Broke my refrigerator tea jug yesterday, all over the kitchen floor. Right after I'd filled the jug, of course. On the upside, at least it was the plastic jug, not one of the glass ones I actually brew the tea in. And at least the kitchen floor is now much, much cleaner! But this means I'm now putting the glass brewing jug in the fridge, and it just doesn't fit right. Plus it has a slow leak through the spigot. So I guess I'm hitting The Container Store sometime soon and seeing if they still stock the things. Shouldn't've tossed that coupon last week, but I thought to myself, there's nothing we need from there.... Ah well.

Tonight I make my triumphant return to writing class, and have all my prep done for that. I'm debating whether or not to start bellydance class again this weekend. The money for that becomes harder to justify to myself when I don't have an income.

I have a favorite coffee mug that I use at work. It's tall, white, a little bit bigger than most coffee mugs, but its best feature, as far as I'm concerned, is that its handle doesn't get hot when I microwave it. Unfortunately, some Mondays I get up and pack my lunchbag only to discover we haven't run the dishwasher over the weekend and thus my mug is not clean. This is one such Monday, so I'm stuck with the least-offensive clean mug from the cabinet, which today happened to have some innocuous flowers painted on it. And so I suffer, bringing the mug back to my desk from the microwave, running a mental litany of "ow, ow, hot, hot, walk faster, don't spill the water!" in order to make any of my many successive cups of daily tea.

I drink only tea at work. I've never developed a taste for coffee (just as I've never developed a taste for beer). It smells wonderful, but its taste sadly betrays that lovely odor. I don't even like the taste of coffee-based ice creams. So in my lunchbag I also carry a variety of teas, drinking whatever suits my mood at the moment. Earl Grey, Chai Spice, Tazo, Mint, Green. I didn't used to like black teas; I suppose being married to a Briton has widened my horizons (though I still prefer herbal). I drink my tea straight; no milk, no sugar, no honey. Just me and water and scent.

For summer, and somewhat for winter, I make gallon after gallon of sun tea. For that I buy the Lipton's gallon tea bags, put one in the sun tea jug, fill it with cold water, and set it out on the patio before I go to work and decant it into the refrigerator container after I get home. I especially drink lots of it when I'm munching on chips and salsa. Hot salsa and cold tea--a wonderful combination! I keep thinking I should buy a third fridge container and fill it with sweetened green tea. Every time I go to Curry House (not often enough), that's what I get to drink there, and it's delicious.

My favorite brand of tea is Stash (Earl Grey, Chai Spice, Mint). For green tea I buy the cheap stuff in bulk, as I go through it so quickly. For a few "specialty" flavors (Sleepytime, Lemon Zinger) I like Celestial Seasonings. Oddly enough I don't care much for the local-flavor teas my Wonderful Husband's coworkers keep bringing him back from their Hawaiian vacations. Pineapple and Guava teas are just... weird. I keep thinking I should broaden my horizons and elevate my tastes. Maybe study the Japanese tea ceremony, or learn how to do a formal tea and invite friends over for one. I keep buying the magazine "TeaTime," after all....