Whee! So I made it through my oral argument last Wednesday. And since then?
I have tried two perfumes: Comme des Garcons' Harissa and Lisa Simon Monsoon Season. The first offsets strong spices with blood orange. It made me feel like I was in an Ethiopian restaurant. Not a big scent -- it didn't stand off my skin very much, which is all right by me, and it's not terribly long-lasting. Overall, it was less something I'd want to wear around than something I'd like to unstopper and take a whiff of on dark January days. Instant anti-SAD scent! Whee! Strangely, I also think it attracts very large mosquitoes -- at least, the first day I wore it, the backs of my knee, where I had dabbed the perfume, became the object of interest for a glittering swarm of mosquitoes the size of hummingbirds.
Monsoon Season starts out smelling like the contents of an elderly sachet -- some pocket of dried roses, lavender, and balsam that's been stuck in your grandmother's handkerchief drawer for the last forty years. Dusty and musty. That clears up fairly quickly, thankfully, and it settles into a pleasantly spicy rose scent. A bigger scent than I usually favor, it gave me a bit of a headache for the first hour (to be fair, that morning, I probably would have had a headache anyway), but after that it was an extremely pleasant scent, and fairly long lasting.
What else? After learning about it from Elisa's blog, I made this tomato sauce (but I added Italian sausage to it). Not sure I let it boil down enough -- it wasn't as thick as I like it. But it was still tasty! Also, I made these wee carmelized onion/thyme/goat cheese tarts. They were, how you say, super yummy.
On Saturday, Jeff and I went to -- deep breath -- Star Wars In Concert. There, we listened to a full symphony orchestra play the Imperial March while lasers shot around the Verizon Center and small children waved toy light sabers in the air. We also saw a representative sampling of Star Wars-themed novelty t-shirts, and one kid dressed in an alarmingly good Boba Fett costume.
I got my cheesemaking kit! But I have not yet made cheese. First, I have to obtain a non-reactive pot in which to make it. All my pots are anodized aluminum, which apparently reacts poorly with cheese ingredients. Lo, the burdens of the cheesemaker are many. But, soon, soon...