Making Iced Tea & Making Do

My iced tea machine broke today. My new one, that I got for Christmas last year. It's July. I live in Chicagoland. And I need my iced tea.

The thing is, I'm pretty sure I sometimes made iced tea before I got the fancy machine. Sometimes. But I can't remember how I did it. It certainly couldn't have been as simple or as fast.

I started thinking, 'I sure was looking forward to that iced tea this afternoon. And there are people coming over tonight and those people deserve iced tea, if they so want some. But my machine just up and broke.'

Then I thought something else: I thought of the robin I saw this morning. He startled me as I stepped around the corner of our house to collect a bag of yard waste to put by the street. I was picking up the bag when I heard a splashing sound behind me. There, in a small amount of water that had pooled in the depressed lid of an old plastic trash can, was this male robin, rolling his roly-poly belly all around in that water.

I watched him for a few moments. He had no modesty, this little bird. He cared not at all that some lady was watching him. Nor did he care that he wasn't washing in a proper bird bath. He was making do with my rain-filled trash can lid.

Like that robin, I'm making do. I unplugged the broken machine, started the flame under my tea kettle and set some water to boiling. Once it was hot, I poured it over the tea bags in my fancy brewing pitcher. And I made iced tea. It didn't come as simple or fast, but it's made. And with a whole bunch of sugar added, it will be some good sweet tea for me and my company.


Inbox is at 35 - I'm going backwards!