San Franvegan

I don't usually tag things in this blog, but I'm going to start marking out San Francisco related posts.

Here is my first possible trip: To a vegan sundae shop! And my step-mother is lactose-intolerant, so she should be similarly approving. (The starting point is one hotel possibility.)
Now that I cook all the time I'm less excited by veg restaurants, but at least finding veg alternatives shouldn't be too much of a problem wherever I am. Ahh the flaky west coast.

What I did with London was I marked out every place I wanted to go and then, with my HUGE and EXTREMELY DETAILED Michelin map (gotta get one of those) I grouped things together and created my own tours. That's how I ended up walking so much... I would look at the next location to visit, and would always think: The weather's so nice, why bother going underground?

And I will admit there was one more disincentive--I have a mild fear of loooong escalator rides, upwards. And in London the stations are really underground. Holy crap. At one station there was a sign on the stairs that said something like: "No really, don't take the stairs. You'll die."

The Nose Knows

I'm returning Mae's perfs to her this weekend, after having them for tooo long. It was a classic case of human beings not liking too much choice--deciding between over 30 scents at once was too complex for me. And smelly. My hands would get all smelly. I tried just wearing one at time, but then it's hard to compare over time, and I'd lose track of what I'd tried and what I'd thought.

What I needed was to smell a bunch in a row without getting smellyhands. It occured to me today to pull out a pair of hospital gloves, and using Kleenex so that little droplets wouldn't fly everywhere, I ran through all the scents one last time.

The Black Pheonix Alchemy Lab are the ones Mae likes the best. From these (and from all) my fave was Squirting Cucumber. If I had to choose a second, I'd say Ephemera.

From Arcana, if I chose one, it would be Grasshopper; and from Posset it would be Observatory. I thought I liked a second one from Posset, but the longer it sits on my wrist the weirder it smells.

...Next time I need a choice of, like, 3 at a time. But I guess I like the *grassy* smelling ones, or citrus-ee-ish. I don't care for the ones that smell like a box of chocolates, or the ones that smell like a health food store, or the ones that smell like Barbara Cartland.

(What I really need is a perf called
Cucumber Sandwich
from the Oscar Wilde Collection.
"This scent combines the thinnest slices of cucumber
with a heavier note of white bread,
brought together by fresh English butter.")

*

SQUIRTING CUCUMBER
Yikes! A spurt of wet, grassy greenness.

EPHEMERA
The scent of loss, love and the echo of time without end: sorrowful violet and chamomile with muguet, white geranium, calla lily and tea rose with a hint of autumn leaves.

Grasshopper: A sparkling pan-Asian blend of Indonesian ginger, Japanese yuzu fruit and Thai lemongrass, spiked with a hint of Indian black pepper.

Observatory: Specifically made to bring to mind the classical lines and purpose of The Cincinnati Observatory, this fragrance is pure Old World Charm improved to withstand the rigors of 21st century living. Perfect for business or pleasure, The Observatory will always feel like the right choice. Cool, dry, focusing and unisex, The Observatory just reeks of class.

galump

I need to clean off my desk. For the past month I've been using my bed as an office, while my desk goes unused. When I reorganized my room I dumped a bunch of papers there... I guess I could just dump them somewhere else. And my lamp needs to be moved, because the desk moved. And I need to find a spot for the old compy. And set up my stereo. And find a spot for my current research books.

I thought I was going to do this today, but nothing has happened so far.