Mrs. Teabody + Oranges + Apples = ?

Good Morning, Gentle Reader! Doubtless you are wondering why this first Saturday of SPRING finds you still in your winter pajamas with no hopes of balmy temperatures any time soon. Mrs. Teabody had hoped to spend some time giving her rose bushes a little trim and snack today, but with temperatures to remain in the thirties, Mrs. Teabody has enough sense to remain indoors and pursue appropriate indoor activities, i.e. reading and napping whilst ignoring household chores that have gone un-tackled as Mrs. Moppit has swanned off to warmer climes.

Were you a talented mathematics student, Gentle Reader? If you were -- and it truly DOES take all sorts to make a world - - perhaps  problems of this ilk did not inspire almost immediate ennui:

Four oranges and five apples cost $3.56. Three oranges and four apples cost $2.76. Find the cost of an orange and the cost of an apple . . . Do pardon Mrs. Teabody as she nodded off after the second mention of oranges even though oranges serve as the inspiration of this week's little missive.  As has been mentioned ad nauseam, Mrs. Teabody could subsist on a steady diet of cheese, chutney, crackers and cabernet, and she one day hopes to write a bestseller extolling the virtues of  carbohydrates and cholesterol, but every once in a while, Mrs. Teabody frets about the  imminent onslaught of rickets and/or scurvy should she not embrace fruits and veg and she finds herself in the produce section of the market agog at the plethora of brightly-colored food. Mon Dieu! Such variety! Mrs. Teabody had watched a video extolling the virtues of a salad of radishes and dill with a dressing of the juice from an orange, and these items were chucked into the trolley with abandon along with a nice heavy jar of blue cheese salad dressing just in case. Mrs. Teabody had also watched a video extolling the virtues of oranges poached in white wine as a mucous eradicator -- a thousand pardons for the mention of the word  mucous, but how does one avoid it when virtually everyone in Mrs. Teabody's social circle suffers the unfortunate sensation of having a pint of paste lodged uncomfortably in their delicate little throats? But to the point. Since that fateful shopping jaunt, Mrs. Teabody has sliced and ingested nearly a dozen oranges in both poached and unpoached form and both the blackberry scones and muffins served at Tickle Your Fancy  this week have benefitted from the addition of copious quantities of orange zest. Do buy and eat some oranges, Gentle Reader, if only to have a snappy retort when someone challenges your diet. The Teabodys along with their many esteemed Meadow Grounds neighbors, along with ardent  fishermen, kayakers and hikers are reeling from the decision by the outdoorsy part of the state government to "draw down" their beloved lake as the dam holding back literally millions of gallons of water has been seeping - -  threatening collapse and the rocketing of that beloved water along the path, Roaring Run, which Mrs. Teabody so eloquently wrote about here: http://tickleyourfancyteas.blogspot.com/2012/05/mrs-teabody-places-herself-in-peril.html A collapse of the dam  could mean destruction of several homes  at the bottom of the mountain and no one wants that although Mrs. Teabody has struggled with putting the problem of displacement of the dam water into an algebraic form all week long. The closest she can come up with is this: Left on together, the cold and hot water faucets of a certain buthtub take 7 minutes to fill the tub. If it takes the cold water faucet 17 minutes to fill the tub by itself, how long will it take the hot water faucet to fill the tub on its own? Do not do any rounding.  Even though Mrs. Teabody has tried to put thoughts of that walk along Roaring Run from her mind, she does wish she were equal to the task of determining whether the catastrophic scenarios described by officials  at a recent public meeting have legitimacy. Perhaps they do as when was the last time a public official  lied to a trusting public? Stay warm, Darlings! Drink some tea!