Today's Ramblings

So let me prefice this by saying that I'm not a health nut not.  I'm a little anal when it comes to what I put in my body, but I'm a smoker.  A health nut cannot, by definition, be a smoker right?  I also enjoy a few drinks on the weekends.

Anyway.  One thing I DO NOT ingest is caffeinated anything.  The odd time I get a caffeinated coffee at Tim Horton's by error, I get jumpy, shaky, I get heart palpitations and basically I feel like crap until it's worked it's way out of my body.  It's a horrible feeling.  

When I was about 3 yrs old, my tiny little scottish grandmother introduced me to tea.  Perfectly natural - when it was tea time, she'd make mine almost entirely warm water, milk, sugar and just a hint of tea.  I loved it.  When I was in high school, it was totally uncool to drink tea - everyone drank coffee, so began my love of coffee.

In the mid 90's I had to make some necessary changes, and one of them was to give up caffeine.  The whole anality (I don't think that's even a word, but it fits, so what the hell) over what I choose to eat and drink has been a gradual process, spurred on by health issues which I'll continue to battle until the day I die.

My coffee and tea choices these days are regulated by what come in a "decaf" format.  Coffee is easy.  As for tea, I've always had Orange Pekoe.  

My son, who is turning 18 in June, is a bit of a tea lover himself, and I've always insisted that he stick to decaffeinated products too.  Why get addicted to caffeine if you don't need to.

Last year he went on a school trip to Quebec City, and came home asking me to buy Earl grey tea.  I told him that when I found a decaf version I would.  

Last week I found a decaf Earl Grey and bought it for him.  Of course, being a good mother, I had to try it out to make sure it was worthy of him. 

I LOVED IT!!!!!!!  It's a much fuller tea, richer and deeper, with a hint of licorice.  I'm a convert.  After 36 years of drinking of orange pekoe, I'm now an earl grey convert.  I love that child.

Oh!

Here was something completely hysterical that my daughter did the other day.

In Canada, there is a daily paper called the SUN.  It's published in a few large cities, like Toronto and Calgary.  (My brother is actually a columnist for the Calgary SUN)

In the back of the paper, on Saturdays, they feature one scantilly clad young woman, usually in a bikini, posing, with a little bio included.  My husband happened to have this paper on the back seat of his car when he picked up our daughter (almost 8 yrs old).  She was flipping through the paper, and happened upon the Sunshine girl.

"DADDY!!! What is THIS????"  she said.

"It's just the Sunshine girl."

"But she's wearing nothing but a bikini!!!!"

"I know," Gerald relied.

"I'M TAKING THIS!" she yelled at him, and folded the paper up, and threw it in the trash as soon as she walked in the house.

Gotta love her!