SMITH: Ye olde news stand suits her to a tea

<p>Angela Grant grew up in Liverpool poor but determined. She recalls, “When I was 13, I told my mother, 'I'm going to live in America.'”</p><p>Now 53 and working to open the business of her dreams in Santa Rosa, Grant toiled as a teen and young woman, and nearly 30 years ago emigrated to the U.S.</p><p>She has decades of experience in hospitality, sales and customer service. I could share the story she tells about the moment she decided she'd open an English tea room, but you should hear it from her.</p><p>She's transforming part of Santa Rosa's former Sawyer's news and cards shop into Paddington's, a 1940s-and-'50s cottage resplendent with antiques, books, sofas, chessboards — “and my waitresses are going to sing.”</p><p>Intended opening, Jan. 15.</p><p>DIFFERENT STRIPES: CHP officers dress great, but their khakis and royal blue ties didn't make even the Top 10 Coolest Uniforms when 50 military officers from around the world stopped by the CHP's Rohnert Park post.</p><p>Military brass from 35 countries toured Sonoma County as a field trip from their studies at the U.S. Naval War College in Rhode Island.</p><p>It impressed one Chippy to have an Israeli commando officer tell him that around the world, the CHP has the reputation as the best police agency in America. It wasn't immediately clear how much “CHiPs” reruns may have to do with that.</p><p>RYAN VOGELSONG is largely mystified by what happened in the third inning of Monday's National League championship game.</p><p>That's when his struggling stopped like the flip of a switch and he began to blow strikes past the Cardinals, ultimately beating them 7-1.</p><p>The Giants pitcher couldn't know that as he flailed, lifelong Sebastopol fan Samuel Casad, who's 4¾ years old, jumped up at home and ran into his room.</p><p>When Samuel reappeared, he'd pulled off his sweatshirt and was wearing the Giants World Series 2010 T-shirt that's now so tight his mother, Katy, has plotted to Goodwill it. Samuel wore his Giants cap, too, and wielded the Giants banner he'd pulled off the wall above his bed.</p><p>His family swears it was just as he grabbed his good-luck gear that Vogelsong found his groove. So, Mom, good luck getting that T-shirt away from Samuel now.</p><p>ORANGE FOR MILLIE: Even sixth-grade teacher Martha Menth wore Giants orange Wednesday to Santa Rosa's Kawana Academy of Arts & Sciences. And she's an A's fan to the bone.</p><p>But Menth adored talking baseball with third-grade teacher and Giants faithful Mildred “Millie” Anderson.</p><p>Staffers and students wore orange-and-black to school Wednesday for a memorial to Anderson, who'd taught on Sept. 19, turned in lesson plans the next day because she knew her kids would need a sub and died of cancer the following Monday.</p><p>Orange will be big also at a celebration of the heroic teacher's life at 10 a.m. Saturday at Daniels Chapel of the Roses.</p><p>(Chris Smith is at 521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.)</p>