Monday, November 16, 2009
"The inefficiency of the fork": More pictures
A couple of new ones of Ella-Anne, including some big smiles, and a few from Sunday's NOT "High" Tea at the Ritz-Carlton, including Alex's effort to face-plant into a chocolate dessert to avoid the inefficiency of the fork, and Two Daddies Dancing.
"Perfectly Floppy Bacon and Other Impressive Feats"
Jane's dear friend Lori Heagler has started a blog, which she's dubbed Perfectly Floppy Bacon and Other Impressive Feats. (Lori's my dear friend, too, but Jane brought her to the marriage, and so I think of her more like "dowry." It's a good thing I like Lori, too, because Jane's dowry didn't contain any actual cash.)
I'm creating a separate blog entry here to tell all of my three or four readers about it, because Lori is wicked funny. She's also the mom to Ben (8) and Lucy (6), and she is the ringleader of a pack of women she calls the "Boozey Mommies."
This is Lucy, Lori, and Ben.
And this is what Lori is going to be writing about (in her own words):
Perfectly Floppy Bacon and Other Impressive Feats will be a glimpse of Heagler Family life – a place where I don’t have to reduce my musings to a Facebook status containing 420 characters or less or a Note that can only be viewed by my Facebook friends. To those of you who encouraged me to do this, I hope I won’t let you down and I hope you’ll never be sorry you said this was a good idea. Be careful what you wish for!
If there’s anyone out there reading who doesn’t know us, read on and come back often. You’ll know the Heaglers before you know it.
Perfectly Floppy Bacon and Other Impressive Feats will be about messages written in the dust on my end-tables, raising kids and drinking (a lot of) wine. About “going Southern”, my beloved Boozey Mommies, the horrors of dating as a 40+-year-old single mom, trying on hats, the rocks in my pockets, pick-me-up hugs and never-minding. It will be about tough love, hope, lots and lots of laughter and maybe a little inspiration along the way. And it will sometimes be about autism and its impact on our family.
If you like reading this blog, you'll love Lori's.
Oh, and as for news from our house, on Saturday the four of us went to the local telecast of the Monon Bell game between Wabash and DePauw (the righteous triumphed, 32-19, and the Bell resumes its appropriate place of honor on the Wabash campus). Alex repeatedly yelled "Let's Go Wabash!" at the top of her teeny lungs, and lots of our Wabash friends got to meet Ella-Anne for the first time.
On Sunday, a bunch of Jane's friends hosted an afternoon tea in Ella-Anne's honor at the Ritz-Carlton at Tysons Corner -- perfectly elegant with a single huge exception noted by Mr. Language Person: The menu for their afternoon tea service (classical English tea service with dainty finger sandwiches and lots of pastries) repeatedly referred to these as "High Tea Selections." WRONG! "High Tea" is not like "High Church," marked by formalities. High tea is a singularly inelegant event -- a workingman's dinner eaten (with tea) in the very late afternoons. It is sometimes referred to as "meat tea." It is not what they are serving in the afternoons at the Ritz-Carlton.
To wit, this is from the UK Tea Council website:
While tea was part of the staple diet of the poor, among the rich tea-drinking was evolving into an elaborate social occasion. Afternoon teas probably had their roots in the ladies tea-parties of the seventeenth centuries, but evolved during the eighteenth century into something of a national institution. Tradition has it that afternoon tea was 'invented' by Anna Maria, the wife of the seventh Duke of Bedford, who in 1841 started drinking tea and having a bite to eat in the mid-afternoon, to tide her over during the long gap between lunch (eaten at about 1 o'clock) and dinner (eaten at around 7 o'clock). This swiftly developed into a social occasion, and soon the Duchess was inviting guests to join her for afternoon tea at 5 o'clock. It did not become instantly popular elsewhere though, partly because in fashionable circles dinner was eaten earlier, leaving less of a gap to be filled by afternoon tea. But by the 1860s the fashion for afternoon tea had become widespread. Such teas were elegant affairs, with tea drunk from the best china and small amounts of food presented perfectly on little china plates. On offer might be bread and butter, scones and cakes, and sandwiches with the crusts cut off.
Contemporary manuals on etiquette and good housekeeping are full of advice on how to conduct a correct afternoon tea. The idea of needing an instruction book in order to enjoy a cup of tea and a biscuit with some friends seems rather alarming these days, but although nineteenth century afternoon teas were elaborate affairs from our point of view, in those days they were considered relatively informal occasions. Invitations were issued verbally or by note, and rather than attending for the entire duration guests were free to pop in when it suited them and likewise leave when they wanted to. The hostess would pour the tea, but it was the responsibility of the men to hand the cups round. If there were no men present, this job fell to the daughters of the hostess or other young women present (goodness know what happened if there were no men and no daughters available!). There was a fashion for women to wear tea gowns, but these were softer and less restrictive than evening gowns, and it was not always deemed necessary for women to wear gloves. Nonetheless many did, and the author of The Etiquette of Modern Society points out that a thoughtful hostess should always provide biscuits with tea, since these can be eaten more easily than sandwiches without removing one's gloves.
Some poorer households also adopted the practice of afternoon tea, and in some areas women pooled their resources and equipment in order to make such occasions affordable. But more common among the working classes was 'high tea'. During the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, when most people worked in agriculture, the working classes tended to have the main meal of their day at midday, with a much lighter supper late in the evening. But after the industrial revolution, more and more people were employed for long shifts in factories or mines, and hot midday meals were thus less convenient. They were also not appropriate for the increasing numbers of children who were at school during the day. The custom developed of having a high tea in the late afternoon, at the end of the working day, consisting of strong tea, and hearty, hot food. Unlike afternoon tea, high tea was the main meal of the day, rather than a stop-gap between lunch and dinner.
Get it, Ritz-Carlton? You're better than that.
I'm creating a separate blog entry here to tell all of my three or four readers about it, because Lori is wicked funny. She's also the mom to Ben (8) and Lucy (6), and she is the ringleader of a pack of women she calls the "Boozey Mommies."
This is Lucy, Lori, and Ben.
Perfectly Floppy Bacon and Other Impressive Feats will be a glimpse of Heagler Family life – a place where I don’t have to reduce my musings to a Facebook status containing 420 characters or less or a Note that can only be viewed by my Facebook friends. To those of you who encouraged me to do this, I hope I won’t let you down and I hope you’ll never be sorry you said this was a good idea. Be careful what you wish for!
If there’s anyone out there reading who doesn’t know us, read on and come back often. You’ll know the Heaglers before you know it.
Perfectly Floppy Bacon and Other Impressive Feats will be about messages written in the dust on my end-tables, raising kids and drinking (a lot of) wine. About “going Southern”, my beloved Boozey Mommies, the horrors of dating as a 40+-year-old single mom, trying on hats, the rocks in my pockets, pick-me-up hugs and never-minding. It will be about tough love, hope, lots and lots of laughter and maybe a little inspiration along the way. And it will sometimes be about autism and its impact on our family.
If you like reading this blog, you'll love Lori's.
Oh, and as for news from our house, on Saturday the four of us went to the local telecast of the Monon Bell game between Wabash and DePauw (the righteous triumphed, 32-19, and the Bell resumes its appropriate place of honor on the Wabash campus). Alex repeatedly yelled "Let's Go Wabash!" at the top of her teeny lungs, and lots of our Wabash friends got to meet Ella-Anne for the first time.
On Sunday, a bunch of Jane's friends hosted an afternoon tea in Ella-Anne's honor at the Ritz-Carlton at Tysons Corner -- perfectly elegant with a single huge exception noted by Mr. Language Person: The menu for their afternoon tea service (classical English tea service with dainty finger sandwiches and lots of pastries) repeatedly referred to these as "High Tea Selections." WRONG! "High Tea" is not like "High Church," marked by formalities. High tea is a singularly inelegant event -- a workingman's dinner eaten (with tea) in the very late afternoons. It is sometimes referred to as "meat tea." It is not what they are serving in the afternoons at the Ritz-Carlton.
To wit, this is from the UK Tea Council website:
While tea was part of the staple diet of the poor, among the rich tea-drinking was evolving into an elaborate social occasion. Afternoon teas probably had their roots in the ladies tea-parties of the seventeenth centuries, but evolved during the eighteenth century into something of a national institution. Tradition has it that afternoon tea was 'invented' by Anna Maria, the wife of the seventh Duke of Bedford, who in 1841 started drinking tea and having a bite to eat in the mid-afternoon, to tide her over during the long gap between lunch (eaten at about 1 o'clock) and dinner (eaten at around 7 o'clock). This swiftly developed into a social occasion, and soon the Duchess was inviting guests to join her for afternoon tea at 5 o'clock. It did not become instantly popular elsewhere though, partly because in fashionable circles dinner was eaten earlier, leaving less of a gap to be filled by afternoon tea. But by the 1860s the fashion for afternoon tea had become widespread. Such teas were elegant affairs, with tea drunk from the best china and small amounts of food presented perfectly on little china plates. On offer might be bread and butter, scones and cakes, and sandwiches with the crusts cut off.
Contemporary manuals on etiquette and good housekeeping are full of advice on how to conduct a correct afternoon tea. The idea of needing an instruction book in order to enjoy a cup of tea and a biscuit with some friends seems rather alarming these days, but although nineteenth century afternoon teas were elaborate affairs from our point of view, in those days they were considered relatively informal occasions. Invitations were issued verbally or by note, and rather than attending for the entire duration guests were free to pop in when it suited them and likewise leave when they wanted to. The hostess would pour the tea, but it was the responsibility of the men to hand the cups round. If there were no men present, this job fell to the daughters of the hostess or other young women present (goodness know what happened if there were no men and no daughters available!). There was a fashion for women to wear tea gowns, but these were softer and less restrictive than evening gowns, and it was not always deemed necessary for women to wear gloves. Nonetheless many did, and the author of The Etiquette of Modern Society points out that a thoughtful hostess should always provide biscuits with tea, since these can be eaten more easily than sandwiches without removing one's gloves.
Some poorer households also adopted the practice of afternoon tea, and in some areas women pooled their resources and equipment in order to make such occasions affordable. But more common among the working classes was 'high tea'. During the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, when most people worked in agriculture, the working classes tended to have the main meal of their day at midday, with a much lighter supper late in the evening. But after the industrial revolution, more and more people were employed for long shifts in factories or mines, and hot midday meals were thus less convenient. They were also not appropriate for the increasing numbers of children who were at school during the day. The custom developed of having a high tea in the late afternoon, at the end of the working day, consisting of strong tea, and hearty, hot food. Unlike afternoon tea, high tea was the main meal of the day, rather than a stop-gap between lunch and dinner.
Get it, Ritz-Carlton? You're better than that.
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