes you just hang out in different configurations.
  7. You’re literally missing out on everything all the time: Time to get zen about it! Your friends are probably Gchatting right now. You might be Gchatting or texting or Snapchatting with them too, but they’re having their own interactions every second of the day that have nothing to do with you. And they may even be talking about you! Friends talk about friends, and let’s face it, they’ve probably noticed that weird thing you do (you know the thing). If that makes you uncomfortable, learn to live with it, because just because people you know see each other without you or talk about you when you’re not there doesn’t mean they don’t love you or want to see you. It means they’re people with their own lives and schedules and relationships that naturally look different than yours.

But if it makes you feel better totally brag those vacation Instagrams.

Sales Parties Are Not Social Events

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Tupperware_party

Does anyone even sell Tupperware anymore? [ViaWikimedia Commons]

It’s weird how you hit your late twenties or early thirties and suddenly everyone is all about Avon or Jamberry or Scentsy or whatever the latest thing is. Now, despite my own personal feelings about multi-level marketing (aka selling a product but also recruiting people to work below you so you get a share of their sales), what you do with your time is your own business. But once you start annoying all your friends, coworkers, and relatives, you are being rude, rude, rude.

So, on the seller’s side, to market politely:

  • Don’t bug people, you can maybe reach out to people ONCE to let them know you have starting selling a product.
  • It would be better to just make a general announcement and then people can get in touch with you if they want.
  • Leaving catalogs in the breakroom at work is fine. Pushing your coworkers to host parties or buy product is not okay.
  • Keep your business side separate from your personal side- create a separate Facebook page so people who want to be notified about products can follow it without subjecting your entire friends list to it.
  • Take no for an answer. Many people REALLY do not like the kinds of products that are sold by multi level marketing/direct sales companies. And the tactics that these companies encourage easily alienate people. Ask once, if you must, but be prepared to hear no a lot. If people want to buy stuff from you, they will reach out.

For people who want to host a sales party:

  • Tupperware parties have a cute vintage ring to them. It’s NOT cute to do a bait and switch. Don’t invite people to a cocktail party and then bust out a surprise salesperson. Make it clear from the beginning.
  • Do provide some snacks and drinks, especially if you receive free items in return for your guests purchases.
  • Don’t pressure people to buy things.
  • Don’t invite people who you wouldn’t have invited to a party that wasn’t about sales. Hearing from someone for the first time in a long time to be invited to hear a sales pitch where the host will receive free product feels like being used.
  • Prepare to hear a lot of nos.
  • Don’t call people out who don’t buy something.
  • Realize that many people don’t perceive these events as true social events or parties, so don’t assume that you are repaying your social obligation for people who have entertained you at “real” parties. After all, you didn’t really invite them for their company.
  • If you want to throw these kinds of parties, you should probably also throw non-sales parties too.

For invited guests:

  • You should still RSVP yes or no, but don’t feel at all guilty about saying no.
  • However, don’t be rude about declining- don’t say bad things about the product or salesperson or people who invite people to sales parties.
  • If you get bait and switched, feel free to make your regrets and walk out.
  • Don’t feel obligated to buy anything.

The Ultimate Guide to Bedding Part 2

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Part 1 is here.

So now that everyone knows the components of a bed, we can talk about putting it all together into a scrumptious mass of comfort and relaxation.

The first thing you want to remember is that if you always want your bed to be nice and clean and inviting, you have to make it everyday. Nothing makes your bedroom more untidy and stressful than an unmade bed. The inimitable Jolie Kerr runs a bed making challenge every year and every year more people are converted to the joy that is a nicely made bed. This is also great advice for a guest- make the bed everyday and make a marvelous impression on your host.

To make a nice bed, you take your mattress and cover it with either a topper or a mattress pad, or both! Then put your fitted sheet (that’s the one with the elastic in the corners) on top of that. The lay your flat sheet over that (if it’s printed, put the printed side down as that is the “nice” side of the fabric and then you are enveloped in the nice parts of your sheets!) and tuck in the bottom corners (hospital style or whatever is easiest for you). Then put blankets, if you are using them, over that. The next step is to put your pretty comforter/duvet/bedspread/quilt/coverlet on top. There are two main methods of doing this.

  1. Just lay it flat- this is typical for fluffy spreads like comforters and duvets
  2. Lay it flat and then fold the top third backwards, place your sleeping pillows on the fold, and then fold the spread back over the pillows. This is what you frequently see in older motels since it was pretty popular in the 50s/60s/70s. It obviously works better with a flatter spread like a quilt or coverlet. This is a good option if you don’t want to bother with shams or decorative pillows but you still want to disguise your drool-covered and sweat stained sleeping pillows.

This is what this style of covering looks like. [Via]

This is what this style of covering looks like. [Via]

Once your have your covering on, you need to put your pillows on. There are also two methods for this. You can lay your sleeping pillows flat, like you sleep, and put sham pillows (or not) on top of them, like pancakes. Or, you can do what pretty much all bedding stores do and put the sleeping pillows vertical, leaning against the headboard or wall and put the sham pillows in front of them. Then you can put your throw pillows in front of all that.

So, ultimately, it’s not THAT hard to have your bed look like this:

[Via]

[Via]

Wash your sheets once a week or at max once every two weeks, as a rule of thumb. Always wash guest sheets between guests.

When you are a guest, ask your host what they want you to do with your sheets at the end of the visit. Don’t assume they want the bed made up with dirty sheets OR that they want you to strip it.

Of course, if you wish to sleep in a rats nest of unwashed, unmade sheets, that’s pretty much your business.