Week of September 20th – Connecticut

I have been dreading picking Connecticut out of the hat for months now. Not because I have anything against this beautiful state, but because even though I lived in an adjacent state until I left for college, have cousins that live there, have visited it many times over the last __ years and have important clients in Darien, CT, I don’t have a Connecticut snow globe. And believe me; it’s not for lack of trying.

But as luck would have it, this week marks the beginning of the 49th Annual Chrysanthemum Festival in Bristol, CT, “Mum City USA”. Even though mums don’t represent a celebration all by themselves, they sure pretty up the place. The funny thing is that in spite of the fact that thousands of people from all over New England flock to Bristol from late September through mid October to see the brilliant display of mums; the chrysanthemum is not the Connecticut state flower. But it works for me and my table and my deck.

In the middle of the week, my husband and I saluted the state as we munched sandwiches from Subway (Milford, CT) and had PEZ (Orange, CT) for dessert. We were hoping to enjoy an evening watching some good old fashioned reruns of “The Gilmore Girls” (Stars Hollow, fictitious) or “Judging Amy” (Hartford) but would have settled for “Bewitched” (Westport) or even “Who’s the Boss” (Fairfield) but none of these were available. (There actually were airings of “Gilmore Girls” episodes on while I was penning this post.)

With companies like Bigelow Teas and Pepperidge Farms making their homes in Connecticut I pictured an afternoon “Tea” as an appropriate celebration for this fair state. With this group it will probably be closer in nature to Alice’s Tea Party then the Queen’s.

So with an assortment of Pepperidge Farm cookies and cakes, including our childhood favorite Milanos, and peach (left over from Georgia’s celebration) and Earl Gray teas we, in the words of David & Eunice Bigelow, “sat back, relaxed and made tea time our time to refresh mind, body and spirit!” We did this with the help of the soothing tones of Michael Bolton (New Haven) and John Mayer (Bridgeport). By the way the table was set with an array of mums and PEZ dispensers.

Later in the evening we checked our Timex watches (Middlebury) and closed the Connecticut celebration with a viewing of “The Good Sheppard” while munching on another childhood favorite, Pepperidge Farm Goldfish Crackers.
Color in Connecticut with a teensy, tiny Goldfish and travel back west to the “Gem” state (Oh, this is going to be good.) – Idaho. 44 down – 8 to go.