If you're still packing for ConQuesT....

[gerisullivan]

I've been wanting to go to ConQuesT for a few years now. Their GoH line-up this time around includes my very dear friends debgeisler and tnh -- the time and opportunity were ripe. I'm KC bound.

As is my usual habit, I over-packed and then some. Among the very last items I tucked in are a pair of gloves. Not the latex or vinyl gloves for safer party prep food handling, but white, ladies gloves -- the kind I've never taken to a convention before.

The occasion? Tea. Really quite remarkable tea. Thanks to docinghair and papersky, this weekend pnh and I will be tasting and serving eight different kinds of First Flush and Second Flush Darjeeling. And, yes, I'll report back on the favorites. There may even be cucumber sandwiches with no-crust bread cut into interesting shapes with ruffle-edged cookie cutters. Little paper coasters with pansies and a brief bible verse printed on them. Flowered napkins. Yes, there just may be something along those lines, too. Did I mention I over-packed?

Time and location are still TBD. Sometime Sunday after noon and before evening looks most likely. My best tea hats don't travel well, but I do have a recent find from Brimfield tucked into my bag. And a funky, vintage purse from Brimfield, too! My ensemble also features an embroidered, flouncy skirt and hand-knit lace shawl.

So if you're still packing for ConQuesT, feel free to tuck in hat, gloves, and related finery. Being in fandom means never having to ask, "but where will I ever wear this?"

(Rest assured, hats and gloves are not required! If you're interested in joining us for tea, please ask me for the details once we're all in Kansas City.)

Posted with a tip o'the tipple to my fellow Pinheaded Puritans from a certain Minicon of yore. I think that's the last time I wore such gloves. ("Many moons pass. Buffalo cross great prairie....")

(Advance warning: I'm already thinking of a reprise at Boskone. I drive to Boskone; I can bring my Candlewick party service. The crystal cups would be lovely for viewing the color of each tea, and I even have matching flower vases. And a carnival glass deviled egg tray!)

Comments

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

It's not an elegant tea party at a convention that's croggling me. It's white gloves in Kansas City. Perhaps that isn't fair, but my view of KC is through my relatives there, who are decidedly not upper-crust. Well, enjoy, and good tea-sipping!

w00t!

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

Have fun!

[papersky.livejournal.com]

One of the Darjeelings I got Patrick is from the highest tea garden in the world, according to the guy I bought it from, who had just come back from Darjeeling with it the week before the Nebulas.

If I could remember which, it would be more useful, but anyway!

Have a lovely time.

[ann-totusek.livejournal.com]

Darn, I wish I could go. Unfortunately I have to work this weekend. :(

[casacorona.livejournal.com]

You are a loon. But charming. Have fun! Wish I could be there with my afternoon tea finery.

[(Anonymous)]

I won't make it to ConQuest, but I'd love a nice tea at Boskone. I firmly believe going to teabags is why the Brits lost their empire. I ask Smofbabe to bring me loose Lady Grey from Oz 'cause I can't buy it in the States. I've learned the hard way not to order tea in restaurants unless they make a note of saying they properly brew it.

If you need more credentials or references, I can bring clippings of when I was featured in the Gainesville Sun as a hardcore tea drinker. I'm wearing pearls and a cashmere sweater, sipping from one of my heirloom bone china cups. You bring the tea, I'll bring the pearls.[g]

[eackerman.livejournal.com]

Sorry, that was me pontificating. I thought I was signed in.

I'm better at brewing tea than I am at this interweb thing.

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Oh, good! I'm a neophyte on the tea front, so having you there to help with its proper brewing and all would be very fine, indeed!

On the pearl front, I'll be wearing my mother's carved ivory necklace and matching earrings. They're not pearls, but I think they will suffice. :-)

[netmouse.livejournal.com]

aw. I was even thinking of going, breifly, before work decided to send me to arizona and I decided both trips was too much. I will be thinking of you all.

[wild-patience.livejournal.com]

I learned all my glove etiquette from novels. I believe it was in _Little Women_ that I learned that you should remove your gloves before eating or handling food. (Jo or someone was in a fuss because she didn't have two good gloves to wear to a party. One of the sisters told her to wear the good one and carry the other and, of course, both would be off when it was time to eat.)

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I learned etiquette from the class they give wives when the husbands advance from enlisted to officer without going to college. Mother was sick, so I went.

Geri, I put my ruffled cookie cutters in one of the bags to go to the Transitional Housing but I kept the flower napkins that my grandmother embroidered. I have my mother's carved ivory necklace, too.

[damascene.livejournal.com]

I already own gloves--and a real glove box in which they are kept, it's a keepsake from a friend's mother--and today at WisCon I was ambushed in the Art Show by a hat of truly elegant proportions and brim width, in lilac and lavender felted silk. (Photos later this evening if I catch up with roommate batwrangler before we're both too tired to make them happen.) So perhaps I'm appropriately equipped for Tea at Boskone...