Mrs. Teabody Greets the Day

How clear, how lovely bright, How beautiful to sight     Those beams of morning play; How heaven laughs out with glee Where, like a bird set free, Up from the eastern sea     Soars the delightful day. To-day I shall be strong, No more shall yield to wrong,     Shall squander life no more; Days lost, I know not how, I shall retrieve them now; Now I shall keep the vow     I never kept before. Ensanguining the skies How heavily it dies     Into the west away; Past touch and sight and sound Not further to be found, How hopeless under ground     Falls the remorseful day. - A.E. Housman Good Morning from our icy-aired, snow-covered mountain--a perfect sendoff weather-wise for  the final day of the year, don't you agree? My advanced years mean a less than perfect memory but photographs spur thoughts and it never hurts to take stock, don't you agree, if for no other reason than to remind oneself to squander life no more?  I a

"Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es." - Anthelme Brillat-Savarin  Anthelme Brillat-Savarin wrote, in Physiologie du Gout, ou Meditations de Gastronomie Transcendante, 1826: "Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es."   This translates to "Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are." Or as we have come to phrase it:  You are what you eat Five days after Thanksgiving 2017 many of us are still going around feeling like stuffed turkeys--bodies too big for our legs, woefully ill-prepared for flight or sudden movement, and quite willing to follow blindly those of our kind without considering consequences. Garbage in, garbage out "In computer science, garbage in, garbage out (GIGO) is where flawed, or nonsense input data produces nonsense output or "garbage". The principle also applies more generally to all analysis and logic, in that arguments are unsound if their premises are flawed."

In just a few hours our house will be filled with friends and relatives just like houses all across America and, God willing, we will all sit around a table enjoying our iconic menu with noteworthy variations. Taking center stage will be the bird, of course. It may be brined, naked, ready to carve or served ready to eat. Stuffing. Mash. Gravy. Noodles. You know the drill. Theme and variations.  At our house when we sit down at the table, we will all join hands and in that circle of Thanksgiving, we will share at least one thing we are grateful for and we will note the absence of so many we have loved and still love and remember.  A good thing. There's one little family story that inevitably crops up--a story about my mother and her indomitable cheerful spirit. It goes like this: My mother Dorothy lived in a world of hard work interspersed with short spurts of coffee drinking and conviviality. She had the warmest personality and a ready and loud laugh. A few decades ag

From the "funny if not so pathetic" file:  Keyless Ignition and the Big Purse -- one woman's tale.  It had to happen. Inevitability was written all over it. The day that "Ted" at Antrim Honda handed me the "key" to my new car and told me I had keyless ignition is burned into my brain. I was incredulous when I was told I could enter my locked car by standing near it, that I could start my car without having the key in my hand. Conceding all that, I also knew in that instant that this “innovation” came with its own set of problems. After all, I am of THAT generation of women. I carry the Big Purse. I and women just like me never leave our houses without everything we may need in the course of our day. Yes, I do admire those of you who tuck your credit card into your flip flops and the world is your oyster. Not so much for those of us carrying all the requisites for any and all transactions. These include but are not limited to:  French wal

"Time is a wheel in constant motion always rolling us along  Tell me who wants to look back on their years and wonder where those years have gone." -- Lee Ann Womack Pre-dawn and Venus and Jupiter are passing each other quietly; a friend sends a text from half a world away letting me know that Prague is as beautiful as he'd hoped. A pile of clothing on my nicely-made bed awaits only some toiletries and in less than an hour I'll meet up with a friend I have known since I was a little, little girl and the two of us will be off on one of our adventures. God willing we will  be safe in our travels--she driving, me as navigator. The world IS a wide and wonderful place, you know. By the standards of some folks I travel too much. By the standards of some other folks, I have a very narrow range for my wanderings. When it comes to how far anyone ventures away from the known, travel becomes a personal choice. There's a moment -- sometimes several moment

It all started innocently enough. A few weeks ago Mrs. Teabody enjoyed homemade vegetarian soup at a friend's house and the friend was kind enough to share her recipe -- a simple concoction made almost entirely by opening cans and rinsing the contents. Mrs. Teabody holds no snobbery whatsoever regarding this sort of cooking and had enjoyed similar concoctions as perhaps you have, Gentle Reader. Taco soup and stuffed pepper soup come to mind. Down toward the bottom of the ingredients list was an odd one: one-half jar of canned red cabbage.   My friend was quick to point out not to use more than stated. On the weekend another friend gifted me with ten end-of-garden tomatoes and my thoughts turned to the soup recipe. Instead of the canned crushed tomatoes, I'd use fresh and whoever made a soup without using onions and garlic? Soon a pot was burbling along on the stove top with fresh tomatoes, lots of diced onion, quite a bit of fresh garlic and lots of salt and pep

The Albert Stoner building is 118. Good Morning from dark and  still summer-ish Meadow Grounds mountain where a nice cuppa Molkabari is kicking Mrs. Teabody's systems into gear to venture out for the morning perambulation prior to a very busy day at 110 Lincoln Way West. My little enterprise, Tickle Your Fancy Gifts and Tea, has a birthday party today  and there is much to do. As with all such anniversaries, this occasion has given me time to reflect, to look back over the years and to make decisions. To make a plan or two. As anyone who knows me well will tell you, I am not exactly a cutthroat business woman.  My business philosophy is to make enough money to pay my rent, utilities, and property upkeep, to be able to offer unique and exciting gifts and accessories, and to purchase, serve and sell the best tea that money can buy. Ideally, I will have a little something left over at the end of each month and if I can do something to brighten the world along Lincoln Way, so

"The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everybody that summertime cannot last for ever. Even on the most beautiful days in the whole year – the days when summer is changing into autumn – the crickets spread the rumor of sadness and change." ―E.B. White, Charlotte's Web Summer 2017 took shape on a steep incline in Ireland. Yes, I (eventually) made it all the way up to the famine cottage and the beehive dwelling, but I was pitifully breathless not to say a bit embarrassed by my graceless ascent. Inspired by my twelve-years-older traveling friend, Siobhan, I decided that day to embark on a walking program and I am proud to report that not a summer day has passed without my logging at least two miles and sometimes as many as seven (!)  of forward movement. As every walker will tell you, one of the great benefits of a daily perambulation is insured reflection time. As every nosey walker will tell you, it is also a great opportunity to look into back gardens. He

"Fascinator" Darci strikes a pose just outside. Have you ever had afternoon tea in a classy hotel --one where every surface seems to take on a special sheen, where the far-too-attractive staff move about as unobtrusively as air, where every single aspect screams, "I'm special!"? Such is the case of afternoon tea at New York City's Baccarat Hotel discreetly ensconced along 53rd close enough to kiss The Museum of Modern Art. Mr. Teabody and I in the company of our much-beloved niece, Darci, along with fellow members and friends of the Mid Atlantic Tea Business Association (MATBA) had such an experience on Monday last and we won't soon forget the day and its highlights. I'm a fan of tea menus, and I prefer the ones that come inside a little leather book but the unbooked one offered to us was nicely done on a stiff paper with our group's title at the top so that was just fine. There were just enough fancy names to tickle me and