Amber & Milky Tea

Don't forget to relax today.

I am thankful for creamline milk, Earl Grey tea, and relaxation.

Amber & Portrait of the Ampersand as a Young Man

A friend forwards this found portrait of me.

I love four cats (especially ones wearing birthday hats) and flowers and guitars and boat trips in Alaska and French press coffee and lamps and being at home and yarn and birds (especially owls who say "hi") and cupcakes and ice cream cones and tea pots and boots and rainbows and bees and leaves and other stuff!  The resemblance is uncanny.

Amber & Differences

This is a blog post about Boston vs New York. In Boston, there are no kitties, but there are mugs with little animal buddies at brunch.

Amber & Getting Slanked

My tea (not coffee) this morning came with a sleeve that was brought to me by the manufacturers of the Slanket. You know: The Original Fleece Blanket with Sleeves?

The phrase "Get Slanked this Fall!" isn't the oddest thing about this ad.  Under the photo of the man that looks eerily like Jim from The Office, there is a poem.


The news is on, Korean penninsula in splinters;
Slankers will keep you warm, curing nuclear winters.


Really?

Amber & Mornings, Good-style

I'm testing out throwing one house-chore goal into my morning routine. This morning, I did the dishes.

I didn't make a giant pot of oatmeal for breakast; that pot served as my dish pan. (Notice, CRD, it's called a dish pan.) And there are so many plates from feeding cats. Four of them. Sigh. Dish-o-librium.

P.S. Does anyone want my coffee maker? I moved it into the cabinet above the stove today to avoid temptation, but I don't foresee myself using it any time soon. I still have two french presses which I will keep to use for loose tea, but I think I should say goodbye. It has a self-clean feature and an auto-timer so it can start itself in the morning! Let me know if you're interested and you are withing carrying distance without having to check luggage.


[Update 11:49 AM: CRD claimed the coffee maker.)

Amber & Fraidy Cats

This is Pickles.
And this is my teapot, in the midst of brewing my morning decaf Earl Grey.

Now, Pickles isn't know for being the bravest cat around, but he reached a new peak of Scaredy Catness this morning when I placed the teapot on the table and went back into the kitchen to get my cup. As I reentered the living room, Pickles jumped up onto the table (which of course is strictly verbotten). Only, when he landed and saw the tea pot, he shrank back in terror. He nearly fell over backwards ("pulled a Woody") trying to get away from the dasterdly pot of warm liquid.

Pickles:teapot::Amber:life without Pickles.

Amber & Snow Days

I have decided to take a Snow Day today, not because there is too much snow to make the trek into the Bronx...


...but because I could barely sleep all last night. Plus, I am about to lose a week's worth of comp time, so what's 7 hours?

Apparently, when your body feels like there is something caught in your throat-- something on fire maybe-- it keeps waking you up. No matter how many times I told my body You're not choking, it's just a hole in your food tube I kept waking up.

This really confused the kitties who thought it was time to be fed at midnight, 2 A.M. and then about every hour thereafter.

I'm also very very hungry, but eating hurts. So, for breakfast I will have some slippery elm bark tea. Stupid.

Amber & Customer Service Letter #412

Dear Starbucks,

I have long been a fan of your product, hotdrinks. I generally have a cup of coffee every morning, and several cups of tea throughout the day. Eeven when my hotdrink is not from your establishment, I say a little thanks to you for making coffee taste better in America. Those new breakfast sandwiches that you cook by nuclear radiation are so super yummy, and your new product, London Fog Tazo Tea Latte is my new favorite drink ever, even though I always request only one vanilla instead of the three that come in a venti. (Too much vanilla in my tea turns it into dessert.)

However recently, you invented a little green plastic thing to prevent hotdrinks from spilling out the top of your weird puffy lids. People seem to call these "splash sticks." On the one hand, this is genius. It meshes perfectly with your brand identity and overflowing foam is a problem I have dealt with on the front of my shirt many times. But seriously, wouldn't it better to do away with the puffy lid in favor of one of those coffee shop ones with the tab you can pull up or down? You know which ones I mean? Do we need yet another accessory for our morning cup of hotdrink? We already have the sleeves which you foist upon us even if we bring our own. Now little green stick things are going to show up on the floors of subway cars everywhere. Is that the kind of brand exposure you want?

Therefore, I think it is only fair to ask you to put ONE MILLION DOLLARS on my Starbucks Card in payment for this good advice. I am sure you will agree that this is only fair and will guarantee my loyal fandom for years and years to come.

Sincerely,

ALH

Amber & Scones

I think scones might be my favorite food. I like all sweet kinds: blueberry and raspberry from Starbucks, cinnamon from Au Bon Pain, those little round plain ones from Trader Joe's, and most of all the ginger scones from Teaism.


They serve them at the shop with apricot jam and butter, but that's almost too much deliciousness to add to their already delicious state. They're just divine with Earl Grey.

Once, James made me scones at my house. They were super yummy and alot of hard work. Just like Snapshot Artifact.

Amber & Hotdrinks

Kevin taught me long ago that the best way to keep warm during cold weather was to wear a hat and drink hotdrinks. I've recently reduced my coffee intake, so my love of tea has necessarily grown over the past few weeks. DC has a wonderful resource in the Teaism establishment. They have a shop with a delightful selection of loose teas and tea vessels, but they also have an eat-in menu with some Asian-inspired meal items and, my favorite, the ginger scone.

I found the Teaism recipe online and made them for myself and they are just as delicious. But there's something so calming about getting a pot of apricot tea and a ginger scone and sipping slowly while reading about gorillas.

Amber & Penny Arcade

I love Commerce Bank. They give you lollipop and novelty pens and bright red C-shaped banks and they're friendly and the whole time I used them (2001-2004) they never made any mistakes.

But what I love most of all is the Penny Arcade. I had been saving up change for quite a while and finally went last week. I did a bad job of guessing how much change I had. I guessed in the mid $7 range but it turns out I had $11.49, baby! (I used that to buy the loose Earl Grey tea that had been on my shopping list for over two weeks and still have like $6.49 left over! Plus: Jimmy brought me some Earl Grey from Porto Rico, so I got double the tea and $11.49, baby!)

Apparently, I'm not the only one who loves Penny. Fast Company raves about their customer service, and particularly Penny.

The Penny Arcade is more than a mere convenience[...]. The real appeal -- and the payoff -- is that it's fun. Kids want to use it. Pack rats need to use it. People waiting in line at the teller counter can't help but watch when someone steps up to the machine lugging a coffee can filled with coins.

In its own small way, the Penny Arcade transforms the bank into a more interesting and appealing place. And that, says Hill, is how you create traffic. Last year, Commerce's Penny Arcades handled 750,000 transactions, which totaled $71.7 million. Now that's real change.

Plus, if you guess how much you have right? You get a prize. I can't wait to have more change.