wendy house

eighth in a tea-tall-ate-ing series of Thursday posts about taking tiffin with (black) tea in the NW USA.

Thursday Tiffin #8: steeping, brewing or heaven forbid, stewing

The fantastic inter-web provides many sets of instructions on the ‘right’ way to make a good pot of black tea.  These instructions fit with my cultural practice.  This set of instructions provided by Betty Crocker (great name) or this set provided by a website called the ‘teatable’ are good examples. The teatable instructions are more thorough.  Even George Orwell produced an 11 point set of guidelines for producing the perfect cuppa*.  The BBC reports an evaluation of George Orwell’s approach, 4 excerpts:

 The great critic of Hitler and Stalin, was not above a bit of teatime Totalitarianism himself, it seems. Orwell said that tea – one of the “mainstays of civilization”

the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) has decided to look at his 11-point formula – and rubbish a good many of his supposedly “golden” rules.

The RSC brew uses Indian Assam tea leaves, which falls within Orwell’s tight stipulations. He said no other nation’s tea made him feel “wiser, braver or more optimistic”

the RSC recommends that the perfect cup of tea made by following its formula should be drunk while reading George Orwell’s account of 1930s drudgery and vagrancy Down and Out in Paris and London

The Royal society of Chemistry goes on to suggest some improvements to the tea making process.  Hooray!  Chemists researching something really worthwhile that can impact so many people’s everyday life,  excellent,  keep it up fellows**.  Study this article carefully because after we have progressed from brewing to pouring the Tea we will be returning to explore the infamous ‘milk in first’ issue in a later post.  How can you contain your enthusiasm,  its all tooo exciting.  More tea!  Back to brewing….

‘Steep’ is another term for ‘brew’, the period when the flavour from the leaves infuses into the water without ’stewing’.  Stewing is when the flavour becomes too strong to be pleasant,  its a fine line,  3-6 minutes is the guideline I work with.  Too long and you’ve stewed the tea,  adding more hot water can stew the tea. Technically this means that the tea,  in hot water, has released too much tannin which makes the flavour somewhat bitter even if diluted.  No. Don’t do it.

Do not assume that a NW USA person has any understanding of the critical role that brewing, not stewing, takes in getting the flavour just right.

* cuppa = common slang for ‘cup of tea’,  the word tea is implied because realistically what else could you possibly want to drink from a cup?  The ‘cup of’ when pronounced with a southern British regional accent sounds like ‘cuppa’.

**non-gender specific use of the word intended.

n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-nineteenth post in a (not) touchy-feely Wednesday series of “why wendy’s single“.  

Reason # 19: empathy blockage

a strong mutual empathy is a highly desirable part of coupling.  Empathy can happen all over the show,  its not constrained to mutual naughtiness,  but it is a pre-requisite.  I suspect I’ve got a bit of an empathy-blockage when it comes to the local males.  Perhaps I should consult with a plumber?   

The authorities do not ‘Grit’ or salt the roads in Seattle.  No local government provided roadside grit bins.  I’m told they do provide sand but as far as I can tell it’s not stored at known troublespots.   Apparantly, drivers have to rely on other means to reduce the impact of slippiness.   Here’s a list of strategies I’ve observed in the last 24 hours:

1. heavy metal: 4 wheel drive SUVs with chains and/or studded tyres.  I watched a lady smoking a fag in a  Mall car-park yesterday while a ‘cashiers clerk’ (packs shoppers bags for them) put the chains on her stonking-big SUV. 
2. cat litter:  several people I know carry bags of cat-litter in their car boot,  just incase they need some traction in an emergency. 
3. abandon ship: abandon your car here, anywhere,  well perhaps aim at the side of ther oad. Pressumably these people get a lift from somone with an SUV.
4. Mall camp:  drive to the nearest strip-mall with a 24hr store.  There are lots of them.  Park,  then wait for the weather to thaw.
5. hermit:  stay indoors (popular choice).
6. truant:  claim being stranded then go skiing (another popular choice).
7. speed: put your foot on the accelerator to get up that slippy hill (I kid you not,  I saw several people trying this on slopes).
8. wiggle:  wiggle the steering-wheel around to try and regain control when in a skid (seriously,  I saw this happen to more than one driver)
9. attack: get out of your car and kick the tyres (uhu,  you guessed it,  I saw somone do this after having wiggled his steering wheel and spun his tyres)

 Now excuse me for a while, I’ve got some serious falling over to be getting on with,  outside into the pretty slippy world… …oooOOOOooooo….

Inspired by Piehole’s undeniable nerdy achievement.  My claims to secondary school nerdiness at an English comprehensive co-educational, formerly Grammar all boys, school with approximately 1,400 pupils. 

One item is a complete fiction from start to finish.  Five items have inaccurate titles and warped truths in the detail.  One item is accurate in title and detailed description.  Which one is all accurate?

1).  6th form Prefect.

Headmaster nominated me one of 7 chosen in 1980-82 (17-18yrs).   This actually meant that during my ’study periods’ I could hang-out in the corridors of the main school and frighten the short people by making faces at them, chasing them up and down the corridors shouting “don’t run“, ”don’t shout“,  “your mother smells of elderberries,  “beam us up scotty” or miss-quoting a poem or two.

2).  House cross-country team captain.

Elected captain 1978 (15yrs).  Because of my unique talent for living near the school and making a stonking cuppa.  Whenever the cross-country team had practice we would run out of the school ground.  When out of sight we would start strolling, light-up fags, and gossip.  We’d walk to my home and spend 2 hrs practice time drinking tea, listening to music and gossiping.  Leaving my home we’d walk in pairs back to sight of school then run the onto the school grounds.  My House team always did fairly well on cross-country times in practice.  Less well in competition.  A happy well socially bonded team.  It all got a bit messy when, in 1980, we decided to have a re-union ’cross country practice run’ during a Maths class.  Somebody dobbed us in.  The Maths teacher.  She had been a tad upset when no students turned up.  She made us promise to invite her next time.  We did,  she didn’t come.  Touche!

3).   Poetry recital competition winner.

1975 (12yrs).  Stand up infront of several hundred older, bigger, uglier children at my school while reading a soppy poem out loud?  No Way!  Mumzie made me do it.  Darn clever people those mumzies.  The skill came in handy for scaring the short people with during prefect duties.    

4).   School representative on British Youth Council.

1979-1981 (16-18yrs).  Government (school) funded weekends away in fabulous management training course facilities with other ‘youth leaders’ (14 thru 21yrs) from all over the country where we’d discuss things like ‘preparing for the leisure age’ then all get drunk on scrumpy and snog each other while the responsible adults were also doing things they shouldn’t be doing, which we snooped on, of course!  Shocking. 

5).   Simultaneously Drum Major in 3 marching bands.

1976-1980 (13-17yrs).   These bands were all part of a National Christian Youth Organization who’s motto was ‘fight the good fight’.  Rehearsals once a week for each band and Sunday mayhem as they all fought over who’s band I was going to lead for the Sunday service.  Lots of going to trendy C of E churches and the occassional away match at a Catholic high-church to show good will to those hip incense swingers.  It also gave me the opportunity to torture the brass section.  If they got too cheeky for their own good I’d just call them in to play frequently until their lips were sore.  I accepted beer to secure my favour and the soft lips of the buglers.  Fond memories.

6).  Only girl in sixth form Advanced Level Maths and Physics classes.

1980-1982 (17-18yrs). I had to hide from my English teacher because he had purchased the required Beer dosage to secure Wendy-loyalty and I’d subsequently betrayed him by choosing Nerdy boy-maths instead.  The math teacher wore his Black univeristy gown to teach.  Think Harry Potter style teacher gowns.  I’m now so Nerdy I too have a full Ede and Ravenscroft gown.  My distraught English teacher swore he’d never speak to me again which made everything, except my spelling and grammar, a bit easier.  He emigrated to New Zealand soon afterwards.

7).   27th place in the annual 10 Tors race.

1977 (14yrs).  Absolute nightmare.  Training by running around at night carrying brick-laden rucksacks.  Attempting to sleep in soggy clothes and ill-secured tents in the middle of Dartmoor during rainstorms while helicopters tried to find the less well-prepared missing teams. NEVER again.

man in shop:  “those are fantastic boots by the way… “

he holds the tips of his fingers & thumb on his right hand together, brings them to his mouth,  kisses them, slowly moves them away from his mouth and spreads them like a slow-motion firework explosion as a smile spreads across his face.

man in shop: ”..awesome”

Wendy:  “why thankyou sir!”

I blurted with a big smile on my face.  His attire demonstrated his sense of sartorial eloquence had been left in the back of a damp cave for a couple of centuries.  This left no obvious target for returning the compliment in kind.  His spontaneous boot-adoration actually felt a bit creepy.

Spontaneous praise, from men, doesn’t happen when I’m wearing my equally fabulous ten-hole 1995 Doc Martens. 

Strangers, men, don’t reinforce my wearing of these comfortable, practical, design classic, boots.  Based on careful studying of Twisty’s many thought provoking, insightful, convincing essays I believe this is because the purple pickers conform with a patriarchal construction of femininity where-as the equally fabulous Dr. Martens do not fit within the confines of patriarchal femininity.  They fit my feet.  The Cultfigurine commented on a US magazine publishing training steps for females to effectively wear uncomfortable dangerous shoes.  What century is this? 

What has this society done to its females to make them believe that effectively wearing dangerous shoes is a goal worthy achieving and magazines believe that teaching women to achieve this goal is worthy of publication?

The city that I grew-up in is famous for many things including its blue glass and Harveys, a company that bottles and distributes high quality sherry, the first ever cream sherry, they supply the Queen’s household. My first ever glass of alcohol was at midnight on new years eve when my parents gave me a glass of Harveys Bristol Cream. 

Harveys Bristol Cream has invoked warm homely occassions ever since then.

parcels are all in the post!  The piles of boxes surrounded by scissors,  selotape (US sticky-tape),  brown paper and string finally escaped to the post-office today!  Kitties are sulking now that the paper and string has been put safely away.  Jack and Jill would be proud of me

Hooray! 

Please use this taxonomy of typographical balls-ups with care.  Excel said it could break or get extended through use.  The taxonomy below is illustrated with sample sets of miss typed words collected from numerous emails sent by me last week,  genuine Wendy miss-types!:

1.   Wronk key:

• w (a)
• nest (next)

2.   Missd key:

• wre (were)
• viru (virus)
• could (couldn’t)

3.   Mixed words while writyping:

• quesries (questions-queries)

4.   Miss placed lettres

• Karam (karma) 
• waer (wear)

5.   Miss spelled (repeatedly)

• desert (dessert)

6.   Miss Teary:

• thatnou (thankyou)
• change (chance)

7.   Sounds like (phonological replacements)

• none! tee-hee, you weren’t expecting that now were you?  Neither was I!

8.   Doouble letter score (updated to add this category on 9th Dec 2006 after watching a presentation with the following typo’s)

• grrew (grew)
• quantiitatively (quantitatively)
• thee (the)

Using the spell-checker effectively and proof reading do not rank highly as core Wendy skills.  Lack of an example of a phonological replacements (e.g. replacing there with their) is an extremely unusual omission from this week’s emails.  Falling-over and making a good English style cuppa tea are, by contrast, core Wendy skills.

seventh in a wanton-tea orgy of Thursday posts about taking tiffin with (black) tea in the NW USA.

Thursday Tiffin #7: loose tea

The Perennial tea shop in the Pike Place market is a decidedly bounce-inducing pleasant suprise.  Especially pleasant for someone who likes to wave her not insubstantial nose over the leaves while inhaling before prising open her wallet.  Me. The leaves can be seen, smelt and ordered by weight.  This is infinitely more sensuous than the Republic of Tea boxes laden with fancy words and bright colours selling a lifestyle dream rather than an aromatic experience. 

Loose tea just sounds so wonderfully naughty,  how can you resist?

No prizes for guessing where I opened my wallet…

Remember that you can find quality good teas in big city specialist shops within the NW USA.  All is not lost!

eighteenth post in a crone-istic Wednesday series of “why wendy’s single“.  

Reason # 18: an a-crone-ism

Its like a spider,  only not.  Its normally found at the edge of a room, or hanging onto the furniture, like a spider.  But it’s different,  it doesn’t quite fit in.  It’s a bit older than other nearby spiders.  Slightly out of time.   It’s a girl.  It’s a Wendy.

Question:  

“Wendy replies to all my emails and text messages.  She even sends some on her own intitiative that aren’t replies,  is she harassing me?”

Not intentionally,  I’m a bit typeractive.  Blog posts, emails & phone texting.  If you’re feeling harassed let me know and I’ll deliberately ignore your beautiful self for a pre-specified time

The UK Government has a department called the ‘Privy Council” that looks after professional  institutions that are incorporated by Royal Charter (e.g. Univerisities,  the BBC, Opera houses, Cities) and acts as a court of appeal for overseas territories.  Royal charter makes these organisations ‘incorporated’ which appears to mean that they have the rights of an individual.   Privy is a UK slang term for ‘outhouse’ or TOILET. 

but DON’T PANIC,

With this product I can actually rediscover the skin that I was born with, that should clear up the red sticky mess nicely.

Now I just need to get the required ‘natural sun kissed look’.  Maybe I could try going outside. 

What do you think? 

Moving south to sunnier climes is too expensive and dramatic as a solution.  The idea of finding someone called sunny to kiss me is an appealing challenge.   Choosing to be my natural, pasty-white, skin colour as oppose to artificially constructing an unnatural, natural, look is also an option.  The default option.  Too many decisions!

Help

Read no further if you have a sensitive disposition.

Wearing my white Levi trousers to meet cutomers when it’s ‘that’ time of the month?  A recklessly dodgy decision because of the ever-present leakage opportunities.   

…RED…

Laundress

In the bathroom,  I pulled off my trousers placed the offending red marks under the hotwater tap.  Result?  A small fresh red mark becomes a large pink swirly pattern.  Other ladies in the bathroom inspecting my tattoos, scrawny legs, and making ‘every girl’s worst nightmare’ comments while I stand humiliated and trouserless at the sink. After 30 mins grappling with tap and trousers I had a pair of trousers with a large wet patch around the groin and down the inside legs.  No noticable pink.  I spent the next 15 minutes using the paper hand-towels (no warm air dryer available) to soak-up excess water thereby reducing the impression that I had a different,  more yellow,  leakage problem. 

Actress

Meeting the customer.  Hoping the damp patches on my trousers were sufficiently subtle to be unnoticable below my glittering yellow wonkey-tooth smile,  big nose, and conversational charm.  Acting as if my trousers were not extremely prickly uncomfortable. 

I think I pulled it off! 

boy:  do you interact with customers?

Wendy:  normally I talk to them and interact with computers.  Though sometimes I will talk to, or at, a computer or two.

Have you had an notable interactions recently?

sixth in a tea-tonic-tastic Thursday series about taking tiffin with (black) tea in the NW USA.

Thursday Tiffin #6: get what you need

The “Republic of Tea” has taken breadth of tea selection marketing and packaging to new frontiers.  Here’s one of their stands in my local Fridge,  advertising teas to fulfill your health needs:

Fulfulling health needs is a high profile marketing line, discourse, in the US.  These Teas are advertised for helping you get clear skin, ‘regularity’, sleep, energy and more.  Tea,  the ultimate tonic,  cures everything and comes in a pretty box with a catchy tag line.  Woo…   …how did I resist this?  am I getting what I need without this? I think so….

Remember that purchasing Tea in NW USA is a complex process where the actual (black) teas can be obfuscated by the fancy marketing ploys.

seventeenth post in a (de)faultless Wednesday series of “why wendy’s single“.  

Reason # 17: intelligent default

You know when you’re doing something on your computer and it gives you lots of options?  If you always click the ‘next’ button, or simply don’t change anything, then you get the ‘default’ set-up.  But if you click on one of the options and change the things that are already selected for you then you get a ‘customised’ set-up. 

Well,  I’ve got all the default set-ups for my relationship life.  The Wendy defaults are

• Make sure you can solve problems to support yourself – get educated
• Make sure other people know you can solve problems – get formal certification,  avoid debt

Anything above and beyond that is a customisation. 

I have tried installing a few customisations.  They had renewable licences that ran-out or were cancelled after 5yrs.  I haven’t selected a customisation recently. 

As a child I thought you peculiar, black hair, white skin, gawky behaviour.

Looking like the devil’s accountant, talking like a witty dissident.

Living alone?  Could you be gay?  It didn’t matter either way.

Antique bayonets, guns, swords, stamps, supplied your fun,

the Sunday Times shown your patience in our home.

Cryptic crossword skilled, five down quickly filled.

A place we’ll leave on Christmas eve, 

our lounge chair, you’re not there,

Goodbye Uncle

Vaughan

The inspiration for this poem should be self-evident.  Don’t worry, normal service will be ressumed after a brief bout of the traditional sadness-ranty-insomnia.

The people I’ve asked so far have said they have used poetry books as resources to:

• help make a speech entertaining at a wedding
• find poignant words to say at a funeral
• sharing a recognition,  reading a poem to my parents that reminds me of my brother
• I was asked to find a scarey poem to read at a Halloween party

What about you?  Yes, YOU! 

• what poem or verse have you used? (i.e. tell us the poet and poem)
• what made you start looking for this poem? (e.g. I had to make a speech and I’m not too good at that,  school homework, I needed to cheer myself up… etc)
• how did you find this poem? (e.g. browing in a library,  internet search,  recomendation from a friend, parents read it to you as a kiddy,  remembered from school, ex-lover sent it to you…  etc)

Example comment from my usage:

I am looking for a poem to send to my mother that will say something to comfort her while she arranges the things that are necessary when putting her brother to rest.  I haven’t found anything.  yet.  I’m looking through the books on my shelves.  My own words are shared, they feel insufficient.

please share your stories of seeking and finding (or not) poems as comments on this blog post  

he picks up a dusty glass sphere

is this really meant to be here?‘

it had rolled behind the lagoon

I lost it while cleaning in June

with her cuff she de-dusts the globe

this cunjurs a genie in robe

your wish is my very command!

suprised, the globe falls from her hand

could you tidy, clean, our home? 

No sooner said, then,  it’s done

Poem originally inspired by the opportunity to provide comment on a pre-published poetry book.  Started to illustrate that giving comment to a specialist is articulating what they already know.  The home-cleaner*  already knows the paperweight needs dusting and moving.  It is confirmation and direction.  The paperweight should be cleaned and placed in the sunlight where the glass will refract the light beautifully.  The paperweight that represents the known but unarticulated thing was a present from my recently deceased uncle.  Known yet undiscovered in death.  The broader theme is ‘lost’, people loose things.

The genie hijacked my imagination as a vehicle to express my dislike of my belief in the need to clean my own home.  Attempting to rhyme ‘home’ and ‘done’ may be easier with my accent than others.  I stretched and twisted the point and the vowell.  I particularly liked the surreal image of having a lagoon in your home and the thought that something could roll behind a lagoon to become mislaid.  Small point.  Amused me no-end.  Probably inspired by Monty Python’s ’Four Yorkshiremen’ sketch where one man claims he had to live in a lake.  My mother and her family were all from Yorkshire.

written on Remembrance Sunday – 11th November 2006

* apologies for gender stereotyping the home cleaner as a girl.  My excuse is that she is based on me.

2 mins silence

In the United Kingdom, although two minutes’ silence is observed on November 11 itself, the main observance is on the second Sunday of November, Remembrance Sunday. Ceremonies are held at local communities’ War Memorials, usually organized by local branches of the Royal British Legion – an association for ex-servicemen. Typically, poppy wreaths are laid by local organisations including the Royal British Legion, ex-servicemen organisations, cadet forces, the Scouts, Guides, Boys’ Brigade, St John Ambulance and the Salvation Army. “The Last Post” is played by a trumpeter or bugler, two minutes’ silence is observed and broken by a trumpeter playing “Reveille”. A minute’s or two minutes’ silence is also frequently incorporated into church services on that day. The main commemoration is held in Whitehall in central London, where the Queen, Prime Minister, and other senior political and military figures join with veterans to lay wreaths at the Cenotaph.

Not spending money is one of my favourite passtimes and I’m not even Scottish! Here’s a scrabble, triple score, analogy of how doing one thing can replace three separate expenditures:

Single score

Avoided paying a gym (health) club subscription or for a CD/Video work-out program.  If I deliberately pace myself to work up a sweat I can do all the following in less than an hour (tea breaks excluded):

• Weight lifting:  chairs, table, shelves, vacuum cleaner, books, full laundry basket, rubbish bins
• Stretching & flexing: lunges pushing the vacuum cleaner,  reaching to dust the top of shelves and wall-hangings,  reaching to wipe the shower walls,  bending to empty the cat litter-trays,  scrub the toilets and bath
• Aerobisizing: prancing up and down 4 flights of stairs moving laundry,  rubbish, and vacuum cleaner between floors, returning the books that have escaped to the front room from the upstairs book shelves

Double score

Not paying a cleaning contractor (or boyfriend) to do the cleaning.  I don’t enjoy overflowing rubbish bins or clouds of cat-fluff scurrying around my feet with every step taken.  Cleaning has to happen somehow. 

Triple score

Reduced the time available to shop or be pestered by advertising for things that I don’t need.  Wonderful.

Sometimes, my sheer subversive genius leaves me almost speechless.  Almost. 

What’s your favourite triple score?

fifth in a tea-riffic Thursday series about taking tiffin with (black) tea in the NW USA.

Thursday Tiffin #5: got milk?

In a Seattle diner the tea arrived as a bottle of hotwater and an individually wrapped tea-bag.  I quickly unwrapped the bag and put it in the clear, hot water, jug.  I had to ask for milk.  NW US Americans do not generally drink their infusions tea with milk.  This default is extrapolated to black tea, they don’t anticipate that (black) tea requires milk.  Really, no milk, it’s quite outrageous, you have to learn to live with this widespread lack of civilisation and its tough.  But then,  this is the wild west so we have to make some allowances.

Later we’ll touch on what happens after you’ve asked for milk.  Start quivering with trepidation….. ….NOW!  

The useful point to remember is that

in NW US America you normally have to request milk. 

Happiness and Sadness. 

Hand in Hand.

On my birthday mumzie’s eldest brother was found dead (heart attack) in his flat, several weeks after his death.  He had lived alone ever since leaving his parents home in his late teens.  Mumzie, his little sister, provided his family since grandma’s death (1980).  Every Christmas, Easter, Bank Holiday, long weekend, he would move in with us.  The old uncle chuckling in the corner,  entertaining himself or completing the cryptic crossword with Dad.  Liberal lashings of witty,  dry and sarcastic comments all round. Interspersed with simply snoozing in his chair. 

Death happens. 

Old people are particularly prone to Death. 

At the moment I’m angry becasue, for various unpublishable reasons, the best thing I can do to be supportive is nothing. 

I’m going to line the dining room chairs up in front of me,  like naughty school children,  and give them a STERN telling off for being dining room chairs.  Then I’m going to spank them with a fluffy pillow because I can’t imagine doing such a bizarre thing and remaining angry.

sixteenth post in a boot-i-licious Wednesday series covering the singledom foothills of “why wendy’s single“.  

Reason # 15: intimi-dating boots

Apparantly the boots encourage closet-bound voyeurs rather than in public do-ers. 

Wendy at # 42,  has moved to number 43.   Dr. Wendy is still, virtually, in the house. 

It’s like moving from BBC 2 to BBC 1.  Having survived the answer to the ultimate question I move onto a new channel… ..there’ll be some happy slapping in a local English pub tonight.  It’s Election night and people are coming out to support the breakaway party, the wendy house party… oh yes… happy…….and…….slappy…   hats, boots, beer, election results with a bit of Adulty Hooding thrown in for good measure.   The results will probably be completely UNPUBLISHABLE.  At least not publishable before a couple of recounts and close examination of the chads (a popular US post-election passtime). 

I am Wendy House and I approve this message.  Party!

Russian: V-eye durs yrrrrr tea shrut say zeeez?*

Wendy: guess

Russian: No.  V-eye durrs eat say zeeeez?

Wendy:  it’s my age and….

Russian: NO…       …NO…     …NO..   … NO !

shaking her head which flings her hair in a whirlwind effect. The ‘no’s sneak out as her faces passes mine during its wild swings

Wendy:  yes-yes-YES and it’s THE answer to life the universe and EVERYTHING have you read……

giggles, nearly falls off chair in all the excitement and the rare opportunity of repeating the word ‘yes’ in quick succession as the Russian finishes my sentence by telling me what her guess was…

Russian: Durglurrrrrrrs arrrrderms, ysss,  I sort dat frhurst.  

Russian: NO

Wendy:  YES.  I’ve maintained my immaturity 

I think I’ve blown my cover as a real professional adult type person.  This Russian has excellent interrogation skills.  Between the two of us I think we’ve cornered the local (within 100yards) charismatic foriegner quota.

* apologies for my atrocious Russian accent. Hers is, naturally, outstanding.

it’s firework’s night in the UK,  401 years since the gunpowder plot.  Below is a rhyme topical to the time of the event.  Most contemporary English people know the first verse and if you say the first line out loud will join in for the second line.  According to Wikipedia the latter verses were gradually lost to shared memory due to lack of use through content offensive to catholics:

Remember, remember the fifth of November,
Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
should ever be forgot.

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes,’twas his intent
to blow up the King and the Parliament.
Three score barrels of powder below,
Poor old England to overthrow:
By God’s providence he was catch’d
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, make the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!
Hip hip hoorah! 

A penny loaf to feed the Pope.
A farthing o’ cheese to choke him.
A pint of beer to rinse it down.
A faggot of sticks to burn him.
Burn him in a tub of tar.
Burn him like a blazing star.
Burn his body from his head.
Then we’ll say ol’ Pope is dead.
Hip hip hoorah!
Hip hip hoorah!

Bonfire night is an annual English event that, for me in the US, is emotionally replaced by July 4th (fireworks celebration) and US elections on November 7th. Today’s bang! started on the November 4th at a friend’s birthday party. 

Hoorah! 

(imagine a couple of Hip swings for good measure)

Fun and beer all around,  in mouths and beards.   Memories of fireworks from July 4th in the US that make me feel closer to the November 5th celebrations in the UK:

Even better, a present (US = gift) turned up in my post (US = mail).  It isn’t even my birthday.  It is,  however, close enough to call this a surprise Birthday present

Wendy:  oh my god a gun (jumps back,  the gun is about 3 foot long,  not as heavy looking as a shot-gun)

neighbour:  there’s coyotes out,  I’ve seen two tonight

Wendy: here?

neighbour: just over there (cocks the gun, click, click) this will scare them

Wendy:  why do you think they come here?

neighbour: the cats, an easy meal, I’m going to tell (neighbors name), she lets her cats out

Wendy:  good idea

For the week starting Monday:

• 2nd: The Cultfigurine for pointing out, with much aplomb, my misunderstanding of ‘knock you up’ may have been due to a deliberate wind-up because it is original US slang.
• 9th: AF Harrold for pointing out that some days are more difficult to get the hang or than others.
• 16th: Andy for pointing out that some US people have an innovative approach to tea making that by-passes the need for an electric kettle and a teapot,  they microwave water in a cup then place a teabag in it.  Ingenious!
• 23rd: Mr. Fancypants for his invaluable knowledge of screwdriver wielding techniques.

thanks to everyone who commented,  you made this post possible….. feel the luuuurrfffffff.

fourth in a brew-tea-full Thursday series about taking tiffin with (black) tea in the NW USA.

Thursday Tiffin #4: tea leaves meet water

So far we have established that there may not be an electric tea kettle, the tea may be made from a Tea bag possibly without the aid of a tea pot.  Today we get to the part of the process where American’s appear to have developed practices substantially at odds with my understanding of how to make a good cup of tea.  Brit’s take a deep breath before reading the next paragraph.  These people haven’t received the rigorous training we have,  they are a tad tea-niave.

What are the criteria for timing when the tea leaves meet the water?  I am told that for coffee contact with boiling water can burn the coffee,  ruining the flavour.  Not so for tea.  Quite the contrary.  The water should,  MUST, be boiling (98 degrees recommended) when it first touches the tea leaves to maximise the quality of the infusion’s flavour.  This one point appears almost unknown in the NW of the USA, my friends and Chinese descendents and commonwealth natives obviously excepted.  It makes taking tea in a NW US restaurant,  cafe or diner an almost ubiquitously sub-par experience.  The server will normally bring you a cup of hot water.  Not boiling,  hot.  With a teabag,  or selection of individually wrapped teabags in a basket.  You then have to find the black tea bag,  hastily unwrap it,  place it in the warm-water as quick as possible in order to get a well brewed rather than stewed flavor.  For this one reason I rarely, if ever, order tea when eating out in the US 

When taking tea in the NW US

do not assume that the water and the tea leaves will meet each other at the most opportune moment for fabulous flavour