Fragrance

We ate the last of our garden-fresh tomatoes from our summer garden this week.  I guess that's appropriate, given that it's the last week of November.  But, boy, I'm already missing that taste of summer, and the scent you get, just touching the vines.

Yesterday was something of a first for me: I made meatloaf for that Spouse o' Mine.  I do not like meatloaf, and have sworn off ground beef anyway because of some mysterious allergy which began rearing its head about six years ago.  But this week's giant loaf-in-a-pan was sort of a make-up for the BBQ roast beef I made earlier in the week.  That Spouse o' Mine is not fond of BBQ.  I rarely make it, but I think there are few things finer than coming home to a crockpot that's been simmering BBQ roast all afternoon.  For some reason, that is always remindful of my grandmother's house.  But here's the funny part - I don't recall her making BBQ for us.  Gram was a china painter, and her house always smelled like turpentine.  How I loved that smell!  Somehow my senses have mistaken BBQ for turpentine.  Oh, well, comforting smells, anyway, from her kitchen to mine.

Earlier this week I bought a bottle of perfume, kind of on a whim. I'm pretty much a Chanel and Burberry gal, but I saw a bottle of perfume this week - just the kind my Aunt Alpha used to wear.  My Aunt Alpha was a fun lady to be around.  She died a few years ago at the age of 104. She and I, years earlier, had discussed perfumes.  She had remarked, "Oh, you just can't buy my perfume anymore."   Aunt Alpha had lived most of her professional life in Manhattan (the other one: the BIG Apple), working for the Metropolitan Opera, and upon retirement had moved to Los Angeles.  In her later years she moved to Oklahoma, nearer her kin, just as a chicken comes home to roost.  And this was where she lamented the lack of her French perfume.

What Aunt Alpha did not realize was that I took frequent trips to Paris.  The next time I found myself in one of the Galeries Lafayette, I purchased a bottle of Cabochard for her and surprised her the next time I visited Oklahoma.  She was amazed.  (I would like to point out here that "cabochard" means "headstrong" in French.  That was Aunt Alpha, all right.) 

Well, I dabbed on some Cabochard this morning, and all day I smelled my wrists: yes, yes: Auntie Alpha.

Funny how fragrance stays in one's memory.

“A good fragrance is really a powerful cocktail of memories and emotion.”   ~Jeff Stepakoff