What we've been up to

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Comme des Garcon - Avignon

This is my new perfume. Like the perfect but elusive "perfect handbag," I'm always on the search for the perfect scent. I've always searched for a great scent that smelled like incense. I ordered some samples from www.luckyscent.com and they arrived today. Along with the above mentioned scent I also received two more from the Comme des Garcon Incense line, Kyoto and Jaisalmer, as well as Olibanum from Profumum. Clearly the winner for me is Avignon, but I knew that even before I tried it based on its rave reviews on the website. Here's how I felt about the other samples, in my order of preference:
Kyoto - Nice incense smell, a little sweeter than Avignon; it is something that I would buy later on. Maybe better for warmer weather.
Jaisalmer - Cedar, cedar cedar, with some benign smoke - not like a fire or cigarettes or cigars, but just smoke for the sake of smoke. Smells like a walk outside in North Carolina in November. Also another one I'd like to have somewhere down the line.
Olibanum by Profumum - Definately my least favorite, the first thing I thought of it was that it smelled like a 55 year old woman who was a heavy smoker, who, upon returning to the office from her smoke break, sprayed perfume on herself to cover the cigarette smell. This is not one I will be purchasing down the line. Which is just fine with me as this stinkpot costs $240.

Now for the online reviews of CdG Avignon that convinced me that I would love it even before I tried it. To amuse myself, when the package arrived I did a blind smell test, and picked CdG as the one I liked best as well as predicting which one it was. Now for Avignon's online reviews:
"One whiff of this and I was back being dragged round medieval European churches as a child."
"It smells so much like a church that my partner (raised Catholic) gets flashbacks."
"LIKE HAVING PASSIONATE SEX IN THE MIDDLE OF ST. PETERS SQUARE ON A SUNDAY MORNING. WICKED."
"Each ingredient in Avignon is an intoxication on its own, but together they multiply into a hallowed resinating presence. Warmth, like the sun hitting the tundra while coming down from the Himalaya. Sobering and mesmerizing."
"Potentially it could have a profound subconscious effect upon those who smell it and grants its wearer the temporary mark of a saint-whether or not they are."

How can I compete with such descriptions? I love it and will be wearing it to my gothic church tonight. Oh, and by the way, after I tried it on and fell in love with it, I found out, through the website, that it is the very scent that Morrissey wears! Yet another reason to try it for yourself.

Now, reach forward and scratch the picture of the bottle for a sample of your own. Or just ask to smell me next time you see me.

endless meme

Things I've done, things I wish I'd done, things I haven't done...


01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink -
02. Swam with dolphins -
03. Climbed a mountain -
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive -
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said “I love you” and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. Seen the Northern Lights
15. Gone to a huge sports game -
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. Touched an iceberg
19. Slept under the stars
20. Changed a baby’s diaper
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon -
22. Watched a meteor shower
23. Gotten drunk on champagne
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
27. Had a food fight
28. Bet on a winning horse -
29. Asked out a stranger
30. Had a snowball fight
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
32. Held a lamb
33. Seen a total eclipse -
34. Ridden a roller coaster
35. Hit a home run
36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment - a
39. Had two hard drives for your computer
40. Visited all 50 states
41. Taken care of someone who was drunk
42. Had amazing friends
43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
44. Watched wild whales
45. Stolen a sign
46. Backpacked in Europe
47. Taken a road-trip
48. Gone rock climbing
49. Midnight walk on the beach
50. Gone sky diving
51. Visited Ireland
52. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love
53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them
54. Visited Japan
55. Milked a cow
56. Alphabetized your CDs
57. Pretended to be a superhero
58. Sung karaoke
59. Lounged around in bed all day
60. Played touch football
61. Gone scuba diving
62. Kissed in the rain
63. Played in the mud
64. Played in the rain
65. Gone to a drive-in theater
66. Visited the Great Wall of China
67. Started a business
68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
69. Toured ancient sites
70. Taken a martial arts class .
71. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight
72. Gotten married
73. Been in a movie
74. Crashed a party
75. Gotten divorced
76. Gone without food for 5 days
77. Made cookies from scratch
78. Won first prize in a costume contest
79. Ridden a gondola in Venice
80. Gotten a tattoo
81. Rafted the Snake River
82. Been on television news programs as
an "expert"
83. Got flowers for no reason
84. Performed on stage
85. Been to Las Vegas
86. Recorded music
87. Eaten shark
88. Kissed on the first date
89. Gone to Thailand
90. Bought a house
91. Been in a combat zone
92. Buried one/both of your parents
93. Been on a cruise ship
94. Spoken more than one language fluently
95. Performed in Rocky Horror
96. Raised children
97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking1
03. Had plastic surgery
104. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived
105. Wrote articles for a large publication
106. Lost over 100 pounds
107. Held someone while they were having a flashback
108. Piloted an airplane
109. Touched a stingray
110. Broken someone’s heart
111. Helped an animal give birth
112. Won money on a T.V. game show
113. Broken a bone
114. Gone on an African photo safari
115. Had a facial part pierced other than your ears
116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol
117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
118. Ridden a horse
119. Had major surgery
120. Had a snake as a pet
121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
122. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states
124. Visited all 7 continents
125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
126. Eaten kangaroo meat
127. Eaten sushi
128. Had your picture in the newspaper
129. Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about
130. Gone back to school
131. Parasailed
132. Touched a cockroach
133. Eaten fried green tomatoes
134. Read The Iliad - and the Odyssey
135. Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and read
136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
137. Skipped all your school reunions
138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
139. Been elected to public office
140. Written your own computer language
141. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream
142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
143. Built your own PC from parts
144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you
145. Had a booth at a street fair
146. Dyed your hair
147. Been a DJ
148. Shaved your head
149. Caused a car accident
150. Saved someone’s life

Anything not saved will be lost.

Are you sure you want to continue?

Words of wisdom from wii-master. Most people disregard these messages, and I usually do, too. But having lost some things lately, I'm going to start paying more attention.

We're not going to go back to when I lost my passport, and my drill, the latter of which was found. Whenever I find something that I thought was lost, my DH always asks, "Is your passport in there?" I did, however, lose a life that was entrusted to my care on Saturday.

We are dog-sitting for my DD's cello teacher, who is on an extended trip. The charming Mr. Joey is a black mixed breed lab/dachshund who is surprisingly well-behaved for a 7 month old puppy. Of course he loves DH who I refer as his step-dad. DH was at a very long gig so DD & I went to the movies (Wall-E). After running an errand, we came home to a wide open gate and no black dog. The wind was heavy and it pushed the gate open. I immediately called "help-me- find-the-dog-I'm-supposed-to-be-watching-911", my friend Pat. She and I cruised around our neighborhood for over an hour calling out to Joey, but to no avail. Did I mention that same Pat and I had a nice big fat duet/trio the next morning with the Schumacher, our gallery organ? We tried to save our voices but couldn't help calling for the lost guy. Around 11:30pm I get a call from Joey's mom, who tells me that a neighbor of mine has Joey in her garage! She looked up the owner info from Joey's http://www.getmehome.com/ tag. Thank the dog gods! Now I'm barely letting him out to pee.

While we were looking for the dog, the DH had a wedding to DJ. He informed me the next day that some people were having a great time, what with the open bar and all, and that a young man, surrounded by his peers, actually pulled his dick out of his pants. I said, "Wait a minute, did you actually see the dick?" "Yes, I saw his pink pointer." A moment that the reveler probably wishes will be lost, and not saved, especially by the wedding videographer.

At the moment in the Doppler household, we are dealing with a problem so heinous, so vile, that I dare not speak of it here. Nobody is sick or dying, but the Dopplers have some extra houseguests that REALLY need to get LOST!

And on top of that, wii-master's little red scion was completely out today. This was after I played The Seeker and Cherub Rock on hard (thank you!) earlier in the day. A quick call to Nintendo and a short conversation with somebody not in Bangalore or anywhere on that continent and wii-master was back at the ready. To quote an old 80s saying, "I almost lost it."

I watched my Netflix movie last night, "Dancer In The Dark" about a factory worker who loses her eyesight. I think about all the things I've lost over the years. A passport can be replaced (and it was), drills can be bought, dogs come home even if it's not their own home, dicks get taken out (that's a little like trying to put toothpaste back in the tube, once it's out, it's out), and wii-masters get restored. At least I can see.

I am a guitar hero

According to my Wii, that is. I finally mastered the easy section of guitar hero, after about 3 weeks of studying and practicing, all time well-spent. I also got a wi-fi and can play other supposed heros from around the world. I always kick their ass. Could it be I'm playing on medium and they, expert?
I'm ready to buy an electric guitar and amp and tour the world.

Monteverdi & mitochondria

My friend forwarded this to me a while ago. It's 90 minutes of Trinity Wall Street performing Monteverdi's Vespers in its entirety, complete with period instruments, concluding with 5 minutes of applause. This occurred in NY on some random Tuesday night in January. It amazes me to think that a work of this magnitude is offered mid-week. I suppose there are other pressing performances which take up the coveted Friday and Saturday night slots. The vocal soloists are fantastic and the little continuo organ is perfect for that setting.

What would prompt Monteverdi to write such a lengthy muscial offering? Without doing any research on the piece in order to approach it with pure-mind, I wonder about the story behind the Vespers. My analytical side screams "a commissioned work! so he can eat and pay rent! it has nothing to do with God! just smile and write the music!" Or, on a less greedy sense, "I must write what the people want to hear" (here, the Catholic church is implied to be the "people"). I'm not a full-on paid church musician but have 18 years' experience in that area, and I can tell you even today's priests don't care much for lenghty musical works. Perhaps it's one of many pieces Monteverdi wrote that he didn't get to hear in his lifetime. Maybe his mental footnote on the Vespers was "more power to the souls who undertake such a grand work."

Or maybe, just maybe, Monteverdi actually wrote this beautiful, complex, difficult, mysterious work to honor a God that he thought equally beautiful, complex, difficult and mysterious.

At the same time I was listening to the Vespers, and yes, I did watch/listen to the whole performance, my DH was studying for his anatomy class. We talked about the different organelles and their functions. Taken individually, it's not hard to remember what each of them do. There is always a little cartoon drawing of what the smooth endoplastic reticulum looks like, as well as all of the others. It's easy to memorize these things. But more difficult to grasp the matrices which make up the human body. It is a daily task for me to appreciate the interconnectedness of life. How everybody looks the same on the inside. How many trillions of mitochondria I have inside, powering my limbs to move. How the eye can transmit light into images for my brain. How electrons cannot be in one place at any given time, but that we are all made of electrons coming into and going out of existence.

Then I wonder how long Monteverdi's Vespers would be if he knew about mitochondria.

Monk

I realize the show "Monk" has been on for quite a while. I watch a lot of A&E so the show is advertised a lot there. Before I even saw it I knew the premise. Monk is somewhat of a particular person, to the point of it controlling his life, and he is also in some kind of police work. That said, I watched part of an episode for the first time the other day.
So he's seeing a psychiatrist or therapist, probably about his OCD. He appears tortured, not being able to relax when something is out of place. This has taken over his life. The Dr. suggests medication, which is quickly dismissed by Monk. "Just the thought of all those chemicals in my body..." that is his excuse for not trying the meds. But the good Dr. gives him a small bottle and urges him to take one when he feels ready. After screwing up an investigation into a cop shooting by not wanting to physically apprehend a suspect (for fear of soiling his clean hands) he decides its time to take the pills.
The next few scenes shows Monk doing things very uncharacteristic of him--eating off someone else's place and using their (used) utensils, being overly jovial, you get the picture. This is where I had to turn it off.
I ventured to guess, although I might be wrong, that Monk loses his "edge" for noticing the small things while he's on the meds, and although he is happier, he is less efficient in his work. It can only end with Monk deciding not to take the meds any longer (because then it wouldn't be a show, then, would it?). Since I didn't even watch the rest of the episode, one twist could have been that the pills were actually a placebo, and the OCD is really all in Monk's mind (where else would it be?).
This episode is a disservice to those people who have OCD and those who have it and decide to treat their disorder with medication. You don't get goofy, lazy and careless after taking one pill. You don't get goofy, lazy or careless at all. What does happen, what is supposed to happen, is that you don't get so hung up on things mentally. Think about an endless tape loop of your own voice telling you things that need to be done. Not just a friendly reminder, "You really should take that laundry out of the dryer" but more like standing at the dryer with a stopwatch telling yourself that the dryer timer must be off about 2 minutes because I know it's been more than 20 minutes since I put that stuff in there! Just a little bit different.
Don't be fooled by Hollywood making a fool out of someone with a disorder that has a full spectrum of manifestations. For some, it means they are able to do 14 stitches per inch in a hand-quilted blanket. Others can concentrate for hours, writing, mixing, arranging or playing music. A lot of people that are like this become doctors. Unfortunately, some people with OCD also work for the IRS.
I like to embrace it as a strength, not a weakness, and you should too, Monk.

What? No Photos?

I haven't blogged in a while because I haven't had the time to wait for my photos to upload, which at Blogger can take a while. So I decided while I have the time but not the camera, I'll write about what's been going on since last posting, Nov 2007 (yikes!). A good blog entry doesn't always need photos, right?
We held Thanksgiving dinner at our house this year. We haven't done that before, but were happy to oblige. Hubby made homemade cornbread stuffing that was to die for, along with the normal fare. I ended up making 3 pear-cranberry pies that week (I have awesome step-by-step photos that I will include in a later post). Everbody loved them! I love cranberries and pears and thought the combination couldn't be wrong.
We had the large Christmas party on 12/23 this year, still fewer than what we've had before. Two weekends before that my brother-in-law and his wife moved here permanently from Japan. It is so joyful knowing they are here now and we can see them more often. Santa came down the chimney with lots of toys, but my daughter's favorite is Buzz Lightyear.
Our choir performed Vivaldi's "Gloria" in its entirety before the service on Christmas Eve, then my all-time favorite song in the world sacred and profane, "Here is the Little Door" by Herbert Howells, a transcript you will find in a previous post. Then a sweet little number written by our choir director "Holy Child".
I tried contacting some old friends who live at great distances to see how they are doing, and didn't hear from either of them. I seem to care for these people a bit and always wonder how things are going for them.
Also we got a new central AC/heat for the house and a new shed! Not a woman's idea of Christmas presents but both badly needed.