Hello Boys and Girls! 

I know it’s been a long time since you’ve heard from Rainbow Annie… and I’m so sorry about that!  Things have been awfully busy in Tea-Town.  But Annie just couldn’t let the ultimate of contrived Hallmark Holidays go by without letting you all know how much I love you!  But remember, kids, I don’t need a special day to tell you I love you.  Annie loves each and every one of you each and every day.  But the big corporations want us to believe that, if we don’t buy lots of candy and flowers for the people we love on Valentine’s Day, it means we don’t really love them.  But that’s not true, is it?

NO!  So I’ll just leave you with a special Rainbow Annie song! 

Candy and flowers and stuffed hearty bears
Seem fine and dandy for some
But loving from someone who really does care
Doesn’t take money or jewelry to wear
So cut out the shaming and consumerized flare
And just give someone a hug.

And how can we celebrate Valentine’s Day
When laws won’t let people love?
The government won’t listen to what people say
And think you can’t love if you happen to be gay
And chase all your hopes for a wedding away
And pretend it’s a rule from above.

So look at your loved ones and give them a smile,
A wink and a squeeze on the toosh,
And know that they love you for more than a while
And don’t have to show it with gifts in a pile
And hope that no more unfair amendments are filed
And wait out one more year with Bush.

Happy Valentine’s Day from Annie and Willy Nilly! 

That’s right, kids. Photos is one of those words that makes the English language so darn confusing. Sounds like is should be “F is for Fotos,” but it’s not. Ah well. It’s a good thing we demand that everyone else in the world (many speaking languages with much more logical phonetic and syntactical structures) learn to speak English - and all but categorically deny extending the same courtesy on our end! The Lesson? Make sure to study foreign languages in school (if you’re a Montessori kid, you’re already on it.)… especially hope that they offer Chinese or Arabic.

Anyway, here are some pictures from the show that Annie and Willy did a couple of weeks ago at The Warehouse Theatre. Enjoy!

Our little friend Chelly has been commenting on the blog again, and she made me think that we need to talk a little bit about current events.  You know, kids, I bet you’re seeing all kinds of crazy behavior from grown-ups lately.  And trust me, it’s only gonna get crazier for the rest of the year.  There are strange commercials that are selling people instead of products… and they’re saying all sorts of weird things in order to do that.  Grown-ups are saying silly words like "Huckabee" and "Caucus."  And everybody just keeps arguing!  Some people - like Chelly’s dad - have even decided to hide out until it’s all over.  Well, as much as we may want to hide out, Annie and Willy are staying right where they are to bring Tea Time to you!

Now, since we just had the Michigan Primary, I thought that Willy and I could write you a song to help you understand the election and remember all the presidential candidates.  Do you know what candidates are?  They’re the people we have to choose from to be the President.  Unfortunately, most of the time we don’t actually end up liking any of them.  So we don’t really choose who’s the best.  We get to choose who’s the least bad.

The 2008 Election Song

What colors are in the US Flag?  It’s red, it’s white, it’s blue!
What do the colors mean in the flag?  Well let me tell you true!
Most of the time they’re symbols of love, connecting me to you,
But when it is a voting year those symbols can fall through!

In voting years the red and blue are different you will see.
The blue is for the Democrats, the red is GOP.
The colors divide us up by state, from sea to shining sea,
An unintended side effect of our democracy.

For reds we have some old white guys, from Huckabee to Mitt,
McCain is back from years ago, all three are full of {Super, Heightened, Interesting Traits}.
As always there are others who don’t seem like much of a hit,
Like Thompson who is always tired and Rudy who’s a {Stupendous, Hunky, Independent Thinker}. 

Now looking at the the blue side, the candidates are swell. 
Hillary, Barack and Johnny boy are fighting it out pell mell.
Of course we’ve got our crazies, Kucinich and Gravel,
And when they win, the red side says, they’ll send us straight to {Highly Electable Legislative Levels}.

So now you see the pieces of the red and of the blue,
It makes choosing a candidate a tricky thing to do.
But if you use your conscience, what we know and what we knew,
The choice you make should always be the one that’s right for you (Best Leaders Understand Everyone)!

Just remember that helpful song, and you’ll be fine! 

Well, Annie and Willy had SOOOOOO much fun with all you boys and girls this weekend.  We’re so glad you came out to see us at The Warehouse Theatre!  In fact, we had so much fun, that we’re not done yet!  That’s right!  Willy and Annie and all of our online Tea-Time pals will still be right here in the interweb to share some Curiosi-Tea, some Hones-Tea… and all the other great kinds of Tea you kids love!  So don’t worry… Annie hasn’t gone far!  Make sure to keep checking in!

It looks like the boys and girls over at The Link decided to highlight Rainbow Annie on part of their 2 Minute Weekend!  So go check that out!  Thanks kids!

And… Willy Nilly invaded the set of Your Carolina again this morning to give Jack and Kimberly one more howdy-do about our shows this weekend.  Thanks Kimberly and Jack!  Be careful, you might have a new recurring co-host!

AND… TONIGHT is your first chance to see Rainbow Annie and Willy Nilly LIVE, right here in Greenville!  So take some time out from watching the coverage of Britney Spears’ Insani-Tea and Election Liber-Tea… and come on over to see us!

Willy and I wanted to say a special thank you to Kimberly and Jack of the Your Carolina show on WSPA - the Greenville CBS affiliate.  They were super nice to me and Willy Nilly when we were on their show this morning - way nicer than I usually am to someone who pops up from behind my couch and interrupts my conversation.  Willy’s lucky that gamble worked out okay for us.  Anyway, when we were on the show, we told them all about Curiosi-Tea, Hones-Tea, Integri-Tea, Infideli-Tea…

There was a lot of tea.

And, you know kids, as I stood there waiting to go on, with Dr. Phil playing on the screens in the background, it made me think about how many influences all you kids out there have, bombarding you all day.  Do you know what bombarding means?  It means that information and opinions and ideas are always surrounding you and flying all around you and landing on your impressionable young brains! Youch!  And you kids have to be careful to make sure to DUCK when bad opinions and mean ideas come your way, right?  Whether it’s glorified namecallers like Dr. Phil or "democracy at work" in the form of Iowa Caucus voters… it’s your Responsibili-Tea to sort out the icky, make-people-feel-bad ideas from the fuzzy, make-really-good-decisions ideas.

Of course, sometimes it’s not so easy to tell the difference.  It’s not so easy to decide what you believe, with all those ideas buzzing around your head.  So take some quiet time, clean up your brain just like you clean up your room… and tell your parents to take this little online quiz.  If you’re confused about their results, just tell Annie… and she’ll help you sort it out!

Happy Iowa Picks the President Day!!

P.S. - Did you know that today is also Alaska’s birthday!  That’s right!  On this day in 1959, Alaska became a state!  Did you know that Annie once did a three day dog sled trip through the Alaskan tundra?  That’s right!  It’s amazing what you’ll do when you’re 17 and full of fresh fish and what I can only assume was some sort of Aleutian version of Peyote!  Memories. 

We have a new online friend who has been asking Annie questions.  Lots of questions.  And my, it makes me so glad that smart little kids like Chelly think to ask Annie when the grown-ups in their life are confusing.

Now, it sounds to me like Chelly is growing up in a very confusing household.  Any household that thinks Fox & Friends or The O’Reilly Factor make for more appropriate children’s viewing than Tea Time with Rainbow Annie makes me very very worried!  They report.  I decide… that they have no Integri-Tea!

Anyway, Chelly, I’m afraid that Willy Nilly and I can’t invite you to come live with us, but we can teach you a little song that will make you feel oh-so-much better:

Your mommy and your daddy and the grown ups that you know
They teach you lots of lessons and their love will help you grow.
They read you stories and they like to tuck you in at night,
But just because they’re older doesn’t mean they’re always right. 

Your mommy and your daddy and the grown ups that you know,
They’re human just like all of us and make mistakes that show.
So when they tell you things that you think might be wrong,
You can make your own decisions and you can sing this special song.

So Chelly… that’s a start for you.  I’ll be sure to answer you some more soon… because it sounds like you’ll need a lot of support from Annie, Willy and the whole Tea-Time gang! 

Happy New Year Chelly… and all you kids out there in Tea Town! 

A little greeting from Willy and Tabitha

Make sure to come see Rainbow Annie LIVE January 4, 5 & 6 at The Warehouse Theatre!

Wow!  Can you believe that 2007 is already almost over, kids?  I can’t!  Now we have to get ready for writing a new number when we put dates on our homework.  And we have to get ready for a special year called a Leap Year.  That means February has an extra day in it!  Willy Nilly told me that you have to jump up and down all day on February 29th - that’s why it’s called "Leap Year."  I’m not sure if I believe him… but you tell me what you think about that, kids!  And we have to get ready for even more concentrated and shameless campaigning from presidential candidates as they try to establish their Credibili-Tea.  Oh boy.  It’s gonna be a big year. 

Are you all ready for New Year’s Eve?  Do you stay up with your moms and dads to watch the ball drop in Times Square?  Do you go to bed early?  Do you eat collards, black-eyed peas and rice on New Year’s Day?  Do you stand outside at midnight and chant to the goddess, asking for a prosperous year?  There are so many ways to ring in the new year.  And you know, there’s a special old song that a lot of people like to sing when it turns into the new year… but most people don’t really know what it means.  Auld Lang Syne is a special old song that the famous Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote down after he heard an old man singing it.  It means "old times" or "in the old days."  Basically… it just means a long time ago.  It’s a song about not forgetting what happened in the past so that you can take all the special lessons you learned from the past and apply them to the future.  Maybe we should tell all the presidential candidates to remember Auld Lang Syne when they’re making decisions and saying all the same old things that we’ve heard over and over and over again.  They could learn old lessons, and still, maybe, try to show some Hones-Tea, Originali-Tea and Integri-Tea!

Happy New Year, Kids!  From Annie and Willy! 

Well, boys and girls, it sounds like something very sad happened today.  Some bad people decided they wanted to hurt someone, and so they snuck into a rally in Pakistan and hurt a lot of people.  CNN is talking about it right now.  (Annie is sitting on the floor of an airport waiting to catch a flight home after her flight was cancelled last night and she had to spend the night in a yucky hotel… and now her new flight is delayed too.  It’s worth noting that S is for Service too.)  They’re even saying that a very important person in that country was killed.  But… they’re also saying that they are "still working to independently confirm" the information that they are already reporting.  This happens a lot with the news.  You’re probably too young to remember when the news people broke all of our hearts in 2000… we went to sleep with one president and woke up with another one completely.  All because they would rather be the first to report anything, rather than waiting to make sure that what they are reporting is true.  Does that seem like a good idea, boys and girls?  It’s always important to think hard about what you say before you say it.  And if you’re someone who people believe is a reliable source of information - like the news - you should be even more careful to be sure that what you’re saying is right.  You know what that is?  It’s Responsibili-Tea!

And - on a different note - send good thoughts Annie’s way.  She’s really hoping to get back to Tea-Town soon.