Scent Diary, Nov. 21-27, 2011

"A Warm Glowing Red" from freewallpapers4desktop.com. The last of our leaves have finally gone brown and left the trees this week.

Monday,  Nov. 21:  Warm today, into the upper 60s, but cloudy, with rain off and on. Got my turkey breast out of the freezer and into the fridge to thaw for cooking on Thursday morning.  SOTD: Bath & Body Works Velvet Tuberose hand cream, with a weensy spritz of DelRae Amoureuse on top.

SOTEvening: Mary Greenwell Plum.  Off to the high school for the end-of-marching-band-season potluck dinner, followed by the Parents’ Meeting for Winter Sports.  I cannot imagine what the coaches have to tell us this time that’s different from what they had to tell us at the Parents’ Meeting for Fall Sports two and a half months ago.   I can’t believe I’m missing the video from the Wake Forest band competition, which I couldn’t go to, for this stupid sports meeting.  Usually The CEO does the track stuff and I do the band stuff, but he’s off at the School Board meeting.

(Answer to “what’s new?”: nuthin’ much, except for the disturbing fact that the Indoor Track team will not be allowed to run inside the school on wet or cold days because the maintenance guys are supposed to be cleaning the new tile floor.  Yeah.  That’s a good reason to kick 38 kids out into the snow, right?  They can’t use the gym because the basketball teams are practicing in it, and the football field house is primarily a weight room and not suited to running.  The industrial arts building is better physically suited to a practice facility, particularly for sprinters.  However, it houses a daycare that lets out at 5:30 pm, and school officials don’t want 180-pound sprinters barrelling down halls that could contain toddlers… they’ll have to find a solution, and soon.)

Daily NaNoWriMo word count is 2528, with a cumulative total of 41,178.  Scent of Bedtime is Alahine again.

Tuesday, Nov. 22:    Warm but rainy again.  Poor Gaze got sick last night; looks like he’s got the 24-hour crud that hit Taz and Bookworm last week.  SOTD: Parfumerie Generale Praline de Santal.  (Nice.  I like.)

The CEO and I went to the benefit program at the high school, in which the choir sang, the drama department presented a one-act play, and the band played.  It was nice.  SOTE: Amouage Lyric Woman.  It rained ugly all night.

Daily NaNo wordcount 2879, for a cumulative total of 44,057. 

Wednesday, Nov. 23:  Kids out of school.  Rain cleared off during the morning.  Windy and chilly but not miserable.  I hope the track team had a place to practice! SOTD: Smell Bent One, which I still like very much and should wear more frequently. 

Gaze helped me make scalloped apples, a Thanksgiving tradition for us.  Yeah, yeah, we made them early, but the bags of apples on the counter were getting in the way.  I’ll try to post a recipe later – it’s kind of a pain, because my recipe came from my mom, and goes something like, “use all the apples you have, add as much sugar and cornstarch and lemon juice as you think it needs, cook until it looks right.”  So there’s actually nothing written down, and I’ll have to write it down myself and check it for accuracy.

Daily NaNo wordcount 1749, for a cumulative total of 45,806.

Thursday, Nov. 24, Thanksgiving:  Clear, lovely day with sunshine.  The CEO went out early this morning to move a bull back out of a field full of cows where he ought not to be, and found a cow dead for no apparent reason.  She wasn’t old, she hadn’t recently had a calf, she hadn’t been obviously sick, she wasn’t dehydrated, she hadn’t gotten her feet up the hill. (Weird, huh? If a cow lies down on a hill the wrong way, having feet up at a higher level than her head, it messes up her digestion so that  she begins to bloat, and then she can’t breathe.  That happens occasionally.)  We’re postulating a pregnancy that went wrong, but without an autopsy there’s no way to know.  SOTMorning:  Si Lolita, for no other reason than it’s pretty and the mini was close at hand.

Made spiced cider and cooked a turkey breast.  Added a snap to Bookworm’s new purple blouse (for modesty, her idea) and ironed it; then she went off with PETBoy to his grandparents’ house for Thanksgiving lunch.  Made gravy.  Heated up the scalloped apples that Gaze helped me make yesterday.  The rest of us went over to The CEO’s mother’s house for Thanksgiving dinner.  His sister E, brother-in-law K, sister J, and E & K’s kids – Curiosity and Primrose – were there, and Bookworm and PETBoy came and joined us for their Thanksgiving: The Sequel.

SOTD: Organza Indecence.  I considered Jeux de Peau, Champagne de Bois, and Alahine, but decided OI would be just right.  Also thought of that sample of Ambre Sultan, but I was leery of trying something so new before going to spend time with people who are not perfumistas.

Daily NaNo wordcount 2802, for a cumulative total of 48,608.  (However, the OpenOffice wordcount tends to be pretty inflated.  I’ll bet that NaNoWriMo says it’s only about 47K.) 

Friday, Nov. 25:  Went to validate my wordcount at NaNo, and I (oopsie!) included the whole document, not just the stuff written in November.  The official total wordcount is 57,209 per NaNo (58,569 by OpenOffice’s overly generous count).  I won’t consider myself a “winner” unless I can get 60,000 before the end of the month, because I wrote 9920 words in July.   I certainly think it’s doable.

Clear and cold today.  My nephew Curiosity spent the night, and all three boys have been building forts and shooting each other with Nerf guns all morning.  Primrose wanted to come over and play, but Bookworm is out with her dad and Jeff, moving a group of cattle from the Morgan place back home for the winter, and Primrose doesn’t want to be here until there’s more estrogen in the house.  Not that she put it that way… but she’s a very girly little girl, completely uninterested in Nerf guns or forts.  (As an eleven-year-old, I’d probably have picked up a Nerf gun myself.  Sadly, I was six years older than the oldest of my cousins, and always a bit left out of cousin play.)

SOTD:  testing Rose Kashmirie again.  Still a no, I think, or at least a not for me.   Daily NaNo wordcount 41, for a cumulative total of 48,649.

Saturday, Nov. 26:  Lovely weather!  Cousins over for a visit in the morning, then a bit of housecleaning and off to my parents for Late Thanksgiving and my dad’s birthday.    SOTD: Tableau de Parfums Miriam.   (Poor PETBoy.  He went with us, largely because Bookworm asked him to, and I think he was bored out of his skull.)  It was lovely to see my brother and his wife, and their darling little boy Chopper D, who is – gasp! – no longer a baby.  He’s two and talking and completely fascinated with blue cars and watches.  He, um, “borrowed” Bookworm’s watch and wore it all afternoon.  No, it did not fall off: he’s big for his age, and she’s small.

Daily NaNo wordcount 0, for a cumulative total of 48,649.   (Except that when I verified my wordcount at NaNoWriMo, the stuff I’ve written this month has been folded into the 9920 words that I wrote in July, so it thinks I’ve “won.”  I WILL get to 50K written this month.  It’s coming up fast.)

Sunday, Nov. 27:  Cloudy and windy again.  The CEO preached at a small Presbyterian church (once pastored by his dad’s first cousin, now down to about 22 members, mostly elderly) today.  Bookworm went to chuch with PETBoy, and the boys and I went to the later (11 am) service at our church today.  Advent started this Sunday, which was a surprise to me.  I’d stopped being in the habit of Advent, once we left our previous church for our current one, but looks like it’s back.  Which is sort of nice.  An advent wreath is a nice tradition – but I admit that I got sick of only singing Advent hymns for a month, because there are only about six of them, and there are alllll these dozens and dozens of lovely Christmas hymns that weren’t getting sung at all, except on Christmas Eve, and then only the first verse.  There are whole generations of young Presbyterians growing up without learning the beautiful second and third verses of Joy to the World, for example.

Also, I am SO, SO not ready for the Christmas stuff.  Not yet. My Christmas things will start getting hauled out gradually, beginning with the nutcracker collection the first weekend in December, the Nativity set, electric candles and a door wreath the second weekend, followed by a tree on the third weekend.  And it will all come down on New Year’s Day, because that’s the way I roll. I know that the town administrations in the area have had decorations up for two weeks, and I know the official “Christmas season” has already begun, but I don’t like this whole let’s-celebrate-for-six-weeks-and-buy-lots-of-stuff thing.  I just don’t like it.  Now get off my lawn!

I realize that my “let’s sing Christmas carols now” and “let’s not decorate yet” preferences may seem idealistically opposed, but they make sense to me.   Okay.  OVER it.  Shutting up now. 

SOTD: Tauer Perfumes Une Rose Chypree.  I don’t know whether my sample has gone off, or what: there seems mostly the ambergris-heavy Tauerade in this, where once I remember lots of dark rose and spices.  I mean, it still smells good.  It just smells different than I remember.  SOTEvening: Caron Parfum Sacre.

Daily NaNo wordcount 1248, for a cumulative total of 49,897.  Almost there…  if I’d been able to stay awake last night, I’d be there already.

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Scent Diary, Nov. 14-20, 2011

 

Image from Wallpapers etc.

Monday,  Nov. 14:  Sunny and warm, in the low 60s.  SOTD: SSS “Classic” tester, Nov. 3 version.  Reminds me quite a bit of Tableau de Parfums Miriam (which I’ve said before), except that Classic’s heart is more mimosa-rose and the base has some oakmoss and patchouli.   Classic is more… well, classic, (duh) with that vaguely chypre base.  Miriam is so tender and nostalgic, in a different kind of way.

A pretty good NaNo day:  Daily word count is 3119, with a cumulative total of 26,114.

Tuesday, Nov. 15:  Rain. And half the denizens of this household have a cold.  (The observant among you will note that “half the denizens” works out to two-and-a-half people, or if we’re counting pets as well, that makes three-and-a-half living beings.  However, if we take the two pets and make them equal to one person, which PETA would certainly chastise me for doing, then that makes three denizens of the household with a cold, and that happens to be the case: Taz, Bookworm and I are sniffling, sneezing, and snotty-nosed.  ‘Tain’t no fun.  I’m tellin’ ya.)

SOTD: Nothing.  Nada.  I got busy and I forgot, and by the time I remembered, I didn’t want to waste time on sampling something, but samples were all that were handy to the desk on which I write, and although I would probably have benefited from a brief jog over to the dresser where I keep most of my in-season bottles and decants, all of five feet away, I couldn’t be bothered.  Because then, my dears, I would have had to have chosen something, and I was getting my main characters Day and Meredith out of a potential scrape with the obviously-drunk and possibly-dangerous meth-head redneck Jackson brothers, and it was taking all of my attention.  I had no attention to spare for perfuming myself with licquored-up Jacksons on the loose, because their mama’s people is Cecils and Odells from Little Creek, and don’t nobody mess with them ‘thout a shotgun. 

Clearly I am overusing my dash key today.  No matter: Daily NaNo wordcount 2888, for a cumulative total of 29,002.  I did choose a bedtime fragrance: Lolita Lempicka Si Lolita.  I like a good peppery floriental; too bad this one has such lousy staying power.

Wednesday, Nov. 16:  Taz woke me up last night with the thrilling news that he had vomited, and a little bit got on his pillow but he made it to the bathroom for the rest.  Oh, joy.  I was so tired that I told him to just pull his comforter onto the floor and sleep there, and I’d clean up later.  By morning, he was feeling better and said he was hungry, and the bed wasn’t that icky, so I wasn’t worried about him.  But then Bookworm called me from school, telling me that she’d thrown up too and would I please come get her?  So they were both home today, and I held off on scent so that should any of us be stricken by more nausea, at least I wouldn’t ruin a fragrance with bad associations.    Later in the afternoon, I chose Prada Infusion d’Iris, which is so light and pleasant that I figured it would survive any such attack.  But there was none.

Daily NaNo wordcount 1207, for a cumulative total of 30,209.

Thursday, Nov. 17:  Cold.  Rainy. Everybody feeling better and back at school. Meant to wear L’Arte di Gucci today, but got distracted.  SOTD: Parfumerie Generale Aomassai, which is gorgeous and rich and roasted-smelling for ten minutes, after which it smells like a very nice masculine oriental.  Overall, I’m disappointed that it isn’t earthshaking, but it is pleasant.  Trying not to get sick today; took a two-hour nap in the afternoon. 

Finally it cleared up, and I picked up Bookworm at school and took her to the courthouse to get her official driver’s license.  In Virginia, you’re still required to go before a judge (usually in a group hearing), and hear about your responsibilities as a driver, how driving is a privilege and not a right, and that if you are still a minor, your parents still control whether you can possess that license or not.  You also hear about the risks of driving, the biggest reasons for accidents in drivers under 21 (inexperience, distraction, speeding, impairment due to drugs/alcohol), and that recently-increased legal penalties for delinquent behavior such as alcohol possession or truancy can affect your driver’s license.  It’s a sobering discourse, followed by the ceremonial presentation of the license to the new driver’s parent.  In any case, I held Bookworm’s freedom there in my hot little hand for all of four minutes before recognizing out loud that she’s mature and trustworthy, and handing it over to her with a reminder that I didn’t go through 28 hours of labor with her and sixteen years of parenting, just to have all that good work ruined by her death in a vehicle, so be careful  with it.

Had a good community chorus rehearsal.  Wore Alahine to bed.  Yum.

Grr.  Having NaNo difficulties… every time I sit down to write something, it comes out STUPID.  Lousy 146 word count today, cumulative count 30,355.   Not behind yet, but I am puzzled by the reason for the setback.  What did I do wrong?  Why aren’t my characters telling me what’s going on?  They should be.  I have all sort of plot and character-development ideas… though I know for a fact that I am avoiding writing an action climax.  Maybe that’s it; they know I’m being a total chicken about the car crash night and they resent me.

Friday, Nov. 18:  The CEO comes home tonight, yay!  Bookworm has a date. Got to do a little cleaning-straightening and think up something nice for dinner.  It’s very cold and clear outside, and nearly all of our beautiful fall leaves are on the ground, but it smells nice: a bit of woodsmoke in the air, some damp decaying leaves, and the odor of frost over large areas of grass.  Drinking Pumpkin Spice Chai tea, yum.  Burning Pumpkin Spice candles, too – it’s become a NaNoWriMo ritual almost.

SOTD: Tauer Une Rose Chypree.  Totally not what my character would wear, but no matter. I’m digging it.  I don’t think fragrance cognitive disconnect is behind my recent word blockage… I don’t think so. I wasn’t writing any better with the Infusion d’Iris on instead.  SOBedtime: Alahine again.  I love Alahine.  (And you know? It plays nicely with URC.)

Daily NaNo wordcount 4689, for a cumulative total of 35,224.  Woo-hoo! 

Saturday, Nov. 19:  Cleaned house, took recyclables to the county collection place, bought another two gallons of milk, yada yada… SOTD: Guerlain Idylle edt.  It’s lighter and less patchouli-heavy than the edp, with some lily of the valley on top of the rose and jasmineand I like it a lot more.  It does have patchouli, that “clean” version that perfumistas love to hate on, but that kind seems to bother me less than the other.  It is somewhat… hm… higher-pitched than a lot of patchoulis, but the entire edt version of Idylle is fairly high-pitched, and I rather like it.

Daily NaNo wordcount 1480, for a cumulative total of 36,704.  SOTE: Tom Ford Black Orchid Voile de Fleur.  (How come the pretty, floral edt version of Black Orchid got discontinued and the shrieking, dirt-and-cucumbers original edp version didn’t? I don’t know either.)

Sunday, Nov. 20:   Cloudy but warmer, with temps in the mid-50s.  Early church (good music, sermon on the Widow’s Mite).  SOTMorning: nothing except the remains of Voile de Fleur on my red sweater. Managed to cut down the remaining salvia and the dead foliage, made a huuuuge dish of faux Beef Stroganoff for lunch.  Football on TV for the males in the house.  That’s not to say that the females of the house don’t partake: I prefer my football live, though I’ll watch a game or two if I have nothing better to do.  Bookworm likes football, too, but PETBoy ate lunch with us, and then they spent some time talking (talking, ha!) standing outside near his truck before she had to come in and do the rest of her homework.

SOTAfternoon: Honore des Pres Vamp a NY.  I’m now getting that bubble gum note that some people talk about with it.  It’s borderline Way Too Trashy, but on me that’s gone in about half an hour, and since I never hated it the way I do certain topnotes (cough cough Tubereuse Criminelle cough), I do love the Vamp again once it’s into the tuberose-and-vanilla heart that I think of as its main character.

Daily NaNo wordcount 1480 1946 , for a cumulative total of 36, 704 38,650.  (oops, didn’t update properly).

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Winner of Tableau de Parfums Miriam drawing UPDATED!

LINDALOO!  Come on doooooowwwn!  

Update: Linda is in Canada, and to boot she won another sample elsewhere.  My bad, totally my bad… can you tell my brain is half gone?  Anyway, she’s urged me to redraw, so I will.  The new winner is RusticDove.  Congratulations!

Please email me your mailing details at my gmail address, and I’ll get this out to you.  Can’t promise it will be before the end of November… but I’ll try.  🙂

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Scent Diary, Nov. 7-13, 2011

Frost on Leaves, image from faculty.virginia.edu

Monday, Nov. 7: Sunny and chilly today; it feels like November. SOTMorning: started out by testing Prada No. 6 Tubereuse, from their discontinued soliflore parfum line. Didn’t like it. There’s a buncha orange blossom in there, and it’s very soapy on me, not to mention short-lived. I was still craving tuberose when it wore off after an hour (yes, only an hour), but the “amber spice” candle I had been burning while writing for NaNoWriMo had its effect on me, too, so guess what I went for? Vamp a NY. Yummy.

I’m having some cognitive dissonance, because my main character would never ever wear something like Vamp.

Daily NaNo total: 1772, for a cumulative total of 13,592. (ahead of schedule).

Tuesday, Nov. 8: Election Day. Since The CEO is running for School Board in our district, he and his mother and I split up the three precincts and each covered one, handing out postcard-size information sheets on his qualifications, in case he’d missed getting handbills to some voters. SOTD: Mary Greenwell Plum. As it turned out, he did win, with about 69% of the votes in each precinct. It was a loooooong day.

Nothing written for NaNoWriMo today, as expected. Total still at 13,592, not behind.

Wednesday, Nov. 9: Romped on the NaNo writing today! So busy that I barely even remembered to wear perfume at all, and then I tried the new tester version of “Classic” from Sonoma Scent Studio. The last time I wore it, it seemed more complex than it does now, but it also had an unpleasant celery-like material in it (which seems to be an item usually classified as “jasmine”). I like it much better now. It has a little hit of aldehydes, some rose and jasmine and mimosa, and a lovely sandalwood-vanilla base with a hint of myrrh. It is interestingly similar to Tableau de Parfums Miriam, but with noticeable differences.

Daily NaNo total: 3834, for a cumulative total of 17,426. Now a couple of thousand words ahead of schedule, yay!

Thursday, Nov. 10: Another heavy writing day. Stayed home all day, pretty much did nothing but write and fold a few loads of laundry. Then I had a little nap (yay, nap!). I didn’t even notice the weather. SOTD: Prada Infusion d’Iris.

Daily NaNo total: 2957, for a cumulative total of 20,383.

Friday, Nov. 11, Veterans Day: Went to a Veterans Day program at Gaze’s school, and it was very moving. The school’s former “resource officer” – a law enforcement officer that spends time at the school, building relationships with the kids and preventing problems as much as possible – has moved on to full time sheriff duty, but becaus he served in the US Navy in peacetime, spoke to the 8^th graders about his experiences in the military. The industrial arts teacher, who’s been there a long time and even taught The CEO when he attended, spoke to the kids about his service in the infantry in Vietnam. He was fairly circumspect, but that was a horrific time, and I think the students ended up with a greater appreciation for the sacrifices of military veterans. The band played two pieces, very well, and the choir sang the national anthem and one other song, passably.

I expected to attend a NaNoWriMo write-in this morning, but either I mistook the date (possible) or it’s been moved to Monday. Then The CEO took me out to lunch as thanks for helping at the polls, and that was lovely. SOTD: Cuir de Lancome.

Had been planning to go to what is probably going to be the final football game of the season. I still can’t believe the high school team made the playoffs with a 1 win – 9 loss record (I can’t ‘splain it, it has something to do with a point scheme). But it’s cold and windy out, and I feel sure we’ll lose tonight, and the band is going to play in the stands but not wear uniforms and not present their halftime show, so I sent Bookworm off with hats and gloves and Hot Hands and sweatshirts, with extras to share, and a firm instruction to Stay As Warm As Possible, I Mean It, Don’t Get Sick, Your Mama Loves You.

Daily NaNo total: 483, for a cumulative total of 20,866. Still a little ahead, even though my characters shut up at the end of a scene and wouldn’t talk to me anymore.

Saturday, Nov. 12: Cleaned house. I think Bookworm is sick – she’s been coughing all day. After yesterday’s cold and windy weather, today is beautiful! In the low 60s, blue skies, a little bit of a breeze. Went to my late grandmother’s townhouse to look at some furniture my aunts wondered if I’d like to have, since the house has been sold and everything has to be removed very soon. As it turns out, I don’t have room for that enormous table, but I did take a space heater and a Pyrex dish in a size I use. The big roadblock with dispersing Nell’s things is the stacks and stacks of quilting materials. While I was there, Aunt Doris and Aunt Cindy suddenly discovered more boxes of the stuff that they hadn’t realized was there, and there was unison wailing from the spare bedroom. SOTD: Tableau de Parfums Miriam. I smelled wonderful.

Struggling with NaNoWriMo today: I don’t think my main characters liked the last scene I wrote, which took their relationship to a more involved level, perhaps too quickly. I’m not sure what to do – I don’t want to remove the whole scene, but I might have to stick another one in before it, just to bridge the emotional distance between this one and the previous romantic (sort of) scene. Meanwhile, I just let them have the day off while I ponder. I’m tired. Daily NaNo total: 0, for a cumulative total of 20,866. Still on track, if I write some Sunday.

Sunday, Nov. 13: Chilly and cloudy, in the high 50s. PETBoy went with us to church, and then afterward came back and watched The Princess Bride with us, since he’d never seen it. I’m not sure he enjoyed it as much as we do (Prince Humperdinck: “That may be the first time anyone has ever dared insult me.” Westley: “It won’t be the last, you warthog-faced buffoon.”), but we had a nice afternoon. SOTD: Caron Parfum Sacre, lovely stuff.

Heard Taz playing by himself upstairs, banging on the pot-lid Viking shield from his Halloween costume, and humming “Hail to the Chief.” I don’t know what one has to do with the other, but it was funny.

Daily NaNo total: 2129, for a cumulative total of 22,995. Still on pace.  My characters are talking to me again.  This is crucial.

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We Won’t Forget, 2011

Veterans’ Day, 2011

 

To my dad, who served in the US Navy in peacetime

 

To my brother-in-law Bob, who served in the US Army in Desert Shield and Desert Storm, and returned this past January from a stint in Afghanistan

 

To my friend Army Lt. Terry Plunk, who died clearing landmines in the Gulf War

 

To all those who gave their lives for their country

To all those who served

To all those who are serving now

To all those who will serve in the future

And to their families

 

My deep and heartfelt thanks.

 

 Photo is Arlington National Cemetery, by RuthannOC at flickr

(This is a recap of a post from Veteran’s Day, 2009.  It’s still true.)

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Scent Diary, Oct. 31-Nov.6, 2011

Monday, Oct.31, Halloween: Hectic, hectic day! Did errands, went grocery shopping, helped move a group of cows into the barn lot (they never want to go into the barn lot, much the same way as the cat hates to go to the vet). Aargh. SOTD: Tableau de Parfums Miriam. I do love it. Every time I wear it, I remember to pray for PETBoy, which is a good thing.

Took Viking Taz trick-or-treating, wearing Tabac Aurea to go with the woodsmoke in the air. He came home with a huuuuge bucket of candy, which meant that I snagged a few pieces to share with his sister and brother. Nobody needs that much candy. Sorry to say, I didn’t get a good picture of him…

Tuesday, Nov. 1: NaNoWriMo started today. I had meant to stay up late and do some writing after midnight, but I didn’t. Too sleepy. Wordcount for the day: 1841. SOTD: PdN Vanille Tonka. Took Gaze to an open-house meeting at the local Boy Scouts’ hangout – after a couple of disastrous, leaderless years in Cub Scouts (following a couple of really good, fun years), he’s ready to Scout again.

Wednesday, Nov. 2: Good NaNoWriMo day – wordcount up to 3204, for a cumulative total of 5045. I am actually being a “rebel” because I’m working on a piece I started over the summer, but that does not mean I can’t get at least 50,000 words written this month. Did some laundry. SOTD: Jacomo Silences. Gorgeous stuff.

The CEO left this evening to go to Richmond for the Virginia Farm Bureau resolutions meeting. He’ll be back tomorrow night.

Thursday, Nov. 3: Another decent NaNoWriMo wordcount day: daily total 2250, cumulative total 7295. SOTD: L’Arte di Gucci, because The CEO is not nearly as enthusiastic about it as I am. It had largely worn off when he got home (aided by my taking a late shower after community choir practice).

Friday, Nov. 4: Got called to help chaperone the marching band at what’s supposed to be the last football game of the season, at the traditional rival school’s field. Went to a NaNo Write-In at Radford University, met some cool people, wrote 1785 words today for a cumulative total of 9080. Went by my late grandmother’s place to pick out a few dishes, as the town house is being cleaned out for its new owners. Threw some pork chops in the oven for the boys before I left, then sat with my buddy TJ on the band bus. SOTD: Mariella Burani. Three spritzes may have been too much, because I kept hearing people say, “Do you smell baby powder?”

We lost the game, which I expected, but it turns out that because of the number of points our team scored, we’re in the district playoffs and will be playing again next week. Seems wrong to have a 1-win, 9-loss team in the playoffs to me. Don’t you think? The other school’s band show was interrupted by a streaker in tighty-whities, but that was the only exciting part of the evening. Ah, well – Bookworm’s bestie Grace, who was drum major last year and graduated, made it to the game, so it was nice to see her. And PETBoy seemed to be enjoying the game, but right before it was over, another band alumnus stopped by and mentioned a death in his family, and I think that prompted some emotion. Bookworm said the ride home was fraught; she wasn’t sitting with him, because there’s a band rule that when it gets dark, there’s no boy-girl seating. She and another friend were able to offer some comfort, but that’s hard to do on a bus.

 

Photo from last week's marching band competition, by Nicole Ward. I think Kalep was trying to be funny... pretty sure he was... almost sure.

Saturday, Nov. 5: Gorgeous, if windy, weather today. We did some cleaning, and The CEO took advantage of the sunshine to do a bit more campaigning for School Board; thank goodness the election is on Tuesday. I actually managed to have some quiet, relaxed conversation with Bookworm, who’s been so busy lately that I hardly ever see her. I’ve been missing her, so it was lovely. Then she went out for the rest of the day with PETBoy, for a visit to his mother’s grave, and then dinner-and-a-movie with some of his family members. (Outback Steak House and Tower Heist; she said the food was much better than the movie.) Mowed the grass for what may be the last time this fall, after ripping out the dead zinnias and morning glory vine. For some strange reason, the blue salvia still looks really good, so I left it in place.

SOTD: L’Artisan Havana Vanille. Yum. Sometimes it seems too sweet to me, and sometimes not. Today it’s great. My attention span for NaNoWriMo was terrible, though, and I only scored 992 words, for a cumulative total of 10,072 – still ahead of schedule, but just barely.

Sunday, Nov. 6: Early church again. SOTD: Mary Greenwell Plum – so nice. The kids’ report cards came home this week, with very good grades in general. (Taz’s handwriting grade is pretty bad, but I expected that.) NaNoWriMo daily total was 1748, for a cumulative total of 11,820.

SOTBedtime: Shalimar Light.

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Winner of Pandora drawing!

(So sorry I forgot to post this Wednesday.)

The winner of the Pandora sample is hemlocksillage!  Please contact me via the gmail address listed on the “about me” page, and give me your mailing details.  I promise to mail it out to you as soon as possible, and I’d love to hear what you think about it.

Thanks to everyone who commented, and to Dawn Spencer Hurwitz and Jen at This Blog Really Stinks for providing the sample.

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Perfume Review: Tableau de Parfums Miriam

I’ve been looking forward to this one for months now. I’ve been a fan of Brian Pera’s writings on I Smell Therefore I Am for a couple of years now. I’m a fan of Tauer Perfumes, too. As I’ve said before, the scents either don’t work at all for me, or they work beautifully and make me feel a little like I’m flying. Even the Tauers I don’t enjoy are well-made and solid and have distinctive personalities of their own. Furthermore, I am a big fan of aldehydic florals, so when I heard that Brian’s A Woman’s Picture project (see Evelyn Avenue website) would include a collaboration with Andy Tauer, and that one of the associated fragrances would be an aldehydic floral, I was thrilled.

Thanks to a very generous giveaway instigated by Andy Tauer and A Woman’s Picture, and hosted by Now Smell This, I won a full bottle of Miriam.  Miriam is now available at Lucky Scent, at $160 for 50ml plus a copy of the Miriam segment of the film and some other goodies.  I’ll just say now, I have rarely been so pleased to receive a box of perfume in the mail! Just look at this gorgeous packaging, will you?

Look at all these goodies! Complete with handwritten note from Andy Tauer, too.

I admit to enjoying a nice bottle, but I have never bought a bottle simply because it’s pretty. (Hey, if that’s what you like, more power to you. I’m not judging.) But I squealed like an excited little girl, opening Miriam last week. The pretty box holds an insert with a lovely jacquard-like pattern, die-cut to fit the Miriam bottle, as well as a DVD of a portion of the film and a notepad  the Miriam booklet (duh, I hadn’t gotten the chance to open it yet). There are silver strings and a frosted glass cap, and pretty pink stickers, and a simulacrum of an old-fashioned cut-paper silhouette, and the whole thing is so intricate and adorable that it could have been any Christmas present hand-wrapped personally for me by my artist sister, for whom such things are Serious Business.  Also, the liquid is a very soft yellow-green, one of my favorite colors.

I have not yet viewed the entire DVD. I have seen clips from the Miram segment, and also from some of the other segments that make up the ongoing A Woman’s Picture project, and they have all been moving, thoughtful pieces. Briefly, though, the Miriam segment focuses on Miriam Masterson, a middle-aged woman whose career is in jeopardy, whose relationship with her layabout boyfriend is deteriorating, and whose mother, with whom she has a complicated and painful relationship, is in a nursing home as her mind and health fails. All of Miriam’s anchors have been lost, and a storm is approaching.

What drew me to the fragrance, in particular, was the notes. Regular readers know that I lurve me some aldehydes, and when someone as talented as Andy Tauer does a vintage-inspired aldehydic floral – well, I wanna smell it. The official notes list for Miriam includes aldehydes, bergamot, sweet orange, violet blossom, rose, jasmine, ylang-ylang, violet leaf, vanilla, orris root, sandalwood and Ambrox.  From the Evelyn Avenue website, here is the inspiration for Miriam:

The dream of a hug, the vivid bitter sweet memory of her perfume,
her hair shining golden in the morning sun, so fine,
the violets from the garden in her hand,
freshly picked with the dew pearls dropping one after the other,
the green May roses on the table, lasting forever.
It is a dream of days long gone, with a smile on my lips.

Miriam is undoubtedly a Tauer fragrance, despite its being something of a departure from Andy’s usual style. The Ambrox (something of a signature note for Andy) is definitely noticeable in the first few minutes, and although it’s more muted than you might expect, it’s a little thread of Andy running through the composition, with its sweet-salty-rich chord. Up top, there are the aldehydes and a light-hearted citrus note. I’ll make a prediction that if you don’t like aldehydes, you certainly won’t like Miriam; the aldehydes are sweet, and both powdery and candle-smoke-y. Soon I notice the beautiful rose and jasmine heart, very classic and reminiscent of 1940s feminine perfumes, and the violet flower seems to drift in and out. As the fragrance develops, the sandalwood and vanilla become prominent. I don’t smell iris on its own, but I often notice that orris root seems to disappear into rich floral scents, contributing mostly a satiny texture and keeping sweeter elements like vanilla or amber from being too sweet, in much the same way that adding a small amount of salt to batter makes the flavors blend well. The sandalwood in this, according to Andy’s blog, is a mixture of real Mysore and Australian, and it is the most delightful part of the fragrance for me.

Andy Tauer has been quoted as suggesting that Miriam is “slightly provocative,” and “not naughty, but bold,” a fragrance in the tradition of the grand parfums of the 1940s and ’50s.  I don’t find it bold or provocative in the least – rather, it strikes me as being very soft and cloudlike.

Miriam lasts quite well on me, typically about five hours with a very gentle waft. It is recognizably perfumey in that “Mmm, somebody’s wearing nice perfume” sort of way, as opposed to the “Something smells nice” sort of way that has drifted in and out of fashion since the stripped-down, anti-perfume perfumes of the early 1990. I like that. The CEO likes it too, and mentioned that smelling it reminds him of his college years, going to the department store to pick out Christmas fragrance gifts for his then-girlfriends (none of whom were me). It didn’t remind him of any scent in particular, but the general perfumeyness of Miriam resembled the air in the department store, and recalled for him the pleasant excitement of good, “feminine” smells.

I will admit to being surprised that there isn’t any oakmoss in Miriam, not even a little bit, because Miriam’s mother’s fragrance purportedly contains it. But it seems that Miriam, the fragrance, is more based on Miriam, the character: it is nostalgic, soft and powdery atop a strong, comforting base. It is on the sweet side, with the aldehydes, sandalwood and vanilla contributing to that facet, but it’s a rich woody sweetness rather than a sugary overdose. There seems always to be a gentle wistfulness about rose-and-violet scents, and Miriam is very wistful.

The mother of a young friend of mine died suddenly about six months ago, and there is a certain stricken wistfulness I’ve seen on his face at unguarded moments, particularly if I’ve been playing with my younger son in the friend’s presence. Taz loves to roughhouse and be physical; it’s a primary avenue of affection for him, and I try to indulge it. Taz won’t always be eleven, asking for “mommy hugs.” I keep wishing I could offer that kind of affection to my young friend, and I hope that sometime soon he’ll feel able to accept it.

Miriam the fragrance conjures images of motherhood for me – partly due to the film, partly due to the fact that my own mother, with whom I have a good relationship, has frequently been so comfortable in aldehydic scents, and partly due to the wistfulness in my young friend’s face over the past few weeks. Wearing Miriam feels bittersweet and emotional, tender and wrenching and beautiful. It smells like a memory of love to me, and I will cherish it.

A few other reviews of Miriam: Carol at WAFT,  The Non-Blonde,  Marina at Perfume-Smellin’ Things,  Perfume Shrine.  Here’s a post from Andy’s blog, with some of his thoughts concerning Miriam, too. 

And one more thing:  I also won a sample of Miriam via the drawing at The Non-Blonde, but wasn’t able to get hold of Gaia to request her to consider redrawing for it, so I’ll offer a draw here to one commenter, and my immense thanks to Gaia.  Draw will be open, as the original was, to US residents, from the time of posting until midnight Eastern Standard Time Friday, November 4, 2011.   Draw is now closed. 

(I will post the winner of the Pandora sample on Wednesday.)  All photos mine.

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Whoops.

NaNoWriMo snuck up on me.  It starts today – or, rather, started last night at midnight, but I didn’t stay up.  I was too wiped out from the running-around I did yesterday, including trips to the courthouse to file candidate paperwork, to the grocery store, to the running shoe place with Bookworm, and to the mall to exchange Gaze’s birthday jeans, as well as taking Taz trick-or-treating.  (He came home with his plastic pumpkin bucket COMPLETELY FULL.  Really.)

The review of Tableau de Parfums Miriam will post this afternoon.

My plan for NaNoWriMo this month will be to finish “Bright as Day,” which I started in July.  I’ll hope to post Scent Diary each week of November, plus a weekly NaNo Update as to how things are going, and at least one other post a week – I’m hopeful that these posts will be reviews and I’ll aim for that, but we may have to see how the month progresses.

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