PERFUME AS MEDITATION

It’s been one hell of a fall quarter, but it’s finally over. Last weekend I took care of a huge backlog of old orders. Yesterday was the first day that I’ve been able to really relax at home, take care of some grading and other academic cleanup operations, and actually make a small amount of progress.

I’m making lots of ready-to-ship stock for the new shelves. This is going to make my life much easier. I also ordered new custom boxes for the little triangular 15 ml bottles, which I’m going to keep because I like the way they look. The new boxes will give them a much-needed makeover.  I was running out of the old brown cardboard boxes that didn't quite fit, and I either had to get more of them or change.  Not surprisingly, I decided to change. The new boxes will match the new 30 ml and 100 ml boxes, making for a unified look.

I’m also finally getting back into my routine of testing one or two perfumes every day, something that I didn’t feel like doing when I was constantly on the go from morning through night. When I experience perfume, it’s like a form of meditation. I like to be in a quiet, calm environment where I can just breathe it in, concentrate on it fully, think about it, and feel its intent and whatever memories or emotions it evokes. I always write down notes, a habit that persists from my pre-perfumer days when I used to post a lot of perfume reviews. These days the notes are mostly just for me, to remind me of what each perfume was like and help reduce the chances that I’ll inadvertently remake something that already exists.

I’m almost ready to start work on formulating a few new perfumes, but this week I’m just going to finish up a good part of the work that was neglected all fall. What a delight to start getting caught up!

[Upper graphic is my perfume bottle photo and the box manufacturer's proof. Lower photo is from Wikimedia.] 

HOLIDAY GIVEAWAY WINNERS

This blogger-perfumer

Started a rumor

That there would be gifts to win

She fumbled about

And two names came out

She said, “let the shipping begin!”

The winners are: Colin I and Carla M

There were 24 entries, an all-time high for one of these drawings, so I decided to choose a runner-up who will receive one 5-ml spray, their choice of the three included in the gift box.

The runner-up is Jessie V

Please contact me with your shipping information. If you are in the US, you will receive the big box. If you are international, you will receive the small box with 3 x 5-ml sprays. If you are the runner-up, please contact me with your shipping info and choice of fragrance. If you click on the Doc Elly link at the right, you will find my e-mail address. 

[Little Jack Horner illustration from the archives of Wikimedia]

A MIDWINTER GIVEAWAY

I’ve been away from the blog for way too long, so as a way to lure back those readers who have given up reading, thinking that I would never post again, I’m doing a random drawing. I’m sure the extreme cold has numbed the brain of everyone in the northern hemisphere and turned you into shivering zombies huddled around a fire somewhere, so I’m not expecting you to think, and I’m not expecting you to write anything more than a random word or two to let me know that you’re still out there and surviving whatever the winter has brought you.

What can you win? One of the Olympic Orchids Holiday Gift Sets. For readers in the US, it includes three 15-ml sprays, an ounce of bath oil, and a full-size soap. For international readers, it’s a small gift box with three 15-ml sprays. There will be one winner in each category.

All you have to do is leave some sort of comment. It doesn’t matter what, as long as it isn’t spam. The drawing will take place a week from today, on Sunday, December 15.

HUMMINGBIRDS IN SIBERIA

For the past week we have been having bitterly cold weather. Everything is frozen solid outside, and all of the plants with green leaves have that sad, beat-up, leathery look that they get when it’s freezing. In fact, they’re a good gauge of temperature because as soon as it warms up they start looking normal again. The air is perfectly still, the sky is perfectly clear and blue, The Olympics are perfectly white, and the sun is doing its best to peek over the southern horizon and shine horizontally on everything for a few hours a day.

The winter solstice is only two weeks away, so it’s not surprising that the days are short. What is surprising is all of the dry, cold weather we're having. Normally it’s cool, cloudy, and wet this time of year, but not freezing! Global climate change seems to have turned the Pacific Northwest into Siberia.

The saddest thing of all was seeing a little female hummingbird early this morning trying to drink at the feeder outside my window and realizing that the sugar-juice was frozen solid. I hope she managed to go up the street and find nectar in some of the winter-blooming flowers in the neighbors’ yards, but I’m afraid they were frozen, too. I brought the feeder in, thawed the liquid, topped it off, and put it outside again hoping the hummingbirds would find it before it freezes again. From now on, until it warms up, I’m going to bring it inside at night.

I hadn’t been in the greenhouse for a week, but did venture in there today to check the temperature and see what, if anything had frozen. Amazingly, a lot of my pleurothallids and other small-flowered orchids have burst into bloom! They must be enjoying the cold a lot more than I am. 

[Photos of Fairbanks, Alaska at noon on the winter solstice and a hummingbird at a red plastic feeder just like mine are both adapted from Wikimedia. Trisitella hoeijeri photo is mine.] 

IF YOU’RE NOT BEHIND, YOU’RE NOT LOOKING FORWARD

Thanksgiving is over and the light is suddenly visible at the end of the dark fall quarter tunnel. There’s only one more week of teaching, a few more exams, grading tasks, committee meetings, reports, and presentations, and then it’s all over for a couple of weeks as I recover from the insanity that was fall and prepare for the slightly less hectic winter quarter. In less than a month, days will start getting longer again. For the short break between classes and the increasing light that will come after the winter solstice, I’m thankful.

The other day I was talking to a colleague who, like me, was feeling really depressed and overwhelmed by the fact that we’re always so behind in everything. In academia with its chronically high demands mixed with elastic deadlines, being behind is a way of life that we all accept. Long ago I reconciled myself to never catching up, and realized during that conversation that there’s no way any of us can ever catch up because if we did, it would mean that we had no plans. I said to my colleague, “if you’re not behind, you’re not looking forward”, and that has become my new motto. Maybe it doesn’t help get things done, but at least it makes me feel better. For my inexhaustible ability to rationalize, I’m thankful.

As if in celebration of the season, Cattleya labiata is in full bloom, with its big, frilly, exquisitely delicate, lavender flowers, the prototypical old-fashioned corsage orchid. Its fragrance is powerful, with the plant pumping it out 24 hours a day, a sweet-spicy marzipan-fruity-floral during the day and a spicy ylang-ylang type scent at night. This orchid obviously wants the attention of both pollinator groups, the bees by day and the moths by night. I’m thankful that even in the darkest time of winter there are fragrant orchids blooming.

I’ve spent a lot of time over the Thanksgiving holiday filling orders and making stock bottles of perfume. My problem has always been that I can never catch up on making stock and often have to fill bottles at the time I get an order. This is not an efficient way to operate, so over this long weekend I have been making large batches and filling and boxing a lot of bottles all at once. Yesterday we cleared off two more shelves to store stock bottles. Once the process is complete, this should help cut down on the time that elapses from when an order is placed until the time it’s shipped. It will also make my life much easier. For my cozy studio and the fact that parts of it are finally getting organized so that I can spend time creating new fragrances, I’m extremely thankful.

So that’s the way it is - Thanksgiving in Seattle, dark and gloomy as another winter storm moves in. 

[Top two photos are mine, bottom photo of Mount Rainier and crows adapted from a random news photo that I downloaded several years ago.]