Charlotte the Wonder Dog, making tea, and the dog park...

My daughter Danielle introduced me to Starbuck green tea (soy) lattes and I discovered I could create a version at home using matcha from the healthfood store. It's also good for flavoring yogurt and yummy in rice with a little soy milk and some honeydew melon. As usual, I had a week long love affair with Google, sneaking off and searching the where, what, why, and how of matcha. True matcha comes from a particular part of Japan and the best quality is the first crop. Matcha from other regions or the second crop are less expensive. The highest quality is used for tea ceremonies. I finally figured out what to try, ordered it, and it arrived Saturday in this cool decorated box. (O-cha.com)

My friend Oren is wont to say "When making tea make tea" attributing it to Lao Tsu, but my first flirt with Google yielded no hits for the quote, so now I am inclined to think he just made it up. I like the sentiment behind Oren's proverb, but it brings to mind a day when all the kids were young and I was home schooling. I was stirring a big pot of soup, and thought to myself 'You stand here and stir while I go use the restroom,' only to realize there was only one of me. The tea is very good and I am trying to break from multi-tasking to fully enjoy it: "When drinking tea, drink tea."

Saturday, we took the dogs to the dog park. You cannot say the words 'dog park' in our house. The phrase is  Charlotte's undoing. Her ears point, she spins, and then turns her head toward you with this intense eye contact that brings to mind heat seeking missiles. We tested her and you also cannot say anything that rhymes with dog park. Pog dark? Log stark? We had to stop trying out the variations and permutations because it was just too cruel getting her so wound up. (I was afraid she might turn herself inside-out.)

John cleared out the back of the van, moving all my bottle making paraphernalia up to the seats. The last row of seats is out of the car, leaving the rest of the back for the dogs to occupy. As soon as he opened the hatch Zuzu clamored to one of the two passenger seats, getting herself wedged between them with bags full of bottles lodged under her belly. She was virtually immobilized. After we dug her out, we moved all the stuff back to the hatch area and she and Charlotte each settled into a seat.  Charlotte whined and yipped  the entire way to the park.  Chloe sat at my feet and kept trying to venture over to the driver's side floor, and Zuzu sat with impeccable manners, calmly enjoying the view. Once we arrived, Charlotte showed off her Frisbee skills. Zuzu can't catch the Frisbee, but she loves to help Charlotte bring it back. Charlotte finds this so annoying she sometimes refuses to play. Meanwhile, Chloe chased after the two of them, barking and snarling, large and in charge and willing to take on any dog in the park, including a pitbull named "Killer."

Charlotte the Wonder Dog (note Zuzu's lack of attention span)

Today I worked with the Kindergarten, First, and Second Grade at Altamonte Christian School. As I was cleaning up the paint and glitter I worried they might decide to expel my daughter. Tomorrow their 3-5 grade students will pitch in, and on Wednesday the high school (including my Natalie if she hasn't been kicked out) will assemble the ornaments.  I'm holding my breath for Friday when I work with 80 fifth grade students at Lake Orienta Elementary. There should be a Ripley's for that, right?