Random things about me

Anya tagged me, and I thought it might be a good opportunity to share some photos. I love taking pictures, so here's a photo list of six random things about me:

1. I love natural history museums! I took this pic in Oxford, England: The Rivers-Pitt Museum. Doesn't he look like he's saying, "Hey baby, how YOU doin'?"

Copyrighted material. All rights reserved.

2. I spent a semester in Florence, Italy, when I was studying art history as an undergrad. This is one of my favorite pictures I took in Urbino:

Castello Urbino
Copyrighted material. All rights reserved.

3. When I bought my money-pit of a house in Austin, it came with a bonus: these two kittens were found by the termite guys checking under the house. I took one look and fell in love with their little (at the time) 6-week-old selves. Delia is the little tortoise-shell troublemaker and Virgil is the buff-and white big guy.

Copyrighted material. All rights reserved.

4. This is how I feel wearing a really great perfume:

Sea Lion, Central California Coast.
Copyrighted material. All rights reserved.

5. I am a morning person!

Pacific Ocean, Carmel, California
Copyrighted material. All rights reserved.

6. I don't have a picture for this one, but I bought two big nightblooming jasmines on crazy cheap sale last weekend, and I can't wait to have all that jasmine goodness wafting all around my house.

Here're the tagging rules:
1. Link to the person who tagged you. (above)
2. Post the rules on your blog. (okay)
3. Write six random things about yourself. (above)
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them. (nuh-uh, thanks)
5. Let each person know they've been tagged and leave a comment on their blog. (nope)
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up. (will do)

I'm not a wabbit! I need some west.

I'm coming down with a cold, and when I get a cold, and my voice gets hoarse, I like channeling my inner Lily Von Shtup. I walk around my house in fuzzy slippers doing impressions of her saloon performance, since my voice gets all froggy like her Elmer Fudd meets Marlene Dietrich alto. Man, I miss Madeline Kahn! The woman was so damn brilliant.

So in honor of the genius of Madeline Kahn, I must ask: what perfume would you put on Lily Von Shtup, the Teutonic Titwillow herself? Don't know what I'm talking about? Go rent Blazing Saddles, you philistine. Or Young Frankenstein, for that matter.

I think she would be perfect in the new Femme de Rochas, because when I think of her in it, suddenly the humor in its spicy overblown cumin-jasmine makes perfect sense and I appreciate the scent so much more than I thought I did. Or perhaps Lipstick Rose would be more appropriate for such a bawd? Perhaps that one, or Dioressence, has the naughty soapiness for one caught up, morning, noon, and night, with "dwink and dancing, some quick womancing. And then a showah."

What do you think? Please share, and Blazing Saddles quotes encouraged as well.

Goals for the Voyage

We perfume fanatics, I've just realized, have a lot in common with pirates. Take the sign above, for instance. It pretty much sums up my own perfume voyage motto. Being an aficionada of anything related to pirates, I followed a link from the awesome design blog *DesignSponge to the 826 Valencia shop, which promised hilarious pirate-themed indie-designed posters with mottos such as:

Cannons Don't Sink Ships, Pirates With Cannons Sink Ships
Pillage Before Plunder, What a Blunder. Plunder Before Pillage, Mission Fulfillage.

But what did I find as well? Yosh Han's Pirate Perfumes! Yargh, that's right, ye scurvy lubbers. Has anyone tried these? There are no notes, no descriptions, not a detail to be found, except for the fragrance names: Swashbuckler, Cavalier, El Capitan, Buccaneer, Buxom, Siren, and Damsel. Apparently they were created exclusively for, and are sold only at, 826 Valencia.

I think I'll e-mail the scallywags to see if I can find out more.

In which our heroine takes drastic measures...

for a bottle of Scandal.

So this is my report from the Round Top Antiques Show. After a hard day's scrounging and slogging through booth after booth, I brought home my treasure: a few cool old prints (two Buffon natural history prints and a book illustration of a ship on a stormy sea) and the precious: a full 1 oz of Lanvin's Scandal. But here's the rub: those old Lanvin bottles with the ground glass stoppers are notorious for the stoppers breaking off in the bottle. Yep, there was just a black stub wedged inextricably in the bottle.

But did that stop me, for a 6$ bottle of Scandal? Hells no. I found myself spending an hour sitting on the floor in my living room drilling a hole through the stopper with a special glass and tile bit on my trusty DeWalt drill. Basically acting like a maniac and practically demolishing the bottle. But success! I've safely decanted the precious into another bottle. I can sit back in satisfaction, knowing two things: I've really gone 'round the bend, and being crazy smells awesome.