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l m rainer

@etiquettecentral.bsky.social
2.9K followers 1.1K following 1.4K posts

When you come to the edge of all that you know, you must believe in one of two things, there will be earth on which to stand or you will be given wings to fly (O.R. Melling) read fairy tales (Albert Einstein) 🎨 🪴 📚 🦩🏝️ 🐠 🌺

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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com/2025/07/05/t... #booksky 💙📚
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com
The Personality of Places – The Apartment of Falling Paper
Buildings and rooms have their own personalities, created from an alchemy of their location, when they were created, what they were created from, the personalities of the builders, decorators and o…
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com/2021/02/12/w... #booksky 💙📚 ☕️🍫🍰🧁
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com
What You Need to Eat Right Now: A Mendiant (or a Florentine)
Darling, Mendiant is your word of the day. It is your word for every day and double for the bad days. A mendiant makes your hair longer (or shorter if that’s what you want); it makes your teeth gle…
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com/2026/08/24/t... #booksky 💙📚
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com
Tales of Augustina: The Horrible, Terrible, No Good, Very Bad, Very Disorganized Dysfunctional Office and Middle Ages warfare (and Derechos)
Working in a dysfunctional office is hell, but listening to the horrors is so amusing, and dearest Augustine has landed in a prime example. As ever when duty calls to assist in matters of business …
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com/2021/06/29/s... #booksky 💙📚 #travel ✈️ ☕️
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com
Surviving Northern European Cafes, or What to Have For Breakfast
Which is to say, I checked into a large, metropolitan hotel to discover that they were unrepentant bastards because they had not made it clear on their website that that they had no food: no room s…
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com/2021/06/04/h... #booksky 💙📚 #travel ☕️✈️
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com
How to Travel: Cafe Hunting
What do you get in an English café? Tea. And more tea and… why do Brits drink so much tea? They have to have liquid available to dunk all their rock-hard cookies in. Americans are technology innova…
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com/2018/12/07/h... #booksky 💙📚 ☕️
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com
How to Behave in the Most Important Place on Earth – La Vie en Cafe
Frankly, Darling, you’re embarrassing me. Really dear, we need to work on this. I know your mother had so much on her mind, she couldn’t quite find the time to impart the necessary pearls of wisdom…
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Reposted by l m rainer
Karen Attiah @karenattiah.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
You can read Jamal’s work here. It was the honor of my life to have been his editor at the Washington Post. Rest in peace, Jamal. And I’m sorry the Washington Post opinions page ended up betraying what we both stood for. www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-...
washingtonpost.com
Opinion | Read Jamal Khashoggi’s columns for The Washington Post
Jamal Khashoggi, a veteran Saudi journalist who Turkish officials say was killed in Istanbul after walking into the consulate of Saudi Arabia, had been writing a column for The Post since last year.
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com/2026/03/03/h... #booksky 💙📚
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com
How to Have a Happier House
The ‘too much stuff’ issue has gotten a lot of press but Tosha Silver and Gretchen Rubin have a wise point that is often over-looked. Some people say, ‘my house is clean.’ Now clean is good, but cl…
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com/2021/04/30/h... #booksky💙📚 🥧🍰🍮🧁
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com
How to Choose the Right Dessert
NEVER TRUST THE AUSTRALIANS with cookies. You can pound rocks with Australian cookies. You can break rocks with Australian cookies. Tim-tams are the exception that prove the rule. Tim-tams are the …
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com/2025/07/31/l... #booksky 💙📚
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com
Living Amid Grief
It’s so curious: one can resist tears and ‘behave’ very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was i…
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com/2025/01/17/g... #booksky 💙📚
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com
Guest Author: How to Talk to a Literature Professor at a Party
People I meet at parties are sometimes lovely, but sometimes I get one of three basic reactions when I reveal that I am a literature professor: challenge, solidarity or passive aggression, all equa…
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com/2026/07/28/i... #booksky 💙📚
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com
In the Wonder-Working Days of Old, Our Clothes Used to Match
Yes, Darling, when hearts were twice as good as gold and twenty times as mellow we would leave the house with a purse that had the same, or a similar, color as our clothes. Yes, some of us did. Eve…
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com/2024/02/02/t... #booksky 💙📚
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com
The Chocolate Disaster & A Husband Not Worth Having – part 1
Darling, my recent edict about the woman who escaped from her evil husband reminded me of another tale of marriage maleficence (and marriage triumph). Such an instructive tale! This was a long time…
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
#travel Denmark
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
#travel
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com/2024/03/15/t... #booksky 💙📚
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com
The Quixotic Quest of Trying to Explain that You Should Care for Other People
It is one of those sanctimonious pleasantries to say that caring for a person is a gift that you give to yourself in the same measure that you give to someone else. Sanctimonious and true. Of cours…
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com/2023/08/24/l... #booksky 💙📚
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com
Letting Experts Be Experts
If a person has spent years or decades learning how to do something, anything from washing a dog to suing companies for ruining the environment to tap dancing to packing school lunches to building …
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com/2023/09/01/s... #booksky 💙📚
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com
Spies at Work, aka More Bad Management
Darling, I declare there is something in the water these days. Last week I wrote about a ridiculous C-suite nitwit who threatened his team with… punishment in the after life [ Letting Experts Be Ex…
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com/2024/08/17/p... #booksky 💙📚
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com
Publishing Books: All Guts, No Glory (or Support)
Before I published my academic book, I thought of a ‘book editor’ as a minor-level fairy god-parent. I had dreams that I would receive a little money, a little attention and perhaps be invited to a…
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com/2026/09/22/h... #booksky 💙📚
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com
How to Feed People at Work or Muffins for Meetings
It is astonishing to me that we must start this discussion with a justification of WHY feed people – truly there are people raised by wolverines. Feed people you work with (especially those l…
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com/2021/09/17/r... #booksky 💙📚
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com
Reading in Autumn: Fearless Adventuresses
In the 1980s and 90s there was a small flowering of travel books by and about women, starting with our dear abbess Etheria and on to our charming Victorians Isabella Bird Bishop, Marianne North, Ma…
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
this morning the bus driver would not start driving until someone stood up and let the woman carrying an infant sit down - class act 🩵
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com/2023/08/17/f... #booksky 💙📚
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com
Feelings before Coffee are Not Real Feelings (or What to Do on Bleak Days)
Those days when you feel something important is missing, then you take that first sip of coffee and, oh, yes, there it is – your will to live. Darling we all have those days, sometimes severa…
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com/2026/09/18/k... #booksky 📚💙
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com
Knowing Who Your Enemies Are
Darling, sometimes it’s good to stop for a moment and ask: Who is my enemy? First, it’s good to have a few enemies, “dashed no cup from perjured lip” and all that (see below), and second, it’s good…
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com/2024/08/24/g... #booksky 💙📚
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com
Get Ready for School by Reading Fairy Tales
Fairy tales explain what to do, as well as how to cope when you don’t do what you should or you do what you should but the results are terrible. More than self-help books and more than business sch…
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com/2019/04/12/t... #booksky 💙📚
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com
How to Behave if You Are a Doctor: Proper Bedside Manner Explicated
The basic question is what do you want: brutal competence or kindness? Do you want some white coat, fantastically fit, to breeze into the room where you have been waiting, freezing, in a paper-thin…
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com/2025/08/07/s... #booksky 💙📚
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com
Surviving American-style Doctors
A friend sent me a photo of a bottle of cough syrup with the expiration date “June 2025” and the message “guess what’s wrong with me?” Poor child! She has a sufficiency curse [see  Avoiding Curses …
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Reposted by l m rainer
Michael Legel @mjlegel.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com/2025/11/18/p... #painting 🎨
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com
Perfect Illustration for Autumn – Franklin Booth’s Autumn Leaves
The perfect palette for November!
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com/2025/11/06/h... #booksky 💙📚
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com
How to Be a Bad Example Auntie
Every December when I was a child my mother would announce in a sepulcher tone of voice that “This year will be a small Christmas.” This was said with deep regret and seriousness, as if the previou…
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com/2026/08/18/b... #booksky 💙📚
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com
Bad Bosses – East and West
There are three people in command. The main one does have time or energy to deal with anything but the most important dealings. The second takes any mention of a problem as a personal insult and th…
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com/2026/09/08/t... #booksky 💙📚
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com
The Country of Pointed Firs and Writing Your Enemies into Submission
It’s the end of summer and you need something properly elegiac and fittingly melancholic to read – so it’s time for The Country of Pointed Firs (and the British fore-runner, Cranford). Yes, D…
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com/2025/07/31/l... #booksky 💙📚
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com
Living Amid Grief
It’s so curious: one can resist tears and ‘behave’ very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was i…
060
l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com/2025/01/23/a... #booksky 💙📚
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com
Ashtaran Souq – The Tale of The Coppersmith’s Daughter, part 1
Darling, you simply must be careful with yourself in these trying times. Reading helps – but what to read? You need books in which everything is upset and at odds, then comes back into place …
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com/2026/09/08/t... #booksky 📚💙
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com
The Country of Pointed Firs and Writing Your Enemies into Submission
It’s the end of summer and you need something properly elegiac and fittingly melancholic to read – so it’s time for The Country of Pointed Firs (and the British fore-runner, Cranford). Yes, D…
051
l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
#travel Denmark
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
🕊️
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
#bloomscrolling
morning glory
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com/2025/07/31/l...
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com
Living Amid Grief
It’s so curious: one can resist tears and ‘behave’ very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was i…
010
l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com/2024/06/07/y... 📽️
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com
“Yesterday” and the Culture Shock of Returning Home
Sometimes the universe gives you a movie before you know quite what to do with it. I watched Yesterday (2019) when it came out and liked it. But then I rewatched it, bought a copy, watched it again…
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
#BlueSkyArtShow #Minimal 🎨
watercolor tulips
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
B.C., Canada - bear
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com/2025/09/04/r... #booksky 💙📚
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com
Reading for Joy in Autumn
Darling! Fall is in the air and everyone is scurrying about like a mouse collecting acorns for winter. Oh there is nothing like a nip in the air and all that gorgeous autumn scenery to make you dec…
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com/2026/09/01/n...
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com
Noblesse obilge and How To Have a Proper Death
Noblesse obilge gets a bad rap as smug, condescending motto but it is one of the foundations of civilization. The United States and the United Kingdom would be in much better shape if those who hav…
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
#watercolors #paint 🎨 bookmarks
bookmarks painted with watercolor fish
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com/2024/01/19/kj/
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com
The Terrible Dangers of Playing Party Games
Darling, we have an emergency Etiquette Central up-date: do not play party games unless you are in the mood for unforeseen consequences and upheavals. Board games can be educational – you can…
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
#travel, B.C., Canada
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com/2024/05/24/e... #📚💙 📽️🎬🎥
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com
Why We Need To Watch Monster Movies
Darling, sigh, the way things are going you probably need a smoothie – not one of those kale-spirulina concoctions and not one of those 14 ingredient humble-brag monstrosities. No. It’s…
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
#travel B. C., Canada
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l m rainer @etiquettecentral.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com/2020/03/06/t... 🌹🏵️🌺🌼🌷🪻🪷🪴🌴
howtobehavenet.wordpress.com
This plant needs full sun, complete shade, daily watering, desert conditions, rocky soil, clay soil, well-fertilized soil and no soil at all: Buying Plants in the Middle East
But if you want real linguistic trauma, if you want to turn yourself into a shrieking fiend, go to a plant nursery. I know you are thinking: Oh the joys of a tropical plant nursery, the rustle of p…
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