That Was Strange and Thanksgiving

You know a few posts ago that I mentioned that something happened to my bottle of Arabie? I am not sure about what fully happened but my bottle of Arabie has been saved. I think that something might have leaked a little bit and ended up only on the cap. I was looking for something else and pulled Arabie out for a second try and that was how I found out that that was the case and really made sure that the perfume itself wasn't ruined and it wasn't. What makes me happy is that I don't have to scour the internet for a reasonably priced bottle or just throwing out the bottle and just be without a bottle of Arabie.

Since we are coming up on Thanksgiving here in the US and I am already trying to decide on which perfume I want to wear for Thanksgiving. I don't even know if I am going to someone else's place or it is to be a quiet Thanksgiving at home. My choices are Theorema, Feminite du Bois or Lyric. The first two are mostly for if I am going to someone else's house and Lyric is more of if I am going to spend the day at home. It seems like extended family members go gaga when I wear Theorema but are disappointed that Theorema has been discontinued. I don't like the fact that Theorema was discontinued either and happy that I was able to get some back up bottles when I did before it became hard to find and stupid expensive when you can find a bottle.

 

Dragging Stuff Out

My goal was to seriously start working on finishing samples and full bottles of perfume and I have failed miserably. I thought that if I kept a very limited amount of perfume out, I would have a chance. The only things that I have finished was that very small decant of Joy extrait, vintage Jicky extrait decant, A vintage no 5 extrait bottle and did drain a 1 ounce bottle of the Cheirosa 62 body spray. It seems like I accumulated more stuff in terms of perfume. But I haven't finished anything else. I keep trying and failing which leads to this post's title.

I just had to pull out one of those storage containers just to find a bottle of Mitsouko and vintage Bal a Versailles. With Mitsouko, it didn't matter if it was the newer EDP version or the vintage, I just wanted a bottle of Mitsouko, in all of her glory out. To a lesser extent, I did want a little bit of vintage Bal a Versailles out as well. 

When I first tried vintage Bal a Versailles, I immediately understood it and loved it and for a while, I would wear just about nothing else but that was fairly early on in my perfume journey, back when I didn't know the difference between my ass and a whole in the ground. I had no real knowledge of what a skank note was nor what an aldehyde was, let alone the perfume groups. I did discover Mitsouko early on as well.

I remembered that I did like Mitsouko a lot and couldn't quite figure out why I did. It took me a few wearings of Mitsouko, Diorling and reading about perfume families to figure out why. I loved the balance of a more traditional chypre. Then I discovered the vintage Mitsouko and then I knew what oakmoss really smelled like. At that point, I spent way too much money and time on Ebay trying to find the best bang for my buck in terms of vintage Mitsouko. I was specifically looking for the old teardrop bottles that were mostly filled and especially if the bottle itself was sealed. Then my financial woes were just beginning and perfume buying became harder to justify. Buying perfume is still hard to justify at this point. But I still want more perfume but need to start wearing what I have. I think that I did get a little bored with the line up on my nightstand

 

All Kinds of Stuff

It is that time of year where Sephora is having their fall sale. The bargain with myself is that I would spend less than $20 if I decided to partake. Not buying anything would have been preferred but I couldn't spend a whole lot. I know that Ulta is trying to lure people away from the Sephora sale by offering an ok coupon and just about every day there is a different point multiplier. For the point multiplier, I am not seeing anything worthwhile thus far. I probably will not buy anything from ULTA for a while. The only things that I got at the Sephora sale is a puff for the Nars setting powder that I have and a travel sized bottle of the Cheirosa 62 conditioner. Spent under $20 and I am okay with that. Everyone still seems to be out of the Chanel no 5 parfum and right now, I think it is still a good thing. If ULTA ever gets the parfum version of no 5 before the end of the year, I will redeem my ULTA rewards points for that. 

But come recently, I haven't really been game about going to Ulta, Bath and Body Works or Sephora. Even just to window shop. I am thinking it's the fact that I have two nephews that are having birthdays in the next 5 weeks and the Christmas shopping season is just about here. Most years, I am almost two thirds done this time of year and I am almost a quarter of the way done. What my game plan is that for Christmas the two littles will have to share a gift and the two older ones will have to share a gift. Since I am still working on squaring away my Afterpay and Klarna balance, gifts will have to be smaller and I probably have to do more combining gifts. What I have taken to doing right now is if I have some extra cash, I am going to turn that into Amazon gift cards and set them aside so when I do the Christmas shopping for my nephews, I don't have to wait around for paychecks so much, I can just get it done. I think I will get my dad a cookbook called The Victorian Way but I drawing a blank when it comes to my mother. I do have time but not quite as much as I think I do.

On the video game front, I have almost finished Quake II. I haven't made any kind of judgement on if I still love the game like I used to. Maybe when I finish the game I can make an actual judgement. But I found out a few days ago that there is going to be a new Halo game called Campaign Evolved. Apparently, it is the original Halo with updated graphics and three extra levels before the original game. Part of me is very much wants to get it but part of me doesn't. The question I am asking myself is if I want to spend $60 for three extra levels and updated graphics. Part of me does want to get the game for those three extra levels. But the new Halo game won't be released until some time next year. Now if I can get the original Return to Castle Wolfenstein for the Xbox s/x series I would be happy. 
 

Seriously? Of Serge Lutens Arabie, Laundry and Storage Gone Wrong

I didn't have a ton of clothes that needed to be washed but needed to wash 3 sets of sheets. I got a little lazy and hadn't washed those 2 sets of sheets that I have bought in the past 5 or 6 weeks. Yes, I was sleeping on sheets that were starting to get a little gross. I don't know what possessed me to wash 2 sets of sheets at 9pm last night but washed those 2 sets but I did. So this morning, I stripped my bed and threw that set of sheets in the wash and started it. So I now have fresh, clean sheets on my bed.

I am not a big fan of washing any kind of bedding. You can wash a fair bit of clothes in one load of laundry but only 1 set of sheets in a single load of laundry. But I don't think I am a big fan of doing laundry. It's the time it takes and the amount of steps for just 1 load of laundry. As it stands right now, I don't have to wash any kind of bedding for a while.

This morning, I had a hankering for Serge Lutens Arabie. Portia from Perfume Posse did make a mention of it in her recent post and I promptly forgot about it until this morning. So I pulled it out of one of my bins and something went horribly wrong. At first, I noticed that the spray mechanism smelled like it smelled like A la Nuit. Then I unscrewed the spray mechanism and smelled no resemblance to the Arabie that I know. So something must have leaked into the bottle to make it smell all sorts of wrong. So that means that I am going to have to check my massive collection to see if I have a backup bottle of Arabie. 

I have already done a half assed search about the price of a new bottle. I wasn't aware or didn't pay attention that Arabie is now only in a bell jar form. I check my old stand by of Fragrance Net and didn't see a bottle and should have bought a bottle of it when they did have it. I did find a brand new bottle of it on Amazon but if I don't have a backup bottle of Arabie, I am going to have to bite the bullet and get a bottle. I don't have the $300 some dollars lying around and it is hard to find a spray bottle.

The reason why Arabie is is important to my collection is because it is one of the first niche perfumes that I purchased many years ago. Even though I didn't really "get" it at the time. I can only hope that I don't have to get another bottle. 
 

Life with Dogs and Other Things

Life continues to be a little strange around my house. The mother situation isn't resolved yet and so many things seem to be up in the air in that respect. Dementia and severe mental illness don't mix. I get that my dad would like her home but if she won't take her medication when she is home, she can't stay. He wants her to stay at home but I don't think it is possible anymore. I honestly think that if she is "too high functioning" for memory care and assisted living would be a nightmare, there has to be a group home that could help her. I think that she does need to be somewhere where she can get the help she needs and aides that won't let her push people around. I made a mention that if she is in and out of the hospital and has now amped up her antics that land her in the hospital, she cannot safely stay at home any longer, it's time for professionals.

Since I live in a more rural area, there is more of an abundance of wildlife. The dogs that I have always had did chase squirrels and rabbits. Our black Lab did manage to get a very little baby bunny that wasn't even remotely ready to leave the nest. The thing was probably only a week old. But that was when she was 7 months old and she never caught one again after she was told no. She will still chase the squirrels and bunnies but doesn't catch them. Our chocolate Lab is different. It seems in the past couple months, things have ramped up. Instead of just chasing the rabbits and squirrels, she has now has been able to be some chipmunks and the young squirrels and somehow, they die and she isn't biting down or anything. I think that she is giving them heart attacks. I am currently looking into a trainer for her. I know that some of this is prey drive and it is natural behavior but it has to stop. I would rather her not get sick or hurt because she might tangle with things that are bigger and meaner. I don't care so much if she chases rabbits or squirrels, I would rather her not kill them.

Onto some better stuff. I finally got an approval to get a build up and a crown for the tooth that I recently had a root canal done. It was initially denied because Medicaid said it wasn't medically needed. I appealed that decision and they had one of their dentists look at everything and said that it was necessary, especially if I am getting partials. So they figured that it would be cheaper to pay for the crown than pay for all these adjustments or having to redo the whole partial bit due to more tooth loss. I am happy over that. What is making me happy is that since I have the go ahead to learn how to drive, I went and took the test to get my temps and passed the test. There are some questions on that test that are really tough. So now it is to find some driving lessons to get my license. That would mean that I would be able to maybe get a full time job with health benefits and make a little more money.
 

Quake II Remaster and Getting Back into Gaming

 

Since I have pretty much broken up with Bath and Body Works and seriously curbed perfume buying and frivolous buying, it means a little more time on my hands. With my mother being out of the house yet again and I seem to be working less, I needed to fill up my time a little bit more. And that means that I can get back into playing video games.

When I was in my later teens and early 20's, I played tons of video games.When I was younger, the latest and greatest gaming console was the Super Nintendo. The games that we played was Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros and the Mario Kart game. I know that we had Star Fox but I never warmed to that game and never played with that one too much. But at that time, video game playing was very limited due to my parents. But at the time, I was still in grade school.

When we got our first PC when I was in high school, it seemed like video games seriously took off, especially the first person shooter games. At the time, Doom and the Quake series were the hot games to play. At the time, I never played Doom but was a huge Quake player. There were times in high school that I would stay up and play Quake until 2:30 in the morning and then get up at 5:30 to catch the bus. But after high school, I did play less video games because of college and less time. College left me with a whole lot less money for video games. So I dropped out of gaming for the most part. I did get the original Xbox when I dropped out of college. Even then, I was a person who played in spurts. The two games I played most often was the first Halo and Return to Castle Wolfenstein. But then again, life got in the way and I didn't play video games. But now, I have some more free time to play video games and that leaves me to Quake II.

So back in the day, Quake II seemed to be the biggest game for a while. When I found out that Quake II was being remastered and released, I held off on getting it but eventually I did get it. I started playing it this past week to see what it was all about. I wanted to see that they changed and what remained the same. The basic premise and general lay out has remained the same. What surprised me the most are the Strogg. The Strogg never chased me before when I would be getting more ammunition due to getting low nor did they jump up or down either. The attacks of the Strogg are different in general too.The Strogg seem to take a little longer to kill and they don't seem to be in the same spots like I remember. I remember being able to trigger more Strogg infighting and I am not really able to do that. Being able to trigger Strogg infighting was a great way to take down some Strogg when you were really low on ammo. So they probably did change the layout of the where the Strogg actually are in this one. I am currently on the Big Gun level and I do not remember ever being a tank on this level. It feels like the vibe is just off with this remaster. I just can't explain on how it feels off but it does.

I did have to look for the Dopefish in Quake II and I was a little disappointed with the remastered version. The picture is the original Dopefish in Quake II and the other is what the Dopefish fish pretty much looks like in the remastered version, even though the second picture is from Quake I. I will admit that I do like to look for Easter eggs in video games.

Let's just say that I am not a huge fan of the remaster right now. For right now, I am committed to finishing the game, especially since I am at the Big Gun level. I will see if I really start to.enjoy it when I get to the Research Lab level.

Serge Lutens Feminite du Bois

A few moons ago, I did blog about that Headspace Rose giveaway that I won. It was either last week or the week before, I was going through some of my emails and I did remember and started to worried that I might have missed the package. So I did email Portia asking about it and what do you know, the next day, I get an email saying that it was shipped through DHL. DHL is not a common shipping company in the States and the few times that I had to contend with them, my opinion isn't that great. They seem to take forever to deliver anything. The longest that I had to wait for an item is 2 and a half weeks.

So on Sunday, I was finally able to see the new Downton Abbey movie. It is supposed to be the grand finale but with how the end was portrayed, I don't think it is the last time we heard of Downton Abbey. I am thinking that they might revive it to take place during WWII with the younger generation. But I do want this to be the end of Downton Abbey.

On the day that I saw Downton Abbey, I had a huge hankering for Feminite du Bois. I could have gone with more period appropriate Patou Joy or no 5 or no 22. But I wasn't thinking of those things. But let's move on to Feminite du Bois.

I hate gotten my first bottle of Feminite du Bois when I was new to perfume and Luckyscent still sold some of the Serge Lutens line. It was one of those blind buys that worked out pretty well. I love the dusty, woody fruit combination and at the time, it was something that I had never smelled before. In many ways, it seems like the house of Serge Lutens is niche for beginners and most budding perfume nuts start there when expanding their tastes. There are some offerings that are out there I the Serge Lutens line up. But I quit paying attention to Serge Lutens after the Berlin offering, or was it De Profundis? I think at that time I had moved on and was testing out new things. Maybe because you couldn't readily get your hands on a bell jar either due to the price tag whe  they were at Barney's or one needed to have someone go to Paris and bring it back for you. I was lucky enough to get a bell jar of De Profundis or Sarrasins off on EBay and slightly used.