April Etiquette Classes in Ontario

It’s never too early or too late to start developing good manners in your student!

The RSVP Institute of Etiquette has resumed co-ed etiquette classes at the historic Graber Olive House in Ontario California for 2023! 

Co-ed Beginner, Mixed-Youth class, ages 8 -13 will be held Sunday, April 2nd from 2 to 4 p.m.

An Advanced class for Mixed Ages is being held from 12:30 to 2:30 on Saturday, April 22nd. 

*We will be focusing on Restaurant Manners and Manners for Home, Travel and even Abroad in this class!

We will have a Beginner Mixed Ages Youth class, on Sunday, April 23rd from 1 to 3 p.m.

We will be holding a Teen Only Etiquette Class with a date to be determined soon. Lunch is served at all classes.

We always focus on the vital social skills young people need to get ahead in life, but we also reinforce the following subjects:

• Table Graces, Table Manners, Place Settings
• Introductions, Responses and Greetings 
• Respect for Others & Polite Conversation
• Deflecting Peer Pressure and Using Tact 
• Tech, Social Media and Mobile Manners
• Notes of “Thanks,” RSVPs and Regrets
• Making Eye Contact, Great Posture, Good Grooming and more

 

The price is only $60.00 per student. Foods are served to practice dining skills and handouts or books will be given to the students. 

Call or text Maura Graber at The RSVP Institute of Etiquette at  800-891- RSVP or 909 923-5650 to secure your registration.

Pre-payment by Check, Cash or PayPal is required.

Youth Etiquette Classes 2023

 I’m pleased to announce I will be resuming youth etiquette classes at the Graber Olive House at the end of January. We’re excited for the new 2 hour classes that will cover everything your student needs to know to attain social self-confidence. See below for details!

Food Service Etiquette and Styles

Service with a smile is more important than which side the food is served from, but it helps to have a server with both the smile and the knowledge!
-Image source, photo of a page in Town and Country Magazine, 2013

Ever since we were shutdown (just for a few weeks to flatten the curve) back in March of 2020, I have received weekly emails and phone calls with the same types of question… “When will you be teaching or giving seminars again?” “When will you be having another tea and talk?” “When will the Olive House be reopened?” I have been giving pretty much the same answer this whole time… “I’m not sure.”

Yes, there was that brief window when I scheduled private group classes, book signings, teas, etc… back in July. Then, I found out I was not only sick, but contagious. I had to cancel everything, including a long planned, talk and Zoom presentation for the Ontario Museum of History and Art. I was crushed and just now am getting better. I am starting to believe classes will be back up and running for October and the museum presentation will, fingers crossed, be in person on November 6th. We’re even hoping to have a tea along with the presentation. I have to follow the heath department rules, however, as does the Olive House, so I have been looking online to see what that will entail.

I was pleased to find this article below on the State Food Safety website. It’s a great article from 2014 on serving food at the table. I get asked about the etiquette for this on a regular basis, but I always have to warn whomever I am speaking with that not all servers are trained in such skills, and there are several different serving styles now in use. Also, most restaurant staff here in the U.S. do not look upon such a job as a career, but as part-time work on the ladder up to something better.   This on Etiquipedia© is an excellent article on varying food service styles, from British Service to Homestyle Service. The new “French Service” has its own article.

I do restaurant and country club staff training, but can’t reach every establishment. And what with many restaurants shuttered permanently, due to this COVID beast we weren’t prepared for, I’m not sure when I will be doing such training again any time soon. The turnover of servers is high and right now, restaurants are desperate for staff. It’s a difficult situation. This article is perfect for the current state of things so I am posting it here for my readers.

Is Left Right?

What side do you serve from?

The correct way to serve food is probably unknown to your customers, but vital to you. This technique requires you place the dishes in front of the customers and take them away from the proper side. Doing so will enhance their overall dining experience.

Chef Albrich, an Austrian-born fine dining expert, suggests that the traditional method of placing dishes from the left and removing them from the right is not always the best way to serve guests. According to him, the custom of serving guests from the left started long ago when food for meals would come out on large trays. Empty plates would be placed in front of guests from the left side, then each one of the plates would be filled with food in their place from the large tray.

“But if you are like most people today and have the plates presented to your guests with the food already on it, nicely displayed and decorated, then it should be served from the right, and it is incorrect to serve it from the left,” Chef Albrich says.

He goes on to outline which foods can be properly delivered from each side of the guest.

Serve from the left

If the place where you work gives its guests empty plates and later fills them at the table, those plates should be given to the customer from the left side. Sides such as vegetables and bread can also be delivered from the left and they should also be removed from the left.

Serve from the right

If the customer’s plate is arranged in the kitchen it should be delivered to them from the right side. Pre-plated food (considering the exceptions above), beverages, all empty plates, and utensils should be served from the guest’s right. All dishes served from the right need to also be removed from the right.

Once again, it is likely that many of your customers won’t know which side is correct when you serve them; however, there is a proper way to serve dishes and you never know when you’ll have a dining expert in your midst! —Jeremy Howard

This post was originally published in November 2014 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.

Some History of Etiquette from 1901

The article below was written nearly a century and a quarter ago. Reading this, one has to wonder what people will think of our etiquette a century and a quarter from now!

Etiquette is a form of fashion more important than style in dress, for the reason that the varying codes of manners have influenced morals, something changing the cut of a coat cannot be said to have done. When etiquette demanded that a gentleman accept a challenge or acknowledge himself a coward in the minds of his fellow citizens, it encroached sharply upon ethics. Now that it has gone out of fashion to kill, gentlemen find small difficulty in keeping the sixth commandment. The less formal etiquette becomes, the less wanton taking of life there is among those who consider good breeding of consequence. 

As the civilized race now stands, either man or woman can be refined, regardless of shape of hat he or she wears. This was true in any century, but 200 years ago and back of that period a gentleman and lady could, according to approved etiquette, gobble food with their hands from a common dish set in the center of the dining table and filled with the entire fashionable bill of fare prepared for the occasion. Gratefully we now acknowledge such proceedings to he “bad form” and in so doing pronounce ourselves two centuries removed from the table manners of swine and one point away from that brute, no matter how similar to him our turn of mind may remain in some other respects.–National Magazine, 1901

New Etiquette Classes for Teens

Our newest etiquette classes for teens begin at 6:45 p.m. on July 2nd at the Graber Olive House in Ontario. Call 909-923-5650 for more information or stop by the Graber Olive House to fill out a registration form.

New Youth Etiquette Classes Start April 15th!

Etiquette Classes in the Inland Empire

Start Sunday, April 15th!

The RSVP Institute of Etiquette continues to

offer ongoing, coed etiquette classes, at the

historic Graber Olive House in Ontario, 

with new courses starting April 15th! 

Every student is encouraged to develop the social skills vitally needed for smooth sailing throughout life... 

The 6 hour total, teen courses 

will be held every Sunday afternoon, 

from 3:15 to 5:15 p.m., for 3 weeks. 

The $85.00 per student fee, includes foods to practice dining skills with and all necessary learning materials! 

Now in our 28th year, we are always adding new subjects and great foods to practice dining skills that are taught!

                                                                       

Each student receives weekly session handouts in order to practice lessons they are taught in our classes, when they are at home and at school. Role modeling, games and foods all help to practice the skills and lessons taught. The three, 2-hour session, courses cover:
• Basic Social Graces, Introductions and Greetings
• Dining Skills and Table Manners
• Manners for Home and Abroad
• Respect for Self and Others,
• Deflecting Peer Pressure
• Responding to RSVPs
• Notes of Thanks
• Social Media Manners and Digital Manners
• Making Eye Contact, Great Posture and Grooming 

Fun games and prizes help reinforce skills taught!

The Graber Olive House is located at 315 East Fourth Street, Ontario, CA 91764 

Phone–909 983-1761 

Table Etiquette, Decor and Elise de Wolfe

Elise de Wolfe

“With her shrill instruction that plates should be ‘hot, hot, hot’ and centerpieces ‘low, low, low,’ decorator Elise de Wolfe came off slightly tamer than her usual avant-garde self. Never fear. Unmentioned were the details of the practices she preached, like the radical table she set in 1934: Carved chunks of rock crystal on a silver lamé tablecloth. In the history of the American centerpiece, Elise's glamorous rocks and lamé landmark was halfway between the follies of the Victorians and the equally silly indulgences of the 1960s. Every decade in this century has had its own ephemeral centerpiece style, inspired by a sometimes unlikely grab bag of sources, from clothing to window displays, from current events to cartoons.

Sturdily conservative Victorians favored variations on the formula of epergne, candlesticks, vases, and garlands. These objects were symmetrically laid out over the entire table with the precision of a golf course. Fodder for the standard flower arrangement included ferns, irises, roses, carnations, tulips, violets, and daisies. Nothing too violently colored — or strong smelling — became a table decoration before 1914, apparently with good reason. ‘I shivered through a whole meal where blue plates swore at a raw-green vase holding purple asters,’ confessed one sensitive reader to Good Housekeeping in1909.

“She suggested one need not even have a matching set of dining-room chairs, so it stands to reason she'd have been open to mis-matched plates, silver and beverage ware, as long as they too, complemented one another.” 

In The House in Good Taste, Elise de Wolfe, argued for plainer, brighter, simpler, yet more refined homes. De Wolfe liked items in a room to complement one another, but did not believe every piece had to match. She suggested one need not even have a matching set of dining-room chairs, so it stands to reason she'd have been open to mis-matched plates, silver and beverage ware, as long as they too, complemented one another.

More adventurous was the school of the fantastical centerpiece, which flourished well into the early 1900s. Although they might appear to be derivative of a kiddie birthday party, these goofy prop-laden tableaux we're for adults only — paper lanterns, fans, parasols, birchbark canoes, baskets and toy bunnies ranked as decorations. Theme centerpieces recognized timely topics, such as the flight of a dirigeable or women's suffrage. Centerpieces also celebrated the hostess's skills with flowers, scissors, and ice pick, as many of the items were handmade.

Several examples described in The Table, a 1904 decorating guide, helped the hostess create a cooling atmosphere for a summer meal. One centerpiece was built around a big block of ice, hollowed out to hold a bowl of water and live goldfish. Evergreen sprigs might be strewn on the table and newspaper clippings about blizzards pasted on the place cards. Harper's Bazaar tried to stem this ornamental rambunctiousness in 1910, scolding, ‘There is such a thing as carrying originality beyond the limits of good taste, forgetting the beautiful and the appropriate in our desire for the unusual.’

By the early 1920s the magazine had its way. Fashionable hostesses abandoned arts and crafts projects for store-bought knickknacks, which reigned over tables for decades. China birds, cupids, Pierrots and nymphs were de rigueur. In the 1930s, surrealism and Walt Disney's new cartoons triggered a fresh round of a knickknack mania. Elegant, as well as silly objects (seashells, polar bear figurines) were ‘floated’ on mirror glass as comic conversation pieces.

While a timid bouquet and Georgian silver bowls still held a hallowed place on some tables, they were regarded as unutterably dull by the truly Chic 1930s hostess. Her mission was to conjure up a centerpiece that was shockingly original. Table setting contests across the country showcased this creativity. Women had to hustle (or hallucinate) to equal the tin pan extravaganza dreamed up by a Chicago clubwoman in 1930. On a cream satin tablecloth, she topped cookie sheets with angel food cake pans filled with cattails and kitchen molds heaped with pineapples, kumquats, and silver painted boxwood. In 1936, House & Garden met her effort more than halfway, with a centerpiece of bristly coral, prickly pears, pomegranates, pineapples, and seashells. Cecil Beaton used the same type of hilariously bizarre prop juxtapositions in his fashion photographs for Vogue.

Meanwhile, the modern mode caused a centerpiece casualty — the bouquet lost its cachet. It was replaced by a lonely white orchid or gardenia floating in a glass bowl. An equally cold-blooded glass-and-glitter scenario was engineered by industrial designer Walter Dorwin Teague in 1933: a mirrored bowl and crystal prisms deployed amid black plates on a mirrored table.

Faced with wartime privations in the forties, even decorators like Dorothy Draper, who enjoyed expensive larger-than-life effects suggested thrift shops as a source for frugal table ornaments. With a nod to the victory garden, the humble vegetable was put to work, occasionally teamed with fruit or flowers. Typical table ornaments: baby carrots on a bed of lava rocks and yellow pottery, candles mixed with cabbages and peppers, and calla lilies in a wooden chopping bowl. A charmless utilitarian item, the lazy Susan, was now dignified as a ‘centerpiece.’

Although edible decorations continued to play a starring role after the war, they lost their stagey exaggeration in the 1950s. That decade stands as the stylistic low point in the history of the centerpiece. Even House & Garden lost its courage, putting grocery-laden arrangements in the spotlight: a melon shell stuffed with berries, tiers of nuts and mints, a pedestrian bowl of salad or basket of bread.

The table was roused from its stupor in the sixties by a number of innovations. First, towering topiary-like arrangements: everything from shrimp to pea pods was toothpicked to florist's foam, which had just been introduced. Another standard was the faux naif style, resurrected in the eighties. Mushrooms and ferns were presented in a silver basket, turnips piled in a Wedgewood bowl, stalks of rhubarb found with velvet ribbon. By mid-decade personal collectibles made for self-conscious tables. The fashion designer, Arnold Scaasi philosophized that the dining table, ‘where we spend only an hour or two can better afford to be far-out-' than anything else we live with.’ True to his word, Scaasi dished up a visual feast of rare shells, ivory utensils, a bell jar of butterflies, and brass objects squeezed in with jade cups and flowered plates.

The casual lifestyle promoted by the counterculture made the dining room — as well as the table itself — passé. Guests were seated at multiple small tables or on floor cushions. Centerpieces shrank to fit — or disappeared altogether. Those that survived had a handmade, throwaway style. Society, and society's dropouts alike, created happening tables with painted plastic poppies, bread sculpture, peacock feathers, handicraft candles, and blinking lights. For those so inclined, drug paraphernalia and ashtrays were practical accoutrements.

After this flower child glory, entertaining took a conservative turn: by 1973 the stylish turned to Ultrasuede tablecloths. Despite the example of Halston — as well as minimalist art and nouvelle cuisine, - centerpieces never took on a spare elegance. Hostesses in the seventies remained enthralled with the sixties passion for clusters of esoteric objects. For its readers, Vogue showed showed tables loaded with ivory candlesticks, tortoise shell cigarette boxes, mother-of-pearl ashtrays, and lacquered Chinese boxes. The flip side was the au naturel look: flowering quince branches shoved into a copper milk can, dwarf spruce trees, and garden variety plants in terra-cotta pots spilling soil onto the table.

Persisting into the eighties was the passion for a table littered with small precious objects. However, Judith Price, owner of Avenue magazine, had a fresher take on the decade's outlook. For a power breakfast, Price plunked down three video monitors as a centerpiece. On a grander scale, were the table settings professional "events designers" concocted for lavish benefits and parties. The decorations at a masked ball for gossip columnist, Suzy, held at the Plaza Hotel in 1985, epitomized eighties excess. Each table sprouted a lamé tree trunk drooping with crystal palm fronds, silver grapevines, moss, and orchids.

While most ornaments rate only as period pieces, Coco Chanel can be credited with an innovation that transcended fashion. At a dinner party sometime in the thirties, she made an alarm clock the centerpiece to claim her fair share of talk time against another loquacious guest, Salvador Dali. Chanel's clock solved two of the hostess's perennial problems: decoration and conversation. A centerpiece has no higher mission.” –  –by Writer, Jody Shields

Etiquette and "Owning It"

A vintage picture of a 1960s high school boys' gym class in the La Habra High School pool. 

When I was a new freshman in high school, my English class was given an assignment. Each of us had to write our memoirs. We were pretty young to be writing autobiographical works of our lives up until our freshman high school year, but I suspect our teacher wanted to see how well we wrote, while at the same time learning about each one of us. We were told we had to include three major occurrences in our lives that had affected us deeply, up until that point in time. Fairly easy, I thought. I loved to write and as a typical naval-gazing, self-absorbed teenaged girl, what better subject than to write about but myself?

I knew immediately which life-jolting event was to be the first I would write about and how screwed up I had been for several years that followed. I wrote about the swimming class my mother had enrolled me in at the age of five. My older brother and sister were enrolled as well, but they were in a different class for their age group. The summer classes were at the La Habra High School pool. I lasted through less than one and a half classes.

The first class was spent holding on to the side of the pool, kicking our legs and blowing bubbles into the water, with all of the moms looking on. I was more fixated on the girl next to me in class, whose bathing cap had what appeared to be a rubber ducky of some kind, attached to the top of the cap. I wasn't sure if it was the dorkiest thing I had ever seen, or the coolest. We only had plain, white bathing caps. They were tight, they pinched, and to this day, I remember how they smelled.

My mom never ordered anything this cool looking for herself.

On the second day of swim class, we were lined up alphabetically and told to "jump into the pool." Wait... What? I didn't know how to swim yet, and I knew better at five years of age than to jump into a pool on my own. No way! I froze. My instructors, a young man and young woman, gave me the order a second time, by shouting, "Jump into the pool!" I heard a whistle. I started to cry and shake. The next thing I knew, the female instructor had picked me up and thrown me into the pool. 

I don't remember how I got out of that pool, but it was incredibly fast. I remember the crying, the panicking, the embarrassment of that swim class fail, but more than that, I remember being called "Chicken of the Sea" by my family for the next several years, until I taught myself how to swim in 5th grade. And there I sat, nearly ten years later, while my freshman English teacher quietly proof read my paper. 

My teacher had stopped making comments on how well a sentence worked, or how one may have been written better. She clammed up when she read of my harrowing experience as a small child, being carelessly tossed into the shallow end of that high school pool. The simple fact that her facial expression had suddenly become one of such concern and shock, validated everything I had felt until the day I taught myself to swim.

Then, she looked up at me and asked, "How old are you now? What summer was this?" I told her I was turning 15 in a few months and didn't realize I needed to put dates in the paper, but she stopped me and said, "I am so sorry. I am pretty sure I am the woman that threw you into the pool. I really am just so sorry." 

Floored by her declaration and apology, I think I mumbled something like, "Oh. Um... Wow. That's okay..." Then she explained how she and another English teacher at my school had taught summer swim classes for extra money during college, years before the high school we were sitting in was built. "She taught the older students that summer. I was with the younger students."

I didn't shake the "Chicken of the Sea" nickname my siblings and cousins had given me until 1991. My husband and I had brought back amazing videotape of our nearly 1,000 foot dive down the Cayman Wall in a tiny research submarine, and photos from Stingray City. Swimming with black tipped reef sharks the summer before, wasn't quite enough to lose that nickname of shame, but the submarine was enough.

I told my mother about it that evening while she was making dinner, and she told me that a few years earlier, my older siblings had figured out that the English teacher both of them had during their sophomore years was also their swim teacher. "So you got the woman who threw you kicking and screaming into that pool, huh?" 

Yes I did. And I got a very sincere apology and admittance of guilt from her, too. Two things I had never received from an adult before. I was used to receiving excuses, not apologies, from adults. So yes, I still remember being thrown into the pool, and I don't recommend it as a teaching method. What I do recommend, however, is owning up to one's mistakes. The way my freshman English teacher owned up to hers. With sincerity, honesty, and humility. 

My English teacher didn't have to do anything, but give me tips on my writing. I would have never known her secret. I could have even made my English grade an easy A, by throwing guilt her way, all freshman year long. But I wasn't made like that and neither was she. 

To this day, her honesty and sincerity have stuck with me as testament to the proper way of dealing with our own mistakes, big and small. It is refreshing to remember her candor, after  years of watching our politicians and world leaders, on all sides of the aisles, throw accusations around at one another like spoiled toddlers, rarely admitting mistakes and misdeeds. 

With my English teacher's confession and subsequent apology in mind, I have a few etiquette tips for "owning" one's mistakes, misdeeds, faux pas, and fibs.

Some polite way ways of owning up to one's mistakes, missteps, flat-out lies or social blunders:

1. Admitting the lie by saying something along the lines of, "I am sorry. I was not truthful." or "I knew what I was saying was a lie and I take full responsibility. I am sorry. Please forgive me." or even, "I'm so sorry. I should have told you the truth."
2. Never shooting the messenger, even if the messenger is there only to reveal your blunder, mistake, misstep, or lie.
3. Never drawing attention to other people's mistakes or blunders. Acknowledging your own mistake or blunder, and adding a sincere apology, helps put you in a better light.

Some impolite ways of owning up to one's mistakes, and worst reactions to missteps, flat-out lies or blunders:

1. Trying to get out of a lie by saying something along the lines of, "I misspoke." or "I misunderstood what I was saying." or even, "I should have been more careful with my words."
2. Quibbling over one's definition of a simple word like "is."
3. Drawing attention to other people's mistakes or blunders, without even acknowledging your own mistake or blunder.
4. Completely ignoring the issue, people hurt or those affected by your actions. 

Many people are still trying to come up with their New Year's resolutions for 2017. I am recommending "Owning it" be on the top of the politicians' lists!

Youth Etiquette Classes at the Historic Graber Olive House in Ontario

The RSVP Institute of Etiquette is now offering ongoing coed classes at the historic Graber Olive House in Ontario

Every student is encouraged to develop the social skills needed for smooth sailing throughout life!

The youth classes for ages 6 and up through the teens, are held every Sunday, 

from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. 

The $75.00 per student fee, includes foods to practice dining skills with and all necessary learning materials

           

Each student receives weekly session handouts to practice lessons taught when at home

The three, 2-hour session Etiquette Courses will cover: 

• Basic Manners 
• Introductions & Responses 
• Dining Skills & Table Manners (w/foods to practice dining skills) 
• Manners; Home & Abroad, Cultural Diversity, Respect for Others 
• Deflecting Peer Pressure, Tech Etiquette, “Thank you” notes 
• Social Media Manners, Cell Phone Manners, Text Manners, etc... 
• Making Eye Contact, Developing Great Posture & Good Grooming  

The Graber Olive House is located at
315 East Fourth Street, Ontario, CA 91764
909 983-1761

Hands-on training for utensil use with difficult foods is given weekly

       Questions? 
Email rsvpinstitute@gmail.com for a registration form. 
Or call The RSVP Institute of Etiquette 
at 

800-891-RSVP or 909 923-5650 

Payment by Check, Cash or PayPal is accepted

Pepper Spray Etiquette for Husbands

My husband Cliff wanted us to both be safe, so he bought us each pepper spray.  I wanted us both to be safe, so I never took mine out of the package.

If you have never experienced pepper spray, or are thinking about carrying some pepper spray for safety, or simply trying some out just to see what it's like, the following are a few etiquette rules one should follow:
                                     

1. If you feel you must have pepper spray with you, put it in a safe place where it cannot accidentally be sprayed. A safe place would be any place a child cannot find it, or in a special spot. One example would be your glove compartment in your car, not a pocket full of other things like your keys, along with your cell phone, and other assorted miscellaneous items.
                     

Dawn helps save wildlife. It also helps save husbands!

2. If you accidentally spray your pepper spray on yourself after having it in an overly filled cargo pants, pant pocket, immediately, and extremely politely, ask a loved one (or a friend), to please go out and buy you copious amounts of Dawn dish washing liquid. Pepper spray is an oily substance, and as Dawn is used to clean sea life that have been victims of oil spills, it will help you tremendously. 
                    

3. Thank your loved one (or friend) profusely. Then, when the pain has subsided, send a handwritten thank you note along with chocolates, flowers, or possibly a bottle of wine. This is a nice touch, especially if your loved one had just returned from 5 long hours of Christmas shopping, and had to run right out again to buy you gallons of Dawn dish detergent.

Maybe you should keep this in your cargo pants pockets instead!

4. Do not use, for example, your wife's shower to wash the pepper spray off. Surprisingly, this can be construed as very impolite. Those soapy bubbles float all over the place, and when your wife then goes to take a shower, she may find herself with her face bright red and burning, as the bubbles taking the pepper spray off of you, floated onto her facial cleanser, shampoo and conditioner bottles, and basically the entire shower! Check into a hotel to shower or bathe. Or shower outside with a garden hose if need be. Whatever you do, do not attempt to clean yourself in your spouse's shower or bathtub.

Seriously... the stuff burns!

5. If your spouse's shower or bath are your only options, hire a professional cleaning crew in hazmat suits, to come in afterward and clean said shower or bathtub, as another apology and act of graciousness. You then should always be welcome to use the shower or bath anytime after that.

This stuff works really well, if slathered all over your wife's face a dozen times throughout the afternoon and evening, even if it is Christmas Eve and she's entertaining the family. At least it works well until a new package of supplies arrives from the Fashion Island Neiman Marcus cosmetics department. (Ask for Carole Logan. She'll help you out honey!)

6. If your spouse has just purchased shampoo, conditioner, Kiehl's facial cleanser, and other assorted items that are in the shower with you, politely explain that you will need to throw them all out, but you will purchase all new items to replace them. Make sure you follow through with purchasing new items as soon as possible, and throw in a couple of extra new goodies as an added act of goodwill.
                   

7. If you take your pepper sprayed clothing to be professionally laundered, kindly warn the establishment that the clothing has pepper spray on it. If they launder it with anyone else's clothes, they may find themselves named in an unwanted lawsuit.
            

These won't persuade anyone.

8. If you are goofy enough to take your wife's unopened package of pepper spray and attach it to your new key ring and keys, simply because you now, "know what to do if it happens again." Please laugh it off when your wife's friends, hairdresser and relatives think you are nuts. You can show them you have those handy wipes you bought off of the internet as proof that you are prepared for yet another pepper spray disaster.
             

As for me? I am sticking with this pet safe stuff.  Evidently it doesn't burn.

*Special Note for Physicians: If you are a physician, and your wife has been given pepper spray by a friend, please don't spritz it into a toilet to see what happens. Moments later, something will happen all the way back down the hall, into your office. You will experience a burning face and burning eyes. Just try to keep in mind, you were smart enough to get through medical school, and take relief in the fact that you were wise enough to not try this during office hours when patients were in the waiting room next to the restroom. Politely tell your wife she may not carry the pepper spray. It's up to you whether or not you want to tell her why.

New Coed Teen Etiquette Course

The RSVP Institute of Etiquette’s newest coed “Teen and ‘Tween” Course for ages 12 and up, at the Historic Graber Olive House in Ontario is in the evenings, starting Tuesday, July 29th and ending Wednesday July 30th. The fee for the two, 2-hour classes is $55.00 per student. Classes are from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. The fee covers the classes, foods & handouts. 

  

The classes focus on:

• Key Skills~ Basic Manners, including; Introductions & Responses

• Dining Skills & Table Manners (w/foods to practice dining skills) 

• Manners; Home & Abroad, Cultural Diversity, Respect for Others 

• Deflecting Peer Pressure, Tech Etiquette, “Thank you" notes

• Social Media Manners, Cell Phone Manners, Text Manners, etc... 

• Making Eye contact, Developing Great Posture & Good Grooming

   Questions? Email rsvpinstitute@gmail.com Call RSVP Institute: 909 923-5650 

                

 The Graber Olive House is located at: 315 E. Fourth Street, Ontario                             Phone  909-983-1761   

   

Registration forms with fee must be returned by July 28th to secure registration! For a form, please stop by the Graber Olive House or email Maura Graber at rsvpinstitute@gmail.com

Praising Amy Vanderbilt's Etiquette

Sooner or later, everybody needs Amy Vanderbilt!

This article that I wrote, first appeared in a Southern California magazine back in 1993.  I decided it needed an update, and the following is the result.

Today's lifestyle requires a whole new set of manners. There's a book on my shelf that I've long considered my "business bible." I didn't buy it at a seminar or online.  In fact, I didn't even know I was buying the book.  It came with my "starter kit";  four cardboard suitcases of crystal, china, and a metal folding table.  That kit gave me the title of "Crystal Consultant."

I received my kit in January of 1975, while still a senior in high school.  I decided at age 17, that my future was in home-party-plan crystal sales and signed up.  The book was the sample, and I was supposed to take sales orders for it, though I can't ever recall selling one.  In fact, at one point, the book just seemed to be added weight to the rest of my kit, so I put it away on a shelf.

The book is Amy Vanderbilt's "Etiquette: The Guide to Gracious Living." it was, at the time, and probably still is today, the most complete book of etiquette ever written. Amy Vanderbilt happened to be, according to the catalog of crystal glued into the book's front cover, the company's "Special Advisor."  There was a special message from Amy, along with her photo. I was mildly impressed, and had heard the name, but that didn't stop me from trying to sell the book at garage sales over the years. No, my book really didn't mean too much to me until 1990, when it suddenly took on a new dimension in my life and simply demanded the respect it deserves.

Now I'm truly glad it's stuck with me. Not only is my book a gold mine of information that I delve into on a regular basis for my business, it is also a melancholy look at the past and how America used to behave and the rules by which one attempted to live.

The first copyright on the book was 1952 ; the last, 1972. Not so old chronologically, yet ancient in terms of social customs.

A thick book, covering babies to bidets, my favorite passage is on page 232 : "In greeting a woman friend in the street or in some public place, once she has bowed first, a man actually lifts his hat from his head, turning his head slightly towards the woman and smiling, if he wishes, but not stopping unless she stops first."

Now I have never bowed to a man that I can remember and I don't know if a situation will ever arise that I will be called to do so; however, I like the part about the man not stopping unless I stop first.

So much of our daily lives has changed since 1952 copyright, the only about half of my business bible is really usable in its current context. With our modern gadgets and hectic lifestyles, not to mention role reversal of the sexes, new rules need to be written and new manners, combined with a sense of social obligation, are in order.

So with that in mind and Amy's book back on my shelf, I have a few suggestions, 

From copyright 1993: Sunglasses

Take them off briefly, or lift them, when you are being interviewed, talking to others, etc...

When outdoors, say meeting someone on the street, after conversation has been established, casually lift or tip them, while smiling momentarily, in an attempt to establish eye contact. This should signal to the other person to do the same if he or she is also wearing sunglasses. Once eye contact has been made, readjust the glasses properly on your face.

When indoors, especially when being interviewed on TV, please remove the glasses completely, unless you have good reason to be wearing them. Blindness or other eye problems are good reasons. Celebrityhood or an over inflated ego or not.

And now, copyright 2014: Sunglasses

Read the above

Copyright 2014: Google Glasses

The newest social pariah?

If you own them, congratulations. You are now part of an elite group of people - the newest social pariah. When outdoors, say meeting someone on the street, before conversation becomes established, remove the Google Glasses while you chat . Also apologize and make a quick vow not to record anything while you are talking.


From copyright 1993: Car Phones

You have an obligation to others in your car and to those sharing the road with you.

Most of us are born with two eyes, two ears and two hands. To attempt to defy Mother Nature by making three have any of these necessary is not only foolish, but risky as well. Trying to manually downshift, drink from your Big Gulp and talk on the phone all at the same time is pushing it.

You have an obligation to others in your car and to those sharing the road with you. Be polite and limit your other activities while driving to just one at a time, please.

From copyright 2014: Mobile Phones

Read the above

From copyright 1993: Fax Machines

If you must solicit business by fax, at least call in advance and ask for permission to send a fax.

Think about how you would feel if you had to pay for telemarketers' phone calls to disrupt your dinner at home, or the postage for the junk mail delivered to your mailbox. Now you have a good idea of how recipients of unsolicited faxes (hi tech junk mail) feel. They foot the bill for the paper, electricity, toner, and wear and tear on the machine itself all for the honor of receiving those faxes.
 
If you must solicit business by fax, at least call in advance and ask for permission to send a fax. The response others will give to such an unheard-of gesture might really surprise you. Politeness in business is rarely forgotten.


From copyright 2014: Fax Machines

If you still use fax machines in 2014, read the above.  And if you believe that fax machines are unimportant in this day and age, guess again.  Fax machines are still extremely important in Japan. Almost all resumes or CVS are faxed after they are written by hand. 

Good penmanship is valued in Japan and fax machines can successfully transmit your beautiful penmanship to the company that you are applying for a job from.

Actual "Hi Tech Junk Mail" of 2014?

Keep it to yourself! And that includes all you out there who knows some prints or some millionaire and you need my help to get his money from out of Nigeria or whatever country you are claiming to be from.

From copyright 1993: Video Cameras

Always ask before videotaping others.

Contrary to popular opinion, not everyone is dying to be videotaped simply because you have a camera in hand. Ask before videotaping others, unless you know ahead of time that they won't mind. Not only are you being polite, you are avoiding potential embarrassment, anger, or worse, lawsuits.


From copyright 2014: Video Cameras

Contrary to popular opinion, not everyone is dying to be videotaped simply because you have a camera or cell phone in hand. Ask before taping others. I know you want to be the next big thing on YouTube. Or you're angry at your neighbor, ex, teacher, coach or cop who just pulled you over. The tables are about to be turned back in another direction. People are getting fed up. Before you realize it, the taping of anyone without their approval is most likely going to be legislated. As it is, many celebrities are banning cell phones and videos from being taken in their presence. And just like anything else what celebrities do it trickles down to non celebrities and the general public. People are fed up. Get ready in advance and stop taping people without their permission.

One fun bit of trivia; Andy Warhol did artwork for Amy Vanderbilt's books. He was usually listed alongside one or two other artists, as having done the artwork for the books, however he was the only artist listed for the artwork in Amy Vanderbilt's 1950's cookbook.

From Amy's Complete Book of Etiquette:

"Who needs a book of etiquette? Everyone does. The simplest family, if it hopes to move just a little into a wider world, needs to know at least the elementary rules. Even the most sophisticated man or woman used to a great variety of social demands cannot hope to remember every single aspect of etiquette applying to even one possible social contingency. The human mind is so constructed that even if a person were to read through a book such as this from cover to cover he could retain only that information that had interest for him at the time of reading. Consciously, at least, the rest would be discarded as irrelevant to his way of life. But let some new way of living open up for him a move from city to country, a trip to a new part of the world and his etiquette book becomes his reference book, ready to piece out his own store of information.

You might imagine that the writer of an etiquette book would certainly know everything in it and therefore have no need for it as reference or guide. But even this is not the case. After ten years as an etiquette adviser, four years of writing this book four years of interviewing dozens of authorities in their own fields for material to be incorporated here I, too, can remember only those details that have or have had relevance to my own way of living. If you asked me, for example, some detail of a wedding in a faith other than my own, I might have to refer to my own book. The information is here the result of my research but in the writing of such sections I made no attempt to memorize all these details. However, in this book, I, like you, have such information in simple, complete form all in one place, and it can be readily found if needed.

The word "etiquette" for all the things I have tried to discuss is really inadequate, yet no other will do. It covers much more than "manners," the way in which we do things. It is considerably more than a treatise on a code of social behavior, although all the traditional information still of value has, I feel, been included in a way that is simple and concise, shorn of mumbo-jumbo and clearly learnable. For we must all learn the socially acceptable ways of living with others in no matter what society we move. Even in primitive societies there are such rules, some of them as complex and inexplicable as many of our own. Their original reason or purpose is lost, but their acceptance is still unquestioned."