The Last of the Musings (2025)

Posse!  Happy nascent New Year! Wishing you every happiness, in comfort and contentment, in the year ahead.  Lordt knows we could use it!

one for me and one for you and one for you…

Do you remember Ray Bradbury’s short story “All Summer in a Day”?  Well today we’ve had ALL FOUR SEASONS in a DAY!  It started with… rain.  Pretty little patterings, 53F.  Both my front and BACK PORCH are deep, so I took advantage of the warmth and rain to open all the doors!  Oh, the luxury of having damp, warm(ish) air coursing through the house this time of year – especially as it was predicted to drop 40 (yesh!  FORTY!) degrees by … now.  YIKES!  a forty degree drop in 8 hours?  Welcome to the Midwestern United States in early Winter.  I’ve been awash in No5 for the past month, in several pairings and iterations, but decided to pay homage to the Springlike morning by slathering on great swaths of Iris Nobile, both body cream and EdP.  What a treat!  I’m one of those people who tend to reserve certain notes for certain seasons, galbanum and rooty irises for early Spring, warm ambers and musks for the dead of Winter, etc, so to be able to break it up was delicious!  Iris Nobile is my favorite iris, balancing perfectly the powdery flower and the rooty..well.. root! Alas, it was a Bradbury moment – early evening brought 45mph winds and that 40 degree drop.  Yay.  Fun while it lasted, though.

Musing:  is it me?  Or has the simple act of unwinding a pump bottle become a Herculean task?  I swear, fully 50% of the pump bottles I get simply Will. Not. Pop!  I’ve tried the ‘push down and twirl’, pull up (slightly) and twirl, whistle while I twirl…. what am I missing here?  Of course… when it does give that satisfying ‘pop!’ I am so elated that I always forget what I did to make it happen.  Let me know if I’m missing some crucial step.

Here’s yet another:  Can Openers for Seniors  – the ones where you put the lozenge-looking little thingamajig onto the can and vi-ola!  Can is magically separated from the lid    ::or vice versa.  I don’t care, as long as the danged thing is open!::  I am in the market for Option #2, just in case my hands give out (and why not?  They absolutely refuse to cooperate with jar lids.  I recently learned how to utilize the little prong on a bottle opener to break the seal on a jar.  Wheee!  Because … well, I am not above driving down to the gas station and having the nice, helpful young man behind the counter open it (or, if he’s not there, one of the burly guys waiting in line to pay for their pizza, chew and six pack.  The cliche is real down here.).  But I’d rather not.

Any recommendations? Do they work?  Do you hate it?  Love it?  I’m looking at Farberware and Kitchen Mama – pretty much the same tech/price/reviews.  KMama has cute colors (Sky Blue! Lime Green!).  Farberware has 3000 years of good kitchen accessories behind it, but the colors are black. and white.  yawwwn.

Stuff.  I am… surprised.  I am not really interested in acquiring any ‘stuff’ right now.  I’m taking Portia’s ‘thunking’ to heart – the jar of Iris Nobile body cream?  It’s got about 4 T left and where that would normally make me anxious? I’m kinda looking forward to ‘thunking’ it.  But that’s not until Spring.  Something tells me we’re headed back into amber/musk territory.  For quite awhile.  But I’ll be ‘thunking’ a few jars of Drugstore Joy in the coming weeks/months.  It’s THAT time of year: dry air, freezing cold, cranky skin…

The New Year (and the Eve):  Do you have plans?  There’s a 5k I go to (I don’t run – I cheer on my insane runner friends) on NYE, around noon, then we go have a nice lunch.  That’s the extent of my celebration.  I’ll probably be in bed by 9:30 !  I’m recovering nicely but I do get tired, both early and often.   And by the way, thank you for all your good wishes and all the excellent advice!  It has helped in my recovery more than you could know!  I’m wearing vintage No5 perfume atop the gorgeously musky-amber Missing Person body lotion (Phlur).  It’ll be back in the low thirties and I’m still feeling a bit puny (I honestly thought I’d be All Better by now.  Because I am an idiot.  It’s been a full 24 days and C’mon!*  :: apparently my insides Do Not Agree:: .  No5 is the perfect armor and the MP will keep it from being too shattery in the extreme cold.  What are you planning to wear, scent-wise?

• *don’t worry!  I may be an idiot but I am not crazy.  I am completely following the doctor’s orders.  But!  C’mon!

Happy 2026 to All!  Love you bunches!