Ridin' The Rhody

                                         It's the Rhododendron Festival again!

Last year I was robbed of my chance to ride in the 1955 fire engine by a little kid.

It shoulda been me!

At this year's Rotary Fundraiser Auction I was determined to win it. I partnered with Judith  Deacon to tag team the bidding.  We were told to "hover" during the final minutes of bidding but I found that simply sitting on the bid sheet was a far more effective strategy.

Judith and I got to "Ride the Rhody."

Our Back Up band - they were terrific!

I'm not sure which was the most thrilling - being in the parade or being in such close proximity to so many handsome, strapping firemen.  Judith and I got as close to as many as we could, but for some reason only the most experienced ones were able to pose with us.

Here's the winning float this year: The Car Wash, which the fabulous Dotty Flowers (best name ever!) - a recent arrival from Key West where they know something about parades and floats - helped design.

So, this is the one we have to beat.  I've stolen/bribed/cajoled Ms. Flowers and work is already starting on the design for the Pippa's Real Tea  float for the Rhody Parade 2013.  (And you know there will be boas involved!)

Meanwhile, work is galloping along on the store front.  Lon Michalski from Islander Drywall whipped up the walls in record time and suddenly it's starting to look like a real store.

Frank has finished repairing the brick courtyard

and Sean Hamill and Hunter have the garden all primped and ready for the Mexican Beach Pebbles which are arriving this week (yay Leo!)

The back of this old building is looking pretty fabulous.  Final Before and After pics next time!

And Bob has worked hard putting lipstick on the face of this old girl so her front is as pretty as her rear.

 

If you haven't signed up yet for the Customer Adoration Sweepstakes  it's time you did.  Winners announced June 15!

Next week Shannon and I are off to the World Tea Expo held each summer in (where else?) Las Vegas.  This year marks the 10th Anniversary Expo and should be bigger and better than ever.  I am signed up to participate in the first ever U.S. Wu-Wo Tea Ceremony.  A full report will follow!

If you listen closely you can hear SusanWhitmire pointing out to a painfully aware Hilary "That's your mother!"  and Hilary's response "I know."

Lads Up Ladders

David from Tracy's Insulation

 It's been a busy couple of weeks.  Lads up ladders all over the place.

Steve from Marvin Painting

Ron from Frederickson Electric

Austin and Kevin from Marvin Painting up a very big ladder indeed.  Okay, fine, it's scaffolding.

Bob, owner of Marvin Painting.  Wait till you see how he and his crew have

 tarted up this old building.

Dan with mock ups of light fixtures - a little to the left?  A bit higher?

Both the inside and outside are slowly being transformed.  The Marvelous Ed from Upstairs has nearly finished the fence and I have moved on to the War on Dirty Bricks.

Looks strangely like a map of the Middle East ....

Not all the improvements to the building are visible.  My friend Frost conducted a Native American Blessing Ceremony which was one of the most moving gifts I've ever received.  She helped Terry, Shannon and me purify the space and disperse any negative energy that might be lingering.  Considering the past of the building (brothel/bar/burned out bawdy house) and the number of crimes committed on the waterfront in the old days, there may have been a bit of that about. 

You can clearly see the roof outlines of the original wooden buildings that were attached to the brick building.  The Franklin House was billed as the "first fireproof hotel" in Port Townsend.  Obviously there was some truth to the fireproof claim - the "hotel" part may have been a stretch (unless the term "hot sheets hotel" was in use back then.)  The Tea Room extends to the wooden part that didn't burn down, and was probably where a lot of the bawdy action took place.  Port Townsend had a reputation every bit as notorious as San Francisco's Barbary Coast.

Port Townsend in its very early days.  Looks harmless enough....

We welcomed good energy and blessings upon the building and the Tea Room by burning sweetgrass and setting off every fire alarm in the place - but hey, nice to know they work now.  And that's not all that worked.  Claudia and Ed From Upstairs got some good news that very evening that was directly related to them living in this building.  Thank you Frost!

We're about to launch the Customer Adoration Page along with the Pippa's Real Tea Facebook page.  If you "like" us on Facebook you can enter the Customer Adoration Sweepstakes - 50 Facebook fans will get 50% off their first online or in-store order (such a deal!) Names will be drawn June 16th.

Here's a link to the page if you're one of those sad people who don't have a  smart phone, or one of the sadder ones (like me) who have one but don't know what to do with it:                  PippasRealTea

Believe it or not, some people who have seen this in the window have actually asked if it was me.  What can I say?  I scrubbed up nicely in my early days.

Mastodon? Or Wilted Flower?

Leo came through - the Mexican Beach Pebbles (all 3 tons of them) are on their way.

It will take a few weeks because his workers have to go "harvest" them.  Yes, that's right, each pebble is hand picked off a Mexican Beach and shipped all the way up here.  It's actually cheaper to get them from the beach in Mexico than from a rock yard in Seattle.  Go figure.

I am pleased to announce the War on Green Algae is over and I am victorious.  I kept hoping I might end up with Michelle Obama arms from all the scrubbing  (don't believe the ads that say "just spray on and hose off!") but all I got was Housemaid's Knee.  I apologize to anyone who happened to catch sight of me acquiring it - all you innocent people who did wander around back to see what was happening. I'm embarrassed to admit how much satisfaction I got from all that scrubbing but, as Linda pointed out, it was something I could control, and something that gave me immediate, visible results.

Unlike the mysteries of plumbing and electricity which remain hidden, baffling and taken for granted.  Although look at this. 

                                                                                                                                                                     
                                                                                                    Now that's pretty!


And when Mike explains to me the simple beauty of the grease trap interceptor he installed I can appreciate his enthusiasm.

                                                                                                            Sort of.


Meanwhile the Marvelous Ed From Upstairs has started installing the fence which is going to tart the place up no end, not to mention deter our local arsonist from making another attempt to burn down the building (I'll tell you that story over a nice cup of tea one day soon.)

Sue is helping to clear out the weeds - and discovering all sorts of interesting "objets" back there.  No more mastodon bones please, okay?

And Bob, Kevin and Andy from Marvin Painting are painting the siding out back and will start on the front of the building soon.

The good news is they finished painting.  The bad news is - I hate the color.  No, really, it's come out a buttery yellow which is not what it was supposed to be at all.  Worse still, Dan didn't like the color to begin with and I just hate having to admit he was right. The best news is that Bob, Kevin and Andy have agreed to repaint it - before Dan gets back from the east coast tomorrow night so he'll never know!   This is going to be our little secret, right?

Stay tuned   to see what the non-buttery yellow paint looks like.  And find out if we have, in fact, moved on from mastodon bones to shanghied sailor or possibly "wilted flower" bones - both were denizens of the hotel/bar/brothel that was Pippa's Real Tea in its early days.

Mystery Potions and Pebble Mules

So, having mastered the intricacies of the QR code (for all you other oldies out there it's that black square thingy at the bottom that you point your 'smart' phone at and get instantly transported to a tropical paradise.  (Sorry, you'll just have to find out the hard way, as I did, by begging and ultimately bribing a young person)

Sign in the covered window of the store

I now move on to Facebook - well, with a bit of help from daughter Hilary,

who, for another month or so is still a teenager, so thankfully still knows everything.  She set up a Facebook page for Pippa's Real Tea in about 5 minutes flat and now all I have to do is fill it with interesting, clever and/or witty observations - aargh!

I'd much rather show you pictures of what's happening in the store.   The plumbing has begun!

The kitchen, customer bathroom and my office.

Mike from Dungeness Plumbing has an amazing work ethic.

He was heading to L.A. for some much needed sun so he turned up at the store last Sunday to work on the Executive Loo, which I almost needed when I saw the open back door and thought we'd been broken into.  Mike, a heads up next time, okay?  And wear your sunscreen!

Ron ( I adore his accent and could listen to him talk about load capacity and circuits forever) and Jake

from Frederickson Electric http://www.fredelectric.com/  have started wiring us for sound - and baking, brewing, blending, and bellying up to the Tea Bar.  Yes, there will be a Tea Bar - it's where the blue outline on the floor is,

as well as comfy sofas and cozy tables for two in front of the new, sexy fireplace.  Yes, I mean sexy.  See?

Still waiting on my Mexican Beach Pebble samples to arrive.  Turns out Leo, owner of the company in San Diego, had to go to Mexico to get the sizes I asked for.  And he crossed at the border on foot.  Carrying my beach pebbles in his pockets.  I love this guy.  I really hope the pebbles are as fabulous as I think they will be, because I feel guilty about turning him into my pebble mule.


For those of you in town, feel free to walk around back to the courtyard and check out the progress in The War On Green Algae.  Someone (I wonder who?) left this comment on the last blog entry:

Today, April 1st, 2012 (and this is no April Fools joke) I spotted an elusive Northwestern Green Algae Wood Sprite in the back garden of the Franklin House. For those of you who don't know, the Green Algae Wood Sprite is similar to the Tree Sprite except the Tree Sprite carries brilliant colors of pixie dust in its pockets to change the color of the tree leaves, while the Wood Sprite carries a long handled wooden brush, drags a green garden hose, and sprays some mysterious potion from a large can that with seemingly little effort "magically" changes the slimy,dark green cedar planking back to a brilliant clean wood look. Because of this hard working sprite the algae is almost all gone, and we will all soon be able to benefit by visiting the new garden at Pippa's Real Tea House at 636 Water Street in Port Townsend.

Some Sprite!

But I have achieved some pretty magical results with the mysterious potion. 

Port Townsend's very own Aragorn (eat your heart out Viggo Mortenson) who owns Greenstone Landscaping http://www.greenstonelandscaping.com/ came to rip out all the scraggly shrubs in the courtyard and take down the overgrown tree that was the source of much of the green algae.

The courtyard last summer.

 And here he is grinding the stump. (I'm sorry but that just sounds rude.)

 It all looks a bit barren now but stay tuned.  It will be transformed into a lovely courtyard for sipping or swilling.  If it ever gets warm enough to sit outside.  Despite the plum tree in full bloom in the garden Spring has yet to appear.  Still, the famous Port Townsend Farmer's Market http://www.jeffersoncountyfarmersmarket.org/ returns this Saturday and I'll be there in my polar fleece to cheer at the Opening Day Goat Parade.

I love this town.

Next time:  Will the smuggled beach pebbles prove to be worth the harrowing border crossing?  Is Dan right?  Have I inhaled too many mystery potion fumes?  And can I possibly find another stump for Aragorn to grind?  (Okay, maybe Dan is right.)