Rather like not consuming, but to the contrary I have been consuming life in large quantities this month. Big, thick drafts of sweet life: full of variety and pleasant old friends. For instance, my car got released from the shop two weeks ago. It had been in there for three weeks and I was starting to forget it’s brilliant copper color, but there it was on the driveway when I was driven home for the last time by a Gracious Parent. Gumiho, I named it right there on the spot. I’ve been trying to call it Ali Lee all year, since that’s what her license plate spells out, but for some reason when I saw her there on the driveway I knew her name was Gumiho. A gumiho (literally, nine-tailed fox)  is a mystical beast native to Asian folk lore. Gumiho is the Korean name for it, and yes, the Korean fox is a malevolent, carnivorous beast. The thing that makes it perfect is . . . well, do you remember Pokemon? Yeah, one of my favorite Pokemon was a Vulpix, which evolves, of course, into Ninetails and is, quite coincidentally, a gorgeous fiery red.

Moving on.

Having a car again made the literal tasting portion of this month much easier. It was at just such a tea tasting event last year that I got my foot into the doorway of teas, and I’ve managed to keep it pretty wedged in there over the past year without going in or coming out. I’ve been drinking a lot of tea at work, though, because it fits my need for something melodramatic and mysterious. Despite my burnt mouth (I’m very rarely without one in the winter), the three teas we sampled all had wonderful depth of flavor, being brewed to a perfection that I usually only get to imagine. Let’s see, we had Oolong, Puerh, and a Yellow tea – which I had never even heard of before – and they were all delicious, with varying notes of earth, and spice, and barley, and honey.

On Friday I drank in, not hot beverage, but clear, cool, sound. I went to a performance of the Nordic Voices and loved it. I’m not of a temperament to love listening to classical styles of music all day long, but give me a bit to sit and listen to, eyes closed so the rises and falls of the melody can paint with delicate brush strokes a scene upon my mind, and I’ll be in raptures. It’s not so much because I can fully appreciate it, but because it seems so new and mysterious. It helps that the first half were Latin songs drawn directly from Jeremiah – I’ve been in the Old Testament prophets for what seems like an age now, and their powerful, visual language does beg to be put to verse. But I’ll readily admit my favorites were the happy Nordic songs they sang for the latter half of the evening. The things they did with their mouths were astonishing. The first Norwegian song they preformed, which they said had been written to emulate a sunrise – all misty at the outset and then light and “dancing” at it’s end – opened up with eerie, new aged moans which perfectly mimicked a day cloaked in clouds. There was even the sound of fog horns. And later they did something similar with – not groans, no, but not humming either – some stranger application of voice then, that makes it an instrument of wind and sinew distinct from the ability to vocalize. This they pared, at times, with the most controlled whistle. A whistle so high and sweet, but so full of tones, that you would think a flute had been secreted in their robes.

Not that they were wearing robes.

To top the bliss off, this Monday I got a taste of Shoe-fever:

Aren’t they a dream?  They were practically free. Practically, since I went there only to buy sunglasses and came out with quite a bagful of goodies (including four Olivia Newton-John records. I don’t remember ever listening to her before outside of my one encounter with Grease, but I burned two of them on my computer yesterday and loved them). I’m chocking the expense up to the sunglasses and treating my other purchases as promotional freebies.

My accounting practices might be a little shady.

Anyway, that was February in a bite sized sample. I have some pretty big plans brewing for  March, which hopefully y’all will be a part of. Don’t die of shock if you hear from me before April.

“I put my French heels on and I pretend, pretend, pretend I’m twenty-one!”