Under the Cupola

The Winter 2012 Top Smells - a joint blogging project

2012-01-26T23:44:00.000-08:00

I had a reliable trio of winter fragrances: Donna Karan's Black Cashmere, Annick Goutal's Encens Flamboyant and L'Artisan Parfumeur's Dzongkha. Especially Encens Flamboyant which smells like fire.

It's either because I'm getting old or because this winter is taking a toll on my nerves. Or because this is not a proper winter. I just didn't feel like using my winter classics and way too often, I went around without any fragrance at all - me who carries a bottle or two in her bag, just in case. (I would still carry those without using them.)

I got a Christmas bonus just before, well, Christmas so I decided to invest it wisely. I bought a few books, an Issey Miyake purse (no idea what I will do with it but it could hold a small knitting project, I envisage), a pair of Blahniks and a few other things I'll be painfully decluttering in a few years' time... and somewhere between a crapton and a shitload (the decision which of them is bigger hasn't been reached yet) of raw materials.

It all happened to arrive within three days - four different orders from four different directions, mind you. I'm often surprised how raw materials smell differently from the plants they come from (I haven't had a chance of a close encounter with a civet cat and I know the musk ox only from the fine fibre it yields). I'm a wood freak so now I'm richer by one big bottle of Atlas Cedar essential oil, which is so much nicer and more interesting than the generic cedar oil I used to get in the local fancy faux handmade cosmetics store, more smoke, more of a certain harshness. Or oakmoss - the absolute is dark green, smells faintly of crushed vegetation and glowing embers and it's totally different from the smell of actual oakmoss or whatever I thought it in fragrances that contain it.

Should a dear reader remember some of my former perfume musings, I have a certain predilection for weird stuff. Eyewatering leathers (such as Cuoio di Spagna by Santa Maria Novella), patchouli that needs three or four baths to disappear from one's skin (I'm looking at you, Patchouly Indonesiano) or just something plainly extraordinary.

Being pretty choleric, once again I chose the DIY path. Upon careful reading and considering my financial situation, I ended up with several bottles of basics - Siberian fir, vetiver, cedar, cypress, rosewood or benzoin, and hear me say, there's never enough benzoin and cedar, several bottles of basics I was able to afford only due to huge discounts, such as neroli or vanilla absolute.... and then the odd stuff. I wouldn't believe what can be distilled, dissolved, absoluted or extracted.

I spent a fruitful evening trying to render a cuir-cologne version of a perfume I've been making for myself for a few years but that needs maturing or I need to mature and find out what my opinion actually is. I don't really like citruses and I can smell that damn petitgrain and neroli in it but day after day, it appears to be more and more promising

Meanwhile, the ugly brown jus made of birch tar and many a viscous dark thing is living its own life. I blended the dark and viscous things with all things leathery I could think of (which amounts to exactly two, ylang-ylang and vanilla) and some odd-smelling plants - mainly but not exclusively tagetes. I wanted to render a salty floral and I was hugely disappointed when it smelled of vetiver and vanilla - nice in itself but not what I wanted. Things kept happening, though, and this is the magic of natural materials - they keep changing. Now, four days later, I'm wearing the would-be salty floral which is actually.... sweet and leathery. I need to find someone to blame yet but meantime, to put it in Elena's words, I'm walking around wrapped in an olfactory equivalent of expensive fur - warm, pleasant, protecting one from however evil the surroundings may be.

Speaking of fur, I got half of a fleece the other day. For those who don't happen to be fibre maniacs, fleece is what comes off a sheep. Half of a fleece... go figure, my dear smart readers. Almost a kilo of sheep fibre along with an occasional bit of twig or grass. It was washed but not totally devoid of both lanolin and vegetable matter so bit by bit, I soaked it in hot water with some soap and it's then when wool yields the most beautiful smell of lanolin. I did a cursory search but I couldn't find any information regarding possible existence of a lanolin absolute or any other sort of extract of whatever the fragrant bits from the complex composition may be.

And now excuse me while I go and bury my nose in my virtual fur. Meantime you can check variations on the same theme at Abigail's, Katie's, Gaia's, Ines', Carol's and Elena's blogs.

Added two hours later: Reconsidered. My newest thingy was a virtual fur yesterday. Today it's approaching towards the salty garden. Life is interesting.

Only words

2012-01-24T01:12:00.000-08:00

I bought a new battery charger, which means that the misplaced one will precipitate in the middle of my table tomorrow. Anyway, there will be pictures and with pictures, more knitting rants and perfume rants and other rants that deserve to be illustrated. Not now, though.

I spent a part of my Giftmas bonus on raw materials and I devoted one afternoon to a bit of alchemy. I got a bottle of birch tar which pleased me quite a bit. Well, after I wiped my ears and nose because it smells salty and sort of meaty. It's an important ingredient for the old-school leather fragrances (I guess that it's banned in all civilized countries because it smells good and someone claimed that it caused him a bit of itch) and I'm a leather fiend. They say Bottega Veneta is a leather fragrance (reviewy rant to follow when I run my camera again, I have a bottle on my table) but it's rather some nice flowers with a bit of what the crowd out there calls leather and I call it chalk.

Anyhow. I also got vanilla absolute which is somewhat leathery too, and tagetes oil which is positively weird, Crithmum maritimum oil - I don't remember how this plant smells but it's broken easily with a typical sound and feel and the oil corresponds well to this. It's somewhat tangy and green and with a hint of something salty.

Etc. The birch tar is strong like hell, I had to place the blotter at the far end of my table so that it wouldn't mess with the other smells but I'm afraid that my room still smells like a den full of smoked meat. The main task was to overshadow the salty smell with something reasonably complementary... or not complementary. I decided to go for the contrast between salty and leathery accords and dry, sweet stuff. Thus fennel, neroli and what else contrasted with said birch tar, vanilla, ylang-ylang, crithmum and tagetes. Plus Siberian Fir to add another eye-watering quality, oakmoss just because and a few other things.

I'm quite happy with the result. It's a dark, suspicious-looking liquid and it came out sort of as I wanted. I need to dilute it first to see how it wears. It's all natural so it may be really different on skin. And, it's called Halophyte Garden. Salty floral - sometimes I'm very simple.

I couldn't resist and made some leathery cologne. I'm afraid that I overdosed it with geranium - it seems that any amount of geranium is an overdose because that drop overshadowed quite an amount of the stinky birch tar and the Siberian Fir which could drill holes in the wall. Well, either I'll make the sample into a candle or I'll add half a bucket of petitgrain. We'll see.

And, well, serves you right. Blame the Illuminati and Universal Jewish Conspiration for these bad stupid internetz that cannot convey smells.

Eternal end of November

2012-01-21T07:33:00.000-08:00

The weather is still misplaced.

In general, I detest discussing what the weather is, was, will be next Thursday. That's what we have windows for, to look out and decide whether it would be useful to add a layer of woolens and rubber boots to the outfit. And my problem is not actual weather but the wet, semicold days typical for late autumn. They're getting on my nerves.
And on my unconscious.
Today I had a dream, in which I was sitting in a small public park or a large flower pad in front of a railway station in a different climate zone because they had real spring. There were almond shrubs blossoming - not the proper Amygdalus nana (1) but something that reminded me of garden anemones coloured surgical appliance pink - and some other stuff grew there (a cross between wisteria and kapok, I dare say....) and I started digging up bulbs thinking that I may grow them on my window sill.
I woke up, went to water my seedlings and bulbs growing on my window sill and cussed the weather.

Apparently, it is Caturday today.

I went to the post office for some more fleabay loot. I don't know every cat of the neighbourhood in person, some are not exactly stranger-friendly and I believe that there are some strictly indoor cats, too, but I thought I was well acquaintained with the local feline population.
On the way there, I met a big and well groomed orange and white tom who looked at me with keen interest when I was making sounds and gestures in order to lure him to the fence. On my way back, I spotted two white and tabby kitties, one big and one small, sauntering around the Big Villa.

It's still dark, wet and cold outside. I'm going to hide under my comforter, tell me when the spring arrives.

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(1) wikipedia decided to irk me a bit and says that it's actually Prunus tenella. It's the dwarf almond, there's a growth across the street and one day I'll steal some.

On evil nature of things

2012-01-13T05:42:00.000-08:00

I must admit that I'm slacking the work because I finished the book for proofreading yesterday and I'm simply mentally drained. I should be creating some more materials but I opted for browsing library catalogues for something inspiring, dealing with backlog of mail and similar shit and packing for Prague. A business trip on Monday means that I can spend the whole weekend there.
My flatmate lodged his friend in my place and I gave them the spare keys I've been using. My regular keys lived on the table and I forgot to grab them in the morning so I abandoned my work station and left for home to grab them. I got caught in a horizontal snow, so horizontal that the snowflakes ended in my ear canal, which is not important to the story, just interestingly silly, came home, headed for my table and the keys weren't there.

I grabbed a stapler, tape measuer and 4,5mm cubic needles, the two former I forgot and the cubics are intended for another winterproof white sweater which I plan to knit over the weekend (yes, hope springs eternal). I rummaged some more more, keys kept missing.

At the end, I grabbed the spare spare keys with the old key from the flat and now I hope that the entrance door lock hasn't changed. My lock did change but since it comes with some speshul code card from which a locksmith can make a spare key, I found the card, called my smithlock cousin and picked my keys later on.

I'm very positive that in a week's time, I'll find my keys. Several sets of keys of mine are living in a pocket universe. I'm not losing shit, I'm just misplacing it and then it creeps away to some umpteenth dimension. Since there is no reasonable explanation based on physics or psychologi, I hereby claim that it must be the inherent malice of Universe.

I hate this winter.

2012-01-08T07:15:00.000-08:00

I don't hate winter as such but this year, it's getting on my nerves quite a bit.

(1) I got immersed in botany last year, now it's totally wrong season for plant hunting or related activities and I have an URGE. You may say that I can spend all the time when I'm not outside with botany books. I'm doing exactly this but somehow, it doesn't do much of the trick. It only worsens the matters because the URGE only grows, I want to go out and touch some of the real plants.

(2) SAD aka winter depression.

(3) No snow. Which worsens the SAD as the rotting leaves and rubbish and stuff are not a pleasant sight and it's always so dark.

(4) All of the above result in one thing: I'm sitting at home, rotting away with a book, some knitting and chocolates. Which adds to some extra frustration from the inevitable weight gain.

This winter is pretty warn, though, so I hold high hopes that it will remain so and we'll get a nice spring in February. I have no clue how I can survive this for two more months, though.

Startitis! It itches!

2012-01-07T10:17:00.001-08:00

I'm not a great friend of New Year resolutions so I didn't make any. I'm decluttering for its own sake, and I also miss a thing or two which totally should be just somewhere around.

However, since it's another year starting, I joined a 12 swearers in 12 months group thing. Been in this since 2010. For your information, it was 6 sweaters in 2010, 8 sweaters in 2012. Some of them are too small to wear, though, of which I may talk later. However, this year I decided to make it 12, for realz. The rules are that the sweaters don't need to be started in the year in question so I counted sweaters in progress and there were...

Nine. One is two rows away from finishing but that involves some serious fiddling around. Many are in transitional phases when they need some fiddling, counting and thinking. The remaining four are in the seminal stage of small gauge samples and big ideas.

The result: I have nothing to knit.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

I'm having really busy days at work, I'm coming home intellectually drained and I don't really feel like counting something, trying whether it may work and such, I want just some nice mindless knitting. Thus the urge to start something new, totally simple-stupid.

I've been digging in things and I have a beautiful cashmere blend that just screams to become a Greta Garbo shawl. (1) And there are more.

I decided to at least try and be a good girl and finish a few things before I start a new one. But the urge to start something new, exciting and promising is so... strong... I... must... resist...

Hey, this nice handdyed wool could make a good sweater. Is that a 3mm needle that miraculously appeared in my hand?

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(1) 'Greta Garbo' is a lace pattern used for Haapsalu shawls, named after the allegedly first recipient. It's lace herarts with nupps but I'm totally skipping the nupps, I don't like them. I know, I know, Haapsalu patterns need nupps but there's no knitting police.

A day of destruction

2011-12-28T05:42:00.000-08:00

During the session of indoor archaeology, I discovered various stuff.

I also don't assign the title of cleaning to a twice-weekly removal of stuff left ohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifn the floor and lazy vacuuming, that would go to the category of irregular maintenance. Cleaning is an in-depth activity when things are put to their place from wherever they veered, sorted out, cleaned, assigned to a gift pile - or to trash.

Now, the time ripened for dealing with several knitting work in progress, known as WIPs in the trade.

I'm a passionate knitter but at a point, I started, did my best but half a year later, it wouldn't be my best but badly substandard. However, I only threw out one sweater in my whole life. It was made of garden variety wool which is still produced and still as nice as evah and it was worn to unwashable greyish shade and to shreds. I even tell my gift recipients that in case they didn't like my handknits, got bored of them, outgrew them or lost too much weight, or they weren't able to deal with the tar stain, they should return them. Everything can be fixed and I prefer to reknit something to the giftee's expectations (well, to an extent) rather than having my work lie somewhere at the bottom of the closet.

I ended up with quite some WIPs or even finished things that were not to my liking. The blue sweater I started in high hopes of having it ready for the previous winter wasn't finished but it already showed that it wasn't what I would want it to be. Meantime I got annoyed knitting it so now there's a bit of fabric to rip and three huge balls of reclaimed yarn; it's gooddamn yarn, I'm telling ya, I don't knit from shit.

The sweater I've worn only once, for a walk on the day of my 30th birthdy, when I also discovered that there were several design faults that made it sort of problematic was destined to be ripped long time ago but I somehow lifted my lazy ass only today. One of the yarns used was already being lunched on by the goddamn carpet beetles but it's still salvageable - just coming in more pieces. Now there are two huge balls of reclaimed yarn and a box full of kinky rippings that need some special attention.

This was one of my early experiments, it’s in expensive and weird yarn and it’s made really badly, with major mistakes and construction faults.

There are a few more in consideration. Every each of them was turned around and inspected and I did lots of thinking before I decided that this or that piece is going to the recycling bin. Short sleeves can be lengthened, design experiment gone wrong may be partially ripped and fixed... but sometimes it happens that it's badly designed, in wrong size, the yarn choice is plainly wrong and I don't find any pleasure in the knitting process anymore. Then, the time for reconsideration comes.

I admit that I keep several sweaters (and several boxes of other clothing items) too small for me. Hope springs eternal and I really intend to lose some weight. When the time comes, and I'm sure it will come, I'll be well dressed.

Then there's the category of things that are worn out. I haven't got that deep with cleaning but I know where they are and their time will come.

Indoor archeology

2011-12-27T10:04:00.000-08:00

I do major cleaning plus decluttering for one and only reason: when I miss something. Then I start digging up in a random place, discover a pocket universe of aggregated things among three volumes of Mikael Niemi's books or behind a tome on Italian Baroque art, I bring a washcloth to wipe the dust, and to wipe the dust, I take out the books from the whole shelf segment, finding more things between, in and behind the books... you see where it goes.

The missed objects were remote for the vacuum cleaner and scissors. Said remote was located under a small pile that contained a hank of yarn, an old magazine, folded silk scarf and a bottle of nail paint. Hank of yarn sits on a chair along with 20-odd others, pulled from the crrevices and abysses of the small bookcase, old mag was tossed, silk scarf was added to a goodie bag for a friend and the nail paint is sitting somewhere around.

The small bookcase, though... It contained a heap of perfumes. I totally need a special cupboard for my collection because they deserve a decent storage. Meantime, they're located in a sturdy box that contained the stovetop; it's big, flat and sturdy. I don't really know how many perfumes I have, it's not worth the bothering. Hundreds. I found some of whose existence I forgot and I noticed that I'm missing a few, which practically means that they live in some other parallel universe; no biggie.

I also randomly opened a book and a banknote fell to my feet. Maybe I'll be rich at the end of the day.

Sad. For realz

2011-12-20T23:19:00.000-08:00

I generally don't comment politics and stuff. Not that I wouldn't be aware about things going on but I'm not that interested in such matters that I'd be able to comment them in at least half-assedly qualified manner.

I sometimes make an exception, though.

The revolution was on the 17th, which was Friday. Parents were busy building a house so they noticed something was going on only on Sunday evening. It took two more days until mom and her friends deposed the commie school director - I yet have to find out what they were actually doing because later on, mom was invited to the new parliament. She refused, though, because she had a kid who would need to change schools and... anyways. My only chance of being a spoiled politician's brat was thus missed. I'm a spoiled businesspeople's brat and instead of being at the funeral procession, I'm sitting at work, watching the procession online, doing nothing because work be damned now and I'm pissed that I'm not there.

Mom would however take me to all demonstrations and public meetings and the atmosphere got etched deep into me and the urgent feeling of possibilities within reach.

I saw Vaclav Havel only once in person. He came to my hometown for the students' celebrations of 1st of May. Mom and her revolutionary friends were there along with all the kids. We sat on the edge of an 18th century fountain and... that was it. History was happening around me, it's worth it for its own sake.

Now, I feel history happening again and the spirit of the revolution was brought back.

I just wanted to share my feelings. Don't look for a point here and excuse me now, I'm busy being sad.

Santal Massoïa

2011-12-17T12:40:00.000-08:00

It's weird. Seriously weird.

I should get some santal essential oil to relate, the closest I got to a santal is Keiko Mecheri's solilignum (1) Bois de Santal, which is sweet, creamy woody thing. I expected more of the same from Jean-Claude Ellena but I got this weird stuff.

They finally got it at Hermès, the sales lady sprayed me generously and I went Oh what the fuck. No creamy sweetness but something weird. I smelled and sniffed and wondered until something connected in my little blonde brain and shouted Salted butter!!!

At which point, I got even more whatthefucked and puzzled. I went to Hermès to buy this thing and I wanted to love it to shreds but it was so weird. I chatted with the sales lady, tried on Voyage (probably goes to the no, thanks file) and Jardin sur le toit and hiris and then the thing on my wrists went all celery root fried in butter. Not bad, actually a nice smell, it's one of my fave foods, fried celery root. In a perfume, though? That crossed my mental border of perfume accords and the ideas started to veer into the dangerous areas of food scents. Something in my brain started to yell What's going to come next? We've already had caramel and butter and honey, is there going to be a Boeuf Gardénia or Pizza Labdanum in the Hermessence line sometime soon, or even worse, Chocolat Roquefort?

What saved me from running away was a blotter sprayed with Hiris. Hiris went surprisingly well with Santal Massoïa and I ended up buying two bottles although I cursed myself that I get a perfume and then another perfume only to make the first one wearable.

I went home, did laundry and some other random stuff and then brought myself to unpacking my loot from the shopping war. I sprayed myself with Santal Massoïa again and I noticed the sweet creamy thing I had imagined as proper santal and a soapy facette. Maybe even a touch of iris but the aldehydes or rose or what may be the cause of the soap could explain why it works so well with Hiris.

At the end, I did come to like the Santal Massoïa. Earlier than expected, even. After all, if the chefs can spray food with perfume (2), why there couldn't be a Quattro formaggi cologne. With some extra peperoni on a good day.

For some factual information, check Perfume Shrine here. I only do rants.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

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(1) the word soliflor is used for a fragrance based on one accord. It means single flower, though, and being a generally anal person and a proud grammar Nazi, I've already coined soliradix for vetiver stuff and soliherba for whatever comes from the leaves and stems. Solilignum is a natural addition to the line.
(2) it's actually essential oils. (3)
(3) and I'm skipping the whole field of food flavourings because it's another can of worms.

An interesting start of the week.

2011-12-12T04:04:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, the rather boring office job gets a bit of zing.

Boss' briefcase was stolen from his car overnight. He’s old school, he writes his notes on paper, in pencil, and he had two months’ worth of some tables and calculations. The loss made him quite unhappy, especially because it wasn't the first time. Ironically, he uses his briefcase only as a thing to hold all his papers together, he carries money, cellphones, cigarettes, keys and the interesting stuff in his pockets.

The editors were summoned and sent to search the nearby trashbins and shrubbery because it was sort of expected that the villains check said briefcase for interesting content, find none and toss it. So, there were four of us in our office finery, peeking into yew growths and inspecting places used in lieu of public toilets (there used to be some in the park but the city tore them down deeming them useless or some such).

At the end, it was an excellent spiritual exercise. Facing a heap of bottles that used to hold cheap liquor, one has to be of a saintly nature to hold hopes for humankind without serious inner struggle, I pondered, and maybe some follower of St. Francis of Assisi could bring a trash bag to collect all that rubbish, disperse it into the proper recycling bins and preach to people about proper usage of said bins, and doing all this without a word of complain. Not me, I wouldn't resist placing the trash bags on the doorstep of the city hall with a nice note regarding the office for municipal lawn and shrubbery.
At the end, I concluded that life goes nowhere anyway and that I could use a good soak in brain bleach so that I stopped pondering.

Briefcase was not located. It was rightly remarked that brown briefcase in brown rotting leaves is hard to spot and that next time, the boss should opt for an orange model with reflex stripes.

Gardening

2011-12-07T12:41:00.000-08:00

In winter.

Indoors.

The first plant that sprouted from the turfs and clusters of soil which I was able to identify is Oxalis pes-caprae or Bermuda Butterfly. Okay, there's something which is likely Crocus nudiflorus but it's only likely, the leaves only started sticking out lately.

I'm accumulating various cheese and yogurt pots to house the seeds and that's going to be another endless source of fun. The tags say things like This looks like Delphinuim, Stuff that grew on the sidewalk in Ribeira Brava or WTF. My abilities to identify plants by seeds are just around nil.

Today I got a letter saying that I got kicked out of the Natural Sciences. I knew it was coming, I failed to sign up for the semester in time. I don't really care, it was a logistic nonsense. I'm not even upset or anything, just sort of sorry. I do perceive it as a personal failure because a logistic nonsense is not a thing I couldn't manage, the hell, if I tried harder. Or some such shit.

I'm a knitter, live with it.

2011-12-05T10:54:00.000-08:00

This darling is finished. Or, frankly, almost finished. I ran out of yarn halfway through the last row and I'm not ripping anything to shorten it by a few rows to have enough. No, I don't have more of that yarn, it was the only skein. I have something similar used way up in the sweater at home II. so it will take a while but I consider the sweater finished.

The picture was taken three skeins ago, on Sunday morning. At a certain point, I decided to bite it and I'm taking my knitting downstairs to work on it while watching telly and there was some downhill skiing and stuff. The Eurosport channel is much more fun in winter and no, I don't like football. I do tolerate tennis but my mom is working hard in disgusting it to me.

Anyway, now I need to find something in mild progress so that there would be idiotic knitting enough to go on and on and on while House M. D. is being mean, or something like that.

Or maybe I should start working on those 10 pages I should have written by tomorrow noon. That's probably a way to go.

Still no kitchen

2011-11-30T13:51:00.000-08:00

The tiles were laid and now there's a bunch of guys putting various bits and pieces together. The current state of matters is that the ovens (three of them) are in place, the stovetop and sink are laid out in the hallway, the dishwasher sits in the living room side to side with a heap of styrofoam and there are some bits and pieces of furniture around.

I hear that we'll be cooking on Saturday.

Meantime, I suffer. Yesterday, at work, I positively smelled pork with onions. I checked and nobody had anything of this sort for lunch. I generally long after cooked food and my mind conjures up images of soups, stews, hot steaming rice, bacon and eggs, apple compote, cookies, chicken curry... name it and I'll drool.

We ordered pizza for dinner. Not bad but stewed pheasant with roasted potatoes or rice with a soy derivate of the day would be much better. It's no help that the kitchen installing crew loved our new tiles. I want food, damn.

Raglan sweater

2011-11-30T05:44:00.000-08:00

I have a long-standing urge to knit a lace shawl or throw and I even printed the pattern and picked the right yarn for Kællingesjal, a beautiful wrap reconstructed from a 19th century original; Mette Rorbach has more details here
The pattern doesn't include a chart and I'm not able to knit well from written instructions and I'd have to make a swatch and it would be too difficult and whatever.

And at a certain point, I was going for a trip and needed something small to knit on the train and while walking. I reached for some Kureyon and Silky Merino and started a raglan sweater.

It's another of my patternless creations but I find myself unable to explain the how-to without pictures. Stay tuned.

Kitchenless living

2011-11-24T04:00:00.000-08:00

Rice can be cooked in the office microwave. A slight problem arose when I wasn't able to locate any salt but miso worked fairly well to make it edible.

I don't eat out because (1) I'm cheap (2) I'm on gluten-free diet. The same reasons exclude various prefabricated food-like things, which are also either awful or made of who knows what. While random rice with random miso is not exactly haute cuisine, I at least know what is it made of.

Kitchen news:
Last week, they delivered our tiles. Upon unpacking, it was discovered that some of them were wall tiles, not floor tiles. Different durability, different dimensions. Dad almost bursted and made the lady in the tile shop cry. (*) Several phone calls later, we were informed that the white tiles are sold out and a new batch will be fired in the second half of 2012 so what now, we need to decide in 20 minutes if we want it delivered within a week or ten days. At the end, the main floor colour will be blue or black, depending on the architect (gotta call her yet for the new design). The tiles should be laid during the weekend and the whole thing should be finished in another week. Or two. Or possibly three.

2x6 minutes in the microwave renders the rice edible but somewhat too hard - I have some generic round grain rice. I have two more weeks to find out how to cook it nicely. Or I'll lose patience and start lunching in the little yet authentic Italian bar downtown.

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(*) I don't really agree with my dad's bouts of loud shouting in general but the same shop took our order, they wanted a deposit, and informed us that our tiles will be there in three weeks. After three and half weeks, when someone started inquiring where the tiles are, they told us that oooops, they are not made anymore and there're none in stock in the Spanish central, and oops, we forgot to check beforehand, and oops, we forgot to tell you. The place needs some common sense. Or some actual management.____

Family reunion

2011-11-19T14:53:00.000-08:00

My uncle is an idiot. Which is not exactly hot news but he took another chance to demonstrate it again, and in a particularly spectacular manner.

He was married, got his wife preggers and then dumped her. He has never seen his son. He spread layers over layers of lies about his ex and the whole thing. His daughters from his following marriage didn't know about it weren't it for a grandpa (not the shared one) warning them not to date any Nicholas ever because it may be their brother, and some stalking much later.

In spring, mom and my cousin, who is a half-sister of said guy (the other cousin is a half-sister of the first cousin. At this point, forget it or start sketching a graph) decided to find him, which she did, brought him tor the rest of the clan to see, Nicholas found that out of the blue, he's blessed with scores of aunts, cousins, aunts' cousins and similar people and everything went just fine.

Until around Wednesday.

My grandparents have a diamond wedding anniversary and my parents are throwing a party for them (fiy, like, just now). Uncle Idjit was told that Nicholas will be here and said that he's not coming. Because he decided 35 years ago that he doesn't want to deal with this person. That he made an agreement with his ex. And that the person is total stranger to him. And that nobody is going to change his mind. And that nobody will change his decisions behind his back. He even yelled at his daughter for inviting Nicholas because he's paying the party and nobody should be inviting strangers behind his back. (As if.)

So, yesterday he grabbed his wife #3 and left. As a bonus, he left his grandson behind at the hotel without telling anyone.

There was a relay between my mom, aunt, cousins and dad. Mom yelled at Idjit that she's not talking to him if he doesn't come back, which he refused. Idjit called my father to inform him that his wife is a harpy, mean bitch and he's not even coming to her funeral (which is regretted by exactly no-one). Nicky was a bit sad, he wanted to see his father but at the end, he shrugged it off.

My father, who pays for the whole thing, made a few evil grins and said that he'll have the bill delivered to his idjit brother in law.

The rest is a good ole party with lots of food, so much food that we'll get the leftovers boxed to eat until we get our kitchen rebuilt (the story of tile apocalypse will follow when I get reasonably sober).

And yeah, this is a completely pointless and arbitrary post.

Daily clutter

2011-11-12T11:13:00.000-08:00

I wonder where all the things come from. I reached the ultimate level of mess when I didn't have any place to step on the floor. After a few thoughts about pitchfork, I just started cleaning up.

It is trickier than it seems. I don't have enough storage space and I'm a messy person. Which means that finding places to put things in so that they don't stick out is tough. Een tougher is keeping them there, or, to be exact, put them back after using them. This simply doesn't happen for various reasons - messy, busy, always working on umpteen things at a time - so... go figure.

Things are not as easy as they seem. I can put things away but that wasn't the only point. I needed to put the herbary to storage for winter. I could just gather all the pressed plants in a folder but I'm somewhat orderly so I neatly stuck them to the sheets, tagged them, placed to the Unsorted folder and only then I put everything in a storage box which is now kicked under the piano. I ripped a botched sweater and now the yarn is soaking - the skeins will be dry by tomorrow and I'll put them back to stash clean and ready for some further use. I'm updating various files, which means that pictures and notes are being sorted out instead of just moving them from the camera SD card for some sort of later treatment. The thing is, the I'll do it later tends to happen not next Wednesday as sort of presumed but three years later.

To illustrate the point: My knitting file.

The yellow post-its are works in actual progress, which are on the needles, worked on, even if with breaks. The orange ones are failed attempts that need reworking, plans and ideas. One sweater needs some 34 rows of a sleeve to be finished. It's been languishing around here for several weeks although now I've deided to hit it and finish it because, 34 rows, the heck.

Now, I'm just taking a few things to the trash and then I totally plan to snuggle up with the lappy, some movies and all the nearly finished knitting. Two hanks and one messy piece of barely definable fabric less is cleaning, too.

I need chocolate. And booze.

2011-11-10T09:42:00.000-08:00

I'm on a diet and I'm doing my best, I even had a nice bout of hypoglycemia the other day. But....

BossDad is hiring. The welding department of four was dissolved. Three were fired for general assholery, as I hear, and the fourth one is in hospital with throat cancer and won't be around for a while, poor guy.

So, BossDad got some resumés from various agencies and invited a bunch of people for some grilling. BossMom is the evil cop who hands out tests on grammar and general knowledge and such, BossDad is the bad cop and I'm probably the nicest one, mainly because I'm lazy and mean but not inherently evil. Or... whatevs.

Applicants took over my table in BossMom's office so I'm sitting in the hallway. It's no biggie but everyone entering or leaving is opening the slightly creaky door behind my back, BossDad is bringing the applicants in in somewhat loud and boisterous manner and I'm, after all, interviewing them. I have some rather urgent work to do, it requires concentration and I'm interrupted every ten minutes. So far, I have sorted out my mail, paid bills, wrote several lengthy and messy emails to people who are hopefully used to my idiosyncratic ways and bought a bottle of neroli on fleabay. Uh, and I have read not only a crapton but a whole shitload of stuff on everything2.com

The result of the day is that finally, we'll have a PR manager. No more damn fucking advertising for the poor innocent editors who are busy with just about anything else.

Now, I'm off to get something like a dinner and a bit of rest since there's an overnighter ahead. I need to do some actual work.

Anabasis, part two

2011-11-04T02:05:00.000-07:00

We're in the other hotel in Fuengirola, it's raining or about to rain or just after the rain, including a loud storm in the early morning.

We caught a break between two rains and went to explore the Sohail castle across the river. Apparently, there were quite some rains because what was a poor excuse for a stream was now overflowing its bed and proved that there's nice brown soil somewhere up there.

I grabbed my last chance at botanizing and dug up some more little plants (I expect a considerable amount of indoor gardening to come). Meantime, it started to rain again so we returned to the hotel for some cussing and booze.

Another break between rains was used for shopping, which enriched me by two Agatha Ruiz de la Prada bags, one nail paint, several fans, five metres of fuchsia grosgrain ribbon, another bottle of Bacardi Elixir (to take home, for a winter of very particular caipirinhas), two black tank tops and one in purple (when it fits, get many, I'm telling you) and probably something more. I didn't score a blossoming jacaranda branch, all the jacaranda trees within walking distance were too tall.

We packed and hoped for the best in the morning.

----------------------------

Anabasis, part one and half

2011-11-03T00:38:00.000-07:00

Parents decided to show them.
If they say it's not possible to get us home by Friday, we'll show them that it is.

Dad asked the car rental owner to sell him something.
Mom threatened just anyone around by press and lawyers and kept telling dad that he's crazy.
I kept searching for airline tickets and I kept being told that it's not possible that there are no flights within reasonable timeframe and price range.

In the morning, most of the emotions cooled down, I still spent some time messing with airline reservation thingies, then we packed and got transferred to another hotel. Car rental guy apparently decided we're loonies on the loose and never appeared. Parents gave up and decided that they'd better grab the day and enjoy the whole thing.

So.... we lazied around and then went shopping. I got more fans (shit, those nice painted ones cost from 80 euros upwards), a tank top that fits so well that tomorrow I'm going to get some more and a stunning Agatha Ruiz de la Prada bag.

It's not bad, I kept saying it from the beginning.

Pass the caipirinha.

2011-11-02T14:46:00.000-07:00

Or two.

The travel agency folks announced that our flight back was cancelled and that some people are going back via Barcelona (which includes getting up at four-ish) and that the rest, including us, on Saturday.

I went Woo hoo, two more days of holidays and I'll have to reschedule shit so that I'll do the Friday things on Monday and that was it. Dad went ballistic because he has some appointments on Friday and because anyways, mom went ballistic because This. Is. Not. Fair. This is the package holiday for the 55+ group and how the poor grandmas are going to find their way on the Barcelona airport and the meanos shouldn't get away with it.

So, my polite well-mannered mom kept using her arsenal of four-letter words while dad was yelling at the travel agency representative who was the last person who could actually do anything but take the shitstorm with smile. I needed something at the reception so I gave the gal a few advices how not to piss my parents further.

Anyway, mom is still angry and uttering florid verbiage that includes 'bastards', 'lawyers', 'I'll complain to the European Union' and 'fuck'. Dad is meantime working on a future urban legend about a tourist who rented a car from the local rental and then fell in love with said car so that he bought it and drove a few thousand kilometres home (without a driving license but that's another story).

I keep saying Loonies on the lose and keenly observe the situation. So far, I had two caipirinhas, found a train to Madrid and airline tickets from Madrid towards Hometown, dad called travel agency gal that there's an Iberia flight at 1510 and remarked that they don't want to send people home fast, they want to get them there cheap with El Cheapo Airlines.

I'll see what happens. Alas, it won't be happening far away from me.

Drunk before sunrise

2011-10-29T09:50:00.002-07:00

We landed at Benalmádena, a bit west from Málaga.

Spain is at the very west of the timezone so there's dark until around half past eight, maybe.
And mom discovered that the breakfast buffet includes champagne. Go figure.

We suffered through some mass tourism, being taken to Malaga and then to Mijas. Malaga is a town so there're actual things to see and I could see many more if it weren't for unnamed parents who needed coffee, water, rest and to pee; I had around five coffees and with the help of my Pocket Guide to Spanish Conversation, I learned a few more useful phrases. If there were more organized bus trips included, I might be able to lead a reasonably sophisticated conversation at the end of the week.

Mijas, on the other hand, is entirely virtual reality. A random village, no different from others, turned a tourist attraction and nobody will give me those two hours back. Someone with excellent marketing skills was behind this and hopefully, they'll burn in hell. Parents claimed that this experience was not entirely regrettable and we argued.

Yes, why, I'm not entirely sober when writing this. So sue me.

Vere Novo

2011-10-26T12:47:00.000-07:00

And now for something less obscure: Guerlain.

Vere Novo, the internets agree, was created by Jacques Guerlain in 1895. That's all I know and the rest is rants.

There is it, a two ounce 'apothecary' bottle, sitting on my table. The bottle was made by Pochet et du Courval until 1939, which is also the ante quem date for the content. I'm not that much of an expert to set a more exact date based on the label so I welcome any further clarification.

1895... back then, people used to put perfume on their gloves and handkerchiefs. There were only a few synthetic materials used in perfumery. Holy shit, this thing may have been made before my great-grandma was born!!! For some reason, I expected that Vere Novo would be something like Shalimar, just uglier. I'm not the biggest fan of Shalimar, it's somewhere between the I wouldn't mind it as a gift and Quite like it on my appreciation scale, which is probably why I have two bottles of it but that would be another story. Maybe later, and after all, everybody knows Shalimar. Back to the ancient Vere Novo, which is not similar to Shalimar.

It took me quite a time to get a grasp of this fragrance. It happens rather often with vintages, some are so well blended and matured that it is pretty hard to discern the perfume accords or ingredients. The same is happening again and again with Vere Novo: whatever was it made of, now it is a perfect unity. I dabbed it generously on my forearm and it surprised me again. Three words: galbanum, leather, vanilla. I'm sure there's more to that (I suspect some cade and vetiver at least, and anything that suppresses the annoying sweet facet of ethylvanilin) but there's a green blast of the top notes, which may rather be some aged citruses than actual galbanum, or citruses and galbanum. The first half an hour, there's even a teeny tiny touch of sillage, from two steps away, it may be supposed that I could be wearing a perfume. A bit later, when I moved my arm around, I'd stop and wonder how come I smell so nicely and now, in the afternoon, there's a spot that smells vaguely of vanilla. Or rather vanilla leather, don't you dare to think about in-your-face vanilla of a drugstore body lotion. If I understand what a skin scent is, then this is the skin scent.

I like quite an amount of fragrances and I don't have a strict preference, even if I rather dwell in the smoky resiny territory most of the time. The occasions when I get really enchanted are few and far between but this is one of them.

Mourn for this fragrance because it was discontinued a hundred years ago or around. However, in spirit, it is close to Vol de Nuit and less so in Shalimar (which is too sweet but there is something in common). Or believe in a stroke of luck.

A special message for the Guerlain headquarters: should you kindly revive this one, too, and preferably in an affordable presentation? With a nice skin product, preferably perfumed oil. Thank you very much.

My badly guessed notes for Guerlain's Vere Novo: lime, galbanum, leather, vanilla, touch of vetiver.

Herbary

2011-10-08T10:30:00.000-07:00

Includes potentially important announcement
I am proud of myself today. I accumulated a huge backlog of pressed plants, half-legible notes, nicely prepared tags to go with something in the mess folder...

I had declared the hallway a Herbary Room some time ago. The coffee table is perfect for spreading sheets of paper, piling newspapers interspersed with plants and topped with eight heavy exhibition catalogues to make the plants flatter... but in winter, the table serves as a flower stand for hibiscuses, orchids, camellias and stuff that lives outside all summer long.

This is the place.

I sit on that spot on the carpet which is not covered in paper.

Note the newspapers all over the place. Since the standard herbary sheets are 30x45 cm, slightly larger than the standardized A3 format, they need to be custom ordered. To have nice folders from white paper, one would need to order them, too, while newspapers have just the right size, being a tad larger than the sheets, and they come free. I mean, newspapers do cost something but you can retrieve some from the trash bin, for example. I'm picking well-read copies from my dad's trash. Today I had the chance to refresh my memory on the beatification of Pope John Paul the latest or the World Championship in ice hockey.
Every folder is meant for one plant family, which is a standard way of sorting. I have a folder of singularities, or stuff where I have only one specimen of said family, to keep things somewhat easier, a family gets its own folder when there're two or more. Which is not really difficult, today I started eight new folders - the messy pile contained lots of interesting stuff.

I was told by my dear friend and occasional mentor M. that if a herbary is to have a sense, it needs to be publicly accessible. I thus hereby announce that my herbary is accesible to public by prior arrangement. Bring your own computer, there's no trained staff to assist you either and the internet connection sucks but there is coffee and on a good day, cookies. I can offer a small and not particularly fine selection of botany books and lots of literature on art, there may be a kitteh available if she wants and I plan to get some cushions to sit on during the winter.

Spin all the things!

2011-10-06T10:21:00.000-07:00

I was doing some cleaning.

For some reason I'm not able to recall, I started digging in my stash boxes and discovered that my roving is happily inhabited by dermatid beetles. The beetles eat flowers or some such but their larvae are rather ugly fuzzy things that eat wool. They prefer cashmere, though, or cat hair. If you are interested in the little buggers, google them yourself. I know them and due to insectophobic people, or just Oooooh-creepy! people, I'm not even linking.
I inspected the rovings and my precious Scottish cashmere seems to be untouched but I decided that the safest way of dealing with the problem is to spin more. After all, disturbing the buggers disturbs them, complicates their sexual lives and maybe light and air kills them, who am I to know.

I however decided that it would be a damn good idea to go through the fibres via spinning them. I made daily allotments and I'm keeping with the plans quite well.

This is natural brown Shetland roving. The proper name of this fibre colour is moorit. So far, I have some 100m of two ply, which may have used up around a half of the total of 120g of fibre. I have some natural black roving, which is in fact deep chocolate brown, true grey, sort of grey and white, which just calls for some knitting project in all natural colours.

This yarn is probably Blue-faced Leicester. I got it from a Norwegian Raveller whose name I forgot (sorry), redyed it towards green and continued in my usual manner - singles with Z-twist, loose double. It drafts somewhat less eagerly so in fact, it's PITA to spin and my fingers hurt. But the result is pretty and fluffy and anyway.

Bleached yak. Spins like butter. The fibres have short staple length so it needs to be spun carefully. I intend to keep it a single.

To those who don't understand the fibery language: Look what pretty things I made.
Yes I'm still grumpy and down. I even have half a bar of chocolate on my table and it tastes icky. Means this is a damn bad day. The cat however didn't end it the way it started and refrained from further puking in my bed. Either she did something else or she likes clindamycin because she's licking my shoulder.

And now about something completely different.

2011-10-06T04:05:00.000-07:00

It's no secret that I've gone through some eating disorders. I still struggle with disordered eating - I learned not to count kilojoules even in the toothpick I used to poke that tomato peel from behind my molar but I haven't managed to somehow eat normally, regularly, without periods of restriction or binging. Well, restriction isn't what it used to be in those glorious days when I used to eat twice a week, when those meals might be a bottle of sour milk or vegetable broth.

By the way, starving gets you a nice high. I tried to look up that article which was published on ScienceBlogs some time ago, which compared the brain's response to cocaine and to starving and it was pretty similar but my search powers failed me. Anyway, I don't find starving particularly difficult. I can just do it. My daily food struggle is between Eat all the things! and Don't eat at all!, along with a metaphorical Muppet flail.

And then there's an eternal fight, which is actually not a real fight, between me and my parents. Yesterday's debate started by my mother expressing her opinion which ran like You're a filthy pig. She was led to this opinion by my stuff just spread around in my place. I'm bored with this endless passive aggressive games and loads of bullshit so I said that since the place is messy but clean, I protest against both filthy and pig. Fast forward an hour to something like You are not able to follow a diet later than until the lunch, you're a glutton with no willpower. I tried to explain some of the emotional component but was told that this is not about any emotions, that all I need to do is to skip meals. Or some such. The whole discussion was pretty pointless. Although I was willing to explain, the other party wasn't willing to let me finish a sentence and even less so to actually think about what I'm saying. Food is not related to emotion, I was told, and after all, emotions are just irrational crap and anyone who has a bit of willpower will do just what they need to do, regardless of their feeling, and this is the right way to do.

Really, the easiest thing is not to eat. I'm really really attracted to the idea. To prove that I have that willpower. To be able to say Now I'm a sick wreck, are you happy with me and my willpower, and am I finally thin enough for you?

I hear that people cut themselves to deal with tension buildup - compared to the physical pain, the inner one wanes, or that's how I imagine it. I prefer walking in the cold, fingernails turning blue do the some thing for me. The rather nice Indian summer refuses to cooperate, there's not even a bit of biting wind.

I had a breakfast, admittedly, but otherwise, I'm just letting things be. I'm not thinking about any balanced diet and useful nutrients or the sensibility of getting a dinner. I'm down and disgusted and since I live with my stupid, pointless, no-good and irrational feelings for quite a while, I sense that I won't feel like finishing that unwrapped bar of chocolate which is sitting on my table at home. That self-starvation high is actually pretty cool.

WTF?

2011-09-29T23:52:00.001-07:00

Mom leaves for work earlier than I do, at least in general.
I hardly ever go to the kitchen and general surrounding area, I even make packed lunches and forgot to pick one today.
It is generally known.

So, I came to work, BossMom was already sitting there doing whatevwer she's doing and asked whether I closed the terrace door. Nope, I said, I didn't go there at all so I didn't notice.
Boo hoo, you should have known, the cat wanted to go outside so I opened the door and you should have noticed, whinety whine you're so stupid, that the door is open. You mean that I should have left you a note in written? when it's so obvious that you should have read my thoughts that this time I didn't close the terrace door.
Yes, you should have left a note, I said. BossMom growled Don't talk to me and now she's sulking.
Not that I particularly regretted not talking to her, I can at least download my movies and do my fleabay shopping in peace (not really).

The real issue is sorta different, the cat does go outside but sorta supervised. She can't crawl under the fence because it's pretty low - unless she finds her way under the garage gate. She can't climb although the fence is so rotten that with a bit of trying, she could walk through at some places. She's microchipped and nobody in the general neighbourhood has a Meezer I'd know of. I just hope I come home and find the little barstud sleeping on the sofa.

Fibre is good for you

2011-09-27T02:20:00.001-07:00

First it was like:

Then it was like:

And this afternoon it was like:

To be continued.

For knitting geeks, the orange shit is Silk Garden Lite, colour 2047, I guess, with strawberry red, pinkish and brown bits cut out, and it will be on the shoulders. There's a hole for the head somewhere in that mess pictured.
The next yarn is Malabrigo Rios, colour Arco Iris ~~or Indiecita~~.
The teal-with-things is Noro again, Ouchou, colour 8, closely followed by Silk Garden, colour 8, whose blue bits are happily used for another sweater I may or may not show sometime later.

First world problems

2011-09-19T13:06:00.000-07:00

My feet are size 42. For most of my grown up life I wore 41 and it wasn't exactly comfy. I still sometimes get something in size 41 (Yes, I'm talking about those Beverly Feldman shoes from fleabay, but BF fits okay and one pair were thongs.) The Marc Jacobs ballet flats were cheap and 41. I decided they would work. They worked although it cost quite some effort to stretch them - and they are rather narrow than short as such.

When summer came, I started wearing thongs and sandals. Now I'm in Prague, I need to go to some discussion panel at the Ministry of Education so I took decent shoes with me. Said Marc Jacobs. On the first day, I decided that less than comfy is not a problem, I won't do any major walking etc. Today afternoon, I was highly inclined to go buy shoes NAO but it's rainy and I'm wintery-depressed and I had a problem with dragging my tired body to the metro station to go home.
During the Pilates class, my feet grew a few more blisters so I plastered and band-aided them and stumbled home, thinking that there's a shopping hell on the way so I'll act spoiled and go shoe-shopping at 9 pm. Shopping hell was open but the boutiques were closed. I fail to see a point of open mall with closed shops but I'm not your typical consumer.

The report on getting size 42 shoes in a country when normal range ends at 41 and the existence of abnormal is denied will follow.

I'd better be working.

2011-09-12T00:52:00.000-07:00

Instead, I'm listening to some quarter tone jazz, shopping for fabrics and generally http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifprocrastinating.

And trying not to poke the roadrash on my elbow.

I'm taking the wager seriously, or at least halfway seriously, regarding my ever-enormous consumption of chocolate. Around a month ago, I scratched my toes against the curb and there're still some pretty thick scabs. Yesterday I cycled for a while. I wanted to ride across a small wooden bridge to see what's on the other river bank and in the middle, my brain caught up, screamed Eeeeeep, I iz scared of falling into the big scary river and I leaned against the railing. Railing made of un-de-barked wood. The problem of jeans with huge pink spot (it was wool dye, it shouldn't dye cotton, damn) and the question of spot removal was solved by tearing said jeans, I proudly showed my battle wounds at home, which mom commented that I should be getting band-aid in bulk.

I couldn't find the something-cain ointment in the morning and now I'm hurting.

But, I've lost some two kilos since the last time I checked. So what.

The pasta chronicles, part 427

2011-08-29T00:18:00.000-07:00

For your own mental safety, do not ask for more.

I had a pasta lunch and then I went for a cycling trip and had to stop for emergency vomiting. I swear that I'm going gluten-free for real*.

---------------------
* At least until the next yummy cake.

My inner self

2011-08-25T00:48:00.001-07:00

Yay for technology. Now the whole world can see my knees. Should there be a person of medical persuasion, I'd love to get a clarification on what 'patellar dysplasia' means outside the veterinary realm (Wikipedia, source of all and sometimes wrong knowledge, mentions something related to dogs) and whether it is related to my left patella being out of place - I guess that the left one is wrong because my left knee hurts.

There's also a heel available.

Eeeep.

2011-08-24T05:17:00.000-07:00

I found a picture of yours truly some six years and 30 kilos ago.

Disheartening, isn't that.

In fact, it may be only 27 kilos ago. And I thought I was fat, then. I might have a pic from the times when I was anorexic and thought I was fat.

Random strangers

2011-08-07T04:28:00.000-07:00

On Friday, I was sitting on the train, minding my own business and knitting a sample of something striped.
Then I pulled out a hank of Rios, untangled it, placed it on my knees and started winding a ball. A lady two seats away gestured that she'll hold the hank for me. I though she was a knitter, too, but she said she wasn't - she only used to hold a hank for her mother. Hi, friendly stranger, there'll be pics of said sweater in distant future, stay tuned.

A day later, on a bus, two Korean ladies were utterly fascinated by the fact that I knitted and stared out of the window. And that I knitted, for that matter. As it happened, a while later, two Japanese guys filled the other seats around me and expressed something between wtfitude and amazement.

I wonder, is the meme that only grandmas knit spread in Far East, too?

Baking

2011-07-28T04:13:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, I got a few pieces of apricot cake from Grandma. Being the pig I am, I ate all four of them although I knew I'll regret later. And I did. I'm not venturing into the fields of TMI (or Too Much Information), let's say that the inner disturbances were somewhat more disturbing and I decided to go really gluten-free.

I haven't mentioned it probably, I'm not coeliac, I just can't stand the gluten thing in larger amounts. Or, well, I won't die but having a nice sandwich or serving of pasta guarantees quality reading time in the bathroom and increased consumption of supersoft toilet paper. No, thanks.

The other day, I got a muffin form, a thing that can serve a dual purpose of baking muffins and feeding ten kittens at a time (not at the same time, obviously), so I took the generic cake dough recipe, substituted wheat flour with lupin flour, threw in a bit of psyllium fibre which gets gooey when wet and glues the thing together. I was also advised to be generous with liquids as the gluten-free flours absorb more of them. The raw dough tasted horrid - try raw legume of your choice and see. I wasn't sure about the whole undertaking so I added two teaspoons of cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg each, lots of spices cover up many a botched cooking experiment, formed twelve cups in the muffin form and baked until scorched around the edges (I yet have to refine working with the muffin form). Then I wiped off the scorched bits and poured the baker's cheese-and-sour cream cream into the cups and baked yet for a while until I got bored of waiting. Rest of the dough was mixed with what remained of the cream after my nomming, which made five more yummy thingies.

Yes, yummy thingies. I didn't trust gluten-free baking too much because half of the storebought stuff tasted plastic and the other half was weird and expensive but this was... well, good. The lupin flour dough has nice texture if nothing else.

Problem: I should lose weight. Lots of it. I stopped eating cakes and pastries and stuff because it would make me sick but now I have non-sickening option.

The recipe:
two cups of flour
one cup of sugar
two tablespoons of butter, or more
one egg
one pack of baking powder
some water
fruit or things of one's choice
Mix, if not fluid, add water, pour into a greased baking tray, spread fruits and stuff, bake until done.

The gluten-free version
Two cups of lupin flour
two tablespoons or some such of psyllium fibre
one cup of sugar
two eggs
some butter
one pack of baking powder
some water
whatever topping

Mix until the dough sticks to anything but itself. Force into baking tray, top with topping, bake until done. Could be half an hour at 200°C but it doesn't matter, this is as idiot-proof as it goes in baking.

Pics maybe later, if I catch something not eaten yet.

Wager

2011-07-19T04:58:00.001-07:00

The other day, we were sitting on the terrace and ranting about things and other things. My father also coughed, chronic bronchitis is a bitch. And then we were poking fun at each other for being out of shape in many ways and it ended up in a wager:
If I lose 20 kilos before Christmas, my dad will stop smoking

I was immediately in. My father is a chain smoker with a physical dependence on nicotine. I've had enough of unsolicited advice along the lines of People won't ever like and respect you when you're such a fatso. I gave away my stash of chocolate and similar noms and started srsly dieting because workout is not a problem, lousy eating habits are. Two weeks in, I'm 2 kilos less and I've been only sitting, typing and rotting away. I'd add some exercise weren't it for either torrid heat or rainstorms (which means too rainy for cycling and too wet and hot inside for anything but lying and sweating).

We'll see. As the things are going, I'm still ready to get me a bowl of popcorn on the 25th to watch what's going to happen.

(should I post pics of the progress, I wonder?)

I want some sleep

2011-06-20T23:40:00.000-07:00

I didn't pull an overnighter, at a certain point, I simply started falling asleep so I dragged my exhausted self to bed, set the alarm clock to six, got up at seven and now I'm getting sleep-deprived, still quite some work to go, and the ever-annoying mother behind my back asks every two hours whether I have already finished.
Well, when I'm finished, I'll fall asleep, thankyouverymuch, and you will notice that.

I'm left to wonder why the hell I bother with this Ph. D. thingy at all. I wanted to go for it because every other idiot has a degree (every first idiot has two) due to pay-and-graduate institution in almost every village while a Ph. D. has maintained a certain level of coolness. I got to a point when I'm strongly doubting it. To be frank, I've been doubting the general purpose of life for quite a few years and the provisional conclusion is that there's no purpose and no reason but if one is cynical enough, it is fun to watch. Sort of, because I don't feel any good about endless writing of something nobody will ever bother to read because it's going to rot away in a shelf, under a layer of dust.

Sigh. Apparently I need more coffee and I'd better go back to work. I might start puking of sheer fatigue and I want to have something done before that.

Paper

2011-06-20T12:47:00.000-07:00

If you wondered what I may be up to.
I'm sitting in my den, covered in cat hair, the den, me less so, I change my clothes on occasions while I don't bother cleaning. There're papers spread all over, books piled around my table, I'm drinking unreasonable amounts of coffee and there's an overnighter ahead. I'm about to finish my doctoral thesis and when I need to clear my head, I spin. It's even more mindless than knitting and it doesn't require such a bulk of stuff to handle.
For those curious about the fibres, from left to right:
Wensleydale tops on the spindle
Corriedale in fawn
Shetland in brown
Gotland is the tiny bit of grey, I just wanted to try how the fibre feels (damn good)
Some-or-another stuff I got from a Norwegian Raveller. I have a tag somewhere
Blend of teal mohair and Knitpicks'merino and silk blend
I still need to write something and to put it into some sort of a presentable shape but I've already made plans for the Wensleydale, it will become a two-ply for a lace shawl.

I suspect that the existence of toilet roll cores proves the existence of God, because nothing is so useful for spinners, while being readily available (mostly) for free.

Back to work.

Dignita

2011-06-01T11:39:00.000-07:00

The other day, I've wondered about Shiseido's perfume naming strategy. It appears to me that someone picked a word they liked, possibly tweaked it around a bit and here we go, let's stick it onto the bottle, nobody would care anyway. Because... Sourire? To smile? Why not, say, Pour sourir or Une souris?

Same thing with Dignita. It suspiciously reminds me of the good old Latin-derived dignity but none of the languages I'm familiar with uses it in this form. I may be wrong and it means something like Tender Flowers in an extinct dialect of Inner Mongolia.
I however suppose that someone in the marketing department just liked the word. I could imagine the smell of dignity, something between moth balls, old leather, expensive woods and incense. Or some such. The brownish jus and brown and white packaging would also hint something more substantial but Dignita is anything else but moth balls, old leather and the general air of old mansion that could use some redecorating and thorough cleaning.

I did my best to find the notes listed somewhere but I've failed. My smell detection device, which is not the bestest, says that there's a gentle whiff of PVC at the beginning but that doesn't surprise me, many fragrances give out a very chemical odour before the alcohol evaporates. Then, Dignita becomes a really nice floral - there's a whiff of violets, not the alph amethyl ionone sort from violet pastilles (oh, yum) but a greener variety, and then the fragrance evolves into a lovely bouquet of roses, although the first identifiable smell is that of a soap named Green Apple, which we used when I was a child - maybe I should check some bad drugstore which has the less fashionable stuff and I'll find it somewhere. Or it may be some other tart fruit - wild cranberries or white currants; one way or another, it (a) makes me drool (b) reminds me of Dior's Chris 47. Anyhow, tart fruits and armful of roses. Those of the soapy variety, then the lemony Gloria Dei and maybe a whiff of the most extraordinary Mainzer Fastnacht, which was elaborated in another Shiseido's fragrance, Blue Rose (which will be dealt with shortly), and some cut grass.

After the initial multifaceted impression, Dignita remains rather linear. Fruits and roses wear down a bit, revealing a soft resiny and powdery base - elemi and iris, I would say, along a well crafted base of general leafy greenery. And a bucketful of lovely musk, that bright, cheery, clean and soothing type, which is the reason why Dignita lasts rather long but after an hour it quietens to a slightly powdery skin scent that still keeps a bit of tartness.

I have no clue whether Dignita is still produced. Uncle Google found several Russian online retailers that sell it, I scored my bottle in France.

A point about the picture above: The beautiful Old English rose of unknown cultivar just fits to the fragrance. Of slightly indefinable colour between apricot and yellow which fades as the blossoms wilt, it smells faintly of, well, roses of the sweeter variety, with a touch of something incense-y. And it matches colour of the jus. Coouldn't resist the kitsch. I however resisted cutting my last iris despite how it would fit in.

To make the blog more interactive, I'm asking a question, dear readers. What Shiseido fragrance would you want to read about next? Let me know in the comments.

Not yet compost

2011-05-26T10:06:00.000-07:00

I need to get more sheets cut for my herbary - I thought 500 would last me an entire season but I'm already running out. I could maybe start numbering the specimens. In fact, I'd welcome some database thingy which would also store the data... but that would be probably too much to expect from life and universe.

Yesterday, M. dropped for dinner. I needed to plant the stuff I brought over from Madeira and which included a fern whose name I forgot, some Viola riviniana or what the hell, Viola odorata ssp. maderensis, and the stuff that arrived just because I left and which was left at M.'s for plant sitting. I heard that cat called Squirrel showed quite a bit of interest in Wassabia but then decided to go on chewing her palm. M. seems to be rather envious of my little yard. I got some useful information, bragged about how I grow my own weeds for my herbary because they have lots of space, M. laughed, held my Fumaria when I picked some other stuff and then he shouted out: Holy shit, what's this?

I'm not telling you what it was before it gets published in an impacted magazine. Let's say that my garden is interesting.

I like weeds. After all, weed is whatever is defined as unwanted so... so what. By not minding them, I make them non-weeds, after all.

And now I need to get back to my serious writing. Then I'll hopefully install the PhotoShop and I'll be back with pictures.

Compost

2011-05-25T03:07:00.000-07:00

I should be doing something sensible but it's lunchbreak, people have gone out to get some food while I munched on some ricotta and dried fruit over the keyboard and the tasks require a colleague or some software to be downloaded - I'm still shoulder-deep in the mess caused by the new laptop. A less urgent matter, the dendrology books, which I've downloaded the other day, is sitting at the back of my head and poking me constantly, we seem to be having constant arguments about, say, root system of cherry trees compared to that of apricot trees.

I'm sitting between two laptops, several data storage thingies and in the midst of large cable clump. But in a reasonable time, I'll have a new version of PhotoShop (which will irk the hell out of me because I'm conservative), and maybe I'll even sort out my files in a manner I actually understand. Not that I wouldn't understand the First Available Surface system of filing, and I used to have a rather good idea what the folders named Leftovers, Others, Random, Some stuff and Something else contain. Now, the folders are on several less than neat piles on the external discs and I strongly suspect that something of the more important variety went missing.

The good news is that the current history textbook is being reviewed, proofread, re-reviewed and re-proofread, in other words, getting the finishing touches. When my graphics guy is back from lunch, we're going to start the other one.

Now I need more coffee.

Exploding fish

2011-05-19T03:04:00.000-07:00

I would explore Madeiran shrubbery but mom made faces whenever I plunged into growth or squatted to observe a specimen of particularly interesting weed. which reminds me that I failed to pick some of that pretty Juncus thingy. I tried to be nice at least for a while so I limited myself to exploring Madeiran cuisine.
The local specialty, the espada fish (I have to look it up for exact name yet), baked with banana, was offered in the hotel restaurant so I went for it and it was nommy

For the day after, we had booked a round trip. I mentioned that the whole thing was meant for elderly people getting some travel. I must have ranted on and on about my hate of tourist crowd - in case you missed it, let it be noted that I hate tourists, I hate the crowds who totally need to take a picture with every odd-shaped rock, old-looking house or a place where Betty Famous sat down on her hike from Anytown West to Podunk. So, we ended up in a place where Winston Churchill spent a few days holidaying, and in that fishing village, said espada fish is fished. The guide started explaining that said fish lives in depths around 1800m, at which point I gagged because obviously, pull it out of deep waters and it explodes. Guide continued with gory details of how the fishermen never saw said fish alive because on its journey upwards, its stomach explodes, and its eyes explode, and I had a hard time of not throwing up my dinner.

I got a swordfish for my lunch and from then on, I stuck to fish of whose death I knew nothing. Yes, if I were to hunt my own meat, I'd be a vegetarian, I guess, and I thank all the developed and decadent society that I can get my dead animals dead, degutted and neatly sliced.

The Madeira landscape is magnificent, though. The trip was good for two things: some street anthropology concerning mass tourism (and reinforcing my view on that) and seeing that landscape. Among the rugged rocks or laurel forests, we started telling to each other that we totally need to bring Dad here the next time.

Rejoice not

2011-05-18T02:55:00.000-07:00

I'm not dead and you will need to read my rants on and on.

I kept silent for a while. Old laptop is old, new laptop is cool but I need to get used to it and it has no photoshop, work is to be worked.

But, most importantly, I became subject of my mother's craziness. On Thursday, she read that European Union (or someone else) funds travelling to several destinations for people over 55. Mom decided she needed to go to Mallorca next week and wanted me to go with her. I refused, I have stuff to do which can't be easily rescheduled, so it was last Sunday or never, Mallorca wasn't available and we thus ended up at Madeira.

I repeat, in case you didn't get the message clear. We decided to go someplace on Thursday and flew Sunday morning.

Packing requires 30 minutes plus five hours of looking for battery charger, no big deal, but there was some work to do at work and I had to transfer data from old lappy to the new one so I spent most of Saturday in the office as well, and in order to be at the airport early in the morning, we took the midnight train.... but meantime I organized that M. comes, lends me his atlas of plants of Canary islands (which share a good part of flora with Madeira) and takes my freshly arrived plants for plant-sitting. Also, I realized that there are many interesting things (read plants) on Madeira.

Alas, there was not that much time and occasion for picking stuff for my herbary but I snatched a few, now happily resting in fresh dry newspaper under a heap of art books and I yet have to go through the pictures. We also agreed that this trip needs to be repeated.

Back to scheduled programming

2011-04-27T05:43:00.000-07:00

I don't really stick to traditions just because they are traditions but this year, some spring cleaning did indeed happen. The main reason is that my laptop is living on borrowed time and I wouldn't want to lose my files. Been there, done that.

I got an external harddisk, lost it, got another, found the first one... so I'm backing up. Or backupping. Possibly both.

So far, I have discovered many a thing. Not that picture of a Montmartre house covered in blossoming wisteria, but, well, other stuff. And since the cleaning extended to shelves and the Closet of Doom, there's a sampling of things to come:

A Molyneux week. There'll be Rue Royale, Charme, Numéro Cinq, two different editions of Vivre and Quartz which smells like warm water.

After that, just in tow, Gueldy week. Gueldiana, of course, and also Lys Bleu, Cuir de Russie and Cyclamen. I think I may have one more but I'm not sure.

Obviously, I'll throw in some knitting and random flowers because it's me. And a gratuitous kitty or two if I can find the Montmartre directory.

and if you're good guys and ask nicely, you might get a random dose of less-known Guerlain stuff

Spring is here!!

2011-04-23T03:28:00.000-07:00

Not that I was that dumb and wouldn't recognize blossoming trees, snowdrops, narcissi, hyacinths and such stuff but now, asparagus appeared. Locally grown and for reasonable prices. Spring is never complete with overindulging in asparagus and the resulting stinky pee.
Another spring thing is basketmaking. I got excellent garden shears and we're going out so I intend to get some willow twigs and make a basket or two. Haven't done it for years but I got an Urge. And, obviously, there's the element of irking people. Mom will say that it's useless, other will stare in awe because I'm doing something perceived as difficult while telling them that it's rather easy. (No, I'm not a particularly nice person.}

In other news, dad decided to teach me to drive so if you don't hear from me anymore, it went badly.

Nerdy fun

2011-04-22T02:09:00.000-07:00

I learned a new word: Epistemophile. Person who likes learning for the sake of learning.

When I mentioned it in front of my mother, she gave me the eye and said that she knows only one such and thank gods for that because otherwise life would be entirely unbearable.

And now excuse me, I need to go and enjoy the process of understanding organic chemistry.*

----------------------------
* Next time: Joys of being an editor. Part 2217

Increasing amounts of meh

2011-04-21T01:25:00.000-07:00

I guess that my life is so boring and pointless that there's nothing to write about.

The newly found cousin

2011-04-20T09:36:00.000-07:00

It's not news that my uncle is an arsehole of the cowardly sort. I still have in fresh memory how he threw his stepdaughter out. Because, after 20 years, he decided that she was a stranger and it's dangerous to have strangers at home because them strangers could steal something or such.

He acquired said stepdaughter when he ran away from his wife #1 to another gal who happened to have a child with her husband, who, obviously, wasn't my uncle. They both divorced, uncle wanted to adopt my cousin but her biological father wouldn't allow it, nothing happened for umpteen years until uncle found his current wife #3 who decided that strangers are a big no-no. One day, cousin returned home from the medical school, lock was changed, she rang the bell, uncle, whom she called father, opened, she went in, got slammed by the door and told to go away. Classy.

Now.... it was sorta known that uncle had a son with wife #1. There were various stories, often slightly contradictory, why they separated. My cousin, not the abovementioned one but her half-sister, daughter of idiot uncle and #2, my red-haired aunt, found said son and they're in lively contact, he shares my mother's sense of humor, is my uncle's spitting image and my mother's Evil Plan is to bring him and his family as a super special gift for my grandparents' diamond wedding. Newly found cousin agrees. I got a job, since I live closer than Agile Cousin, to go visit him, too, so that we're not a whole bunch of strangers at once.

If you lost track and don't know who is related to whom, I may contemplate making a graph. And yes, why, our family does have its bit of crazy.

Unbelievers' special: a proof that we do have a tree in our office

2011-03-30T07:26:00.000-07:00

It's some sort of acacia. My botanist friend brought two saplings, one failed to thrive and was thrown out or died or whut, this one gets trimmed every now and then or it might devour us.

It's not remembered who installed the plush snake. We're contemplating getting an apple.

Next: ginormous hibiscus in the other office.

On hardware

2011-03-27T09:29:00.001-07:00

My computer got too packed with movies, pictures and general clutter. I decluttered (there's various smart software that gets you rid of lots of something that you never miss later on) but still, the thingy was slow and such. I got an external harddisk. Tried it, had it on my table for that day when I'll move my files there and then it disappeared. I looked to all possible places and many impossible ones but it was just gone. I decided that the possibility of me placing the box with said harddisk on the paper bin and my mom taking the trash out was the reason of missing gadget.
I got another harddisk, moved my movies there, whined about that small but perceptible dent in my budget - I could have bought some yarn, spinning fibre, perfume, shoes, things... and went on with my life.
Today, I put a bag of roving on the piano and when I took it to put it to place, harddisk was under it. The cat is away so I blame the gnomes.

Also, my monitor is borked. Very borked. I consulted that special sort of borkedness with the internets, which say that the graphic card is dying, that it requires servicing and that it sucks. Sigh.

Om nom nom nom

2011-03-17T12:49:00.000-07:00

Prompted by the success of celery pie I baked on Pi day, and that bag of vegetables mysteriously appearing on the countertop yesterday morning, I decided that it's time to start cooking. That my mother's endless line of stews is sorta boring.

The mystery bag (as it was explained later, it contained stuff dad found in the company fridge and nobody claimed it) contained some two kilos of carrots and I thought about making carrot meringues. These require parmesan so I dropped to the cheese shop...

...and my subconscious proved to be ahead of matters again. Yesterday's dream was about a mushrooming trip and yours truly digging for truffles and finding none.

So, I was standing in the queue at the cheese deli with sleeve over my nose because by Gods, it stank there. I'm known for not being able to withstand some smells, I need my blue cheese enclosed within a sandwich to be able to eat it and the smell of garlic is a good method how to get rid of me for half a day - or how to make me throw up. And there it was, on the counter, making a face at me (as far as jars can make faces). Truffle honey. With real truffle floating in it.

I got my chunk of parmesan, some ooh, shiny goat cheese and said truffle honey. The rest of my shift, I'll be busy finding out what's that good for. Or maybe I should do some real work and use a spoon.

Random musings. Culture special

2011-03-17T02:28:00.000-07:00

I was randomly clicking on YouTube recommendations and came across this.

I only listen to youtube, this music theme is not particularly exciting or new or surprising but when I heard that clapping, I had a look.
And gasped. Because those guys rock. This type of dance looks like random stomping and waving legs around but my knees started to hurt when I was watching that. The steps are damn good workout for the thighs, too, and one needs to be damn good to make it look so relaxed and easy.

Yesterday, I was listening to the cultural gossip on the radio. Jose Cura is singing the lead in Pagliacci, I decided that it might be worth seeing and after the shift, I started the internetz. I had to give in my long-term ideal of getting the cheapest ticket (eight years of being a student does weird things to one's reasoning. I've become cheap. Very cheap) because there was only one. One. The last one. The theatre's website says not to lose hope, that many of the bookings have to be confirmed yet and that there actually might be some tickets available in April but I wouldn't bet on it. There are many opera freaks in this country.
Well, I got that ticket. It wasn't the cheapest one so bye bye, my food and entertainment budget for March.
I bragged about the ticket to parents. Dad made a blank face, mom said How will you get to some damn Podunk across the whole country?, to which I replied that most likely by train and bus, why. The obvious question was And why, by all gods and saints, you need to see some goddamn opera at all, and why you bother to spend three days by travelling there and back. Hey, mom, it's in August, in a nice area, I'll take a few days off, do some sightseeing and botanizing. Aaaand, I like teh culture and I'm not ashamed of it. Both parents threw a look of deep lack of understanding, shrugged and continued watching football.

In order to get back on the bandwagon with social life, I went to a lecture on Baroque sculptors. Was fun, should do it more often.

Adventure in white, and another in green

2011-03-15T07:39:00.000-07:00

I started making a white sweater some rather long time ago. This effort was stalled several times due to lack of yarn, whatever. And meantime, I decided that I needed a chunkier white sweater. Also, meantime I happened to miscalculate or guesstimate very badly and produced several sweaters that turned out to be too small so I cast on generously.

And then everything went wrong. I counted with those usual 14-ish skeins. At the stage pictured, the total was 18 skeins and there're sleeves to go. Obviously, most of the yarn lives in the other stash I'll be visiting only next Wednesday. And spring hit so I'll have a darn beautiful sweater for next winter.

The pic is taken in my mother's bedroom, if the purple picture-thingy were mine, it would take five minutes to take it to the trash.

Some time ago, my heart desired highlighter green yarn. I looked around, didn't find any and then I wandered to my LYS and there it was, a single orphan skein of Malabrigo Worsted in Apple green. M. had only one skein in stock and didn't plan on placing an order from Malabrigo because teh economy sucks; I grabbed that one, poked it around and then found a matching yarn.
Somehow, it's becoming customary that I'm ordering yarn for work in progress and it irks me, I'm telling you. Well, more apple green yarn is on its way from overseas. And I'm already pondering whether 4 skeins in total would be enough, because paired with the other yarn, it's meagre 1500 metres and that may not be enough for a thigh-long tunic.
Because, knitting from actual stash is so mainstream.

Random musings

2011-03-15T07:36:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, I had one of those very realistic dreams. One of those in technicolour, including noises, smells and cortisol dripping from my hair. I travelled to my friend Kristina to somewhere in Northern Japan. Said friend lives in Paris... just sayin'. Well, I had a paper with an exact itinerary so that I wouldn't have to interact with the natives. I ended up in Podunk where I was aiming but my cellphone finally fell apart and I couldn't text Kristina to come and pick me up. I sat on a railing pondering what to do, with a huge dilapidated football stadium towering behind me, and apparently I picked a spot where local youngsters liked to hang around. Well, there was no help but to interact, one nice girl lend me her celly so that I could call Kristina who brought me to her place. She needed to work the next day so she sent me to the wilderness of the downtown to buy a new celly.
From all that stranger-induced stress, I fainted and smashed my head on the edge of the curb, resulting in some neat stitching at the back of my head.
What is my subconscious telling me, damn fucking hell? I've long ago noticed that I'm a sociophobic chickenshit who tends to freak out in places that speak unknown languages. I know that my cellphone is old. I've noticed the news. Why can't I dream of something more entertaining? Or shall I finally go into screenwriting and make this into a Lychesque flick?

Speaking of Japan, we a bunch of Ravellers are organizing a charity auction (me being a really small part of that we). And maybe I should start buying more Noro yarns to help the economy to recover. Or I should finally kick my lazy ass to learn Japanese as I had already planned. (If nothing else, I could have escaped the Oooooh, panic in the news. Yeah, native idjits already plundered pharmacies of potassium iodide, because there's the radioactive end of the world coming. Apparently I have a good reason to hate people, at least sometimes.]

I still have no social life.

My workplace was moved to an office next door. Too much light there, the other inhabitant loves blazing lights, my dark den was much comfier. At least I put up a demotivational poster with a Land Rover covered by shrubbery and drowning in dirty water, with a caption New career in the army. My Procrustean chair and sometimes rather boring work feels much better when I look at said poster because my feet are nice and dry.

Spring is coming

2011-03-07T10:22:00.001-08:00

Well, sort of. The weather is seemingly beautiful, sunny and such, but it's cold as hell. So, there's a good chance that I finish my cool chunky soft white sweater in time to wear it.

I cleaned the closet, apparently, spring struck in this department, too.
It was quite a bit of adventure. I wouldn't guess I might have 20 pairs of jeans, of which 17 are too small for me, I found my old evening dress, size 38 - yes, people of the world, I did wear size 38. And smaller.
I threw out a dress I started making in my most anorexic times. I was 19 or 20, wanted to go to a party, started sewing this lovely yellow linen piece... bearing on mind that for sure I'm going to lose those five centimetres around the waist in those three months. I didn't go to the party after all and I never finished the dress, which was some 80cm in the hips. Apparently, carpet beetles like linen so the little barstuds gnawed some holes in it and I tossed it in the trash. Good riddance.

But... but....

My high school graduation dress. Well, I think so, I don't remember what I wore but I got it around that time. Size 38. Maybe I should give in and toss it but I can't, somehow.

Maybe I should hit the gym, after all, the Intelligent Magazine (TM) already announced that it's time to get into shape for the bikini season. Did I say that I've thrown out a few old swimsuits? I didn't wink, I don't like swimming anyway so I don't build emotional ties to swimsuits.

New adventures in yarn

2011-02-25T01:24:00.000-08:00

I've been knitting like mad lately. I decided that with my yarn acquiring folly, I might end up drowned in wool and that this year, I'm going to knit up more than what I acquire.
The month of January was a great fail, I got 103 skeins of yarn, of which I bought 87. Winter sale in my LYS, and a local wool mill discontinued their wonderful wool/'paca blend so I squirreled 38 balls from various sources because basic soft yarn is always handy. And, I knitted up around 30 skeins, I don't have the list with me.

February is continuing to be one big fail as well. At least I started a big fluffy sweater on 4mm needles which goes faster than knitting up sock and fingering yarn. Being decided to cull up my yarn acquiring activities, I found myself bored or tired at work so much that I'd spent some time now and then looking on yarn porn... which obviously leads to a slippery slope. I accumulated a heap of post-its with notes like Lovelyyarns-dot-com has Diakeito's Diamusee for only $5.20. I'd be a total sucker for Diakeito yarns if they only were sorta normally available.

Lately, I've fallen for wool/alpaca blends. And I've had a weak spot for Schoppel because I love their logo with winking cat. Yes, in a way, I'm a simple person. Very very simple person. I got their Natur Pur because it was white and generally nice and started knitting that white fluffy sweater.

See? I started with alternating Bouton d'Or's Ksar in sort of cream or pale camel colour, Silk Garden in 269, which is shades of white and some brown that was hacked away, and said Natur Pur. Then I threw in some lighter yarns which are even fluffier but, well, wool/alpaca blend which is even and cloudy is boring. Natur Pur contains some guard hair, few of them in black, and apparently I need yarn from which I can pick things. Noro has twigs, Natur Pur has tough wiry black hair. I got another six skeins in the continuing LYS sale, along with... quite some other yarn.

I'm doomed.
As soon as I get my mother out of the house, because she lacks the necessary sense of humour, and as soon as I get a halfway decent photographer (mental note, need to get the camera fixed someday), I'll take that iconic shot of a knitter in a tub full of yarn skeins.

Stay tuned. Since I've already opened that can of worms, I'll keep you, dear readers, updated on my health status and lousy feelings of incompetence.

Just ranting, bear with me.

2011-02-04T12:46:00.000-08:00

I'll be 32.
I've been depressed, on and off, since I was 14 or 15.

More than half a lifetime.

Well, there were the times off depression, off medication, I was thin (well, I'd have to dig out pictures, even then, I thought I was fat), I managed doing things, I travelled, I walked a lot and never felt too tired. For real, those were around three years between my 22 and 25 or such. And I sewed a lot and wore the clothes regardless of what my mother said. I didn't think much about her nagging or people looking odd at my hat with sunflowers.

I started a fashion blog. Well, not that it would be a fashion blog proper, it's rather making fun of fashion bloggers, showing that I wear rather a narrow range of clothes, all in the same style. However, I became a bit more aware of what I am wearing and how does it look because photographs are teh bitch. I also noticed increased spendings on clothing-related crap and urgent need to own more than four pairs of shoes, which probably has something to do with the fact that I discovered the existence of pretty shoes in size 42 and I want to catch up with years of blisters and shoes that don't fit. Or maybe another blog is just another useless idea and the Universe punishes me by draining my money away.

I have an urge to stop eating these days. Not eating is fun, one big adrenaline rush. Well, yeah, sometimes one may stumble or even fall because lack of blood glucose is teh bitch too... but. Now, I know I'm not rational, reasonable, sensible and such. I was anorexic and bits of my brain apparently never recovered. But, by objective measures, I'm fat anyway.

Next paycheck goes towards two bags of yarn, camera repair, bills... and for the rest, I'll get a special jar. Because, what's in bank, can be way too easily accessed through the visa card, while jar is safely in the bookshelf when I'm eyeing the cute crap in a store or on fleabay. Said jar will hold cash for the breast reduction surgery (yay scars) and meantime I can starve and work out myself thin. Or at least thinner.

Now, the rational bit of my mind tells me that this way of thinking is totally wrong, that I should stop worrying, that people like me even with those 25 kilos of fat (see, I'm realistic, in those days, ten years ago, I was around 70 and I disregard the fact that I wanted to be thinner, I wore size 38 and that is okay), that I should get therapy, that... that...

I just feel sad and lonely. It seems to me that I feel sad and lonely more often than people generally do but in fact, I don't know. Maybe all people feel incompetent and miserable all the time so I have nothing to worry about. The problem is that I'll never know, maybe everyone is pretending to be nice and jolly as I do. No, folks, I'm only pathetic.

In fact, I didn't feel that good those 10 years ago. At an exam, I just burst out crying that I'm totally stupid and useless and that I'm never ever going to achieve anything in my life. Now, I feel I was right. I'm not any smarter, I've done nothing too useful and achievements somehow fail to happen, too. I should've studied more. I should've studied at all.

Or maybe I'm not lonely at all. I do like being somewhere on my own, reading, knitting, doing nothing. Maybe it's only a dream never to be fulfilled, based on pulp novels, that people actually do have regular social life, maybe everyone just sits in the corner whining - who am I to know.

Sigh.

Hubris

2011-01-12T02:51:00.001-08:00

I was taking some pics for my fashion blog (1)because after quite a time, I was at home when there was still some daylight. After a long long time, I managed something worth the name of self-portrait because for two seconds, the sun shone and it just happened. I admit to quite some photoshopping, though. And if I had two more seconds of sun, I'd make another shot, with symmetrical hair. Which I'll do, some other day.

I admit to being slightly obsessed with my hair. All that peroxide, oil and expensive brushes get on one's brain sooner or later.

Since I'm dabbling into art, I was reminded of something else.

Enthroned goddess from Antikensammlung Berlin: Courtesy of Wikipedia Commons

One day, I'll add some better styling to such hair for more cool.
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(1a) should you want me to add some verbiage in English, ask for it in the comments there.
(1b) said blog is not very serious. Just sayin'.

Gah.

2011-01-11T02:08:00.000-08:00

I'm writing a history textbook and I'm editing another one so I'm happily immersed in various epochs finding out random interesting things. Too bad that I'm getting oxhide ingots, Standard of Ur, Piero della Francesca and John of Luxembourg mixed together into some sort of history pizza.

I have my little obsessions and quirks so just now I'm planning to insert something on Manuel Chrysoloras into the book I'm editoring and embellishing but the editor-in-chief doesn't know who this guy was so it might be a bit of challenge. I can be pushy, though, and I have a weak spot Early Renaissance and consequently, all things Florentine. Manuel Chrysoloras was invited by Coluccio Salutati, chancellor of Florence , to reside at Santa Maria degli Angeli (where the Arts Faculty of said university is now) (gah, I should finish my thesis, or, well, start the bulk of the work, for that matter) and to teach Greek, to anyone interested, I hear, and if I remember well, he was paid by the city council (gah, I should've bought the catalog of the Salutati exhibition that happened at Biblioteca di San Lorenzo a few years ago, now I'd know).
And this should be translated into Humanist Latin, incised in stone and used to hit the world leaders on their precious little heads because education is the bestest thing in the world. Well, along with knitting, indoor plumbing and sliced bread.

...

A friend works in a bookstore. BIG bookstore. She has an employee discount and an ability to search databases and stock of the actual stone stores for things. It has already proven useful when I found a rather obscure book that has been out of print for five years and she has it on her table now, waiting for the right time when we meet for a coffee.
Today I was browsing through Hartt, that big book on Italian Renaissance art where Frederick Hartt was one of the authors when said friend messaged me that today she had folks from Thames & Hudson there and that they'll be ordering books from them from time to time and that she can get them for bulk price. I eyed my well-worn beloved copy of Hartt, published by said Thames and Hudson, for which I had paid arm and leg a few years ago and just now I'm perusing their online catalog.
A thing struck me recently. There seems to be a general lack of books on Japanese art but for those damn woodprints. I care a damn about woodprints, I mean, they're pretty but there's moar. I must be doing something wrong because I doubt I'm the only person who speaks English but not Japanese but is interested in said matter.

I'd probably better be knitting.

Upon digging in the internetz, I discovered that part of what Leonard Woolley dug up in Ur ended up in Penn Museum and that there are actual books with coloured pictures of Sumerian (?) thingies. Darn, how am I supposed to write something sane about Mesopotamia when I can't get sane literature in this country? In the National Library, they have an issue of something like Acta Sumerologica. Published in Tokyo. Some of the Mesopotamian stuff is inherited in our culture, not theirs, but they do have some research and publications going on. Alright, someone gets a point for bringing said journal to the library but...

Erm, I need a new bookshelf anyway and I might get a book on Sumer, too. Just because. And the stuff is pretty.

Now I'm going to knit. For real.

Makila

2011-01-04T02:19:00.000-08:00

The other day, I was digging for something I don't know what exactly on Fleabay. I spotted a miniature of Jean Patou's Makila. I had never heard about that one so I used uncle Google to check, found only a link to Octavian's blog... and then the miniature sold for something like 130 euros.
I thought something about idiotic collectors and half forgot about it. Some time later, I just randomly checked for Makila... and got a big bottle, around one-third full, for something like 20 euros. I never made it a secret that I'm cheap.

Makila is green. Dry and green as it can get. It should be a jasmine fragrance but having sniffed living jasmine for too long, I'd say it's more like crushed leaves of one of the Rumex species plus some dry hay. (1)

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(1) Do you think that I've been living with too much nature?

New year

2011-01-02T09:13:00.000-08:00

Blah, blah, world peace, blah blah.

So, I'm done with the compulsory well-wishing stuff and I can go back to incoherent whines and ranting about self, self, self, only myself. Or, not really. I'm putting some nail polish on my nails, to be exact, it's Chanel's 207 Barcelona Red, which looks rather vermilliony when freshly applied and changes to the exact shade of drying blood. I have to find the Killer Rabbit Lips lipstick to make the perfectly styled picture. I started a lame attempt for a fashion blog, by the way, but I'm not sure whether it doesn't suck, by chance. (You see? I'm superficial.)

Which leads me to the important matters: I broke my camera. I dropped it on the floor and now it's injured and not cooperating fully. No flash, borked electronics, so I'm stuck to my heaviest, bestest and most expensive lens which can be dealt with entirely manually. Pics take longer to take, they're messed up easier but when they're done well, they're done perfectly well. Since I'm at the office from dawn till dusk, not much of a problem in this season, don't expect too much colourful a content. Since I'm broke, broke to that extent that I'm not sure how I'll pay the bills, it has to wait until someday.

I was dusting the books a few days ago. This place is indeed slightly messy so I wasn't too surprised that I found a package of sleeping meds behind the Finnish-English dictionary. Upon closer scrutiny, I discovered that it's not ambien but antidepressants, some generic from the same company as my generic zolpidem, same design, different name. Since I had forgotten my psych meds in Prague and had only a few days worth, I started changing to the constantly angry and emotionally unstable older self but now I have my drugs back so I can be normal again. Did I mention that I found a new psychiatrist? Well, I did. He seems to be reasonable and rather a nice person. The bad thing is that it's two hours commute but after past experiences, I don't want a local shrink. Half of them are on my blacklist anyway, I've had quite a bit of history regarding a mental mess. (1)

Also, Tähti, with her usual regal dignity, so typical for Siamese cats, wishes for more belly rubs in 2001.

---------------------------------
(1) Should someone not be properly informed, I've been suffering from depressions on and off since I was 15 and I'm a sociophobic chickenshit even longer. It does odd and irrational things to me, generally rational and ordinate (cum grano salis) person. I however don't run around killing people, nor do I wear my (or someone else's, for that matter) underpants on my head.

While vacuuming under my bed...

2010-12-22T04:45:00.001-08:00

... I found a dearly missed wristwarmer with several dust bunnies attached, seven packs of tissues, quite an amount of used tissues and a skein of yarn.

One thing is positive, the dust generator doesn't live under the bed. Gotta check the corners because I'm positive I can't be producing that much dust. Crumbs and sheddings, yes, but not dust.

Why, yes, I did some cleaning. It somehow happened that the floor was covered in yarn and shopping bags with things (and dust). Instead of cleaning reasonably, for example mopping the floor, I spent two days arranging yarn to future projects, ripping a failed sweater, skeining skeins and winding balls, washing that damn fluff that was chewed and drooled on by a friend's baby and such.

Christmas knitting is so much better than Christmas cleaning.

Laura

2010-12-21T01:05:00.000-08:00

I met her back in Florence and, well, she rocks. She looks good, she's smart, she knows Italian. Exact opposite of me.

The other day, she sent me a calendar with pics of Switzerland. I wanted a diary - did I hint that my Italian sucks? And that we use it as a lingua franca? - but I got this wall calendar. I browsed it and discovered that they have at least two sheep breeds in Switzerland. I didn't go to check my stash whether I actually have some Swiss yarn but I don't think so. This should be fixed someday later, after I make a bigger dent in my current stash.

Anyway, I made a scarf for Laura. I didn't have enough of that turquoise yarn so I made it into a design feature and added a less prominent colour that matched well. While casting off, I ran out of that yarn as well so I created another design feature and added some very contrasting yarn.

Laura can happily drool because I'm not mailing anything until January 3, when the Postal Doom of Giftmas should be over. I also have an urgent itch to knit something else for her. She's petite and such people are a heaven sent gift from heaven when it comes to knitting clothes for them...

....wanders off pondering

Yarn! Stuff to make yarn!

2010-12-20T10:19:00.000-08:00

Last week, I had some mail.
A fellow Raveller, after my rant along the lines of Look, I can spin, sent me a heap of roving in various materials to try. I was somewhat busy working (yeah, I do work sometimes) so I only petted the fibres, put them aside in the shelf and dabbled in my editor work.

And, Joanna mailed me some stuff she got on my behalf on fleabay and such places. As if my stash hasn't already been threating to ingest me. But, it's all pretty yarns.

(To those who know me better than cursorily: nope, candy pink is not my colour at all and nope, I don't have any specific plan for that yarn. Same for steel grey. But I have a crapton of yarn to knit while thinking.)

Soap

2010-12-11T10:14:00.000-08:00

I make things. (Obviously.)

Sometimes I myself wonder whether I'm so cheap, so crazy or so freaking creative, trying to find a reason why I bother. I suspect the real reasons are two: it is indeed cheaper to make things and... it's fun.

Ladies and gentlemen, let me present you my soap. Last week, I boiled some lye in bad oil to see how it works, threw the stinky thing away content that chemistry is the same as ever, took good oil and more lye and cooked it until yellow. Since I'm not much of an expert in technology, I just left the matter sit in the pot and it hardened. I should have added the fragrances and stuff before it would harden and pour it in a mold but I did not so I needed to use the other technology - soak, chop, knead, let dry.

Pot of soap, knife, board, perfumes, namely Eau du Calvados, Mahora with an addition of some myrtle cologne, Boucheron's Jaïpur in extrait and limited edition bottle, Santa Maria Novella's Cuoio di Spagna

After having finely chopped the crude soap, I added some hazelnut oil and divided the 'dough' in approximately equal bits.

I made little depressions in each of the soap balls and poured in a not-really-carefully measured amount of fragrance, now they look almost edible. Then I kneaded until even.

The soap bars with fingerprints of yours truly are now sitting on my fugly blue plastic carving board and drying - there will be some pictures later on. It is a gift for my mother and if she doesn't like it, she's getting itchy woolen socks for the rest of her life.

Swollen

2010-12-11T01:25:00.000-08:00

After a course of antibiotics, I noticed a slight improvement but I dare say that I don't feel exactly well. I get deadly tired after 15 minutes of walking instead of five and I get less fever spells.

I have an appointment with allergist/immunologist on Thursday and for the proper testing, I need to be weaned off the antihistamines. No allergy meds - snotty nose and swollen eyes and various itches and such. Yesterday I was at a friend's place and she has four cats. I have only one cat allergy but it got pretty bad. Now I'm in my house which is devoid of cats so I'm just plainly swollen and sneezy. I fished out the corticoid sprays and stuff and I'm trying to survive somehow. It sucks. And, bad allergy means an upcoming headache. It probably has some better reason than buildup of excessive snot that starts leaking into my brain but it feels exactly like that.

I have a new psychiatrist. So far, he seems to be rather cool so I hold hopes. We discussed my current mental and physical state (I feel like shit and I have a bit of fever, can't be entirely psychosomatic) and I got more antidepressants because but for the fever, it can be indeed depression and it's worth trying. So far, no results but I feel at least a bit optimistic.

Nothing much can help my face, though. Maybe I could try an ice pack. Snorgling a kitty, otherwise a universal cure for just about anything would certainly fail this time.

Hangover day

2010-11-25T07:34:00.000-08:00

... which says most.

A friend, whom I haven't seen for quite a time, had some business in this town and it ended earlier than expected so instead of a quick coffee downtown, she came to my place and there was some reasonable amount of revelry. Watching videos on Failblog, gossiping, the usual stuff that's more fun when not done alone. And moderate drinking.
I blame the young wine. I don't drink it since that incident with reserve Beaujolais, and, after all, it's a known fact that it gives headaches.

Friend stayed overnight, I saw her off, I dealt with the gas pipes maintenance guy, got the kettle boiling - the idea of coffee made me even sicker - to start the rehydration process and then I decided that I'm useless and sleepy.

I slept half of the day. It's one of the glories of working from home. The downside is that I need to do my daily allotment of stuff anyway.

I'm catching up with my writing and the remaining bottle of that headache-inducing stuff goes to some deserving enemy. Or undeserving friend.

Random observations

2010-11-23T15:46:00.000-08:00

Today I ventured out after four days. I'm doing things from home, which is wonderful because I don't need to go anywhere. Just with trash, from time to time, because it might stink. Which I did. I checked from inside that the weather looked very unpleasant... and indeed it was. Along with a lack of visual appeal, it was windy and rather cold.

I lost appetite. Next time when I'll go out, I'll buy some chocolate to see what that does. Midnight chocolate in bed is one of my most persevering vices. I don't miss it but maybe the brain decided that there's no point in craving for chocolate when there's none at home.

Spinning rocks.

I was rather grumpy all day long. Not that this would be any news. For some reason - either I was being narcissistic or I was looking for something - I was reading through my old blog posts and I found out that a year or so ago, I was the same grumpy pessimist planning a better future. Better future hasn't appeared yet.... upon which I thought to myself: And why should I expect that my life should be happy? In fact, how could I dare? Or, from another viewpoint, why should I bother to expect something above the very lousy baseline? Maybe life sucks as per definition.

More grump to follow, stay tuned.

Lousy day, but colourful

2010-11-18T07:09:00.000-08:00

I took various bland yarns and redyed them because, well, I have no use for pale ochre, pale baby blue, pale apricot and such.
The huge mainly blue thing is my pencil roving. I would love to spin a reasonable skein for an upcoming sweater because I need something in this colour and I have none such in my stash but I spin too slowly.
I dyed pieces of the same roving in different colours, one greyish handful and one bright green, and today I spun this:
13,5 metres, Navajo-plied because a colour gradation appeared and I wanted to preserve it. It took me two hours. Spinning for other use than having pretty little skeins doesn't work for me yet, apparently.

How I didn't get another cat

2010-11-17T07:06:00.000-08:00

I went to my GP for some damn paper. One of the glories of being ill with something unidentifiable is that one does lots of walking.
On my way back, I was crossing a road and I saw two policemen standing above what looked like a dead cat. They were on my way and I was all oh, poor kitty, so I went to have a look. Dead cat was still breathing and one of the police idjits was standing on its tail so that it wouldn't run away. I knelt down because, well, a scared and hurt kitty can always do with a bit of calm talk and stroking. The police had already called a veterinary ambulance, which arrived shortly, and meantime, they asked me what would I have done if I found said cat. "Sir, I'd stop this passing taxi and go to the closest vet," I answered and police idjits gave me a disbelieving and puzzled look. The vet arrived, asked whether I'm the owner, Nope, I said, asked the police who is the owner, Dunno, said they, and the vet remarked that if the cat isn't microchipped, he might need to put him down because nobody would pay for all that hassle.

There goes my food budget for a month, I decided, and I said that I'm taking over the responsibility, the bills and be it needed, the cat. I drove to the clinic with the vet, kitty needed to be sedated anyway so I was hanging around the waiting room. Meantime, I alarmed a friend who alarmed the internetz, and pondered how this might turn out. The cat was a castrated tom, blue, although too thin to be a British Shorthair, and not that furry as well, but anyway, it should be someone's cat and whoever that someone may be, they might miss their kitty, but if he's not chipped, someone else who is at hand needs to deal with matters. Also, the cat didn't look really badly injured, there was something obviously wrong with his front paw and he was bleeding from his mouth, but no bits and pieces were missing nor visibly damaged beyond repair, so I was going through my list of friends, relatives and random strangers who could be persuaded to care for a cat.
The owners appeared, though. The police idjits were loitering around the area and stopped for a smoke just in front of their house when the cat owners were coming home from somewhere. Cat owners asked what's up, police mentioned the cat, they went Oh shit, that's our cat, and were promptly dispatched to said clinic. I learned that the cat was indeed British Shorthair, who had been lost for a few weeks and had returned stick thin only a few days ago.

I happily accepted a drive home from them and left them my phone number to keep me informed, all the vet told us that the kitty's tongue was partly torn off, stitched back and hopefully, it would heal.

Alas, later in the afternoon, the lady called me that the kitty didn't make it.

I was devastated. Which felt odd, I fostered cats and had a few die and those were cats I had around for quite a time, whom I fed medicines and whose diarrhoea I cleaned, and their deaths touched me less than the of a cat I've stroked a few times when he was lounging on the garden fence and, well, when lying hurt in the curb. I spent the evening in solitary drinking.

I wonder, is it too insensitive to point the people at my friend who has four sweet British Shorthair kittens?

News

2010-11-17T05:59:00.001-08:00

(1) Internship rocks.
I went to the library yesterday and it felt good. I did my hair, put on a bit of jewellery and felt all proud. Well, for a while. When I arrived to the office where I supposed I'd be working the next six weeks, I was exhausted so I had hard time understanding and sorting out what Z., the sort-of-a-boss is telling me.
But, mainly, entering the stuff to the database can be done from home. No need to do my hair or to exert any physical effort. What a relief.
(2) Doc called. Mycoplasma confirmed, chlamydias confirmed. He consulted an antibiotics specialists because these two bastards are regularly treated with tetracyclins, whom I met last in around 1997 and I remember it very clearly because I spent five days with my head in the toilet bowl. Well, mostly my head, I had a diarrhoea as well. Or it can be macrolids that give me itchy hives. Antibiotics expert recommended something from the quinolone group and I did the studip thing to consult Wikipedia and learned that the side effects may include my tendons melting. The advantage is that I'll only need to take that stuff for ten days while both tetracyclins and macrolids need to be used for four to six weeks. Uh, that ciprofloxacin or what I'm getting must be a tough shit.
Yeah, and I still might be having toxo but the nurse forgot to write it down on the lab sheet so I'll have to go and get some blood drawn some other day.
(3) I dyed a heap of pencil roving and some random yarns, too. Looks good.

2010-11-13T08:51:00.000-08:00

Today has been one of those days. I woke up and wished I could spend some time in that half asleep state forever. Or at least until matters improve.
When I got up and regained my equilibrium, I wanted to be preferably dead although I would probably be okay if I could dig a burrow and stay there until matters improve.
Yesterday I got a decent dose of You're fat, ugly and lazy yesterday so I hoped that today, parents might shut up at least for a while. Obviously they didn't. Also, twice in two days I got a lecture on how I should dress more professional than I dress, which gets an extra dose of absurdity when I'm cleaning, wearing worn and not exactly clean stuff and when parents could have noticed ten years ago that the farthest I go in this garb is the trash bin.
I've never gone as far as cutting myself but I do something similar mentally. I've brought the art of self-abashing to professional levels. Sure I could get better clothes and something more professional than baggy jeans and baggy sweatshirts but I don't deserve anything better than slightly dirty, somewhat crumpled, misfitting and anything but flattering stuff. After all, I'm fat, ugly and lazy. And can't afford it anyway.

I need a shrink. That fever, fatigue and sore eyes might be toxo or mycoplasma. But the other sort of fatigue, being tired with life itself, that's depression indeed.

Dispatch from the waiting room

2010-11-10T05:31:00.000-08:00

After pondering a bit, I decided that although my fatigue might be aggravated depression, it is very unlikely that it would also cause swollen eyes or fever. So, at last, I went to my doc friend, who got a bucket of blood drawn to test for any random bug that may cause not very specific symptoms.

The tests got back and I was sorta positive for a few bugs. Today, I finally read through part of the mail backlog and found an invitation to experiment on humans - a bunch of researchers at the university is testing students for toxoplasmosis and doing various psychologic tests to find out how toxo correlates with cognitive function. And, I possibly have toxo. If it gets confirmed, I'm going to be put on antiprotozoans (or whatever the anti-toxo meds are) because my doc decided just to bomb the bugs and see what happens because tests or not, I'm miserable enough. I mailed the researcher back with this, maybe I'll enter the literature as a nice case study of cognitive whatever while being treated.

Meantime, I feel crappy.

New hobby

2010-11-09T09:26:00.001-08:00

I learned to spin, folks.
It was a lengthy process. Years ago, three or four it might be, I got a spindle and some fibre, tried it, it was no big deal, so I traded some of that fibre and kept the nice batts from Beau North Star Alpacas which Alpaca Granny graciously gave me.... and nothing happened for a few years.
Last weekend, I was rummaging around for some reason and found that bag of spindle and fibre. It wasn't actually lost, I knew perfectly well about it.. but this time it attracted my attention and I just gave it a try.

And I made yarn.

Apparently, things have their time. On Friday, I dropped at friend's town, we went for a walk and in the old town, when a car was passing us in a narrow street, we stopped by an art supply shop. I peeked in the window just because it was there and there were a few handfuls of coloured fibre with a tag saying something like Fibre for felting. I went in and found out that they had coloured fibre but also bags of natural grey, chocolate and cream. I got a bag of each.

And made more yarn.

Red emergency!

2010-11-03T00:12:00.000-07:00

The most noble goal of finishing some of my knitting is being fulfilled. Sort of. The other day, I finished and mailed off a pink leftover scarf for Sadako. When taking it from storage, I did notice a small hole, fixed it as best as I could and thought something about those mysterious bugs that get a gnaw or two of fibre without leaving excrements and that was it.

Three days ago, I decided that the time was very ripe for the mostly blue sweater. I got the yarn in around April, after a heat wave when it started to be cold, because I wanted something warm and cuddly. First problem was that I made the body way too narrow, some fifteen centimetres narrower than my chest. I decided that I'll rather lose ten kilos to make it neatly fitted, not disgustingly overstretched, which says more about my historical optimism than an actual statement of historical optimism. Second and major problem... well, I used the afterthought heel approach to the neck hole, I picked out the closing thread, got the live stitches on the needle and seriously cussed about a dropped stitch five rows after the cast-on. Upon closer inspection, I discovered that it wasn't a dropped stitch but that someone took a gnaw of my yarn... again. I cussed wildly, put the sweater on my mannequin and went to do something else.

Yesterday, I was spinning and found several gnawed-out holes in the centre of my alpaca batt. Bug is not relying solely on sheeps' wool, apparently. I grabbed the spray insecticide and used it liberally on whatever woolen I could find and then I continued to freak out. I might have a thousand skeins of yarn, in various odd places, for goddness' sake, and fabrics, good part of it is silk, and the collection of kimonos, generously soaked in moth balls, but who knows whether the crap it works. The only way how to get rid of bugs, apart from some highly poisonous and possibly illegal methods is to freeze the yarn, thaw it and to repeat the process a few times week after week because moth eggs are not killed by frost. In theory, I could wait a few months and spread my precious yarns in the garden but there are flaws. A few months. Also, my mother would kill me if she knew that i own much more yarn than she thinks. (x)
Tomorrow I need to plunder the drugstore for as potent pesticides as I can get. And cedarwood oil, which only repels them but it smells nice.

(1) I must've mentioned it somewhere. She thinks hobbies are a mental illness. Possibly with the exception of weeding, mowing the lawn and cussing weeds and lawn and whining about the lack of will on the part of other family members to mow or weed.

Chronicles of failure

2010-10-13T03:36:00.000-07:00

No, it's not my complete authorised autobiography. Just a piece of knitting.

I started a sweater in February. Big bulky sweater. It was winter, after all. I happily knitted and knitted and then I ran out of yarn. I saw it coming so I decided to save yarn by adding a bit of waist shaping, thus narrowing the garment at a certain point. Still I was worried that there might not be yarn enough so I located someone's skein of said yarn being offered for sale at a reasonable price. Meantime there was summer, other stuff to do than knit winter garments and a few days ago, I decided that I'd better get something done. I pulled the sweater out of the plastic bag where it was resting and because I wasn't absolutely sure about where the work stalled, I tried the half-sweater on. It felt oddly big, there was a big chunk missing in the front but I still could wrap it around like a cardigan. Then I started turning around in the mirror to find that the waist shaping is nice but in the area of my buttocks.

see the flare at the dress form's hips? That should have been the waist. Not pretty

I wanted to set up the whole thing on the dress form to see how it looks like with the newly added contrasting insert and although it's not finished yet, I was quite happy.

The sweater is friggin' big but most of it is already blocked so it shouldn't stretch anymore but for the front insert in green and yellow-green (that's why the front is crooked, blocked and unblocked bits of fabrics have met). It's only pinned together so that the edges of the fabric wouldn't roll apart. Also, it's heavily pinned on and around the mannequin. Further measuring showed that I made it way too wide. Maybe 15cm.

See? To make the sweater look halfway decent from the front, I had to fold the fabric over quite a bit. Admittedly, the mannequin is much smaller than me and I do it often but normally I only tuck the fabric in a bit, it's not folded twice.

Dear readers, the question you ask now, I believe, is: what the hell I was measuring. And what the hell I was thinking. Now, the answer is that I have no clue.

Shopping spree: random new stuff.

2010-10-06T10:05:00.000-07:00

Today's primary mission was to check perfumeries and drugstores to get a few handfuls of blotters. Checking autumn releases would be an inevitable side effect, though. So, my impressions, with no particular order (as the blotters come up):

Prairie's Life Threads, Ruby, Emerald and Sapphire: expensively and exquisitely boring.

L'Occitane's lavender cologne: Now that's interesting lavender, unlike another lavenders. And they have the essential oil. It's A. O. C. (1) and they had a little flyer with the picture and name of that lavender farmer but I forgot to take one.

Bleu de Chanel: erm, well.

Etro's Messe de Minuit: I can't still decide on this one. But I wanted to try Guerlain's Habit Rouge, which I did, and I had a blotter at hand while testing this one. And then I found out that Habit Rouge is exactly the piece of puzzle I miss in Messe. Should you please me, give me both at once.

Lalique's Encre Noire pour Elle: Encre Noire pour no-one was a hit and apparently someone decided that since it was already marketed to guys, it can't be claimed unisex so they made a ladies' version, which was specified as such. It's a waste of good alcohol, black glass and just about everything. Instead of a variation on that swampy vetiver (a friend of mine said once that wearing Encre Noire, he feels like a posh corpse. Yes, he's somewhat gothy type), it's an indefinable fruity watery something. I do bet that it sells well, that those ladies who are terribly scared that they may be perceived as weird for wearing men's scents, will be buying it and persuading themselves that it's almost like the good ole Encre Noire sans.

Guerlain's Habit Rouge: I love that one. But, the thing is that I was hanging around the store, sniffing the blotter, and an assistant asked if she may help me, I said Well, not really, I'm just checking what's new, she showed me something and I mentioned that I have this Habit Rouge here, isn't it prety, and she jumped up and said Ooooooops, madam! But it's for men!, to which I soothingly replied that indeed, and I'm well aware of it but that I like it quite a bit anyway. I got a look that said Warning, weird customer.

Gaultier's Le Mâle Terrible: fine with me. I've loved Le Mâle ever since it was launched and I'm still wearing it but it has a very strong chemical undertone which I do not mind at all but I don't always feel like wearing it. The terrible version is in fact much lighter, soapier, cleaner and without this chemical whatever-it-is so it would be an excellent complement. Now they need to make a version with extra cade and frankincense.

Lanvin's Marry me: Yawn.

Floris' White Rose: Here with it.

Masaki Matsushita's Fluo: I haven't smelled that much synthetic fruit since... since I had very non-organic hard candies that were free of natural colourants and flavourings. Not that bad as it may sound, in fact I wouldn't mind if I got this one for free, some days, I feel like I was 12. The bottle is horrid, though.

Masaki Matsushita's M;O°C: what the fuck this is for a name? Also, it smells of tap water and mint. Not that bad as the bottle might be hinting.

Masaki Matsushita's Aqua: Now that one is a pretty lemony scent. In a horrid bottle.

And at last, Estée Lauder's Sensuous Noir: for me, much better than the rather simple but nice Sensuous. The noir version (which lives in a blue bottle) is woodier and incensier (2). It would make a good trio with Habit Rouge and Messe de Minuit. Again, horrid bottle.

At the end, I discovered a discount corner and everything by Annayake was 70% off. It means that their cosmetics got to the rather expensive range, (the usual prices being damn fucking above the roof) and I got their Matsuri, of which I'll write some other day. No nail varnish today, after all, I have five bottles of turqouise nail paint already.

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(1) Appellation d'origine controlé (pardon my French). In other words, it's known where exactly it comes from, unlike Made in EU, just somewhere there, and it may well mean that somewhere in the EU, someone mixed lavender oils from who knows where.

(2) See? I made a word.

Wool pig

2010-10-02T03:45:00.000-07:00

The other day, namely Thursday, I dropped to my LYS (1). I needed some gadgets, striping yarn cheaper and possibly less wild than Noro and the owner is a friend so a chitchat is never out of question. I brought her some chocolate too.

She helped me to pick the yarn and I also asked whether she had cleaned up the leftovers closet because I love rummaging. She said Yes and lead me to the back room and showed me that I can pick anything from this - five or six huge crates full of random yarns, sorted vaguely by colour. I tried to be politely restrained but after a bit of urging, I grabbed everything that gave me an idea. Admittedly, sometimes the idea was only Ooh, shiny, but there's lots of ooh, shiny that would work well for baby stuff for my friend's girl and I quite like baby stuff because it goes fast and I can try new things. And, well, what sort of a knitter I would be if a ball of cashmere didn't make me to think what to make of it, coming up with at least five ideas.

Well, this.

Kindly overlook the dirty rug and random mess in my stash corner. One day I'll throw the rug away, promise. Also, note that now, the yarn is stored in a huge paper bag and soon it'll be processed to things. (2)

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(1) Local Yarn Store
(2) definition of soon may vary.

Random observations

2010-09-27T04:08:00.000-07:00

I have cold. That nasty cold that blocked my nose for the night and I couldn't really sleep. Weren't it for my mom who called at 1008 to ask how I am, I'd be probably dozing off until now.

I made it to the 1030 doc appointment, though. I can act fast when it's needed and if it's not for too long.

Doc said that her qualification ends at 20mg of citalopram and that if I need more, I need to see a psychiatrist. I shrugged, thinking something unhappy, while she started naming local shrinks. Since I'm having depressions and related fun since I was around 16, and since this is a small town, good part of them were on the blacklist, such as Dr. Whatever, who didn't have any better idea than telling my mother, without my approval or knowledge, although I was legally sane and of age. Or Dr. So-and-so who is just a generalized jerk. Dr. Whatshisname who gave me antipsychotics for sick stomach, I wonder whether this dearie goes fishing with dynamite.
The problem is that I'm smart. I might be a blonde with painted nails but that doesn't mean I'm a brainless Barbie, puh-leeze. To illustrate what happens: it was a psychologist but the story is too cute. She showed me the Rorschach test images and asked me to tell her what do they remind me of. Vertebra, another vertebra, lumbar vertebra, alien vertebra, vertebra with some soft tissues attached... erm, are you okay, doc? Doc muttered something about morbid thoughts and how bad it is. If she had asked Why vertebrae?, I'd answer Yanno, I'm learning to draw. Anatomical drawings. After anatomy atlas, volume I, bones.
And nope, I have no clue what's so morbid about vertebrae. Also, I have no clue why the psychoworkers don't even suspect that the clients might be thinking creatures.
I spread the word, I still hold hope that there are thinking shrinks somewhere out there in the world.

To add insult to injury, herpes started to grow on my lip.

A bit of shameless bragging: I made a good geometric sketch for a sweater knit entirely on bias. Now I need to try whether it works in real.

Life sucks, why?

Fashion tip of the day

2010-09-15T00:35:00.000-07:00

If you use long pins to hold your hair, it is extremely recommendable to pull further clothing items over your head very carefully. The resulting mess of hair, sweater and hair accessories is rather difficult to disentangle, especially if your arms are already in the sweater.

And I did use knitting needles, yes, why. I couldn't find anything handier without rummaging in the drawer. But I'm led to wonder where I could find pretty hairpins - maybe I could use the KnitPro Symfonie double point needles in coloured laminated wood?

Just... just...

2010-09-09T13:06:00.000-07:00

I acted totally studip today and also totally studip sociophobic chickenshit way. Not that the latter surprised me but in the circumstances, it almost made me cry.

I decided to do something productive and decided that taking the trash to the bins would be the thing. So I packed up that box of used nappies K. left here, bag of kitchen trash, another bag of plastic and a handful of milk cartons and while trying to get through the door without dropping any of these, I grabbed the keys, slammed the door at attempt three, went out and noticed that although I have keys, it's not the set with blue keyring with a red diode light, two big keys and a small one for the mailbox but just two big keys that however did vaguely look like the right ones. I turned around and went to try but vaguely looking right doesn't mean looking right.

I went to throw away the trash hoping for a miracle or something.

I live on the ground floor. After having the place burglarized and after my flatmate lost the cat through the window (story omitted but it makes my blood boil years after), I just don't keep the windows open when I'm not around, which may mean not in the room, depending on the momentary paranoia level. No, I don't have a yard where I could keep the spare keys in a birdhouse. No, I don't have a car parked around the corner with spare keys taped to the inside of the bumper. Since I went with the trash, I didn't take such useful things as my celly or some money. J. has the keys and should be somewhere around but I have no clue where, he was due to arrive yesterday evening but I haven't heard from him.

I sat on the stairs and pondered about the possibilities. The obvious one, ring the doorbel to any random neighbour and explain the situation via the intercom, asking them to let me in and to let me use their phone to call a locksmith was just impossible. Like, making-me-sick-to-think-of-it impossible. I decided to wait for something to happen because nothing can be worse than talking through the intercom to someone whom I barely know and who has hardly any idea who I am.

A while later a lady I rememered vaguely having seen before was arriving, she said Hello, are you waiting for someone? and then I said Yeah, well, I locked myself out... etc.

I called a locksmith, got the door opened, paid him what was to be my food budget for two weeks and decided that trash is not that bad house company after all.

Also, I am stupid.

Edited to add this cool graph that explains just about anything:
. I needed a bitter grin with my late morning coffee.

Movie archaeology

2010-08-31T03:32:00.000-07:00

While living on Ravelry, which means living among Americans mostly, I became a part of the beehive mentality of the bunch I socialize with. I started referencing to Star Trek which I might not have seen at all, for example. I felt it as a major flaw in my education, not the Star Trek per se but the general popcultural (with a shift to nerdy) framework of which I was aware but without deeper knowledge. In other words, my friends talked about things I didn't udnerstand and sometimes I felt bad about that.

The other day, Sadako probably got slightly annoyed with my method of obtaining movies and music, which consisted of asking her to do it for me and taught me the basics, namely where to find stuff and where to find subtitles if they don't come with stuff. Since she lives on various cinéphile forums, I use her as a reference in case I need to find out what the movie where Antonio Banderas plays a lover to some Persian prince or that one about the Danish guys who have Mifune's ghost in the basement.
To which there's a story. When I was around ten, the revolution came, no more censorship, lots of enthusiasm and some chaos. At around the same time, my parents got a new TV set that was stationed in their bedroom. Since I didn't want to watch news or whatever they were watching then, I hid in the bedroom and watched movies. Apparently, the program department poured in whatever hadn't been allowed because there was nudity, blood, anything possibly politically offensive, stuff from the ebil Capitalist countries... and I watched whatever I found interesting. That movie about some American anti-Commie headquarters, and how things got out of control, Americans nuked Moscow by mistake and to make things even, they also nuked their very own New York. Another hint, it was black and white. It conveyed the atmosphere very well and quel surprise, those whom our propaganda depicted as the worst scum evah were actual people with actual fears. I might be 11 or 12 so I wouldn't think of it as educational. Or Fellini's Dolce Vita, which I didn't really get until much later but it was pretty. Scores of classical westerns, they had been teh ebil American things so we wouldn't get much of them. For whatever reason, I remember McKenna's Gold. Someone in the programming department must have had a weak spot for Japanese movies, too, some were lovable - colourful, quirky and with buckets of blood to add to the colours. And obviously action movies of very various quality, I think I've seen dozens. Trash of all genres. Existential it-is-not-really-porn-it-is-art stuff. Something that could well be Russ Meyer but I'd have to check.

Around two years later, things settled and the programming department either got fired or burned down but all this stopped. I needed to wait five or six years until I became aware of cultural mags where I could read about that stuff. But, it was pre-internet era (2) so that was all I could do, along with a bit of hope that one day, it will be screened at the university cinema ran by the half-crazy people from Film Studies department.

Another dose of eclectic came when I started studying. I lived at the dorms, my roommates were irritating, to put it mildly, and the National Film Archive cinema was two blocks away. If I got a sandwich and a ticket, it was cheaper than an actual dinner and I could spend two hours in the theatre covered in burgundy plush and gilded stucco watching some more Hungarian psychological dramas or whatever it might have been. At that time, I started to take notes. Not really extensive but digging in my old diaries might at least help identifying that Mexican movie whose plot I didn't get at all but visually, it was a two hour orgasm.

Somewhere on the way, I developed a deep love for (a) sarcastic movies of any sort (b) visually strong stuff (c) films where every killed person has at least 15 litres of blood. (3)

Huh. Now when I've learned to download stuff, I can search for something from which I remember one scene that struck me. (4)

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(1) I'm old
(2) I've already mentioned that I'm old, haven't I.
(3) Think me cruel but after a day spent by creating another piece of academic obfuscation, nothing is as relaxing as a sarcastic and aesthetically pleasing bloodshed.
(4) I'd love to be bored someday. I keep failing.

Radio silence

2010-08-31T00:00:00.001-07:00

I'm writing my doctoral thesis, it goes slowly and it generally sucks. I'll be back later, stay tuned.

I sense a problem

2010-08-16T10:03:00.001-07:00

Sadako finally taught me how to download movies from teh internetz. I could think of a handful from the top of my head and then there're catalogs from film festivals where I'll be able to find out whatever I missed, would want to see again... I'm doomed.

In other news, another sign of apocalypse has been spotted. Coffee makes me nauseous. I drink impossible amounts of tea, then, and I hope it goes away somehow.

I stand corrected

2010-08-15T00:52:00.000-07:00

I'm no expert in mycology, until recently I had known only around 8 species by name. Those nicely coloured boletes were not two specimens of Boletus satanas but one Boletus calopus, inedible because awfully bitter (but oh so pretty. I know where they grow, I'll get a picture when the rains stop) a well slug-gnawed Boletus erythropus.
Which I found out by showing them to a botanist friend. I was also told that B. erythropus is hardly ever infected with insect larvae but that it's popular among slugs and forest mice. Also, it turns nicely blue when bruised or cut. Mental note: I should read something about the chemistry in mushrooms. I wonder whether the blue colour could be fixed somehow.

It's raining and I'm not going anywhere out until it's sunny. No more mushrooms for a few days, promise.

Too much time on my hands

2010-08-11T00:44:00.000-07:00

That's yesterday's batch. Without the non-edible ones I plan to use for dyeing. I'm going to get some more now.

Hunter and gatherer. More of a gatherer

2010-08-09T00:33:00.000-07:00

In the 1850's, Austrian parliament passed a law granting the right of passage, so what's not fenced is accessible. And it's also permitted to pick mushrooms, berries, herbs and other stuff, and dry sticks.
Not that gathering dry sticks would be a prevailing industry but mushrooming is a national sport and at around this time, various yummy things are rather easy to find.
To start with, I'm regularly going to the meadow behind the hotel to pick St. John's wort and tansy for dyeing, I've brought a bagful of lichens, for dyeing too, and some Matricaria... and well, mushrooms. It's warm and humid and they grow like mad.
L. had told me some time ago that she'd love to try this national sport so I invited her over. I know six edible species, umpteen poisonous ones and since it's a national sport, first graders are taught the most important thing: pick only what you know for sure. (1) L. has very overblown ideas about my knowledge, I'm able to name half of the plants in the curb but that's all. And, there're thousands of species of mushrooms growing in this general area (some are in the form of goo under rotting wood, admittedly) so if I know 20 at most... well. L. had a happy.
Mushrooms shouldn't be carried in plastic bags, they might start metabolizing themselves into something not-really-healthy (2); normal people use baskets. Since I'm not a regular mushroomer, I use a paper bag from Bravissimo lined with newspapers. Style, I don't have any.

(1) and also that although paris (Paris quadrifolia) berries look like blueberries, the whole plant is totally different and the berries are poisonous. There's lots of them growing in the nearby forest, gotta pick one for my herbary. Also, paris and blueberries are totally not similar; I wonder how many people would really think they're picking a blueberry... and whether it's not criminal stupidity.
(2) at which point I always wish I knew more chemistry
(3) old newspapers are one of the most important materials for an aspiring nature lover and gatherer of stuff. Used to press flowers, to dry stuff on... at the worst, you can even read them.

Scents of the Mediterranean

2010-08-01T13:26:00.000-07:00

I was invited to another joint blog project. Oddly enough, just now, I'm pretty far from the Mediterranean and it even smells different here so it might get a bit fuzzy.

When Ines reached me via Helg, the first thought was Eh, I wanted to make a perfume reflecting the stuff I smelled on my way to the library. Starting with two sorts of jasmine that grew in my street, and wisteria, cypresses, elder (might be the only elder shrub in Tuscany, though, growing in the curb there), cedars and dry grass.

I'm not absolutely positive that this is Jasminum sambac but this grows two blocks to the south from my Florentine abode. I'd often pluck a branch and wear it in my hair. It greatly complemented Une Fleur de Chanel and Shiseido's Vocalise.

Apart from my love for jasmine, growing on every other fence, there were magnolias, one under my windows (like, deep under, I lived on the fifth floor) and they mixed in an odd yet pleasing way with the smell of ozone and machine or whatever the railway smells of. Which brings me to the thought that I have yet to discover what are these 'technical' smells made off. I'm a sucker for gasoline, asphalt, wood paint and this sort of stuff and apparently, blending them with flowers might yield most interesting results.

At first, I thought that I could mention two myrrh fragrances I have, both of which happen to be Italian; to me, myrrh has an aspect of sea breeze. But I lived in Florence and, more importantly, I don't like sea. It's big and fish pee in it, I like to say, which sounds like a stupid joke but it points out the two things that put me off: it's too big to see what's in there and it may be pretty messy.
Nor are there orange blossoms, roses or what else. I have an orange tree in my office back north and where I was, oranges were a thing brought from Sicily. Roses... well, as far as I noticed, the local gardens and yards featured wisterias, jasmine, magnolias, mimosas, cammelias... roses not so much. After all, I lived in a city, not in some picturesque country villa. And outside the city, it was something for which I have an exact botanic term: ugly uninteresting undergrowth. ~~Speaking of ugly uninteresting undergrowth, it's not that ugly nor uninteresting in the light of my latest studies~~

Whatever point of view I take, my Florence, and thus my Italy is mostly the strange green smell of hot asphalt and jasmine. And the famous Florentine iris? Must've skipped me. I think Santa Maria Novella and I Profumi di Firenze both have an iris fragrance but I'm not that mad after iris, I got Cuoio di Spagna from the former and Cuoio di Russia from the latter. Not to remind me of the famous and Florentine leather manufacture, I just like leather fragrances, the harsher, the better. Oddly enough, real leather smells somewhat different anyway.

Aaaaand, wherever I go, it's very likely that I'll be accompanied by some hand-dyed yarn, which obviously smells of sheep and vinegar. A bit of my private universe, I guess...

This joint blog project was organized by Ines of All I am, a redhead. Check out the other participating blogs:
Scent Hive, A rose beyond the Thames, Illuminated Perfume Journal, Perfume in Progress, Katie Puckrik Smells, Ayala Smelly Blog, Notes from the Ledge, Olfactarama, Suzanne's Perfume Journal, The Non Blonde, Waft by Carol, Hortus Conclusus, Bonkers about perfume and
I Smell Therefore I am.

Lazy

2010-07-29T09:51:00.000-07:00

Apparently, I got used to not blogging.

Lo, behold and beware, then. I'm not-exactly-holidaying in the mountains. It's a combo of hiding from people in order to write my thesis and asthma treatment. I've settled in my hotel suite in this Podunk (tomorrow's quest is to go to the nearest ATM. 3km through the woods or 8 km on the road) and so far, I've procured a decent writing table and gathered an armful of St. John's wort for dyeing wool which is not exactly the sort of productivity I expected. Well, yeah, I've made around a bajillion of decants I've sent from the local post office (and ran out of cash to mail the rest, thus the trip tomorrow) but no really serious work was done.

Also, my usb ports ignore data storage media so there will be no pictures until sometime later. Only words.

To start with, we're buying the next door house. I prefer to call it chalet, it's one, after all. We being me and my father, whom the hotel belongs (1). Because, for some reason, the ski lift belongs to the hotel. The ski slope, on which it stands, belongs to the chalet and its five or six hectares of land. Apart from the actual slope, there are some woods and meadows uphill.
.
.
.
Have you noticed that I'm not overly enthused about academic career?
Have you noticed that I've got some inexplicable affinity to sheep? Well, not yet, I still need to write about my trip to England but say Yes to yourself and ignore the doubts.

So, obviously, I've been wandering around, planning the landscaping (my own garden, yay, and there's a spring and a swamp for swamp irises!) and the general style (village chic or some such. No 'folk' crap bought wholesale, homegrown mint for mojitos and teas and such), the bar (homemade crisps? not sure whether it's doable but certainly homemade cakes from whatever the garden yields) and... sheepies.

You're officially permitted to call me silly. Or even worse. No, I know nothing about sheep but that they are stupid and produce fibre. Recently, I've learned that they are loud and that they can run really fast. Yes, sheep in full gallop are something memorable. Meantime, I've found out that they are even stupider but docile (thus manageable, one hopes) and that they tend to get all parasites imaginable. But, squeeeee, my own fibre (2). And if it fails, the sheep can be made into kebabs and served to the hotel guests as a special attraction for the New Year's party or something. (3)

Now I need to cool down and wait until my enthusiasm is gone. But, hey, I could grow my own garden without my mother and her Prussian gardening style! Damn.

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(1) My family is not filthy rich, just mildly stainedly rich, that's it.
(2) I produced two hanks of handspun. Bulky and underspun, to be exact. One was in ghastly colours and I traded it for something I found more reasonable but the recipient glowed with glee, the other I still have. And, well, metre and half of superwash merino and Meezer blend. Still a way to go.
(3) Mental note: try on something less expensive than, say, California Variegated Mutant.

Ashmolean

2010-07-19T12:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we made a day trip to Oxford. Which was full of the !@#$% tourists and larger than tolerable amounts of Italian brats. After fighting the crowds for a while, we decided to seek refuge in the Ashmolean museum for a while.
Some five hours later, the custodians chased us out because they were closing. Then we sat in front of the museum building, mom was having her nicotine fix, and we decided that we need to go back because we hadn't seen the reliquary of Thomas Beckett, we never found that room with textiles again and the majolica collection would deserve a closer inspection.
I don't totally mind spending a day, two or ten in a museum, it seems to me that the average specimen of fellow citizen is usually much less enthused by endless cases of things of rather obscure nature while I'm running around and shouting See! Deruta! (that comes with lustre glazes) or That's Urbino there! (1) while that fellow citizen who accompanies me thinks something about maybe not actually benign fools. Ashmolean is an archeological museum plus somewhat eclectic collection so apparently, it entertained even my mother (albeit sometimes on the Oh, shiny level).

The detailed account of the journey including various interesting accidents, of my cold, of the conference and such will be given later. No worries, I can't deprive the world of the story how we... Just you wait.

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(1) I'm no expert on majolica, I've only spent a few uneventful afternoons, two, to be exact, in the municipal museum in Arezzo where they have humongous collection of them and I sometimes get it right.

In other news

2010-07-03T01:16:00.000-07:00

It appears that I have a ~~slightly~~ significantly disgusting microbial garden in my throat, Eustachian tubes and surrounding spaces.
It's my day 2 on antibiotics and they work, or at least the infected bits now don't hurt like hell, just in sort of discreet and tolerable way. No allergic reaction either.
I have no appetite and even if I had, I can swallow only liquids.
I'm exhausted so don't expect any cool blogging in the next few days.

World champion in bizarre

2010-06-30T01:44:00.000-07:00

I got a cold. Then I got a sunstroke. Now I have a sore throat, headache, I feel dizzy and generally wrong.
A. saved my life with aspirin and coffee beans in chocolate for the moment but walking around Vienna was no fun after a night in air-conditioned train with the AC not working.
I should get cards made, which say Personal Shopper. I brought a sheep-sized chunk of yarn to Viennese Ravellers and went to buy some cosmetics for fellow beauty freaks of North. Not to mention those 8 bottles of Chanel that contribute to my suitcase being heavy like hell.

Shopping spree

2010-06-23T05:06:00.000-07:00

I set off too late to get the yarn Anna and Kristin wanted, yarn store has a lunch break so I only went to Chanel's to get a bottle of Sycomore for someone. I ranted about my collection - the staff/customer ratio was around six to one - and stated my wishes for No. 46 reissue, and the guy at the till was all Oh I need to find some information about this one, I've never heard about it, you're a collector, ooh, aah, cool. I forgot to throw the blog url at him, though.
Another fellow perfumista wanted me to ask how much the Armani Privé stuff, those bottles with stones, cost, and whether they have miniatures, and that they'll have it cheaper online but I should still go and ask. Well, I hate the souk mentality and I'm busy enough to solve someone's mental problems but I went to have a look because it's a nice shop and I had a chance to, well, try stuff.
So:
Eau de Lutens: if I got it as a gift, I wouldn't mind but I don't need another bland neroli cologne, I already got Soleil du Capri.
Piguet's Baghari: goes to the wish list. Powdery leather, for times when paint-blistering leather wouldn't be the best option.
Fille en Aiguiles: see Eau de Lutens.
Chanel's Cuir de Russie: I have a bottle of extrait but I could indeed stand the big one.
Tom Ford's Japon Noir: Reminds me of one thing by Annick Goutal whose name I forgot, plus a touch of wood and roses and incense. I would love to have this one.
Fleurs du Orangier: see Fille en Aiguiles
Fleurs du Citronnier: see Fleurs du Orangier
Piguet's Bandit: not bad but I'm not sure I like that much galbanum.

I got a heavily discounted Feminité du Bois body milk, now I need only the 100ml eau de parfum and Eau Timide to have the complete line of everything. I got a sample of the Lutens' version so I see a comparative review in near future.

Dissertation

2010-06-19T04:22:00.000-07:00

Warning, the following post might contain ~~peanuts~~ runes.
Also, you might find it extremely boring, in that case, skip it and wait a few days until a rant on something else. I plan one on underwear.

I'm working of it. Sort of. I decided that if the whole thing is going to suck, I should at least have stunning appendices.
Shortly after I started bringing this idea, which, as an idea, is rather okay, I realized the depths of my blunder.
One of the documents I'm working with is the testament of King Magnus and Queen Blanche of Sweden, given the 1st of May of 1346 in Lodöse.

Excursus
Modern Swedish somewhat reminds a casual observer of modern German. In fact, the who knows one language can read the other and get the point. It was at the times of Hanseatic League that carried nearly all the trade around the Baltic Sea (and elsewhere), when the Swedes improved their vocabulary by adopting many German words (Low German, in fact, but don't ask me pretty please on the historical development of German, thankyouverymuch). Specific vocabulary related to trade but lots of others. Anything with the prefix för- is of German origin, for example. My knowledge of German is very superficial, acquired mainly while changing trains at the now torn down South Station in Vienna and those eight years of German at schools I refuse to count because my brain refused to have anything to do with the cunning forms of torture German language teachers are so fond of. But still, knowing at least some German helps indeed.
And, in 1346, German-derived words were not in fashion yet.

Obviously, it's written in language over 650 years old and considerably changed. I had a course on historical development of Swedish which I sometimes attended and didn't sleep through it and I've read about things which shows to be an advantage. So 'iorþrike' can be easily understood as jordiska riket, earthly kingdom (after all, it's a testament of a king), but what the freaking hell is 'harþlicæ plictugher'? Swedish dropped declination and conjugation so the latter would be most likely related to today's plikt, duty, but still. I'd rather be playing with jigsaw puzzles or knitting Estonian lace.

Or I could have remained stupid.

Asphalt and jasmine night

2010-06-14T23:36:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I went to the grocery to get some mosquitocide and more vegetables and mozarella - I'm getting one of the cheaper ones and it's heavenly. There are things I love about Italy.
I passed around a freshly repaired piece of sidewalk and to my surprise, the asphalt smelled not like burnt rubber, as I would most likely expect but rather green.
I came back with six kilos of vegetables, installed the insecticide in the socket and while messing around, I took up the dried twig of jasmine and smelled it. Asphalt.

There's lots of jasmine around, it seems that it's easy to grow and in the evenings, the wind brings the smell. Not asphalt, though.

Escale aux Marquises (or, not really)

2010-06-13T11:58:00.001-07:00

Let me start elsewhere.

I know that it's a stylistic approach I use so often that it may qualify either as being boring or as abuse. But this story indeed starts elsewhere.

I went to buy some stuff. Namely a tunic of fine white linen. This is a clothing item that probably exists only in my wild dreams because all that would have the right shape was made of slippery polyester satin, weird indefinable stuff that scratched from ten metres afar... and if it was the right material, it wasn't a white tunic but a shirt embroidered in faux mother of pearl. At the end, I wandered to a department store, got something in turquoise polyester (1) (I almost got a matching bra. Almost because I'm fat but that's yet another story).
The department store has a perfume and cosmetics department so I leered around in case there was something I had missed and I spotted Cristal Boreal on display.

The jewel that contains a lip gloss of marginal colour. Last year's limited edition. I wanted to get it but I forgot and on fleabay it sells for around $200. The shop assistant noticed me loitering, asked Can I help you, I said yes, I want this... and there it was. For 71 euros. Apparently, the shop assistant was glad to have sold old crap because I got a generous handful of freebies. Miniature coral red lipstick, for example, and I have an urge to actually wear it (my usual colours being gold and silver....) and some samples, including the Escale aux Marquises.

I actually tried that even in the store and I'm somewhat underimpressed. I'm not much of a citrus person and this one smells so strongly of lemon peel that it makes my eyes water. There's some petitgrain, a hint of myrrh and after a few hours, the adstringent quality wanes and the fragrance gets rather resinous. I didn't find tiaré in the composition, I'm easily overwhelmed by citruses (2).

I like the Cruise Collection as an idea. Alas, Escale à Portofino gets stinky on me and Escale à Pondichéry is nice but with no staying power - on the contrary from the citrus couple. If the Diors make a myrrh cologne next year, I'll be standing in the line. Now, should anyone want my sample, write a blurb in the comments, and excuse me for now, I have to adore my lip balm in a shiny box.

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(1) I should have gotten a tube of sunscreen, SPF 50, tan and turquoise do not mix well unless I would want to look as a beach volley instructor. Which isn't a way to go, trust me.
(2) Thinking of it, there are two prominently citrusy fragrances that I like: Nina Ricci's Bigarade, velvety bitter composition with so much petitgrain that in theory I shouldn't survive it and Montale's cold and distant Soleil du Capri. Cologne has to be myrrh and more myrrh to me. Green tea would be fine, too but I haven't met a fragrance that would have a decent staying power on me.

Route Mandarine

2010-06-12T01:59:00.000-07:00

My concentration spam is larger than that of a kitten but not by much. Which means that the rather fabulous samples I got months ago at Fragranze fair are not all reviewed.
Route Mandarine is a soft oriental, somewhat similar to the discontinued Opium d'Été. I mean, it is similar in concept and well, there's cinnamon, muguet and vanilla. Ylang-ylang in the top notes is very prominent and combined with cinnamon and muguet, it gets a mellifluous quality. Mellifluous is not a random nice word, after only a few minutes the fragrance turns to honey soli-... something. (1) Or honey with a dash of that Tesco smothie that made me sick the other day, it was mango and something (2) and there's a touch of a fruity zing in the scent. The citruses do not demonstrate as citrusy in a lemon cologne, there is a bit of bitter petitgrain that reminds me, as petitgrain does, of uncleaned litterbox from five metres afar. Orange is that touch of unripe strawberries - I should get some education, maybe these contain the same thing.
And... the fragrance works best in hot weather. Just now I'm sitting in my Florence place, sweating profusely, and the fragrance that had appeared not really bad but not entirely excellent got much better in heat, getting somewhat close to Asja.

Erm... I've been struggling with this review for more than a month. I've ran out of the generous sample so just a brief summary: this is a lovely oriental and it goes to my wishlist. Enough said.

(1) Soliflor means single flower. Similarly, and excuse my dog Latin, soliradix would be a single root, a vetiver thing, for example, and soliherba would be anything made of the parts above ground of a plant, a green cologne. The more knowledgeable among us can play this to infinity and beyond but thinking of it, I wouldn't venture into the territory of anal glands.
(2) The reason for my sick was not Tesco but the idiotic idea of drinking fruit juice in the morning when every cell of my body calls for triple dose of caffeine and stomach lining is still deeply asleep.

Top notes: Egyptian geranium, Florida orange, bergamot, Italian mandarin, clove, Ivory Coast citron, cinnamon and ylang ylang.
Heart notes: Patchouli, Bulgarian rose, muguet, Egyptian jasmine, orange blossom, Indian sandalwood and Haitian vetiver.
Base notes: White musk, vanilla, amber, Spanish labdanum, Indian ince.

Under the cupola

2010-06-11T13:23:00.000-07:00

I took Vindobona (1) to Villach.
For some reason, it wasn't Orient Express or some such that would invoke the proper train travel romantic and call of the distance for me, it was Vindobona. It didn't go through my back of the woods so I only started using it while going from Prague to Bratislava twice a week (2). Vindobona was a Roman camp where today the centre of Vienna is located, in the province of Pannonia, after which a train to Budapest and further is named. clearly remember that I used to take Pannonia train at a certain point of my life and I think it went from Berlin or Hamburg to Bucurest via Prague, Bratislava and Budapest but I checked only to see that things are different.

There's even a list of named trains! Not exhaustive in any way so when I set up an account on wikipedia and find a time to play with timetables.... well, anyway, hail to Wikipedia, source of all (albeit not always right) knowledge.

I hate when things get different and woe be upon those who decided to tear down the Südbahnhof station in Vienna. Woe upon me, too, for years I decided that one day, when I will be without tons of baggage, I'll take some pics of the station hall, with those Escher-esque moving ramps. I will sadly miss Ein Augenblick Zeit, the two big blinking eyes that made a weird sound from time to time, the linked article says that the exhibit was moved to Karlsruhe... where the fucking hell is Karlsruhe and why should I bother to go to some goddamn modern art gallery when I hate them as a concept?
I never managed to take my pics and now, from the passing train I saw a huge triangle of... nothing. I had heard some things about the railway mix-up and that Südbahnhof was torn down but I thought it a misinterpretation, exaggeration or some such. Nope. I think I should start photographing railway stations stat! because I see that many of them across the whole Europe are getting uglified - they call it modernized in the newspeak, leading to, among others, hard job of finding the trains there. And the rails are so neatly welded that you don't hear the proper rhythm of a train going:

At Villach I changed for a sleeper. I remember reading about wagon-lits in a detective story when I was maybe six and that was cool thing, romantic and practicalat once. This time, I had a bed proper, for the second time in my life (3), because for some strange railway reasons, it was cheaper than couchette. Alas, I had only 6 hours and 12 minutes to enjoy, of which I was mostly sleeping (badly).

Well, in the morning I landed in Florence, found out that the bus stations are reorganized again (have I already stated my general attitude to rebuilding things?) and since then, I'm sweating and wondering how to survive and work.

No, I never had a model railway.
And, some Victorian porn for entertainment value:

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(1) EC 172/173 going from Villach Hauptbahnhof to Hamburg Altona and back.
(2) I would love to have a simple, plain and somewhat boring life. Sure, it would mean that my brain would have imploded long time ago but sometimes not being is a welcoming option, like just now when I feel that I may boil alive.
(3) The previous time... well, that would be entirely different story. Next time, maybe.

Out in the wild

2010-06-11T00:15:00.000-07:00

I spent five days at the field trip of Department of Botany.
It was immense fun, the natural science people are more user-friendly, there was no intellectual snobbery or arrogance from the teachers. Lots of crazy, though, but in a nice way.

I'm quite low maintenance (1) so I grabbed the laptop, some reading matter, reasonable amount of clean underwear... and that was it, moreless. Yeah, and chocolate, lots, because the school canteen is what it is. I thought there would be wifi, after all, it's the university, but nope - thus the radio silence and a general lack of online coverage.

It rained. A lot.
My decision that one set of clothes is just about fine because it's a camp, not a hotel, and at the end, everything will be wet and dirty, was perfect. I was dirty and wet but so was everyone.
Also, for messing around in the forest, an umbrella is the best option. You can make notes without your notebook getting wet and it can be used to fend off dinosaurs and evil tree branches. It doesn't look like the true-to-the-bone outdoor gear but botanizing is not a fashion show (some ladies apparently thought it but the hypothesis that wolves might prefer to dine on people sans makeup was not verified due to general lack of wolves).
I wore birks. (2) And jeans, tank top and a merino/qiviut blend sweater. Not a real city chic but in general, I was heavily overdressed. Also, I lacked umpteen insulation layers compared to the rest of the crowd but it was moderately warm, very humid... and, well, in one day, I had Reputation. Blue paint on the toenails helped quite a bit, I suspect. In continued rains, I walked barefoot around the camp and also out in the wild as long as the terrain permitted. I wasn't asked whether I drink anti-freeze but apparently people guessed so.

There's one important thing: I was in average ten years older than the... kids. I knew some Latin, I had wrinkles and half of a Ph. D. and apparently it made me even crazier because at a certain age, one should be done with that booooring school. Also, my cabin mate, aged whopping 20, was totally flabbergasted that I don't have kids (3) and don't intend to have any. WHat surprised me is that she planned to get some asap, and that she believed in homeopathy, for which karma got her on the spot, she turned down the offers of ibuprofene for her menstrual pains because she doesn't eat chemicals and she has some ~~extremely diluted dinosaur shit~~ homeopathic remedies for that.
People-watching is a good hobby.

I brought lots of stuff to inspect and I wanted to keep the moss specimens nicely at one place, without changing them into a handful of indefinable debris. Since I was somehow underprepared in the field of packaging material, I MacGuyvered a box out of a chocolate wrapper (4) which gained me a bit of awe... what the kids do nowadays at school when they are bored, I wonder?
The mosses are now firmly planted in my garden because... because they are pretty and I have a yard to stick plants in.

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(1) before you start chiming in about my collection of anti-wrinkle creams and nail paints, rest assured that I can live without. Perfumes are a collection in the narrow sense of the word, they are for artistic appreciation much more than for keeping me trimmed. And now go on reading to get the real point
(2) minuscule b since I'm not referring to the brand name but to a certain sort of orthopedic footwear, which in my case were Schoeller thongs.
(3) and the whole package including husband, ex-husband, mortgage, debts... but that's what my old crone brain adds.
(4) Lindt with pears and almonds,although the pears are made from apples and stuff. I love it and it was on sale and I care a damn about folks claiming that Lindt and Sprüngli is bad chocolate.