Going Nowhere With Nowhere To Go

Just a quick note about mum -- she's doing better; still in the hospital but doing much, much better. She had two procedures and her cardiologist said her heart was "100% better than when she came in", but they're keeping a careful eye on her and will for the next month or so, then her dancing shoes can come down from the closet shelf . . .

Now to perfume ~ someone recently reminded me about something that I'd forgotten in these past few years of trying to *'be somebody' within the NBP community, and it's kind of changed my perspective (perhaps it occurred in part due to the hours waiting in the CICU waiting room for news of my mother) on the whole darned mess. What if I just want to study perfumery? Just study it, learn it inside and out, take courses from other perfumers, go to France to study, delve into the subject completely, with no goal in site other than being in perfume? Then all the stress of this business would fall away, wouldn't it? No more competition, no more sides to take, no more modalities to promote, no more silly bottling issues, no branding, no nothing to do with marketing, no more pointless Wikio ratings. What if? There is a certain amount of romance in the notion that I might some day train my nose to distinguish between a rose otto oil from roses grown on the west side of a hill in Bulgaria as opposed to the east side of the hill, in what region and soil type, for the sheer knowledge of it. Or a lemon oil from lemons grown in Spain compared to a lemon oil from lemons grown in California. There is something harmlessly appealing about that.

To dream, eh?

I've finally completed the first (successful) distillation of lavender, and got quite a bit of oil from it, and will start on the second this evening as the days are way too hot to have the al-embic running. It raises the temperature in the house a good 10 degrees Fahrenheit. Between these two batches of lavender I managed to distill a couple pounds of blackberries for hydrosol. I have 32 ounces of crystalline blackberry hydro that I plan to bottle and put up for sale by the week's end (plan, remember that word). Once the lavender distillation is completed, I plan (hehehe) to distill the wads of cucumbers coming up in my organic garden. Cucumber hydro is on the roster, as are some pretty little black apricots. Peaches, apricots and nectarines are in season here in Cali and a lot of organic growers are selling them for a song,

At last, my love has come along. my lonely days are over, and life is like a song! Oooohh, yeah, yeah!
At last, the skies above are blue-ooh ooh my heart was wrapped up in clover the night I look at you I found a dream that I could speak to; a dream that I can call my own I found a thrill to rest my cheek to; a thrill that I have never known Oooh, yeah, yeah! You smile, you smile, oooh, and then the spell is cast, and here we are in heaven, for you are mine at last!

Maybe that song will work, eh? Or maybe I can sing Georgia on My Mind to the peach vendor ~ ha! Needless to say, if I catch the season just right, I will add more pit fruit hydrosols to the stock.

So I'm off to package up orders and then to the PO before heading over to the hospital to see if mum is feeling up for a visit.

*'be somebody' is meant facetiously as in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't fecking matter