Tea Room The 24th - San Francisco Painted Lady!

[Tee2072]

Welcome to the 24th incarnation of the One-Child Tea Room. Not that you only have to have one! Just so long as you enjoy chat, tea, coffee, cake!!

The usual rules apply - no bunfighting. If you like that sort of thing, go elsewhere.
Other rules: bring . Or .

Our ongoing voyage take us to one of San Francisco's Painted Ladies!

We've brought the Aga over, it's in the back in the cosy kitchen overlooking the back garden. The chintz sofa is in the front room, under the bow window! All of the pillows and duvets have come along as well!

What's that? The Priest Hole? It's just over there --> behind the bookcase!

Mellors is upstairs, preparing the bedrooms for naps and such.

The aspidistras are thriving as they overlook Nob Hill! The horses have found themselves stabled in the Garden, which is much larger than these places usually are in this city!

So come in and have a seat!

::tea hurries off to Powell Street to catch the Cable Car to Ghirardelli Square::

((Hugs)) for all those suffering family politics!

I don't care much if we go to France, but agree that Wriggle needs the language input to continue to be bilingual. We might even go and stay with a friend of mine who has a dd of similar age.

Sister is inclined to giant tantrums/depressions if asked to do any bloody thing to help anything stressful. Have always suspected bipolar disorder. M.Snake doesn't 'do' mental problems of any kind seeing them as self indulgence. He will not be nice to sister when she visits if he finds her annoying in any way, hence my having to cover up. If he isn't nice, she won't visit, AP will be more sad and sister will have no support network. Hence my covering for sister to AP and M,Snake, for M.Snake to sister and AP, for AP to sister .... ((heads for bed, brain boiling))

I'd stay out of it - no good ever comes of getting involved methinks.

Oh lawd, Serpent. Have a hip flask of gin to take to bed.

Scout - Just get in that car and drive home!

::Is mesmerised by Ol' Blue Eyes::

TS is sound asleep. He's a very busy and big day. Lots of walking outside in the morning around the center & shops. And then 2+ hours playing outside in the backyard on the grass with ride-on toys and swings (which he loved, Loved, LOVED).

TS and I will go in the morning after breakfast.

Ugh, Serp, I've very sorry. ?

Wagons roll! .

See you tomorrow, ladies!

oh, goodness, thanks to the earlier muppet link I have spent a happy half hour laughing at the Muppet Bohemian Rhapsody - best bit is the start with the Mighty Gonzo backed by chickens... then Animal singing "Mama" but getting stuck so the whole bit is "mamma? Mamma?" etc - masterpiece

Anyway, thanks for the diversion, since ladies I am meant to be working...

Serpent well, I think TMYMM was being extraordinary. He does sometimes attack you as a sort of sport to make himself feel better doesn't he? Or do I read this wrong? It seems important for him to challenge your self esteem / competency to make himself feel better for which I am very sorry....but not much help I realise

Hugs to others

Thanks, Oxeye -been stuck in there for ages!

Serp, I'm with Oxeye here - that sort of comment isn't constructive, it's just meant to hurt you I think. So sad to hear that he's resorting to this stuff. And how very odd that he regards mental health conditions as some kind of indulgence. I take it he's better qualified on these things than the medical profession or the people who endure them, then? Thought not. Oh dear. Good job he doesn't know me, then

Do have a bracing hug/cup of just the right

Here, I've been < conspiring whisper > moving scaffolding onto site. This does not of course quite fit with 'resting', but it was fun.

Amber - Put down that scaffolding pole now, before Mellors comes to wrest it out of your hands. Why not climb back into the giant teacup? You can't get up to much mischief in there!

What I find extraordinary about TMSMM's dismissal/denial of mental health conditions is that he seems to have some of his own. So maybe the denial is less surprising, if he thinks that everyone should just get on with it, like he does while behaving appallingly to the people closest to him.

Am leaving a large hot chocolate on the Aga for Serpent. I'd deliver it by hand if I lived a bit closer. There's more hot chocolate in the jug and a plate of warm pastries, too.

That's the old and true saying though, I think - that those who say nasty things to others are invariably talking about their own behaviour, not that of the person they're criticising?

::puts scaffolding down and picks up a nice hot choc and pastry::

Yes, Amber, I think so. Sadly, I know people who do just that - their (unfounded) allegations against other people tell you a lot about the way they think and behave. I think too that people who deny that psychological illnesses are illnesses deserving of help and support in just the same way as physical illnesses (not that the distinction between psychological and physical is anywhere like as clear-cut as people make out) often do so because they are in denial about their own need for help.

::abandons soapbox and joins Amber in quaffing and scoffing::

It's very odd behaviour, though. A bit like denying phones exist, or cars.

It is. To continue the analogy, if you have never driven a car, live on Sark and close your eyes to all evidence to the contrary, you might just convince yourself that cars don't exist. But if you're living in a Ford Prefect parked in Tesco's carpark it's all the more perverse.

That said, I am constantly surprised by what used to be (but possibly isn't so much now, in this post-Diana world) the stereotypically 'British' attitude towards psychological ill-health, which is that it's just weediness and attention-seeking and doesn't deserve medical attention, sympathy or empathy in the way that physical illness does.

::scoffs third pastry of the day::

I know I definitely see that theory/behavior in my BiL. We often wonder what goes through his mind at things he says/critizes in other people which are non-existant in the party he's moaning about.

Very true indeed, Maud.

::puts on Soup du Jour, which today has rolls that are less lewd than usual to make up for the totally outrageous ones from the other day::

::Is slightly disappointed that the rolls are only slightly suggestif, as the lewdness of the tea room rolls is one of the few things in life that seems utterly reliable::

Quel est le soupe du jour, aujourd'hui?

C'est Soupe de la Surprise!

::Amber peers into it in a slightly alarmed way::

Gosh, it's made the rolls more curly! Well I never! Those really are too rude!

Oooh, soupe de la surprise. Just what I need. All the surprises I've had so far this morning Have Not Been Good.

::tucks in::

Not good surprises? Drat. Dare we ask? Vaguely?

My parents, who are old and vulnerable, were victims of a nasty attempted crime yesterday. It could have been worse, but I seem to have spent most of the morning on the phone, either to them or to the Met Police (who, to their credit, are being very helpful and have swung into action).

The very much more minor problem is that after weeks of putting it off, we went to Consumer Armageddon (aka an out of town shopping park) to order a new telly. It arrived on Saturday. Except this isn't the telly we ordered and (allegedly) there is no such telly now in the country and nobody yet can tell me (a) when this unwanted telly will be removed from my abode or (b) when the Japanese elves who make tellies will have made one for me. So that's taken care of the rest of my morning. Aaargh.

::slips large slug of sherry into her soup::

::that's a measure of sherry, not a slimy garden pest, by the way::

Oh my re parents and tele! Are they ok? Er, the parents, not the tele?

::tops up the sherry in the soup and offers a bracing pat on the shoulder::

Parents are ok but alarmed by what happened and (as far as I can tell) feeling very vulnerable now. The telly is just an annoyance.