Last week was one of those hard ones. My son finished up his dissertation (last piece of work for last year at university – a period that was negatively affected by covid) which meant 5.5 days of anxiety and hysteria and one all nighter. And then basically collapsed for a day and a half.
(source Pexels)
In the middle of the week, my back, which had been fine, started playing up again. So, visit to osteopath this Wednesday.
And yesterday late afternoon I looked into the garden from an upstairs window for some reason and saw a rat. Not the biggest one I’ve ever seen, but a rat nevertheless. So, will call exterminator Monday morning.
Based on all this (and more) I was planning to write about some things I dislike for this post, given it was that sort of week, but then I woke up this morning to read about Buffalo, New York, and that was it. I have nothing.
Just so there’s something here, one of the foods I detest and have since childhood is devilled eggs (it would have been on my bad things list). To past the point of nausea. Like a talisman for a bad thing in childhood which gets carried through to adulthood. I can’t look at devilled eggs in a deli or whatever without feeling sick.
And I was going to talk about one perfume that was a complete scrubber, which for me was Bogue Profumo Mem (amber fougere – lavender, lavender, lavender, mint, citrus, vanilla – gag me with a spoon). I wrote about this a while ago but it’s one of those that sticks in your mind (and nose) long after you’ve washed it off and put something or many things you love over the area.
So. I thought tell us one food you absolutely detest and also one perfume that was a complete scrubber.
(PS My neighbour caught the rat and removed it. We now get to see if there are more — ie, did I see one rat four times or four rats?]
Cinnamon, What a wretched week! So sorry about it!
My food loathing is Soggy Bread Products. No crackers in soup. No dunking anything in beverages. No sloppy amounts of condiments on sandwiches or burgers. It just sickens me.
The Perfume scrubber I won’t forget is Givenchy Ange ou Demon. I truly scrubbed that off viciously. Later learned that it contained saffron which is my own personal kryptonite. I loathe that note, though I don’t know why.
Here’s to a better week ahead!
Interesting. I don’t mind condiments but will deconstruct something once the bread gets too soggy. I remember the ads for Ange ou Demon but have never tried it.
Fun reading the comments! For food it’s mostly a textural thing (seems to be a theme in comments) — no beans, no whole chickpeas, too gritty/toothpasty, ugh, although I love hummus. My evil MIL served me shad roe once which I thought would be similar to caviar, which I like. It was not. One of those situations where I thought, refusing to eat it is bad and rude, but vomiting it up at the table will be worse. But I love runny eggs and okra and oysters, so I guess slimy foods are fine? I’ve never, like, swallowed a raw egg but I think I could. Cilantro is soap for me. Secretions Magnifique was deeply nauseating and I’m glad I never put it on my skin, but I’m not sorry to have smelled it. Lavender fougeres make me cringe.
Ack, shad. My mother loved the fish and cooked it a lot during season. Awful, full of bones. Feh. Soap, huh? Love cilantro. So with you on lavender forgeries.
Truly an awful weekend in this country. Not helping my reluctance to leave my house.
It’s hard to think of a food I won’t eat but sushi is my first thought. I know, everyone says I just haven’t had good sushi, but I tried sushi in Houston, San Francisco and Indianapolis among others….I’ve really tried! It’s definitely a texture thing. I like ceviche.
Perfume scrubbers? Jul et Mad Stilletoes on Lex which opens with a soaring sweet violet note that instantly gave me a piercing headache. Other sweet violets do the same.
It seems that texture is a big thing regarding what we are and aren’t willing to eat, and who knows why certain textures bother us. So personal. I have not experienced any Jul et Mad and now I think I should at least try.
The world is going to hell in a handbag, alas. But there are still a lot of pockets of beauty – never forget that. I don’t, lest I lose whatever’s left of my mind.
I’m pretty easygoing when it comes to foods but the ones I cannot abide are generally textural. Okra, cooked (fried is okay) because of the slime. Ditto runny eggs.
Perfumes – pretty much everything listed on here. TP: STOP IT! I was drinking (thankfully) a glass of water, sprayed it all over my desk. Just. stop. Okay, you may resume. Water is all cleaned up.
xoxoxo
The only way I’ve ever eaten okra is in Indian food here. That was fine. I guess because you don’t really recognise it as okra.
Indeed, lots of pockets of beauty. But I’m tired of looking at ‘small’ things (ie, somehow my garden self-seeded digitalis — it’s pink and gorgeous). I want big things to work.
Buffalo, Milwaukee, Laguna Woods.. I can’t even.
Food I can’t bear: cooked carrots. Not fond of them raw, but cooked? Hard no. Once spent an hour and a half at the dining room table in a stand-off between me, my parents and some glazed carrots. They finally gave up, reasoning that I’d eat spinach, asparagus, and Brussels sprouts with gusto so they could let slide the carrots.
Scent: Secretions Magnafique. I still cannot fathom that anyone finds this bearable, much less wearable. It’s like an episode of SVU involving a body under the Coney Island pier. One involving a sex-crime cult. Beyond a scrubber, almost a “move to another state..”
It’s getting both hard to fathom and way too familiar.
I prefer carrots raw. Not a great texture cooked. Sounds like you ate loads of things a lot of kids didn’t.
Now I will never be able to think of that EL without seeing the underside of a Coney Island boardwalk. Eck.
Not a fan of cooked carrots, either, though I can eat them. I should tell you about the time my father, knowing absolutely NOTHING about game, cooked a whole raccoon. Hint: he knew NOTHING about game, including field-dressing.
But it’s early in the day, so I won’t.
xoxoxo
Your loathing of cooked carrots reminds me of my daughter, who in first grade referred to glazed carrots on the school cafeteria menu as “those old wet carrots!” 🙂
SM yess even the initials suggest the smell, is a dupe for Womanity. Equally gip inducing
Fragrance: Angel and any of its siblings
Food: raw eggs, mayonnaise, asparagus, and cauliflower
More Angel… We didn’t have cauliflower as a vegetable when I was growing up. I don’t recall my mother ever cooking it. I discovered it as an adult. I do have to be in the mood for it though.
Crap week Cinnamon, sorry to read it.
There are a bunch of foods that I’m not able to swallow. Oysters and most seafood, offal, strong smelling lamb or pork, rhubarb, bone broth and a few others.
Hope the rat was a single and that your coming week is MUCH more fun.
Portia xx
So by seafood do you mean fish in addition to shell fish type stuff? Rhubarb??? It’s a thing here. You get a lot of crumble made with rhubarb.
I can eat fish and calamari if it’s battered and drenched in lemon and tartare but the rest is yuck for me.
Yeah, my family LOVED Apple and Rhubarb Crumble when I was growing up. Nope. Texture problems.
My son hates the texture of crumble.
There is something in one of the Alan Cumming perfumes that made me want to chew my arm off (I also tend to find that note in masculine/landscape type perfumes – no idea what it is.) I was once served very gamy mutton as a dinner guest – the company was great but the mutton was not!
We live next to a ravine in a city environment and our security camera shows a possum that wanders by our door every evening and racoons that occasionally troop by on their way to inspect all of the local trash cans.
I have not smelled these. Couldn’t get past the hype. I haven’t had lamb in decades. Indeed, I find something about it really unpleasant. We have foxes. Lots of foxes. And further into rural areas other things. I am not partial to either rats or foxes.
Hey Cinnamon and friends,
I can’t stand the smell or taste of fresh coriander. I’ve gone in restaurants where it’s applied liberally to Indian, Mexican, and even Vietnamese food. I wish people realized that something about this scent and flavor is like having soap in your mouth for some. When I went to Peru, the scent was so prevalent in the air that I couldn’t eat. I don’t mind the essential oil, which has only a portion of the whole plant profile.
Only one perfume has ever made me ill to smell on others and that was Forever Krystle by Charles of the Ritz. It’s rated rather well on Fragrantica and old bottles sell for over $200. But it smells to me like sickness and sorrow. I can’t bear to be near it and a co-worker who wore it found me standing farther and farther away until I couldn’t stand to stop and talk to her anymore. She was a sweet person too, and it devastated me that I couldn’t push through and be her friend or tell her why I couldn’t be near her. She adored her perfume and I couldn’t take that from her.
That’s an interesting one, coriander. I have a friend for whom that’s top of the no no list. Forever Krystle — like the television character?
Hoping next week will be better for you!
Food: curry. I can’t stand the smell, but can eat it if I hold my nose (which looks odd) Also, Lima beans – its a taste and texture thing.
Angel doesn’t work for me at all. But Marilyn Miglin’s Pheromone, which I tried many years ago, literally made me gag.
Fingers crossed on week. Yoga was good this morning, but it started pouring rain earlier. Like it’s April, not May. There aren’t a lot of legumes I like. Lentils are fine. but anything kidney shaped not so much.
Food: celery
Scrubber: Chanel No. 5
Some fragrances, if they’ve turned a little, have a celery note (on me). Worst of both worlds.
I can’t make No 5 work for me, either, past or present.
Indeed, not partial to celery either. Interesting on Chanel No 5. Not a fave but doesn’t make me twitchy.
Angel, Flower Bomb, YSL Paris are sickening scrubbers on me. Foods I can’t bear are oranges, peas, truffles.
Back to Angel. I find Paris difficult but I have a friend who wore it well — ie, it was good on her but that’s about it. Assume you mean truffles from woods rather than chocolate?
Le Lion poopy note! Very rare I get nauseated by a perfume but bleugh!
Now a food that turns my stomach is much more difficult. Frogs legs? Eaten them. Black pudding? Scrumptious fried in bacon fat. Snails? Never tried em but probably would. Ahhh….. I know snotty egg. Undercooked boiled egg. Gross
Poppy. Don’t even know what that smells like. We get a lot of self-seeded poppies down here. Will have to have a go. Eggs in any form other than scrambled or omelette is a no for me.
Poopy! As in smells fecal.
Not sure poppies have a smell though JM London did something Poppy & Barley???
Hope you have a better week this week. Saw a magpie murder a rodent yesterday. Never seen it before despite being a life long rural girl
Step one: you saw one rat four times-lodge this thought in your head 🙂
Worst scrubber for me: Hermes Citron Noir. There is a woody note in it that just does not suit my skin.
Food: it’s a texture thing for me, so gravy, pudding, jello-food that moves. Can’t do it. And anything coloured blue, like frosting on a cake. Only the colour blue does me in.
So far, you are correct on rodent. I find sometimes that cedar does not work well for me. Too dry and scratchy. Yup, it’s texture as well as taste regarding devilled eggs. Blue? interesting.
MeM. Aaaargh. I absolutely hated it and gave the bottle away. I shudder at the MeMory.
It really is awful, isn’t it … It’s not a house where any of the fragrances work on me, but this was truly appalling.
Third comment and 3rd person to hate Angel! Makes me nauseated….I guess one either loves it or loathes it! I love most foods but there’s a spice in some curries that I can’t abide…not sure what it is but when it’s in there, I know it!
More Angel. Could it be turmeric or cumin in the curry?
Angel! I detest and loathe it. I never got patchouli which I love. For me it’s over sugared frosted cold red berries, like a candle shop on bayberry overdrive with dollop of sugar and ice crystals. I love food, pretty much all food. Right now I can’t think of one thing I hate. But there are foods I simply wouldn’t try like tongue, or certain organ meets or offal. I’m mostly pescatarian most of ther time.
There’s Angel again. Do you mean one of those sort of mass market candle shops (that give one a headache)? I should eat more fish. We’re on the coast and get a lot of really lovely fresh stuff.
I am sorry you had a difficult week, and I hope your son is refreshed after a rejuvenating rest and completing his dissertation.
Buffalo; soul-wrenching sadness. Everyone involved in my prayers.
One of the few perfume scrubbers for me was Angel, and I detest it when I smell on other people as well. There are many foods I won’t eat, probably number one is liver followed by fried foods.
A lot of dislike for Angel. Liver. No, that’s a big no for me as well. But fried food? All fried food? Adore onion rings…