Things I learned this weekend

1. There is such a thing as a Tea Sommelier.

2. There is such a thing as a Tea and Chocolate Tasting. Oh. So. Good.

3. Tea pots should be washed thoroughly after use. Seriously. Keep washing until you no longer smell the tea. This dispells my father's long held position that the tea buildup inside the pot adds flavour. He has been known to go apoplectic if you try to wash out the teapot. This apparently comes from the British origins of passing the tea leaves from Master to servant to servant's friends and family. Obviously if you are the fourth or fifth person to use the tea leaves, you want the most flavour possible, and so would not wash out your teapot. Since we use new tea bags or leaves with each pot, there is no need to hold onto our teapot crud. We now have a gleaming teapot.

4. Moving furniture with my father is difficult because he actually hinders the process. He will pull back or push down on the object because he thinks you are moving too fast. This has led to many quotes of "Faster would be better!!" which fall flat because Dad has never seen Serenity.

5. Old vinyl floor tiles were made with asbestos.... my father reminds me as we are ripping up carpet glued directly to the old vinyl floor tiles in the basement. I wore a dustmask. Not much prevention against asbestos, except that the tiles would really have to be disintegrating to give off any asbestos. So he says.

6. I had forgotten what a really hot day in Ontario means... A wicked cool storm! Fergus and Elora (the villages close to us) had a tornado on Saturday, and we had hail and a power outage in Stratford!