Today's tea has been brought to you by... MONKEYS!

Want no silver threads among the go-o-old
Want no silver threads among the go-o-old
Want no silver threads, want some action instead
Want no silver threads among the go-o-old

Be my life's companion and you'll never grow old
I'll love you so much that you'll never grow old
When there's joy in living you just never grow old
You've got to stay young 'cause you'll never grow old

People who are lonely can be old at thirty-three
Don't let it happen to you, and don't let it happen to me

Be my life's companion and you'll never grow old
You'll never grow old, no, you'll never grow old
Love and youth and ha-appiness are yours to have and hold
Be my life's companion and you'll never grow old

I-I-I know a man who's lonely and he's old at thirty-three
No one wants to be - old at thirty-three
Your-our-our disposition sours like a lemon on a tree
Don't let it happen to you and don't let it happen to me

Be my life's companion and you'll never grow old
Yes I'll love you so much that you'll never grow old
Love and youth and ha-appiness are yours to have and hold
Be my life's companion, be my life's companion
And you'll never grow old

(a song that we love, recorded by the Mills Brothers in 1951)


When you are a teenager and you start to get acne, you are told that it's a teenager thing. No one ever told me I'd have acne and wrinkles at the same time!

In the past few years, and particularly the past year, I've noticed the fine lines becoming deeper in my face. yes, I am getting OLD!

I take comfort in the fact that the lines appearing in my face and in Paul's, were worn there together. Like a chain and sprocket, our wear lines come from each other, fitting together perfectly as we age into something made only to fit one another. Will the way he looks at me become permanently marked on his face? I see lines now where I raised my eyebrow at his jokes and knitted my brows in mock disapproval.

The stress lines of our trials and the remnants of the crooked smile I give him are, like it or not, becoming a more prominent feature, a permanent map of our times together. I don't know what to make of the acne and twisty fishing line grey hairs. Am I growing old and regressing to teenage years at the same time?

It's a salad dressing! No, it's a hair conditioner!

Lately I've been trying a lot of natural body care stuff. It started a few months ago when I got this book from our Li-Berry, and continued when Santa read my Amazon wishlist and brought me this book.

So I've tried a few recipes from the new book and had mixed results. Mostly good.
I've always been somewhat aware of bad ingredients in body products, but now I know enough to never want to buy any "normal" product again.

But I like crafty endeavors, so I enjoyed ordering up a bunch of ingredients from Mountain Rose, and who doesn't love the mad scientist feel of mixing up concoctions with eyedroppers and glass bottles?

The olive oil from Mountain Rose smells sooooo good (really good quality) and I'm enjoying smearing it on my face every night. Paul can never tell whether some food item is in the cupboard for eating or smearing on my face or hair.

Thus far, I'm still looking for a real conditioner recipe. I mean something that feels like regular conditioner. I know people are making conditioner and selling it on etsy, so it has to be easy to do. But so far, I'm only finding food-type conditioners (avocado, eggs, honey, stuff like that) So the search continues. My hair being as long as it is, a lot of the basic assumptions about making conditioners don't work. For instance, a "hair butter" that contained mostly oil was way too heavy and hard to wash out. (maybe I should try it again and dilute it with glycerin?)

There's No Place Like Home

Kansas!
Paul and I spent a few days in Overland Park, KS a couple of weeks ago. Highlights?
I saw cardinals for the first time!

And they have proper Blue Jays. Their Jays look very different from our Stellar's and Western Scrubs, but most interestingly, they sound completely different. Jays are corvids, and so related to our beloved crows and ravens, as well as the ever-present European Starling. I'm accustomed to our Stellar Jays angry squawk, and our Western Scrub Jays questioning screech, but the Blue Jays in Kansas sound like... regular birds. Whistles and tweets, almost.

On a side note, we've recently been getting Western Scrub Jays at our backyard feeder, and I love the yelling in the morning. It's like waking up at camp.

In addition to the two new birds, we also saw Paul's Dad and Stepmom for their birthdays. It was relaxing, of course, because there is not a lot to do there. We caught up with family, which is wonderful, and drank lots of wine. Saturday, I took over the kitchen with Paul's wonderful stepmom and baked snickerdoodle cookies. On Sunday, Paul and I ventured out into the Big City to see what we could see. What did we see?

First, I lived out a childhood dream, and died of Cholera.

Next, I found a beer, where we sat at the bar. It was superbowl sunday, which meant nothing to us. The Superbowl was to start at 2pm, and it was much earlier. Most screens in the bar showed pre-game bullshit (I don't even understand watching sports, but watching people talk about sports???? WTF?) but one screen was set to Puppybowl, which? Genius. Now, if the sports pubs would set half their screens to sports and half their screens to Puppybowl (or Puppy World Series, or whatever) then couples could actually go and enjoy game days together. And families. Who doesn't love puppies?

After fortifying ourselves with beer (for me) and sody-pop (Paul), we decided to tour the Big City... by car, because it was assbitingly cold, and it's miles between interesting things. After a bit of driving around looking at buildings, and getting out once to look at historical markers and an overlook, we decided it was too cold and too boring, so we went back to the house.

...Where we did some IT (did you know there are still people running Netscape as their browser?) and more relaxing and catching up.


Then? At the airport, I figured, "this is Kansas!" so I clicked my heels together three times and found myself at home. Hooray.