Posse! This is kind of a story about Being a Snob and getting Hoist on My Own Petard.
I was going to try to NOT mention the weather … just to see if I could… but it’s all around me right now. Swinging and swaying from 70F to 35F in 24 hours, rainy one day and blazing sun the next. We’re all scrambling to keep up with our lawns and borders and because I live in a place that harkens back to 1950 we can burn leaves. And burn leaves we do! Between that and the last of the fields being picked (a dusty job, especially beans) there’s been a constant haze. The smell is… sublime. Assuming you don’t drive through a viscous cloud with your windows open (ask me how I know that. Ask me WHY I did that. Dunno). Choking on the fumes aside, this is the Real Deal – the smell of Autumn from my childhood.
Now to the Snob on her Petard part. I was dressing for an Adoption Party this afternoon (lovely people who absolutely walk their talk – several years ago they took in 3 siblings (the eldest was 6 and the youngest was 3 months old) and today marked the last child’s formal adoption into their family! It was an Autumn-themed party so I decided to celebrate the season and the event with Perfumer H Smoke – Cinnamon wrote about it here. And recently it came back on the radar here on the Posse, so I ordered a sample from Surrender to Chance. Lots of hugs and a couple of people said ‘oh, you smell great!’. Snob that I am …. I asked them to describe how it smelled (because Floyd forbid that anyone in this no-horse town could parse notes..right?). A guy (A GUY! ), wearing bib overalls and flannel (not kidding) said this:
“you smell like you’ve been burning leaves and drinking bourbon”
I kid you not. See? This is why I need to keep my snobby self in check. Because, to my nose, that’s almost persackly what Smoke smells like. Except, for me, it’s more the smell of how clothes smell after you’ve finished burning leaves. And I am thinking more ‘apple brandy’ than bourbon, though. I would be happy to drink either. I get the sweet, boozy Killian accord more than CB’s Burning Leaves… maybe a library fireplace burning applewood. A snifter of brandy/glass of bourbon. A big, snoozing dog and a good book. My idea of a perfect Autumn afternoon.
This is not the first time my petard has hoisted my snobby self right the heck up! Honestly – just because these people are, in general, not au courant (certainly not with fashion or food, that’s for sure) doesn’t mean they lack the ability to parse scent. I need to check myself. But you can be sure I’ll ask what I smell like the next time.
What are you wearing right now? Definitive seasonal scents? I’m bouncing back to No5 tomorrow, as I head to Almost Civilization (tony suburbs just west of Chicago). Or… heck. Maybe I’ll finish this Smoke sample!