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Jun. 26th, 2004 03:23 am*stretches out on sunny futon like big fluffy dog, and snoozes*
I officially have the house to myself after a lovely morning/afternoon spent with My Hosts, who definitely deserve the uppercase letters. *waves to Homeward-Bound Hosts, happily*
This morning, after waking and washing and a brief drill on how to work public transportation, since I am lame at it, we went to Laurel Hill cemetary. It's the second-oldest cemetary in the US, and we had a lot of fun tromping around in it. It was a heck of a hike, but a really great time, and especially nice to have them along -- usually when I go wandering in graveyards I'm alone, as my family thinks it's morbid and I don't often travel with companions. We peered into crypts and pointed out unique gravestones and made fun of one or two --
Sam: There are a lot of obelisks here.
Claire: Yes, there do seem to be areas where there are various trends....
Sam: Good lord, look at that draped one.
Michelle: It looks a bit naughty, doesn't it.
Claire: Draped for modesty?
Sam: From here it looks more like "Draped for your protection."
-- before we wandered back to the entry gates to inquire about one of the gravestones we stumbled upon. It was a mosaic, in colour, one of the few really colourful points of the cemetary, so we asked the supervisor (groundskeeper? Tour guide?) about it. It's a two-piece map -- I'll post photos on Friday -- of Europe/Africa and North America. It's got two lines charted on it, one leaving Israel and one leaving England, and both converging in America.
Apparently the story is that these two people met in Israel and both immigrated to America, and had a child there, and he died -- we weren't really sure about the immigrating thing, since the lines start from different places and converge a few inches apart on the map, but the point is that it's a monument to their son uniting them, sort of. It's really quite lovely -- italian tile, assembled in NYC and designed by the mother, who's an architect. Also sad, as their son was only twenty-two, but it's a very pretty monument.
Anyhow, after that we went on to have High Tea at a little local cafe.
OMG HIGH TEA.
It has been years, literally, since I've had real "afternoon tea" or real devonshire clotted cream. And this wasn't just tea with scones and clotted cream (specially ordered by reservation). This was a three-course tea. With sandwiches. And scones. And CLOTTED CREAM DID I MENTION THE CLOTTED CREAM and strawberry preserve and five types of cake and personal teapots.
The personal teapots came first after we were introduced to the tea and allowed to smell it, which you should always do before trying new tea, because scent is a huge part of the experience. I loved the smell of the ginger tea, but it was black tea which is not so good for me (caffeine) so I had "Blue Eyes" fruit tea which smelled wonderful and tasted pretty great too, and settled for having a nip of Claire's (she got the ginger tea, Michelle chose an Indian black tea) when I'd finished my first cupful.
The first course was savoury tea-sandwiches; butter crackers with cheese, two open-faced finger-sandwiches, one with cucumbers and one with some kind of salmon spread, and a small buttery watercress sandwich. It was at this point that I failed high tea by dropping the last bite of my salmon-spread sandwich on the floor, but I was forgiven.
The second course was the traditional scones with devonshire cream and preserves; even the little knife for the cream and the flat spoon for the preserves. And GINORMOUS AND MOUNTAINOUS were the scones. And there was more tea. And jokes about The Importance of Being Earnest. And a discussion of Rupert Everett's ridiculous moustache. Which somehow evolved into a discussion of utopian feminist lit, the femslashiness of Midsummer, and the OED.
By the time the cakes came around, frankly, we were stuffed -- there was a chocolate mousse, baklava, pineapple-upside-down-cake, summer pudding(!!!) and one I'm forgetting because I'm stuffed full of tea. A leetle bitty slice of each for each of us, and we didn't even finish that. We also had strawberries, but I gave mine to a good cause ("Women who like strawberries better than I do") and we got the cakes in cool take-home boxes, which Claire and Michelle have taken home in the true sense of the word, as their cakes are going on the plane to California with them.
And then we staggered home, bearing our cakes and moaning happily about how full we were, and now the Hosts are off to California, and I am here and very sleepy.
Really. One of these days I'll stop napping. :D
I officially have the house to myself after a lovely morning/afternoon spent with My Hosts, who definitely deserve the uppercase letters. *waves to Homeward-Bound Hosts, happily*
This morning, after waking and washing and a brief drill on how to work public transportation, since I am lame at it, we went to Laurel Hill cemetary. It's the second-oldest cemetary in the US, and we had a lot of fun tromping around in it. It was a heck of a hike, but a really great time, and especially nice to have them along -- usually when I go wandering in graveyards I'm alone, as my family thinks it's morbid and I don't often travel with companions. We peered into crypts and pointed out unique gravestones and made fun of one or two --
Sam: There are a lot of obelisks here.
Claire: Yes, there do seem to be areas where there are various trends....
Sam: Good lord, look at that draped one.
Michelle: It looks a bit naughty, doesn't it.
Claire: Draped for modesty?
Sam: From here it looks more like "Draped for your protection."
-- before we wandered back to the entry gates to inquire about one of the gravestones we stumbled upon. It was a mosaic, in colour, one of the few really colourful points of the cemetary, so we asked the supervisor (groundskeeper? Tour guide?) about it. It's a two-piece map -- I'll post photos on Friday -- of Europe/Africa and North America. It's got two lines charted on it, one leaving Israel and one leaving England, and both converging in America.
Apparently the story is that these two people met in Israel and both immigrated to America, and had a child there, and he died -- we weren't really sure about the immigrating thing, since the lines start from different places and converge a few inches apart on the map, but the point is that it's a monument to their son uniting them, sort of. It's really quite lovely -- italian tile, assembled in NYC and designed by the mother, who's an architect. Also sad, as their son was only twenty-two, but it's a very pretty monument.
Anyhow, after that we went on to have High Tea at a little local cafe.
OMG HIGH TEA.
It has been years, literally, since I've had real "afternoon tea" or real devonshire clotted cream. And this wasn't just tea with scones and clotted cream (specially ordered by reservation). This was a three-course tea. With sandwiches. And scones. And CLOTTED CREAM DID I MENTION THE CLOTTED CREAM and strawberry preserve and five types of cake and personal teapots.
The personal teapots came first after we were introduced to the tea and allowed to smell it, which you should always do before trying new tea, because scent is a huge part of the experience. I loved the smell of the ginger tea, but it was black tea which is not so good for me (caffeine) so I had "Blue Eyes" fruit tea which smelled wonderful and tasted pretty great too, and settled for having a nip of Claire's (she got the ginger tea, Michelle chose an Indian black tea) when I'd finished my first cupful.
The first course was savoury tea-sandwiches; butter crackers with cheese, two open-faced finger-sandwiches, one with cucumbers and one with some kind of salmon spread, and a small buttery watercress sandwich. It was at this point that I failed high tea by dropping the last bite of my salmon-spread sandwich on the floor, but I was forgiven.
The second course was the traditional scones with devonshire cream and preserves; even the little knife for the cream and the flat spoon for the preserves. And GINORMOUS AND MOUNTAINOUS were the scones. And there was more tea. And jokes about The Importance of Being Earnest. And a discussion of Rupert Everett's ridiculous moustache. Which somehow evolved into a discussion of utopian feminist lit, the femslashiness of Midsummer, and the OED.
By the time the cakes came around, frankly, we were stuffed -- there was a chocolate mousse, baklava, pineapple-upside-down-cake, summer pudding(!!!) and one I'm forgetting because I'm stuffed full of tea. A leetle bitty slice of each for each of us, and we didn't even finish that. We also had strawberries, but I gave mine to a good cause ("Women who like strawberries better than I do") and we got the cakes in cool take-home boxes, which Claire and Michelle have taken home in the true sense of the word, as their cakes are going on the plane to California with them.
And then we staggered home, bearing our cakes and moaning happily about how full we were, and now the Hosts are off to California, and I am here and very sleepy.
Really. One of these days I'll stop napping. :D
