Tried to make a gif today - let's see if this works?

Second attempt at Pho

I love the Vietnamese soup called Pho. It's hearty and filling and is a healthy indulgence. I think I'll be making it much more in future. 

This is my second attempt, and I used a soup base from an Asian market instead of making entirely from scratch. The first batch I made was better, so I'll stick with that method. I LOVE peeling and cooking with fresh ginger- it's a glorious fragrance. 

Working like a fiend to try and organize my house before school starts in an attempt to hold on to any shreds of sanity I can muster. Rearranging furniture tonight with the gallant help of Himself. 

Hoping to have things orderly enough to make my cranapeno jam tomorrow. 

I owe you all a huge post on the excess of irons I have in the fire at the mo. Big difference now between a few weeks ago is that I'm crazed with too much to do but I'm gleeful rather than stressed. It's been a very productive weekend for organization. I plan to have my place much more settled within 36 hours. No pressure, right?

Today, I'm going to put a new sill in my kitchen window over the sink. This may turn out to be the ultimate in ethnic engineering. We shall see!

Bonus pup: Chuy's favorite sweater is this one:

Nice crop of pecans

If only they would fall!  I've gotten a few pounds off the ground, but there appear to be many hundreds still clinging to their husks. They are delicious this year, too!

Nuit de Noel

The gorgeous song of love Zliey Dukhi translated from the original Russian, composed by Alexander Vertinsky, reminisces of the haunting nature of love lost so intrinsically tied to perfume. I adore Marc Almond, and this is perhaps my favorite recording of his achingly beautiful voice. This so embodies the ethereal yet riveting nature of perfume, yes?

Well, it does for me, anyway.

Nuit de Noel is an Oriental Floral fragrance launched by Parfums Caron in 1922.  Top notes include rose, ylang ylang and jasmine, heart is sandalwood and oak moss, and bass notes are musk (synthetic, almost always, these days) and amber.

NdN has about it the air of an antiquated fragrance at first.  The descriptor "old lady perfume" is one hotly debated amongst fragrophiles, and many a topic thread has been deleted from perfumista boards because the discussion became so contentious.  We are creatures of habit and we follow trends in the herd-- it is known.  "Old lady" is a poor descriptor, because today's 20 something co-eds will smell like little old ladies to coeds in 40 years when they wear their Juicy Couture or Fruitbomb trendies. It's a cycle.  What you find new and fresh now will one day be a reminder of yesteryear.  Very fine and compelling formulations may fall to the wayside, but some among their ranks endure, and only for the very good reason that enough of a market remains passionate about that perfume through the years.

That said, there is an air of Grand Dame about Nuit de Noel.  The person who demands instant gratification will not likely be satisfied with this scent, and I have to say I very nearly gave up on it before it revealed its full magic, and this would have been my loss.  The opening is rather harsh and loud.  Jasmine can be a tough sell for me, and ylang ylang can be overpowering, so coupled with the rose the opening is a bit cloying and borders on too much bang with not enough ooh-la-la!  I urge anyone trying this to wait out the opening.  For me, the dry-down takes at least an hour, and then there is the hot, racing heart of oakmoss and sandalwood to ground the high-flying florals and rein them in superbly.  Finally, the base of amber is always wonderful for me, and though musks can be overly powdery to my nose, in this one it really works. 

Perfumes very much evoke moods for me, and none moreso than antique formulations such as this one.  I can't put on a perfume from 1922 without thinking of the tenor and tone of that glorious jazz age.  Girls with too-short skirts, rouged knees, brazenly bobbed hair and too too too much lipstick!  Scandalous! This was the sparkling moment of Gerswhin, Stravinsky, Jolson. The world was in a big hurry to have too much fun, too soon, the dark perils of The Great War now shrinking in the rearview mirror.  Now was a moment to marvel at the flickering image of moving pictures, to marvel at radio and be entranced as the sinuous lines of art nouveau morphed into the sleek form of art deco. It's all so jazzy, baby! So modern.  So new.

The link I've provided above is to the impeccable fragrance shop Lucky Scent. I can't recommend them enough for their wonderful service and superb selection. The site includes an expensive parfum but I use the eau de toilette and don't find it lacking in any way. I would like to have the parfum, one day, though.  The great thing about Lucky Scent is that a sample may be purchased for just a few dollars, so you don't have to commit to a full bottle to try it out. 

Here is the original in Russian:

This doesn't remotely resemble my Christmas family gatherings, but I love the song!

To begin with, Mom and Dad don't even drink, so they won't be getting drunk.  Still, I love this song and think of it often, year-round. I'm sure in about any part of Texas you could throw a rock and hit a gathering like the one presented herein:



Feliz Navidad, y'all!

Christmas traditions of others

Hep Holiday Tune

My two cents on censorship, religion and the like:

American civilization and our media greet most things out-of-the-norm with a wide-eyed fawning veracity these days.  They fall all over themselves to find common ground for mainstream America with people flogging their Islamic/Buddhist/whatever beliefs. They give unblinking respect to the yoga-plex for all the meditative mantras etc that would have been labeled utter kookville a handful of years ago. At the very least, these things would have been presented with a raised eyebrow, but now they are well-enough regarded to the point that they are brought under the big tent of political correctness.  Even the new religion of Environmentalism is cited in newscasts with awe and reverence. I don't agree with all these things, but I do agree with respecting people who want a peaceful life that does not encroach upon the freedoms of others.  They get to believe what they want, as do I.

Given the above statements, why is it then a problem if a man publicly states his religious, political and social views?  Why would a production company filming his daily life for a television show edit out "Jesus Christ" and "God" from the recording when these things come up in the course of this person's normal day, whether or not the cameras are rolling? Why would that production company presume to predicate their continued work with this man on him keeping his mouth shut about what he believes?

Of course, any production company can (and usually does) engineer cuts of what goes on in these "reality" shows to portray the subjects in a particular light, but the folks on Duck Dynasty have been completely transparent about their views and beliefs, and for one of the people in that show to be thrown out of the production for expressing his views is patently wrong.  Why should he cork his views for the sake of the opinions/lifestyles of people wholly unrelated to him or his family? THEY were guests in his home, at his sufferance, and not vice-versa.

As far as homosexuality, this discussion will not lead to anyone changing their minds about which side of that fence they plant their flag. What this should lead us to is a resolution that we all do have to get along, and free Americans have the right to say and believe as they choose.  We are none of us guaranteed a right to not be offended.  Maybe Duck Dynasty guy was offended by decades of media and culture that fly in the face of his most sacred and profound beliefs?  Maybe he got fed up and decided to exercise his God-given right (or his right as an American, if you don't believe in God) to say whatever he wants. 

Let me be clear: I'm not speaking about any particular thing he said, but simply about his right to say it. I'm not saying he didn't say outrageous things, but again: free speech.

Freedom of speech is something we should treasure and fiercely protect. If this man can be shut up, so can you.

A Night in Tunisia

The classic Dizzy Gillespie composition featuring the man himself along with Charles Mingus, Charlie Parker, Max Roach and Bud Powell from a performance in 1953 at Massey Hall in Toronto.  Imagine a smoky room shot through with the electric energy of such brilliant, exacting musicians conjuring such felicity of sound from inanimate objects.  Warlocks, they were. 



This is magic. This may not be to everyone's taste, but the brilliance is undeniable.

Sunday, Puppy Sunday: sidesaddle puppy

It must be a wiener dog thing, but Mochi tends to sit side-saddle with such short legs and such a long body. Here we see her mid-munch on a pecan. I think she's eaten more pecans than I've been able to pick up this year. 

It's not quite 2PM, and I've line- dried 2 loads of laundry and a third load is on the clothesline, and now I'm on my way to see The Hobbit for some well-earned recreation. It's about 60 degrees here and is forecast for 60s/70s for the next several days. Good time to get things cleaned out. 

I've been working on some creative projects and organizing. Today, I finally organized a schoolbook cubby, so now they have their own designated spot when not in use. I seem unable to let horizontal surfaces remain free of clutter, and things descend into chaos quite quickly-- the book cubby will keep these high-priority materials organized and readily accessible(once in November I nearly bought a second copy of a book for a course when I couldn't find the original. Stress!). The only hope for my sanity is to get my house more organized before the new semester starts in 4 weeks. 

It feels so good not to be freaking out about looming deadlines for tests and assignments for a change!

Fun with Four Chords

Most pop music is incredibly unchallenging and tonically similar to other pop music.  It's basically a bunch of re-treads.  Most pop songs are built on a chord progression of the I, V, vi and IV chords.  We're sort of trained from infancy to find this progression pleasing, and by golly! it IS pleasing, but it does mean that pop music rarely really stretches its legs and gives us something dazzlingly different. 

The brilliant troupe Four Chords has put together a collage of a whole bunch of music you know and possibly love, but that are so incredibly similar as to be interchangeable. Some of the segues are dazzling, so watch closely. Oh, and a bit of potty language near the end, so may not be safe for kids, though in my own very mature way, I'm going to be singing the phrase with the f*bomb for days. Just inside my head, though, and not publicly.

This is really cute!

One year ago yesterday

I had my maxillary osteotomy.  It's amazing how quickly this year has flown, but I was in a fog for months after the surgery.  You can't have any idea of how much it takes to recover from a 7+ hour session of general anaesthesia until you actually go through it. I figured I'd bounce back much more lightly than I did, but I'm glad I did that and that it's behind me. Total quality of life is improved for having a proper bite, having the deviated septum repaired and also not having the constant earache from the jaw misalignment.  Any one of these issues would have been justification enough to go through the procedure and recovery, but to have them all done is such an improvement. I've said so before, but I'll say again if you have a deviated septum and breathing issues because of it, you really should have the surgery to correct it-- it's amazing what a huge difference it makes being able to breathe clearly through your nose as you were meant to do.

I'm feeling better, and still dealing with the cough that comes with post-nasal drip. Occasionally I'll have extraordinary coughing fits.  I remember last year being rather bummed because my surgery and its aftermath would make me unable to see the Hobbit at or around the time of its premiere, and now the cough is something that will keep me out of the theatre, unless it clears up dramatically and quite soon. I'm trying gradually to collect more pecans in the yard, but I'm taking it in baby steps. I call that redneck yoga, much like picking up brass at the range.  I get tired quickly, though. 

I have a lot of projects going on and I'll try to post some soon.  Hope you're having a wonderful December, and I'm SO so so glad not to be in school for a month. *whew!*

Old music is the sweetest.

When I was a girl, we mostly lived in the mid-South (Memphis) area and on many weekends and always at holidays we'd make the trek up to the Ozarks to visit the folks.  Mom and Dad often played old-timey radio for the drive, and this being the 60s/70s, that meant golden age of radio music like Benny Goodman, Bing Crosby and the like.  In that gloriously analog world, you'd sometimes hear the crackle as the needle lovingly slid down the spiraling groove of the record. For this reason, great classics from the 1930s-50s radio seem so right for cold weather.  THAT feels like a holiday to me.  It doesn't have to be Bing singing White Christmas-- pretty much any Duke Ellington or Doris Day will work to evoke that warmth for me, and it's all just toe-tapping, good-feeling music.

This is one I remember from those drives with the bayou along one side of the road as the terrain morphed from flat farmland to the gently rolling hills, and finally into the proper mountains. Sometimes there would be snow, but it was always cold, and at the time I was bemused by my old-timey folks and their predilection for the old music- that was just Mom and Dad.  Still is, thank goodness-- I wouldn't trade it!



This year's fancies are passing fancies, but the old-fashioned way is here to stay in my heart and always will be. I'm thankful for the early exposure to off-the-trending path in music so I'd have a greater appreciation for life. Nice to know some things are unchangingly wonderful.

One down, 4 to go

So relieved this semester is over, and I appear to have passed everything, so *whew* 4 more semesters to go, so two years from now, I'll nearly be a Nursie! Yay!

Lingering brutal cough is keeping me up nights. Went to the dr today and my BP is ossum - 118/72 - and it's a great indicator of how stressful school has been, because I've had it taken many times in class, and it's mostly been higher than that. This is about normal for me for all my adult life, so I'm relieved to see it go down, but I'm concerned that it's been so affected by the stress of school. I need to get my mud in a ball so I can cope a little better.

Dr gave me a prescription for a medicine that will hopefully help with this fiendish cough so I can get some rest and get on with my goals for down-time. I'm working on some creative pursuits, but mostly staying indoors while its still so cold. 

I have a CPR class on Monday, and then I'm good for the rest of the year. Yay!

Hope you're all warm, well and enjoying the holidays. I'm hopeful I'll feel up to making some jalapeño jelly this weekend, and I'm overdue to make a batch of cranapeno jam-- I'm plumb out of the stuff, so the timing is good!