Once again, the Bay Area got the worst of the storm. We are really starting to feel neglected up here.

Today was garbage day. Inbetween the thunder and lightning, I could hear the garbage trucks rumbling down the streets and alleys, and the crashing sounds of cans being upended over the gaping maw of the truck. I have long held a theory that garbage men are capable of making two cans sound like eight.

However, this morning I felt rather bad for them, as it was chilly and the rain was coming down sideways. I can’t imagine it was a very pleasant experience, even in slickers. I’m sure the garbage men end up soaked either way, and careless people who don’t put the lids on their cans properly probably add to the misery.

Garbage hauling seems like an odd profession to me. I mean, yes, strictly speaking, someone has to do it. I’ve heard the pay is usually decent, but the trade off is that you have long days. Long filthy days. And if it’s raining, you work in the pouring rain. If it’s snowing, you beat paths to the snow to get to the garbage cans. You don’t get days off for inclement weather because it would throw the entire garbage hauling system off. You lift heavy loads well up over your head to get them into the truck. I wonder how many garbage men end up with back and shoulder injuries. I hope that they have company insurance which allows them to get treatment.

A lot of garbage customers are extremely inconsiderate–they don’t tie their bags shut properly, they ignore the rules about what is not ok to put in garbage cans, they leave the lids on atilt so that when it’s windy and rainy they swoop off, filling the can with water. Garbage hauling seems like a distillation of everything that is evil in the service industry.

I wonder how many garbage customers think to leave gifts for their garbagemen, like you would for the postman? I wonder about this as I lie snug in my warm bed on Tuesday mornings, listening to the garbage men doggedly move their way down the street. I’m glad that someone is willing to take my garbage away, although the garbage industry terrifies me. I just wonder if I would think about my consumerism more if I was forced to deal with my garbage personally. I just wonder if a little bit of respect for those who deal with our filth might be in order.

Today is Fat Tuesday. Lent is almost upon us. This not being an overwhelmingly religious place, I doubt I will see many people wearing ashes tomorrow. I also doubt that many people will be undertaking a personal spiritual journey in honor of the Christ. But maybe I’m wrong. What are you forsaking for Lent?

[garbage]
[Lent]

[Picture unavailable because I ate it all. Try again tomorrow.]

So perhaps the best part of baking bread is making cinnamon toast the next day. I adore cinnamon toast, and always have. When I make cinnamon roll bread, it’s like double toast goodness, a whole new world of fantasmagoria.

Cinnamon toast, for me, is every rainy day. Cinnamon toast is hot chocolate and a good book and nowhere to go, curled up in a window seat watching the trees shrouded in fog. Cinnamon toast is a warm cat by your feet and a fire crackling in the hearth. Cinnamon toast is God coming over for breakfast.

Cinnamon toast:

Remove all housemates/partners from the premises.

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Cut as many 3/4 inch thick slices of homemade whole wheat bread as you think you can eat. Cut two more.

Slather slices in butter or a vegan replacement of your choice.

Sprinkle sugar lavishly on slices.

Dump cinnamon on slices.

Toast in the oven for five-ten minutes.

Remove: devour.

Permit housemates/partners back into the general area, and be sure to gloat.

Repeat as needed.

[food]

Once again, the National Weather Service fills the air with doom and gloom forecasts.

“Oh, the rain,” they cry. “You have a flood statement and a hazardous weather outlook!”

I think that maybe the National Weather Service is nervous, and perhaps trying to hedge its bets. Erring on the side of caution, as it were. For if they didn’t forecast rain and there were torrents and the power went out, many people would be pissed. Instead, there’s a minority of us, who are hoping for the doom and gloom and power outage, and we are likely to be disappointed.

I miss the good old fashioned storms, when things got wet and messy. If this is global warming, I think it sucks. It’s time for the power to go out, school to get cancelled, and us to go play in the waterlogged streets, damnit.

Especially after Hurricane Katrina, I suppose they feel like it’s better to be overprepared.

This afternoon, I am baking my grandmother’s bread.

For people like me who are viciously impatient, baking bread is a very important contemplative process. Yeast is probably the most finicky of the living organisms we humans harness for nutrition, and the plethora of leavened foods that yeast forms a vital part of leave little room for error. Bread will not be hurried. For the uneducated experimenter, bread is not tolerant. Bread requires patience and conviction to be made well. Bread also requires time. You must have several hours of time to set aside to create good bread, even more if you plan on making and using a starter. Making bread forces you to stop, slow your day, and focus.

My grandmother’s bread may well be her own grandmother’s bread. I do know that she baked it weekly in a massive single batch for a huge Catholic family, and that this bread was what all the members of the family ate as toast in the morning, as sandwich makings, as pizza base. When I was young, I hated her bread. Thick, rich, brown and nutty, moist, needing only a light slathering of butter, I found it utterly distasteful. I used to pray, when we went to her house, that she wouldn’t make me eat any bread. I likewise disdained pumpernickel muffins, home made jam, and other assorted foods which I adore now. What’s curious is that I didn’t want the commercial, storebought, overprocessed counterparts of these foods–I wasn’t craving Wonderbread and Smuckers. I just didn’t like her versions of these foods.

In my late teens, I discovered the joy of fresh whole wheat bread, and I took up her recipe. It’s a simple recipe. Proof the yeast, add flour, honey (or brown sugar), salt, olive oil, and liquid, and you have bread. Flex these ingredients, and you change that nature of your bread. Melted butter can be substituted for olive oil, for example. The liquid could be water, milk, or fruit juice. It’s a core recipe, from which the baker may expand as he or she wishes. It’s in the proportions that it becomes great, because this is a recipe without measurements. The baker is required to intuit the needs of the bread, to know how weather will affect the interplay of ingredients, and adjust the dough accordingly. It is in the kneading that the baker enters an almost meditative state. The dough must be kneaded for at least twenty minutes, and the patient baker will know when it is well kneaded. The texture of the dough changes, fundamentally, reminding you that it is a living thing. From the moment you turn the bread out onto a counter to knead, you are interacting with it, feeding it, loving it, forcing it to find greatness. And when you knead the last fold, a rich pile of smooth springy dough, soft as a newborn kitten, is left.

And then you wait, for the rising. Which is what I am doing right now, as my house slowly fills with the scent of whole wheat flour. It is in the waiting that bread finds a soul.

[bread]
[food]

Holy Mary, Mother of God. The scallops were divine. The presentation is stunning. And the tuna tartare that was with them, as well as the lemon pepper gelee. Taken in entirety, one bite piled upon toast with a smearing of tartare and a dash of gelee, it was God in a mouthful. It is nights like this that make me happy to be alive, food like this that makes me happy I’m not vegan, and dining company like those with me tonight that gives me hope for humanity.

*Cookie report for JSP: On my way out, I was presented with a single specimen of cookie perfection. Now, to be entirely fair, I like my cookies soft and chewy. And soft and chewy this cookie was, an explosion of gingery goodness with every bite. My molars smiled.

[food]

Yesterday was one of those rare days where it’s sunny, and also warm. I basked in the rays on my way to work. The Guest House lawn shimmered like a freshly cut emerald. A single faint poofy cloud skittered across the sky as a truck load of hicks drove by, whistling at me.

Everyone seemed to be in high spirits, and I blame the weather. Something about the sun brings us out in droves, even when there’s a howling wind. Something about a perfect sunny day, however, causes us all to go a little sun happy. Daringly light skirts are dragged out of closets. Inadvisably strappy tops are sported. Sweaters are left at home by the foolhardy.

However, the brilliant sunshine of my day was about to be obscured, as the door to a bright red and excessively sized SUV swung open, allowing a perilously thin peroxide blonde in tottering heels to get out, followed by her shrimp of a dog.

“Come on Pooky,” she said, “do your business!”

The my horror, she was leading the oversized rat…er…dog onto the pristine lawn of the Guest House. The lawn that people sit on to bask in the sunshine. Including this person, who loves sprawling in the grass with a good “stay away from me” book, like Treason or The Big Bang. The lawn which is meticulously cut and raked by city employees. And here she was, exhorting her dog to poop, or perhaps micturate, on the grass. I couldn’t decide which was worse, and before I had a chance to muse on this, the dog had deposited a sizeable chunk of shit on the lawn, and blonde had scooped it up, and they had swept off into the day.

Uhm, excuse me.

One of the joys of dog ownership is that when your dog takes a poop, you get to scoop it up in a little baggie. Why? Because it’s gross to have poop everywhere. At the turn of the last century, American cities were unbearable due to the large volume of animal poop (and carcasses). A major step was made for public health by forcing people to clean up excrement.

Excrement is dirty. It carries lots of bacteria. This is why we in the first world poop in toilets and waste gallons of potable water every year to make our poop go away. It is not acceptable to leave little poopie piles where innocent people might step on them, where children might put their mouths, and where city employees must do their jobs. I cannot stress enough the importance of cleaning up after yourselves in the poop department, kids, because poop is yucky. And dog poop is really yucky. And it’s especially yucky to realize you have sat on/stepped in/touched poop on an otherwise beautiful day.

We’re talking about common decency, and also vectors of disease transmission here folks: clean up your animal poop! For Pete’s sake! EW!

[poop]

As I nibbled at my barramundi, I could sense the waves of middle class bitterness from the next table over. I daintily flaked another piece of delicious fish off and stabbed viciously at a chunk of asparagus, pondering the amazing combination of flavours and textures going on at my plate. I love asparagus, I love innocent sea creatures, and I adore fingerling potatoes. It was, in a word, brilliant. Just when I thought the depths had been plumbed, a whisper of radish would emerge, a sliver of scallion, and my transports of delight would return*.

And the next table over was providing my entertainment for the evening. The book of the moment flopped listlessly by my side, as about halfway through my fish consumption I wasn’t even pretending to read it–I was observing the drama.

You see, I am a regular. As a regular, I am entitled to little things like sneak peeks at menus, bussers who remember that I prefer oil and vinegar, and other little touches of personalized service. As a regular, I try not to abuse my privileges. I love the wait staff, and I treat them well, and in return, they treat me well. When I bring needy (read: celiac) diners, the staff accommodate them. I am treated lovingly, with respect, and never have cause to complain about my service although sometimes I can be quite demanding. (And I’m often that obnoxious late table.) Sometimes something goes awry with my order–usually I gently bring it to the attention of my waiter and it’s fixed. This has happened perhaps twice in the entirety of my time dining at the Bistro. And once it was my fault, because I clearly misstated my dining desires and the hapless waitress duly brought me what I asked for.

Now, I think that the level of service I get from the wait staff is comparable to that which any table receives. Waiters might linger and chat for a moment longer than they do with one offs, but we both hear about the specials. If we have questions about the menu, our waitperson will duly trot to the kitchen and find out. If we have special needs or requests, they are addressed. So it was with amusement that I observed my neighbors, you must understand, tempered with frustration for humanity. I always spot the Bistro staff going above and beyond the call, busting their balls for their tables. Even on busy nights, the personal loving service is there, and that’s why I recommend the Bistro to anyone looking for food of any kind ever. Except at lunch. And breakfast. Ok so really I recommend it to people looking for dinner. But you get the point.

You see, I have long believed that Americans should be forced to endure mandatory service. For two weeks of every year, every American not in the service industry must work a service job (unless he or she can produce service discharge papers indicating that they have done their time). Every American should know what it’s like to be a waiter on a busy Saturday night, a busser at a crappy fish and chips joint, graveyard at a 24 hour restaurant. Every American should feel the pain of retail and video rental, gym assistant and barista. Then perhaps they would understand when they are being unforgivably rude.

You see, this table next to me was quite large. Now this doesn’t guarantee rudeness, but usually yuppies in large groups are rude because they are under the mistaken impression that they are entitled to things. So all their food wasn’t coming out at once. Case in point number one being a salad, and I could hear them murmuring among themselves about the salad. Now, when I have concerns about my food, I address my waiter politely, and with respect. I might say, for example:

“Pardon me, good sir, but might I enquire about the fate of my salad?”

Or perhaps:

“Excuse me, madam, but I am afraid this is not what I was expecting.”

So when their long suffering waiter stopped by to check on them, the lady said:

“Uhm, yeah, I ordered a half salad? I’m just wondering where it is?”

“Oh, of course,” the waiter said. “That will be up in just a moment. I apologize for the delay.”

Low and behold, a few moments later, the salad arrived. And then she bitched about the size.

“So this is a half salad?”

“Yes, ma’m, it is.”

“Well, it’s awfully BIG for a half salad!”

And so forth. It wasn’t even just the language that she was using, it was the tone. She may as well have said:

“You servile peon, you are worthless!”

And he still would have responded:

“Ah, of course, let me check on that for you.”

So the table is being loud and bitchy. For me, this is mere entertainment as I dip my bread in olive oil and vinegar. The next table over, also getting superb and graceful service, looked mildly discomfited at the middle class mutterings next door. Now the table is bitching about the President, and next about Katrina victims. As their waiter stops by again to clear salad plates and check up, one of the men says, loudly:

“We’re ready for our entrees now. You can bring those over right away.”

This statement gave me room for pause. A dedicated trencherwoman, even I had to set down my fork and marvel at this man.

You see, the thing is, and this is where you need to pay attention, kids, some foods take longer than others to prepare. With lengthy prep times, wait staff will usually warn you. But, in general, you don’t want your entrees coming out “right away.” You want your food being lovingly made from scratch by a dedicated kitchen staff. You don’t want half cooked food listlessly thrown onto your plates. Wait staff try to fire your entrees in a timely fashion, so that there won’t be a delay, but when you are ordering a lot of food, some of which takes a long time, it gets fired in such a way that it all comes up at once. So that the fettucini isn’t arriving at the table half an hour before the chicken. Believe me, even on busy nights, the wait staff have not forgotten about you or your food, and they will hasten to get it to you. They don’t want it sitting up waiting for you any more than you do, because the flavour is compromised (and chef gets pissy!) So please, for the love of god, don’t make an ass of yourself and complain about the cooking time. And please, doubly for the love of god, don’t go lurk by the kitchen for your food. It’s done when it’s done, and the waiter will bring it out for you. I promise.

This table wasn’t as bad as some tables can be, but I writhed in sympathy for the poor waiter, who was providing excellent service and being treated like garbage at every turn. You see, the thing that people who haven’t been in service don’t seem to grasp is that service providers are professionals. As professionals, most of us endure a lot of training. As professionals, we take pride in our work, and in providing a wonderful experience to our clients. As professionals, we take your concerns very seriously, and we do our best to foresee and meet any needs you may have. And as professionals, it wounds us to be treated as expendable. I want to see you out on the floor of a busy restaurant, middle class self entitled yuppie lady. I’d like to see you behind the desk of an establishment providing and scheduling myriad services, snooty yuppie man who was willing to quibble over a two dollar charge.

As professionals, we are well aware that any complains about us reflect upon our establishment. That these complaints translate into lost business for the company we love to serve. And this, in turn, translates into lost work for us. We want to help you, and we want you to have a wonderful experience with us that keeps you coming back again and again. An experience that causes you to recommend us. As professionals, we have keen eyes for details you can’t even imagine. And we are constantly trying to stay two steps ahead of you, so that you have a seamless, smooth, consistent, and wonderful experience, whether you are dining alone or bringing a bridal party to a spa.

So please, help us help you and treat us with the respect we deserve, as professionals, but also as fellow human beings. Smile back at the clerk at the grocery store. Respond with courtesy to the request by the staff at the salon. Respect that we do things in certain ways for one reason, and one reason only: to serve you better. Don’t treat us like we are stupid, like we can’t make change or understand a basic request. Many of us have hard earned college degrees, and may in fact be better educated and traveled than you are. Above all: never assume.

I guarantee you that you will always get excellent service by being polite to those serving you, and that being rude will get you nowhere. Especially with the owners, who worked their way up through crappy service jobs. They, in particular, are unimpressed with tables of whiny assholes, generally. Believe me, they have seen every preposterous demand under the sun, and dealt with it–and they value their hard-trained wait staff a great deal more than one table of tourists. So play nice.

*the scallops looked delicious, by the way, and I will probably try them when next I am in. I am a sucker, as stated above, for innocent sea creatures. Now if only deep fried tentacles were to appear on the menu…mmmm…I love me some tentacles.

**Cookie report for JSP: my god, molar peril! A soft pillowy exterior belied the dangerous currents that lurked below the surface, hastening the flow of gold into Dr. Martin’s already crowded coffers.

[food]
[restaurant etiquette]

Yesterday, L and I went to Glass Beach. It was sunny, we could walk, and these seemed like two very good reasons to visit Glass Beach. On that rock above there are three seals, hanging out, perfectly aware that stupid humans can’t actually reach them, although they can take pictures.

Glass Beach is a weird place. Basically, back in the dark ages before waste management, people threw their garbage over cliffs into the ocean. Unsurprisingly, this garbage accumulated in big huge knarly piles, rotted, and smelled bad, attracting sea gulls and other vermin. A great deal of garbage washed back up onto shore with the tides. Yet, for some reason, people kept doing it until they were told not to. A lot of the waste is actually toxic and bad for you, and the beach was closed to the public for quite a while, as a result. That didn’t stop the locals from swanning on down there, but it did give the tourists pause.

And now, fifty years later, people flock to the dump because it looks neat. You find neat things, including, obviously, a lot of glass. Now, L and I were talking about this, and we remember a day when there was a lot more glass on the beach. Clearly, it’s being picked over by the thousands of people that visit it each year, and it’s getting harder to find neat things. It’s sort of sad that we are getting protective over and nostalgic for our garbage.

Of course, being in/near the ocean, a lot of the garbage, especially the metal bits, has melted together into agglomerations of rocks and crap. This fork, for example, is embedded in a pile of rusting rock. Next to it is a spark plug. There are cool layers of garbage that you can see exposed when the tide is low, as it was yesterday. Shoe soles flap gently in the breeze. Bits of plates are enmeshed with cogs. More recent garbage has joined the layers as well–we found pieces of motherboard, recently smashed glass, and cigarette packages, among others. It seems sort of silly to tell people not to litter at a dump.

It’s a neat archaeological spot. Obviously all the original organic matter has decayed and been eaten by sea creatures, but there are these huge surrealistic lumps of metal jutting out from the rocks. What will people in the future think about our garbage? There seems to be a hierarchy of garbage. Blue and red glass, for example, are quite rare and sought after. We found a few very nice chunks as we patiently picked through piles of softened sea glass. Will people some day sort delicately through our garbage on sunny days, prizing pennies and eschewing nickels? Who knows.

We found an assortment of cool objects, which L took home to turn into larger assemblages of cool objects. Really, we went to the beach to get outside and do something, and picking through other people’s garbage was a sort of nice side bonus. But it was a fun expedition. We made little quadrants like archaeologists and sifted through them for neat bits. We collected blue, red, olive, milk, and yellow glass. We found a few springs and spark plugs. Snaps for overalls. Strange bits of unidentifiable metal. Bottle necks. Bits of china.

We also wondered about the large drainage culvert spilling water onto the beach, given the issues Fort Bragg is having with the septic. The chain of pollution never stops.

Afterwards, we went to dinner, where L had the Confit Pork Shoulder and enjoyed it immensely. Usually she never finishes a plate, and she just tore through that thing. It was quite gratifying to see. She also enjoyed the Chai Tea Gelato, which was quite tasty when I managed to steal a bit from her. We drew obscene art on the table and left.

[Fort Bragg]

So, I picked up a really good at the library yesterday called “The Pill,” and it’s a history of the Pill. It’s all about the development, socially and chemically, of the Pill, and the people who were involved, and the motivations they had, and so on. It’s good. I will probably post a review later.

Only, here’s the thing.

The cretinous philistine who checked out the book before me apparently had the need to insert editorial commentary, which they did with glee. Luckily in pencil, so I can follow through with an eraser, but still. Now I know that none of my readers would ever do something like that, ever. However, read on, and disseminate this information among those you know, so that we can put a stop to this sort of disrespectful behaviour.

Don’t write in library books. I feel, actually, that people shouldn’t ever write in books, period, but library books especially. If you feel the need to deface someone else’s work, buy your own copy, don’t mutilate the copy that your funding challenged local library purchased for the use of patrons all over the county. I cannot tell you how maddening it is to be reading a perfectly fine book and be forced to stop by marginalia. I cannot read a book that has been written in. I find it immensely distracting and am forced to either skip the mutilated chunk (and be really confused), or find another copy of the book. This is why when I was in college I spent a fortune on books–I had to buy new because I couldn’t deal with someone else’s moronic scrawl. For the love of Pete, have some fucking respect and don’t write in books. Don’t correct the goddamn typos, don’t add witty commentary, don’t add snarky editorials on the author’s work. If you really just have to say something, keep a sheet of the paper next to the book, like I do, and fill it with cryptic notes like:

“362 women penis funerals why so sure about?”

Or perhaps:

“456 this study has been proven WRONG repeatedly.”

It’s immensely satisfying, and highly entertaining later to go back over your notes with glee. And then you return a pristine copy of the book to the library, and then everyone is happy.

Because here’s the rub:

When I get a book that has been written in, I complain to the librarians. I know they don’t have time to check every book that comes in, so I let them know that there is damage. And then, the librarians bill the patron who damaged the book for full replacement cost. (And believe me, they have their ways of figuring out who it was.) So you would be better off buying a softcover of the inflammatory text and marking it up as much as you need to, instead of being billed to replace a hardcover with library binding. Those are expensive. You fucking book destroying assholes.

[library etiquette]

In the last few weeks, I have been the recipient of several excellent presents. All of them were very small, yet very potent. One of them was tacked to my door when I got home from work, another arrived in the mail, and another was slipped into my hand on a chilly evening. These presents were little vials with hints of other world–scents from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, and I’ve been trying out different scents, and now have a few reviews.

It’s hard for me to wear scent. Depending on where I am at work, it may not be appropriate to have any sort of scent at all. As a scent matures on my body, it may change and become distasteful, so I have to be cautious and read the base ingredients carefully. I’ve been trained to apply scent very lightly– if someone can smell me, I’m wearing too much. Indeed, I shouldn’t even be able to smell it, really, unless I’m putting my nose to my wrist. The point of scents is not to overwhelm the people around me, it’s to give a hint of something to someone interacting very closely with me. It’s a whiff of musk to a person leaning in to my throat. It’s a hint of spring flowers to someone kissing my hand. It’s a splash of alchemy in my life.

Dorian

Dorian was the first scent I tried. It went on very smoothly, with a hint of vanilla, and after a few moments notes of musk emerged. It was a pleasurable scent. It stayed complex and strong without being corrupted all day, which was rather nice. The vanilla notes stayed clear and a sort of lemony scent emerged as the day wore on. It’s a splendid layered scent–like sweet simple vanilla at first whiff, but much more complex than that if you analyze it. Since Dorian has musks, wearer beware.

“The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself. Inspired by and created for my beloved Tedwin: my eternal, beautiful, wicked Dorian Gray. Refined, elegant, and lovely, with a noble bearing and seemingly gentle air. This blend is an artful deception: a sweet gilded blossom lying over a twisted and corrupted core. A Victorian fougere with three pale musks and dark, sugared vanilla tea. ”

Perversion

I was a bit underwhelmed by Perversion. It reminded me dangerously of the perfume counters at Macys. There was a whole lot going on, and as it matured, it didn’t get much better. I’ll probably give it another shot to confirm, but there was a sour note about it which I profoundly disliked.

“The perfect scent to wear to your next bondage ball, dungeon adventure or sojourn to your favorite pleasure dome. Smoky rum and black tobacco with a whisper of steamy leather with a splash of crystalline chardonnay, layered over a sensual, sweet, and deceptively magnetic base of tonka.”

Whip

Whip is awesome. It smells like aging, comfortable leather. It reminds me of curling up on my father’s leather jacket when I was a child, oiling shoes, horses, the loan of a warm jacket at a cold night on the beach, and other sundry night time perversions. It’s a fun smell, a happy smell that makes me smile. Other people might not get it, but if you have an affinity for quality tanned leather, you will dig it.

“Agony and ecstasy: black leather and damp red rose.”

Hellfire

Hellfire reminded me of talc. In fact, when I went to work, my boss said “are you wearing baby powder?” Ooops. I kind of dug it, but that talc scent did stay strong all night long. It’s odd, because their description of Hellfire does not include talc. In fact, their description sounds quite superb. It also kind of reminded me of crayons. Melting.

“A scent celebrating Sir Francis Dashwood’s Order of the Knights of St. Francis of Wycombe, also known as the Hellfire Club. A swirl of pipe tobacco, hot leather, ambergris, dark musk and the lingering incense smoke from their Black Mass.”

Fenris Wolf

I loved this scent. It went on very well and it stayed great. It was rich and musky and there was a hint of mystery about it. Rosewood doors and incense and long corridors and heavy curtains. Old books and nighttime seduction and heavy wax candles. Rich and complex, I thought it was the best scent I’d tried so far, and people around me seemed to agree–everyone was particularly meek and nice with me the day I wore it, and I suspect the subtle scent might have been responsible. It worked very well with my body, and still smelled great the next morning. This scent also contains musks, and so a number of people do complain about it. Musks are tricky. Some people can wear them–others can’t.

“The raw, untamable power of chaos. Rosewood, amber, red musk and a dribble of red sandalwood.”

I’ve got lots more vials to try, so we will probably have another scent roundup in the coming weeks. The Labs have an amazing array of scents for all sorts of occasions. But think ahead–since many are custom formulated, it takes a long time for your order to arrive. I’m going to see if I can get some of the Lupercalia scents, because they look amazing.

[black phoenix alchemy lab]