T. helped me move the torogan to the studio counter and its stand to the studio. We then moved the knitting cabinet and a coffee table to the old living room. The cabinet will be converted to an etagere that will eventually showcase our future, traditional British tea set a la Hercule Poirot--or do I mean Ariadne Oliver? The antique, mother-of-pearl-inlaid, Maranao chest now serves as a tea table for our Chinese set. I included five varieties of Chinese tea from my collection, all of them given to me by friends.

The tea lamp was Teow Li's first gift to me. We both saw it in Singapore Chinatown many years ago, and I remembered it some ten years later. It was still there, waiting for both of us. The set of wooden tea things are a recent gift from her. The entire red porcelain set, with a complete dinner service, is something that I'd had long before adopting Nelson and Chito.