English Tea is NOT Sweet Tea Material

As I blogged yesterday, we had four folks over for supper last night. I attempted to make sweet tea using English tea bags (I figured that it was brown tea...). Alas, the result was not kind to the tastebuds. English tea has too much of an herbal kick to be good cold and sweet... so down the drain it went. However, the chili made was great and everyboday had seconds. Nothing like chili on a cold night.

Our guests were Jon and his wife Sue, and Lou and his fiancee Hannah. We had great fun eating, talking, listening to music, and enjoying the guys strumming away on on their guitars (no offense, O.P., but Lou has got you beat). I was struck by how many country/bluegrass songs Lou knows. They both knew lots of American music.... Eagles, R.E.M., John Denver, Pearl Jam... and some I'd never heard of. I was also struck by the fact that Helen slept through the entire thing... a remarkable feat considering the fact that our house is inordinately loud. The guys were particularly entertained by the song "I'm my own grandpa" by Grandpa Jones. I'm encouraging Lou to translate it into Black Country dialect, his native tongue, and make himself famous. After the jam session we enjoyed coffee, hot tea, and biscuits (cookies, of course). I loaned my DVD of UHF to Lou (lest he miss out on one genuine piece of Americana). When they were leaving at around 11:30, it began to snow. By 12:30 there was an inch covering everything. So that makes snow on 10 of the past 14 days... but the talk is that we've seen our last.

We've decided that Yahoo Messenger must be one of the greatest inventions of modern man. Today we chatted with my family, and with Amy and J-Dog P. using the voice chat option. Basically, a free phone call, complete with video.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot... It seems our friendly neighborhood preacher, William F., had some time to construct a little verse mocking my "2nd gear plight". Here it is:

When the hill,
first I saw.
'Twas quite a thrill,
for me and maw.
But baby Helen,
the back seat queen.
Lay fast asleep,
she didn't scream.
As the hill approaches,
I'm gripped in fear
Will I get this bloomin'
thing out of 2nd gear?