Signature Scent

For Jackie Onassis it was Joy. For Marilyn Monroe it was Chanel No. 5. Memorable women, wearing memorable fragrances.

I think I have been a perfume fan since I was a little girl sneaking a "dab" of my mother's Avon. As a teen my friends and I would love to hit the perfume counter at Boots. Here smell this...it's Anais Anais....2 inches higher? Oh that's Tweed. Up by my elbow? That's Navy! We'd walk away from the perfume counters enveloped in a cloud of cheap drug store perfumes by Lentheric feeling very chic and grown up.

Certain fragrances can bring back vivid memories. Panache and Pure Silk remind me of my mum. Charlie was a favourite of my ex mother-in-law. My first love wore Aramis, my ex husband wore Kouros, Biff and N. didn't wear cologne as I recall and Maybe wore Joop. The boy wears Old Spice - amazing how that ancient brand has had a revival in recent years, what next? Brut 65?

I am in the process of finding a new personal fragrance. Growing up my drugstore favourites included everything from Mystique to Charlie. When I got married my ex gave me Chanel Coco. In my 30's I moved onto Estee Lauder's Pleasures and Beautiful, Ralph Lauren's Romance, and Givenchy's Ysatis, to mention a few. Now I am looking for something new for my 40's. I don't think anyone will ever be able to find a particular fragrance and say "Oh this reminds me of Sue." I have switched and swapped so many times. Each fragrance represents a different time in my life and evokes a different memory. There really is nothing stronger than the sense of smell to conjour the earliest of memories, a variety of emotions, to set the blood coursing through your veins and raise the libido. I love it!

Monday

Well a brand new week...and I can hardly believe that it's October already. The temperature is certainly starting to drop, not as far as jackets and scarves yet, but certainly a nice warm, cosy sweater is called for if you have plans outside. My garden is still in bloom, but mixing with the leaves that have already started to fall from the trees, I know that this is just a last blast of colour before autumn well and truly moves in.

My weekend blues have been replaced with Monday morning optimism - admittedly last week's diet attempt was a dismal failure on the scales this morning. I am more inclined to believe that it was not so much my poor dietary choices through the week, but more biological...and the huge honking chocolate cake I baked and ate two slices of yesterday. Chocolate is good for the soul.

The concert Saturday night was fun, Terri was an absolute joy - although the crowd was certainly a lot more restrained than I was expecting. Concerts I have been to have involved rushing the stage for a better vantage point, dancing, singing along at the top of your lungs and generally having a good time. Canadian concert goers...well the ones at the show on Saturday for certain...are a lot better behaved. Admittedly the age range of the audience members may have something to do with it. They were a bunch of "stay in your seats and applaud politely at the end of each number" kinda folk. Not my types - unless we are attending a string recital or something equally staid.

Jen and I made it as close to the stage as we could...the concert hall security staff (all elderly retirees with matching waistcoats) were as strict as Victorian grandparents and would not let us through the barrier to the stage apron. Photography was also a huge "no-no". Jen was a total rebel however and managed to snap a couple dozen shots - grandma security guard was not impressed and scolded her repeatedly. It was comical. This 60-something security woman was literally shaking with rage over Jen's behaviour...at her side she pulled out her only weapon against such delinquent 40 year old whipper snappers...she pulled out the heavy artillery...her flashlight...full beam in the face. There! Let that be a lesson to you! We are such rebels.

I am still housebound...although I have great hopes that the boy's car will be ready today. Today though I am bound and determined there will be no tear-jerker movies, no moments of melancholy - but lots of "puttering around" before I head back to work tomorrow. Back on program...back on the diet...up the water consumption...and be ready for ballroom class # 3 tonight. After the merengue week 1... (which was a disaster) and the Cha-Cha week 2... (which was a total hoot) ...to tonight, week 3, where we are to learn (pause for dramatic effect)....the tango!

Rose clenched between teeth...
twirl...
twirl...
exit stage right.....
crash ...
bang ...
wallop...

Ole!

Feeling frumpy

So I am sitting here on a Saturday afternoon, feeling more than a little bit sorry for myself. Probably premenstral - but regardless.

I am on holls, stuck at home with no car (the boy's car is in the shop, hence he is using mine)...but come to think of it even if I had the car today there is nothing to do and nowhere to go ...unless one goes shopping that is ...and I think I detest crowded weekend shops only slightly less than the idea of a root canal...plus add to that I am technically supposed to be saving like mad for my first ever house, so shopping really is out of the question. So even if I had the car I would probably still be sat here on my arse feeling ....h'mmm...what exactly am I feeling? Not down perse...or blue..just kinda "blah".

I woke up this morning and was disappointed to learn I have only lost 2lbs this week...after being pretty damn good if I say so myself. Still I have another two days before the official "Monday morning weigh-in". It's maddening how one can gain 5 lbs just at the sight of a box of Milk Tray ...but it takes a bloody fortnight to lose it again. So I treated myself to a luxurious shower. I had picked up a couple of new hair products yesterday at the drug store and was eager to try them out. One promised to make my hair shine like no other and the other promised to make my hair frizz free.

After careful washing and styling I had to admit both products had done exactly as they had promised - I was just horrified to realised I am currently sporting what was known back in the day as a cross between a pageboy and a bob. Add to that it's the same hairstyle more or less as my mother. Don't they warn chaps that all girls turn into their mother's? Seems they were right. This is around the time my daytime blah's settled in. Not that there is anything wrong with mum. Far from it...lovely lady, intelligent, fantastic sense of humour, very independant - to the point of being stubborn....omg I am describing myself....devoted to family (rode 2 buses both ways twice a week to visit her ageing parents), hard working, single mum....ahhhh, yes another thing mum and I share...our singledom. Problem is she's dead. Died at 49. Snuffed out in what was supposed to be the prime of her life. Bugger. So as I am looking in the bathroom mirror at the shiney frizz free hair - looking very Joanna Lumley in a redheaded chubby kind of way and on the verge of turning 40 a cross between Marion Cunningham and Carol Brady...just without all the cutsie husband and happy family stuff ...I wondered is this all there is? I am not ready for sensible shoes and twin-sets ...am I? Feck...who'd date a woman in what my grandmother would call "sensible knickers"? (Despite how comfy they are).

I take my thoughts to the livingroom...after all there's not much else to do today...laundry done, house as clean as it's gonna be and I have already taken a couple of chops out of the freezer for tonight's dinner. A quick perusal of the TV guide shows sod all on... well it is Saturday morning afterall....most normal people - read couples - are out driving their perfect suburban children to their hockey games, or ballet practise...they are doing grocery shopping or browsing the malls. Me? I decide to dig out a few DVD's.

Today's line up includes, Bridget Jones's Diary, The Wedding Date, Hitch, Love Actually and Shall We Dance. Admittedly all chick flicks, all guaranteed to throw me into the depths of ...well let's not go there. Suffice to say it's best not to leave any sharp edged objects nearby at the moment.

So time to settle in with my endless supply of coffee, cats who insist on sitting on my lap and digging in their claws and my latest crochet project. I am not actually any good at crochet - marginally better than I am at knitting...but if I say that all I have actually crochetted so far in my entire life are 4 afghans of varying sizes, you will hopefully realise that my skill level is practically non existant. I once knitted a baby cardigan for my half-sister's first born. The arms were orangutang-ish, armholes so tiny and tight it would have cut off circulation within 20 seconds and I am not 100% certain if the lovely "holey" pattern was exactly pattern perse or dropped stitches. My cousins were wonderful knitters. All three of them. I remember seeing them wearing their creations proudly, wonderfully complex Aran cable patterns. I think I managed a scarf at one point...or rather an over large doiley because it certainly was too short to be draped around anyone's neck.

I get stuck into Bridget Jones, with the marvelous, Renee Zellweger - who has probably never had a "fuck my life sucks" moment in her entire life - when I suddenly realise the entire movie is set on Pride and Prejudice (that classic Jane Austen novel, which I have never actually read, but I saw the movie - god how lame is that?) I actually laugh out loud at a scene where the main character muses that she may end up an ageing, fat, spinster, living with cats, whose only serious relationship is with a bottle of wine and when she dies her body will be discovered in her flat weeks later, half eaten by wild dogs. Yeah, Brig and I share the same flair for the dramatic at times.

So I am killing time watching movies, Jen and I are going to a concert this evening to see Terri Clark. I am not actually a Terri Clark fan, but when Jen phoned me all excited several months ago to say the tickets had gone on sale I agreed to go with her, basically because I had/have nothing better to do. It will actually be my first night out in months, and it beats sitting home all night watching the telly.

Oh to have been a fly on the wall...

I don't normally tell work stories...there are enough emergency services and police blogs out there...but please forgive me for sharing this story from today.

I took a 911 call today from a 16 year old young man who had just been swarmed and robbed on the street. A gang of local degenerates demanded his wallet and taken off with it right out front of his school around the lunch hour. As I was getting the police on the way to see him, I was getting further information, descriptions, direction the suspects fled etc. trying to calm him and getting some more of his story.

He explained how a police car had driven past him whilst he was in the process of being robbed. The group surrounding him had already taken his wallet, and the ringleader had already pulled the cash from it. When they saw the police car they reacted by giving him back his property and acting in a friendly chummy manner so as not to arouse suspicions. Once the police car had driven by however, they once again snatched our poor young school boy's wallet. They didn't hang around this time and took off running.

It was about this time that the first officer arrived on scene, I still had the victim on the phone as he pointed in the direction that the gang had run off and offered a few more pieces of information regarding their description. The officer assured my victim that he would be back, but was just going to spin the area quickly to see if he could locate the suspects.

Feeling a little more relaxed now, as the officer drove away, my victim suddenly exclaimed "Oh my god, I still have my money!" In his panic to call police after he had been robbed, he hadn't realized that he still had his money clenched in his hand. When the bandits had hurriedly given him back his wallet and cash as the police drove by they had been already separated. When the gang snatched the wallet a second time, all they got was the empty wallet. A pretty large sum for a teenager to be carrying on a school day - $215 - his registration fee for the school hockey team (oh yes, how well I remember the huge fees from when my own son was playing team sports at school).

You could hear the relief flood into his voice, as he went on to tell me how hard his mother had worked for that money. Suddenly all I could think of was that there was a group of very pissed of gangbangers out there ...who undoubtedly knew by now that the wallet was empty...my police officer was checking the local streets looking for them, and here was my victim standing alone on the street corner waiting for police to come back...a sitting duck. I hoped the gang didn't think to come back for their cash. Needless to say I stayed on the line with him until we got another officer over to him.

Lordy, I would have loved to have seen the look on their faces when they finally opened that wallet and found it empty!!

....and I hope this boy's mother now thinks to write a personal cheque for these kinds of items instead of sending cash.

Autographs later, dahhhhhlinks

This morning arrived far too early and I was stumbling from the coffee shop, heading into work when I was stopped in the parking lot by a radio reporter armed with a tape recorder, who was looking for public reaction to a local scandal. Actually it was a news item that I hadn't heard - apparently there is a plaza, an apartment building and a group of residential houses locally where they have discovered their waste is not hooked up to the sewer system but has been pouring directly into a local creek...no doubt for years. Gross. I honestly don't remember what I said to him, I remember being suitably alarmed and concerned blah blah blah. Whatever I did say however must have given the reporter a few good sound bites as he thanked me profusely, telling me I was a "total doll". Knowing my luck in my caffeine deprived state I probably screamed to march on city hall and stringing up the chief engineer...who knows! Fortunately I was working all day and I don't listen to this particular local radio station. Hopefully very few people that know me or may recognize my voice do either.

House news update

My field is still a field and has yet to progress to mound of dirt status - but the builder has indicated that they will be breaking ground - putting in service roads etc - this fall, before the snow flies and the ground freezes. I am not an expert in construction obviously, but I doubt there will be anything much to see before next spring, when the ice and snow are finally gone.

This at least is giving me loads of time to save my money, make a few plans and make a few decisions. With all the overtime I have been working lately we are halfway to the bathroom upgrade. I'm technically on holidays from work (again) this coming week, although after signing up for 5 overtime shifts you'd be forgiven for not realizing it. I worked a 7 hour shift yesterday, with another one lined up for today and then 3 x 8-hour shifts Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. My aim is to have the "Oasis" fully paid for in cash by the end of October. Fingers crossed - we are well on target at the moment.

I dropped by Home Depot to check out prices on stoves and fridges the other day. Doesn't hurt to daydream a little and see what's available out there. I am mulling over the idea of getting a natural gas cooker. I always cooked with gas back home, but since I have been in Canada we've only ever had electric. In fact to be honest, I don't even know anyone who uses gas here. It's a decision I will need to make soon though, because the builder will need to include a gas line in the kitchen for stove hook up. It's not considered a "standard" - more money, more money.

You could eat off the kitchen floor

I have discovered when I am upset, angry and generally p*ssed off, I become a house cleaning demon. The place looks and smells amazing. Make me almost want to pre-arrange "bad mood days" on a weekly basis.