Parents, in their omniscient wisdom, always insist
that children eat ice cream popsicles outside.
Here’s why (these are pictures of Clara, Damian,
and Logan eating popsicles with Nana on July 4th):

It’s so we can literally hose them down afterwards:

As someone who has not grown up in English culture but is constantly exposed to it in her adult life, I feel like an anthropologist studying the modern English social system — observing all the gentle lubricants the English apply in their daily life so the machine of society runs smoothly.

As any outsider will tell you, one of the first things we can’t help but notice is the use of tea.  It is ubiquitous, involves social rules, and is one of the main lubricants of English society.  I’ve truly enjoyed watching the rituals that revolve around tea, but on this last visit, I noticed how tea was used on a more mundane level for its caffeine.

In America, we have the most enormous mugs.  Sizes vary, but American mugs can hold from 10 ounces to 18 ounces of liquid.  I just bought a huge 18 ounce mug from Starbucks that has the picture of downtown Austin on it.  We fill our unusually large mugs with coffee and wake up our brains for work.

I think, like many things, we perhaps overdid it with the mugs and the coffee.  Tea has about half the caffeine as coffee and English mugs, as a general rule, tend to be smaller.  I always marvelled that the English would drink five cups of tea in a day until I realized that, by drinking tea in smaller cups, they were spreading their caffeine more evenly throughout the day instead of one giant jolt to the system in the morning and then another giant jolt in the afternoon.

As a firm believer in the use of caffeine as a motivational tool, I find the English system a little easier on the body and mind.  I don’t think Americans will be giving up their coffee or giant mugs anytime soon, but I thought I would just pass on what I had observed overseas. 🙂