Just Like Christmas

I got my Secret Pal package! Saturday!@

Because I'm really nice,† I'm going to share.‡

My spoiler was Helen from Alabama. And I was right. She *does* sing.%

First, an overview -- there's some Addi lace needles and... huh... you can't see the bath salts, but they're there, they probably ended up behind something, there's a copy of the Knitter's Almanac and a nice bookmark.§




Oh, but that's not all. Some things require a close-up:





Brown Sheep Wildfoote sock yarn in Rhapsody and Mountain Colors Mountain Goat in Wild Raspberry.




Skull tattoos... dozens and dozens of 'em.




A knit bag¶ with a lovely lining.




I tried hard not to tear the Alice in Wonderland paper, but there was *tape*.




Lookie! I got a scarf! It's, like, nine or ten feet long, which puts it in Dr. Who territory.^




And a toilet brush!

It's really a toss-up as to which of the scarf and the toilet brush is my favourite. Nobody but my mom ever knit me anything, and the hat and scarf she knit for me are long gone. It's just really cool to have something hand-knit of my own.

On the other hand, how cool is a skull-encrusted toilet brush set? And it comes with a funny story: The handle of the brush screws into the brush part. When I opened the box and started pulling stuff out,# I pulled out a tissue-wrapped bundle that contained... a toilet brush.

And I looked at it.

And I wondered.

And I decided Secret Pal Helen certainly deserved the benefit of the doubt, but still secretly wondered if she had accidentally wrapped a replacement toilet brush up and was even now wondering how she was going to get her toilet clean with a needle gauge or a box of tea or some such.

I pulled out a skull-laden candle holder,†† but it wasn't until I came across the skull-topped magic wand†† that the lightbulb went off.

Almost as good as Nintendo, I tell you, putting the pieces of that puzzle together.

Thanks, Helen! And thank you for all your comments too -- it's been great getting to know you.
*************

I'm doing Week 3 of the pushups over again. I had some lame moments, both literally and figuratively, in the last round. I'll let you know how that goes when I actually START Week 3, part 2.

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

Sublime Balkiss - The Different Company

Marin says: A shriek of grapefruit over a solid base of a warm-but-not-sweet wood. The wood smells like teak looks. And the shriek fades away quickly to a kind of bitter, herbal, green smell.
In the spirit of a hell of a roll-out, a warm, powdery ambery scent - very light - wraps around it.

Then the oddest WTF blurt of plastic and sour citrus. It's one of those I keep sniffing every few minutes because it develops so intriguingly. I'm not sure if, ultimately, it's all that wearable for me.

I'll definitely give it a fresh shot on another day.

TPC says: Sublime Balkiss is named for the Queen of Sheba. The Different Company describes it as a modern chypre fragrance without oakmoss (real or synthetic) or animal-derived raw materials.

Created by Celine Ellena, it has notes of the traditional patchouli, a modified modern patchouli which emphasizes the cocoa powder notes, bergamot,$ violet,$ black and purple berries,? blueberry, blackberry, blackcurrant, lily of the valley, rose and lilac.

Hans says: That smells like swimming pool. [Second sniff] Earthy. Like vegetable-y... like roots, not dirt. [Much later] Elephant.

‡‡§§¶¶##
@FOOTNOTE (atted): 'Cause, you know, didn't check the mail 'til Monday, had to take pictures, small delay, all is well. *ahem*

†FOOTNOTE (crossed): I feel you snickering, Brother. I know where you live.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Well, I mean I'm going to show-and-tell share. I'd guess I won't be distributing any goodies anytime soon. I'm not *that* nice.

%FOOTNOTE (percented): More than just for my birthday, that is.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): With a mermaid.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): I really love the gold yarn on the bag, Helen. What is it?

^FOOTNOTE (careted): The old Dr. Who. I haven't so much noticed David Tennat wearing a long, stripey scarf.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): Not at all like a kid at Christmas.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): Or so it seemed.

$FOOTNOTE (on the money): Ha! Sort of got one! OK, bergamot is a bitter orange, so it could read grapefruit and violet always has a sort of plastic/petroleum product air to it. So I'm giving myself some credit. Shut up.

?FOOTNOTE (WTF?): I so did not get any kind of berries.

Housekeeping

Not at my house, to be sure,† but I thought the elephant deserved his own post,‡ so here's the update on the 100 push ups and a perfume review:

*************
I have been lagging on the fifth set every round of push ups -- the one where they give you a minimum, but tell you to do as many as you can.§

I was blaming my near-misses on tennis, but Juno says it was a very big step up from the second week to the third week, so I feel much better.¶

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

Rem - Reminiscence

Marin says: Pipe tobacco humidified with rum. EXTREMELY light and short-lived. In fact, I would have raved, but I've decided to rave only as long as the perfume itself lasted.

And we're done.

The Perfumed Court says: A tropical fragrance with top notes of bergamot, cyclamen, and oceanic ozone; middle notes of honeysuckle, geranium, and palmarosa; and base notes of musk, vanilla, coconut, patchouli, sandalwood, and tonka bean. This is a European exclusive and is not available in the United States.#

Hans says: Daquiri.


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Come on over any time, Lyda!

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Of COURSE it's a him.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): You may remember this part via the Moment of Great Hubris in Which I Proclaimed I Would Do More Than 35 Push Ups at Once.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Apparently I require a lot of validation.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): See: sucker for the exclusive.

DNC - Reduce, Re-use, Recycle

I took about 106 pictures.

This is a little less than half.† If you click on them, they'll get big.

They weave their way through the odd maintenance of the downtown fire hydrants‡ and the poorly-conceived parking lot price gouging.§

They tour the media blitz, the tourists and the fervent political pamphlet passers.¶

They skip across the political spectrum from scary to scary on the infrared and ultra-violet ends and a whole lot of in between.

We learned to look at motorcades as our daily due. We watched people hail taxis on street corners.# We watched the blossoming and fading of a whole new world of entrepreneurship.††

Pedicabs came from all over the country. Cops came from all over the state. Helicopters came from... well, presumably from hell and Channel 9.

Downtown was lousy with twinkle lights, bikes, bunting, celebrities,@ senators, balloons, buttons, hybrids, red carpets, pedicabs, riot gear, TiVi cameras, personal cameras, propaganda, flags, signs and just plain people.
























Despite all previous apprehension,‡‡ it was a fantastic experience.

My icy, cynical heart is all warm and gooey about the way my city handled this. I was amazed at how polite and cheerful and civilised everybody was.§§ I was grateful the disruptive rioters didn't put up much of a front.¶¶ I was delighted with the energy.##

As dumb as it is, the fact that our very own 'hood, the walking villa with the great restaurants and friendly bars, the mecca of boutique shopping, made national news at more than one outlet for being a "can't miss" slice of Denverana%... well, I'm proud.^

I wanna do it again.†††
*************

Fetish - Neil Morris (Vault) - (edp)

Marin says: This is another one that feels a little like I shouldn't like it -- maybe a little too head shop, maybe a little too amber-and-vanilla. But I *do* like it.

I get a strong undercurrent of patchouli (the dirty kind). The waft is pure amber/incense, but it gets more complex if you get closer. There's a lot going on... copper? Vanilla? Something astringent?

Ooooh, an hour in, there's a good, solid dry wood -- not as sharp and tangy as fresh-cut pine, but maybe a weathered pine log.

Neil Morris says: A warm blend of Myrrh,$ Ambergris, Rosewood, Musk, Oud, Leather,$ Benzoin$ and Patchouli.$

The Perfumed Court says: ...Fetish has notes of Carnation, Benzoin Absolute, Rosewood, Musk, Ambergris, Leather and is a great dark scent.

Hans says: I definitely get a whiff of baby powder, but there's something else. Like... air. Rain air.

†FOOTNOTE (crossed): You're welcome.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): A few weeks ago, it was the new locking tops. Then on Monday, they opened them up then went out into the street to do something underground. I think it was very nice of them to test the system before the riots.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Usually $9 a day, the lot jumped to $25 a day. Nobody parked there except a couple of monthly parkers. It was $25 when Hans and I went to lunch. It was $25 when we came back from lunch. By the time we got up to our offices, it was down to $9 again. Lesson apparently learned.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): I collected a LOT of pamphlets. I made a point of it. In fact, some of the pamphleteers were suspicious of my enthusiasm for their products.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): *Nobody* hails a cab in Denver. You call for cabs in Denver. It shocked the hell out of some of the cabbies. By the end of the week, they were responding like pros.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): And more Barack-rock puns than you can shake a donkey at.

@FOOTNOTE (atted): Alicia from the office was stalking celebrities. She had binoculars in the empty office that looks over to the Brown Palace. That's her celebrity sighting board in the pictures.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): Read: bitching. Or, as we like to say, "Breezing."

§§FOOTNOTE (whirlwind political tour): People mostly watched where they were going, and when they didn't, they said, "Excuse me." I can't even get that at my local grocery store. It was totally impressive. I'm not a big fan of Obama, but I did feel a twinge of hope all my own.

¶¶FOOTNOTE (fists raised in triumph): More tear gas would have sucked.

##FOOTNOTE (Give us a pound! Make it 'splode!): Like NYC, only actively friendly. And sunny.

%FOOTNOTE (percented): Pertaining to America = Americana. Pertaining to Denver = Denverana.

^FOOTNOTE (careted): The fact that it will probably boost housing values is just icing on the pride cake.

†††FOOTNOTE (not as cross as I look): Like a small child on her first merry-go-round ride: "Again! Do it again!"

$FOOTNOTE (on the money): I'm giving myself a lot of credit here. I'm saying the benzoin is the astringent part, the myrrh is a classic incense component and every time I think copper there's leather involved. So maybe two points -- a half for each note. But a full point for patchouli.

Speaking of patchouli, I got a big ol' patchouli roll-on from Secret Pal out of the mailbox this morning. Thanks, Secret Pal!