Mrs. Teabody Greets the Day

  Please pass the potatoes Today is the day to celebrate all things Irish. It is the one day when almost everyone embraces some vestige of Emerald Isle DNA bespeaking some sort of connection with the land of music, poetry and good times. Enjoy your Irish Stew. Your corned beef and cabbage. Your soda bread. Drink Guinness till you're silly and/or Jameson's until you fall asleep. Me. I'm going full  tilt potato. For some of us the potato is the ultimate comfort food.   After all, It is familiar.  It is dependably tasty. It is uncomplicated.   Most Americans can easily identify the common white potato. Oh, it's gone fancy. It can be golden, red, purple. It can be fist-sized and nearly spherical, it can be egg-shaped, it can be long and skinny. If you do have Irish roots, there's a pretty good chance your family grows the same breed of potato their six great grandfathers planted.  Because potatoes are delicious. (I'm talking about you, ...

   Turtles in search of a home. They were spotted first in a retail establishment in Selinsgrove by a Fulton Countian, Donna House , who found room in her heart for the six fuzzy, lovable turtles and brought them home. Jealousy quickly raised its unattractive head in the body of Mr. Tom, the resident feline favorite at Donna's house, and she found she must quickly find the squishy group suitable and loving homes. That is when she contacted me, Mrs. Teabody. I was immediately struck by their likeness to the turtle appearing in all our ads for Cocoa Crawl 2021. "Can you help me find homes for them?" she pleaded. "Good homes." An idea began to form in my head. What if we made these delightful creatures a part of the upcoming Cocoa Crawl? What if the six fuzzy reptiles became part of a hunt? "That's it!" I shrieked. "We shall hold a Great Turtle Hunt knowing that those people  who search the hardest will actually WANT to provide homes for the lit...

My husband has been sick for three days. In these Covid-covered times, our first thought when he woke with a horribly painful headache was he had been one of the unlucky, double-vaccinated buggers with a breakthrough case. A few phone calls let us know it was no longer possible to just “go for a test” but a third call to a community health center where he had been a patient resulted in a quick drive there at an appointed time less than an hour later. He was to phone a certain number to announce his arrival (which he did) and the health care person came to the passenger side of the car—that's how miserable he was feeling - - I was driving. She explained the drill—how deeply she'd go into each nostril, how it would burn/sting and in less than a minute she'd done as predicted and he was uncomfortably sniffing to settle the burn deep in each nostril. She said she'd return in 20 minutes. We propped open both car doors for air. Watched a young man emerge from behind a door ma...

It's March. Again. The second Thursday. Again. I know as well as I know my name that you are just as eager as I am to greet this nascent spring which buckles in a whole year's worth of experiences, both good and bad, liberating and confining, idle and productive, fearful and hopeful -- and when you look at twelve months in those terms, isn't that true of EVERY year? Needless to say, this was such a year but let's add that it was definitely amped up on a buckshot melange of psychotropic drugs coated in a shell of cynicism.  One for the books. Most folks can recall that point in time when their minds first gave credence to the idea that something extraordinary was going on in the world and that point happened to me around 4:00 P.M. on Thursday evening, March 12, 2020-- exactly one year ago today. Mr. Teabody and I had planned to meet my sister at a downtown bank parking lot to drive to Shippensburg to watch our great - -in so many ways! -- nephew Noah perform in his h...

  "Okay, Boomer."  The phrase is dismissive, yes? But I am not here to be okayed --far from it. This is classic  Boomer  Blah-blah-blah  all the way, so let's go! It's my birthday which means it is time to reflect.  Like most older folks I laid the foundation of my philosophy under the influence of popular culture. My place in my community was defined by those joyful inhabitants of Mayberry and Walton's Mountain.  Let's not forget Dodge City, Kansas. My earliest heroes were formed by a team of writers at Walt Disney. My course in affairs of the heart was set out for me in the lyrics of the Shirrells, the Supremes, the Beatles and the Beachboys. Indeed there wasn't a single question about romantic existence that could not be answered with a lyric - -  there still isn't if I'm honest.   Carrying buckets of milk from the barn to the milk house on a farm bound tightly on all sides by mountains in rural Pennsylvania did not keep me out of Mon...

  Fannypack: Car key, phone, music, bandage, mint I walk, therefore I am? I don't know how your mornings start, but mine start out in the streets of my little hamlet where over the course of the last two years I have transitioned from a mildly energetic effort of two miles to a most recently determined effort of 4 miles. All of this effort is in the pursuit of a healthier life and the effort has paid off. In two years time I have dropped (very slowly) nearly 30 pounds, reduced my clothing size by two sizes, increased my energy level exponentially and have as my ultimate reward better health. As one in my very advanced years and living on borrowed time--having long passed my semi-promised three score and ten -- this "better health" is among my most prized possessions. All of that could have come to a very bad ending this morning when I took my third fall of my life. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Many, many years ago I read a terrifying story in READERS DIGEST about ...

Mrs. Teabody’s  LOOSE LEAF BLACK TEAS Across the Universe : Black Ceylon tea infused with Chai spices such as cloves, cardamom, orange peels including a magic soupcon of cinnamon to whisk you away on a magic carpet. All American Cupcake : Black tea, chocolate bits, sugar, powdered sugar, chocolate liquor, corn starch sprinkles and coconut come together to give you a delectable cupcake in your cuppa. Chocolate Chai : Black Pu-Erh tea with dark chocolate bits, sugar, cocoa butter, lemon peel, soy lecithin and chai spices come together to solve the afternoon’s thorniest problems. Coconut Cream Egg : Black tea, shredded coconut, powdered sugar, corn starch, salt, cellulose gel, chocolate liquor, cocoa butter, soy lecithin. Decadent chocolate blended with creamy coconut delivers a favorite Easter basket memory. Durty Chai : Black Assam tea, lemon peel, with Espresso chips and chai spices. For all you coffee club card carriers, this is the bridge between coffee and tea that ...