I haven't re-ordered my friends thingummy in, well, months. Eh, shilly shally dilly dally! *Shrugs*

Boycott 'em. A country with such a horrible human rights record don't deserve the olympics.
They've locked up objectors, evicted people from houses in the way of where the stadiums were built, blocked Amnesty International's website in China so journalists couldn't access it and are cracking down on Tibetan culture. And that's only scratching the surface.

So, you'd be thinking, a cup of tea is a perfectly simple thing to brew.
Oh, not today, it isn't. Why, pray tell? Because my Aunt is visiting.
Allow me to elaborate.

I had a pot of cold Earl Grey tea on the couter, out of the way. I was, you know, mildly considering the slight faux pas of just adding some freshly boiled water to it. Then, as I go to do that, I find the teapot is missing from where I left it, or where it usually lurks (the draining board.) After a search of all possible cupboards, there could only be one conclusion. I opened the dishwasher. Yes. There it was, for no conceivable reason save for the fact that my Aunt decided the teapot had to be washed.

You don't have to wash teapots. The only thing one ever puts in a teapot is boiled/boiling water and teabags or tealeaves. There is no need, or any logical cleanliness oriented reason, to wash a teapot in the dishwasher. All that is required is for the contents to be emptied and a bit of boiled water to be sloshed around. In my opinion.

Anyway, back to my former tangent. (And I know, it is a fairly boring tangent at that.) Since dishwashers have those little cleaning chemical things in them, the ones which look vaguely like bricks and have ads which show impossibly shiny glasses, I felt I had to clean my teapot out. Since that would do horrible things to the taste. I boiled the kettle. I rinsed both teapots out, the large one and the small one I use. Then rinsed them out with the boiling water.

Teapots (to my estimation) cleaned as much as they could be after being washed in the dishwasher, I decided to get back to making my pot of tea. Ah! I hear you say, the end of this ridiculously long and pointless tea related rant. No. I'm afraid it isn't.
I boiled the kettle again, with some more water in it. (Otherwise, you know, it would have been a boiled-dry kettle and nothing more than steam everywhere. With me panicking and flailing in the middle of it.)
And brewed myself a pot of tea.
Then went out to the computer to get back to my livejournal entry on impassioned plans for the summer, i.e, getting lots of original work done. Since I was feeling pretty strongly about it.

I heard my Aunt calling from the kitchen, which is just the next room. She was asking if I wanted a cup of tea, moments (laterally!) after I had set my pot of tea to brew for about three minutes.
I walked in, thinking I might pour out the tea and actually drink it.
To find.
Nothing more.
Than my Aunt.
Pouring herself a cup of Barry's Gold Blend from my teapot.

She threw out what was in it (hot tea, mind you, not cold stuff!) and boiled the kettle again. Despite the fact that there was clearly:
a) an empty teapot there
b) HOT FREAKING TEA IN MY ONE.
Since I am a human being with a small measure of self control, I didn't throw the Barry's Tea in her face and yell out why I did it, but explained what she had done wrong in a complete fit of panic. Then transferred her tea to another pot and went to the task of boiling the kettle for the third time in half an hour in order to finally get my cup of tea.
After that, I slammed the door out of the house, ran to the very back of the garden, shouted and kicked some trees.

I'm still angry, and doubly so since I lost my train of thought and good mood, and the tea is absolutely insipid.
Since it was like brewing tea out of a new pot, or say, one that had been washed in a dishwasher and sterilised with boiled water. Any slightly loonly tea drinker such as myself may be able to explain to you the superstition that the deposit left in the bottom of the pot from countless pots of tea makes it taste better.
It certainly helps explain why tea in hotels and restaurants tastes kind of off, and why the pot I just made is completely useless. Aside from the perfectly understandable psychological aspects of the whole affair.

Rant rant rant rant, I'm nailing instructions on what not to do with my teapot