The Right Cuppa - In Praise of Tea

I'm going to use again a line that I used to talk about cheese with a vegan: 'Leave it alone!'

This time, I'm not going to defend my addiction to cheese whilst chatting with someone who tried to label it as animal abuse; it's all about tea.

I must admit that when I saw the title, I blinked. As I read the article, I kept blinking. And I kept thinking that someone was in need of a good cuppa, or he needed to admit to himself that he's a closet coffee-lover (and that it's not a sin).

I can drink the lowest kind of tea (I stop at Lipton, for personal reasons), and I can have milk, or not.

Usually, when I'm home, I don't have milk, so I drink my tea black (sometimes, I don't even add any sugar - for literary reasons that I shan't explain here).

A delightful Oxonian lady taught me to brew properly (she was on the "tea first" side; then again, if we're to believe that it all boils down to the quality of our china cups, she had outstanding pieces and was brought up in a very good family, who probably poured tea first since the 19th century).

I'm quite Zen in the kitchen, but there are a few things that I buy that are on the posh side. My Korean soups are cheap, but I love them. My rice is the best Thai quality. I make my bread and pasta from any kind of flours.

When I'm at home, I'm extremely picky with my teas. I buy exotic flavoured and scented blends from Mariage Frères. I have a "baby kettle", and a special spoon-filter for the lovely leaves that will brew in one of my favourite cups. I don't have to scratch my brain or turn into philosophical mood to know that my evening cuppa is a treat I love. Not because of tradition. Because I chose my blend wisely, and it happens that I do enjoy it.

If one was to pour Lipton down my throat, I'd probably growl and bite, but since I get to choose what I drink, there's no problem.

I see many issues in the article that brings me here today:

- unless you're offered a cup of tea in a blend that you loathe, what the heck is wrong with being offered a cup of tea when you visit friends or family. It's a ritual. It's friendship. It's being polite. It's taking time to stop the world and get to catch up on one another's lives, share things, and be nice (and it can make Nana or Cousin Charlotte happy).

- Mr Golby writes 'It’s a lukewarm mug of leaf water, presented as a cure-all for life’s ills'. What's coffee then? A lukewarm mug of crushed-bay water? Perhaps he prefers coffee or water or whatever, but now that several other options are easily available, I just can't picture so many people being such masochists and keeping drinking something they loathe out of tradition. I may be wrong, though, judging by the state of the world, but... I'll try to be optimistic.

- the "when to add the milk" issue is ridiculous. Add yours whenever you want, let me add mine whenever I want, and everything will be all right. We've got three sides: 'milk first', 'milk last', and 'I bloody don't care!!!'.

- the tea-making-at-work fantasy is irrelevant as it could be a nightmare scenario with any kind of beverage. It could be tea; it could be hot cocoa... but the nastiness of tea has to be spread everywhere. [I'm beginning to spot a pattern here]

- speaking of everywhere, tea becomes a symbol of colonialism, and then you know it's evil: if you drink tea, you must be missing being a slave owner (that's how far I read this, and I shook my head in disbelief - okay, my tea is French... which is a double offence, it seems!).

- when I read this: 'Once we examine tea, once we put that central tenet of British culture under the microscope, what else will we start to doubt? Gin? The royal family? Dancing dogs on TV talent shows? Black pudding? An inherent hatred of the French?', I growled loudly, because of the last item. 'An inherent hatred of the French?', but of course! Hello, Cliché! My father is British, and my mother is French; should I wonder if Father is nuts or if I should kill half of me for being such a despicable creature (a bit as if I were an Irish woman with Catholic and Protestant parents, you know)?

I think the colonialism and "French hatred" thingies got my Mrs Hyde a bit out. Then I Googled the writer's name, found his Twitter feed, realized what his line is, and... I went to brew a cup of "Mangue" by Mariage Frères in a lovely china cup.

Some of the comments on the article are worth your time, actually (so click the link, and scroll down to them right away).

Dealing with PTSD

How and why I ended up with PTSD today isn't the important thing (in this post, or in my life). My bottom line is that I've got to deal with that, and "traditional" ways of facing that condition didn't work for me.

Just like the sword of Damocles that is the Void that can make me spiral again into depression and make me try to do maths in order to find the right length of rope, PTSD is just always around the corner.

I'm always wary of PTSD attacks because they can make me slip into the Void, and that becomes even more dangerous.

I try to control the Void with plants, and good books, series, and films.

I had to come up with something (something that's slightly barmy) in order to tame my version of PTSD anxiety.

Writing and good things works for both the Void and PTSD, but when I can feel PTSD creeping up on me, I've discovered that my mild OCD can help a bit because I need rituals. Since nothing (therapy or whatever) helped before, I found out that I can silence the angst playing computer games until quiet comes back.

Last year, a nightmare of a biped at work accused me of things I never was guilty of, and I ended up creating a huge file proving that I was the victim in all this. No one at work thought that it was very important (they believed me, but the guilty twat was never really punished for stressing me). I knew that I was innocent, but the situation started a nasty episode where I had panic attacks, I couldn't sleep properly, and I had very graphic nightmares. For weeks, I was a shadow of myself, and it's only when I realized that playing Mah-jong or Minesweeper could tame the inner monster that I found some relief ['If I win X games, everything's gonna be fine.'].
Right now, I'm away from work, and the people who should be answering me are silent (these bipeds have been silent for weeks, and even if May looks like Swiss cheese on the calendar because of the number of Bank Holidays where we're parked, they should have answered me days ago - coz they can't have been all caught in the same massive accident and be stuck in hospital right now); in consequence, I'm imagining all sorts of apocalyptic scenario that have me ending up living under a bridge or feeding the river fish.
It took me a bit of time to pinpoint the very first signs of a possible PTSD issue, but I can try to do something by writing (and now, you're included in the equation; lucky you) and by playing against the computer until I stop hyperventilating (that's my DIY version of "Let's do something against that sodding PTSD").
Honestly, the panic attacks and general anxiety suck.

"Harriet" Potter, with a Silver Lining

It's not really that I'm a witch, but since I get stuck with Muggles (my blood relatives) almost each time there's a school holiday (that's the one annoying thing for me as a teacher: they just have to look at the calendar to know when I'm going to be free to come and see them visit them in order to be slaved), I've taken to comparing myself with a female Harry Potter forced to stay with the Dursleys (some of you even know that I call their house New Privet Drive, or NPD).

Yes, they're deeply annoying, and bigoted, and old-fashioned, and (sometimes) racist, but I've been training for years to tune out bipeds that bug me, so I can be in front of them, nod and 'Oh!' and 'Ahhh!' at all the right places (and if I miss one, since they're becoming deaf, I can get away with almost any wrong answer now).

So, yes, they're a pain in the You-Know-What (Merlin! Sorry for that lousy Potter-related pun!), but I've learnt to make lemonade:

- as of right now, I'm making them pay for half my trip to come see them.

- I get to spend a lot of time in the garden which means that:

     a) I don't have to deal with them for hours and hours

     b) I don't have to pay a sports club to get very nice muscles

     c) I stop looking like the average vampire, and I get a nice tan (except during the Christmas break)

- they feed me (and we're not talking brains [sic] on toast or other horrors)

- I do all the things they can no longer do, which means that:

     a) I'm learning DIY skills that I can use in my nest later

     b) they're feeling sad because they see me do (quite easily) things that they can no longer do

    c) they're beginning (with age) to feel a bit guilty for taking so much of my time (and having them feeling somehow indebted to me can always be useful)

- when I do anything for them, I do that thing I started when I was working on my PhD: I think about what I'm going to write. With the PhD, it started one day as I was unsure about a chapter, and I relaxed and found the right sequence whilst washing up. Now, I've got the plot bunnies in my head, and I plot their next actions as I do stuff for the Muggles.

In fact, the one thing that really bugs me about my Muggles is their slight tendency to sing the same songs several times a day (if they were singing all the time, I'd be in Bedlam - or Reading - by now).

As well, my kitten loves the garden, and he's been through enough. He deserves regular breaks from my tiny flat - and this is why, Ladies & Gentlemen, I still visit my annoying Dursleys, and I try to make the most of it.

Calling Plonkers Plonkers

As I've said before, I'm (probably mostly) done being nice.

There are so many people who are crouching in the shadows, waiting to tear your throat open at the slightest hint of decency and kindness that they'd translate into a proof of weakness, that my patience broke.

Right now, I've been waiting for two bipeds to give me work-related answers, but all I'm getting is the sound of silence. I'll have to waste time contacting them (for the third bloody time!), and I know that one of the two deserves to be read the riot act in a way that'll make its ears shrivel [if it turns out, which is highly improbable, that they were both in car crashes, I'll be nice. If not... It's quite simple: Hell is going to look like a cool and quiet spot].

As well, I sign e-petitions (the first to say that clicktivism doesn't work gets a free trip to Saturn - launching to be made, thanks to my boot, until it actually works).

In my e-signing early days, I was quite respectful, even if the petition was to be sent to a complete idiot, who was slaughtering baby penguins for fun (or anything)... But plonkers are plonkers, and either they won't stop doing whatever it is they're doing even if 99% of the planet population asks them to stop or they'll feel bad (or more probably they will realize that they can't afford a boycott), and they'll change their tune.

I'm done being nice with them, and if I sign something that denounces something that I find disgusting, be it to stand by a biped or any other kind of animal, I tell the target of the petition exactly how its action or inaction makes me feel (I've just insulted a military twat and a medical charlatan for condoning various forms of bullying - one of the two plonkers being potentially responsible for the death of a child, not for medical reasons, but because of religious dogma and bigotry). 

Sometimes bipeds need to be reminded that they're plonkers and that they must change their tunes - and e-yelling at them gets my blood pressure down, so...

A Spot of Art

My publisher (she's a friend) told me that I could have whatever I want on the cover of my fantasy novel, so, of course, I had to create something.

I give you my first work with watercolour, and ink:

Brain Betrayal

Since my very first computer, I've always been creating folders that have sub-folders, that have sub-folders, that have sub-folders, and so on and so forth.

They're my creations, so I can navigate them pretty well.

I've got a special folder where I keep my stories, and since one of my desk computers' motherboard died on me without warning, I always make fresh copies of my files on two flash-drives (at least).

When I'm away from my main computer, I use the biggest flash-drive to add my files on guest computers.

I was hacked once (whilst doing research for my fantasy book!), and I lost half a page of work. Since that day, I save a copy of my files before I close my computer down.

In my Sci-Fi folder, I have the file where I paste all my stories, nine files for each story I've planned in this universe, and the file that I use for the story I'm currently writing (I'd pictured big short stories, but Story #1 & #2 grew to be novels; I won't make any prediction about the others, I'll just obey my plot bunnies - it's safer).

In the past days, I've been reading again the second story to make sure that none of my characters's got an extra arm that I added to the plot. So... my brain was focussed on Story #2, and when I opened the file for Story #3, I was convinced that I was dealing with an old copy, and that I'd forgotten to save the few lines I'd started writing a week ago. I really thought that I'd made a mistake somewhere......

*cough*

Yea... erm... the file for Story #3 has the 'old' version of it, the blueprint for the plot. However... the file I use for the current story (and that would be Story #3, thank you not, dear Brain, for frightening me!) has the right text.

In the future, I'm not ruling out a mistake because of exhaustion or something, but I should give more credit to my OCD and check the right file before I start panicking and wondering what I did wrong.

I've got many plot bunnies to tackle, but when I'm in the mood to write a specific one, I should do that.

Pfft! Plot bunnies... and silly brain cells.

Ratty in the Garden

The few times I've had to deal with "Jerry" and his friends in town, I wasn't a happy bunny because I feel there's something that's not natural in their being in my flat (which is stupid, because I live above cellars where mice and rats live happily ever after).

In the countryside, I don't mind them. I rescue mice and other rodents from the cats and free them if they're not too chewed.

I recently had an unusual (to me) encounter with a field rat (if he'd been in my town flat, I'd still be hanging from the chandelier!!).

I was mowing the lawn behind the garden edge, and along the neighbour's wall, I saw that huge rat that looked at me. What I find extraordinary is that it was in a hurry to leave the area, but it didn't look scared. It looked straight at me as if to tell me, 'I'm just going home; that's all. Let's ignore each other, shall we?'.

I can be a nice biped: I stopped Tarzan (yep, my lawn-mower), and waited a couple of minutes to make sure that Ratty was in the neighbours' garden and away from harm by Tarzan.

Now, if any of the cats in the area spots it, Ratty's toast.

One Angry Bunny

Yes, I'm calling myself a 'bunny'. And why not?

Things are strange these days, and being growly and angry is getting more results than being decent and kind and compassionate.
Oddly enough, as far as I can remember, characters (from books, series or films) have been a kind of inspiration, and these days, it's Carolyn Knapp-Shappey, who is my model (she's my Rory - and if you don't know Cabin Pressure, you're going to be lost... and I recommend that you binge-listen to John Finnemore's creation[s]).

Basically, I've growled at bankers, thus treating them the way they tried to treat me, and that got them to change their tune. They look like bullies, who don't have the guts to face someone standing up to them.

Then... my Muggles. I snap back at them, and I've found a couple of ways to make them feel bad and inadequate <insert a Slytherin smirk here>. That's not much, but they're all confused, and just that is rather funny - and worth the time I'm somehow wasting because of them.

Last: DIY department stores. I'm absolufuckingly done asking men anything there. Since someone (yea, a bloke) had used my lawn-mower in such a way that Tarzan (yea, that's my lawn-mower's name) needed a new air filter (ta - muchly, by the way!), I went to buy one. Incidentally, I can actually clean the original filter, but that'll take me a bit of time (since filters are so cheap, the bloke who recommended me to buy one probably thought that cleaning the old one's not worth the effort *pfft!*). I know the kind of filter I need, and whilst Mother was asking the head of the DIY section where there are lawn-mowers' accessories, I found my filter and headed back to Mother right on time to hear the DIY bloke telling her that we wouldn't find that variety of filter in his section, and that we'd have to head to another section. Since I needed something else behind him, I walked past him, and never stopping, I showed him the box and said, 'Found it!'. From the corner of my eye, I saw him freeze. That bloke's working there, for Merlin's sake! But I did a better job all alone.

When I grow up, I want to be Carolyn Knapp-Shappey. ^_~

"Stoopid" Bankers 2.0

Crikey! Today's been a festival of stupidities - at two different banks.

First, I asked my main bank what they do to protect e-clients - and even though I told the manager that I've found an activity where I won't ask them to lend me a single penny - he didn't want to answer me until I told him what I was planning to do. The thing is, I'm not telling any of these hyenas what I have in store (pun intended) until they have signed a non-disclosure agreement (I do not trust them with my very good, original idea). I gave him enough info to answer me, but His Highness wanted to know what I'm going to do. From there, in my head, that went 'Sorry, Cupcake. Drop dead; I don't need you as you're not the only bank in town.'

Then, I went to my other bank, and I wanted to deposit a lovely and crisp £20 banknote on my account (just because I don't want to have to give them money because my "piggy-bank" account isn't used enough according to them). I was then informed that branches with an open welcome desk (ruddy all of them in their new architecture!!) do not accept cash deposits as it could be dangerous for the employees.

So:

Question1: What do you do when you want to deposit cash on your account?

Answer: You go to the other side of town to the main branch. [Yea... no problem! Got nothing better to do with my time whilst there's the branch with my account right down my street. Of coooourse.]

Question2: Why did the gal at the welcome desk dare to ask me why I wanted to deposit <insert fake gasp here> cash? She wanted to know why I had cash, and where it came from.

Answer: I'm not going to finance terrorism or a drug cartel with £20, Sweetie, and if I want to transfer money from Bank #1 to Bank #2, I'll do it any way I please. I'm planning to ask the gal in charge of my account to take my banknote - if she doesn't want to do that just the once (because I'm not going to let the welcome desk gal decide what I can or cannot do. Full stop), I'll have another chat with the manager, who's a delightful lady with a brain.

It's absolutely lovely how banks and their employees want to know everything about us and to control everything - and want to tell us what they want us to do.

Dream on, Cupcake, dream on.