Swimming

On the seventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me, seven swans a swimming.

There's an aphorism that came to mind this week. I know I'm paraphrasing it here. "Be like the duck. Calm on top but paddling like the dickens underneath." It's kind of how I've been feeling. Lots of busy work to do. You know that kind of work. It's little things that HAVE to be done in order to accomplish the big thing. It's frustrating when you want to finish the big project, the one that says, "Look what I did", but you have to pay bills or do wash or clean the bathroom sink. Blogging has taken a back seat to other things that have needed to be done. It's now the ninth day of Christmas and I'm three days behind. Time for some catch up. I have certainly felt like the duck in the aphorism, all calm and collected but paddling like the dickens to keep afloat.

The seventh day of Christmas is the last one with birds. Beginning on day seven and continuing to day twelve, you'll need 35 swans for this particular line. Swans are expensive. The PNC list says they cost $6,300. I assume this is because swans are, for the most part, endangered or threatened. They aren't just something you can run to a farm and purchase. For five days of swans, you'll need to fork out a hefty $31,500 which, of course, doesn't account for something in which they can "swim", a home or food.

These 35 swans join the 12 partridges, 22 doves, 30 French hens, 36 calling birds and 36 geese in your true love's back yard. That's 171 birds. I'm pretty sure I don't have that many wild ones in my yard, even when the grackles show up in flocks.

So what would be a good substitute for swimming swans? I thought about 36 days at a beach-side resort but that would probably set you back more than the PNC 12 Days cost, but water gave me another idea. What about things that go into water?

Ah hot cocoa. This tin of organic coca costs $4.99 at Dominicks. Godiva has a set of 3 canisters, 1 dark and 2 milk chocolate, for $45.00. You also can't pass up Ghirardelli chocolate. They have a 4-pack which includes one each of white mocha, double chocolate, chocolate mocha and chocolate hazelnet, for $27.80. They also have a peppermint hot cocoa for $11.95. If your true love prefers coffee, send them a bag or two or 35 of their whole bean coffee. That will cost $18.00 for one bag.

I adore Cocoa Amore. It's kind of hard to find. I used to be able to get a sampler pack with 8 different flavors. Now, I can only find a 6 pack from C&C Creations for $37.75 with the following flavors; chocolate caramel, french vanilla, chocolate raspberry, chocolate supreme and white chocolate. That's okay because one of the 8 pack flavors was chocolate mint and I don't care for mint in my chocolate.

Unfortunately, chocolate is one of the world's most slave driven commodities. Some of the major chocolate producing countries count on the income they get from chocolate to oppress their citizens. Occasionally, an online petition shows up asking M&M's or Hershey's or Godiva or chocolate makers in Belgium and elsewhere to not buy cocoa beans from places such as the Ivory Coast. For a chocolate lover with a conscience, it can be really difficult to satisfy the craving and feel you have done right by those who do the manual labor. Equal Exchange has a lovely organic hot cocoa for $7.75 that is grown on small plantations where people are paid living wages and where they don't live in deplorable conditions. It can be hard to find but it's good cocoa.

That gives you 6 ideas for hot cocoa and one idea for coffee, but let's go farther. Dunkin Donuts has, I'm told, some of the best coffee on the planet. A bag of their standard coffee is $8.99. Standing in the coffee aisle at the supermarket can be daunting. So, just head over to Caribou Coffee for a bag of their Reindeer Blend, the seasonal coffee. A pound of that is $15.00. Or wander by Starbucks and get a pound of their Holiday Blend for $14.95.

We're done with coffee. I don't drink it so I have no idea what is or is not a great tasting coffee. What I do know is tea and there are a wealth of tea sites on the Internet where you can get great tea. My favorite is Blue Moon Tea Company. You'll want to get one of each of these: Assam (box $7.95), Scottish Blend (box $8.95), Ceylon (bag $7.95), Huckleberry (box $5.95), Brodies Famous Edinburgh's (box $10.95), Scottish Breakfast (Tin $8.95), Chocolate Cream Truffle (loose bag $7.95), Yorkshire Gold (box $11.95), Barry's Irish Breakfast (box $8.50) and Apple Pear Green (loose bag $10.95).

The next place to go is Celestial Seasonings. Most of these you can find on your grocer's shelf. Celestial Seasonings is famous for their naturally decaffeinated and herbal teas. These can be just right for a late night watching of "It's a Wonderful Life". Now is the time they have their holiday flavors out. Each box is $2.99, a veritable steal compared to other beverage costs. Pick up a box of gingerbread spice, sugar plum, candy cane, sugar cookie, nutcracker sweet, caffeine free herbal, cranberry apple, mandarin orange spice, sleepytime and a box of their fruit tea sampler.

Lastly, visit the Bigelow Tea web site. Bigelow is another brand that is ubiquitous on the grocery shelf, but they make very good tea. Plus, their teas usually come in a regular and decaffeinated version. You'll need a box of Constant Comment, English Breakfast, Darjeeling, Earl Grey, Chinese Oolong and Cinnamon Stick. If I am reading their web site correctly, you buy a selection that contains 6 boxes of the variety. That costs $17.75. The teas retail for $4.99. As long as you don't mind 6 boxes of one kind, the pack is the way to go.

That's 36 different drinks that mix with water. Totaling up the cost, you've spent $135.24 on cocoa; $56.94 on coffee; and $149.94 for tea by buying the individual Bigelow teas at the grocery. Total cost for swimming in beverages, $342.12.

Just a hint, if you're sending your true love 36 cheesecakes, adding something to drink with them is a good idea.

Beverage:  Gingerbread Spice tea

Deb

Raiding Supplies.

The weather on this Wednesday afternoon before Christmas has turned nasty. It was rainy, drizzly, this morning. That became ice which is now sleet and pelleted snow. We were let go early today and I swung by the grocery to pick up a few things. As this kind of weather is to continue through Christmas, I am not going anywhere anymore and, therefore, must have a few things to get by.

There's going to be lots of time to read, scratch ears, sleep, scratch ears, play WOW over the back of a lap requiring feline.

In order to play World of Warcraft, some things are necessary:

• A fully charged mouse.
• Water in the tea kettle for tea.
• Portable food that can be eaten while one is flying from place to place.

But when we take on a big dungeon, such as this past Sunday's attempt to down the big purple dragon, you need an extra pick me up. For such things as this, alcohol is usually the beverage to get through the mashing of buttons and the yelling at the screen when the dragon eats you.

I went to the basement, where there is a stash of alcohol, most of it of the liqueur variety, purchased because a recipe required 2 tablespoons of cherry brandy, and then never consumed again. I had one bottle of Sauvingon Blanc. This would be a good raiding wine. I poured myself a glass and went to raid leaving the bottle on the counter.

We downed the dragon. This was a first for my little guild. We have worked very hard to get this dragon down. After dividing up the loot, I decided I had earned another glass of wine.

I poured myself a glass full and noticed these things floating on the top. Closer examination proved them to be fruit flies, at least a dozen, on the top of my wine. I looked in the bottle and the interior of the bottle was filled with fruit flies. Dozens were floating on the top of the wine itself while more were just flying around the inside of the bottle.

Horribly disgusted, I put the cork on the bottle, made myself some tea, and went back to raiding.

I'm at a loss. I have had no fruit flies in the kitchen for several weeks, since I had one banana go bad in early November. Where did they come from and why were they in my wine? On Monday, seeing all of them dead, I poured the whole bottle down the drain. In addition to the whole "gross-out" factor, it was good wine. I would have enjoyed the whole bottle, not in one sitting, mind you, but over the next week.

So, as I strode purposefully through the grocery this afternoon, I added to my cart, bite size Tostitos and shredded cheddar, pears and apples, pretzels, pizza and then went to the alcohol section. To get me through raiding, I have Guinness and a bottle of Asti with which I will toast Christmas on Friday.

I see, looking out my home office window, that we're getting more snow now than sleet. I'm still not going anywhere for the next 3 days. I don't need to. I have cat food and the means to make brownies. What more could I want?

Beverage: English Breakfast tea

Deb

And there was a knock on the door at 9 a.m.

I'm still in bed, mind you. I've been needing sleep all week for obvious reasons. I'm not sleeping well at night and it's been terribly hard to get up in the morning because, honestly, there's no reason to hop out of bed. No one is demanding my presence. No one has attempted to take a bite out of my chin. No one has drooled on my face or meowed in my ear. I'm sleeping in today.

So who is knocking on my door at 9?

I was worried. What if it was Zeke coming over to say he would be mowing my lawn? I would be horribly embarrassed to get out of bed right now. I heard a vehicle drive away. That was double suspicious. I pulled the covers up around my chin and lay there as quietly as I dared.

After about 15 minutes with no more discernable noises from the front steps, I got up and cautiously opened the front door. FedEx left a sticky. There was a package on the front steps.

Now, I ordered more tea and I ordered TechTools for Mac. My Mac has been running slow lately and Perry suggested I get TechTools and defragment the hard drive. That's probably a very good idea. MacMall had it for $20 less than buying through the Apple Store. (I know that's a duh, but I did check. Comparison shopping is something I just do instinctively.) I did not remember paying for next day shipping, but I might have.

I opened the front door, mindful that I'm in my pajamas. There are some things the neighbors just don't need to see. Oh look what's on the front step.

TEA! It's my tea order. I don't remember paying for FedEx delivery for that, either, but hey, this is very important, particularly if it's going to continue to feel like early October instead of August.

So I brought the box inside.

Yesterday, I ordered pizza for supper. Yes, dear readers, Pam's taking me for dinner made me actually get something other than peanut butter M&M's for supper. I also got garlic breadsticks and a 2 liter of Coke with the pizza. There was plenty left for today's lunch AND supper. I also took the Italian sausage links out of the freezer. I think I have pasta that if I crumble these and cook them, I can have a sausage and pasta supper. I could, in fact, cook again. I know you're sitting down so I can say that without you fainting dead away.

I opened the box and there was my order. No, I have no idea how the Scottish Blend tastes. I ordered it because it was on sale. I'm generally not fond of green tea but "Gunpowder Green" has a bite to it that I like. It, too, was on sale. And, at the far right is the Huckleberry tea I've grown rather fond of. This might be enough, with all the flavors you can just see behind these three, to last through Christmas when I might get more, not that I'm hinting or anything.

This was worth getting out of bed for. I expect the software Monday or Tuesday. I know defragmenting the hard drive is a major event so I may be out of pocket for a day, at least. But if it removes the lag, I certainly have the tea to drink while I go do something else.

Beverage: Assam

Deb

This is not funny --- but really, it is.

I log on this morning and my daily dose of comics contains Shoe, Bob the Squirrel and Non Sequitur. While I certainly agree with Non Sequitur for this morning, it was Shoe that caught my eye, given yesteday's post. Way to make fun of me world. Now where did I put that bag of candy bar minis?

I am facing a mini crisis. I am almost out of Huckleberry tea. For Christmas in 2007, Carole sent me a 3 pack of Market Spice tea which contained this cinnamon orange, something labeled "Northwest Breakfast" which was a milder English Breakfast-type, and this Huckleberry infused version. While I liked all of them, the huckleberry infused tea stood above the others. I had to have more.

I went to visit Carole back in 2008 and the mall that contained the JC Penney where she worked had this Made In Washington store. Really nice store. I got my Seattle socks there. Plus, I got a couple boxes of just Market Spice Huckleberry tea. That stash was gone by December. Fortunately, the Made in Washington web site would let me order just Huckleberry so I got two more boxes.

Unfortunately, I am down to my last 10 bags and the site no longer carries the option to order JUST Huckleberry tea. The only way to get it is in a 3 pack or in a gift basket. Grrrr. So I do a search and it seems Market Spice makes more than just those three. I am seeing African Red Bush, Earl Gray, Emperor's Green, Sunset in Seattle, Ginger Peach, Princess Gray, Seattle Surprise, Darjeeling, Raspberry, Apple, 6 Herb, Holiday, Apricot, Blackcurrent, Mango, Chinese Dragon, Cranberry Mint, Peach Ambrosia, Gen Mai Cha, and something new to me called Pu-erh, which comes in cakes. Their ONLY store is on Pike Street in downtown Seattle. This means nothing to me but it must be close to that wonderful market downtown Seattle has. I didn't go there this year when I visited Carole.

When you check for Market Spice on the Internets, it says their tea is sold by Amazon.com. BOO! HISS! I hate, loathe and abhor shopping through Amazon. But I found Blue Moon Tea online also sells Market Spice and has my Huckleberry and some of those others listed above. I get paid tomorrow so I believe a tea order is in my future. 2 or 3 boxes?

Beverage: Huckleberry tea

Deb