Cindy, I once had a tea vs. keyboard accident and a lot of my keys went wonky. They all fixed themselves except the apostrophe key, which still refuses to work unless I smash it with my fist.

Ok. Everyone praise me.

Remember the big project for work from a couple of weeks ago? I finally finished the first step! I have a meeting about it this afternoon. Go me!

I forgot to mention one of the fun points of last night.

We got to Dark Sparkle (which was being held at The Purple Onion - a famous beat era hangout, where Woody Allen and Bill Cosby did standup in the early sixties) early, so we grabbed a table by the dance floor and had a bottle of prosecco in an ice bucket and it was all very fun and swanky, but not crazy expensive or stuffy. We got to watch people arrive and set after set of people would walk down the stairs, all turned out in super fab dark, sparkly vintage wear from different eras. There was the goth-ish swing retro girl, and the dark flapper girl and neo-new wave retro girl. Like that.

Anyway, we watched four particularly fabulous women come in together and take a table by the front door. It's a small place so it was lovely just to people watch and there was always someone on the dance floor but it didn't get too crowded. Lots of great dancers.

After JZ and I came off the dance floor ("You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby" then something by Duran Duran. Obviously not a strict goth set list by any means.) our waitress dropped a napkin at our table with something written on it. How fun is that? It said:

"Name the author: 'You want a vodka martini, why don't you head down to the fern bar down the street.' Come over to our table!"

So I knew it was somebody I knew from the Zam Zam. JZ took out her lipstick and wrote "Bruno" on the back of the napkin (that being the answer to Name the Author) and before we could go over, they came to us.

It was Darcy! One of my favorite bartenders at the Zam Zam who had simply disappeared one day without explanation. (She was "let go" because the slightly insane woman who co-owns the bar never liked Darcy.) It was great to see her. Her curly hair was done up in two little poms on top of her head and she was wearing opera gloves and had some Isadora-like scarf.

Sidenote: Within two minutes of each other, both Juliana and JZ spotted Cool Hair on the dance floor. "THAT'S how I want my hair cut." and "I'm coloring my hair tomorrow."

See, what everyone's problem is, they're desecrating the tea by putting any sweetener in it in the first place.

I'm a heathen. I now have properly sweetened tea, just had to raid another floor.

I was introduced to tea with it having cream and sugar. It tastes naked without one, preferably both.

I have learned to adjust my palate to skim and artificial sweeteners.

Some teas work better for me without the milk, but it's an unusual tea that does not call for sweetening, even if a little bit.

There may be a correlation between my sweet preference and diabetes.

Except that I stopped using sugar in my drinks 20 years or more ago.

Hmmm.

hooray, for first steps!

Well, different strokes and all that. But what I can tell you is that sugar in tea is bad and also wrong. Intolerent, moi?

Edited because

Excellent work vw! I present you with a millionty gold stars! You can't see them, because they're magic, but they're definitely there; have no doubts on that score.

Well, different strokes and all that. But what I can tell you is that sugar in tea is bad and also wrong.

This is quite correct. (As sugar in most things is bad and wrong. Things do not need to be made sweeter! Thus I decree.)

Sometimes sweet milky tea (attained with condensed milk, optimally) is the cure for what ails you. Works well, in conjunction with a book, a comfy chair and a blanket to combat the pouts.

I think I may just have planned some of my weekend.

I love Portland. Powell's, good public transit, nice housing stock, and killer soil.

It's right up there in my heart with Vancouver and LA.

In the event that we escape Seattle, we would like to escape to Portland. (Having Lillian sort of threw a monkey wrench into our Escape to LA 5 year plan. We're a little too domestic for it now.)