Mae's Real Stories

I was reading a book about tea, and thinking about how my family drank tea. My mother and father drank coffee every morning for breakfast, but sometimes in the afternoon or after dinner, they drank tea.

My mother had a little teapot and a tea ball, which is a round metal ball with holes in it and a lid that screws on. She would put some tea leaves in the tea ball, and put it into a teapot sort of like the one in the picture. Then she put boiling water in the teapot and let the tea leaves soak for quite a while. This made VERY strong tea. She poured a little of this strong tea into a cup and then filled it up with hot water. Children could only have a tiny bit of the tea and a lot of water. Grownups could have it as strong as they liked.

My father drank the tea with a lump of sugar. But he didn't put the sugar into the tea cup. He held it between his teeth, and a little of the sugar dissolved into his tea. He said he did this because that was how they had done it in Russia when he lived there when he was a little boy. That was 100 years ago, but I think they might still do that in Russia. They sometimes put jam into their tea, and sometimes drink it from a glass instead of from a cup, but my father didn't do those things.

This morning Miriam was up very early to perform her duty as class meteorologist. She checks the weather online, and writes down the prediction.

Miriam and Alice had huge loads of books and materials to take back to school after 2 weeks off, including three snow days just before vacation should have started. After they left, we packed up, headed for the airport, and flew back home.

Miriam: Yesterday we went to the Newseum with Arny and Tracy. We had a lot of fun. My mom and Alice got to be a News Reporter about the moon. We got to play this game of an investigation about who let the animals out from the circus. We found out it was the clown because we saw him red-handed. I did it all with Tracy.

I had a great time at the Newseum.

Alice: It was fun there. Dim Sum is where you eat.

Miriam: We ate dumplings and sticky rice. I love crab balls. Everybody ate a lot.

Alice: At Dim Sum we ate a lot. I love the sticky rice. I also had some dumplings. We also like crab balls. They were crispy crab balls. For desert I had custard. Mae loved it. Mae got almond tofu. Almond tofu was like almonds and fruits in a little bowl. And then after Dim Sum we went to Barnes and Noble. I got two Hannah Montana books. They were called "Truth or Dare" and "Keeping Secrets."

Miriam: I went to Dim Sum and I was so happy because it was soooo good! After that we went to Barnes and Noble. I could have bought a book but they didn't have what I wanted so we are ordering it from Amazon. The books that I wanted are "Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat" and "Dad, Jackie, and Me." Those are Virginia Readers' Choice books. There are ten of them. I have read four of them, and I am starting one of them. I am reading two at school. And then I have one that we are going to start for stories. The Virginia Readers' Choice books are all really good.

We just did beading, and I beaded a really beautiful necklace. Alice made a nice thing for my mom, and my grandma made a nice necklace for Alice. I think that we had a great time.

Why? Because there are so many secrets in there.