“Four legs good”

Pets-related stories

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Six of One, Half a Dozen of the Other

I don’t know why stores keep changing floor plans or re-arrange goods on the shelves. I know that there are numerous studies on the psychology of a shopper, on focal points of layouts and foot paths of the people flow. But, provided that the first (or second, or third) time around the store did follow all the best recommendations in their floor plan design, are there people who actually buy more as a result of these subsequent revamps? For me it’s always a hassle to find to where a brand or a type of items I’m looking for has been moved: when I know what I want/need to buy, I prefer to go directly to where that “what” is; and when I’m in the explorative mode, I’ll go around just checking out everything without being forced into doing that while looking for the item, for which I came.

Order of the Addends

Recently one of our local Neiman Marcus stores, after “being open during the construction,” finally reopened completely reworked beauty & fragrance section. After the renovation they’ve introduced several brands previously not available at that location – Byredo, Armani Prive and MFK, which is good. But it seems I cannot find some of the previously available brands, and since the layout changed, I’m not sure if they stopped carrying those, or if I just don’t see them. Since all I want is to sniff new offerings and I doubt I’ll be buying anything there, I’m reluctant to ask – so a couple of times I just left feeling slightly annoyed.

When I visited the store after the renovation, one section just jumped at me: Hermès. I think they always had that brand just scattered among others (I vaguely remember seeing some of the perfumes in the store before), but now it’s a big designated counter with all non-boutique perfumes (I had a hope that they might carry Hermessence line – but no). On that counter – for the first time at a retail store – I saw Rocabar. The bottle was different from the one I knew (it’s now a part of the latest repackaged set of perfumes with ugly plastic caps), but it was there on the counter! I immediately sprayed it on a paper strip … and didn’t recognize the perfume. “Reformulated! They’ve changed it!!!” – I announced with dismay… to my vSO and proceeded with getting a sample to properly test it at home.

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For the first time I approached Hermès perfumes probably about 15 years ago. At that point I didn’t know much about that house in general, be that their perfumes or anything else. I am not sure if I even knew there was anything else: the brand didn’t make it behind the iron curtain while I was growing up and then, when I moved to the U.S., for a while luxury brands weren’t much on my radar.

I don’t remember which perfumes I tried then, but I assume those were whatever big department stores carried at the time. 24 Faubourg? Caleche? Rouge Hermes? I’m not sure but I didn’t like any of those and decided that this brand wasn’t for me.

Hermes Rocabar

I smelled Rocabar while visiting friends in Germany. Either my friend wore it, or it was a sample that his wife got with some other purchase, but I liked the perfume and returned home with that sample. Rocabar was so much better than all other perfumes my vSO was wearing at the time that it was a very short path from a sample to a full bottle. For several years Rocabar was my vSO’s “dress-up” perfume, and I loved it on him. Later it took a back seat to other great perfumes “we” added to his perfume wardrobe, so the remains of the last bottle stayed hidden in the drawer unused – until I got it to run an impostor shaming parallel test.

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The conclusion? After years of wearing and testing great perfumes, I am not in love with Rocabar any longer, but I like it enough to still want to smell it on my vSO from time to time. But with two perfumes on my wrists – old and new – I couldn’t tell the difference… Well, not exactly… These two are slightly different but, for my uneducated nose, the difference is not such that I couldn’t explain it by the age of the original bottle. And, frankly, I can’t say that I like one of them more or less than the other. So it must have been that cheap plastic top of the new bottle that suggested the reformulation to my untrained nose.

Rusty and Hermes RocabarIf you haven’t read before about the meaning of the name and are curious why Hermes chose this unusual packaging approach, which Rusty liked so much, read Kevin’s (NST) review here.

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Byredo Samples Draw Winner

I tried persuading Rusty to help me with selecting a winner but it didn’t happen so hajusuuri had to do it an old-fashion way – using random.org. And we have a winner!

Byredo Samples Draw Winner

Juli B.! Please contact me with your address.

And for the rest – one of the pictures from the photo shoot session for the original post: I think Rusty feels obligated to keep the image.

Rusty and Byredo Samples

I wish everybody a good weekend and hope to be back soon with another post – maybe even a perfume-related one.

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Six by Byredo: Two Perfumistas’ Impressions

Undina: When hajusuuri who went to the recent Sniffa event had approached me suggesting a joint post about Byredo scents, I immediately agreed: since our tastes match, by my estimate, 80-85%, I was curious to see how we’ll do with testing the same perfumes almost at the same time.

hajusuuri: Sniffapalooza Spring Fling 2016 was but a memory, but the goodie bag samples live on!  This year we got a bonanza of manufacturers’ samples with lots of extras for sharing.

Undina: I was surprised when I realized that I hadn’t previously tested on skin five out of six perfumes hajusuuri offered to share even though I probably saw them all at a store and maybe even smelled from the bottle.

hajusuuri: In this episode of Weeklong Test Drive we’ll share our impressions of six Byredo perfumes.  These are not reviews, just first impressions.

Byredo Samples

Undina: I rarely can smell any specific notes in perfumes, whether I read them or not, so I wasn’t too strict about when I looked up the notes: for some of the perfumes I did it while testing, for others – later, as I was adding them to my database.

hajusuuri: Since my method of perfume application is spray and walk into the mist, having small atomizers presented a bit of a challenge for a proper wearing.  I decided to develop my impressions through the speed testing method – two sprays on each forearm, 5 minutes apart.  I wrote my impressions after 15 minutes of wear. I did not look up the notes prior to testing so be aware that I wrote down what each perfume smelled like to me and what I smelled may not necessarily match any of the “official” notes.

Ben Gorham founded Byredo in 2006.  He was inspired to create fragrances from a trip to his mother’s hometown in India.  With a fine arts degree but no training in perfumery, he collaborated with perfumers Oliva Giacobetti and Jerome Epinette to compose his fragrances.  In 2013, a private equity company, Manzanita, acquired a majority stake in Byredo.  You may recognize some of the companies in Manzanita’s portfolio, including SpaceNK and Diptyque.

Perfume and official notes hajusuuri’s impressions Undina’s impressions
Bullion

Top: Black Plum, Pink Pepper
Heart: Leather Accord, Magnolia, Osmanthus
Base: Dark Woods, Sandalwood, Sensual Musks

Review: Chemist in the Bottle

 Woody pencil shavings, almond, slightly sweaty, plasticky Play-Doh If I had liked this perfume a little better, I would have run one of my déjà vu  posts: I swear Bullion is a slightly more masculine version of Annick Goutal’s Mon Parfum Cheri, par Camille. Plum + leather aren’t my thing in either of them
Flowerhead

Top: Angelica Seeds, Lingonberry, Sicilian Lemon
Heart: Dewy Tuberose, Rose Petals, Wild Jasmine Sambac
Base: Fresh Amber, Suede, White Rose

Review: The Scented Hound

 

 Watered-down Frederic Malle Carnal Flower with tuberose and jasmine; has a grating chemical woody base (“Byredo base”) A lot of jasmine but it’s less pleasant than in Dior‘s Grand Ball, only comparing to which I can smell tuberose in Flowerhead. It gets more pleasant in a couple of hours of development but not enough for me to want to wear it.
Mister Marvelous

Top: Mandarin Leaves, Neroli Flower
Heart: Bamboo, Green Lavender
Base: Black Amber, White Cedarwood

Review: Cafleurebon

 Initial blast of pepper, then lemon, then an unrelenting bitter artificial sweetener smell; has the Byredo base.  Unisex, despite its name I put it on: citrus. I put my wrist under my vSO’s nose: “It smells like a cleaner” he says. In my head it immediately transforms into the jingle “Mr. Clean! Mr Clean!”
Oud Immortel

Top: Cardamom, Incense
Heart: Brazilian Rosewood, Papyrus, Patchouli
Base: Moss, Tobacco Leaves

Review: The Non-Blonde

 Leans masculine.  Starts fruity minty nutty woody with warmth threaded all throughout; has the Byredo base The opening blast of sweetness was even pleasant but it disappeared quickly and the remaining medicinal scent was what I usually do not like in agarwood perfumes
Pulp

Top: Bergamot, Blackcurrant, Cardamom
Heart: Fig, Red Apple, Tiare
Base: Cedarwood, Peach Flower, Praline

Review: Now Smell This

 Juicy Fruit, sugar, yuzu. Fruit cocktail run amok As I previously wrote, I don’t think I can tolerate Pulp‘s rotten fruits anywhere but in Hawaii where it felt just right
Sunday Cologne (previously released as Fantastic Man)

Top: Bergamot, Cardamom, Star Anise
Heart: Geranium, Incense, Lavender
Base: Moss, Patchouli, Vetiver

Review: What Men Should Smell Like

 Leans masculine, smells like Oud Immortel but much thinner and then devolved into Lemon Pledge Opens very citrusy but then I smell some wood and resin. I think it’s a little too masculine for me but it smells nice and I wouldn’t mind smelling it on my vSO – too bad he didn’t like it when I asked him t smell it

Undina: I have two Byredo decants – Pulp and La Tulipe (for those of you who weren’t reading my blog five years ago, I promise: it’s a cute story) and I think I might eventually get a couple more – Bal D’Afrique and Black Saffron. But even with these four I do not see a bottle in my future and the rest of the line that I tried left me cold. And I don’t like their standard bottles and labels: they don’t spell $150 perfume to me (it seems Rusty on the picture below can’t believe it either).

Rusty and Byredo Samples

hajusuuri: Overall, based on first impressions, I found none of these interesting enough to pursue further; however, I do have a decant of Gypsy Water that I enjoy.  Do you have any favorites?  Which perfumes from Byredo should I try next?  I generally enjoy amber, benzoin, birch tar, heliotrope, iris, tonka and vanilla.

Undina: Would you like to try these six perfumes? hajusuuri is still in a sharing mood, and she has an extra set of six samples to send to one randomly selected winner (with all usual disclaimers on either of us being responsible for anything that happens after samples are sent). You do not have to do anything other than confirming that you want to be entered into the draw, but I will appreciate if you share a link to this draw on FB, twitter or any other place where it’s done these days.

 

Images: my own

The draw is closed now. A winner will be announced in a separate post soon.

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The Royal Nonesuch of Perfume

Several years after we moved to the U.S., we found our friend F. who we knew back in our student days. He emigrated about 8 years before we did, and we lost each other. So it was great to re-connect. But since we settled down on the opposite coasts, we visited each other several times over the years, but mostly our communications were over the phone.

Most conversations with F. revolved around the topics of trips and theater attendance – mostly F.’s since my vSO and I, being new immigrants, weren’t traveling or going to theaters much. We would also talk about books and movies, and there we probably still had a lot in common, though sometimes during those calls I had that strange feeling as if I was being quizzed on how interesting our life was. Most likely, it was all in my head and F. was sincere in his attempts to share with us cultural experiences and impressions but I do remember the feeling and my limp attempts to keep up. And then one day F. told me about a wonderful new film they’d just seen: a very unusual, avant-garde and so forth…

Today I don’t have much patience to waste time on something I dislike, if I can help it. But 17 years ago I patiently sat through the complete 81 minutes of The Blair Witch Project, going through the stages of confusion, disbelief, annoyance, anger and – did I mention disbelief? I couldn’t believe F. actually liked that and recommended it to us! And he wasn’t the only one who raved about it: there were enough high ratings and favorable reviews and articles online. It was beyond my comprehension… And then something clicked: I knew what it was!

AT THE COURT HOUSE!
FOR 3 NIGHTS ONLY!
The World-Renowned Tragedians
DAVID GARRICK THE YOUNGER!
AND
EDMUND KEAN THE ELDER!
Of the London and Continental Theatres,
In their Thrilling Tragedy of
THE KING’S CAMELEOPARD,
OR
THE ROYAL NONESUCH ! ! !
Admission 50 cents.

LADIES AND CHILDREN NOT ADMITTED

I’m not sure if you were as impressionable as I was when I read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to remember what that handbill was about, but I was so captivated by the psychological component of the scam that it stayed in my memory for decades.

In short, a couple of scoundrels announce that performance in a small town. First night, when it proves to be not much of a performance, the audience figures out that, in addition to losing money, they will be ridiculed by their peers. So instead of beating up the con artists right there and then, the first half of the town goes out and tells the second half how hilarious the play was. Then the rest of the town’s population pays for the same questionable experience. So the third night the whole town comes to the performance anticipating the revenge and armed with things to throw. But the con men disappear right after collecting the entrance fee.

My theory is that with The Blair Witch Project it just took too long for the “whole town” to watch it, so meanwhile the “first half” had time to cool down.

Recently, after reading Mals’ (Muse in Wooden Shoes) review of Oriza L. Legrand‘s Chypre Mousse, I started thinking that for the last couple of years I was participating in another adaptation of The Royal Nonesuch. And while it’s definitely not on the TBWP’s scale, I would say that it covers a population of at least several Twain’s towns.

The Royal Nonesuch

Mals was the first blogger (out of those whose blogs I read) who openly described how awful her experience with Chypre Mousse perfume was. Until then I read only positive reviews and I paid my “admission fee” (I got a 5 ml decant in a friendly split). The first test was such a shock! I actually hated the scent but suffered through the development hoping it would get better – it didn’t. Then it took me some time to get around testing it once again – the same result but that time I quickly retreated to the shower.

I do not plan to ever test Chypre Mousse again and, just in case, I will probably stay away from the brand altogether. But for some strange reason not only I didn’t write about that experience in my blog, I don’t think I’ve ever commented on any discussion of this perfume. I call it strange because I don’t have any loyalty towards this brand, I didn’t get it as a gift from somebody’s deeply loved bottle and it’s not even a small indie company, which I would be afraid to harm by saying something negative. Of course, it means I wasn’t saying anything good about it either so analogy isn’t complete but still I feel like with my silence I helped propagating the illusion of the consensus about this perfume being great, and one day we may end up in the “third night” crowd, as it was described through the eyes (nose?) of Huckleberry Finn:

I see that every man that went in had his pockets bulging or something muffled up under his coat – and I see it warn’t no perfumery, neither, not by a long sight. I smelt sickly eggs by the barrel, and rotten cabbages, and such things; and if I know the signs of a dead cat being around, and I bet I do, there was sixty-four of them went in.

 

Now, when I feel that I’ve done everything I could to warn “the rest of the town”, I do not mind hearing how great Chypre Mousse works on your skin. Does it?

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From the Cutting Room Floor: Perfume? What Perfume? Where??!

Initially I planned to use this series for sharing with you pictures of Rusty that I made for my posts but ended up not publishing because I had more good pictures than I needed. But Scented Hound’s comment “Where’s Rusty??!” on my recent post gave me the idea to show you why it is tricky to get a good shot with both Rusty and perfume in one frame.

First, here’s the only one more or less sharp picture of Rusty and perfumes that I managed to take that day:

Rusty and Climat, Chamade and Chanel No19

After that he uncooperatively laid down on the chair and fell asleep completely ignoring all my attempts to attract his attention. I was rearranging the bottles, making noises and even pretending that I had some food in there – it didn’t work. To test a suspicion that it was Climat that cast a sleeping spell on him (the last time I was taking pictures of that perfume, Rusty also ended up napping – see the proof below), I removed that bottle and ended up with just Chamade and No 19 in the post picture, but it didn’t interrupt Rusty’s beauty nap.

Rusty and Climat

And even on those occasions when Rusty would get curious enough to get closer to a perfume bottle I was shooting and not fell asleep, he would keep turning away, checking out the walls behind him or the ceiling above as if asking “Where did you say that perfume was??”  I swear he doesn’t do it “in real life” when camera is not present.

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And one more of my cat’s favorite poses, with which many of you are already quite familiar, is his back to the camera:

Happy Mother's Day 2016

Happy Mother’s Day to all my U.S. readers!

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In the Search for the Perfect Coffee

Ally McBeal is one of my all-time favorite TV shows. I loved it deeply and thought that the first two seasons were just magical – funny, romantic and witty. I stopped watching it at some point in the Season 4, when, in my opinion, the magic was gone. But I keep going back and re-watching some of my favorite episodes and scenes. One of such scenes is dedicated to coffee; not just to coffee in general but to drinking a first cup of the day. If you watched that show, most likely you remember the scene. For everybody else in short: one heroine (Ally) teaches another one (Georgia) how to drink coffee. Here’s a link to a 3-minute video clip (questionable quality but it’s the only one I could find) and a transcript of the most important dialog (if you’re not in the mood to watch):

Ally: You were about to drink this cappuccino like most men make love: skipping over all the foreplay. Now just… just hold it in your hands. Just knowing that it’s close.
Georgia: Yeah, I see what you mean.
Ally: Now, close your eyes. And just think about tasting it. Now, smell it. Just a little.
Both: Mmm…
Ally: Now, pull it away. Just tease yourself a little. Up, and down. And up. Longer sniffs. Now, you see that foam on the plastic? Lick it off.
Georgia: I have to drink it!
Ally: Now, bring it up slow. Don’t rush it. It only happens with the first cup. Slow. Slow. Slow. And drink.
Georgia: Mmm…
Ally: Mmm…

This scene made a strong impression on me: not as much because of its sexual references but because of the idea of savoring the experience and engaging all of your senses. I can’t say that I treat every cup of coffee like that but from time to time…

Coffee art - Heart

Smell from a freshly brewed cup is a big part of the enjoyment I get from drinking coffee. But it’s different when it comes to an “unattended” coffee smell (when a cup is not present).

One of the offices where I used to work was strategically placed in a short walking distance from two coffee shops. Since there was no proper lunch room in the office, my co-workers would go to either Starbucks or Peet’s Coffee, dependent on to which camp they belonged, for lunch or during breaks. I didn’t have taste preferences (latte tasted very similar in both places) but after a while I noticed that after I would spend 15-20 minutes at the Peet’s, my clothes would reek of sour and burnt coffee grounds. I didn’t observe the same effect from visiting Starbucks – so given a choice I would go there.

Years later I figured out the mystery: back then that particular Starbucks shop had been just freshly built and Peet’s had been around for a while; nowadays if I sit inside of that Starbucks café I get the same unpleasant odor absorbed into my clothes and hair.

Coffee & Truffle

So, do I like coffee note in perfumes? I like some perfumes that feature this note but my gripe about most of them: I get a toothache just smelling them – so sweet they are. But while I do not put sugar in my coffee, I do (or would, if I had them) wear some coffee-and-sugar perfumes.

Montale Intense Café gives me such a perfect coffee aroma in the opening, that I can make my peace with its sugary development. I will never need a bottle of this perfume but a nice decant that I got with my Scent Bird subscription will keep me satisfied those days when I need an extra shot.

By Kilian Intoxicated smells very nice on my skin though I cannot say that I get much coffee from it. Testing Intoxicated in parallel with Thierry Mugler‘s A*Men, I could miss neither the similarity of the two perfumes, nor the difference in the refinement and materials of the Kilian’s creation. The bottom line: I won’t wear A*Men because now I know how harsh it is compared to Intoxicated, the price of which I cannot even consider paying knowing how similar it is to A*Men.

I liked Jo Malone Black Vetyver Café enough to snatch a bottle of it on eBay after it had been discontinued. Unfortunately, I think it was too old when it got to me and now it is turning. But I still have a decant that is in good health, so I should probably start wearing it more often – before it also turns. Black Vetyver Café is much less sweet than other coffee scents that I’ve tested and vetiver adds a nice woody note. I could easily find 2-3 other Malone’s scents I would rather see discontinued but the brand probably knows better.

Coffee Art

I tried several more perfumes with this note but they weren’t my cup of … coffee.

EnVoyage Perfumes Café Cacao is nice but too sweet for me. But if you like sweet scents, give this one a try.

In Plume Perfumes Coffee & Cedar, which isn’t too sweet and has a nice coffee note, I can’t stop smelling an oil base and it completely kills the perfume for me (and it’s probably for the best since I don’t think this brand is still alive).

But the biggest disappointment for me was Tom Ford Café Rose: I can’t say that it’s “too much” of anything; I don’t find it unpleasant; but as a Tom Ford perfumes fan I wanted this perfume to be much more interesting. I can’t remember how it smells the next day after trying it.

Have I found the perfect coffee though? I have! It’s Jamaica Blue Mountain that I freshly grind every weekend morning and make on the stove in jezve from my favorite designer Michael Aram. Mmm…

Rusty and Michael Aram Jezve

Images: my own

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From the Cutting Room Floor: Rusty plays Milo

Those of you, to whom Rusty owes dozens of treats for complimenting him on many of his appearances on this blog, probably think that he is a natural on camera. He is – if we’re talking about those times when he didn’t know what was happening: I have hundreds of cute, funny and entertaining pictures of Rusty sleeping, napping or packing himself into the next newly arrived in the mail box.

Rusty on the Pillow

But when it comes to catching him on camera with perfume I plan to feature in the post, it takes a careful planning and some trickery on my part. Without a fail Rusty will photobomb the picture I’m trying to shoot if it’s something new that he hasn’t seen earlier. Unfortunately, he does it with a complete disregard to the lighting, composition and other important things. And then, 15-20 seconds later, he’s done with the exploration and there’s not much I can do to persuade him to stay longer and allow me to take a proper picture of him and the object in question. I tried explaining to him that modelling pays well but in vain: you know how fickle those prima donnas can be. So usually I have to bring everything I want in the picture to the place with an appropriate light, quickly assemble the composition, take the camera, wait – and then quickly take as many pictures, moving around, as possible, hoping that at least one of them will be usable. So from time to time I finally choose one of the “less bad” pictures or give up and go with “still life.”

But sometimes… sometimes Rusty is in an especially good mood, he slept for too long and got bored or some element of the packaging caught his attention – then I get minutes of Rusty’s not paying any attention to my paparazzi act. And then I get another conundrum: which picture to choose when each one of them is good but different?

Sometimes I work around it by using a slide show. But mostly, after agonizing for much longer than I should, I decide on the one I liked a little more hoping that maybe one day I’ll get to use other pictures as well… It doesn’t happen too often, so I decided to do a new series – From the Cutting Room Floor, in which I’ll be publishing pictures of Rusty not included into the posts for which those were taken.

For the first episode I decided to go with pictures of Rusty “playing Milo” during my recent attempts to take a picture of the mimosa confiture (and a YouTube link to the scene from The Mask for those who did not recognize the reference):

Rusty playing Milo (The Mask)

By the way, this dog toy was also a birthday present from the same friend who sent me the confiture. That’s why I wanted to take a picture of both of her gifts with Rusty, which I managed to do in the end (see below), but I think she liked the one above even more.

Rusty playing Milo (The Mask)

Images: my own

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In the Search for the Perfect Mimosa, Take 3

There are scents that we like on their own – because they smell nice, make us feel good or appeal to our sense of beauty. Other scents (while being all that as well) are linked to pleasant memories, positive experiences or special occasions. Mimosa is one of the scents of the second kind for me.

Mimosa

I told my mimosa story short after I started this blog in the first post of this “In the Search for the Perfect…” series (since most of you weren’t here back then, you could look over the first two paragraphs of that post so I do not repeat myself). At that time I tested several perfumes – Amarige Harvest Mimosa 2007 by Givenchy, Mimosa by Calypso, Mimosa pour Moi by L’Artisan Parfumeur, Le Mimosa by Annick Goutal and Amouage Library Collection Opus III. The conclusion was that I really liked only the one, a bottle of which I already had – Amarige Harvest Mimosa (though as time showed it became one of my “tsundoku” perfumes).

A year later I approached the subject again (you can skip this post unless you want to see a picture of Rusty playing with mimosa) and realized that as much as I enjoyed the scent of real flowers on a branch mimosa note in perfumes interested me mostly as a part of a bouquet and not as a soliflore. I wasn’t sure then if I liked it enough, but several years later a travel bottle of Une Fleur de Cassie by Frederic Malle has joined my collection.

Mimosa

I still like mimosa and can’t pass by a blooming tree without stopping and smelling it. I would gladly buy a bunch of mimosa but I’ve never seen it in a shop so I don’t know if it’s sold anywhere in the U.S. And I’m still drawn to mimosa-centric perfumes.

When I came across Jo Malone‘s Mimosa & Cardamom in a store for the first time I immediately had two thoughts. The first one was: why have they decided to release it in September when there was absolutely no chance to get real mimosa to decorate the stand (so they used artificial flowers, which looked a little weird)?! And the second one was: I want it!

Mimosa & Cardamom is just a mimosa perfume I was looking for: its mimosa note is sunny and happy but there is something beyond that note that makes this perfume not boring. Same as for Victoria whose review I recommend you to read if you haven’t tried Mimosa & Cardamom, it stays on my skin for a long time – and I enjoy every minute of it.

Mimosa

This year’s mimosa season brought me one more pleasant discovery. A friend of mine from Texas who came to California last month to celebrate her and my birthdays, while in wine country, collected mimosa flowers, pre-processed them, hauled them around on the trip, then back at home made them into an amazing confiture and sent me a jar of it as an extra birthday present. Did I say already it was amazing? It’s real mimosa in a jar! It’s light, not too sweet and a little bitter. And it’s great with ricotta cheese. I don’t think everybody would like it: you have to like mimosa to appreciate this confiture. I happen to love mimosa.

Rusty and Mimosa Jam

I’m not sure if it’s possible to buy mimosa confiture (and even if it is possible, I doubt it would be as great as my friend’s creation) but if you have access to mimosa and would like to try making it yourself (or if you just want to see how it looks out of the jar), I refer you to my friend’s recipe.

Images: my own

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And the Oscar for Best Oscar Weekend goes to…

For many years we would have Oscars party with friends – watching together while eating, drinking, making predictions or discussing red carpet arrivals. A couple of times we even did an evening attire party with our own nominations and voting. Over years several things happen: our big company broke into smaller groups, so we rarely have large parties any more; Oscars got duller and, what probably is the most important, my vSO and I almost completely stopped watching movies, Oscars nominated or otherwise.

Last year we still tried to make an event from it and watched it with a couple of friends but it wasn’t as much fun as it used to be: it was too long for four of us to watch together and there wasn’t enough of us to seamlessly fill in commercial breaks. So this year we decided not to do anything special and instead of dressing up and going somewhere we stayed at home and each of us did what we enjoy doing.

My vSO spent several hours working on the financial planning while watching on Netflix a B horror flick. Since he likes both of these activities (and I’m amazed that he still manages to find a movie in this genre that he hadn’t watched yet), I should say that his weekend went well.

I watches the complete Oscars show on iPad (who would have thought 10 years ago that TV would become that portable!) while ironing everything I could think of.  It felt good to combine doing something useful (like picking up some future water cooler conversation topics) with pleasure (I love ironing!). And I was wearing Guerlain Habit Rouge Dress Code, which I loved (thank you, hajusuuri!) and which fit perfectly with pajamas I wore for that occasion.

But Oscar for best Oscar weekend goes to Rusty: he got to sleep on the sofa in the room where I was ironing (and to which he usually doesn’t have access) for more than three hours. He enjoyed every minute of this year’s Oscars.

Rusty sleeping

Do you like Oscars? Do you watch any part of the show?

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A Postcard from Rusty: Happy Valentine’s Day 2016!

Happy Valentines Day 2016
I’m positive Rusty wasn’t just using this opportunity to sit on the table where he’s allowed only for taking pictures but wanted to send the best wishes for all of you, whose compliments earned him at least a couple of packets of treats over the years.

I join him to wish you happiness – and not only on this arbitrary assigned day.