Day 90 ~ One Year, One Nose ~ A Little Voodoo in Your Violets

I'd forgotten what a sedative reading before bed can be. I've been struggling with hay fever for the past few weeks, ever since Mother Nature decided to start summer early and accelerated the bloom -- everything from star jasmine and jonquil to olive trees and pine have been going at it for weeks now, tearing up my sinuses and forcing me to use antihistimines in order to be comfortable enough to breathe. I've been taking them before bed so I don't awaken in a sneezing fit and lose precious hours of snooze time trying to settle back down to sleep. Dreams are fitful and seriously disturbing when you drug yourself to sleep. Not the same as a naturally sedating book to lull you off to la-la land. So that was a nice change. It rained so the hay fever was halted for a bit. Also watered the plants on the front porch that I'd planned on watering this morning, so it's freeing up time, that lovely rain. I'm feeling rested and content today.

So quite a lot of things were borne out of the Bay Area trip at the end of March. That little sweetheart up there, for one. Well, actually, it's three little sweethearts now, one nice tall baby, a little crooked baby, and a wee fleck of a seedling right there in the off-center to the left portion of the pot -- you can just see her sweet baby head peeking out of the soil there. What are they? Little baby etrog. It was Passover when I was in Berkeley, and Ms. C. took me to Berkeley Bowl for a perusal of the 'Aisle of Misfit Fruit' and what did my eyes espy but piles of fruit to delight even the most joyless of perfumer's hearts -- bergamot! Fresh, squeezy bergamot, etrog, apples as big as a baby's head! So of course, I bought it all. Dragged home in a Berkeley Bowl bag were fruits and wondrous other elements to create smelly tasty things. I used the juice from the etrog in a marshmallow blend, and was struck the number of seeds they carry (the etrog, not the marshmallow) -- so like any experimental gardener would, I planted a few seeds and stored away the rest in the refrigerator. And there you see the results. After what? About five weeks of germination, ping! Up popped these three little girls. Now to just keep them going.

Day 88 ~ Violet Disguise (the aforementioned voodoo) by Imaginary Authors 

How apropos that I should choose this particular perfume to talk about, in the Merry, Merry month of May, since it's the very heart of this perfume, as per the website: NOTES: Plum, Violet, Dried Fruits, Balsam, Amber, Evening Air & The Month of May ~ see?! I knew there was some May in there . . .

Ah, Violet Disguise, how do I love thee? With gusto. I'm prone to fall deeply, madly, and embarrassingly in love with violet perfumes, but this one -- this one is beyond all that nonsense. This one I cannot do without and I will forgo all other little luxuries to procure a full bottle of this lovely, necessary perfume. Violet Disguise opens with a burst of piercing citrus with a soft undercurrent of sweet vanilla and balsam, then comes the violet in a rush, like a bride late for her wedding day, the satin of her dress whispering in the breeze as she runs down the aisle. Innocent, but eager this violet. From here on out it's a pink and purple poof of sweet violets and mellow amber -- very characteristically not me, but as I said before, deeply, madly, embarrassingly and beyond. Lasts for hours and hours, remains fairly linear after the headnote dry down, but a fabulous pick if you love soft, floral, sweet, girly perfumes that don't reek of fruit jam or melons. So where's the voodoo in all that? Violets break down the barriers of indifference according to hoodoo tradition.