One of the fascinating things about interacting with people in other countries is that sometimes, you need a dictionary to determine just what’s been said about you.

I have done a terrible thing. Brace yourself, because this is quite heinous, and having known it about me, you may never think of me in the same way again. I admit it, though, freely and Pete Roselike, and hope that you’ll forgive me. All my life, I have drunk my tea without milk.

Now, know this. I am something of an anglophile. Most things British fascinate me. Woe be unto my wife and family if a woman with a British accent ever takes a liking to me, because I will melt. (Kidding, dearest, just kidding. She reads this, got to be sensitive.) I’m not sure why it is, but I am just rather enamored of the British life I’ve read about and been told about by friends and authors and Monty Python. 🙂

For several months I’ve been checking in on a British web site devoted to a hobby called “Thinging”, where folks come up with their favourite things and urge others to try them. On that site, I had the nerve to confess my sin of milk omission when reporting on my attempt to have real British tea. I was immediately (but good-naturedly) set upon by some fellows who gave me to know unequivocally that tea without milk is for “poncey foreigners”.

Ten minutes later, having made use of several internet resources, I knew that “poncey” either meant “effeminate” or “snobby”. This called for three immediate actions to defend my honor. First, I quickly brewed up a cup of tea, added some milk, and gave it a fair shot. It wasn’t bad, and the milk does such a nice job of taming the tannins in the tea that I might actually say I prefer it that way. Thus fortified, I still had the issue of my supposed ponciness to contend with.

I went outside, got into my car, and drove home. If you’ve ever seen my car, you’d know in an instant that the driver is no snob, so I think we cleared that one up right away. Next, just coincidentally, I went home and engaged in some activities with my wife that entitle me to call her as a character witness; I believe she will testify as to my non-effemininity. (If not, there’s more evidence where that came from, you sexy woman you. 🙂

I wonder how a nice cup of tea stacks up against coffee on the caffeine scale? I usually have a cup or two of coffee in the morning to wake up, and I wonder if tea would be an adequate substitute? Worth a try … if someone has to wake me up at my desk this afternoon, we’ll go back to the morning coffee.

This livejournal.com site where this blog is hosted is beginning to worry me. I chose it because it’s a nice “all in one” solution with commenting and “friends” links and other stuff all built in, but yesterday it was down for hours. I’ll take reliability over features any day of the week, so I’m going to have to keep a close eye on this thing for a while and decide if it’s going to work out.

I heard this morning that in Ohio, a 12-year-old was suspended from school for three days for having an issue of Sports Illustrated. It was the swimsuit issue. Honestly, people, are we going to start punishing kids for looking at things they see every time they go to the beach? One thing we Americans definitely didn’t bring here with us is the European sensibility about nudity and our bodies. I’m sure most of Europe is rolling around on the floor laughing about the furor that Janet Jackson’s bejeweled boob caused over here.