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valentines
November 2009 
Valentine Tea With Special Guests
Posted on Feb 14th, 2008
by 
Dryad
Dryad
Welcome to my Blog and my Valentine Celebration Tea.
I like celebrations, and Valentines Day is one of my favorite celebrations because it celebrates something so wonderful . . . LOVE.
I have been talking to people this week about Valentines Day. Some people don't like it, because they feel that it is only about Romantic Love. This leaves a lot of people in a position where they are not all that gung ho to celebrate. I had a girl friend in High School who said that for some reason she always broke up with her boyfriend right before Valentines Day, so then she couldn't celebrate it. Most people are just not in the space that the adds on television would lead you to believe you need to be in to celebrate Valentines Day. I like the guy on the Zales add who is trying to decide whether he will buy his wife the $500 earrings or the $700 necklace for Valentines Day. He is very invested in the whole thing, very intent because he wants everything to be "perfect . . ." Is this reality?
There is a lot of LOVE to celebrate that doesn't cost $500 at Zales and isn't just about romance. For our Tea today, I have invited several well known folks who will be celebrating Valentines Day with their loved ones in all kind of different ways.
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Our first guests today are very special friends of mine Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh. Though both Christopher Robin and Pooh Bear have many friends, their relationship with each other is always, at heart, the most special one of all. I love many things about Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh, but possibly this is what I love most. . . .
"How do you do Nothing", asked Pooh, after he had wondered for a long time.
"Well, it's when people call out to you just as you're going off to do it, What are you going to do, Christopher Robin, and you say, Oh, nothing, and then you go and do it."
"Oh, I see," said Pooh.
Doing nothing is a fine art which should be practiced often. Having a best friend to do nothing with is one of the greatest things in the world.
"Pooh, promise you won't forget about me, ever. Not even when I'm a hundred." Pooh thought for a little while. "How old shall I be then?" "Ninety-nine". Pooh nodded. "I promise," he said.
"If you live to be a 100, I want to live to be a 100 minus 1 day so I never have to live without you" ~ Winnie the Pooh
"If there ever comes a day where we can't be together, keep me in your heart I'll stay there forever"~Winnie the Pooh
The time comes when Christopher Robin must go off to school and he won’t be doing nothing quite as often anymore. This is the painting that I gave to my Christopher Robin when she went away to school on the other side of the sea.
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We certainly hope that all good boys out there will remember valentine for their mothers. These guests are a famous mother and son. Most people know almost as much about her as they do about him. James Abbott McNeil Whistler
and his mother, Anna Matilda McHeill
James Abbott McNeill Whistler was born in in 1834 in Lowell, Massachusetts, the third son of West Point graduate and civil engineer Major George Washington Whistler, and his second wife Anna Matilda McNeill. The Major served as an civil engineer for the construction of a railroad line to Moscow. James Abbott was aged nine when his family moved to Russia, and he spent several of his childhood years there, studying drawing at the Imperial Academy of Science. Whistler greatly admired Dutch masters such as Jan Steen, Rembrandt and Ruysdael. In 1858 he visited Holland to view the Nightwatch. Indeed, he became a frequent traveller to the Netherlands, visiting The Hague, Dordrecht and Domburg and producing numerous etchings of one of his favorite cities: Amsterdam.
In 1872 he painted his well-known Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 1: Portrait of the Artist's Mother, that was later acquired by the French government.
Whistler's paintings are related to Impressionism (although he was more interested in evoking a mood than in accurately depicting the effects of light), to Symbolism, and to Aestheticism, and he played a central role in the modern movement in England.
Whistler’s paintings are wonderfully titled, bringing in the major color theme, a regular title and often an illusion to music such as the “Harmony in Grey and Green ~ Miss Cicely Alexander.” “Arrangement in yellow and gray ~ Effie Deans.” “Red & Black ~ The Fan.” Some of his most famous pieces are the Nocturnes; “Nocturne in Blue and Silver ~ Chelsea/Cremone” and “Nocturne in Blue and Gold ~ Old Battersea Bridge.”
This is my favorite of Whistler’s paintings - possibly because I am very famliar with it as it is housed in the National Gallery in Washington D.C. “Symphony in White - No. 1 ~ The White Girl.”
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Our next guests are a couple of sisters who became the two most famous people in their field in the world. Pauline Esther Friedman Phillips was an identical twin: Her sister, Esther Pauline Friedman Lederer, was 17 minutes older than Pauline. The daughters of Russian Jewish immigrants, the twins grew up in Sioux City, Iowa, and went by the nicknames "Popo" and "Eppie", respectively. They attended Central High School(aka "The Castle on the Hill") in Sioux City, Iowa, and then went on to study at Morningside College. They were very close and had a joint wedding ceremony in 1939 at the age of 21.
The twin sisters with the fascinating flipped name became “Dear Abbey” and “Ann Landers,” the two most famous “advice columnists” of all time.
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According to Jim Henson and Frank Oz, it was a coincidence that Sesame Street’s favorite duo have the same name as the cap driver and police man who serenade the newly married George Bailey in the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life.” At any rate, Ernie believes that it is a wonderful life and is on a never ending campaign to convince Bert that it is true.
Bert and Ernie were built by Don Sahlin from a simple design scribbled by Muppets creator Jim Henson. According to Frank Oz, Sahlin also defined their characters on the basis of their physical appearance: Ernie was an orange and Bert was a banana. Did you ever notice that? I never did, but my daughter, age 2, pointed it out to me.
According to A&E's Biography, Ernie and Bert were the only Muppets to appear in the Sesame Street pilot episode, which was screen tested to a number of families in July 1969. Their brief appearance was the only part of the pilot that tested well, so it was decided that not only should Muppet characters be the "stars" of the show, but would also interact with the human characters, something that was not done in the pilot.
Ernie was originally performed by Jim Henson until his death in 1990. Muppeteer Steve Whitmire inherited the character. Bert was originally performed by now-director Frank Oz. When Henson died, Frank Oz commented that he "couldn't imagine doing Ernie and Bert without Jim." Despite this, Steve Whitmire took over performing Ernie. Beginning around 2001, Eric Jacobson took over as Bert's primary performer, although Oz still occasionally performs Bert.
Ernie's rendition of the song Rubber Duckie was released as a single in 1970 and reached #16 on the Billboard charts. Ah! Do you remember the summer of 1970? I worked as a waitress and then in the kitchen of a very posh restaurant where we prepared and served lobster thermidor and flaming Cherries Jubilee - and sand “Rubber Duckie” in the kitchen.
A typical Bert and Ernie skit follows one of two similar patterns, both beginning with Ernie devising a hare-brained idea and Bert calmly attempting to talk him out of it. Usually this ends with Bert losing his temper and Ernie remaining oblivious to his own bad idea. Sometimes Ernie's idea miraculously turns out to be correct, much to Bert's evident frustration. Bert is the perfect straight man, backing Ernie’s comdey to perfection.
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I had pictures of these next two guests on the wall above my desk before anyone knew who they were. People had read The Chronicles of Narnia as children, but they didn’t recognize Clive Staples Lewis’s face and no one knew who Mr. J.R.R. Tolkien was.
When I was in college I made the comment in a class that someday people would study Tolkien the way they study Shakespeare and Milton. I nearly got laughed out of the class room.
Our next guests have joined us by strolling over after their usual meeting at the “Baby and the Bird” in Oxford.
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The Lord of the Rings, The Screwtape Letters and The Chronicles of Narnia have each sold millions of copies. But when they first appeared in public, it was as unfinished drafts. They were read aloud as they were being written, to a group known as the 'Inklings'.
The group included C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and Charles Williams. Throughout the nineteen-thirties and forties this group of authors and their friends would meet at Lewis' rooms in Oxford, or at one of two nearby pubs. They would read aloud and criticize the works that each were then writing. Lewis and Tolkien's major achievement, however, lay underneath their public success, and formed its foundation. They embodied and articulated what may be called a spirituality of literature, although its implications touch on all of art.The Inklings was an informal literary discussion group associated with the University of Oxford, England, between the 1930s and the 1960s. Its most regular members (many of them academics at the University) included J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams, Christopher Tolkien (J.R.R. Tolkien's son), Warren "Warnie" Lewis (C.S. Lewis's elder brother), Roger Lancelyn Green, Adam Fox, Hugo Dyson, Robert Havard, J.A.W. Bennett, Lord David Cecil, and Nevill Coghill. Other less frequent attenders at their meetings included Percy Bates, Charles Leslie Wrenn, Colin Hardie, James Dundas-Grant, John Wain, R.B. McCallum, Gervase Mathew, and C.E. Stevens. The author E. R. Eddison also met the group at the invitation of C.S. Lewis.
The Inklings were literary enthusiasts who praised the value of narrative in fiction, and encouraged the writing of fantasy. Although Christian values were notably reflected in several members' work, there were also atheists among the members of the discussion group.
"Properly speaking," wrote Warren Lewis, "the Inklings was neither a club nor a literary society, though it partook of the nature of both. There were no rules, officers, agendas, or formal elections."
Readings and discussions of the members' unfinished works were the principal purposes of meetings. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Lewis's Out of the Silent Planet, and Williams's All Hallows' Eve were among the novels first read to the Inklings. Tolkien's fictional Notion Club (see Sauron Defeated) was based on the Inklings.
Meetings were not all serious though; the Inklings amused themselves by having competitions to see who could read the famously bad prose of Amanda McKittrick Ros for the longest without laughing.
Until late 1949, Inklings readings and discussions were usually held on Thursday evenings in C.S. Lewis's college rooms at Magdalen College. The Inklings were also known to gather at a local pub, The Eagle and Child, familiarly and alliteratively known in the Oxford community as The Bird and Baby, or simply The Bird.
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I wonder if our next guests made Valentines for each other when they were children? What do you think? The three sisters grew up in Haworth, near Keighley in West Yorkshire. They had written compulsively from early childhood and were first published, at their own expense, in 1846 as poets under the pseudonyms Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. The book attracted little attention, selling only two copies, and they returned to prose, producing a novel each in the following year.
Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily Brontë's “Wuthering Heights” and Anne Brontë's “Agnes Grey” were released in 1847 after a long search to secure publishers. The novels attracted great critical attention and steadily became bestsellers, but the sisters' careers were shortened by ill-health. Emily died the following year before she could complete another novel, and Anne published her second novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, in 1848, a year before her death. Upon publication Jane Eyre received the most critical and commercial success of all the Brontë works, continuing to this day. Are you a fan of “Jane Eyre” or “Wuthering Heights?” It always seems that there are two camps, though I’ve never known anyone who liked “Agnes Grey” best. How many of you have actually read “Agnes Grey?”
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Some of our guests have been sisters, our next guests are brothers who are said to be so compatible that you can ask either of them a question and they will both always give you the same answer.
Joel and Ethan Coen, known collectively as The Coen Brothers, are Academy Award winning American filmmakers. For more than 20 years, the pair have written and directed numerous successful films, ranging from screwball comedies (O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Raising Arizona, The Hudsucker Proxy) to film noir (Miller's Crossing, Blood Simple, The Man Who Wasn't There, No Country For Old Men), to movies where those two genres blur together (Fargo, The Big Lebowski, Barton Fink). The brothers write, direct and produce their films jointly, although until recently Joel received sole credit for directing and Ethan for producing. They often alternate top billing for their screenplays while sharing film credits for editor under the alias "Roderick Jaynes". They are known in the film business as "the two-headed director", as they share such a similar vision of what their films are to be that actors say that they can approach either brother with a question and get the same answer.
Joel Coen (born November 29, 1954) and Ethan Coen (born September 21, 1957) grew up in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. Their parents, Edward and Rena Coen, both Jewish, were professors, their father an observent Jew and an economist at the University of Minnesota and their mother an art historian at St. Cloud State University.
When they were children, Joel saved money from mowing lawns to buy a Vivitar Super-8 camera. Together, the brothers remade movies they saw on television with a neighborhood kid, Mark Zimering ("Zeimers"), as the star. Cornel Wilde's The Naked Prey (1966) became their Zeimers in Zambia which also featured Ethan as a native with a spear. I would have loved to see the Valentines that the Brother's Cohen gave each other back in the early 60's.
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Our next tea guests are a pair who definitely belong together. One of them might be more likely to remember to get a Valentine than the other, but they still have a lot of love for each other. They were very anxious to come to tea today . . . hey, wait a minute! There they go and they are taking the tea basket with them! Wouldn't you know it?
Yogi Bear is a fictional anthropomorphic bear who appears in animated cartoons created by Hanna-Barbera Studios. He made his debut in 1958 as a supporting character in The Huckleberry Hound Show. In 1961 he was given his own show, The Yogi Bear Show, which also included the segments Snagglepuss and Yakky Doodle. Hokey Wolf replaced his segment on The Huckleberry Hound Show. There was a musical animated feature film, Hey There, It's Yogi Bear!, in 1964.Like many Hanna-Barbera characters, Yogi's personality and mannerisms were based on a popular celebrity of the time. Art Carney's Ed Norton character on The Honeymooners was said to be Yogi's inspiration. Yogi's name is a nod to the famed baseball star Yogi Berra.
The plot of most of Yogi's cartoons centered around his antics in the fictional Jellystone Park, a takeoff on the famous Yellowstone National Park. There had been a 1941 Bugs Bunny cartoon, Wabbit Twouble, that used the more obvious name "Jellostone" Park, a play on both the name of the national park and the dessert Jell-O. Yogi, accompanied by his reluctant best friend Boo Boo, would often try to steal picnic baskets from campers in the park, much to the chagrin of Park Ranger Smith. A girlfriend, Cindy Bear, turned up sometimes, and usually disapproved of Yogi's antics.
Besides often speaking in rhymes, Yogi Bear is well-known for a variety of different catchphrases, including his pet name for picnic baskets ("pic-a-nic baskets") and his favorite self-promotion ("I'm smarter than the average bear!"), although he often overestimates his own cleverness. He also liked to say, "Hey there, Boo Boo!" as his preferred greeting to his humbler sidekick.
I think that Yogi would get a huge kick out of being described as : a fictional anthropomorphic bear. I think he will also get a huge kick out of our tea basket!
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Possibly the best known duo in history, super sleuth Sherlock would be no where without his faithful Watson.
Sherlock Holmes is a famous fictional detective of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who first appeared in publication in 1887. He is the creation of Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. A brilliant London-based detective, Holmes is famous for his intellectual prowess, and is renowned for his skilful use of "deductive reasoning" while using abductive reasoning (inference to the best explanation) and astute observation to solve difficult cases.
Conan Doyle wrote four novels and fifty-six short stories that featured Holmes. All but four stories are narrated by Holmes' friend and biographer, Dr. John H. Watson; two are narrated by Holmes himself, and two others are written in the third person. The first two stories, short novels, appeared in Beeton's Christmas Annual for 1887 and Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in 1890. The character grew tremendously in popularity with the beginning of the first series of short stories in The Strand Magazine in 1891; further series of short stories and two serialised novels appeared almost right up to Conan Doyle's death in 1930. The stories cover a period from around 1878 up to 1903, with a final case in 1914.
Holmes describes himself and his habits as "Bohemian." Modern readers of the Holmes stories might be surprised that he was an occasional user (sometimes habitual, when lacking in stimulating cases) of both cocaine and morphine. Watson, however, describes this as the detective's "only vice", and later "weaned" Holmes off of drug use, citing its destructive qualities In his personal habits, he is very disorganized, as Watson notes in "The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual", leaving everything from notes of past cases to remains of chemical experiments scattered around their rooms and his tobacco inside his Persian slipper. Dr. Watson also states in "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" that Holmes is generally late to rise.
It is said in "The Adventure of the Norwood Builder", that he often goes without food during his more intense cases. "My friend had no breakfast for himself, for it was one of his peculiarities that in his more intense moments he would permit himself no food, and I have known him to presume upon his iron strength until he has fainted from pure inanition." This is very suggestive of how seriously Holmes takes all of his cases. This also helps to emphasize the fact that Watson had brought up before, that Holmes had some unhealthy habits. He advised against a number of things Holmes did during the series. Including his occasional use of cocaine and morphine, and though he believed to have cured him from it he often referred to seeing it as "dormant" and "not dead, but merely sleeping", mainly in The Adventure of the Missing Three-quarter, where the fact that he had in the past used drugs came up twice. On one such occasion, Watson actually assumed that he had taken the drug after staying up much of the night.
Nevertheless, Watson is very typical of his time in not considering a vice Holmes' habit of smoking (usually a pipe) heavily, nor his willingness to bend the truth and break the law (e.g., lie to the police, conceal evidence, burgle, and housebreak) when it suited his purposes. In Victorian England, such actions were not necessarily considered vices as long as they were done by a gentleman for noble purposes, such as preserving a woman's honour or a family's reputation (this argument is discussed by Holmes and Watson in "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton"). Since many of the stories revolve around Holmes (and Watson) doing such things, a modern reader must accept actions which would be out of character for a "law-abiding" detective living by the standards of a later time. (They remain staples of detective fiction, however.) Holmes has a strong sense of honour and "doing the right thing".
Holmes can often be quite dispassionate and cold; however, when hot on the trail of a mystery, he can display a remarkable passion despite his usual languor. He has a flair for showmanship and often prepares dramatic traps to capture the culprit of a crime which are staged to impress Watson or one of the Scotland Yard inspectors (e.g., Inspector Lestrade at the end of "The Norwood Builder" or the capture of Jonathan Small in "The Sign of the Four"). He also holds back his chain of reasoning, not revealing it or giving only cryptic hints and surprising results, until the very end, when he can explain all of his deductions at once.
All in all, it seems he has a lot of problems for someone who considers themself perfect, but his is the name most often given when people are asked to name a famous dectective. And though he might not admit it afterwards, I believe he probably always gave Watson a Valentine.
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My favorite singing group met in elementary school the year I was born. In 1953, they both appeared in the school play Alice in Wonderland.
Paul Simon was the White Rabbit and Art Garfunkel was the Cheshire Cat. They formed the group Tom and Jerry in 1957, and had their first taste of success with the minor hit "Hey Schoolgirl". As Simon and Garfunkel, the duo rose to fame in 1965 backed by the hit single "The Sounds of Silence". Their music was featured on the landmark film The Graduate, propelling them further into the public consciousness.
In my opinion Paul Simon is one of the most talented poets of our generation. The music is an extra bit of wonder, along with the two voices which blend to make a sound that defined an era.
'The course of true love never did run smooth' - it is true of friendship as well. Paul and Art have had times when they were estranged, but they have always found their way back to each other. Perhaps they will yet end up as old friends, who sit on their park bench like book ends.
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Speaking of Tom and Jerry . . . does anyone remember that they were an antagonistic cat and mouse cartoon? Possibly the duo that built the cliche.
Yes they are also a drink . . .
Along with those other famous friends . . .
Gin and Tonic . . .
And Rum and Coke
izs001045
Here are two friends who have one of those "delicate" relationships. Sometimes they seem to be totally against each other, but one has to wonder where one would be with out the other . .
order and chaos
Indeed . . . Order and Chaos
001
PHENOMENA IN SKY
A seemingly endless array of different kinds of love!
How about this one? What would poor grumpy Toad do without his enthuastic neighbor Mr. Frog? And what would Frog do if he didn't have Toad to encourage?
Frog
frogtoad2
Where would Fred be without Ginger?
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FredAstaireGingerRogersRio33 GazellesWBack
image
The Lone Ranger Without Tonto?
lone-ranger-1cmda
classic-television-4-full-length-episodes-the-lone-ranger-2
Xena without Gabriel?
Xena Gabrielle
There were many, many people who came to tea today! "Valentines" of all different kinds . . . brothers and sisters, dance and singing partners, heros and side kicks and lot of friends. Friends who need each other and rely on each other; whose lives are made comlete by their friends. Now here is our last guest. A fascinating fellow (s) ? An interesting thought when thinking of friends . . . Your friend and mine . . .
Velcro
boss-orange-velcro-sneakers
Velcro hooks
Velcro
velcro
Access: PublicTagged with: Valentines!
What a lovely tea party! Very educational! Do I need to read Agnes Grey? And Wuthering Heights is my fav, just for the record!
Happy Valentine's Day, Winnie Dearest.
Love, Ayla
Wow, thank you Winnie for this lovely tea party! What a lovely reminder that love is for all of us to share, in oh so many ways!!!! (sssppp, I have not read Agnes Grey.)
Happy Valentine’s Day!
hugs,
Sprite
I kept coming back to your tea party throughout the day yesterday, to read more and laugh more and enjoy more ot the wonderful partnerships, relationships, and collaborations that have enriched our lives. These were such wonderful reminders of why we cherish our friends and soulmates so much. As I cherish you.
“If there ever comes a day where we can't be together, keep me in your heart I'll stay there forever”
Kat
Wow! Amazing! I love the creativity and energy which went into this. A true labor of love.
I'm a little late, but I see there is still plenty left over! I absolutely loved this…I use to read Ann Landers daily and of course, I use to watch Tom and Jerry too. The lone Ranger…Hi Ho Silver Away!
Thank you for the time and love you put into this and the stroll down memory lane. :-)
Winnie,
La Crud-ola has inhibited my ability to find my way over here! Many apologies … I was here once and couldn't get past Bert and Ernie as I started to feel incredible sadness about the major big loss of Jim Henson who I think was a Playster beyond PLAY! I think of him in heaven looking down with a big ole Ernie smile and singing Rubber Duckie for YOU!!
Today, I made my way all the way … and so enjoyed it all! I was trying to think of your brain clicking away on all of this and then just decided to sit back and enjoy!
Great sharing my friend and oh yeah the tea was very wonderful!
love you,
peri