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::

Hello everyone.

I am surprised Tales is not on eBooks. Have you looked in other formats that you can convert for the Kindle?

I'm afraid I cannot help with the religious questions as I am a.) not Christian and b.) not religious.

LCT took forever to go down last night and then woke up at 530. But today he's at daycare all day...I think I'm off back to bed!

Who has the coffee pot?!?!

UnSerp, I too have not much clue what people are talking about, but I think they're saying some of them are transsexuals and there's real hash in this morning's brownies.

Do have one! I am! Like, wow, man!!

Re religious themes - yes, water would be brilliant. I'd contact the charity REInspired - they specialise in ideas for introducing religion into schools and I'm sure would help. Lovely people, too. Google their name and their website should appear.

UniS, how's the shoulder this morning?

Who would like a cup of something to go with their hash brownies??

Ooo, morning, Tee! The coffee pot is just behind that giant plant being grown under really hot lights, I think.

San Fran, hey - have the bishops been on the trams yet? Hope they haven't had any of your hash brownies, amber :)

Gosh no, there's no sign whatsoever of any Bishops partaking in any of the hash brownies after accidentally mistaking them for the real thing due to a mislabelling incident by the health and safety rep here

::Amber tries to disguise the goings-on in the priest hole by sitting firmly on the lid::

Thumb how lovely to see you!! Peace, Man!!

hey, cool! good to meet some gentle people here, with some motion and vibrations - or is that just the brownies' effect again?

Been on a bit of a break - hoping to ease my way back in now we're all chilling, man. :)

Small piece of advice...these days Haight Ashbury is not the scene...unless your scene is drug addicts and hookers.

SF is not in the 60s any more!

Sorry gang!

Am steering clear of hash brownies. The only hash I've ever had involved corned beef (who would have thought that cows got corns? I've heard of cows IN the corn...)

I'm always interested in the almost primal urge of humans to make offerings to any standing water - just look at any well/fountain and the coins at the bottom.

Have I told you about my dad growing budgie hemp seed ? He claimed it was an experiment as someone had said you couldn't. Of course he grew it in the field, and someone stole the plants. It amused him to think of someone trying to get high off it.

is it still in budgie seed, CMOTD? or was this some time ago? Our finch seed sprouted but all the sprouts died before they were an inch high so I don't know what they were.

It was (apparently) bought as hemp seed (non cannabinoid) for budgie feeding.

DS is super excited as the gym club at school is now open to reception. He was v unhappy last term when I thought he wouldn't want to go to another, similar club, but he did .

oh that's really great for him! I have miniThumb doing dancing classes now - half hour tap, half hour jazz straight after - and he has his first show in 9 days time! Eeeeeppp! He's not very good yet, bless him, but then none of the others are that crash hot either so he won't stick out like a sore thumb apart from being the only boy on the stage. There is another one in the class but he apparently isn't doing the show (possibly just as well for his concentration levels ).

aaw thumb... so nice to see you back. How are you my darling? xxx

I really want to get all 'flowers in my hair' but in my current read the main character avoids hippies as girlfriends because he once had one and she left her Birkenstocks on for love making which he didn't like. He has just found true love with a chubby and kind Jewish Mamma. So all seems ok for him, but sadly for me, the whole hippy luuurve scene has put the breaks on my own inner hippy.

Thumb - ds loves his ballet class, and I am desperate to see them dancing. He's the only boy I think. Another mum told me that her ds 'would never do that as he was a real boys boy' . Not sure what she thinks ds is tbh, but the yummy mummies make me laugh anyway

What are you reading Tea ?

Today I need to make loads of cupcakes for the bake sale tomorrow. I have luvverly little rice paper bunnies to stick into the icing

Thumb, yes it is still in bird seed. We inadvertently grew at three foot plant on the back stoep last summer, next to the bird table. And very magnificent it was too. Of course, it has been suitably disposed of.

I am definitely going to do water as a topic - as you say, Oxeye, masses of potential.

Tee, not being Christian or religious does not preclude one from teaching it. (I would classify myself as religious but not necessarily very Christian.)

Was on my way to take Wriggle for a visit to the reception class this morning; felt very reluctant until I found that the car won't start again, now really want to go. Have also forgotten to charge my phone, so phone is on charge while I try the car again, then we are off to try again. At this rate we may arrive just as everyone is leaving. Or not at all if the car won't start.

Agh! Cars - argh! We went down to Sydney on Monday after miniT's football to collect a rare old book for Dad and while there detoured out to Palm Beach (where they film Home & Away). But miniT fell asleep en route to the beach, and Palm Beach wasn't that easy to see without stopping the car. So headed back and then saw a sign for Whale Beach - who could resist? Drove down, it was fab, you could park right next to the beach, beautiful crashing surf, miniT still asleep. Jumped out, went 10 feet to the kiosk to get water and an icecream, came back, miniT refusing to wake up. Sat there with the air-con on for ~10mins while eating the icecream - went to start the car - nothing. 10 friggin minutes. Luckily, nice man pushed the car for me to clutch-start it and we got home no problems.
Tuesday - no problems, thought it was a one-off.
Yesterday - went to the petrol station as was running on fumes, filled it up, went to start it - nothing. Another nice man pushed it for me to clutch start it and this time I drove straight to the auto shop and yet another nice man fitted the new battery for me.

Even though Aussie men can be chauvinistic pricks, they also go in more for the old-fashioned chivalry thing, luckily!

Serpent - I haven't posted on it for pages, but are you on that RE in education thread or are you studiously avoiding it?

Tea my lovely - it's nice to be back - am embracing my inner-tree-hugger at the moment, after going to a Natural Trade Show in Sydney last Friday. Might even get back into working again, just have to make a few phonecalls, send a few emails, test out the water and see how much it costs to get going (I can't and won't work without personal indemnity insurance and that's a bit hard to get without validation from some professional body or other).

CMOTD - we had a bit of something like that last week - 2 boys in the class, neither of them particularly effeminate, and the brother of one of the dancing girls wanted to join in. His mother looked at him and scoffed "really?? you want a go at dancing?" and her implication was all too obvious (which I found very rude considering I was well within earshot). But fair enough, she let him have a go and he seemed to have a great time! He wasn't there this week though :(

I hate that dancing is still seen as poofy or whatever - do people still not understand how strong male dancers are?

Fortunatly, DSs cousin (who is 16, 6'4 and strapping) dances, so ds has positive role models in that. He also doesn't give a monkeys what anyone else thinks - which has its ups and downs.

Just amazes me how parents categorise children so early

Unserp - Ooooh - good luck with the school thing.

Hmmmm - Your car problem is starting to sound extreme... could you start thinking about changing it?

CMOT - www.amazon.co.uk/Finkler-Question-Howard-Jacobson/dp/1408809109/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1299752693&sr=8-1 It isn't wonderful and it isn't terrible. The subject matter isn't very BBC Sunday night drama (aging men about town, what it is to be a Jew, self questioning and doubt and notions of belonging) but the pace and tone is very Sunday night bbc drama IYSWIM and the writing is quite tight so it is feeding the 'hot chocolate, escapism read' that I need right now.

CMOT (or anyone-else)- I keep reading good things about Linda Grant. Have you read any of her books? She sounds interesting.

Morning all. I think I just tripped over one of the bishops on the porch, who does seem to have turned on, tuned in and dropped out.

And, yes, I do understand that it is no longer the Summer of Love but - as this is the Tea Room of Requirement - we all experience it in different ways. What I am experiencing is all the expectations and ideas about California which have accumulated since I watched the Brady Bunch and listened to the Beach Boys. Groovy, man.

Oh my! I think that's one of the Bishops from our Diocese! Wondered where he'd got to...

Hey, lady, wanna share my pot?

Or would you prefer some weed?