Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Joining the Tea Party

You’d think that after the election all this talk about The Tea Party would have died down by now. But apparently pockets of tea party enthusiasts are still going strong. In fact I was recently approached about attending a tea party event. I started to resist, but their argument for my attending was so strong that I just didn’t have the heart to say no. Who knew that I would walk away being a convert for the cause?

Wait, I know what you are thinking!

Before you dismiss me as someone who’s views on the tea party just flip-flopped so violently a landed bass couldn’t do better, let me introduce you to my recruiter. She’s very persuasive, her cause was just, and damned if all she had to do was look at me with those big blue eyes of hers and I was hooked. Plus she’s three, how can you say no to attending a three year old’s tea party?

This boys and girls is what the tea party is supposed to be about. It’s not voters who are angry at the government and attend rallies that hire speakers to get them even more angry, but offer little in the way of real solutions, other then voting people less conservative then them out of office.

Its about sitting around eating little sandwiches, drinking out of undersized cups, pinkies up of course, as you watch or share in the play of adorable children. If you are wearing a silly hat, then so much the better, and in this party silly hats were mandatory. You spend the time socializing, celebrating and simply enjoying time together apart from all the craziness of life.

You can’t rush a tea party, you slow down, especially if it is for a little girl’s birthday party and she is opening presents. She takes her sweet time opening presents, despite our urging for her to move on to the next one. We were told a firm “slow down!” by her. Good advice actually. She took the time to examine all the fun stuff, paying little attention to the practicable, such as clothes. She knew Mommy would ensure that they would be worn. She sat patiently, ok, only kinda patiently, as an adult struggled struggled to remove a toy from its child and adult proof packaging.

Who decided that to get a doll out of the package one needed a very sharp implement? Maybe the political style tea partiers would be spending their time well working on overturning such a ridiculous idea.

My granddaughter’s tea party themed birthday event was the hit that her parents knew that it would be. Helene’s mom and dad pulled out all the stops, even making a very cute, but barely edible tea pot shaped cake, as well as some very pretty and quite tasty other treats. We had lemonade instead of actual tea, and even got the use of some tea sets provided by one of Helene’s great-grandmothers. That her daddy was there made it even more special. He is home on leave from Afghanistan and will fly back after Thanksgiving. It was extra special seeing that family reunited again after such a long absence, even if they will be separated again for a time.

Now you can see why I am an ardent tea party-er. With events like that how could I not be?