Do Your Part, Have a Cuppa

We are, generally speaking, a stereotypically San Francisco ex-hippie (or, in my mother's case, was- just- a-little- too-young- to-be-a-hippie- but-went- to-Reed- anyway) peace loving household over here. Oh, sure, Dad loves his grilled meat and indulges in his digital cable, but we cook from age-worn Vegetarian cookbooks with references to postprandial joints and magic mushrooms, we've had memberships in organic farm co-ops that delivered bushels of organic produce, our garden contains not one, but two compost bins, and we discuss recipes for homemade granola and handknits over the dinner table. My mother drives a Prius. In March 2003, every member of the household (excepting the feline members) individually made their way to the first big march down Market Street to protest the Iraq war.

That said, we still fight our little wars. There is constant (well, it *should* be constant) vigilance in the garden against snails and scale, and a battle of wills against the abovementioned compost piles. It consists of us willing the compost to decompose faster so that we can put more stuff in it. Those wars which do not involve the backyard tend to involve the cats: the battle over who gets to sit in my office chair (me, or Gwynn), whether or not today will be the day that we let Genevieve out onto the side porch, from which she can climb onto the roof and run rampant around the neighborhood, and whether or not I will finally give in and allow Gwynn into my closet, where she uses my satin formal dresses as a climbing wall. We shoo them away from the furniture, and battle their predatory tendencies when they bring in live mice and birds by throwing towels over the harried prey and taking them out to the front porch.

Above and beyond these minor battles, however, looms the greatest: the battle against the Darjeeling tea. Long, long ago, when I was about ten, my mother decided to encourage my table manners and indulge my desire to live in "olden days" by taking me out for high tea at the St. Francis. Darjeeling was the first option on the menu, and it quickly became my favorite tea (note: I was ten. I still enjoy a cup of it now and then, but I like to think I have more...robust tastes in tea nowadays). What this means is that my mother has only recently ceased acquiring more boxes of Darjeeling tea.

Why has she stopped? Because this is our problem:


Allow me to clarify.



We're drinking Darjeeling with a vengeance, trying to reclaim our sorely limited cupboard space. Should you come this way and we ask you if you want a drink, you know what to say:

"I'd love a cup of tea. Do you have any Darjeeling?"

All Hail His Haberdasher'dness

Except, you know, not in an idolatrous way, because he wouldn't stand for that.

Why, you ask? Because he sent me this:


If you don't think that this graduation present/way of preventing me from being terribly jealous that he met Jeph Jacques goes beyond awesome deep into the realm of kick-ass, you need to go read Questionable Content. (Although they're currently in the midst of guest strips, so maybe give it a week if you don't want to be entirely confused.)

I'm HOME

...as the more observant among you may have noticed. My flight home was...tiring. Other than that, Southwest Airlines has been pushing their group rates, and it seems to be working. I was on the plane with both San Francisco's Irish Football Youth League team, and the National High School Rodeo Finals Team from Hawaii. I had the window seat, and I knit on my sock. The fellow in the aisle read David Sedaris ("Why?" I ask myself.) The middle-aged African American gentleman in the middle seat did...nothing. Absolutely nothing, until they passed out the little snack boxes. Having finished his peanuts and his stale cookies, he carefully unfolded the box, pulled out a pen, and drew himself an alphanumerical code of A=1, B=2, etc.* I created a little fantasy in which he was writing a love note to his wife, sitting in front of him, but he seemed perfectly amused by encoding the words he found on the snack wrappers (i.e. Nabisco=14 1 2 9 19 3 15).

Socks Socks Socks



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*Devoted fan of Cryptonomicon that I am, I did manage to restrain myself from saying anything that began with, "You know, if you want to make it a better code..."