Mrs. Teabody Greets the Day

B on Jour, Mon Petit Chou! Mrs. Teabody is charmed to meet with you again after her three-day sojourn in the city often referred to as the "Big Apple." According to Mr. Wikipedia:  "The Big Apple"  is a nickname for  New York City . It was first popularized in the 1920s by  John J. Fitz Gerald , a sports writer for the  New York Morning Telegraph . Its popularity since the 1970s is due to a promotional campaign by the New York Convention and Visitors Bureau, known now as  NYC & Company ." Mr. and Mrs. Teabody enjoy NYC in small doses a few times each year, always returning with new energy, new ideas, and a greater appreciation for home. Among the many delightful diversions of the trip was the opportunity to stay in yet another fine hotel. As you well imagine, Gentle Reader, Mrs. T. was quite happy! This time it was the Empire Hotel  located in the Lincoln Center. As a rural person, Mrs. Teabody is always a bit agog when she sees draperies that ...

Good Thursday Morning, Gentle Readers! Mrs. Teabody trusts that simply knowing the end of the working week is in sight is enough encouragement for a lovely, wide smile from you. So it is. Thursday is a shortened day at Tickle Your Fancy  largely because it is a shortened business day elsewhere in the village. Some of Mrs. Teabody's favorite friends work at The First National/Tower/Greystone/Susquehanna Bank, and when Mrs. Teabody sees them crossing the macadam to their motor cars, she knows commerce for the day has ended. This makes Mrs. Teabody both sad and happy, but mostly happy because she sometimes has the opportunity to have an afternoon perambulation with Duchess Ming, Mr. and Mrs. Teabody's most beloved canine friend. Duchess Ming is, simply stated, the most wonderful dog EVER even though the beginning of her life with the Teabodys was not perfect. Mrs. Teabody well remembers the day she and Mr. Teabody first visited the Cumberland Valley Humane Society on their que...

Good Morning, Gentle Reader! Mrs. Teabody hopes you are feeling refreshed, all "bright-eyed and bushy-tailed" as a visiting family friend was wont to say. A fitting phrase for one who "greets" the day, do you not agree, Gentle Reader? Mrs. Teabody should like to speak this morning about how glorious it is to rise from dreamland without the aid of an alarm clock. While Mrs. Teabody rarely takes more than six hours to feel bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, she has spent a major part of her life with an awareness  that the shrill sound of an alarm bell, buzz, BRRRRR always meant she  must ready herself for a day of work.  From teenage years on the farm where an alarm signaled the start of farm chores, to college days for early classes, to a lifetime of work which generally put Mrs. Teabody at her desk by 6:30 at the latest, Mrs. Teabody has greeted the day at the urging of a dastardly machine.  Now with her "career" finally behind her, Mrs. Teabody  awakens as ...

"A glooming peace this morning with it brings;     The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head  . . ." Good Morning, Gentle Reader! Mrs. Teabody can see lights in the village below so she is hoping this means the ambient gloom of the past two days has lifted/is lifting.  For those wrestling with both shock and grief over the demise of such a beloved, internationally-known person, Mrs. Teabody sends condolences. Most assuredly, there will be brighter days ahead . . . Some time ago Mrs. Teabody received an invitation to attend a "class" (Today!) which promises to make day-to-day bookkeeping at Tickle Your Fancy somewhat less daunting. In Mrs. Teabody's favor, it must be said that she keeps meticulous records,  cheerfully filling ledgers with her round, upright scrawl. Yes, Gentle Reader, no transaction, however miniscule, has escaped recording. The problem, of course, is taking all this data and assigning it to its proper niches. For example, stamp...

The First Snow-Fall  by James Russell Lowell The snow had begun in the gloaming,  And busily all the night  Had been heaping field and highway  With a silence deep and white.  Every pine and fir and hemlock  Wore ermine too dear for an earl,  And the poorest twig on the elm-tree  Was ridged inch deep with pearl.  Gentle Reader, can you guess who had an acute case of stay-abed this snowy morning? Yes, you are so very right. Mrs. Teabody chose to stay snug amongst the linens reading whilst enjoying a cuppa Rooibos cocomint. Lovely. Mrs. Teabody hopes you, Gentle Reader, facing a similar state of snow-covered everything, do not have to venture out unnecessarily.  Reading supine, covered with a favorite afghan or blanket, with frequent glances to observe the activity at the bird feeders is, like hotel stays, another of Mrs. Teabody's favorite things. Mrs. Teabody has placed two verses of a longer poem at the s...

All Hands on deck! Mrs. Teabody is teasing you, Gentle Reader. She should hope you snugly warm on this frigid morning, but she was thinking of her father this morning and his little Navy days sayings.  He was wont to call "All hands on deck" in his rich baritone voice to summon Mrs. Teabody and her siblings when he arrived home from work. Just a pleasant extension of a happy childhood dream that passed through Mrs. Teabody's little brain just a few hours ago. Mrs. Teabody hopes your dreams were peasant ones, and that today, Thursday, is a happy day for you. Do not forget to start your day with a nice hot cuppa. This morning Mrs. Teabody is having a delightful masala chai infused with warm milk and just a dot of honey. It is like having dessert for breakfast. This will be a special drink at Tickle Your Fancy all next week so do stop by. Duchess Tilly and Mrs. Teabody have just returned from a sojourn to the shore and parlors of gaming. Mrs. Teabody is happy to report ...

Good Morning, Gentle Reader! Mrs. Teabody does hope you have had fine rest and feel prepared to take on the world today. Mrs. Teabody is unhappy to report that events of the past twenty-something hours have her a bit on the edge this day of rest. Perhaps a recapitulation will help sort it out. That tragic event in Italy. Mon Dieu! Mrs. Teabody has  excellent friends, Lord and Lady Hermick of Cancun, Mexico, who often cruise the Mediterranean Sea on  just such a vessel, and as the terror of the event unfolded, Mrs. Teabody saw it through the eyes of those involved. Like everyone else on this wonderful planet, Mrs. Teabody has seen the moving picture about the Titanic, and when victims started drawing comparisons it was nearly too much to bear. Lord and Lady Hermick are safe, of course, but what horror for those involved. Mrs. Teabody sends her condolences. In a somewhat lighter vein, Mrs. Teabody recently won a 7-day  cruise of the Western Caribbean to four ports tha...

Bundled up this brisk January morning, Gentle Reader? Some sort of "clipper" is passing through on its way north to making others even more miserable, but it appears this little segment of the civilized world has been spared the  wrath of winter once again and Mrs. Teabody is thankful for it. Mrs. Teabody no longer adores snow in the way she once did. No more sleigh rides for Mrs. Teabody! Once every three or four years with the proper snow, Mrs. Teabody will still bundle up against the elements and set about the art of snowman making, and she has recollections of pleasant perambulations with Mr. Teabody and the Duchess Ming though a winter's wonderland, but all things considered, Mrs. Teabody has very little use for snow and not one dot of affection for ice. Not one. Darkness surrounds Chez Teabody just now and Mrs. Teabody enjoys a nice cuppa. "Bon Jour" is this morning's chosen tea and it is aptly named. Mrs. Teabody has been distracted  recently by the...

Good Morning, Gentle Reader! Mrs. Teabody so hopes you spent some time last night enjoying the spectacular Wolf Moon. According to Mr. Wikipedia, Native Americans gave each full moon a name."The Wolf Moon is the name given by Native Americans to a full moon that occurs in January. Native Americans chose this name because they heard hungry wolf packs howl outside the villages. This full moon is also known as the Old Moon or the Moon After Yule. Full Moon names date back to Native Americans of what is now the northern and eastern United States. The tribes kept track of the seasons by giving distinctive names to each recurring full moon. Their names were applied to the entire month in which each occurred. There was some variation in the moon names, but in general, the same ones were current throughout the Algonquian tribes from New England to Lake Superior. European settlers followed that custom and created some of their own names. Since the lunar month is roughly 29.5 days long o...

Oh My Goodness, Gentle Readers, look at the time! Mrs. Teabody is doing so as Mr. Teabody has only now set the grandfather clock in motion shaking Mrs. Teabody from her gentle Patricia Cornwell-inspired stupor. Mon Dieu! Two hours turned to vapor in the wake of another nail-biting intrigue-o. Mrs. Teabody wanted some diversion as she had spent ever so much time sorting her handbag/purse/pocketbook during the pre-dawn hours. The contents spilled atop the dining room table initially created a sense of dismay but buoyed by the knowledge that happiness would be the end result, Mrs. Teabody applied herself dutifully to the task. Soon all was put to rights. As she sorted, Mrs. Teabody began to think about the various terms she has heard women use for a handbag/purse/pocketbook. Mrs. Teabody would so much like to speak with precision regarding the "thing" she carries about that contains all her essentials for day-to-day commerce in this century. This inspired a tete-a-tete with ...

Good Morrow, Darlings All! Here at last is the day of rest for many, Gentle Readers, and Mrs. Teabody trusts  all will use such a day in the best possible manner. The Teabodys have had a long winter's nap following a bit of a "wild goose chase" as they say here in the upper thirteen largely through the machinations of the Global Positioning Device of which Mr. Teabody is so irrepressibly fond. Mrs. Teabody is less enamored as the dastardly machine once led her miles from the targeted destination of Union Station in the District of Columbia. Mrs. Teabody chased herself along the concentric circles stopping to ask directions a total of nine times with two of those within two hundred yards of her destination. She is not unsympathetic to the fictional television character, Michael Scott, who once drove a rental car into a lake following prompts from a Global Positioning Device. On the other hand the Global Positioning Device has also done positive work of note safely guiding...

Good Morning, darling Gentle Readers. Mrs. Teabody hopes some happy dream was in your head as you found wakefulness. Mr. Teabody  is wearing his best Cheshire cat smile this morning because the outside temperature is a balmy forty-three degrees meaning none of his precious fuel oil is burning because the ever-efficient heat pump is at work. If the heat pump were an actual PERSON, a LADY person, Mrs. Teabody should be jealous of all the praise Mr. Teabody lavishes upon it. But surely Mr. Teabody would never abandon Mrs. Teabody for a heat pump. Mon Dieu! The very thought. . . Mrs. Teabody is wearing her smug smile -- not as off-putting as one might think - - because of her resolute work in stripping  Tickle Your Fanc y of all her Christmas trappings. All the butterflies taken off the tree and packed away, likewise the strands of lights that looked exactly like candles, one hundred and twenty glass balls, eighty glass icicles, four calling birds, three French hens . . . all ...

" If music be the food of love, play on, Give me excess of it; that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die."  —Orsino, 1..1-3 Good Morrow, Gentle Readers! Chez Teabody  has been set in motion quite early this day as the "Twelfth Night" cake wanted baking, and Mrs. Teabody fortified herself for the task by imbibing a potent steeping of Adagio  "Pride and Joy" before mucking about with the electrified mixing machine, measuring white powders, cracking eggs, and finding her spectacles to read the infinitesimal letters on the  proper extract bottle. Chez Teabody is  now bathed in the baking cake's sweet aroma and  Mrs. Teabody is chuffed that it is baking in the new-fangled silicone tube pan Mrs. Teabody BEGGED her younger sibling, Lady Anne, to give to her as a gift. Mr. Sinatra is singing "I Get a Kick Out of You" quietly in the corner, and Mrs. Teabody is quite prepared for some merrymaking at Tickle Your Fancy this last ...

Good Morning, Gentle Readers! Mrs. Teabody trusts your sojourn in dream land has been a pleasant one. It was a marvelous night for comforters and flannel pajamas and a nice hot cuppa chamomile with mint as one sought slumber. As Mr. Wikipedia suggests: " Chamomile  or  camomile  ( pronounced  /ˈkæmɵmiːl/   kam -ə-meel  or  /ˈkæmɵmaɪl/   kam -ə-myl ) [1]  is a  common name  for several  daisy -like plants of the family  Asteraceae . These plants are best known for their ability to be made into an infusion which is commonly used to help with sleep and is often served with either  honey  or  lemon ." Mrs. Teabody laces her chamomile with mint and it is a treat.  Today Mrs. Teabody is going to make a simple request to you, Gentle Readers. Like you, Mr. and Mrs. Teabody adore music, and Mrs. Teabody wishes to enlist your help over the next several days in compiling "Twenty Songs That Shaped 'Our' Lives."...

Good Morrow, Gentle Readers! Straight off the bat, Mrs. Teabody implores anyone who has not begun the day with a steaming cuppa to correct the situation post haste. This is neither a day to shilly shally nor dawdle. Just outside Chez Teabody the air is a frigid nine degrees--the first dive into single digits this winter, and even the odious cat finds Mother Nature too hostile for his liking. To greet the day, Mrs. Teabody is enjoying Adagio Masala Chai: black tea, cardamom pods, ginger root, cloves and cinnamon bark with a wee bit of honey from Stoner Apiaries. It is as delightfully piquant on the tongue as it is aromatic to the senses.  According to Mr. Wikipedia: " Green cardamom is broadly used in South Asia to treat infections in teeth and  gums , to prevent and treat throat troubles, congestion of the lungs and pulmonary  tuberculosis , inflammation of eyelids and also  digestive  disorders. It also is used to break up kidney stones and gall stones, and w...

G ood Morning, My Darlings! Mrs. Teabody is blindingly aware of her own smallest movement this morning. If you have an Encyclopedia Britannica , look inside the one with the letter "A" on the spine and turn to page 119 where there is an illustration of the human tissue system. Most pinkish. If you happen to have a red marker, draw an asterisk along every place the flesh meets up with other flesh. Put down your marker and have a look. That is how many places Mrs. Teabody hurts after ONE day at the gymatorium. Mon Dieu!  Mrs. Teabody mentions this as a warning to you and to herself, Gentle Reader, should you ever consider this sort of endeavor. Perhaps Mrs. Teabody has failed to mention that Lady Glass has swanned off to sunnier climes leaving Mrs. Teabody no recourse for their daily perambulation but to take a membership in a gymatorium. Mrs. Teabody should have been fine limiting herself to the walking machine had the  enthusiastic attendant not encouraged various brisk a...