Iris, Iris, Iris.......

Me and iris, we're having us a rumble. I just don't know what to make of this note, and my brain has fallen back on pseudo-science to make sense of it. Iris smells incomplete to me. There seems to be something scooped-out, or hollow, about it. I keep conjuring up this mental picture of an antigen-antibody reaction. Iris would be the antigen floating about looking for its' mate (the antibody). In some perfumes, i.e. Chanel No.19; 24,Fauborg; Baghari; Fragonard Grain de Soleil, etc....iris apparently doesn't offend my sense of completeness at all. In others such as Iris Silver Mist (I'm sorry! Please don't throw me out of the blogworld!) and Iris Poudre, I keep wanting to add something, anything...?


I went searching on Osmoz and found that the ones I like all contain jasmine and three of them have orange blossom and bergamot as well. So, in a MASSIVE leap of...something, I have decided that the indolic scents of jasmine and orange blossom are my iris antibodies! Hey, I just made this connection as I was typing this! Five minutes ago, I thought maybe I just didn't like iris in the top notes, but it was okay in the middle or base. But I like my new idea better. And it's interesting because I don't really care much for jasmine or orange blossom alone or even as predominant notes. Apparently I don't like indole that much either. We actually use indole as a reagent in microbiology, if anyone cares. It's one of the reactions (positive or negative) used to differentiate and thus identify bacteria. I have no idea what the relationship is between that indole and the indole in jasmine and orange blossom. New research project maybe?

On a related note, here is a picture of my perfume critics.
They are long-haired Chihuahuas. The black one is named Stanley and belongs to my daughter and the blonde one is Poo and he's my baby. Anytime I put perfume on, both of them come running to sniff my wrists. And they have definite preferences! Of course, being dogs, they love musk. Anything that has a good dose of musk gets licked right off. Which is strange, come to think of it. Surely perfume doesn't taste good (except for the Dessert line, and please...we don't go there). And they seem to like those indolic smells too. Dare I say it may be the poo-poo accord?

Saved by TiVo

I'll start out with an attempt to talk perfume, because that's why I started this. Right??? But I have come to realize that I know nothing, so I just blather. Last night I wore Baghari by Robert Piguet and it might very well be full bottle worthy. Because....I smell fabulous, if I do say so myself. I lack the skills to adequately describe this perfume. It seems very well balanced because I really can't pick out all the listed notes, which I will not go into. If you want to read a review by someone who actually knows her stuff, please go to Bois de Jasmin for what I really meant to say. To me, it smells kind of incense-y, but I notice that there is no incense listed. This is just right for someone who wants to wear an incense perfume but doesn't actually like incense. You know, like white Zinfandel being the wine for people who don't really like wine? Yeah, I don't like wine either. What a philistine.... But seriously, this is veerrrrrry nice.

Now on to something else to blather about. I woke up yesterday to the realization that I am going to hell. Or at least, my TiVo thinks so. Some background....back in August, I purchased a TiVo. The upcoming fall TV season looked interesting and I go to work at 8:30 p.m. and my daughter has dance classes and a fairly active social life. So TiVo seemed to be the answer as far as actually getting to see some of these shows that looked good. The TV in the living room was quite a few years old and lacked a place to attach this newfangled contraption, so we put TiVo in the kids' room. I have a desktop computer, printer and laptop set up in a wireless network, so we just added TiVo to it and named him Bob, because it's much easier to type. For various reasons which are too stupid to go into here, we got a second TiVo right before Christmas. He went in my room and is named George.

Yes, that George. He sits right on top of my TV. Unfortunately, he doesn't look quite as good in person as in pictures. But I love him anyway. Anyway, if you are familiar with TiVo, it randomly records things that it thinks you might like based on what you have recorded in the past. It also has a page with "Suggestions" for upcoming shows which it will record if you don't stop it. I happened to wake up a couple of times yesterday and noticed that George was recording. So when I actually got up, I checked it out, and George had recorded 5 hours of religious programming! Not historical shows about religious figures or the religions themselves, but those 30-minute shows where someone sits on a couch and talks about how we're all going to hell unless we let Jaaaaysus into our lives and hearts. Now, I don't want to get into any kind of religious discussion here, but these people irritate the crap out of me. And here they were recorded on my George! So then I got to looking at the suggestions page and there were Four! Full! Pages! of upcoming religious shows ready to be recorded! That's just crazy!

Since my life is an open book, here is a list of the things I have recorded on my George.

1. Prison Break

2. Heroes

3. Battlestar Galactica

4. CSI

5. NCIS

What do we suppose in that list gave George the idea that I wanted to watch Creflo Dollar? And then I had another epiphany. Two days ago, my network suddenly told me that a new TiVo had joined. Until then, it had been unable to tell that there were TWO TiVo's connected, it just thought there was one. Now it knows that there are two, and suddenly I can see Bob on George and the kid can see George on Bob and we can transfer recordings between them over the network. So maybe George actually thinks the kid is going to hell. Or that I'm going to hell for raising the kid. Or.....I'm not really sure. I don't think George likes me all that much. I used to have a Season Pass for Top Chef too, but he recorded every single show on The Food Network for 24 solid hours. I deleted Top Chef , because really, it's not even on the Food Network and I don't like cooking. Once he recorded a TVGuide channel close up on Jude Law. Noooo idea what that was about. Maybe showing that he's not afraid of a little competition? We need to work on our communication skills. I'm not sure I can sleep well in the same room as George knowing how he feels about me.

Thoughts of Gardening

It was somewhat warm here yesterday, around 60 degrees, and I got to thinking about Spring. I have periods when I'm really into gardening because there's really nothing quite like looking at your yard and seeing blooming flowers and realizing that you had a part in it. The last couple of years weren't great for me health-wise, and I really let it slide. But I got myself all fixed hopefully and we'll see if I can get back into it this Spring.


One of the great things to do in Texas in spring is to visit the Hill Country. The roadsides, fields and yards are full of native flowers and it's just breathtakingly beautiful. There are bluebonnets, indian paintbrush, winecups, evening primrose and hundreds more. And they're just there! Nature plants them and waters them (hopefully) and we just get to enjoy.


Fredericksburg, Texas is great fun in the spring. Other times of the year too, but it's prettiest in spring. They have lots of tiny little houses, once called Sunday Houses, which you can rent for whatever length of time you are staying. We stayed in one once that actually had a white picket fence. It was SOOO cute! There are lots of quirky little shops and gardens all around. And one of my favorite places to visit, the Fredericksburg Herb Farm. They have some beautiful gardens with lovely walking paths, a retail plant shop, a retail perfume/skincare/aromatherapy shop with all sorts of things they make themselves, a cute little restaurant, and their own bed and breakfast house. I bought a perfume there several years ago called A+Cross. The listed notes are sandalwood, musk, vanilla, lemon, clove and chamomile. It's a very warm, comforting, sweet sort of a scent. Just a hint of lemon keeps it from being too sweet and the clove isn't overpowering.

It kind of got pushed to the back of one of my perfume shelves and I forgot about it. But I have it on right now and it's pretty yummy! It is a cologne, but it's longer lasting than several EdT's that I could mention. And....it's reasonably priced.

If you happen to make it to Fredericksburg, be sure to drive out of town a ways and visit Wildseed Farms. They have an onsite retail operation as well, but the real draw is the fields of flowers. They grow all their own plants and harvest the seeds to sell, so in spring there are just acres of flower fields. It's kind of awe-inspiring. I feel like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz looking at the poppy field.

It's been about three years since I've been there, so I may have to make time for a short visit again this Spring!

In the interest of spending a little more time talking about perfume. let's discuss Philosykos by Diptyque. This is a perfectly fine and dandy little smell, but I'm going to talk about it from a gardener's point of view. I don't necessarily get fig from this. I know that's what it is, but truthfully, a lot of plant saps smell the same. This is what it smells like when I trim that god-awful eleagnus shrub outside the front door. This is what it smells like when I deadhead spring flowers, pick shoots off the pecan tree trunk, pull (some) weeds. Add in a little dirt smell and this perfume is what I smell and smell like when I'm working in the yard.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with that smell.....when I'm working. in. the. yard! But then I come in and take a shower. Because really, it would just be nasty to hang out like that in the house. And my mother would seriously question my sanity were I to take that smell into her house. Because she's a gardener too and would recognize it. So.. while I can certainly appreciate this perfume, I won't be wearing it from a bottle. I have a yard for that.

WooHoo!!

Look over there!! Over to the right. I finally managed to add something to my blog besides my rambling thoughts! That's my baby and he's pretty special. There's also a list of the blogs I read every day. I know, it's pathetic to be so excited by something that everyone else in the world has managed to do. But for some reason I have found this very difficult. I work with computers every day and I'm pretty good at troubleshooting and figuring things out, but I guess my brain just doesn't operate on the same frequency as the people who set up Blogger.

Now I'm going to go take a shower with some of the smelly good stuff my sister gave me for Christmas and think about how to get pictures into the individual posts on this silly blog. Showers are where I do my best thinking. Seriously, every lightbulb moment in my life has occurred in the shower. Then the challenge is to remember what I was thinking after the thirty minute shower has ended. And if anyone who happens to read this has any simple instructions about the picture thing, well......I don't believe in only trusting my showers.
P.S. I figured it out!!!!

Hey, and wish me luck. I recently acquired a rather large TV which my daughter and her friends have decided is ideal for watching the Super Bowl. So they're all coming over.

Mother - Daughter Perfumes

By mother-daughter perfumes, I don't mean that we put on the same scent and our matching Lilly Pulitzer pants and parade about in public. And no, we don't actually have matching wild print pants :) My child is almost as nuts about perfume as I am. She isn't compelled to seek out perfumes which have never been seen or smelled in these parts, but she must be wearing perfume at all times. This leads her to carrying at least two bottles of perfume in her purse which I am convinced will lead to an unfortunate-smelling incident at some point.

So, on to my point. Our taste in perfume is not identical and not always compatible. Dear child is a HUGE fan of violet scents. One of her favorites is Violetta di Parma. This is a rather uncomplicated, not terribly sweet violet (duh!) scent. Not sure if it's a soliflore, but it might be.
She can't go anywhere with me when she's wearing it, especially when going involves travelling in the car. Doesn't matter what I'm wearing, all I can smell coming from her when combined with my perfume, is a sour sweaty smell. I don't know how this happens, because truthfully, violets don't smell sweaty or sour. But somehow, when combined with ANY other scent, that's what it turns into. Any idea how that happens?

Now this is really surprising to me, but you know what goes wonderfully with any perfume? Chinatown by Bond No. 9. Yes, you read that right, Chinatown. This is DC's current absolute favorite. This perfume is loud, brash and I would never have expected it to play nicely with others. It blends beautifully with any of my ambery, floral, fruity or anything else perfumes. And foods! OMG! Take Chinatown to an Italian restaurant if you want to start salivating. Garlic with Chinatown is heaven! It's really good with curry too. I can't wear Chinatown myself because all the top and middle notes are gone within about ten minutes and I'm left wearing patchouli for approximately twelve hours. But the kid's welcome on any trip outfitted in this.