wheee!

I love Hyacinth Bucket.

Gee thanks, .gubmint!

In a haze of post-osteotomy drugs/swelling/pain, I dragged myself and a passel of papers in to my usual tax preparer in late January. Okay, self, I sez, I should get a refund within 6 weeks or so, right? Right?

Well, one of the forms I had to file was for credit for all that college I paid for last year. Because my classes were divided between two different schools, I didn't qualify for tax-deferred loans that would have given me at least a sane interest rate(and possible deferred payment), but, needs must, yeah? It's all for the cause.

So I couldn't help noticing the chick in the veal cube next to mine at work got her tax rebate a few weeks ago, and a couple of weeks after she filed, and several weeks after I filed in the first place. I went by the tax preparer's office yesterday to axt them what was going on, and they said the .gub's software had a problem and didn't recognize all the info on the forms submitted and I should be getting a letter.

Letter came today: whoopsie! two lines appeared to be not filled in on the form, so I hied my furry white tail down to the tax preparer's office, where the nice man showed me that we'd already filled in those two lines. Turns out that the IRS forgot to notify their software people to add these lines in THEIR software. The tax preparers got it right, but the .gub's computers didn't recognize the information. This has been remedied and I've received the acknowledgement that they've received the full information now.

Here's the kicker: I should expect my refund in 6 to 8 weeks. From now. So, in other words, my refund this year will come 13 to 15 weeks AFTER I filed it. Somehow, I don't think they'd be as flexible on timing if I owed them an additional tax payment. This inconveniences me tremendously. I'm rather peeved.

Yay.

The lady with the screaming child has left the restaurant. She was the only thing louder than the child. I should have said the screaming child with the loud mother has left the restaurant.

Wow. This is really expensive tequila, apparently.

I just want the bottles, though. Just the same, I wonder what the bottle designer was thinking...

I love Texas.

Sometimes you see something so awful it tips over into the sublime. The little ears are a particularly nice touch.

Homes need dogs and cats.

I think it's something you see in a struggling economy, but more and more household pets are being turned in at North Texas area shelters. The Garland shelter in particular is overflowing and they are getting more coming in every day.

I have 3 dogs and can't possibly take another, or I would. If you know anyone in the area who is looking for a pet, please press them to search the shelters now.

Also, when I lost Valentine in 2008, my heart was so full of grief I couldn't imagine I could ever love another dog properly. LawDog and Ambulance Driver both told me to get a pup, and soon. I got Praline and rescued Chuy for her companion, and they both wormed their way deep into my heart, chasing away the cobwebs of grief that seemed so overwhelming. It didn't mean I didn't miss Valentine or loved her less, but did mean that I could celebrate her life by making a good home for two dogs who needed love. Last year, Mochi was in dire circumstances and boy did she up-end my peaceable queendom, but I'm so happy to have her flouncy, mischievous self around.

A rescue dog can or cat can open you daily life to joy and wonders you never imagined for yourself. It's a big responsibility and an extra expense, but if you can bear those without hardship, you will have done a kindness to a creature and blessed your own life in the process.

At the end of the day, if I can be with my little dogs, I'm a happy lady. I wish just such a happy day for every household and every dog.

LIVE! NAKED! EYE!

Be sure to catch the PANSTARRS (sounds like a reality cooking show, yeah?) comet this week. Particularly starting on Tuesday night right around sunset, the comet will appear low on the western horizon near the crescent moon, and will be visible with the naked eye, though binocs are recommended.

I'll be at Mom and Dad's and we're planning to mosey somewhere that we can take a gander at the spectacle. This is not a comet that will come back around in our lifetime, so get it while it's hawt.

What passes for alchemy to a woman like me

After a particularly bad day at the coal mine recently, I came home and ordered myself a small passel of samples of exotic fragrances for $3 a pop. I am thrilled to have them, but I find the full range of the fragrance seems shown to best advantage when sprayed into the skin, rather than daubed on.

To that end, I ordered some tiny atomizer bottles and pipettes for transferring the juice from the tiny vials into the spray bottles. This is grand fun, like Christmas in miniature. Mostly, this has been a modest way to learn that I don't, in fact, like every perfume in the $200 to $400 range. This is actually a relief. There are three which have bewitched me utterly. I'm also on a crash course on aldehydes. Old NFO was right-- I'd like to play in a lab with essential oils with Lab Rat. I'd be the Magic Hands of the operation behind her brilliant brain. Such fun we would have!

For now, though, painstakingly shifting the juice and wasting nary a drop is my idea of a good time. I will say, though, that having handled a range of incompatible fragrances, my fingers smell like pee.

P.U!

Sunday, Puppy Sunday: pitty sing

Pretty pretty Praline. The other pups are snuggled under the blanket, but she likes to be outside to keep proper watch over the pack. Some threat may require disembowelment. Dad gummed squirrels!

What we rockin

my nose is blissed out.

I had a monumentally bad day last week and came home and ordered several samples from LuckyScent.com. Stuff that I really didn't want to spring $80 to $300 for a bottle to try- just enough to get an idea so I could shorten my fragrance WANT list.

I must say that Ambre Gris by Balmain smells glorious. THIS one is staying on the want list, snugly. Very elegant, and refined, like a strand of grey pearls sliding over duchesse silk. Fragrance notes include: Pink pepper, cinnamon, tuberose, immortelle, myrrh, smoky gaïac wood, benzoin, white musks, ambergris

Even if everything is going to poop all around you, you at least can take a smell vacation and revel in the fact that you enjoy smelling of yourself. :P Yes, I know that sounds ridiculous and frankly I am past caring.

Padparadscha by Satellite also seems glorious, right out of the bag, but I haven't uncorked the little tester. I'll give a report when I do. But for now, Ambre Gris. Yum.

Dr appointments in Dallas.

8:00 AM at orthodontist, then 10:00 AM at the surgeon and soon after I'll mosey West in time to work half the day. Hoping my orthodontist still wants to take off my braces in one month. Or today! Today would be nice!!!

First update- some ligature wired came out, but 90% likely to get braces off April 1. Yay!

Sunday, Puppy Sunday: pups all a'blur!

I will outright own that I am a total fragrance whore.

More on my penchant for perfume later, but Brigid has a very funny post up on men's frags. She recounts her hilarious (to others, but poor Brigid!) encounter with a mid-rut bottle of Tink's, the branding of which seems to have stuck the "s" on the wrong end of the name.

I've purchased perfumes with ridiculous names and based on ridiculous concepts, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Indeed, the sensation of scent is baffling and bewitching and incredibly powerful, but, like sex, it's preposterous, so I don't regret it and I don't apologize. But this one takes the cake. I'm astonished and delighted, and astonished. I admit, I'd like to take a deep whiff for the sake of curiosity, but wow, I wonder if anyone actually wears (I shit you not, it is really called) FAT ELECTRICIAN. Have I mentioned my astonishment? Who doesn't love the element of surprise(except in warfare when you are surprised by the other guy)???

His beauty would have been his greatest asset. One imagines he was raised in the big air of Texas, his soft skin scrubbed by ears of wheat, his eyelashes curled by grappling with grace against a blinding sun. A Steve McQueen lost on city asphalt. A fisherman without a line, he was made to be hooked by others, to believe in his fate without knowing it, to wreak havoc and forget it over time. Youth for women-of-a-certain-age, stock for late-night parties, a partner to accompany the wealthy of Palm Peach on nature walks, his splendor is consumed in the service of others. Now, a Fat Electrician in New Jersey, his talent depleted in his sexual decline. To celebrate this beauty which cannot be recaptured, a splendid vetiver is required - an ode to bygone eroticism. Antoine Maisondieu* has willed him white, metallic, silver like the ancestral green of olive leaves. But also sweet, demure, addictive like a chestnut cream – vanilla bean, opoponax and myrrh in the bottom notes. Intensely concentrated, resinous, flawlessly unrefined, it conveys a sensuality of contradiction. Because all beauty carries within itself the knowledge that it will not last.

Wow. Poetic, even. I am a sucker for vetiver in men's fragrances, and this one is probably not bad, and at about $128, it has something to prove. I am intrigued. I really really want to smell this. Etat libre d'Orange (site takes a minute to load, but is very cool on frontpage, and I approve of their unique approach. tres cool) has some delightfully off-beat names to their juices, and I'd love to visit a shop with the whole line. I'm so glad they didn't name one Plumber's Crack, but I'm curious about the one whose name (from French) tranlsates to Palace Hooker. RELEASE YOUR INNER SLUT. Inner???

I WILL be ordering some samples and I'll give you a full report.

Hells, yeah!

Hooker!



h/t to lovely Lin for steering me to Brigid's blog, knowing I'm a fragrophile. I really need to get around the blogs more often. :)
*perfume creator