Demented Teapot

A crummy day, with a headache and sore throat. Not very serious, but enough to interfere with my work. Slight fever too. OTC non-aspirin pain medicine has made me feel better, but I start to shiver downstairs at my keyboard in 68 F temps, unless I wear a coat and a cap.

I was going to write at length about a plastic teapot I gave Ann for Christmas, a talking teapot that doesn’t talk too well if you do the intuitive thing when you’re nearly three, and try to fill it with liquid. The battery case is inside, with the teapot’s hollow space blocked at the top—but not blocked in a watertight way. It says cheerful things if you push a button. If you put water in, it says cheerful things in rapid succession, like a lunatic in one of Oliver Sacks’ books.

Or at least it did that on Christmas night. As I listened to it babble, I wondered if it was going to address me like a possessed doll in a horror movie. “Whadda you lookin’ at, human?” Luckily, we do not live in a universe like that, I’m fairly sure.

Time to wrap up blogging for ought-five. I’ll pick it up around January 3, feeling as I do the usual how did these year numbers get so high?