Scent Diary, May 23-29, 2011

Monday, May 23: Sunny and warm, in the low 80s, but very humid. Probably will rain today. SOTMorning: Mary Greenwell Plum, which I still love to tiny little itty bitty pieces. Testing in the afternoon, one on each wrist back, two formulations for Laurie Erickson’s (Sonoma Scent Studio) upcoming summer scent. I like them both very much, with a slight preference for the “C” formula over the “B” one. It’s a soft white floral, but clearly identifiable as an SSS fragrance, with that lovely rich base and the beeswax. It’s delicious; not all that far from Amaranthine, actually, but without the focus on ylang-ylang and milky notes.

Bookworm’s spring band concert this evening went long, two whole hours. Taz was a squirmy bundle of nerves – he didn’t eat much dinner, and he kept complaining he was hungry. Very late getting the kids in bed. SOTEvening: Ferre 20. Rain.

Tuesday, May 24: Wanted to wear Jour Ensoleille again, but couldn’t find my sample. Wound up with Le Temps d’une Fete instead, which I continually adore. Hot in the morning, rain and thunderstorms in the evening. Hayley Dog gets scared by the thunder, and goes down to cower under The CEO’s desk. No amount of petting or sweet words can coax her out when she’s nervous like this, although I’ll bet a friendly hand holding bacon would do the trick.

Wednesday, May 25: Sunny, hot, and humid – I was sure it was going to rain today, but it didn’t. SOTMorning: Voluspa Mignonette, which reminded me a great deal of Rochas Tocadilly, with a brief almond note in the middle. It’s pretty, but inconsequential. SOTAfternoon: Rose d’Ete, which I love. It was my first niche purchase, in 2009, with birthday money (ebay, tester, considerably discounted). Took Bookworm and Gaze to the high school for the $10 school physicals. Local doctors donate some time one day a year toward providing these physicals, which are required for all middle and high school students participating in a sport. It’s something of a melee, but it’s still better than dragging a kid off to the doctor’s office and paying $35. (Oh, and I found the Jour Ensoleille sample; it had rolled under the Wedgwood plate, a wedding gift that I keep on the dresser to hold things like earrings and lipsticks and safety pins… and samples.)

Thursday, May 26: SOTD: Petite Cherie, which I also love. (I find it very light and very comforting. It’s probably as close to cologne as I get: light, ephemeral, cooling. I keep it in the fridge.) Dropped kids off at school and started to do a “few errands” for The CEO, while he and Jeff the Hired Guy worked cattle, giving them a dewormer pour-on medication, and injections of a preventive vaccine called 7-Way, which inoculates against seven different very nasty cow diseases. I was to go to my erstwhile workplace and pick up a battery cable end for the truck, then go to the post office and mail two large envelopes to the IRS-USDA and the Farm Service Agency (also a government entity), and after that, deposit some checks at the bank. While I was at the NAPA store hearing about how hectic things have been since I left (three new hires, one after the other, who’ve already left, within 10 weeks!), The CEO called to see if I’d go pick up a 50-dose bottle of 7-Way, and two jugs of Cylence (the dewormer) at 5-C Farm and Home Supply in P—–, the next town over. I said, “Sure.” He called back in just a few moments to tell me that they didn’t have it, and I’d need to go to Southern States, a half-hour drive in the other direction.

So off I went to Southern States. While I was there, he called back and told me he also needed a bag of trace minerals with selenium, two bags of dicalcium phosphate, and a 50-dose bottle of Pasteurella. Oh, and while I was at it, I could go by the FSA office since I was already going to be in C-burg and drop off his mail instead of taking it to the post office.

I did all this, and also went by the fancy grocery store in R—– for a few things, including some wonderful JonaGold apples and turkey kielbasa and a bottle of Australian Pinot Grigio, which you cannot get either at Wal-mart or at Wade’s grocery store in town here. I’d left at 8 am, and it was 11:15 before I got home, unloaded the minerals and Cylence in the farm shop, and put the groceries and the cow medications in the fridge. (Doesn’t everybody keep cow meds in the fridge? No?)

Mowed the grass. SOTAfternoon: DSH Chypre Grass (recreation of Jovan Grass). I’ve worn it before to mow, and it’s very nice. Didn’t blow my little brain sideways like her recreation of Coty Chypre did, but it’s extremely pleasant.

Then the mail showed up, with a package from Dear Daisy which included small 5ml splits of Hilde Soliani Il Tuo Tulipano and Illuminum White Gardenia Petals, as well as a few samples of almond fragrances that she sent me out of the kindness of her heart. I spritzed on the White Gardenia Petals, and it’s a pretty, sanitized, forgettable white floral that lasts about an hour. Nice, and certainly the sort of light lacy thing a bride might pick, but nothing to write home about, of course. I knew this was a possibility, but someone says “white floral” and I tend to salivate. Sigh. Actually, Voluspa Mignonette was more interesting than WGP. Double sigh.

And then the dishwasher installation guys called to say they’d arrive between 3:30 and 5:00 pm, if that was okay. That was definitely okay – I’ve been looking forward to the new dishwasher. A busy day, though. Got nothing written except today’s Scent Diary entry. (The dishwasher works great, by the way. But if you happen to walk through the darkened kitchen while it’s running, it’s very Star Trekky, all blinky blue lights. Eerie.)

Friday, May 27: I headed off with Gaze at 4:30 this morning to drop him off at the middle school for his field trip to Petersburg, where the 6^th graders will explore Pamplin Park, a “living history” Civil War site.  SOTD: Hilde Soliani Il Tuo Tulipano.  I’d tried this before from a sample, and I enjoyed it very much.  Spraying from a small decant (thanks, Dear Daisy!) brings out a beautiful creamy quality.  I like this a lot.

[I can understand why some people are puzzled by the Southern fixation on Civil War history – but, you see, the Civil War happened here, and it didn’t happen all that long ago. As I mentioned in this post, a battle took place within a few miles of my husband’s family farm, with the farmhouse itself being used as a field hospital for officers. And my own great-grandfather, then in his teens, set off with the County Home Guard, comprised of teenagers and old men, when he heard that the Yankees were coming. In fact, the family story goes that he set out dressed as he would dress to do farm work: barefoot and hatless. And he was armed with, get this: a musket, a weapon which was a good forty years out of date and no match for cannon. Luckily for him, getting the cannons up Cloyd Mountain turned out to be quite the chore for the Federals. The battle, mired down in very uneven ground, turned to hand-to-hand fighting, and by that I mean bayonets and knives and fisticuffs. I doubt very much my Kidd great-grandfather had a bayonet; that would have been standard army issue, and he wasn’t regular army. He might have had a knife. He might even have turned tail and run; hillbilly boys have a marked sense of self-preservation. In any case, he made it home alive. My mother inherited his gunpowder flask, a tarnished brass item hanging from a metal chain, much dented. I can deplore the Confederacy’s position and rhetoric and indefensible adherence to slavery at the same time that I admire the impulse that could drive a young man to battle in defense of his home, all the while barefoot and inadequately armed. Was he brave or just foolhardy? I don’t know. But he’s part of my history, and it would be foolhardy of me to forget him, or the circumstances under which he lived.]

The CEO headed off with Bookworm, taking her to the Virginia HOBY (Hugh O’Brien Youth) Leadership Conference, held this weekend at James Madison University in Harrisonburg. Since both his siblings were off doing fun things today, this evening we humored Taz in the matter of dinner (crispy chicken strips, broccoli, oven fries) and a movie (Men in Black).

Saturday, May 28: A little cooler today, in the low 80s. Cleaned the house. The boys went out with their dad and Jeff to work cows again, but it wasn’t long before Gaze came back in, sporting itchy pink eyes, a runny nose, and welts all over his chest and back and neck. Apparently he’d run into something (thistles? Some other weed?) in the barn lot that had caused an allergic reaction. I sent him straight into the shower and then stuffed him full of antihistamine, and he was feeling much better within half an hour. Scary, though.

SOTD: Santa Maria Novella Fieno (Hay). Which is not very haylike, or – as it occurs to me now – not very much like the smell of hay that I think of, which is drying hay, either lying out in the field getting ready to be baled, or recently baled and ready to move. I’m not the one who feeds the cows in the winter, so I suppose I don’t even have much of a reference for cured dry hay. Ensiled hay, I know what that smells like too. SOTEvening: Cuir de Lancome.

And by the way, the word for what you do with hay, or for a big pile of it all bundled up, is BALE. Not bail: that’s either the handle on a bucket, or what you do to the water in the bottom of the boat, or what you pay the jail to get out before trial. I saw this word misspelled in a published novel the other day, and my jaw dropped in sheer astonishment. Anchor Books/Doubleday pay people to edit and proofread. I should have had that kind of job.

And while I’m on the subject, the word for that shelf over the fireplace is MANTEL. Not mantle: that’s either a cloaklike garment or a layer of the earth’s structure. The mixups drive me crazy. (Yes, I know that none of this is vitally important to life, the universe and everything. I don’t care. If it’s your job to make sure that the words are spelled correctly in a book, for heaven’s sake, make sure. Gah. It’s just as easy to get it right as it is to get it wrong.)

Sunday, May 29: Went to JMU to pick up Bookworm from her HOBY conference. Apparently she had a good time, but I’m disconcerted by the repeated claim that HOBY “teaches young people how to think, not what to think,” and then encourages the unison shouting of repeated slogans. It was allll just a little bit too Mao Youth to be comfortable for me. HOBY emphasizes leadership and community service, so I guess it’s fine…

SOTD: Mary Greenwell Plum. (The CEO says it’s pretty, by the way.) I might want to go back through the Scent Diary week by week to see whether there has actually been a week since the last part of November, when I got my little decant, when I have not worn it.

Top image is 1920s ad for Parfums Djemil from eBay.  Hayfield photo from Wikipedia.