Tag Archives: Scent Diary

 Monday, Aug. 2: Statement Day at work again. It finally occurred to me today why so many of my Statement Days fall, so annoyingly, on Monday. If you have half a brain, you’ll figure it out without my explaining it to you: I work Monday-Friday. Every time the first of the month falls on a weekend, Statement Day by default is Monday. Not to mention that sometimes the first of the month falls on Monday anyway, so almost half the time, I’m sending out statements of account on evil Mondays. Which I’m hating recently anyway, because they underline to me that Yet Another Week has gone by, during which I have not worked more than a couple of hours on my novel.

Chilly again today, in the low 70s and cloudy. It’s a little piece of autumn in the summer of my discontent, if you will. I thought seriously of my fall scents this morning – of Mauboussin, Arpege and Tabac Aurea, among others – but I persevered with my sampling. SOTD: Guerlain Cruel Gardenia, which Dear Daisy sent me, and which has languished in the to-test box for at least a couple of months. I was unduly influenced by Luca Turin’s review in Perfumes: The Guide, in which his disappointment at the bait-and-switch of the name is palpable. It’s actually one of the funnier reviews, once you realize that LT habitually gets rabid once teased with nonexistent gardenia. From PTG:

“This is a late-fifties formula (somewhere between a knockoff of Ma Griffe and Camay soap) found in a dumpster in Holzminden when Symrise decided to clear the archive. Would be perfect if the spray button said “sucker” each time you pressed it.”

Ouch. I do get his points, though: it’s definitely not gardenia, it’s definitely soapy, and it’s wildly expensive at something like $300 for 50ml. This morning, though, I read about six other blog reviews of CG, and every one of them says something like, “Well, it’s not very gardenia, and it is somewhat soapy, but it’s so pretty!” I concur. Not very gardenia, although there’s a hint of EL PCTG in there, but very much what I call a Scented Hanky sort of perfume: vaguely floral, friendly, inoffensive, feminine, and clean. Andy Taylor’s Aunt Bea would have worn something like CG along with her short white gloves to grocery shop at the Piggly Wiggly. Not that that’s bad or anything. I repeat myself, it’s really pretty. My mother, with her penchant for pretty, soapy florals, would dig this right down to the ground.

SOTE: Teo Cabanel Alahine, just a wee squidge on the inner elbow. Mmm.

Tuesday, Aug. 3: Warmer today, with temps in the low 80s, but cloudy. SOTD: a new one, Tauer Perfumes Carillon pour un Ange. I will probably review this soon, after I’ve worn it several times, but let me just say that if you love lily of the valley (I do) and missed out on the fabulous vintage Diorissimo (I did – my bottle’s a tester from 2006, very lovely but not the gorgeous thing it apparently used to be), lift your eyes in hope.

This afternoon, the boys and The CEO brought me another big load of ripe tomatoes, plus one green pepper and what seems to be the last of the squash. Then they brought me 21 ears of corn, telling me that there was certainly plenty left in the garden. I cooked some for dinner, and still have 15 ears left for blanching and freezing, when I get some more freezer bags tomorrow. I can’t help but gloat just a weensy bit. All we did was plant this stuff… granted, we planted it over the septic drainfield, so it’s getting plenty of water and nutrients from what soaks out through the pipes (don’t worry, no solids)… and keep the weeds down for awhile, and here we’ve got actual food on our hands. Food for now, food for later – such a great feeling.

SOTE: Guerlain L’Heure Bleue parfum, which is wonderfully anise-y when it’s hot. A dab only, please, else you will asphyxiate yourself. It’s rich.

Wednesday, Aug. 4: HOT again, upper 90s and humid. SOTMorning: vintage Lubin Gin Fizz edc, a sample from a generous fumie friend. I expected to dig it. I expected the standard nail-polishy top one typically gets from old aldehyde-bergamot openings. What I got was My Grandmother’s Nasty Old Gone-Wrong Perfume, the one that should have been chucked in 1958 after getting sun-toasted on the dresser. She was still wearing it in 1975, kid you not. Bleargh. I stood the Gin Fizz as long as I could – about two hours, as it continued to get more and more dusty/powdery – and then had to wash. I usually like vintage stuff; I generally have a fairly sturdy tolerance for the off notes. Not this time, I’m afraid. SOTAfternoon: I picked Diptyque L’Ombre dans L’eau to take my mind off. It was up to the task – super green, with an sour herbal twang, followed by rose. Nice. It doesn’t exactly thrill me, but it’s very pleasant.

Packaged up 25 ears of corn for the freezer. Canned another 7 quarts of tomatoes. Made a batch of fresh Salsa Cruda con Maiz for the fridge, and the tomatoes that didn’t make it into the canner load made a lovely pint of tomato juice, which The CEO loves. Whew. Food prep over, kitchen cleaned up, I spritzed a bit of Mariella Burani and collapsed on the couch with the phone, so I could talk to my sister.

Thursday, Aug. 5: Weather just like yesterday, punishingly hot – so hot that the sky seems bleached and wan. I don’t know if the sky gets like this anywhere else (I’ve never noticed, not having traveled outside the southeast US at this time of year), but I’ve known from childhood that a sky this pale usually presages a thunderstorm. Just yesterday I was buying green peppers at the farm stand, because our plants never produced anything, and the woman working there was telling me that she’d just moved to the area last year from Missouri, and she missed the summer storms they’d get. “You could sit and watch them as if were fireworks,” she said. True, we don’t get those, or at least not often: the mountains tend to break up storms, scattering their moisture and preventing them from making really big thunderheads. We usually just get the rain.

About half an hour after I wrote that, we did have a short but intense thundershower. Hayley, our beagle-lab mix, headed for the shelter of The CEO’s desk in the family room, and no amount of coaxing could convince her to leave it until the thunder stopped, poor baby.

SOTMorning: DSH Perfumes Rose Vert, which I’ve mentioned before as one of the loveliest “green roses” I’ve ever smelled. It’s not the galbanum green of Silences, or the mossy-chypre green of L’Arte di Gucci, or the snap-bean green of L’Ombre dans l’Eau. It’s both a vivid and a gentle green – grassy-herbal, like lemongrass and basil and mint and meadow. The rose note, too, is both vivid and gentle. Nothing in this fragrance demands your attention, but you notice it all the same. Dawn Spencer Hurwitz typically does a beautiful job with rose scents, and this is my favorite of her roses. (Beach Roses is pretty, too: rose, salt, herbs, a bit of wood.)

SOTEvening: Another DSH rose scent, Arabian Rose. This one, an oil, is a favorite of Daisy’s – or of her daughter’s, I can’t remember which – but it’s not grabbing me: it’s a fairly straight-up rose soliflore, and perhaps a wee bit screechy, as sometimes happens with this type of scent. (Best non-screechy rose soliflore, IMO? SSS Velvet Rose, hands down.).

Friday, Aug. 6: Hot again. The air is hazy with heat. The mountains that will be a clear greenish blue come October are now only dimly visible: blue-gray, almost formless, like dreams of mountains. SOTD: Serge Lutens La Myrrhe. I love it. It was calling to me.

I got home from work and found The CEO standing on a pallet balanced on the hay forks of one of the tractors, which was sitting right next to the house. Over the noise of the tractor, I could hear him yelling to Jeff the hired guy, “Okay, take me up higher.” What the heck? Then I realized that he’d decided to scrub the mildew off the side of the house, and because you can’t balance a ladder on the slope at this place in the yard, he’d decided to get up there some other way. This was it. “I hope you called Mr. Mills at Farm Bureau and made sure your life insurance is paid up,” I yelled to him. “It’s okay, I know what I’m doing!” he yelled back, and picked up the sponge. I had to go inside – couldn’t watch, too nervous. You may be pleased to know that he’s fine and the house looks great. (I wish he wouldn’t do stuff like that. But that’s a little like wishing he didn’t have any testosterone, which would be an extremely stupid wish if you ask me.)

SOTE: Santa Maria Novella Melograno. I do enjoy aldehydes in the summer, and although I’ve tested this one before, I wanted to retest and see if my initial impression held. It did: Melograno is like… gosh… like the aldehydes in my mother’s No. 5 got together with my father’s Old Spice talcum powder, and made a baby. (Theoretically, I would assume this would be me, but it’s so not. I suppose it could be my brother, but any fragrance designed to evoke my brother would probably have to include essence of Cheetos.)

Saturday, Aug. 7: A little cooler today, in the low 90s. I took Taz with me to a family reunion, while Bookworm and Gaze went with their dad to a church festival thingy. Taz actually helped me pick out my scent today:

Me: “How about this one?” (Glancing over my summer bottles and skipping over anything that could possible be deemed “difficult,” then holding up Ines de la Fressange for him to sniff.)

Taz: “Ehhhhhh. I guess it’s okay. Maybe.”

Me: “Try another – this one?” (Mariella Burani.)

Taz: “NO.”

Me: “I know there was one of these you really liked… hmm… was it a decant? I can’t remember. How about this?” (Rose d’Ete.)

Taz: “Not that one.”

Me: “I wish I could remember which one you said was nice. This one?” (Haute Couture.)

Taz: “I like that. Wear that, it’s good.”

Me: “Wow, you never say anything’s good. Guess I’ll wear that one, then. Thanks!”

So, SOTD was Hanae Mori Haute Couture, and it was just fine for the weather and the casual afternoon. It only occurred to me later that the one he had liked earlier was DelRae Coup de Foudre.

The food was good, but the reunion itself was boring. Honestly, since the members of the older generation have either left us behind or become ill, these get-togethers haven’t been any fun at all. The greatest hilarity always seemed to arise from the table where the older cousins were sitting together and reminiscing, or just telling jokes. No more. Within the last couple of years, my grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, two cousins died, and the two more cousins developed medical problems and no longer travel. Mawmaw Nell’s sister, whom I always called Big Aunt Doris to distinguish her from my father’s sister, died last year. (She would always insist, with a smile, “No, honey, I’m your Great Aunt Doris, and you can tell Nell I said so!”) I miss her. I miss my grandmother, too – she’s still living, but she’s not herself.

In the evening, Taz and I met up with the rest of the family, plus two kids that are friends of Gaze and Taz, for a minor league baseball game. It was a nice evening – The CEO spent some time explaining what was going on to Kadie and Isaac, and I think they enjoyed it better once they had a better understanding of the game.

SOBedtime: Shalimar Light again. I so enjoy it in the evenings.

Sunday, Aug. 8: Packed Bookworm off to band camp this morning – she’ll be back next Friday. Seems like she’s been gone half the summer. And she missed out on spending a week with her grandparents this summer, too.

SOTD: L’Artisan Nuit de Tubereuse. I’m coming around to this a bit more. I still have to grit my teeth through the opening, and then it’s lovely. (Why will I put up with half an hour of Nasty – nail polish remover, swimming pool, and maple syrup – when I put on Victoria’s Secret Victoria, but complain about 20 minutes of mildew in NdT? Dunno.)

Canned another 6 quarts of tomatoes this evening, and froze another 24 ears of corn. I have probably another 6 quarts’ worth of tomatoes that’ll be ripe on Tuesday, as well – but I’m completely out of quart jars, so maybe I’ll freeze them in freezer containers instead. Less work? Dunno. My mom says cooked tomatoes freeze well, although she must have started doing that after I moved out on my own. She always canned when I was young. Also, I love the metallic thwop of a jar’s vacuum seal closing.

Top image is another one of parfumgott’s terrific pictures at Flickr.  The second one was taken by my sister; it’s odd to see Nell not smiling in it, but I don’t think she was feeling well that evening (Christmas dinner with the whole family, 2006).  Big Doris looks great, though.

Monday, July 26: I’m dreading Mondays lately. I don’t really know why, except that I’d like to leave my paid job and write. Which would be an unbelievably luxurious thing to do. SOTD: Etat Libre d’Orange Putain de Palaces (Hotel Slut), a sample from Joe. I have snarked about ELd’O long enough… I hate their ad copy, I hate their “we’re so cool and you’re so not” attitude, I hate their whole pretentious arty juvenile shtick. (Seriously, don’t get me started on this. I really feel like ELd’O is saying to me, “We don’t want your business. You’re too old, conservative, suburban, and just plain boring to be our target customer.”) But if I’m being honest, Hotel Slut is really pretty good. It reminds me quite a bit of Citizen Queen, except it’s, somehow, less slutty. Rose, violet, almond, face powder and glove suede – that’s good stuff right there. I mean, PdP is good enough that if there were a significant price break on it, I’d get some of it instead of CQ. However, there’s not a huge difference… and I adore CQ, so when my decant is gone, I need another one of that, not of PdP.

And Angela had another one of her interesting, lovely reviews up on Now Smell This today: Caron Parfum Sacre Intense. You might remember that I once said that when I die, I want to be wearing Parfum Sacre. AnnS was kind enough to send me a sample of the Intense version, and the sample had been waiting on my desk for several weeks. PS is fairly heavy, so I kept thinking that I should really wait for cooler weather. I’d open the sample… sniff… check the thermometer… sigh and recap the vial. Well, I broke down and hauled out the Intense for a test drive this evening, remembering that it is an oriental and needs a light hand. It’s spicier than the edp but less peppery than the extrait; it’s rosier than the extrait but less so than the edp. It’s got less incense than either the edp or extrait, too. I had expected it to be lighter than the extrait, but it also seems thinner than my edp. I’m cynical about the “Intense” thing. Shame on you, Caron! My supply of PS edp seems to be older stock, and I hear the original has been watered down. Shame, shame…

Tuesday, July 27: Took the boys to the dentist for their cleanings this week. I got mine done last week, so I didn’t have to stick with the wallpaper scent this time. SOTD: Parfums de Rosine Rose d’Ete, which I love. SOTE: Citizen Queen. Rrowwwr.

Wednesday, July 28: I feel like writing on my novel allll the dang time.  Unfortunately, work intervenes.   And laundry.  And those annoying things called “meals,” for which I am responsible in this household.   Grr.  Do Real Writers have this happen?  Am I going to be this distracted if I indeed quit my job?  Grrr.  SOTD: Etat Libre d’Orange Rossy de Palma Eau de Protection, which may have one of the longest non-flanker names I’ve ever seen on a fragrance.  It’s kind of nice, a greenish rose chypre thing.  Unfortunately, it has a soapy angle (the rose, maybe?) that bores me stupid.  I think I might need to go spritz some L’Arte di Gucci now that Rossy has worn off.  Now there is your Edgy, Dangerous Dark Rose, bay-bee!  (What is UP with the font fail?)

Thursday, July 29: The boys and I dragged all my canning stuff out of the attic, where it’s been for at least three years. I used to can a lot of fruit preserves, but haven’t done that for awhile since I’ve been working steadily. My stash is all but gone now – we used up the last of the Cordon Rose Raspberry Conserve this past winter, and there’s only one half-pint of Cherry-Plum Jam left. Anyway, the tomatoes have been a’comin’ IN, baby, and we’re up to our knees in them, so I decided to can a bunch. The CEO brought in every tomato from the garden he thought would do for canning, and it added up to… drum roll please… 48 pounds of tomatoes. Yes. About a third of those were not quite ready, so I have set them aside for a few days until they ripen up. The rest I canned… they made eight quarts. Eight! Quarts! I’m running out of quart jars.  (Is that not a gorgeous photo?  I love the sun shining through the jars.)

SOTD: Parfums DelRae Mythique. I was surprised to learn how much I love the top notes – I get apricot, of all things! It’s not listed in the notes.  Apricot (suedey texture, tangy fruit, nutty kernel and all) and iris are really, really beautiful together. Sadly, though, half my sample vial – an extravagant application, compared to my usual habit – lasted only two hours and stuck close to the skin the whole time. Spraying would probably benefit the lasting power, but I know the DelRae price structure… I might want a bottle, but my budget would only extend to a decant. Which I think would be unsatisfying for this particular scent. SO. I should save my pennies for another decant of La Myrrhe. (Maybe larger than 3 ml this time. Oooooh.)

Friday, July 30: SOTD: L’Artisan Safran Troublant. I like it very much, although it hasn’t squeezed my heart – lovely spices and rose, followed by a drydown of deep, clear, unpowdery vanilla, the same sort of thing I found in Havana Vanille and liked so much there.

And Bookworm’s home from running camp! Missed my girl. We packed up and drove the 50 minutes to our minor league stadium for a game. SOTE: Annick Goutal Heure Exquise Dry Oil. (I’d tried the edt and edp, and although I think it’s a lovely scent, I still prefer both No. 19 and Silences.) The Dry Oil, though, seems to be mostly rose and sandalwood, and it’s a dry, refined thing, rather spare and lovely. I enjoyed this version very much.

Saturday, July 31: After the basic housecleaning chores, Bookworm and I went to a fundraiser for her marching band (SOTD: Hanae Mori Haute Couture). It rained. My feet hurt. Nevertheless, there were more tomatoes to be canned, so after dinner, guess what I did? Yup. Seven and a half more quarts. And there are more tomatoes to be eaten raw… not to mention about a dozen big 12-14” cucumbers. Egads, guess we’ll be taking some bounty to church tomorrow to share with friends.

It rained all day, pretty much, and temperatures stayed in the low 70s. We got something like .7” of rain, which did wonders for the grass, and probably the garden too.

Sunday, Aug. 1: Another chilly, cloudy 71F day, although it wasn’t raining. SOTD: Le Temps d’une Fete. I love this thing, it’s so gorgeous – cool and warm at the same time. I notice that the more I wear it, the more I pick up on the patchouli and moss in it, and those are not favorite notes of mine. However, they just seem right in LTdF, all yellowy-green and quiet.

Funny how many of the fragrances rated with five stars in Perfumes: The Guide have no impact on me – that is, I either don’t care much for the materials or the style, or the fragrance simply has no emotional resonance. For example, in the first case, I don’t care for fougeres, so Caron’s Le Troisieme Homme’s star rating is immaterial. In the second case, I really like Bvlgari Black, but I could happily live the rest of my life without it. Furthermore, there are some five-star fragrances I actively despise: Angel, Missoni, Bandit, Poison, Secretions Magnifiques…

Too, there are several three- and four-star fragrances I absolutely adore: Carnal Flower. Black Orchid Voile de Fleur. Parfum Sacre. Amouage Lyric Woman. Clearly, Turin and Sanchez are nuts. PdN Vanille Tonka, the most wacky fun-in-a-bottle thing I’ve ever smelled, wuz robbed.

But sometimes they get it right. Le Temps d’une Fete would make my all-time Must Have List. Heck, it would make my Top Three. It smells wonderful and squeezes my heart to a degree that makes me happy to be alive. Here’s Dr. Turin on LTdF:

… something close to perfection, rich, radiant, solid, with the unique complexity of expensive narcissus absolute braced by olfactory bookends of green-floral notes and woods. Very classical, and truly wonderful.

 Top image is from parfumgott; lower image is from Sine86, both at Flickr.

Monday, July 19: Just signed Bookworm up for Running Camp – next week, all week, at a college not too far down the road. Hope she doesn’t die in the heat. My desk at work was piled a good foot high with papers, even though Allan and Brad managed to keep things fairly well up to speed while I was gone on vacation (thanks, guys). SOTD: Vintage Emeraude pdt, mmm. It had worn off by the time I finished work and headed to the grocery store, and I had a spray sample of Vamp a NY in my purse, so I put on a spritz of that. It’s just this side of delicious.

Tuesday, July 20: The kids spent the day at their grandparents’ house, because The CEO’s mother needed to go to an all-day meeting, and these days his dad needs the same kind of care a toddler might. My FIL, while still quick with a joke or a story, is physically rather frail – he’s 85, he has a hereditary blood clotting disorder for which he’s been on Coumadin for 40 years, he has Type II diabetes, he’s rather deaf (I blame the farm equipment), and a few years ago he was diagnosed with a degenerative type of ailment that is similar to Parkinson’s disease. In the past ten years he’s suffered a broken arm from being knocked down by a cow, a back injury from falling off a truck, a moderate stroke, a heart attack, a milder stroke, and now the Parkinson’s-like thing, which makes it hard for him to get around. So he needs help in the bathroom, and he can’t prepare his own food. (To be honest, he’s never prepared his own food. My MIL used to ask me to come over while she was gone on the occasional 3-day trip, so that I could heat up his meals in the microwave. Seriously. He was perfectly capable of choosing his food and carrying a plate to the table, and of putting dishes in the dishwasher afterward, but he didn’t know how to run the microwave, and refused to learn.) In any case, the kids went to “ride herd” on their grandpa while I was at work. I think they were bored silly, but nobody complained… what sweethearts.

SOTD: one drop of vintage Guerlain Parure edc (courtesy of Queen Daisy the Enabler) on my thumb. I hate this thing. (Sorry, Daisy.) This is a fruity chypre, isn’t it? Bleargh. Every single one of those I’ve tried, I’ve hated, and I mean I hated them all enough to blowtorch the lot. Parure? Mitsouko? So Pretty? Yvresse? All utter, utter disasters. After a couple of irritable hours, I gave up, washed my hand, and got out the never-wrong Chanel No. 5 Eau Premiere. This is the thing I always keep in my purse, because while there might be another choice that would be more perfect for the situation at hand, Eau Premiere seems to fit just about anytime. I’m never sorry I put it on.

Wednesday, July 21: We have garden TOMATOES! I’monna make myself a mater sammich for lunch: two slices white bread, the softer the better, real mayonnaise (Duke’s, please), a sprinkle of salt and freshly ground pepper. And a 3/4-inch slice of the biggest, ripest tomato I just picked right off the vine. It’s best if your tomato is big enough to cover most of the bread slice, but you can layer slices from a smaller tomato if you must. Yum. Some people add American cheese, but I think that’s sacrilege. SOTD: Divine L’Ame Soeur, because I was in a hurry and aldehydes are my no-brainer choice in the summer. P:TG calls this one “pale, vegetal, and sour.” Pale I get. Vegetal, no. Sour? Huh-uh. It’s actually rather sweet on me, not quite the sugary crunch of Chanel No. 22, but heading in that direction.

SOTEvening Two Hours Right After Supper: Parfums DelRae Coup de Foudre. Gorgeous for an hour, then it’s gone. I ought to swap this thing (a 10ml decant) away, because it just frustrates me. Actually, I ought to swap away several things I’m not wearing… like maybe keep a small decant of my 2006 Diorissimo and trade the rest. Or the Ivoire de Balmain, which is pretty if I’ve got enough time to let it bloom, but the weather never seems quite right for it. Or the Le Prince Jardinier Labyrinthe Libertin, which is a nice herbal cologney thing but I just don’t care much for colognes. Gah.

Thursday, July 22: Hied Bookworm and myself to the dentist for maintenance cleanings, and while we were there they kindly fixed my tooth where an old filling had broken off and gotten rough. SOTMorning: AG Heure Exquise edp, from a sample sent to me by AnnS, who loves the stuff. We split the difference on HE and No. 19: I love 19, and just like HE, and she feels the opposite. She’s still trying to convert me, and I’m still wearing samples of HE and saying to myself, “You know, this stuff is pretty good, but it makes me want to wear something else. Like No. 19. Or Silences.”

So after taking Bookworm shopping for a few things she’ll need for running camp next week, I applied Silences where HE had worn off. Then I went to work, which freaked all my coworkers out. They hate it when I come in to work in the afternoon, instead of my usual morning hours. I think it messes with their brains. “You’re here? My gosh, is it Friday already?”

Friday, July 23: HOT HOT HOT again, mid-90s and humid. I’ve been feeling guilty about wearing old favorites, thereby neglecting samples people have been kind enough to send me. SOTD: Guerlain Metallica. Which I knew had been renamed/rereleased as Metalys, and judging by its name, I thought it was some sort of lily+helional thing. Wa-RONG. It’s aldehydes +carnation +vanilla. Which I totally dig, although the vanilla (the official notes say amber, but it’s the same variety as in Bvlgari Black) is a little more powdery than I would find ideal. And now I find that Metalys is still available (at “discontinued Guerlain” prices), but it’s less carnation and more vanilla, which is the exact opposite of the proportions I’d like. And then I went looking for a source of real carnation absolu, which is a whole ‘nother story…

SOTE: Shalimar Light (blue juice). Shalimar would probably kill me in the heat, but SL is great for bedtime. I happen to find it a lemon-vanilla heap o’ sexy.

Saturday, July 24: SOTD: the dregs of Shalimar Light, which does hang around a long time. We’ve been cleaning the house and mowing grass, and this afternoon we planned to visit the local pool, and that meant I didn’t bother with applying more scent.

Post-pool, though, I put on a bit more Shalimar Light. I don’t know why it’s so appealing to me right now, but it is. It’s probably a little too heavy. Watched The Bourne Identity again on TV. Chris Cooper is, as absolutely always, pitch-perfect. And I love Franka Potente – you know she doesn’t get cast because of her looks (although I think she’s lovely in an unusual sort of way) , but because of her talent. Her face is so open and expressive. I like Matt Damon a lot; I think he’s a talented actor and a really bright guy. But I keep wondering if he wasn’t the wrong choice for Jason Bourne because Damon is so patently nice. He doesn’t look like a hardened assassin who has suddenly developed a conscience.

Sunday, July 25: Saw Bookworm off to running camp (thank goodness for carpools! We didn’t have to drive her ourselves) and went on to church. I was working with the preschoolers again and didn’t want to be radiantly perfumed, so went with Prada Infusion d’Iris. It’s a nice little wallpaper scent, but I wish I’d picked something like Lancome Mille et une Rose instead.

I finally mowed the yard, after three and a half weeks of dry weather.  It rained about two inches this week, and the yard has greened up and started to grow again.  It’s full of weeds, of course, because poor weather favors the brazen plants: Queen Anne’s lace and chicory, pigweed and sandbriers, plantain and chickweed, bull thistle and musk thistle and the truly-prickly Scotch thistle.  Oddly, you know, thistle blooms smell really lovely: a milky, honeyed sweet fragrance.  Butterflies love them. 

Image is “Inside display cabinet” by yarnwench on Flickr.

Monday, July 5:  A little cooler today than last week – and very dry.  The grass is getting really crunchy.    SOTMorning: Kate Spade.  Someone asked me whether it was the first one or the second, and I have to admit I don’t know.  It’s an attractive, soft Big White Floral with muguet as well as tuberose.  Although I don’t know much about Ms. Spade except that she designs handbags coveted by many fashionable women, of which I am definitely not one, I like this.  It is discontinued, of course.

SOTE: Les Nez Manoumalia.  I thought it would be another Big White Floral of the tropical variety, but holy crap.  Remember how Tubereuse Criminelle had aspects of menthol and camphor (which didn’t bother me) and of raw meat (which did)?  Manoumalia – while escaping the Rotting Raw Chicken of Death that is TC – is similarly disturbing.  Review coming soon.

On a positive note, after dinner we watched the 1954 movie Moby Dick, with Gregory Peck as Ahab, and I am very proud to say that Bookworm and Gaze were picking up on some of the symbolism with which the story is rife.  This is second nature to Bookworm – she began noticing symbolism in books when she was about 9 and I was reading her The Lord of the Rings (editing some of the archaic language on the fly). Gaze is less sure of himself with language-arts-type-stuff, and I was glad to see him looking for layers of meaning.

Tuesday, July 6:  Temps in the mid-90s, back to HOT again.  SOTD: Tauer Une Rose Vermeille, delicious little thing.  Funny: Bookworm and Gaze are Not Fans, although Gaze thought it was nice in its raspberry-rose stage.  The CEO liked it.   I hereby dismiss the kids’ opinions – these are the people who thought Manoumalia was “just pretty flowers.”  (Gah.) 

At some point today, Gaze and Taz got into one of their frequent pitched battles with their Nerf guns.  (Should this bother me?  It doesn’t.  They’re boys – if it weren’t Nerf guns with foam bullets, it would be water pistols.  Or water balloons.  Or wrestling.  Or plastic light sabers.  Or something.)  In any case, I overheard the following exchange:

Taz (trash-talking as he fires):  IN YOUR FACE!   POW POW POW!

Gaze (philosophically): Actually, that kind of was in my face.

Taz (with glee): HA!  Literally and metaphorically!

I thought I was going to die laughing.  What nine-year-old uses that phrase, and, moreover, gets it right?  I called him on the carpet for shooting at faces, though, and threatened the permanent removal of the Nerf guns.  He knows I’m serious.  (The boys in the pic are not mine, by the way – mine are older.  And blonder.  But when I went to Flickr and searched for “boys nerf guns,” no fewer than 118 photos popped up, and my point is, Boys Love Nerf Guns.)

Wednesday, July 7:  The CEO and I are finalizing vacation plans for next week.  Good thing we’re not waiting for August – this weather is hot enough, thank you.  SOTD: Nuit de Tubereuse.  I still hate the jungle-dirt-mildew opening.  But I like the friendly tuberose shading into light woods and incense.  (Bookworm really enjoys it.  I’m still not getting the reason for her intense dislike of the Tauer scents, except that they tend to be rich and opaque.)

Thursday, July 8:  Still hot, still dry.   SOTD: Marc Jacobs Daisy. Go complain about my pedestrian taste somewhere else if you’re unhappy.  There are some days you just need a wallpaper scent, and for that purpose I like Daisy a lot.     

Friday, July 9:  Planning for vacation next week.  Taz needs a haircut, the dog needs a bath, Bookworm’s trying to schedule around band and cross-country practices… how to get it all done?  Groceries… laundry… I already paid all the bills… honestly, this is like playing Whack-a-Mole.

SOTD: Lancome Mille et une Rose.  Back in January when I bought the La Collection set (Magie, MeuR, Sikkim, and Climat), this one struck me as dull.  It must have been a weather thing, because it’s nothing short of comfortable, ladylike elegance now.  Basically, it just smells good: lemony, peppery, ambery rose, all of it muted and swirled into a bold sort of prettiness, if that isn’t an oxymoron.   Another wallpaper scent, but one that reminds me of those Jacobean fabric prints.   

SOTE: Les Nez Manoumalia again.  This is a schizophrenic sort of thing – lovely big white flowers, and… um… meat?

Saturday, July 10:  It rained last night!  Not enough, but it did rain.  And I trimmed Taz’s hair myself.  It’s not entirely straight, but I absolutely dare you to notice it upon casual observance.  Oh, well, Nancy the friendly local hairdresser can fix it in a couple of weeks, he’ll need another haircut by then anyway.   SOTD: Manoumalia.  Because I’m writing a review.  The things I suffer through to write these reviews… sigh.

Sunday, July 11:  Church.  Then getting Bookworm’s new cross-country shoes.  Then packing up for vacay.  SOTD: Nuit de Tubereuse.  I mentioned it before, but I’m getting accustomed to the mildewy bit.  I don’t like it, but it’s bothering me less.

Just found out that our hotel suite (one king size bed, one sofa bed, one pull-out reclining chair) will have free wi-fi.  So we’re taking my laptop, and I may get the chance to pop by and respond to comments.  I have two posts (a Manoumalia review and a post on the Raspberry Pavlova dessert that Tauer Une Rose Vermeille reminded me of) already scheduled to publish while I’m gone, so there will at least be something for you to read here, even if I don’t get back to you in the comments until the following week.

Monday, June 28: Wearing Parfums DelRae Coup de Foudre again, writing a review.  We have a plague of wasps in the toolshed – I haven’t been able to get the lawnmower out, thanks to the wasps.  Ack. 

The boys are spending a week at Camp Nana, AKA my parents’ house, so the three of us still here will be eating Things They Don’t Like this week – lasagna, cucumber salad, potstickers, Thai noodles, chicken satay… Yum.  How is it that I have one really picky kid, one sort-of-picky kid, and one eats-pretty-much-anything kid?  

My sample of Une Rose Vermeille from Andy Tauer arrived today – along with four other samples, in that darling little aluminum sample box!  Yay!!!  Also included in the box were samples of Une Rose Chypree, Incense Rose, Le Maroc Pour Elle, and Orange Star.  I’ve enjoyed my sample of URC, but didn’t care much for IR (too much Tang Dust Effect).  Haven’t tried Le Maroc or Orange Star, but will soon. The Rose Vermeille is lovely, sniffed from the vial.  Hope to give it a real spin soon. 

Tuesday, June 29: In a rush to get out the door, I just grabbed a decant and hoped that it would be suitable; it turned out to be Divine L’Ame Soeur.  Which I like and which I should review along with all those other aldehydic florals I like so much.   Bonus: the juice is a really, really pretty pale coral-pink color. 

The CEO and I went on a search-and-destroy-wasps mission this evening – he was moving the basketball goal from where it had fallen in yesterday’s thunderstorm, and got stung pretty badly.  I hate wasps.  This is probably not fair to the wasps, who are after all simply going about their wasp business when these giants show up and disrupt everything, but there you have it.  I still hate them.  Bees only sting you if you swat at them, or step on them, but wasps are infinitely grouchier.

Wednesday, June 30: The CEO and I have seriously discussed my quitting my part-time job to concentrate on getting my novel written.  We’re still considering the issue.  SOTD: Miller Harris Rose en Noir, because I was wearing this necklace I have, composed of reddish-brown oval beads interspersed with square peridot-colored beads, and a pendant made of green-and-russet agate.  Rose en Noir, instead of reminding me of the colors in its name, pink and black, is green and russet: galbanum, rose, spice, with something balsamic that bothers me on some days and doesn’t on others.

SOTE: Alahine, just a weensy spritz.  It’s so quiet here without the boys… I hear they’re having fun.  Talked to them on the phone last night, and I could hear my mother in the background, insisting to my nephew Doodlebug (age 6) that he must go and put on his pajamas because it was bedtime.  “Yes, you do.”  Pause.  “Because it is bedtime.”  Pause.  “Yes, it is bedtime, and you need your pajamas.”  Pause.  “Because I said so, that’s why!”  I had to laugh.  Moms never change, do they?

Thursday, July 1: Statement Day again at work.  I really should go about Making Pronouncements, but I wind up too busy.  Coup de Foudre again today – man, the level in the decant bottle goes noticeably lower every time I wear it.    So of course it was gone by the time I got home from work, and I still wanted rose but not my usual suspects, so I put on some Silences.  I love how cool and satiny it is, galbanum-rose-iris-moss.  It always makes me think of that kind of taffeta that changes colors depending on how you hold it in the light — one way it’s green, one way it’s purple.  That’s Silences.

Bedtime scent, Citizen Queen.  Rrrowwr. 

Friday, July 2: I felt like being frivolous, so the SOTD was Ines de la Fressange.  Bellini in a bottle – all fizzy tangy peach — plus rose, jasmine, violet, and a bright sandalwoody drydown.   A very happy sort of smell.  SOTE:  Maison Francis Kurkdjian Lumiere Noire pour Femme.  Double rrrowwr.

Saturday, July 3:  We are practically inundated in really big cucumbers.  Big, mammoth, nearly obscene cucumbers.  By the dozens.  We’re getting a little sick of them – even with tomatoes and feta cheese and herbs and cracked pepper.  SOTD: Tauer Perfumes Une Rose Vermeille.  I like it.  Bookworm doesn’t… picky picky.

Sunday, July 4:  Happy Birthday, America!   SOTD: Hanae Mori Haute Couture, nice fizzy jasmine fruit mocktail thing.  We had a family-n-friends picnic at the Methodist Church picnic shelter (my aunt and uncle are members there, and my grandmother used to be, before the Alzheimer’s sped up), with the usual Too Much Food.  Which we ate, because we’re like that:  “Don’t want to waste it.  Here, have some watermelon.  There’s some more of that ham – and how about a little sliver of Ann’s pie?” 

Remember when I opened the vial of Serge Lutens Clair de Musc last week and found my mother in it?  Turns out she did wear Jovan Musk for Women for some period of time, as an everyday scent, when I was little.  Those smell memories get hard-wired… wonder what will conjure me for my children later on in their lives? 

I was really glad to see my boys, back from their week at Camp Nana. Taz must have really missed me, because he headed straight for me and got me in one of those totally involved leg-lock hugs he’s famous for.  And kept hugging me – which I enjoyed, because he’s nine.  The days of “don’t touch me, Mom,” are rollin’ on down the road toward us, and in five years we’ll be lucky if he speaks to us in public.   Although, you know, Taz isn’t much of a talker unless he’s telling you what he knows about things like American history, the digestive systems of animals, or baseball.  Instead, he’s physical.  He’s gonna want to wrestle me or something, instead of telling me he loves me. 

The CEO took Bookworm and Gaze to a baseball game after lunch; I didn’t go.  Why?  I was tired and hot and I wanted to talk to my sister, who is emotionally frangible lately since her husband was deployed to Afghanistan until December.  Taz said he wanted to be with me, and after we went home, he went straight for the History Channel and turned on America: The Story of Us.  You know, I think he’s one weird little kid… weird, but actually sort of great. 

Okay, actually wonderful.

Monday, June 21: I’m going to stop bothering to note the weather.  We’re into summer now, and it’s basically going to be the same every day: hot. And humid.  Except when it rains, and then it will be wet and hot and humid.  Of course, it hasn’t rained enough recently, and the grass is getting crunchy, and the wasps are proliferating.  Urgh.  SOTD: Vamp a NY, which I love for being a big flirty happy tuberose-vanilla party.  Complicated it’s not.  Pretty, it is.  Where’s my tropical-floral-print cotton sundress?

Taz’ baseball team lost their tournament game.  They’re done.  It’s over.  Thank goodness, now we can start eating dinner at home every night like normal human beings.  (Okay, fine, I know plenty of people don’t do that.  I mean, normal for us.)

Tuesday, June 22: The CEO and guys have made 340 bales of hay over the past few days – about 70% of an average year’s usage.  And this is just the first cutting!  They’ll make more in August.  These are big bales, too – 6 feet 3 inches in diameter.  They dwarf me.  Gaze went with his dad and helped bale for awhile.  He’s not quite tall enough to reach the foot pedals on the tractor, so he sat on The CEO’s lap and just steered.  The CEO says that it’s a tricky thing to keep the bale even, so that you don’t wind up with lopsided bales that fall apart when you try to move them – but that Gaze is really, really good at it.

SOTD: Vamp a NY again.  Despite my short attention span and despite wearing it for several days in a row, I still like it.  At bedtime it was gone but I still wanted tuberose, so sprayed a bit of TF Voile de Fleur.  Mmm.

Wednesday, June 23: DANGIT DANGIT DANGIT.  My laptop “lost” my review of Vamp a NY (which I wore again today), which was to be posted this morning.  AAAARGGGHH!  I had to go to work with it dangling; only managed to retrieve the file and get the review up on the blog by 11 pm.  Shoot.   

I think Bookworm’s having fun with this PE-class camp thing she’s doing.  Besides basic health, physical fitness tests, and some basic classroom Driver’s Ed, they’ve gone whitewater rafting at the New River Gorge in WV; canoeing on the river; bowling; waterskiing and other water sports at the Boy Scout camp on the lake; and today they went spelunking.  I had not known that there was a cave within a mile of our house, although it shouldn’t have surprised me: most of the local geology is highly karstic.  Limestone Rock + Underground Water Makes Caves, Duh.  On our farm alone, 610 acres, there are no fewer than three sinkholes, one big enough to swallow a tractor (if you were stupid enough to try to drive a tractor in there).  In any case, she came home utterly covered in mud today, and smiling.

Thursday, June 24: I could have happily worn Vamp a NY again, but decided to wear a sample.  Picked Frederic Malle Lys Mediterranee, which is lovely.  I am always surprised by how aquatic it is.  The effect is very Sitting on a Windy Mediterranean Seaside Stone Terrace, Surrounded by White Lilies.  That’s an enviable place to be, even if it is only in my mind.   Is it wrong of me to prefer Donna Karan Gold, which evokes the heady summer blast of my very own stargazer lilies wafting past me as I sit on the front porch swing watching the sunset?  My wallet is happy with my choice.

Oh!  Great news – I just won an advance sample of Tauer Perfumes’ Une Rose Vermeille, which I understand to be the next in Andy Tauer’s Memorables line after Une Rose Chypree, which I liked very much.  It was a random drawing from among commenters on his blog, but I asked Andy if I could review it here and he said, “No problem – just explain how you got your sample.”  So.  There’s that to look forward to.  It sounds great, by the way – red raspberry (I know some of you are covering your ears, but c’mon, it’s Tauer – I can’t imagine fruity mall blah in a Tauer), rose, vanilla, sandalwood, violet.  Sounds soooo pretty.  

Went to sleep wearing a teeny spritz of Teo Cabanel Alahine.  I love that stuff.

Friday, June 25:  In a hurry this morning, I grabbed Mariella Burani for a quick spritz.  It’s such a great wallpaper scent.  The more often I wear it, the more often I smell musk in it – a pleasant, quiet musk that doesn’t smell too laundry detergent.  Yesterday I uncapped my sample  of Serge Lutens Clair de Musc, and in it I found – my mother, of all things.  Of course there is a lot of musk in Chanel No. 5 – but now I’m wondering if she also wore something like Jovan Musk Oil from time to time.  I should call her and ask.  (I should call her and just chat, I don’t do that often enough.)

Saturday, June 26: At the risk of repeating myself once too often, it’s hot.  SOTD:  Welll… nothing, really.  After bringing in the fifth load of laundry from the clothesline, all sweaty, I grabbed my decant of 4711 out of the fridge and spritzed the back of my neck, in the hopes that it would cool me off.  It did, but I still don’t like it.  Luckily, it disappeared within half an hour.  (And the clothes smell great.)  Went to pick up The CEO from where he and Taz had been mowing a hayfield, and they’d picked me some tiger lilies and Queen Anne’s Lace, wasn’t that sweet of them?  They know I love those side-of-the-road specials.

True story: the flowers at my parents’ wedding, 45 years ago today, consisted of armfuls and Mason jars full of Queen Anne’s Lace, picked from every roadside and vacant lot my grandmother and the bridesmaids could get to.  They couldn’t afford anything else.   The life lesson, of course, is that when you can find beauty in the most commonplace things, love lasts.  Congrats, Mom and Dad.

Sunday, June 27:  A momentous occasion – the first-ever unsolicited compliment on my perfume from Taz.  He hugged me and then exclaimed, “Oh, you smell nice!  I like that one.”  The scent?  Parfums DelRae Coup de Foudre.   Taz has good taste.  Review coming sometime this week. 

Top image: My Grandmother’s Perfume Bottle Collection from SourCherries at flickr.  Lower image is New River Gorge Bridge from Wikimedia Commons.

Monday, May 31: Happy Memorial Day!  My deep, heartfelt thanks to all those who have served this country in its armed forces.  SOTD: L’Arte di Gucci, with its joyfully shrieking pink roses over all that dirty-rooty-tangled garden stuff.  Swooon.  The castoreum in it really gets to Bookworm, though: she says it smells like Taz when he needs a bath.  It does, a little bit – but I don’t care.

I just cleared out my Spam Comments file.  Why is it that I keep getting spam about auto parts on a perfume blog?  There’s the occasional spam concerning makeup, too, but seven out of the last eight spam comments have been long lists of auto parts and where I can get them online.  Weird. 

Tuesday, June 1:  Statement Day at work.  I print, fold, stuff and mail about 300 statements.  It would be nice if we had a folding machine… and a postage meter… but my boss figures it’s cheaper to pay me to do it.  Maybe I should ask for a raise.  SOTD: Guerlain Vega again.

Crazy extracurriculars today: Gaze and Taz both had baseball games at the same time on different fields.  Bookworm had two events: marching band practice/open house for band parents, and a swim test for the summer PE program she’s taking in June, in order to free up space on her schedule for other classes in the coming school year.  We almost had to rope the grandparents in for taxi service, except that it rained at the last minute and the baseball games were canceled.  My MIL owns a cell phone, but she never turns it on, so The CEO had to actually drive down to the park to tell her that the games were canceled.  (My own mother does this too.  She only turns the phone on when she needs to make a call.  She never thinks that someone might be trying to call her to tell her something important, like maybe she left her raincoat at my house.  Mom, I love you.  I love you too, B.  Please catch a clue about your cell phones.)

Wednesday, June 2: Hot and humid again, ugh.  The garage up the street that’s been stalling us on paying their bill stiffed us again, and the owner wants to complain that we charge too much; I think what he’s doing is buying on credit from NAPA until we freeze the account, and then he goes and buys from Advance and O’Reilly until they freeze his account, juggling his cash flow.  Still, there’s no need for him to scream at me.  I definitely don’t get paid enough.  SOTD: vintage Coty L’Aimant.  Which Musette at Perfume Posse likens to really good root beer, and although it doesn’t actually smell like root beer, it has that same insouciant, cheerful mood.

More crazy extracurriculars: Taz had a baseball game, and I had to take Bookworm and Gaze to the high school for their athletics participation physicals for the upcoming school year.  You can do it at the doctor’s office, but that’s $35; if you attend the high school’s event, it’s $10.  The lines are long, though, and it was 105 minutes of waiting, 15 minutes worth of physical exam. Aaargh.

Thursday, June 3: Hot and humid again.  Again we’re in the upper 80’s.  SOTD: Crown Bouquet.  I love this crunchy-juicy green stuff and the soft white flowers afterward.   Again with the crazy evening schedule: The CEO took Gaze to his game and I took Bookworm to the band banquet, where she was surprised to win the Rookie Marcher of the Year award.

Friday, June 4: Hot, humid, sticky, even here in the mountains, and we are headed for Washington, DC, where it is sure to be even more hot, humid, and sticky.  Bleah.  The CEO and I attended a discussion forum and reception for Ian Axford Fellows/ Fulbright NZ Scholars/ Eisenhower Fellows to NZ at the New Zealand Embassy. It was lovely to meet the NZ Ambassador, Roy Ferguson, and his American wife Dawn, whom he met when he was doing his Fulbright studies at U Penn years ago.  SOTD: No. 5 Eau Premiere, which has the advantage of being noticeable and pleasant without ever being heavy.  There was an embassy staffer there wearing what I’d swear was Jolie Madame (I never got the chance to talk to her and ask, though).   Met Mrs. Fulbright – a lovely, gracious lady.

Wonderful to see The CEO’s sister E and her husband K (who was The CEO’s college roommate), and their two sweet kids, whom I’ll be calling Curiosity and Primrose. 

Saturday, June 5:  DC is such a swamp… sure, Atlanta’s hotter.  So’s Miami.  NYC is probably equally hot – it’s been sweltering every time I’ve been there in the summer.  But for my money, no major city in the US is as uncomfortable in the summer, in terms of sticky miserable heat, as DC.  Gah.  Curiosity’s baseball game, then the pool, then we were off to Baltimore for the Red Sox-Orioles game!  (We called Bookworm from the game to make sure she knew we were thinking of her.  Poor baby.) I struggled with my choice of fragrance until I finally let The CEO pick for me.  I let him sniff all the samples and decants I’d brought with me, and his first choice was Dzing! which might have been interesting, but I didn’t think I could take smelling like the zoo all evening.  His second choice was Thierry Mugler Alien, which I usually find too sweet, but it worked well.  Game score: Sox 8, O’s 2.  Four baseballs signed by shortstop Marco Scutaro (nice guy, Mr. Scutaro).  I got a closeup picture of Jason Varitek and his mighty thighs (it wasn’t quite as good as the one at left here).  Everybody happy.

Sunday, June 6: We headed home after breakfast.  It had rained, and the temps dropped 14 degrees as we got up into the mountains.  The dog (Hayley) was ecstatic to see us.  The cat (Silvia) looked up at me and gave me that face that says, “Oh, good, you’re home.  Peel me a mouse, would you?” and when I fed her some dry food, she commented, “Well, it’s about time, and honestly, you can’t get good help these days, so I guess I’m stuck with you.  Next time come back sooner.”  I’d tell her to stick it, but she’s 17 years old, which is like being 86 in cat years, so I just let her complain.  SOTD: Moschino Funny!  which is awfully nice for a grapefruit-rose summery thing, although I don’t feel any compelling need to own a bottle.

Last week of school coming up.  I’d better get moving on those chore lists for June 14th…

Top image is Mom’s perfume bottles from annieo76 at flickr.  Lower image is July 4, 2008, Red Sox-Yankees at Jason Varitek’s unofficial fan website.