Islands in the Stream of Consciousness

It could be one of *those* blogposts.†

A few things‡ have happened since last I (really) posted.

*ahem*

I could get seriously philosophical here, because, as I was lining up my excuse ducks,§ I realised how telling they really are.

My first excuse duck?¶

Werk.#

I suspect I genuinely have more work than I used to, now that I'm a Paid Hack for the Corporate Machine, but I can say for a fact that my time is parcelled out very differently. I have vacation time. And sick time. And hours.

Practically, it's not that much different from when I was contract. Philosophically, I feel a much greater sense of obligation.

Plus, the stress is enormously greater, what with expense reporting and million-dollar deadlines and million-dollar deadlines and Hans and United Way campaigns and the impending Oompa Loompa Revolution and stuff.

Duck!††

Blogui.‡‡

Steve. §§

And Nathan.¶¶

Wii.##

I lost my camera.†††

But I now have a lot of stories.

So I'll be around.‡‡‡


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): One may wonder that there's a blogpost at all. One may have strongly hinted on Twitter about one's suspiciously absent blogposts. You know who you are.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): One. Two. 2010.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): You know, so you can shoot them down.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): It's a good, all-purpose duck, which is a real phrase about real ducks in duck shows and one of Steve's best-loved terms. More on Steve later. But in case you wanted to know, some ducks are raised for down, some for meat and a good, all-purpose duck has qualities that make it good for both. You're welcome.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): Which differs from "work" in the face you make when you say it.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): That's the second duck, but who's counting.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): Occasional bouts of techui, under which I shamefully ignored Twitter and occasionally email for abnormally wide swaths of time.

§§FOOTNOTE (time swirls when you're having fun): Because we've been doing lots of fun stuff, and fun stuff takes *time*.

¶¶FOOTNOTE (is that a Wii controler? EEK!): Who bribed me to Vegas with martinis and sushi, then moved to New Zealand, leaving me bereft. I was totally reft before that.

##FOOTNOTE (bomp bomp): Wii is totally kicking my ass. Not in the way you're thinking. I'm totally intimidated by it and, even though My Friends at Nintendo have sent me games and a disco light and a cool game involving yarn and felt, I still play more on the nephews' Wii than on my own. Because my Wii scares me.

†††FOOTNOTE (very, very cross): Seriously. All my Vegas photos - including the Liberace Museum, which is now closed - plus the Christmas Eve Ugly Sweater Party and an assortment of other worthy subjects. I think the car ate it. The car ate Kate's CDs; we tore the car apart looking for them, but the car just spit them out two years later when I was looking for the cell phone I'm convinced it ate.

‡‡‡FOOTNOTE (stitched together like Frankenstein's monster): I'd do more now, only I received what I see as barely-veiled threats should I not post something soon.

I am a Grateful Show-Off

LOOK! This is the last batch of stuff before I hid my camera cable from myself.

I love it! My swap pal is the BEST! She's so awfully clever - just look at the knitting pirates.

There's more! I've received a full complement of spiffy stuff from Swap Pal.

More will come, but until then, oooh and aaah at the pretty, pretty bounty.

Still-secret Swap Pal, I am truly grateful despite my callous ways.

















And this! Because The Moo loves me, she has contributed to my collection of Stupid Sparkly Sweethearts!

I'm going for eBay glory one of these days...




And a SKULL bag. For the grocery store. So the crunchy granola kids who check me out at Sunflower Market can tell me how rad I am.




Yep. Those are my friends: giving me the illusion of radosity for nearly 43 years now.

Double Crap!

The comments are often interesting. Sometimes, they're downright hilarious. Today, they were humbling, as Kari reminded me of a little oversight† on my part.

I was so busy talking about myself and saying things to make Kim hate me‡ that I completely forgot to tell y'all that Hans got a job too.§ Same place. We'll probably still have adjoining offices.¶

*whew*

There.

Back on the high road.#


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): *cough*

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Dear Kim, I've said it before:

"Look at me," said the star, "I'm shining so brightly." Then it went supernova. The moral of this story is obvious. - Tanith Lee, The Silver Metal Lover

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): And he doesn't even have to be one of my minions.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): There is some chance I will have to move to the other side of our floor, given my two extant minions office there and it's where the empty offices where the two TBD minions will likely live.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): Where a saint-in-training belongs.

I Kid You Not

I call this piece "Stress in Repose on Wazamba Tube Adrift a Field of Rampant Spreadsheets"

We have a monthly department meeting here in the Land of Big Oil.† To entice people to fail to skip it, there is birthday cake and a raffle.

The raffle usually consists of four gift cards to Starbucks, Jamba Juice, etc., and one coveted "get two free vacation hours" certificate.‡

Yesterday, they cleaned out the prize closet and gave everybody something with the company logo on it. There were many soccer-themed stress balls and apparently a more limited number of tape measure/levels.

Coincidentally, there are many women and only a more limited number of men in the department.

So the women got the balls and the men got the measuring devices.

Forty-two-year-old me bit twelve-year-old me's tongue really hard to stem the flow of inappropriate jokes.§

There are no such restrictions on you.¶


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Well, medium-sized oil.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): I won one of those a couple of months ago. They made me trade for a Starbucks card.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): The only thing the little angel on my shoulder let me say was, "We are all now eligible for the St. Mary Stress Soccer League." It was funnier in person.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Kim? Can I lob you a softball? OH! That's what she said!

Life, the Universe and Everything

Brother and I were talking on my birthday and he mentioned this was my Life, the Universe and Everything birthday.†

"I didn't think there was anything noteworthy after the Jesus birthday,‡ but there you have it."

[SUMMARY: For some, passage of time is noted in literary reference.]

My birthday dawned clear and vodka-soaked, as Kelley took me out for brunch,§ then to The Cooler¶ for a shitty canned beer.

I'm not being mean. That's how Kelley phrased it: "Can I buy you a shitty canned beer?"




I cheerfully mark this a white trash beginning to the day, what with the chicken and waffles breakfast and the shitty canned beer chaser.

The gifts were anything but white trash:




Tokyo Milk is a local company recently featured in The Moment in the NY Times. The owner of the company hand-sparkles the packaging.

Of course, I'm mostly in it for the skulls.




[SUMMARY: Skulls are key.]

The evening celebration was certainly more high brow. You'd expect no less -- it was Brother's turn to entertain me.#

We started not with shitty canned beer, but with the first grape Wine Spectator ever awarded a perfect 100††:






As an aside, Brother eschewed wine until about five years ago. Now he's a frickin' snob.‡‡

[SUMMARY: Reformed sinners...]

The first thing Tallest Hairiest Nephew said?

"I'm not your hairiest nephew anymore."§§




We're going with Tallest Spikiest Nephew until he shaves his head for the big swim meet in August.

Dr. Doom is his usual doomy self.¶¶




Monday, Dad and Brother were taking me to dinner.

Let me take you back in Marin history: when I was young and we'd be in a tourist trap or a Hallmark store^ and we'd see a display of personalised [ fill in the blank ].

Mom or Dad would chirp, syrup and unholy glee coating their sarcastic voices, "If you can find your name, we'll buy it for you."

I have led a life deprived of Marin license plates for my bike and Marin pencils for school.

Monday this package from Kim$ arrived just in time...




...for me to wear this button to dinner.




But the pièce de résistance##:




It's a SENSATION in the office.

Touched and grateful doesn't *begin* to cover it. A lifetime of cruel lack was wiped away in one UPS delivery.

[SUMMARY: MARIN!]

Dad and Brother surprised me with a field trip to my favourite neighbourhood Italian restaurant, Mikey's.†††

Dad and Brother had their backs to the window. I was across from them. It wasn't long before my obvious distraction distracted them.

"Sorry. I'm trying to figure out how many misspellings are on that stupid sign behind you. Pet Emporium and So? Pet Emorium and So? The paw prints are supposed to be Os, right?"




They both looked. We all marvelled. It never made sense.

The next day, my client looked at it and said, "I got it! Pet Emporium and Spa.*"

[SUMMARY: Stupid sign.]

Dad's fiancée sent a present.




This is not a present from Peach, mind you. It's a present from her cats.‡‡‡






[SUMMARY: I am not making any of this up. I have photographic proof.]

Now, this isn't *all* the birthday what's fit to print. It's all the birhday I photographed and offloaded. There's the delightful present the nephews got me,§§§ a sassy perfume from Juno¶¶¶ and a truckload of divine chocolate### from my often-Number One Bad Influence%, Nathan.

Stay tuned@...


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): 42, as if I have to explain.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): 33, which may need more explanation than 42 in my crowd.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Chicken 'n' waffles with a side of bloody mary bar -- hence, the vodka soaking.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): A place with about 100 canned beers on the menu, ranging from $2 to $8.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): Because the man who coined the term "dick chakra" is nothing if not high brow.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): I asked for a straw.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): Per our conversation that evening, he does recognise this is an occasion wine, but one that probably would't get him laid.

§§FOOTNOTE (turn around when you're three, turn around when you're nine): Brother's nine-year-old self is SO jealous of TSN's nine-year-old self.

¶¶FOOTNOTE (Bambi eyes): Doom has never been so sweetly goofy.

^FOOTNOTE (careted): To-may-to, to-mah-to

$FOOTNOTE (cashed): Kim is so money, and I certainly hope she knows it. *mwah!*

##FOOTNOTE (le pound pound): French for "shiznit."

†††FOOTNOTE (speaking of Jesus): Which is neither in my neighbourhood anymore, nor is it still called Mikey's. Same owner/chef (he's a French-trained Algerian who looks like a compact Andre the Giant and used to wear wife-beaters in the restaurant. We *love* him.), same menu, now called Roma Roma and situated in a strip mall in sunny Arvada.

*FOOTNOTE (asterisked, imagine that): Read: Pet Em[paw]rium and S[paw]. Yeah, I know.

‡‡‡FOOTNOTE (cat scratch times three): Yes, they say, "meow" in the bowls. Yes, they have cat heads on top. They weight about six pounds, collectively and are beautiful pieces of work.

§§§FOOTNOTE (the creeping heebie-jeebies): Hint: "Dad, what's AntiM most afraid of?"

¶¶¶FOOTNOTE (upright citizen): The bottle is worth the price of admission.

###FOOTNOTE (pounds and pounds of chocolate): Which I'm trying to figure out how to artistically photograph so it doesn't look like I've eaten 26 lbs of chocolate in the last week.

%FOOTNOTE (percented): Nathan and Juno just keep leapfrogging each other. They should either be honoured or very, very ashamed. For the record, I don't believe either of them is much prone to shame.

@FOOTNOTE (atted): Is this like crying wolf at this point? Do I need to re-earn your trust?

Herringbone: That's What She Said

I should be embarrassed to post this.†

If I had any pride% at all...

[SUMMARY: The crux of the biscuit.]

'Cause, see, I finished these socks, what? A month ago? Maybe more?‡

There is one tiny mitigating factor: I was waiting for Kim to get them§ so I didn't step¶ on her glory.

You've been on the edge of your seat this whole time, right?#

[SUMMARY: Socks? What socks? There were socks?]

Here are the pictures I took of Kim's socks in the garden.††






Note the clever calf shaping‡‡:




Public Service Announcement:

Hey, knitters! Toe-up socks are fun and practical and you know all the cool kids are doing them. Just remember, like big boobs and patriotism,§§ the ability to try on socks as you go only works if you USE IT PROPERLY.

[SUMMARY: Do as I say, not as I knit.]

You're welcome.


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Since it would be even more embarrassing to reveal that I lost my camera in my own recliner for a panicky twelve hours, I'm calling this the lesser of evils and going with it.

%FOOTNOTE (percented): Pride is a SIN. A BIG one. We saints-in-training have no truck with that sort of thing.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Who's counting?

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Turns out that was completely in my control too.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Hahaha! Get it? Socks... step... :D

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): And judging by the series of thuds echoing around the world, holding your breaths too!

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): In the neighbour's garden. They have more green stuff. I was going to explain that I have a red bush, but I know how your mind works and I was trying to avoid the off-colour comments.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): I had the forethought to worry about calves, but not an inkling about ankles.

§§FOOTNOTE (still reeling from the depths): How profound, Mr. Wizard.

.-.. .. -.-. -.- - .... . .--. .. --. †

Lest you think I never think of knitting anymore, I am in the process of graphing the Bat Conservation International logo for a nifty tam o' shanter.




And later this week, I'll post pictures of the pair of socks I finished a month ago.




And, FSM willing, the sparkly scarf I'm making from Nathan's brilliant stash contribution.‡

[SUMMARY: I'll keep you coming back for more!]

Meanwhile, I shall share some funny bits lurking in my files.

Like Tippi Hedren in marshmallows§:




And, of course, stupid sparkly vampire snark:




And a whole collection of Savage Chickens that made me snarf%:








Speaking of chicken, I started my birthday with chicken 'n' waffles, a taste treat much lauded by Snoop Dogg, so I felt I had to try it.¶

I am currently developing recipes to make chicken 'n' waffles not quite so much heart-attack-waiting-to-happen.# It's really all about the tobasco and maple syrup, so fat content should be negotiable.

More birthday magic later this week too!

[SUMMARY: I took a couple of marketing classes in college.]

As long as we're talking about food, I just received word from Lucretia-once-Tia that I won a year's supply of Blue Bunny ice cream on a contest on her blog.

[SUMMARY: Don't stand near me. Lightning is about to strike.††]

Yep! It's a staccato blast of pig-licking today. Who knows what cohesiveness or cleverness tomorrow may bring?‡‡


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Genuine Morse Code! Fun for the whole family! Translation: Lick the pig.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): While I try not to go overboard with WIP pics, I think Nathan should see that his generous gift is going to good and glam use. And it will pad the blog the way only sparkly, sparkly pictures can.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Don't look, Jackson! And don't click the link!

%FOOTNOTE (percented): The last one is, of course, especially for Lyda.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): I want to be Snoop Dogg when I grow up, with my mind on my money and my money on my mind.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): I'm thinking non-fried fried chicken and Kashi toaster waffles.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): I'd like to thank Juno for pointing out that, contrary to my grip on kharma, I will not be struck by lightning to balance out all the good stuff that's happening, but that there is special birthday kharma that allows good things without ass-biting returns.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): Yeah, most of you can lay the odds on that, but you never know. I may experience a flash of brilliance.

Things That Go Bonk in the Night

Heheheheheh.

I crack me up.

Anyway, as you can imagine, Kim is way ahead of me on the Bonk thing,† and sent this new message:

----- Original Message -----
From: Kim
To: Marin
Sent: Tuesday, May 19, 2009 9:08:28 AM
Subject: Am I Giving Away Too Much of the Plot?

"Men's colognes actually reduced vaginal blood flow."

Oddly, the fragrance at the top of the turn-on list: ". . . a mixture of cucumber and Good 'n' Plenty candy."

Kim --- serving up comedy softballs for, oh, several months now.

*************

Dudes, it's... a BOOK with... PERFUME and... and... and... SEX and SCIENCE... and... they... it's... FUNNY.

[SUMMARY: Add a little knitting and it's like my own personal Nirvana.]

It just don't get any better than this.


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEH

Dear Kim,

To Lick or Not to Lick...

...that is the question;
Whether 'tis nobler in the teat to suffer
The flings and nuzzles of outrageous insemination,
Or to take to trotters against a sea of fondles,
And by opposing, end them.

You thought I was kidding about pig sex, didn't you?†

----- Original Message -----

From: Kim
To: Marin
Sent: Monday, May 11, 2009 4:01:11 PM
Subject: Thought of You‡

So, I'm reading Bonk, right? And I'm on the chapter about artificial insemination of pigs, right? (I'll save the discussion of "uterine upsuck" for another time.) And appears this paragraph:

[A] training video . . . includes a shot of a[n] inseminator lying on a sow, his chest pressed against back. With one hand, he reaches down beneath her to rub her mammaries and squeeze her teats. One of the less prominently known similarities between pigs and men: They both fondle breasts. No other animals on the planet do this.

Do with this what you will. No information is good or bad on its own; it's how we use it that makes the difference.

Kim


Ears... bleeding

Nose... glowing

Head... exploding

Like a geek in an Apple store,§ I don't know where to begin.

Do I go with the "men are pigs" angle? Do I go topical with a swine flu thing? Then there's the whole "lick the pig" schtick... surely I'd be remiss if I didn't give a nod to licking the pig. And don't get me started on why we haven't yet discussed "uterine upsuck".¶ Or how badly I need a copy of "Bonk."

So let me simply leave you with this thought:

Similarities between men# and pigs continue to pile up.†† Is it a conspiracy of the vast pork products industry that the clear fact that people are descended from pigs rather than chimpanzees has been buried for so long?

[SUMMARY: All my science comes from Mythbusters.]

Ay, there's the rub.‡‡


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): I'm giving myself more credit for grace than I deserve. I'm sure when you read there was going to be pig sex in a later post, you yawned and got yourself another cup of coffee.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Kim and I could probably publish a book filled with our "Thought of You" emails. We think a lot of each other.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): "Kid in a candy store," too hackneyed. "Pardoned prisoner in a whorehouse," too on point.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Which, as Dave Barry says, would be an excellent name for a rock band.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): And here I mean "mankind."

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): Pigs are said to be clean and intelligent and solicitous of their young, but more importantly people apparently taste a lot like pork -- long pig : people :: veal : baby cows -- and any time the Mythbusters need a human body analog, they use a pig carcass.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): You can't imagine how impressed I am with my own use of Shakespeare today.

And the Winner Is...

Kim!†

Kim, I have your address. I'll finish the socks tonight and ship you off an increasingly festive package‡ by the end of the week.§

Promise.


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Picked randomly by Hans.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Since I've been building it through many holidays and seasons. *ahem*

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Hey, I finally got Sarah's package out last week, ensuring that Ben won't outgrow his present before it even gets to him. I'm feeling cocky.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed):

Miss Me?

I had a very pleasant and long weekend.†

I haven't time to tell you all about it now,% but I will give a teaser for the rest of the week:

Drinking and dancing and breaking Lent‡ on Friday. You saw the Facebook entry, next -- read the blogpost.§

A stroll down the 16th Street Mall with my main Shanny on Saturday.¶

Sunday in the museum with the Nephews.

PLUS! What's in the trowel drawer? Knitted objects with pretty buttons! Drunken knitting: proof of life! Exotic playthings from distant lands!

[SUMMARY: I am a marketing genius.]

Stay tuned...


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): I always forget that half of corporate America closes down for Good Friday, so I got Friday off and the office closed early on Thursday and I played hooky yesterday. Gotta tell ya -- it's more fun when you feel like you're getting away with something.

%FOOTNOTE (percented): Off to the BLM to work. You are so jealous. You wish your job was as glamourous as mine.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Unless I decide to be Catholic, in which case the massive cocktail intake on Friday was simply a normal reaction to the end of Lent on Thursday.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Also? There are pictures. You won't see them.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): I'll show you pictures of that. There's a funny bit with a cross...

Proper Use of a Crochet Hook

From Athens... I keep wanting to link this to Kim, but wrong Athens.

My Fibroids Are Hand-Knit

{From Knitty}

Dear Kim,

You asked for it.

XOXO
M

I kinda want to apologise to Brother and Nathan and Doc and Brad and any of you other uterusless types out there who never needed to know such a thing existed. I do know where there's a knitted penis pattern, if that would make you feel more at home.

Go to the Post

In order to make that blogtitle work, I should probably mention something like how native son Chauncey Billups is coming back to the Nuggets. Look for his debut on ESPN when the Nugs take on the Mavs on Friday.†

[SUMMARY: Connecting the dots to give you the whole picture.]

They say money can't buy happiness. It's a pretty little thought, good for Aesop and bedtime stories, but a steady stream of deliveries from Internet retailers gets me pretty goddamned giddy.

For instance, when I fully realised you can purchase discontinued perfumes at any number of online venues, I immediately went to look for Scaasi, my signature scent from 1990 through 1993.

No go.

I tried periodically, and finally a week ago, there it was.

EVERYWHERE.

So I married a discount code to a sale price on a website with free shipping and pennies later...




Still as big and bold and stupidly beautiful as I remember it.^

And I read a little something a little somewhere about a niche perfumer offering a sample set and voilà!




Don't tell me I didn't just buy myself some happy.‡

[SUMMARY: Feel-good psychology is lost on the capitalist.]

Then, because this is still a knitblog,§ there's the singular joy of the yarn club.

My new-found fibre lust for lace knitting¶ was slaked by the arrival of about 1000 yards of Black Bunny merino/silk laceweight in totally -licious# purples.††




It doesn't hurt that the purple goodness came in this‡‡:




Carol was kind enough to let me stay in the Black Bunny club even though I'm just *barely* bright enough to work PayPal to finance it. That in itself makes me happy.

[SUMMARY: The gods look out for the feeble.]

Best for last, there's the even-better of receiving unsolicited items that didn't even require a credit card number in the mailbox.

Brought to you by Skull a Day, the Magic of Kim, the number four...




...and Animal.§§





Kim... seriously, better than Nintendo in the mail.

[SUMMARY: Good things come to those who stop whining for five minutes to appreciate them.]

Know what else makes me happy?




[SUMMARY: Proof of life.@]

*************
Améthyst - Olivier Durbano (Bijoux de Pierres Poèmes)

Marin says: My very first impression was, "Oh, no... Chanel." I was sure we were heading straight into That Aldehyde, but the alcohol burned off and it was a lovely ride.

Much like its companion scent, Black Tourmaline, there is a soft richness to this that probably shouldn't appeal to me. It's very nearly vanilla, very nearly aldehyde, very nearly headshop.

Maybe this an olfactory tour of negative space, harmony, background and all those things that make good art great.

Deep, huh?

I smell cedar and pepper, I got a whiff of bitter orange, something powdery -- which always makes me think of iris¶¶ -- and a touch of those vanilla/amber/sandalwood headshop things I usually hate.

The tiniest hint of smoke?

I really like this, but it may be too pedestrian to consider buying a bottle.## Something about it just says blah, blah, masculine cologne, blah.

Upon revisiting, I'm getting more of the soft, tempered cedar, which I lovelovelove. And I have no idea what kind of crack I was smoking to get The Aldehyde.†††

Luckyscent‡‡‡ says: The second in Olivier Durbano’s Perfume Poems, Améthyst takes its name and mood from amethyst, the prized purple gemstone of lore.% The gem itself is a symbol of heavenly understanding, and of moving with ease in the religious, spiritual, and material planes. In antiquity, the gem was thought to serve as a talisman against poison, drunkenness and bad luck. Durbano’s interpretation of amethyst into perfume form has made for a deeply peaceful, mysterious scent that debuts with a surprising pepper and fruit mix before it slowly swirls into palisander wood and the silky powder notes of orris. A soft amber, sandalwood, musk and vanilla are the base upon which this purifying scent is built upon, playing upon your senses with their sweet and musky natures and sending you to a place of contemplation and reverie. The majesty, the spirituality and the intensity of the color purple all rolled into one beautifully mysterious and forever haunting fragrance.

NOTES: bergamot,$ pepper, grape, raspberry, incense,$ palisander wood, jasmine, orris, vegetable amber, sandalwood,$ musk, vanilla$

Hans says: Mmmm... very citrusy. Like orange juice. You can tell them I said it smells like Yazoo spicy barbecue sauce.§§§


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): If even one of you got my tortured jape, all the set-up will have been worth it. I am just that dork.

^FOOTNOTE (careted): And even if it's awful, it will always remind me of Mom -- who bought me my first bottle of Scaasi -- and that will always blind me to the possibility of awfulness.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): And the chance to dabble in what I fool myself is Nathan Branch-esque perfume photography doesn't break my heart neither. On the other hand, the Scent Systems Jasmine is to ass AS cat piss is to honeyed rose petals. This did NOT make me happy, but I will chalk it up to the greater good and... happy again. Lalala.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): *cough*

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Despite having frogged and re-knit the first two repeats of the body of the Purple Prose scarf roughly eleventy-seven times.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): It used to say "Marin-licious." I simply couldn't keep a straight face.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): Purples even a digital camera can love.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): Which furthered my happiness because Cat for Scale tried wildly to catch and bat and bite the ghosts.

¶¶FOOTNOTE (beat the drum, don't eat the drum): AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!! WOMAAAAAAAAN!!!

@FOOTNOTE (atted): And proof that, though the damned cat won't sit still for a decent portrait, he can't resist hanging around when the camera comes out.

§§FOOTNOTE (the swirling elegance of irises): Largely because all the real perfume critics say iris is powdery. I don't think I'd know if an iris bit me in the ass. Rest assured if an iris ever does bite me in the ass, I'll share the pictures with you.

##FOOTNOTE (pounded like cross-wise logic): Yes, upon re-reading that sentence, I realise just how dorky and sort of elitist it sounds. I never promised you logic or reason. Or a rose garden. Though I think I did just promise photographic evidence of ass-biting irises.

†††FOOTNOTE (obvious is my cross to bear): Aldehyde crack, apparently.

‡‡‡FOOTNOTE (cryptic triptych): I usually try to quote the actual perfumier (or the soulless conglomerate that markets the stuff), but when I went to the Olivier Durbano website, I found a cryptic splash page -- a login, an animation about beauty and truth or some such drivel, and no content to be reached without the login and password... no way to even sign up to get a login and password. I'm thinking I have to buy a bottle of something Olivier Durbano to learn the secret handshake so I can share with y'all. That's the sacrifice I'm willing to make to help further your education.

%FOOTNOTE (percented): And my very favourite stone of all time, for those of you scoring at home. Only 49 shopping days left 'til Christmas.

$FOOTNOTE (on the money): Ha! Got one! And if palisander wood could be mistaken for cedar, maybe even two!

§§§FOOTNOTE (smokey joe): This isn't like the elephant comment. We had BBQ for lunch and I had a blob of Yazoo spicy on my left wrist right next to the scent zone. BBQ trumps cedar/citrus and Hans thinks he's funny.