A Postcard from Undina

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Not a Bucket List Trip

This post is a travelog with minimum perfume-related content.

Do you have a bucket list? I don’t. And even if I did create one, a farmhouse stay probably wouldn’t have made the cut. But now, after experiencing it firsthand, I can confidently say that I’ve crossed it off my non-existent bucket list.

When we were planning our anniversary trip, we had a few criteria in mind: it had to be a car trip within a 4-hour limit, not another designated wine country excursion (we already do those 4-5 times a year), and a destination with moderate temperatures. Point Reyes, California, seemed like a promising option. After thorough research on Expedia and Airbnb, we decided to step out of our comfort zone and rented a farmhouse on a working cattle range in Nicasio, CA.

Day 1

SOTD: Jo Malone English Pear & Freesia.

Midday midweek traffic made our journey to Point Reyes a breeze. Since we arrived early for check-in, we decided to explore some renowned local cheese places.

Our first stop was Nicasio Valey Cheese Company conveniently located just off the main road. It’s a charming, tiny store with a window that offers a glimpse into their cheese-making process. They have an assortment of cheeses, crackers, jams, and chocolates. We couldn’t resist and ended up purchasing two cheeses.

Next, we ventured to Marin French Cheese Co., a larger store offering not only cheese and related products but also gifts and a cafe serving lunch. What captivated us the most was their picnic area. That was probably one of the rare cases when the photo looks almost more picturesque than what one’s eyes could register. After a brief introduction to their cheese varieties, we sampled four flavors (I don’t know who thinks that jalapeno is a good additive to brie), bought four (but not the weird ones) and took numerous photos of the grounds, promising ourselves to come back one day with a picnic.

Marin French Cheese Co Picnic Area

I know and like cheese from Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Co., so I was curious to visit their home place. But had I known the road in advance, I would have probably skipped it. The narrow, unpaved path with blind spots made passing other cars a nerve-wracking experience. Nevertheless, we persevered and were rewarded with a “self-serve” tasting station at their shop.  We bought two – one familiar and well-loved, and the other a recent addition to their lineup.

Our final stop for the day was Point Reyes Vineyards winery. Having visited before, we didn’t have high expectations for their wines… and the place didn’t fail to live up to them. While their wines are plainly not good, they have two redeeming qualities: their well-kept sitting area and … the scarcity of activities in the area. All-in-all, we enjoyed a tasting with our own supply of cheese and bread.

The farmhouse we rented was located a 5-minutes drive down a windy gravel road, “tucked beneath the rolling hills” (from the listing). It was spacious, clean (as much as can be achieved with a non-IKEA-standard “sanitized” furnishing setup based on the real people’s house) and quite unique. On our way, we encountered cows and chickens, and upon arrival, we were delighted to receive fresh eggs and farm-produced meat (we ordered in advance). We hoped the cows and chickens were oblivious to our culinary plans.

View from the Porch

Day 2

SOTD: Lancome Climat

Given the limited activities in the area, our day mainly revolved around indulging in local cuisine rather than exploring the outdoors through hiking or biking, which isn’t our forte.

Morning breakfast with the local eggs and cheese sustained us through the walk in the Point Rayes Station “downtown.” This town hadn’t been too flourishing for as long as I remember it, but it seems that Covid has almost killed it. It’s the same small provincial town it was but now without tourists.

Other food stops this day included a couple of (square) slices of pizza at an outdoor pizzeria (better than could be expected), oysters (for my vSO) and crab claws (for me) at a roadside restaurant (both dishes were perfect) and the local meadery (though once we got there, I decided their tasting was too expensive for what they offer, so we skipped it this time). We concluded the day with a celebratory dinner at the farmhouse, showcasing our culinary skills.

Day 3

SOTD: Ormonde Jayne Ta’if Elixir

As our short two-night stay came to an end, on our way back, we decided that wine country wasn’t such a bad idea after all and visited two of our favorite wineries, Paradise Ridge and Sunce. Everything cooperated that day – exceptional wine, friendly stuff and beautiful weather. It was the perfect conclusion to a memorable trip. And when we got home, Rusty was happy to see us.

Rusty on a Chair

 

Images: my own

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Twelve Years But Not Full Circle

Undina’s Looking Glass is twelve. I missed it by a couple of days – not because I forgot, and not even because I didn’t know what I wanted to write about, but I wasn’t organized well to do it in advance, and when the day came, there were some less pleasant but more important things to take care of. But since I still love holidays, birthdays and anniversaries, I knew I didn’t want to skip it.

Twelve years is a long term for almost anything in our lives: people get an education, move houses, open and close/sell businesses, change cars, jobs and even partners/spouses, get and lose furry friends and go through many other less significant life events in that period. So, keeping a perfume blog for 12 years is worth celebrating, don’t you think?

When I started this blog in 2011, I didn’t expect to get “free-range” readers. My initial intent was to have it as a sort of a visiting card for when I was commenting on other blogs’ posts – so that those blogs’ owners would know who I was and could return a visit if they felt like it. I love being a part of a community (and belonged to several great ones in my life, both real and virtual), and I thought that having a blog was the justify way of participating in Perfumeland’s community. MUA, Fragrantica or Basenotes felt too large and not personal enough (and the same I felt later about FB groups). But blogs felt just right.

Undina's Looking Glass Blog Header

Back then, a HUGE number of perfume blogs were active. I followed many of them, became virtual friends with some bloggers (and even met with several), and somehow managed to read dozens of posts every week. Many blogs had “blogrolls” as a part of the layout: one of the two prevailing platforms, Blogpost, provided it “out of the box,” listing all other blogs that one followed; and WordPress allowed adding those manually via the Links collection. So, many bloggers were building those cross-reference lists. My approach was slightly different: I put in my “Reading List” only those blogs that I followed and whose posts I always read.

In these 12 years, some blogs have gone silent, many disappeared altogether, and a much smaller number of new blogs appeared.

Only 12 blogs are left on my current “Reading List,” and even those are not all really active (but I still have hope they will stick around for a while longer). I also know of a few other blogs that still publish, but I didn’t find common ground with those, and since we do not communicate, I turned them off in my list.

Out of all the blogs that I used to follow and read, the 12 I miss the most (those that are still online are linked):

When I was thinking about this post a month ago, I planned to put Australian Perfume Junkies as my #1 blog that I miss: even though Portia is now one of the regular guest writers on my blog and Perfume Posse, I miss coming to the APJ for the weekly report on perfumes worn, food eaten and friends met. But I might be putting it back on my Reading List instead! If you missed it, Portia and Old Herbaceous of Serenity Now Scents and Sensibilities are running some interesting collaboration that involves both blogs. It makes me happy.

But now to my list of 12.

Olfactoria’s Travels is one of the first blogs I read (the NST doesn’t count because I was reading it before I even knew what blogs were or realized that people commented on those posts). Birgit’s reviews were very elegant and composed. And it was her blog where our Saturday Question (back then, Monday Question) series started.

Olfactoria's Travels Header

A Bottled Rose was created by Tara, who started as a guest writer on the Olfactoria’s Travels blog (and once posted on ULG). Most of you are probably familiar with her soft and thoughtful review style. Her blog became home to Portia (once the APJ went on hiatus) and Val, the Cookie Queen. Tara hasn’t officially announced the blog closure, but it has been getting “quieter” for the last couple of years, so it looks like she’s done (but one can hope, right?).

A Bottled Rose Blog Header

At least for a while, we were friends with Natalie from Another Perfume Blog. She posted not only perfume reviews but also perfume and fashion news and fiction stories. A couple of times, she participated in the blind-test games for my Déjà vu series (Episodes 2 & 4). She moved, moved on, and deleted her blog.

Another Perfume Blog Header

Suzanne’s Perfume Journal was an unusual blog. While Suzanne was highly social and outgoing and had many friends in the Blogosphere, her blog ran on a platform that didn’t support either comments or automated comments subscriptions. She manually added people who wanted to know about new posts to the distribution list. Suzanne wrote wonderful perfume stories and amazingly supportive and thoughtful comments on other people’s blogs. She passed away way too early. Unfortunately, her site isn’t available directly. But you can still get to her stories using the Web Archive’s copy.

Suzanne's Perfume Journal Blog Header

I met Asali, the author of The Sounds of Scent, when she was a guest writer on another wonderful blog, All I Am – a Redhead (it’s still on my Reading List, and Ines is still around, but it’s one of the blogs that isn’t updated as regularly as I’d like it to). Asali’s blog, now moved under the “Private” lock, was unique because it connected her two passions – perfumes and music. She is the author of the picture that I use as my blog’s header. Asali is still present on Instagram, where you can catch from time to time her artistic perfume flatlays and photos of her beautiful black cat Vega.

Lavanya of the Purple Paper Planes is still around, but those who didn’t know her back when she was active on her blog might now be more familiar with her subscription service Boxwalla. I completely understand that running a small business should take up all the creative resources she might have. But I miss her in the perfume Blogosphere.

Purple Paper Planes Blog Header

Beauty on the Outside was another “one of the first” blog that I started commenting on back in the day. Dee was active for a while, and some of her reviews were quite unusual (if you’re curious, read this Amouage Opus VI review. Then she went silent and came back, got silent again, and tried to come back again.

Beauty on the Outside Blog Header

Victoria from EauMG was the one who ran her blog almost as a professional magazine: she published formal reviews, had a beauty series where she recreated makeup looks, and even tried to make some YouTube videos (probably a little earlier than it became “a thing”). She stopped posting on her blog, but you can still find her on Instagram.

EauMG Blog Header

My taste didn’t coincide with the taste of Christos (Memory of Scent), but it was interesting to read his take on perfumes I knew. I stopped following him closely once he started writing for the Fragrance Daily (I’m not sure what happened to that community: now it is just an online perfume shop). And then he stopped writing.

Memory of Scent Blog Header

I felt that with Mals86 of Muse in Wooden Shoes, our background, lifestyle and almost every other aspect of life were very different; we didn’t “click,” but I liked reading stories about life and her kids that she shared in her perfume diaries. And she’s probably the only other perfumista who I know who liked Climat by Lancôme, my first and everlasting perfume love. Her blog is no longer available, but I still see her in NST’s SOTD threads from time to time (though I haven’t followed those for a while).

Muse In Wooden Shoes Blog Header

Gaia, The Non-Blonde, was probably the only blog I kept following (and even commenting on from time to time) despite her disregarding half of all comments readers left on her posts and rarely participating in conversations on others’ blogs. But she was one of the “founding members” of the perfume Blogosphere, so she was an exception to my mental rule not to engage with those who didn’t want to engage with me. Besides, she loved and shared her life with a lot of cats. Her unexpected passing (from an undiagnosed heart condition) made a big impression on me, and I pay more attention to my health than I would have without that awful life lesson.

The Non-Blonde Blog Header

There were many more blogs I read regularly and communicated with, and the last one I want to mention here isn’t the one I miss the most. The Perfumed Dandy blog was an odd duck. I had a feeling that the writer wasn’t a real person but rather a project run by at least one woman (but maybe a group). “He” didn’t sound like a man playing the role but rather like a woman playing the role of a man playing the role. I will probably never know it for a fact, so that blog got an “honorable mention” in this list for the mystery aspect.

The Perfumed Dandy Blog Header

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Back to Undina’s Looking Glass.

I’m not done yet. Since I don’t expect it to go on for another 12 years, I will not consider it a full circle and keep going as long as it naturally goes. I love perfume. I love my blog. I enjoy talking to all of you, no matter how you got here. I notice when you disappear for a while and am glad to see you back. I want you to know that I usually read your comments the same day you post them, even if sometimes it takes me several days to respond. I’m not sure if you still want to read about specific perfumes, but I’ll keep writing about them occasionally (if I have a story to tell or something I want to share). Whether you care about this aspect or not (I did notice that those posts get fewer participants), I plan to continue my Sunday Self-Care series because it amuses me. I hope Portia will keep writing guest posts every couple of weeks, even with other APJ projects going. And once again, I invite any of you, my “free-range” readers, to use my blog as a platform if you have in you a story or two that you’d like to share but don’t feel like starting a blog for it. While his health allows, Rusty will keep being a part of this blog. And as long as you all come back to participate in the Saturday Question posts, I’ll keep coming up with questions for those.

Rusty Sleeping

This week’s Saturday Question is coming, so don’t think that this is it. But I wanted to offer you to guess: Links to how many blogs (both visible and hidden) do you think I collected over the years in my Reading List? Just a reminder: it has never been a list of all existing blogs, just those I read and communicated with.

 

Images: all blogs’ images are from the corresponding blogs; the rest – my own.

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Small Things That Brighten Life: October 2022

It has been a while since I posted anything in this series, which isn’t surprising, everything considered. But since I believe it is helpful for one’s well-being to concentrate on positive aspects of the present, I decided to resurrect the topic.

So, here are random nice things that brightened my life in October.

It was a Hunter’s Moon, and my friend whose birthday we celebrated that day took an impressive picture of it.

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This Fall, we see more than usual birds around where we live, and it introduces highly appreciated variety into our evening walks.

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Squirrels and birds compete for the crop of wild berries on the bush in our backyard, and it is highly entertaining for the whole family to watch them.

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Speaking of the family, Rusty shares our appreciation of Boo Chips. We used to buy a similar product, Ghosts & Bats Crispy Potato Snacks, but this year Trader Joe’s didn’t produce them for Halloween. He was so interested in the plate’s content that he didn’t even notice that I put a headband with horns from my Halloween costume on him.

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Speaking of Halloween, I slightly decorated our house to signal to neighborhood kids that we were “open for business,” but to my MIL’s disappointment, not a single child rang our bell that evening. I’m not sure who to blame – the holiday falling on Monday, our community that didn’t have enough decorated houses to attract anyone to our kind of remote location or our city’s decision to have an organized Halloween parade. Or maybe the rumor that we torture kids with mostly dark chocolates has finally spread widely. On the positive side, as a result, we have probably a 6-months supply of Ghirardelli and Lindt dark chocolates.

 

 

November has also started promising: we had a nice rain on November 1st!

 

Do you have anything positive to report for October?

 

Images: all but the one of the Hunter’s Moon – my own

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Saturday Question, Rusty’s 13th Birthday And Merry Christmas to All!

If any of you are allergic to cats… stories, feel free to jump to the end, to the Saturday Question part.

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We all have witnessed that scenario in real life, on TV or maybe even participated in it from one of the two sides: a loving mother would tell “a funny story” from the past about her grown-up child, and the said child would be wincing with embarrassment or displaying his/her discomfort one way or the other.

Luckily for me (and him?), Rusty does not read my blog (as far as I know), so I can get off telling his kittenhood stories scot-free.

Hiding and Jumping

The apartment where Rusty spent his first year didn’t have too many places a kitten could hide. Rusty had discovered one great spot: in the corner behind the sectional sofa (on the photo below, it’s where the floor lamp stands). The spot was perfect in all respects but one: Rusty could easily get down there from the sofa, but since the bottom was too close to the floor, he couldn’t get out that way, and since the backrest was too high, Rusty couldn’t jump back up. So, once he would get bored hiding there, he would start crying, and one of us would lay on that backrest and fish him out from that corner. It wasn’t easy: that backrest was high. And one day my vSO managed to hurt himself trying to free Rusty. At this point, we gave up and moved the side of the sofa that was under the clock away from the wall – so that Rusty could get out on his own. I think that spot lost its appeal soon after that.

Corner Sofa and Wall Clock

Speaking of the clock. It’s hard to think of what was happening in Rusty’s head: the clock didn’t have a secondhand, so there wasn’t any noticeable movement. But he kept watching it for days. Then once, he stepped far away from the sofa (probably to somewhere close to the point of view for the photo above), then ran-ran-ran, jumped on the sofa, then on the back, uuuuup to the clock… What happened next looked exactly like the Glass Smack and Slide move from a cartoon: Rusty smacked into the wall under the clock and then slid down, behind that side of the sofa that we moved away from the wall. Silently. We thought that if he didn’t kill himself then definitely injured. But several long seconds later, Rusty walked out from behind the sofa, demonstrating with his demeanor that nothing had happened, and it wasn’t even him who just fell… He ignored that clock from that day on.

Sudden Attack of a Shopping Bag

In the same apartment, under the entryway console table, we kept a paper shopping bag that we used for recycled paper. Magazines, papers and store ads went into it as is, and for mail that one wasn’t supposed to just throw away my vSO worked as a human shredder. Rusty loved hunting in those bags. He would dive into it, find the most interesting piece of paper and play with it for a while, until either it went under the sofa, or we put it back into the bag. It went on for months, until one day Rusty managed to get his head through the bag’s handle, got spooked and started running with the half-empty bag “chasing” him. It took us some time to catch up with him and free him from that paper monster. My vSO called it “a sudden attack of a shopping bag.” It took Rusty a long time to forget about that incident. But in a while, he got over it and now considers those bags as a type of a box and either gets inside or sits on them.

Rusty in the Bag

Unexpected Effect of the Drought

With umbrellas, it was the opposite. For the first couple of years of his life, Rusty was fascinated with umbrellas, so whenever we would bring one into the house and open it to dry, Rusty would sniff it, sit under it or play with it. And then because of the 5-year drought we had in our area, umbrellas disappeared from Rusty’s life. And the next time he saw it, he unexpectedly got scared. Since then, as soon as he sees me carrying an umbrella, a closed one (!), he runs away. So, the only proof it hasn’t been always like that is those rare photos I managed to take when Rusty was much younger.

 

I have many other stories about Rusty – both from years ago and from yesterday, even though he got much smarter with age, learned a lot and taught us many things. But I’ll leave those stories for another time. Today, for his 13th birthday, Rusty got to spend quality time on our bed, enjoyed Ricotta cheese for breakfast and turkey breast for dinner (in addition to his regular meals), and was rewarded with plenty of treats for compliments he got from my readers and Instagram followers. I hope he stays healthy for many more years, keeps his kittenish mien and brings joy to us, our friends and everyone else who knows him in RL or online. And to all of you, from Rusty, my vSO and me (that photo was a collective effort):

Rusty Merry XMas 2021 and Happy NY

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Saturday Question #96:

Do You Have a Pet (and Does You Pet Like Your Perfumes)?

I know about pets companions of many of my loyal readers. Some of them virtually visited Rusty on his 10th Birthday. But I don’t know everyone’s pets, and I’m sure that many of you do not know each others’ cats, dogs, rabbits or rats (If you named your fish, I would consider those as pets as well) – so, please share your pets’ names, links to photos (if you have them publicly online) and, if you’re sure they don’t read my blog, any stories that they would have been embarrassed to hear.

What do your pets think about your perfumes (if anything)?

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

My Answer

As a kitten, Rusty didn’t mind any of my perfumes. Then later he started cleaning my wrists when I tested some perfumes. As he grew older, he started avoiding stronger scents if I apply them to my wrists: he might come to sit on my lap, but then he smells perfume from my wrist and runs away. So, when I know that he would be spending some time with me, I try not to scent my wrists (neck is OK).

 

Do You Have a Pet (and Does You Pet Like Your Perfumes)?

 

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A Postcard from Undina: Happy Thanksgiving 2021!

Rusty and Thanksgiving FoodDear Friends and Readers,

Whether you are celebrating this holiday or not, I’m thankful to you that by coming back to my blog you give me a reason to find time and energy to take an extra picture of Rusty or perfumes, write something about samples I test or come up with the next Saturday Question. Without you, I would have been depriving myself of this wonderful distraction in favor of even more work. Thank you!

I wish my compatriots to have a wonderful celebration with warmth of your loved ones company and great traditional food (whatever tradition you follow) despite all the Supply Chain Shortages. And I wish everyone else a quiet end of the week and a relaxing weekend.

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Vacation in the Time of COVID-19: Episode I, Hawaii Big Island – Getting There

For three years I dreamed of going back to Hawaii. I know that Hawaii are great almost year round. But I have a very particular time when I prefer to go there – the end of September, when water is very warm already, but the weather is not excruciatingly hot any longer.

In 2019, we had to do a long European business trip right at that preferred time. So, we added a visit to the UK as our vacation, which was great not just as a consolation but on its own as well (and having to choose between these two destinations I might have chosen London anyway).

In 2020, we had to cancel the trip because the islands were closed for short visits, and we couldn’t have left Rusty for 2 weeks of quarantine + a week of vacation. We booked this year vacation back in April. But as we were getting closer to the date, the Delta variant was on a rise, the situation in Hawaii was getting worse, and a couple of days before the departure my vSO was persuaded that he had the symptoms (we checked and both tested negative, which cost us an equivalent of a really nice bottle of perfume). So, until the time we boarded the airplane to fly to Kona, I wasn’t sure that we would make it to there this year.

We did, and it was an extremely enjoyable vacation.

Flying into Kona 2021

I have shared already several glimpses into my days in Hawaii with those of my readers who follow me on Instagram as well. If you don’t have an IG account, you still can click/tap on the picture to the right (web)/on the bottom (mobile) to see all 8 posts. But I decided to do an additional show and tell (mostly show) on my blog.

Over the next days, in-between the regular posts, I’ll be publishing sets of pictures from my vacation combined by some topic and maybe adding some descriptions if anything comes to mind as I choose pictures for sharing.

The condo we stayed in was nicely decorated with some elements of Japanese and tropical decor and a large sub-zero refrigerator, into which we immediately placed some white wine for dinner and two bottles of perfumes that I brought with me.

 

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And Hapuna Beach, the largest of the island’s white sand beaches, to where we went right away for the first swim, was still as wonderful as we remembered it. That evening the ocean was probably the warmest and calmest of all days we swam.

Hapuna BeachTo be continued…

 

Images: my own

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2020: What Went Well

For the last probably 5 years, as the next new year celebration was approaching, I kept reading/hearing from people that they were glad “this year” was ending and looking with hope for the next one. And all those years I was thinking – and even using it as a celebratory toast more than once – that I hope that personally for me the next year would be at least not worse than the year we were seeing off.

Several years ago, I came across What Went Well Wednesday series on the Serenity Now Scents and Sensibilities blog. As Old Herbaceous has described, it is a gratitude exercise when you’re on a regular basis list three things that went well and explain why (“Adding “why” allows one to pinpoint times when acts of one’s own or others contributed to what went well”). I mentally played that game for a while, and even contemplated “borrowing” the idea for my blog but had never implemented it.

As challenging as 2020 was for everyone, believe it or not, I still stand by my New Year mantra: I hope that for me and my loved ones the next year will be at least not worse than this awful, strange, “unprecedented” and totally unexpected 2020. And I want to share with you what went well for me this year.

Health

First, nobody from my close circle of family and friends got sick so far. Mostly, it is just luck (though we all are trying to do our part), and I realize that we’re not out of the woods yet. But I’m glad that until now we’ve been lucky.

Second, an unpleasant health issue that started for me last December has finally resolved (at least temporary) without a surgery that seemed inevitable mid-year. I’m so relieved! I did all I could, including some folk remedies and postponing the surgery until I found a surgeon I trusted (we had a hilarious conversation about those folk remedies, none of us really believing in them but not completely dismissing either) and not going with the one who suggested to go ahead with the surgery right there and then. My vSO was so helpful, supportive and patient through the whole ordeal, that whatever role the moral well-being might have played in fighting infection, he deserves all the credit.

Finally, Rusty who had some stomach issues, seems to be better now when he doesn’t shed as much. And his lab work results are all good, which was a huge load off our minds. But it reminds me that I should brush him more regularly.

Rusty on the Bed

Job

We both stayed employed, and our jobs allow us to work remotely. Moreover, though much better than it was the previous year and with a better staffed team, my work kept me so busy, that I barely noticed the “stay at home” part.

Also, this year I got a great performance review from my manager. I’m mentioning it because it was the first time ever in my life. I’m quite used to not getting any feedback or getting (and, frankly, giving) formal and meaningless reviews. The fact that somebody made an effort and expressed in written words what I know I did good was an absolutely new experience. If I ever write a performance review for anyone again, I’ll need to remember how it feels to get a deserved acknowledgement.

And the last in this section, this year we finally were able to take time off during the winter holidays and get some so needed rest.

Family

Our state was partially open just in time for the local trip that my vSO and I planned for our big anniversary this year. Originally, the plan was just for two of us to get away for several days – spas, wineries, eating out. But after four months at home and most places still take-out only or outside seating, it felt less of a getaway. And since the house we rented was big enough for more people, we invited four of our closest friends whom we knew for decades to join us – and they did. It was a very pleasant mini trip. Picture below is taken from the balcony of the rebuilt tasting room of our favorite winery – Paradise Ridge, that burned down three years ago in the first big North Cal fire. They opened earlier this year, which I also write down in the positive column.

Paradise Ridge Winery

Friends and Hobbies

I’m lucky to have friends to talk to, exchange news and share worries. These are people I’m ready to help, and who is ready to help me. I miss seeing many of them, but I hope we’ll have more time to spend together, to travel and celebrate important events next year or the year after that or…

I’m also glad I have my Perfumeland friends. Not only we share our love of perfume, which is even more important now than it ever was, but we also help each other to stay informed about what’s happening in different countries and parts of the World, which allows us to better understand the situation, compare experience and get prospective.

Thanks to Portia who passed on me the APJ’s weekly Saturday Question series, I got what I always wanted for my blog – a continuous conversation with perfumista friends and loyal readers. And thanks to, again, Portia, Narth, hajusuuri and Christine W, my wonderful guest writers, the blog got more inhabited and diverse. I’m also thankful to all who’s reading this and other posts, commenting or not (though, I would prefer to have a chance to talk to everybody, even from time to time).

Thanks to Tara’s (A Bottled Rose) Beauty Reviews, I revisited my skincare routine. I don’t know if I’m getting any results, but at least it’s something new and it’s a pastime that I enjoy. The next thing will be to follow her and Vanessa’s (Bonkers about Perfume) suit and start reading again.

I’m thankful to Lucas (Chemist in the Bottle), my scent twin (well, triplet with hajusuuri, to be precise), who keeps reviewing new perfumes, even in this environment with limited access to new releases, so that I do not have to wonder whether to get samples for any of those: our tastes do not coincide 100%, but they overlap significantly, especially on perfumes that can be qualified as “unisex.”

And I’m grateful to hajusuuri who, in addition to being an inspiration with her daring 8-spray perfume application, just single-handedly provided me with a month-worth daily testing subjects. So, not only I got a wonderful gift under my New Year tree (see the photo below), but I also have something interesting to look forward to every day in January when all the holidays that I love so much are behind us.

NY Tree and samples

Speaking of Christmas/New Year trees. This year, we managed to decorate not only our house outside (seeing decorated houses makes me happy, so I wanted to help brightening this gloomy year to others who also enjoy holiday decorations) and inside (spending that much time at home, I wanted to make it more festive), but in addition to the big tree in the living room (on the postcard below), I decorated a tiny one for the bedroom (that’s where all those samples went to be safe from Rusty). And for the latter I used ornaments that are more than 4 decades old: my grandmother bought them for my tiny plastic tree when I was a child, and I saved them and brought with me when I moved to the US. The wooden decoration with a reindeer is a gift from Lucas, and the orange cat is an ornament that I bought in Hawaii several years ago and painted to resemble Rusty.

And finally, this year allowed me to wear my favorite perfumes more freely, not worrying whether it would bother my co-workers. I re-tested many of the samples I accumulated over the years, finished some, passed on some, got new ones to test, and found new perfume loves. Same as in years before, I haven’t tested enough new releases to do my own top N releases of 2020, but I will be back early next week with my 2020 Year Round-Up Entertaining Statistics post, in which I’ll mention my favorites from this year.

Rusty and New Year Tree 2021

Happy New Year to all my friends and readers! I will take mine 2021 at least not worse than 2020, but to all of you who felt that this year was too much of a leap (pun intended), I wish 2021 to be kinder, calmer and more joyful.

Will you share at least one thing in your life that went well this year? (But you do not have to stop at one)

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Rusty the Cat: 12 Years Young (And Merry Christmas!)

I’m positive that even smartest of our feline companions (or even canine, for that matter) do not have a notion of birthdays and celebrations. So, I realize that Rusty is blissfully unaware of his age and surely isn’t expecting anything from us on that day. I mean, not more than he usually expects, daily.

But since we, humans, anthropomorphize, of course my vSO and I feel that we need to do something special for Rusty’s birthday, so again and again we’re trying to find him gifts. How do they call doing the same thing and expecting different results? Yeah, I know.

In almost 12 years I know our cat, he exhibited almost no interest in the cat toys bought at a store. We went through soft and crunchy and bouncy and… (you got the picture) toys with the same result: at best, Rusty would sniff it and, maybe, bat it once or twice – to never touch them again. In the worst cases – like an iPad-navigated running sphere promised to amuse your cat for hours – Rusty would be scared of it and try to hide every time we attempted to play with him.

I rarely react to ads, be that TV, radio or online pop-ups. I’m even less inclined to believe any of those infomercials promising you miracle devices that help you to lose weight, while growing hair and learning a new language. But somehow, I let my guard down while playing one of the games on my phone: they showed how enthusiastically cats played with that toy… And it was just $14.95… (clip below might take some time to load)

Rusty playing with a Toy

To be fair, Rusty might have played with it for longer, had they thought through the mechanics. In a couple of minutes, he figured out that he needed to catch the wire, not the bird. Besides, even if he catches the bird, once he pulls it, the stand falls, and it stops flying. There are stickers on the bottom to stick the base to… not sure, what to, but even if I could figure it out, the issue is that both an ON/OFF switch and the opening to change batteries are there, on the base. So, Rusty played with it a couple of times with my help to reposition it every time after falling, but then both of us got tired.

So, the only store-bought cat toy that manages to hold his attention for quite a while is a simple plastic spring. He went through 20+ of those. We do not know for sure what happens to them in the end: after a day or two of playing, we never see them again. I suspect that once we replace a refrigerator or a stove, we’ll find a plastic springs cemetery. Meanwhile, for this birthday I ordered for Rusty the next set of those springs. They are supposed to be delivered before Christmas – not that Rusty would care one way or the other.

Cat Toy

Below is a collection of pictures of Rusty – one picture from every year of his life. But if you want more, just filter posts by the Category “Four legs good” to see all photos of Rusty that I used in the blog, as well as all the posts about the cat who keeps bringing endless joy to my and my vSO’s lives.

2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020

Happy Birthday to our Christmas cat and Merry Christmas to all my friends and readers who celebrate this holiday.

Rusty and Christmas 2020

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Orange Cats in My Life – Part XI: They didn’t get away after all (and Happy New Year!)

With two recent Postcards and many previous posts about Rusty, I didn’t plan to write anything else this year. But a couple of days ago I got a new comment on my post Orange Cats in My Life – Part V: The Ones That Got Away from 5 years ago. For those who didn’t follow the link to check it out: in that pre-new year post (December 31st, 2014) I told about several cat-themed items that I had my eye on but for different reasons missed out on.

The commenter who found that post all these years later, asked me if I was still looking for those cat boots. I answered “No.”

I’m not looking for either the artwork or boots that I featured in that post. Not because I lost interest or hope, but because I’ve already found and bought both. It took me several years, but I was persistent, and it paid off (well, of course, it was I who had to pay for them but nevertheless).

You could see more detailed pictures in the original post, but on the postcard below you might notice a fragment of the Govinder’s lithograph, The Shining Sinners, that hangs over my fireplace. Since it wasn’t a planned post, I didn’t have enough time to bribe Rusty into posing with my boots, so you’ll have to trust me that they look exactly like on the picture in the linked post.

By now I know that not all wishes might come true; not everything depends on us and our resolve to fulfill what we wish for; and wishing for something material and then getting it is, probably, the simplest and easiest to achieve. But still, I think it’s a little symbolic, so I’d like to use it as a metaphor for the New Year wishes to you, my friends and readers, and to myself.

Welcoming year 2020, while wishing for health, prosperity and peace on a big scale, let’s think of something small(er) that we personally have control over and make that wish to realize by persisting and staying determined to get what we want.

Happy New Year to all of us!

Rusty and Xmas Tree and The Shining Sinners