Hooray for LA Scentsation!

I am running around like a madwoman, trying to get the last-minute stuff done so I can hie off to LA!   I can’t wait to meet everybody!  We have such a fun day planned.  And it will be wonderful to be back in my old stompin’ grounds – I spent the bulk of my mid-adult life working in LA and, strange as it can be, it holds a particularly warm place in my stone-cold heart.  I love the way LA smells – that weird mixture of rotting vegetation, salty air, haze, flowers everywhere.   I love driving west on Sunset, to the sea (double points if you know what song that is from), heading home to Santa Monica.   I remember when Casa del Mar was a crackhouse/flophouse/residence and you just didn’t walk down that particular part of Ocean.  Now it’s oh, so posh.  Santa Monica Farms, which make the best fruit juices on the planet – across the street from my last LA gig, where I almost ran into Michael Keaton in the parking garage  – with my car.   Roscoe’s.  If you fall off the Hollywood sign and roll down the hill you’ll end up at the original Roscoe’s which is across the street from my first office, at the Sunset-Gower studios.  That neighborhood, back in the 80s, was so bad that we couldn’t safely walk from our offices to the restaurant (well, we could but it was a bit of a screech.  And besides, NOBODY walked from the Studios to anywhere!  It’s like that scene in LA Story  where Steve Martin gets in his car and Fred  Flinstones it a few feet to his neighbor’s house)…Roscoe’s.

I’ve been almost too busy to sample perfume.  Sick little chicken – she may or may not make it – El O thinks she’s got a kinked intestine.  I’ve spent the past few days soaking her swollen butt in warm salt water.  If I were a real farmer….but I’m not.  So rather than just cut my losses I hold her little body in my hand and make her sit in the warm, salty water until she poops and the swelling goes down.   It’s dumb, I know.  But I can spare 20 minutes for a little life.   My friend who sells eggs for a living thinks I’m crazy – but she has 150 chickens.  I have 8.  None of them has a name and I do consider them livestock…but…c’mon.  I have to give her a chance, right?  She’s half the size of the other chicks but she’s hanging in there and she can be kind of feisty, which I love, so warm saline it is.

I worried about what to wear for the Event.  Ha.  PORTIA will be the MC.  So who will be looking at me?  That’s right – NOBODY!  Not even me!  I’ll be too busy ogling The Fabulosity What Is Portia!!!   Portia will look so fabulous I could be wrapped in toilet paper and chicken poop and nobody would notice.  That’s a relief, since I can barely find my shoes – at least the ones that aren’t covered in chicken poop.  You know the best thing?  We’re on a Bus!  So I can wear ridiculous shoes!  If I can find them!  YAY!  I haven’t been in heels since …….. and who knows …I could look like that chicken, trying to walk in them.  We’ll see…

But when I have pulled my head out of the coop and into the armoire, I’ve been reaching for two things:  Parfums de Nicolai’s  L’eau Mixte and The Different Company Sublime Balkiss.   Both of them carry that signature ‘snap’ of blackcurrant in the opening.  L’eau Mixte softens it with a hint of rose and jasmine.  TDC’s Sublime Balkiss does a saltier take on the blackcurrant.  I like the Nicolai for cooler days but since we’re veering from 80F to 50F in the blink of an eye I’ve been able to wear both on the same day!

I haven’t seen a lot of blackcurrant popping up in perfumery these days – for awhile it seemed as if every other scent had it – it was the pink peppercorn of berries.  Then, poof!  Gone.   Or else I just missed a whole new crop of them – and that’s okay.  I am happy as a clam with these two.

So!  You can tell I’m …okay..I got nuthin’.  But I do have a chick whose butt needs soakin’.  And I’m going to do it clad in Sublime Balkiss.  Something tells me Sheba’s Queen never had to soak a chicken butt.