Birthday

We went to the grocery store last night to pick up a few things for dinner and treats for later on: a loaf of French bread to have with our spaghetti, artichoke dip, Doritos, cashews, and chocolate chip cookies for later.

I also picked up one of those free magazines that they sometimes have in grocery stores, this one was called Delicious Living and mostly dealt with health-type foods and supplements. It had an interesting article in it about tea. It says that tea (black, green or oolong, but real tea, not herbal) fends off cancer, prevents rheumatoid arthritis, and improves heart health.

It quotes a Harvard research study that found that "those who drank moderate and heavy amounts of caffeinated tea had lower death rates than those who did not drink tea at all." ("Heavy" defined as 14 or more cups of tea per week.)

A Dutch study concluded that subjects who drank more than 3 cups of tea a day were "43 percent less likely to have a heart attack and 70 percent less likely to die from one than non-tea drinkers."

I've never really gotten in the habit of drinking any hot beverage daily; I don't drink coffee, but I would occasionally have a cup of tea in a restaurant. Recently, though, I started drinking tea at work, mostly because I thought it might help keep me from getting so hungry during the day. I knew green tea was supposed to be good for you, but I've never particularly liked it; I didn't know that black tea (actually just fermented green tea) had the same benefits.

It's interesting, anyway, whether or not it's true. I take most medical studies with a grain of salt; caffeine has a lot of negative effects, too, I know, but maybe they balance out.

It's kind of become a nice ritual for me to make a cup of tea or chai when I get to work in the morning. I usually only have one, but occasionally I'll have another in the afternoon. It's new enough that it feels like a treat, sort of. I like a lot of lemon in tea, so it's almost like hot lemonade.

I spent a quiet day at home today, reading and working. We had black-eyed peas for luck, and a little of the Asti Spumante from last night--it was still sparkling this morning, surprisingly. Pyewacket spent part of the morning under the Christmas tree skirt, while Dinah slept on my lap. Then Dinah left to go get something to eat, and Pyewacket took over my lap.

Later, I was up, and Dinah was sleeping under the afghan in my reading chair. Then Pyewacket came and laid on top of Dinah in the chair, causing Dinah to eventually squirt out and go upstairs and lay on Bob in the recliner in the office. It's pretty much a constant parade of the cats looking for someone to lay on . . . Pyewacket only lays on my chair when she can annoy Dinah. She pretends that she doesn't know Dinah is there under the cover, and just kind of casually jumps up and lays right on top of her.

Stupid cat. And it's Dinah's birthday today! Well, somewhere around here anyway--January 1 is her designated birthday. She's four years old today.

I followed her upstairs to see where she was going, and when she jumped up on Bob's lap, I told him what had happened. He's been comforting her: "Did that mean old Pyewacket lay on you? On your birthday??"