Now for Your Daily Etiquette Lesson

Victoria Griswald, here with your weekly etiquette lesson. This week's letter comes from Kids Have No Manners.

Dear Ms. Griswald,

My husband refuses to chastise the cubs for howling and growling as they eat at the table. Further he wipes his mouth with the table cloth and encourages the children to do the same. Even on calmer nights, snapping and snarling can be heard while I prepare dinner. I've tried explaining how manners reflect on the parents and the home life they provide. My husband belches and says pack mentality wins out over friggin' manners any day. Please help me civilize my home and family. I don't know how much more I can take.

Signed,
Distressed


Well Distressed, what do you expect from a pack of animals? It appears your husband and cubs don't get that they have a human side to them as well. Have you tried coming to the table in human form and copying their table manners? Certainly, ruffians and throw backs can't be expected to understand the finer arts of civilized dining. Refuse to put dinner on the table or serve any meal until they begin acting in accordance with established etiquette rules. Be firm and don't back down. Persistence will win.

Respectfully,
Victoria Griswald
Ms. Etiquette

TWO DAYS LATER THIS SHORT POST APPEARED:

I apologize to Distressed. I hope her current living quarters changes soon. Sharing the doghouse with the family pet and his dining habits are not what good family homes are made of. As to her broken china and slashed table clothes showing up at the city dump, some people--I should say animals---have no taste what so ever.

I'll be back from my three month stint in Anchorage soon.
Victoria Griswald
Ms. Etiquette

Game, Set and Mated Match...

Yes, I'm back again with more from the Guts and Butts Gazette.  Ziva and Nick stepped into the light, or dark of the bar with a flash of alphaness.  Here are a couple of wolves who like to play rough and each like to win.  Have a great Friday!

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How, by all that is sacred to the great Lupa, did she get stuck with personals duty? Last night, in between bottles of beer, pretzels and the occasional grope, she'd been sure that Nick's suggestion of reviewing and approving all of the incoming hook-up requests for the Guts and Butts Gazette had been a joke. Yet, here she sat, among piles of mail, all of the following variety...

* Single, Dapple, Bitch looking for sex only. Those not into kink - need not apply.
* Almost single, Midnight black, Male wolf looking for other males to live out interesting fantasies.
* Lonely, Beta male looking for an alpha to love and adore.

She'd been a good bitch lately, looking for score only with the unmated crowd, not scaring the natives too much and most certainly not abusing her power as an alpha. And look where that had gotten her.

Females were so seldom alpha's, at least in her family, so she'd kept herself on the DL and was hoping to find her mate soon. Problem was all of the beta males left her dry, literally, and even kinda turned her stomach. Who wanted a mate who would tuck his tail between his legs every time she got aggressive.

Ziva wanted a mate who could stand their own against her. One who could make her work for her prize and hey sometimes he could even win. Ziva, it seemed, wanted another alpha of her very own. But first, she had a score to settle with her sneaky editor...

*Single, snarfy, male wolf with big patches of grey fur and an ingrown pimple on his ass, looking for long lasting relationship with a whiny, needy mate.  Applicants please call Nick at 567-951-wolf.

Perfect...he may have won the first game by setting her up with the worst job at the Guts and Butts Gazette, but she'd just taken the set. The match however, was still up in the air.

White Fang Kent, Crime Reporter

White Fang Kent, Crime Reporter

White Fang Kent scanned the online version of the newspaper taken over by a wolf pack he considered to be irresponsible enough to be a danger to all of wolfkind. Especially his wolfkind.

He had no problem if they presented their features and articles as ‘tongue dripping against cheek’. As werewolf fantasy. Truth, he found it damn hell refreshing. But, with the full humans in possession of devastating fire power and still in fear of anything paranormal... well, he wondered if this younger generation had ever seen the horrific Old West photos of slaughtered wolves. Not to howl about the current-day helicopter hunting atrocities.

They probably hadn’t witnessed what he had, the scarecrow remains of several scorched-to-the-ground shapeshifter towns. Not all the residents had been lucky enough to escape with only singed tails. No, it appeared as though, this pack most likely thought the government’s ghost-kill squads were only nasty rumors.

Nov 12, 2010 Guts and Butts, 2nd edition...

Roadkill
Here's wishing Kitty ~Cat~ Collins her very own fond farewell. Story and photo's on page one.

White Fang frowned, and figured his brow looked like an aerial view of the Grand Canyon. Absently lifting his mug of steaming joe, he almost snarled into it. Instead he took a sniff, then swallowed down a healthy swig, or unhealthy, depending on which science study you chose to believe.

“Not subtle enough,” he growl-muttered. Not at all. He set the mug down with a clank, but not hard enough to splash his electronic window-on-the-world equipment. Lykouz! What he wouldn’t give for just a pen and pad at times, and the coffee stains be damned.

Too often, his fingers itched to bang out a story on his old typewriter. He threw a fond glance at the working relic before blinking and staring at the screen again. He’d have to investigate this Kitty Collins, and obviously double quick, before he sought employment as a Guts and Butts Gazette crime reporter.

It was one matter if this Collins, woman or catwoman, deserved to be guts-splattered roadkill. It was a whole other matter if she was a victim of prejudice or, worse, targeted as an unwanted rival by one of the bitches in heat for a mate.

White Fang arched his brows, then they took a leap for the ceiling. Howling about bitches ready to kill...

Good news, girls – Damien, Alpha of the Hancock pack, informs me his son Devon is on the prowl for a mate. Devon’s just out of grad school and likes fresh-killed elk and long hunts in the moonlight. He’s not a cat fancier, however, so no felines need apply. Wag those tails, ladies – the line forms now!

So, was this steak-of-his-daddy’s eye, this Devon really what he appeared to be? Or, was he a closet cat fancier? Perhaps, even a past fancier of Kitty ~Cat~ Collins? Lykouz knows, as a reporter searching out leads, he’d prowled many a freaky-sex lair party filled with wolf grad students.

Taking another long swallow of his joe, White Fang ignored the yip-yip tones of his apartment’s doorbell. When he’d rented the place, his landlady had settled her yellow-gleaming gaze on his lap package, then licked her lips as if they were her wolfen chops.

To his sometimes amusement she’d invited herself in for coffee and bone meal biscuits, several times. White Fang figured he gained a couple ace hands, though. His landlady was a raging gossip queen, which gave him a hiked leg up on the inner workings of the town.

It was also an opportunity to practice for the role he played in public. He’d pretended to be the geek shifter klutz of the century, fending off her amorous advances without offending her bitch sensibilities.

At least, so far, she hadn’t gone rabid werewolf and lunged for his defenseless dick while snapping her formidable jaws. Unlike her wolf breed, he had no desire to harm her or make her into instant roadkill.

One aimed fist between her eyes would knock her out cold and leave her with a nasty headache for about a week’s time. White Fang drained his mug, glad his landlady had decided to quit leaning on the doorbell.

Mooney McMahon, sports reporter...his gaze narrowed as he read.

The city council did not approve the request to allow roller derby tournaments at the city’s recreational facilities, so next week’s bone crusher will be held at the Roller Rama again, assuming we can get old Mrs. Fuddy-Duddy to drop the cease and desist charges.

Was this the same Mooney ‘wanna rip your throat out’ werewolf he’d tangled with in an LA sports bar? Mooney -- not a lookalike for George Clooney -- had gone neon-green eyed with jealousy over the attention his date lavished on White Fang.

While the woman had been a sweet piece of blonde tail, the only interest he’d had in her was if she could tell him the whereabout of her ex-boyfriend. The Dire wolf biker had gruesomely gnawed through two patrol cars, officers included.

Rumor had it the cops were on the take and shot at bikers for sport. Rumor had proven to be true. White Fang’s news story in the internationally distributed, Shapeshifter Globe Trotter, had saved the Dire wolf’s enormous furry hide from extinction.

Leaning back, White Fang stretched out the kinks from last night’s shift. He’d roamed the back streets, getting a feel for the town. Staying out of nose range, he’d watched werewolves hightail it for the surrounding forest. Most of them had been mated pairs.

Bringing the town’s directory up on screen, he typed in a search for Katrina Collins. There it was, address and phone number. Grabbing his cell, he thumbed in the number. No answer, just a cheery voice mail greeting.

With action now required, White Fang rose and strode toward his second floor deck. Once outside, he glanced around, then jumped over the rail. An instant later he blurred to super speed.
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~ HAPPY SUN IN SCORPIO SHAPESHIFTING ~

Savanna

Savanna Kougar ~ Run on the Wild Side of Romance ~