Monday, May 7: Weather chilly but sunny. Grocery shopping day. I had just gotten back home when The CEO called me with the message that he’d been in a car accident. The Camry was damaged but drivable, and he was okay. Poor Cameron is missing his entire front bumper, and he’s got cracked headlights to boot. SOTD: Le Temps d’une Fete. Again. I’m not sorry.

Tuesday, May 8: Rain. Running around trying to get estimates on getting the car fixed. Looks like it’s going to be (ouch) somewhere between $1500 and $2000 out of pocket, since we’d dropped collision insurance on both vehicles last year. SOTD: Hilde Soliani Il Tuo Tulipano, since I rediscovered this little decant and reviewed it last week. Nice. It’s cheerful, which I needed. Wore Shalimar Light to sleep in.

Wednesday, May 9: Our 20^th anniversary. We’ve made it this far!

Rain, off and on all day. The CEO has finally gotten around to replacing the leaky faucet (we bought a replacement one sometime in… March, I think?), and found that stuff that shouldn’t be rusted together is rusted together, and he had to take the entire sink out so that he could remove the leaky faucet. Everything seems fine now, after lots of his hard work. SOTD: Tom Ford Black Orchid Voile de Fleur.

Dinner out at the Mexican restaurant, followed by a viewing of “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.” I like LeCarre novels but The CEO loves them; this was a decent boiling-down of an incredibly complex plot to a two-hour movie. John Hurt is perfect as Control in this. Set and lighting is interesting – it’s a very moody gray drab England where this film is set, and rooms are painted in such dark dreary colors. Everything, but everything, is ominous.

Thursday, May 10: Beautiful but chilly day. The CEO bought me some flowers to put in my hanging baskets for the porch, and I got a couple of the baskets filled. SOTD: Penhaligon’s Eau Sans Pareil.

You can't see, but Bookworm is standing one step higher than Gaze so she can look taller than he is.

Attended Gaze’s middle school spring band concert this evening. They did a great job! We managed to drag Bookworm out to go with us (she took her homework, poor kid), and she’s excited at the prospect of getting some new percussion kids in the marching band next year since the high school is losing so many senior drummers. I had planned to wear Chanel No. 19, but since Bookworm was with us I went with Cuir de Lancome instead. She hates galbanum.

Friday, May 11: Another pretty, sunny, chilly day. Finished putting my geraniums and vinca into the hanging baskets. SOTD: Ferre 20, nice aldehydic floral musky thing with a sprinkling of cheerful (but not frooty) fruit. I like aldehydes.

Saturday, May 12: Housecleaning. Bookworm to track meet, CEO to Virginia Tech’s graduation, Gaze to football practice. Mowed lawn. Showered, got Mother’s Day presents together, got everybody in the van to drive to meet my parents, The CEO’s mother, and my aunt for a nice restaurant dinner. SOTE: Mary Greenwell Plum.

Sunday, May 13: The offspring provided a delicious Mother’s Day breakfast (coffee, chocolate chip muffins, mixed berries, bacon and sausage) and set the table, as well as cutting and arranging some lovely peonies. I got handmade cards, too, and some roses from The CEO. SOTD: Mary Greenwell Plum again, as requested by The CEO and Bookworm.

Bookworm has read my review/analysis of Catching Fire (to be posted on Tuesday), and wishes it to be known that a) I am way off base in suggesting that Peeta’s willingness to put up with all kinds of neglect and unfriendly behavior from his Hot Crush, Katniss, is due at least in part to his mother’s cold nature, and b) her mother(me) is a totally geeky geek of utter geekdom, except of the literary sort instead of the band-and-science geek that she is.

PETBoy (clearly suffering from a distinct Lack of Bookworm over the past few weeks) came over for a movie and dinner at our house – it was nice to see him. Poor Bookworm has been suffering from a distinct Lack of PETBoy as well as a near-crippling and more serious Lack of Sleep, and I know she was happy to see him as well.

Monday, Apr: 30: Laundry. Writing. Grocery store errand. Bleargh. SOTD: Cuir de Lancome. SOTE: Le Temps d’une Fete, still the new stuff. It’s growing on me. The lawnmower is totally busted – the tierod FELL OUT and under the blades, so not only is the tierod end worn, but now the tierod is bent and halfway chewed by blades. This cannot be good.

Tuesday, May 1: May Day! I started out with a little spritz of Diorissimo and then moved on to Carillon pour un Ange, of which I only have small samples but which I think is genius, all those jangly ginggongy floral bells over the smish of dirt and roots and grass. (What is this, Onomotopoeia Day? Ginggongy and smish in the same sentence?? Oy.)

SOTE: Le Temps d’une Fete (new). We had a thunderstorm this afternoon but never got any rain, or at least not right here. Weird.

Wednesday, May 2: Another day, another thunderstorm. The dog hates these. She cowers. SOTD: Crown Bouquet.. Watched part of “The Matrix” with Bookworm (well, she was sort of watching it and sort of doing chemistry homework – we’ll hope the chemistry got most of her attention). Lawrence Fishburne is awesome. And you probably remember I think Keanu Reeves is just drop-dead gorgeous, in a “Keanus should be seen and not heard” sort of way.

We DVR’ed it and showed part of it to the boys. Of course, by the next day they were saying to each other, “We’re going to need guns. LOTS of guns.”

Thursday, May 3: Beautiful, warm sunny day followed by late-afternoon thunderstorms and rain. Worked on writing. SOTD: Le Temps d’une Fete. Again. I seem to be craving it.

Friday, May 4: SOTMorning: Shalimar Light. Rain in the evening, after I got as far as I could go with the borrowed lawnmower (its back tires are pretty much shot, and after the fourth time I refilled them with air, I gave up). SOTE: Ubar (refo, not vintage). Gorgeous stuff. A little civetty, maybe, but all that lemony-rosy-lily of the valley goodness is worth the skank. Or maybe the hint of skank highlights how simply pretty the rest of it is.

Saturday, May 5: Housecleaning. Bookworm took the SAT, and then The CEO chauffeured her to a track meet which she had missed the beginning of. She pulled a hamstring in the two-mile but managed to finish.

I picked up Gaze from football conditioning practice at the middle school, and got to see him in his jersey. (The blue letters on the white jersey match his eyes, which is exactly the sort of thing you’d expect a mother to say… so cute! And heart-clutching, too. I remember when he was BORN, and he was tiny and so serious and so perfect, and we counted all his fingers and toes twice to make sure he was as perfect as he looked. Now he’s going to go running out onto a field and maybe get crunched by boys four times his size. Aargh. I have to let him play, though. Can’t take all his hits for him.)

The CEO’s sister E was visiting for the weekend, and the boys got to see Curiosity and Primrose. As expected, Gaze, Taz and Curiosity went straight into the Nerf Gun Wars, Part XVI. Or maybe it’s XXVI, who can keep track? Primrose (voluntarily) served as the UN, which just cracks me up. Those kids. SOTD: Mary Greenwell Plum.

Sunday, May 6: Beautiful day. Four spritzes of Amoureuse for church, and then a wonderful Breakfast for Lunch, for which I went all out: sausage, bacon, chocolate-chip pancakes with syrup, and a medley of raspberries and sweet cherries. I honestly think white florals sink in on my skin, because nobody could smell me from more than four feet away. At least, nobody would admit to it.

After lunch, The CEO and I went to watch Bookworm be inducted into the high school’s National Honor Society. CEO was wearing Gres Cabaret, and Bookworm was wearing Infusion d’Iris, and the combination was only slightly weird. Actually, the slightly weird bit was probably my Amoureuse – Cabaret and Id’I smell great together. And there was a woman sitting in front of us wearing Pleasures, I think (and way too much of it). So it was a scented afternoon.

We came home to find that our electricity had gone off shortly after we left, and it stayed off until about 6:30 pm, just in time for me to heat up leftovers for dinner and for us to play the DVR recording of “Aliens.” (Is Ripley not the most amazing female character in a sci-fi flick? I’ll answer that: yes. Yes, she is. She could kick Sarah Connor’s butt without blinking. She could probably kick Captain Kirk’s, too… even Young Hot Cocky Kirk… and would not put up with his womanizing crap. Could she take on the Terminator himself? If Newt was at stake, she’d probably try. Because Ripley. is. Awesome.)