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valentina

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  1. valentina

    Puddy update

    By valentina,

    The Puddy Cat, also known as Puds or Puddin' (a nod to Puddin' of BPTP!) has happily moved onto the front porch. She's sleeping in the small dog carrier that has a towel inside for her comfort, and is eating Tender Vittles and drinking water. I have this vintage wooden bench on my front porch that was originally a gym bench used in a high school in the 1950's or '60's. It's the kind of thing that basketball teams sat on during games -- it must be 10 to 12 feet long. (Speaking of that, I need to check the Dallas - Miami score...) Anyway, Puddin' likes to sleep on the bench. She's not crying as much and she likes to hop up in your lap if you sit on the bench. She's just a happy camper.
     
    She's seeing the vet ASAP, probably Tuesday. I'll probably just drop her off on the way to work and let the vet's office scan her for a microchip, look at those poor ears, generally check her out, and get the hideous clumps of matted hair cut off. They will also be able to give us an idea of her age... I think she's older, looking at the color/condition of her teeth. Assuming she's not microchipped, we'll check Humane Society reports of lost cats. And there's a few people that my DH knows who might want her, although it's also an outside option that we could keep her in the basement. Time will tell! But she's already acting healthier and happier. And she is a sweet pea with such a cute little face.
     
    About two years ago, a small town around 30 miles from here was literally flattened by a tornado. A family who lived there were running into their basement, and their cat got spooked and got away from whoever was holding it. They never saw the kitty and assumed it had been killed, until this spring, when the cat returned to their house, now rebuilt on its original site. They knew it was the same cat by the distinctive meow and markings. Where the little thing went for two years, and how it found its way home, is quite the mystery. Maybe little Puds has a similar story, but if not, she'll find a home somewhere, although she seems rather certain that she is home right now!
  2. valentina

    No Coast

    By valentina,

    I just love this -- there's a roller derby club in the town that I live in called the No Coast Derby Girls. The name alone is priceless. There's two teams -- Gang Green (team color green, obviously) and the Mary Kay Mafia (wearing pink, of course). There's a match in early July and I hope to attend. Several of the girls on the teams go to my favorite coffeehouse, and come limping in, sporting large bruises, all that jazz. They are just wild maniacs, and I do so appreciate that.
     
    And speaking of being in No Coast land, if there's a beach near you, please go to it for me. I have a good friend in Tampa and I'm always asking her to at least drive by the beach and honk at it for me. For those of you who live near very large lakes with quasi-beaches, that works too.
     
    I must share a bit of kitsch from my home state that is probably more evidence that since there's no beach or large body of water or mountains, we fixate on phallic symbols. (You need look no further than me for evidence of that. ) I believe it was in the 1930's that someone decided to create a lake and a faux beach between Lincoln and Omaha near the Platte River. It's called Linoma Beach (heh, heh, Lincoln and Omaha, get it?)
     
    And below is a photo of Linoma beach, and yes, that is a light house. It's often said there have been no shipwrecks there, so it must be doing its job. That may be because the lake is so shallow and it's so dry in this state that only an inner tube can make its way out onto the water. I think I'll have to go there at least once this summer, if only for the amusement value.
     

  3. valentina
    I do adore my BPAL, but I love lipstick a lot. If you smell great and you have really red lips and smoky eyeliner and a nice push-up bra and some lacy undergoodies, life is delish'.
     
    I'm sitting here at my desk and I have an empty tin of Uncle Joe's Mint Balls. I found this product at TJ Maxx and it made me laugh so hard that I had to purchase it. They're what... from England? They're really just a hard candy with mint flavoring. We had a lot of fun with the contents here at work while they lasted. As in: "What'cha eating?" "Oh, I'm sucking on one of Uncle Joe's mint balls."
     
    Uncle Joe doesn't look like Uncle Joe in "Petticoat Junction," of course, he looks like a proper London gentleman in a a white top hat, ascot and suitcoat. Would someone with minty balls look any other way? I think not.
     
     
    Today I'm wearing Kali with O over the top.
  4. valentina

    Celebrate

    By valentina,

    Things to celebrate:
     
    It's going to be around 80 degrees here tomorrow! Woot! It's been almost chilly for a month now and I am getting the urge for some semi-hot weather. Remind me I said this when I'm complaining about the weather in July.
     
    I maintained my self-control and ordered a 10 ml of O and one bottle of Lithia. That's all.
     
    I get my hair done tomorrow. It's just entirely too long for me to stand it right now.
     
    I did the trip to my mother's care center, the dinner and my trip home with equanimity. The drive was pleasant. I listened to Shawn Colvin on the way down and she was good preparation.
     
    I'm leaving work now to go to yoga class. I think doing some yoga is going to jar loose a few mental blocks that I've been struggling with all day long. It's worth a try...
     
     
    Music in my CD player: Bob Schneider, "Lonelyland." Because Baby Bob just rocks my world! And he's always something to celebrate!!!!
  5. valentina
    Here's some distance shots and a couple little close-ups of the garden. I'll post more in the next day or two, including one of critter-life around the back yard. Everything was shot on Sunday morning, October 8, and for you gardeners, I'm in zone 5 (on the edge of 6) on the growing season map:
     




  6. valentina

    Smut-O-Rama

    By valentina,

    Remember Thomas Hardy's book "Return of the Native?" Well, today was the Return of Teh Smut to my abode. I'd ordered multiple bottles of Smut when it came out in February, but Smut, my body chemistry, wintertime clothing and heating systems running all day long just didn't match up very well. It got a little overwhelming. And I hadn't really adjusted to wearing something that didn't have a lot of patchouli in it. I was still wearing Urd day in and day out. I sold or swapped my bottles of Smut.
     
    So fast forward to May; it's warmer, my body chemistry is in the spring/summer mode, and I've become very habituated to both O and Monster Bait: Underpants. I began to get a jones for some Smut. I was kicking myself for not keeping a bottle. So I went to "Wanted" in Swaps and begged for some Smut. I got it! Actually, I got two imps and a bottle! This way, I'm able to share an imp with a friend.
     
    The two imps arrived today and I did a test run of Smut all alone and then a test run of Smut with O. What would that be called? Smut-O-Rama? I like that idea. Smut and Smut-O-Rama both work on my seasonally adjusted body chemistry, breezier clothing and the furnaces shut off. I am happy that I will soon have a bottle of Smut to sit between O and the Panty Monster.
     
    Did you see the Lotus Moon t-shirt? I adore Ganesha, the elephant-headed Hindu diety. He represents good fortune, happy beginnings and learning, particularly in the arts and humanities. The design is beautiful and regal. All of Macha's designs are great, but this one really grabbed me. Needless to say, I ordered one already. And it's my good fortune to be able to own one!
  7. valentina
    I sit here on a late Sunday morning, with my cockatiel, Herb D. Byrd, sitting on my shoulder, doing his imitation of someone dialing a cordless phone: beep, beep, beep... He can also do a killer imitation of the phone ringing and then the answering machine going off, then the beep at the end of a message. He is a little character.
     
    On Friday, the postman delivered a bottle of Dorian that I won on eBay last week! The seller charged me $5 for shipping, which seemed a bit high, but then I realized that she lives in Canada and she it airmailed to me. Bless her. I also bought a bottle of Dorian on the forum three weeks ago, and unless something changes soon, I think I've been swaplifted. I'm giving the seller one more chance to write back to me/send me the bottle and then I file a report with the mods. I'm more than willing to consider that it could have been lost or stolen by the USPS, but the seller's lack of a response to my PM makes me wonder what's happening. I've never had that happen before on the forum, and by and large, most people selling and swapping are incredibly nice and generous.
     
    Anyway, the aroma of Dorian has some sort of effect upon me that I find hard to describe. It involves associations, and scents and music are my two major emotional associations. I love, love, love the smell of Smut and O and Urd and Underpants and Khajurajo, but Dorian almost makes me cry. I get over it after a while, but the first sniff gets me every time. But I love it, I want to wear it, and I think the emotional rush that it gives me is a cathartic thing I'm going through at this time. However, when I did wear it (when all I had was an imp), I had a couple of my male "noses" sniff it and they both responded with a dazed, wide-eyed "you smell so....incredible." Smut gets a vaguely drooly "ohmygodyousmellgood," Underpants and O gets the "yeah, that is nice," but Dorian, I think, has magic dust in it. I think it's the scent that Beth made for her beloved Ted, so maybe in a "Like Water For Chocolate" way, it reflects how she felt when she created it. My, I'm romantic this morning.
     
    Like I said, music also creates some circuit-jamming emotional associations for me. I was at a wedding and reception last night, and weddings don't do that for me. I never cry at weddings. But at the reception, once the endless tape loop of Michael Buble music ended (he gets REALLY tiresome after 2 hours) and the lovely-dovey dance music was tuned on, I was somewhat relieved, if only for a change of pace. I was sitting there watching the bride and groom dance the first dance, thinking how sweet and cute they looked. And it was rather odd, no one else was watching. The parents were too busy being tense (bride's mom and dad are bitterly divorced, groom's dad had a lot to drink by that point), and the wedding party was utterly blitzed. Everyone else was eating, drinking and talking. I was glad that I gave that little moment of theirs my attention. I hope they never forget that they once were like that.
     
    But then some country rock song came up on the rotation, and while I normally detest country rock, this song gets to me. I can't even tell you the name of the song, but it almost made me cry. I thought, well shit, I could sit here and sniff the inside of my elbow, get a big hit of Dorian, and just start sobbing, right here in the middle of the reception. I didn't. It was an open bar, and I got another drink and disassociated for a while. I hate to disassociate from my emotions, but sometimes it's what you gotta do, if only not to make a scene at a wedding reception.
     
    My friend Ron always tells me that in spite of what I call my cynical attitude, I'm the most romantic person he knows. He says I'm not sentimental, but I am romantic. Did I read the Bronte sisters entirely too much when I was a teenager? Yeah, let's blame it on Emily and Charlotte! And Dorian, and that stupid country song! Charlotte and Emily and Dorian don't annoy me, but a country rock song? I humilate my own sensibilities with that one! But at least I take comfort that it wasn't a Celine Dion song! (Whew.)
  8. valentina
    I think I've mentioned before that I have a lot of Wonder Woman stuff sitting around my office, in addition to Marx Brothers memorabilia and various quirky artsy things and photos of my dogs. I ascribe to the Wonder Woman archetype a little too much, I suppose, or I want everyone to believe I'm like that. I have a girlfriend who refers to me as the Wonder Diva. But like Wonder Woman, I sometimes get a little tired of everyone thinking I'm impervious to their bad behavior, or that I don't have feelings. Letting down my guard is not something that I do readily or willingly. As a result, people can hurt my feelings a lot, but they think I'm hyper-rational and bulletproof.
     
    Which is why the Wonder Diva loves her dogs (and her Puddin' Tom and her birdies.) The doggies are probably a pair of overbonded creatures, but they don't buy into the Wonder Diva facade and they don't care that I'm not bulletproof. It's more important to them that I am soft and vulnerable, because they were both abused and neglected dogs when I got them. They know I'll take care of them and I'll never hurt them. That sort of trust means everything to me.
     
    And lots of people find openness and softness really alarming, while animals breathe a sigh of relief and relax. My yoga teacher's other passion is dog agility training, and she and I often talk about how humans become very habituated to keeping their nervous systems in a constant state of agitation. Oddly, many people find quiet and softness more disconcerting that going 500 MPH all day long. I just don't understand that. You see, Wonder Diva is really a yogini who doesn't let most people know that side of her
    .
    So if you have a dog or a kitty, or any other sort of pet that you can sit and hold, go find the quiet that they love. It's great for both of you.
  9. valentina

    More photos

    By valentina,

    A few other photos -- not as intriguing as the photos from Will Call!
     
    The first one is of Mugzy, staring down a squirrel; it's in the shadows, but he's standing next to a weeping mulberry tree that he loves to use as a back-scratcher.
     

     
    And here's Ella Bean, wending her way through an path between the major garden area and a small garden pond, which has a lilac bush and day lillies planted around it. A brisk southern wind was blowing those Basset ears around!
     

     
    I like to plant Mexican sunflowers every year because they're great butterfly magnets. I hope this little guy has headed south, because snow showers are forecast for tomorrow night. Yech!

  10. valentina
    If you've read my blog before, this is hardly news to you, but to anyone who might have happened to stumble into here for the first time, I have an insanely annoying coworker. The only way we maintain sanity is to vent at each other via email. Fortunately, we have a relatively good sense of the absurd, and my other colleagues can be quite hilarious. Here's an example of some of vents that are just too funny not to share. If you can use them at your workplace, be my guest, steal our snarks:
     
    First, a rant of mine. I titled the note "I Must Document This Process:"
     
    The way that she is eating whatever foodstuff is on her desk sounds like this: Imagine people were bobbing for apples, except that they were supposed to suck them up out of the water rather than biting at them. There would be some really intense air intake and schlurping. Then there would be a lot of coughing due to the schlurped water, and nose blowing due to the schlurping and coughing. Now, imagine that they were bobbing for caramel apples, and once an apple was snagged, the caramel became stuck to their tongue and the roof of their mouth. Lots of smacking. To get relief from their intense effort, they'd take a huge swig of a tasty beverage, make that weird little gluggy noise that happens when there's too much liquid heading down the gullet, slam down the glass and exclaim: "AHHHHHHH!"
     
    --------------
     
    Me: Sometimes, I swear, I listen to her and think of Louis Armstrong.
     
    Coworker: I see skies of blue and clouds of white
    The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
    And I think to myself, what a wonderful world why do I have to sit here and listen to her.
     
    -------------
     
    Annoying person is on a low carb diet, and announces it frequently:
     
    Me: I am going to sit back here and munch my ass off on my carb-laden crackers.
     
    Coworker: When she gets on that kick (OK, every day of her life!!) it just makes me want to sit there and eat an entire loaf of bread.
     
    ------------
     
    Me: Here's my horoscope for today. Good grief!
     
    Daily Overview for September 08, 2006
    Provided by Astrology.com
     
    Quickie:
    Extend a kind hand to the people in your life who use anger to hide their sadness.
     
    Overview:
    An extra dash of sensitivity will help your day run much more smoothly, especially when it comes to some bossy or moody types in your immediate vicinity. They may even return the favor in the near future.
     
    Coworker: Haven't your heard???? The horoscopes have been all screwed up since the damned astronomers decided to boot Pluto from the planetary alignment. Don't MESS with mother nature!!!!! I rechecked Yahoo for your Pluto-adjusted horoscope. It reads:
     
    Quickie:
    Extend a kind hand to Wield a meat clever against the people in your life who use anger to hide their sadness.
     
    Overview:
    An extra dash of sensitivity cutlery will help your day run much more smoothly, especially when it comes to some bossy or moody types in your immediate vicinity. They may even return the favor remain quietly in their cubicle in the near future.
     
    ----------------------
     
    Me: Isn't she a delicate thing?
     
    Coworker: ----------------delicate…….like a thorn in your retina.
     
    ----------------------
     
    In addition to being on a low-carb diet, the annoying one has a Labrador Retriever that is the most of whatever you're talking about -- bigger, smarter, horribly-behaved, best-behaved, toughest, wimpiest... it doesn't matter, because as one of the guys in the office wrote:
     
    My dog's bigger than your dog,
    My dog's bigger than yours,
    My dog's bigger than your dog,
    Because he's been on this low carb diet to try to lose some weight, don't you know, but it's just so hard, it's just---so---hard…..and he just can't seem to stick with it…..he likes the cottage cheese, but all that other low carb yucky stuff he just spits out and runs off to eat a bag of chips or a bowl of popcorn or a loaf of Wonder Bread or an entire angel food cake or a pie (he just loves pie) with lots of high carb sugar in it; he won't even eat meat loaf unless it has Grape Nuts or oatmeal filler in it; sometimes he'll eat some of that low carb yicky stuff, but then it just goes all to hell because he'll just run off to his dog house (he has a really cool dog house, you know) and drink a bunch of beer and eat a couple of bags of Cheetos and a big pile of French fries smothered with a huge mountain of mashed potatoes and then he gets all depressed and refuses to go to obedience class and just lays around thinking about carbs; it's hard, it's just--so--hard, it's just--so--very--very--hard; but,
    My dog's bigger than your dog,
    My dog's bigger than yours,
    My dog's bigger than your dog,
    So to hell with everybody in South Beach!
  11. valentina
    Now that things are entirely quiet at my job, way too quiet as far as I'm concerned, I tend to tune in satellite radio on the internet, put on the headphones and send the nosy or bored coworkers the message that I'm not tremendously interested in their blather. I head a song this morning that I really enjoyed called "Beautiful Wreck" by a guy named Shawn Mullins. He's a new one to me, but hell, I enjoyed that song.
     
    I feel like a beautiful wreck a great deal of the time, although I hide my "wreckedness" behind a veneer of extreme cool competence. A few years ago I decided my cool, competent side was just fine for a professional exterior, but my beautiful wreck is really a component of my nicer side.
     
    I don't know if many of you have read or thought much about your "shadow side" (very Jungian), but once I gave it some thought, I decided that I didn't always need to be the ultra-competent wonder diva that I normally try to be when I'm professionally "on." Fucking hell, I lightened up on myself.
     
    We're all so complicated and utterly together and beautifully messed up, and I really adore it when someone else lets me see more than one facet of their person. That sort of honesty can scare a lot of people, but I think it's what it's all about. I have a lot of issues with people who get scared by honesty; it would seem that falsity is much, much scarier. But I guess it's not if you pretend that the illusions are reality.
     
    While I know that we're all living in our own little dream worlds to some extent, I really wonder how many people live deep in the fantasy with occasional, and unwelcome, flashes of reality. And from what I've seen, reality can be far, far more amazing than the fantasies.
  12. valentina
    And I'd almost (hear me? almost) bet a bottle of Monster in my Panties that you're thinking I'm going to go off on a rant about Brad dumping poor Jen for naughty-pants Angelina.
     
    But I'm not.
     
    Jen projects such a damn normal image that I have to wonder if she isn't a seething cauldron of weirdness, and Angelina is so out there with her weirdness that she may have less frightening shit lurking beneath the surface. I don't know; you have to live with 'em to really know.
     
    But what I'm talking about is Brad's tendency to make himself look like his sweetie-pie of the moment. When he was dating Gwyneth and she cut her hair, he ended up with this blond floppy side-part haircut. I'm rather surprised he didn't sport wee little barettes in his hair, as did La Gwyneth.
     
    When he was with Jen, he had to go through that suntanned and highlighted and immacuately-groomed stage. Jen should have seen trouble brewing when he stopped giving a shit if he looked like her.
     
    Now with Angelina, he's kinda pale, dyed his hair really dark and looks like the earnest crusader for UNICEF efforts that his jeans, t-shirts and backwards ball caps.
     
    I want to say: "You're Brad fucking Pitt! Why do you need to make yourself look like someone else?" It just boggles the mind.
  13. valentina
    Last night another saying that I've only heard said by The Prophet Raoul -- if you don't know who I'm talking about, read my entry from a couple days ago -- came out of my mouth. Whenever Raoul was discussing something or someone that he found to be particularly unsightly, he liked to say: "If _______ was a dog, I'd shave its ass and make it walk backwards."
     
    What a visual.
  14. valentina
    I am so much older than most people around here, so please excuse the ancient person song subreference, but there's a Joni Mitchell song called "Coyote" that starts out with Joni speaking, more than singing, the words "No regrets, Coyote..." THAT SONG HAS BECOME A BRAIN WORM! I got a bottle of Coyote in the mail yesterday, thanks to the lovely and generous GypsyRoseRed, who went to Will Call to make purchases for the non-L.A. dwellers. This no-coast girl owes her a serious debt of gratitude. Of course, I tried out Coyote right away, and after getting a sinking feeling because the grass-woods element of the scent bloomed so strongly at first, it mellowed into an outdoorsy amber-musk smell. And I can't stop "No regrets, Coyote...we just come from different sets of circumstances..." from playing in my head. That song, BTW, is from the album "Hejira."
     
    And in a confluence of random mutant thoughts, darkitysnark's latest entry about the yin and yang of her personal style -- either femme or what I could call cute earth mother (because who can't look at the tree photo in her hair travelogue and not say "that's just cute!") -- reminds me of a line in "Song for Sharon," which is also on "Hejira." It's a song about about growing up as a romantic at heart, while still being a little wild and rough-and-tumble, and the line is "mama's nylons underneath my cowgirl jeans."
     
    Since I was a kid who used to ride my bicycle up and down gravel roads while wearing my mother's old dresses, with lipstick no doubt applied clownishly on my face, I do understand that song a lot. I never was a normal farmer's daughter -- and that was probably one part disposition and one part environment. My father's mother had to run the farm and raise 4 children because her husband was chronically ill and was unable to work for long periods of time. She looked 60 by the time she was 30, and my father wasn't going to make any daughter of his work that hard. There are snapshots of her where she literally looks like a man -- weather-beaten, stringy-skinny, in work clothing, not a smile to be seen.
     
    My mother has since told me that my grandmother didn't even want to live on a farm that badly, much less run one -- but through a series of circumstances, my grandfather took over the farm instead of his two older brothers. I'm sure when my grandmother and grandfather married, she thought they'd eventually move to a town or a city. But instead, she accepted the hand that she was dealt and became not just a farmer's wife, but a farmer herself.
     
    Damn, and I think I have things to bitch about. I get to bathe with Villainess soaps, anoint myself with BPAL, pay absurd amounts of money to get my hair done, make my skin soft with oils and lotions, run about to the gym and to yoga class, and generally be a bit of a vain diva who likes to throw in touches of androgyny in the midst of her girlyness.
     
    My life is pretty good, and no regrets, Coyote!
  15. valentina
    Today was a quieter day than yesterday, but then, how could it help but not be? I did have some other character at Meadowlark come over and bug me at noon. This guy is an attorney, about 60, has the worst effing teeth I have ever seen. They look like Keith Richards in his pre-veneers days. This guy was telling me he has a 10-year-old son, and I'm thinking, "who would have sex with you?"
     
    Now don't get me wrong, my taste in men is about 50 years wide and transcends ethnic and socio-economic boundaries. In fact, last night I was at the gym and listening to music, but I was semi-watching CNN. Who's the guy who does the mid-evening talk show, sort of politics, sort of entertainment? Is his name Glenn Beck? Is that right? Anyway, he was talking to a guy about space travel, and why this country had such a boner about going to the moon, then just shut it off. The man he was talking to was older, maybe in his mid-late 60's, but I thought damn it, that old guy is hot!
     
    I was getting worried about myself; in fact, I was almost ready to toss myself off a tall building, but then I figured out (because I unplugged my music and plugged the headphones in to listen to TV) that the older man in question is a former Apollo and maybe early Space Shuttle mission astronaut. He's been to the moon! And back! Who gets to say that and have it be literally true? While the media and NASA portrayed these guys as squeaky clean aw-shucks American-as-apple-pie guys, anyone who's read or watched "The Right Stuff" knows these were manly men, macho as hell, and some of them probably were rather white-hot stud muffins behind the scenes. (Or at least I like to think so.) And really, that was some wild-ass shit those guys were doing; the technology in the late 60's and 70's was pretty damn rough compared to today. It's a wonder they all made it back from the moon safely. Their balls were either brass or so big that they had to ride shotgun in sports cars.
     
    This one is still exuding testosterone, to such an extent that I could sense it over TV. All I could say was, hot damn!
  16. valentina

    Sensualism

    By valentina,

    If one wears BPAL scents, people who know you can't go into a department store, go to the fragrance counter, pick up the tester bottle of the fragrance you wear, spritz it on a card and walk around sniffing it, thinking about how it smells like you. There is a certain allure to this, assuming it's the right sort of person doing the sniffing. But let us not weep, for look at it this way -- because they can't go to the department store to sniff your fragrance, they have to come find you.
     
    This thought crossed my mind because a guy I work with was patiently trodding around the mall with his wife over the weekend when she decided to sniff all the fragrances at the perfume counter. It gave him a headache and made him vaguely dizzy. He said he realized that they all smelled alike after a while, but nothing smelled anything like the perfumes that I wear.
     
    I told him that his reaction was akin to people buying produce at a Farmer's Market and saying: "Wow, this tastes so much better!" Well yeah, the more natural the product, the more your senses are going to like it.
     
    I have to wonder if the overconsumption of synthetic smells, tastes and textures starts to blunt the senses. And damn it, I am all about our senses! If we forget how to pay attention to them, we start to disassociate from our bodies and then what kind of fun are we having? Not as much.
     
    I used to teach yoga every now and then, and the hardest thing for me was to try to get through to the people who are so disassociated from their physical selves. Sometimes the sense of dropping into their physical senses would cause them to feel anxious, nervous, frightened or terribly vulnerable. They either went into the feeling and worked with it, or they'd just shut down and stop coming to class.
     
    So I think everyone who wears BPAL does a favor to society because we, at least for a few moments, make people drop back into their sense of smell when they get a whiff of something real.
     
    The last statement is a great rationalization to more more oils from the Lab. Feel free to use it to pad your next order. Consider it your humanitarian work: "I must re-teach people how to smell." It's a tough job, but we're up to it.
  17. valentina
    Anyone who is even vaguely inclined to listen to jazz, go listen to "Modern Cool" by Patricia Barber. I think that CD might be the soundtrack to one side of my personality. Patricia is an openly gay women in a genre that typically rewards pretty, femme singers and piano players, which means she kicks ass so hard that she can't be ignored. One has to admire such a force of talent.
     
    The soundtrack to the other side of my personality would be anything by Bob Schneider, who is sadly not well-enough known outside of Austin, Texas. Although I am not in Austin, and I do know about him. Bob is the coolest thing on earth, and damn purdy. As in, I consider Bob to be my prototype hottie.
     
    Do you ever get yourself into situations that you think will be fun, but make you really, really sad? At best, wistful? I've done that to myself. Again. If I'm good at anything, it's that. At least I'm also good at taking responsibility for my own actions and my own moods, so I won't make the rest of the world miserable.
     
    This morning I was sitting at my favorite coffeehouse and damn, I saw so many cool things going on around me. People just being kind of awesome, and jerky, and just hanging out. Why do we think we need to go to church, when the temple of the world is all around us? Oops, that was really Zen of me and I'll stop all that mumbo-jumbo.
     
    I did have a friend send me a Buddha figurine; it just arrived in the mail. Her father went to India and she asked him to get one for her so she could send it to me. That was sweet of her.
     
    I'm so hankering for the CnS on my next order, which is a biggie and includes, among other things, a bottle of Kali and a bottle of O. I'm probably giving the Kali to my friend who sent me the Buddha, since she loves Kali beyond reason. So much so, she asked her dad to bring back a Kali statue for her. That's devotion.
     
    Do you ever feel like you have so many choices that it almost feels like you have no choices? That's called confusion. I think I'll go take a bath and listen to Patricia Barber and chill it down a bit.
     
    Peace and love to all...
  18. valentina

    Waxing and trimming!

    By valentina,

    The other day I received catalogs/advertising mailings from Victoria's Secret, High Country Gardens and Advance Auto Parts. They were not addressed to "Resident," they were addressed to me. I rather liked the diversity. It made me picture a woman in her VSC "Pink" brand shorts and a bra top, waxing and detailing her car next to her xeriscaped garden. (Did you think I was going into a discussion of bikini waxing and "bush trimming" and such? For shame! Although the way I normally carry on, I can hardly blame you.) But you know, that really could be me, except I'd wear a sports bra and not some fussy VSC number that would be easily mussed by car wax. I would also be more inclined to be seen in oversized cargo shorts. Yesterday I went to the men's department and got a pair of cargo shorts made out of camo material. They were on sale. As indarkmoon would say, man oh manpants, what a deal! And in the car detailing category, Zymol car wax is really good; it's my favorite. You pay more but it's worth it. It makes the vehicles shine like nobody's business. Detailing cars is rather fun; I'm not obsessive like some men can be about such things, but there is something rather soothing about fussing around with your car on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. I even drink a beer when I'm doing it, although I eschew listening to baseball or football games; I usually have my car CD player going with my music of choice on.
     
    And xeriscaped gardens are low water-use gardens, and I'm all about that. Yeah, the colors may not be as brilliant and the blooms not as showy, but I'm all about preserving the ground and surface water supply. I love resilient plants and flowers, I do not understand why people on the prairie insist on planting annuals that are meant to grown in subtropical areas. Purple coneflowers and sedums and hardy sage and native grasses and herbs rock my world. I like to plant Mexican sunflowers, and by this time of year, the Monarch butterflies are worth it. Having Monarchs fluttering through my garden in late August is so worth not having extreme color in June and July.
     
    So, last thing tonight... does that Lab turnaround time on orders simply rock your world? I was thinking it would be a while before my next order arrived, and looking at the CnS status, it may be sooner than I imagined! I love the Lab. So much so, that I have three outstanding orders. I always tell people that if I sell something on my sales thread, I return it to the Lab. Actually, I usually order twice as much. Three outstanding orders is proof of that fact, which is a thinly-disguised excuse for my compulsive behavior. 'Cause when I'm wearing the lingerie and watering the garden as I take a break from waxing the car, I always smell good.
  19. valentina
    Happy Beltane, everyone! My inner druid has always been a spirited creature, and nothing makes me happier than a pagan holiday. It just makes you feel alive, you know? Here's a link to a site that shows there's still a group of Scots who still like to do it up right:
     
    http://www.beltane.org/
     
    I am sure they're sleeping well in Edinburgh today! Or maybe they'll save the sleep for much later tonight...
     
    So leave a May Day basket for someone special, or simply smell so good (thanks to your BPAL) that you're like a walking May Day basket to everyone that you encounter.
     
    Hmmm... I have on Monster Bait: Underpants today, so would that make me a May Basket with a thong in it? What a great May Basket idea!!! I wish I'd thought of it sooner!
     
    Divas, leave your sweetie a new sort of May Basket... a few springs of flowers and blossoms, tied up with a teensy bit of cloth...but oh my... it's your bonny wee knickers!
  20. valentina
    My friend Ron sent this to me today:
     
    Marguerite Duras said, "You have to be very fond of men. Very, very fond. You have to be very fond of them to love them. Otherwise they're simply unbearable."
  21. valentina

    Hey Jack Kerouac

    By valentina,

    The domme of this blog spends way too much time trying to figure out why certain things happen. Way, way too much time, but she thinks she can somehow divine the workings of the universe. What bullshit! Sometimes it's very liberating to say "I don't know," and when one of the last living members of the Beat Generation and Zen wise man Gary Snyder tells you so, you might as well listen. Here's his quote:
     
    "I must confess that I don't have the faintest idea what my purpose is or what's going on. I became comfortable with that mystery a long time ago -- that I would never know how any of these things fit together in any explicit way."
     
    Yuppers, ya just have to roll with it sometimes. Actually, all of the time would be a good idea, but if I can do it just some of the time, I'm doing real well. And speaking of the Beats, was Jack Kerouac a babe or what?
  22. valentina
    My day blew chunks, but then I got a CnS for my Monster Bait: Underbed order, and the dark clouds parted and the moon came out! (The CnS arrived at 8:04 p.m., sun wasn't around.)
     
    I am really, really tired after my week at work. A minor rant follows.
     
    I work for a state legislature and everyone in my office tends to specialize in certain policy matters. I was assigned a legislative bill last year that has morphed into something that's not within my subject matter specialty. Because it's a terribly controversial issue that keeps morphing, and because the person working with the subject matter that my bill has now become is the newly-hired golden boy in the office, my boss didn't reassign the bill to him. He's making me keep it and I'm going to be the one whose name goes on what may be a controversial analysis document.
     
    Now, WTF? Some of my coworkers told me it's because my boss trusts my work, but I don't believe that for a minute. I think he likes to run my butt up the flagpole and spares the men in the office. If the new guy did the work, my boss would have to trot along with him if a senator is upset, because the new guy is a poor little baby and we can't have his feelings hurt. With me, no way. And it's not like I even did that much of the difficult analysis -- economists in an agency did that work. But my name goes on the document, and we do have the ability to disagree with agencies. But I didn't, because it's damn near impossible to accurately figure out what's going to happen. I said there was no basis, at this time, to disagree. How's that for weasel words?
     
    And here's the worst part: I was telling my boss today about an obscure part of the bill and he said to me: "I didn't know that was in there... good girl for finding it." Now, WTF? I am not his fucking dog who retrieved a bone, nor am I a girl. I am fucking over 40 years old! Patronizing 'nadless sack of shit.
     
    And they all wonder why I have such an attitude.
     
    I do need to investigate those TAL blends and see if there's one for my boss. Any suggestions, TAL experts?
  23. valentina

    Mischief Luella

    By valentina,

    Before Ella Bean, the hound of the house was a deeply weird mixed-breed named Mischief, aka Mischief Luella, aka Missy Lu. She was part Aussie Shepherd, part Treeing Walker Coonhound, and she was very epileptic. She was on lots of medications to control the seizures, and being a tad druggy all the time only enhanced her natural oddness. I always said that she wanted to find sheep in trees or to herd raccoons. So confused.
     
    She did retain some of the acute intelligence of her Aussie Shepherd heritage, but it was tempered by the food-driven and general goofy tendencies of her inner hound. Missy was a lot like Pluto in the Disney Cartoons. She could flip anything edible off her nose and catch it, she would happily offer to shake hands in return for food, and her favorite command was "assume the position," whereupon she would roll over on her back.
     
    However, she was a patient old soul (the drugs probably helped -- notice the glassy eyes) and she used to happily pose for photos in all sorts of attire. Here she is, in attire fit for Mexican Independence Day.
     

  24. valentina
    One of the reasons that I love this forum is because (other than the amusing, funny, intelligent, kind and lovely smell-obsessed members,) it is very well moderated. I used to go onto another forum and spent most of my time there as a lurker, in large part because it wasn't really moderated and the "host" was a bright, well-versed, but utterly mercurical and sometimes Just Plain Nuts person. She'd caused a drama in another forum that resulted in an exodus to her current forum, which was set up specifically so she could host it and provide her expertise, which she does indeed have, in between psychotic episodes.
     
    But predictably, she's had another melt-down in the last week and is turning against forum members and the business who's hosting the forum. A good friend who also used to participate told me about the drama, and it was indeed a fiasco, complete with conspiracy theories and accusations of slander. I looked at it for a while and jokingly suggested to my friend that one of us make a post to the forum that has now become a war zone with a suggestion for a mantra. My thanks go to darkitysnark for the inspiration behind the mantra:
     
    "Ohm yamma ramma drama llama drama!"
  25. valentina
    There's a Bob Schneider song that goes: "The world exploded into love all around me..." and my version of it today is: "The world exploded into woots all around me..."
     
    Hell, I got a CnS on my big order last night! There's just something about knowing that your deferred gratification is about to be consummated. And this is a big order (for me, relatively) of Kali, O, Osun and Ogun. I love O so much and I was afraid I was going to use up the bottle that I now have prior to getting another. I'm probably going to have to order a big bottle the next time that I break down and order a LE.
     
    I need to get ready for work. I'll ramble more later.
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