There's no time like tea time...

... and at my house, tea time lasts all day long. Yes, it's true. My name is Diane, and I have a drinking problem.

It's not really my fault, you see. First of all, I'm not a coffee drinker. I wasn't raised in a coffee-drinking household, so I never found the smell of coffee that appealing. When I finally tried it, I thought it was bitter and nasty; I couldn't add enough sugar and milk to make it palatable. Strangely enough, although there was plenty of iced tea in the house when I was growing up, I wasn't a big fan of that, either.

But then, when I was young and impressionable, I started dating my husband. Because both his mother and his stepmother were born in Britain, any time we visited them I was offered a cup of tea. Now, when you're 20 years old and meeting your boyfriend's family, you smile and say yes a lot and try to appear normal. And guess what? I discovered that with a little milk and sugar (okay, a lot of sugar), hot tea could be warm and soothing and tasty.

It was just plain old PG Tips or Tetley tea (only proper British brands for my lovely lady in-laws), but that was like a gateway drug. Soon I was trying other types. Earl Grey. Orange Pekoe. English Breakfast. Irish Breakfast. Jasmine. China Oolong and Lapsang Souchong. At college, a classmate turned me on to Twinings Blackcurrant. At a local sandwich shop in Ann Arbor (the late, lamented Drake's), I experimented with maté, a Brazilian breakfast beverage.

Soon I was trying anything. Green teas. White teas. Strange herbal fruity infusions. This weird rooibos stuff from South Africa. Chai tea. (Glorious, glorious chai!) I even learned to like plain old iced tea, even without sugar.

So my fondness for tea might have escalated a little out of control. As evidence, check out my tea shelf:


Sad to say, that's not all my tea; if it comes in a little envelope, I combine a variety into a single box for the main tea cabinet; overflow sachets are in a separate cabinet, along with all the instant cocoa and cider mixes.

Ask me, and I'll always claim that my drinking problem is under control. Just don't ask before I've had my morning cuppa.

The Word Nerd Sez: E is for ...

epeolatry

It's funny, I'd been wondering what word I could possibly use for my "E" entry when this one popped into my e-mail box from the wonderful a.word.a.day subscription service. It's certainly appropriate to this feature, for it means "the worship of words." Now, I don't know that I "worship" words. I esteem them highly; I spend a lot of time contemplating them; I have fun playing with them. But I haven't built any altars to them ... unless you count this blog. Egads.

Anyway, I'd rather play around with words than worship them. Which leads me to a.w.a.d.'s Internet Anagram Server. Put in any phrase, and it will give you a zillion anagrams (rearrangements of the letters). Many of them are nonsense, but others can be quite amusing. I inputted my name (first and last; stick in my middle name and I get really weird stuff, lots of "zenith" and "geez," and "zit"), and it gave me over 1700 suggestions, including these that stood out:

Teenaged Nil: most teenagers feel like this, I guess, but I'm no longer a teenager (and I had a different name back then: rare naked pi!), so it doesn't count. Neither does leading teen. Aged teen nil might work, but it's not very nice.
Dental Genie: I did write a poem about the tooth fairy; "dental genie" scans much better, though.
Tanned Liege: I'm neither. Maybe if I didn't have a lineage dent, I could trace myself to royalty.
Elegant Dine: I like this one. Who doesn't like to dress up and eat out? It's certainly better than eaten dingle; that doesn't sound appetizing at all.
Genital Need: That's just wrong. But funny.
Giant Needle: Well, I do sew a lot.
Gated Eel Inn: I've got a name if I ever open a B&B!
Dang Teen Lie: Hopefully I won't encounter this soon. Ever. Hear that, Boy?
Elegant End I: Oh, good. I was worried about something ignominious, like tripping on my own underwear and suffering a fatal concussion.
Inane Get Led: Something for election season!
Need Ling Tea: I haven't heard of "ling" tea, so I must need it.

I could go on, but they just get sillier. Why don't you try it for yourself? Post your favorites in the comments.

Photo of the Week--10/13/08

What do you do after you've climbed over 500 steps to reach the top of a 515-foot-tall spire(besides try not to throw up)? You keep looking up. The Dom in Cologne was once the tallest building in Europe (before the Eiffel Tower was built), and it's so huge that you have to be at least a block away to capture the whole thing on film. That was too much work, so I took this shot looking up one of the building's spires instead. I liked the patterns in the metalwork, and the contrast of light and dark. Plus it proves we made it to the top!

The Unofficial Haiku Excuse: I'm not lazy

So it's been a while since I posted my last Haiku Review. It's not that I don't want to. It's not that I've forgotten.

I am not lazy
An offer I can't refuse
awaits when I'm done.

You see, the next movie on my to-do list of the greatest movies ever is really two: The Godfather and The Godfather II. I'll admit, I should have seen these before. They're giants of American cinema, I know, but I'm not that fond of the whole mobster genre. So Coppola's masterpieces remain on my unviewed list, along with The Untouchables and any movie with James Cagney. But I'm determined to get to them ... as soon as I can clear five straight hours from my schedule. Which is easier said than done, as I'll demonstrate. Just check out what I've been doing for the past two weeks:

Sat 10/4: Morning, volunteer at Humane Society event; spend lunchtime at black belt show rehearsal; attend Michigan-Illinois game and try not to vomit; pick up Boy on way home.
Sun 10/5: Afternoon out with the family; remind myself what they look like.
Mon 10/6: Teach day class in morning; assist in evening class.
Tues 10/7: Evening flute choir practice.
Wed 10/8: Attend morning class. How did I get an evening free? Try to make dent in 20 hours of DVR recordings.
Thurs 10/9: Volunteer at humane society. Evening band practice.
Fri 10/10: Attend (and participate briefly in) black belt show.
Sat 10/11: Attend 7-hour TKD seminar; run home, shower, run out to Boy's marching band performance.
Sun 10/12: Spend day picking apples and canning applesauce with friends.
Mon 10/13: Morning day class; evening assisting.
Tues 10/14: No rehearsal tonight! Spend three hours doing groceries and assorted non-fun shopping.
Wed 10/15: Attend morning class; attend meeting for marching band volunteers, then attend critique group meeting in Ann Arbor.
Thurs 10/16: Get hair cut, then volunteer at humane society; evening band practice.
Fri 10/17: Tournament team practice. (I'm tired already just thinking about it.)
Sat 10/18: Nothing scheduled today! So we're going to visit family in Canada.
Sun 10/19: Flute choir concert

Oh, and over that two-week period I also produced the program for the black belt show, played chauffeur to Boy several times, did the laundry and shopping and cooking, kept up the blog, and wrote 3000 words worth of critical essays to accompany the horrible coded sketchtops I complained about last week. Amongst all this, sitting down to make up for my cinematic deficits seems a bit self-indulgent. But it will happen soon, I promise. Give me a chance before you dump a horse's head in my bed.

In related grilling news...

Sometimes I like to browse the "strange stories" section of the news networks, just to see what CBS or the AP thinks is strange. And boy oh boy, does it get extremely strange.

Is it coincidence? In my last blog entry, I was writing about how I thought "Outriggers Grill" was a puzzling choice for a restaurant name, because of the challenges inherent in barbecuing out on the open seas. But these folks in California have taken grilling to a whole new level: Sheriff: Family Cremated Mom on BBQ, Kept Benefits.

Evidently, when Mom passed of natural causes, her daughter and grandson decided to cover up her death by putting her in the BBQ pit, lighting up, and then covering it over and planting a tree. (Talk about your green burials!) Oh, but they made sure they had proper "marinating" first, by leaving her in her bedroom for a week before putting her on the grill. (Ack. Sorry, but I can't resist wordplay, no matter how tasteless.) It doesn't look like there was any resentment toward Mom, since the daughter made a necklace out of a piece of her skull. They just wanted to keep collecting the money.

As always with these type of stories, my favorite part is the quote from the authorities. I mean, these guys see it all, so when they think something is strange, it's usually a 10 on the strange-o-meter. Here's the quote: "It gets really weird when you have a piece of mom's skull hanging around your neck," the sheriff said. "I'm not aware of any religion that allows you to burn your family members in the backyard and collect their pension."

Indeed not. And thanks, news media, for pointing out that grilling on a pitching boat isn't the weirdest thing you could be doing with the barbecue.

The Word Nerd Wonders: What did you just call that?

So I'm driving down the freeway this weekend, admiring the fall foliage and feeling grateful I only have to deal with Sunday morning traffic, when I see a sign:

OUTRIGGERS GRILL

Hmm, I think. Sounds like a sports bar, maybe; it's attached to a hotel, so they're trying to get a manly crowd in to eat hot wings and drink beer, increase their customer base outside of hotel guests. "Outrigger" certainly sounds manly, and outdoorsy. I mean, it's OUTside of something, that's manly. And all those Gs: outriGGGrrrrs, GGrrrill, that sure sounds manly, doesn't it?

Wait a minute, my word nerd lobe interjects. Isn't an "outrigger" one of those stabilizing thingies you find on certain kind of boats? I ask TSU, who's my expert on all things naval, and he says yes, you find them on those old Hawaiian/Samoan canoes that traveled the Pacific in olden times. Great. Now I have a mental picture:


So now I'm wondering, how do you grill on that? I mean, it's not big enough for a real manly grill; I don't even think you could fit a hibachi. (TSU replies: those boats were designed for the long haul, they had to cook the food somehow. I countered that even if there was room in the canoe, I didn't think you could manage a grill with all that pitching and rolling on the ocean.)

So I'm getting a totally mixed message from this bar's name.* It's manly, outdoors, and full of GRRRR! It's tough enough to sail the ocean alone in a small canoe! It's too small to cook a really good side of ribs! Oh well. I should have learned by now not to expect businesses to use words that actually make sense.

*To be fair, I actually looked up the place, and if I were 20 years younger and inclined to go out to bars, I might check them out for their live music.

Maybe I'm a dingbat, but this is funny:

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Or maybe I've just done one too many typesetting jobs....