White Rabbit Day

I'm late late late. I have not posted my blog at the time I promised myself I would. I am the White Rabbit today, wearing a blue robe and slippers still dizzy from scrabbling through the warren of my life for today. But there's still hope for it is not yet dinner time, in fact it is still tea time and thereby hangs redemption.
I have stopped For Tea. The Holy Hour before the happy hour. Everything stops for it, so said someone. Tea I mean. Not just a beverage but an occasion, a punctuation on the clock. It is anywhere from 3-5pm and I am just safe by a good half hour. Saved by some inner clock that Brits carry around wherever they are even those of us hiding out in Northern California. It's an odd feeling, that teatime prompt. It's sort of like suddenly coming to on the bus as you commute to the office because your feet are sending silent signals that you have put on shoes that are not actually a matching pair. It's a subtle thing, but clear too. Mind you, it's a rare Brit that looks at the clock and says something like "oh shit I missed teatime". But most of us have this little something that goes off and when it does, we HAVE to fall into the nearest Peet's or PUT ON THE KETTLE. If you'll notice, whenever people drop in on one another, or there's a crisis in British tv soaps, someone always says "I'll just put the kettle on" and that's supposed to fix everything. As in "They've just bombed the house next door, I wonder if I could just pop in for a minute..." "Of course, come in. I'll just put the kettle on..." If your host is a smoker this is their big chance to light up as well. And I do think actually that these frequent pauses actually support mental health. Come in, have a cuppa and a moan and you'll feel better. I know I always did. Nowadays people don't pop in any more, but at 4pm thereabouts I start hearing the kettle prompt and off I go. My most frequent teatime visitor is Oprah Winfrey, though she doesn't actually know that. Before I go all Andy Rooney on everyone, I'm not going to ask why we don't do this or that any more, as in the good old days, but I will say that sharing a cup of tea is a sort of social sacrament that I can't NOT remember. My bladder is doing a fine job keeping up too. (And mindful of the Old Folks Home thing I mentioned a few blogs ago, I am Kegeling frequently by the way). And now I must say the warren is making a little more sense than 30 minutes ago.