Category Archives: How To

Flag Etiquette

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[Via Wikimedia Commons]

It’s the flag, you know what the flag looks like! [Via Wikimedia Commons]

Flag Day is coming up on Sunday and so I wanted to bring everyone up to speed on American flag etiquette!

A few fun facts to begin:

  • The US Flag Code was adopted in 1923 and prior to that there were no official rules governing the US Flag. The different branches of the armed forces all had their own regulations, so the flag code was adopted to make one universal code.
  • It is absolutely not illegal to burn or otherwise desecrate a US Flag in the United States. The Supreme Court decided in 1990 that is it unconstitutional to violate people’s right to free speech (flag desecration counts as free speech) by having laws against flag desecration. (I see people who are unaware of this all the time and it is irksome to say the least.)
  • The Pledge of Allegiance was first written in 1892 and the “under God” bit was not added until 1954 as a way to distant the US from atheistic Communist countries!!  (So maybe we should not make a big deal about people not wanting to say it?) (The pledge was also originally said while doing the Bellamy salute. However, the Bellamy salute looks a lot like the Nazi salute, so it was discontinued during WWII and replaced with the hand over the heart salute.) (Court decisions have decreed that you cannot force anyone to say the Pledge of Allegiance and you cannot also not require anyone to stand during it.)

To paraphrase the flag code:

  • The flag should never dip to show respect to a person or a thing.
  • The flag should never touch the ground or water under it
  • The flag is only flown upside down to indicate distress
  • The flag should never be draped on anything as decoration. To decorate patriotically, bunting should be used with the blue on top, white in the middle, and red on the bottom.
  • The flag should not be used for advertising. It should also not be embroidered on anything or printed on anything that is meant to be casually discarded.
  • The flag should always be fastened securely so there is no risk of it being torn or damaged.
  • There should never be anything written or drawn on the flag.
  • No signs or advertisements should be posted on a flagpole.
  • No part of a flag should be used as a costume or uniform. The armed forces may have a flag patch on their uniforms. Flag lapel pins should be worn on the left, over the heart.
  • When a flag is too worn or damaged to be a fitting symbol, it should be burned ceremoniously.
  • When saluting the flag, whether at a flag raising/lowering ceremony, the National Anthem, or the Pledge of Allegiance, all people should face toward the flag and put their right hand over their heart. Civilians should remove their hats and put the hat over their heart. Military persons in uniform do not remove their hats and salute instead of putting their hands over their hearts. (If you are not a US citizen, you don’t have to do this, but you should stand to be polite.)
  • When displaying the flag from a flagpole, the flag should always go fully to the top unless being displayed at half-mast.
  • The flag is displayed at half-mast by presidential or gubernatorial order. To set the flag at half mast, it is first hoisted to full mast and then lowered. The lower the flag, it is again hoisted to full mast before being lowered fully.
  • The flag is to be hoisted briskly and lowered slowly. It should only be up from sunrise to sunset, if it is to be displayed at night, it should be illuminated.
  • When flown with other flags, the US flag should always be the biggest and fly the highest. It is always the first raised and the last lowered.
  • When the flag covers a casket, the union (the blue section with the stars) should cover the head and left shoulder. The flag is removed before it is lowered into the grave.

Advanced Public Transportation Etiquette

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Warriors_still_NYC_subway.jpg.CROP.rectangle3-largeBy now, I hope all our readers are good with the basic rules of public transportation etiquette. Don’t take up too much room, don’t whack people with your bags, let other people out before you get on, stand up for the sick/elderly/pregnant, move toward the center of the car, etc. I bet you’re all out there taking your subways and buses and trolleys with the best manners. However, I’ve been riding the subway since I can remember, and have seen a number of pretty outlandish things. Here are some that I’ve noticed that I hope you remember not to partake in as well.

  • Don’t sit down and put your feet on a nearby pole, ESPECIALLY if you’re barefoot.
  • Don’t sit on the floor.
  • Don’t set up a baby’s pack-and-play on the floor.
  • Don’t change a diaper on the subway seat.
  • Don’t watch movies on your iPad at full volume with no headphones.
  • Invest in good headphones so I don’t hear your music four seats away.
  • Do not apply hairspray on the subway.
  • Do not apply Victoria’s Secret body spray on the subway.
  • In general don’t wear so much perfume. Some people have bad allergic reactions or are just really sensitive to smell, and when you’re stuck underground in a metal tube next to somebody who has sprayed down every inch of their body it’s just really unpleasant.
  • Go ahead and eat, within reason. If it requires utensils/is hot and smelly, do not eat it, but I’m not one of those people who insists that you cannot bring food on public transportation. Lots of people are busy and work a lot and the bus might be their only chance to eat. Sandwiches, bagels, chips, granola bars, basically anything that can be eaten with one hand and doesn’t smell a lot is good to me.
  • Don’t smoke cigarettes.
  • Don’t smoke pot.
  • Don’t vape.
  • Don’t do coke.
  • Like really we can all tell when you’re trying to do drugs in public and nobody is impressed.
  • Don’t be that drunk person who is running barefoot up and down the car and scream-singing to Katy Perry.
  • Just don’t be barefoot, and please explain to me all these people who decide taking their shoes off on the train is a good idea.
  • Take your trash with you.

Are Funding Sites Inherently Rude?

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If everyone gave just $1…[Via Wikimedia Commons]

Sites like Kickstarter, Indigogo, GoFundMe, Patreon have exploded over the last couple of years, and honestly, it’s great. I love that people can come up with a great idea or regularly create content and make it really easy for people to help them out/pay for content without having to go through traditional industry. However, like anything, these types of sites can also be abused.

We talk about the conundrum of wedding registries a lot…how strange it is to ask for people to give you things, and yet there’s this expectation that if people are going to give you gifts anyway, they might as well give you something you want. And then there’s the whole asking for cash thing, and honeymoon registries and it’s complicated enough that people are CONSTANTLY writing about it on wedding and etiquette sites. But I think that the growth of asking for gifts through wedding registries has led people to believe that it’s always okay to ask for things. And I don’t know if it is? The whole crowdfunding thing is so recent that there isn’t really any etiquette surrounding it. I think that what rubs me the wrong way the most is that so often, people are setting up crowdfunding for themselves. I’m absolutely not talking about the Kickstarter/Patreon things because in my mind, if you are creating a product that people are paying for, that’s not really fundraising in the same sense as just asking for straight up cash.

Historically, when there was a disaster, like a house burned down and the family needed help, someone in the community would organize the help for them- through a church or a school or a civic organization. People would give money or food or clothes or whatever they could and everyone rallied and it was great. But now, you see people asking for help to pay their medical bills or help pay their tuition. Which…is still something a lot of people want to help with and that’s great! But to a certain extent, only a few people are going to be able to do that with any kind of success. You either have to be the first one to do it or have a really good story because most people have some kind of medical bill or school debt or something and aren’t going to be able to spread their money around to everyone who needs help. And then there’s the fact that you asked for it for yourself, which still seems like “greed” to many people (not that I’m saying it is, that’s just a perception that many may have.) I realize that many people don’t have churches and social clubs anymore, but surely everyone has a circle of friends, co-workers, kickball team members, bookclubbers, or SOMEONE who can take the lead? And maybe this is a good time to point out that if someone close to you IS going through a particular rough patch, maybe reach out to them and to others and see if you can pull together some help.

Another thing I see crowdfunding for is “voluntourism.” Voluntourism is when you go on a vacation and spend part of the time “volunteering.” Now to begin with, voluntourism is a really murky area with a lot being written about whether it does any good at all (unlikely). But if that’s how you want to spend your vacation, take some bug spray and have a great time. The problem comes when you send out a crowdfunding message to all your friends and family telling them that you need $2000 for airfare and room and board so that you can be a volunteer. If you are not making a major, serious impact then you are taking a vacation and generally speaking, people should pay for their own vacations. You would be much better off if you asked for that money to be sent directly to the people who need it or at least only ask for money to buy supplies to bring (something like mosquito nets comes to mind).

And then you get the truly superficial. There’s the girl who raised $1500 to throw her own birthday party or people who fund their totally elective, cosmetic plastic surgery, bachelorette parties, vacations, there are hundreds. But for every one of those awful ones, there is someone raising money for someone to take a once in a lifetime trip after like, I don’t know, adopting 50 orphans or to raise money for a gift for a respected member of the community, which seem okay?

So if I was going to write some etiquette rules about crowdfunding they would be:

  • If you are actually creating something that people want, you are totally in the clear. Podcasts, blogs, art, music, movies, all that. Just keep the number of requests for support down to a minimum and deliver on your promises.
  • Always keep your requests to a minimum. Post it publicly a couple of times and then again right before it ends.
  • Don’t harass people to donate. ie don’t send out individual emails more than once. If people are ignoring you it’s because they aren’t interested and if you persist you will only annoy them.
  • If you are raising money for a cause, make sure it is helping the cause more than it is helping you.
  • Ask yourself if people will really want to give money to you. Are you the kind of person who is always ready to help everyone else out and is well regarded in your community? Likewise if you are crowdfunding on someone else’s behalf- have a talk with a bunch of people and ask them if they would be interested in donating before setting it up.
  • Consider your audience- if everyone you know has a pile of student debt, don’t ask them to help raise money to alleviate YOUR student debt or send you on vacation, etc.
  • Always graciously accept declines and be thankful to the people who do donate. Consider sending individual thank you notes or messages if you know who the contributors are.
  • If your request somehow goes viral and you receive way more money than you ever imagined, consider giving a big chunk of it to charity.
  • If you are the one who needs money, strongly, strongly consider asking a VERY close friend if they might set up the site on your behalf. It looks so so so much better.
  • Ultimately though, you can probably try to crowdfund anything and hey, you might get lucky and get some money. The worst that can happen is that all your friends and family hate you!

How to Make Thank You Note Writing Painless

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If I had infinite dollars, I would only buy fancy stationery.

If I had infinite dollars, I would only buy fancy stationery.

So in the last couple of weeks, we have been talking about who writes the wedding thank you notes with a poll and the results of that poll. As we were doing it, I was thinking a lot about what I would do if I had a wedding’s worth of thank you notes to write (NB I am not married but I am good at writing thank you notes and organizing large tasks.) Here are some ideas for making the process pretty painless:

  • Write them all on the plane ride to your honeymoon- what else do you have to do with all that time? (cons: you might lose them!)
  • Address and stamp all the envelopes ahead of time, it will save you a step later.
  • Write the notes as gifts come in. It’s reasonable to expect that wedding presents will start being sent to your house about 3 months before the wedding. If you write each note the day you receive each gift, you will hardly notice the time spent! And actually, you REALLY should be writing notes as soon as you get gifts, don’t leave people hanging for 6 months. Emily Post has a great story about a society bride who was getting hundreds of gifts and wouldn’t go to bed until she had written all the notes for the gifts that had come in that day.
  • Make your significant other write half! There is no reason you shouldn’t be splitting the thank you note writing exactly in half. (Make it a contest? The first person to be done with their half gets treated to dinner by the other person? Or gets to pick the date of their choice?)
  • Use thank you note writing as a fun newlywed date night- get some delicious takeout, some wine, and get cracking! You can even share your memories of seeing each guest at the wedding with each other.
  • Just buckle down- write 5 the second you walk in the door every night and you will be done in no time.

So You Want To Have A Theme Party…

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The Pretty Little Liars always have the right costumes

The Pretty Little Liars always have the right costumes

Your basic party is pretty easy to plan. Clean the house, put out some snacks and drinks, turn on some music, and your friends will generally make a good time of it. And sometimes parties have a natural theme, like a certain holiday. But sometimes you want to throw a party around a specific theme or activity. You may want to have your friends over for board games, or a craft night, or a costume party, or even to watch a specific TV program. This takes a little more finesse to pull off. On one hand, it’s weird if only a couple people have taken the activity seriously. On the other, it’s weird to force people to participate in something. Here are a few tips on how to throw, or attend, a successful theme party.

If You’re The Host

1. Make it really clear what the party is about. I’ve seen so many emails along the lines of “there will be food and drinks and games and music,” which reads as a list of optional things available to you should you decide to attend this party. And then you show up and apparently games are the whole point. Make your invitations specific. Say you want to host a Monopoly night, or marathon The Sopranos, or have everyone learn macrame. Tell people explicitly what they need to bring or wear if that’s important.

2. Not everyone is going to be great at the theme. Once Victoria hosted a “masquerade” party, and requested everyone dress in sexy, fancy attire and wear masks. I think we all wore masks for about five minutes before our faces got sweaty, and some people dressed fancier than others, but it was okay because 1. we’re all friends and 2. Victoria is a great hostess who would never in a million years make someone feel bad for not adhering to a theme. Also, every year we host a Halloween party, and though we will lightly jab at people who don’t show up in costume, we understand that not everyone has a costume/wants to wear one.

3. If tone/theme is important to you, you need to provide it yourself. Basically, the bigger you want the theme to be, the less you can rely on people to do it for you. Not that your friends aren’t great, but let’s say you want to throw a Mad Men party, where you all eat 1960s food and drink 1960s cocktails and dress like you’re on the show. Asking someone to pick up a six pack for a party is one thing, but asking them to research vintage cocktails and be on top of all the ingredients for them is another. I’m sure you have close people in your life who would do this for you, but part of being a host is, well, hosting. If it’s important to you that everything match this way, you’re going to either need to spend the time and money pulling that together, or delegate with the risk that it won’t be your vision.

4. Understand if people decline because they’re not into the theme, or choose not to participate. As with anything, you have to know your audience. Not all of your friends are going to have an outfit at the ready that makes them look like they’re in Mad Men.  Not everyone wants to marathon the same TV shows as you, or is into crafting, or knows what people eat at a 1970s disco party (quaaludes?). Sometimes this means your guests will try their best and fall short, sometimes it means they’ll show up because they want to hang out with you and not really participate, and sometimes it means they won’t come at all. You cannot make someone as enthusiastic as you, and that’s okay!

5. Relax, nobody will notice the details as much as you. This is a blessing and a curse, but try to see it as a blessing. Give yourself a break. Don’t spend a week worrying that the ratio of vegetarian to non-vegetarian appetizers is off, or asking your guests a hundred questions about what they’re bringing, or bemoaning that half the people showed up without the right costumes. Of course these things are frustrating, but at some point you have to let it go, mainly for your own sanity, but also because the most important thing for a host is to appear relaxed and happy. If you’re stressed, your guests will pick up on that vibe, and no one will have much of a good time.

 

If You’re The Guest

1. Make an honest attempt to engage in the theme!  Themes are no fun if nobody participates, so if it’s clear there’s a certain activity the party is centered around, go for it! Wear a costume, bring themed favors, suggest what board games you’d be excited to play. Don’t try to make it just a normal party if that’s not the host’s intention. And if you don’t know what you should be doing, be honest. A few weeks ago I went to a potluck, and one person admitted she wasn’t a great cook and offered to supply cocktails. It was great, because she clearly wanted to be at a party with all her friends, even if making an elaborate fish entree wasn’t her thing.

2. If you really can’t do that, don’t go. Do not go to a Game of Thrones party if you hate Game of Thrones, no matter how many of your friends are there. You will not like it. You will either be forced into conversation after conversation about Game of Thrones before watching the show, or you’ll be that person trying to change the subject and steer everyone away from it and it’s just not a good look. If you can’t make a good faith effort to engage in the central activity, just don’t go!

3. If you’re the type of person to notice negative details, keep it to your-fucking-self. The last thing a host needs is being told their 1960s decor isn’t really authentic. Keep your mouth shut.