Perfume

Now that we have prepared ourselves with a discussion of Startling Expenses (I hope that my brand-name tomato sauce excesses have not left you reeling), let's talk about perfume!

But first!

1. I don't know anything about perfume, and my experimenting with it has been very limited. So starting a conversation about it seems odd.

2. I realize this whole topic will seem a little odd. I mean, you've seen my Target clearance labels, you know I am not particularly glamorous, you'd probably rightly suspect that I don't even own a pair of high heels. So if perfume came up in conversation, you'd probably picture me with, at most, a clearance bottle of Charlie, right?

Well, and you'd be right. I like Charlie. And it was on clearance.

3. Sometimes I go a long time not wearing perfume at all, not interested in wearing it. Then suddenly I'm back in a Perfume Phase, wearing it every day, trying samples, filling out my perfume spreadsheet, feeling like my perfumes are A Treasured Collection, etc. So you could easily get the feeling that I'm interested in perfume, and later be surprised to find me not particularly interested.

4. When you hear that I am interested in perfume, you may want to discuss perfume with me. But see #1. I know...a handful of perfumes by L'Artisan. And a very few others---like, literally a few, like three.

5. And my knowledge of these is...sparse. I don't have a nose for it. I'll say, "That smells like a plasticky car air freshener," and there will be blank faces and "...No, it's rum and vanilla." And I say, "OHhhhhhhh. I see." And I use the word "perfume" to mean "scented stuff I put on"---I don't differentiate among eau de toilettes, colognes, perfumes, whatevers.


My first bottle of perfume was a present from my aunt when I was about ten. I think it was called Blue Jeans, or Jeans. In high school I wore Avon Soft Musk, Chantilly, and Charlie. In college I wore Sand and Sable, a pear scent that I think was from The Body Shop, and vanilla extract. By the time I was having children, I think I had a bottle of Charlie, a white gardenia scent, a bottle of Ciara, and a bottle of Tea Rose, and I wasn't wearing them.

Then I was reading a celebrity magazine, and it was one of those sections where they ask celebrities what they're currently reading/buying/wearing, and it was a perfume theme. And one celebrity said she was wearing L'Artisan La Chasse aux Papillons, that it smelled just like fresh-cut flowers, and that she was getting compliments on it wherever she went.

Something about that description caused me to go on a complete perfume freak-out. I started madly researching---and quickly discovered I couldn't try or buy that perfume at any store near me. I wanted a sample, but HOW?? I found it a little shocking that I would need to PAY for a sample, but quickly adjusted; after some research online, I placed an order for a sample of La Chasse aux Papillons plus a few others, also L'Artisan---I think the deal was something like six samples for $12 which, since that's what I HAD been paying for a WHOLE BOTTLE, was kind of weird.

I loved La Chasse aux Papillons, but the surprise success of the samples was L'Eau de L'Artisan, which made me want to stuff my wrists up my nose to smell them more thoroughly. For Christmas that year I got the La Chasse from my parents and the L'Eau from Paul. I also got more samples to try.

I've tried samples from other perfume houses, but so far I've never liked one enough to want to buy it. Most perfumes seem too sharp/nose-burny to me, or there's a scent element I dislike, or I think "Eh, it's fine, but nothing special---no better than my $12 perfumes." I still use Charlie, Tea Rose, and a bottle of Avon perfume by "mark." (annoying brand name) but I don't know the name of it and they don't carry it anymore.

My top favorites from L'Artisan, in the order I'd save them from a fire, are:

Fou d'Absinthe - I don't know what it smells like, but I LOVE it; could be for boys or girls

Tea for Two - it's like all the good parts of pipe tobacco with none of the bad parts; could be for boys or girls

L'Eau de L'Artisan - fresh, herbal, lemon verbena; could be for boys or girls

La Chasse aux Papillons - bouquet of flowers

Navegar - I think of it like a sharper and even less feminine L'Eau de L'Artisan; could be for boys or girls

Oeillet Sauvage - dressy floral, violets; discontinued but my parents found me a bottle


Right now I'm trying a sample of L'Ete en Douce and I really really like it; that might be my next purchase. It's soft in a way that reminds me of a musk, but it doesn't smell like what I think of as musk; it's a little bit floral but not flowery; there's a bit of a fabric softener scent. I'm not sure what it smells like, I just like it.

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Now I would be interested in hearing YOUR Perfume Situation. Do you remember your first bottle? What did you used to wear, if anything? What do you wear now, if anything?

Domain Name Distress

An extremely spammy site is using my (very unusual) first/maiden name combination as their domain name. It's the first hit for my name, and then there's page after page of hits for it. They're using KristenMaiden.com as their site name, too, and saying that things are "copyright KristenMaiden.com."

Paul bought me that domain as a gift quite awhile ago. I used it for awhile, but then we let it lapse. Someone else bought it up, apparently.

And I realize this holds no weight, but it's the name I theoretically use professionally: that is, if anyone needs a "real name" to publish with my writing, that's the name I use. The reason I say this holds no weight is I haven't needed to do that yet. I gave it to Milk and Cookies when they needed a name, but then they went with just first names. My "plans to use it" aren't worth anything. But it's one of the reasons I'm so upset.

Can anything be done, SHORT of lawsuit? I'd thought of just...emailing them and asking them to stop, but (1) no contact info on the site and (2) they are VERY ESTABLISHED there, and I suppose it's incredibly naive to think they'd go away because I asked them to.

But can things really be like this? That if you EVER purchase your name as a domain name, you then need to pay for it for ALL ETERNITY, including leaving instructions in your will for your heirs to continue paying for it? Or else THIS happens?

Startling Expenses

I would like to talk about perfume a little bit, because I just made an exciting (for me) perfume purchase and so it is on my mind, but here is the thing I need to get out of the way right up front: perfume is one of my Startling Expenses. And it turns out THAT is what I actually want to talk about, so the subject of perfume will wait for another day.

I remember learning about Startling Expenses back in elementary school, when a friend's Christmas haul was ten times the value of mine. I was indignant and jealous and upset, and I think what I wanted was for my parents to make condemning remarks about how out of line the other family was to spoil her so badly, and maybe also to apologize for not doing the same to me, or at LEAST take a satisfyingly superior tone about how our family was Keeping Christmas Simple.

Instead I got a Reasonable Explanation about how different families make different decisions with their money: one family might love Christmas and really have fun going all-out, so they skimp on other things all year to save for it; another family might go light or medium on Christmas and spend on a vacation; another family might go medium on Christmas, skip vacations, but go out to dinner, or buy new school clothes, or pay for private school, or save for college, or have parties, or make home improvements, or donate to charity, or get their hair cut at salons, or have a housecleaner, or get portraits done, or buy organic food, or have smart phones, or have cable, or replace cars more frequently, or have a gaming system, or live in a more expensive area of the country, or take more time off, or go back to school, or take music lessons, or buy casually throughout the year the things Family #1 saves to give at Christmas---or do any number of things the next family was not doing and so would consider a Startling Expense.

The things WE don't prioritize almost ALWAYS seem like crazy things to spend money on. And at this point I have a flashback to my late mother-in-law, who would literally gasp when she saw me getting a can of Contadina tomato sauce ("*gasp* Oh! Swistle! Don't you want the STORE brand??"), but would express equal astonishment that someone WOULDN'T pay the extra hundred dollars for sheets with a DECENT thread count.

It's important to realize that although such things seem like RIDICULOUS CONTRADICTIONS, they are not: thoughtful consumers save money where they don't care, so that they can spend it where they do care. The annoying thing about my late mother-in-law is not that she'd spend $100 more on sheets while not wanting to pay 15 cents more on tomato sauce; the annoying thing is that she would think everyone who didn't make the same set of decisions must be an idiot.

It might seem like this would only apply to well-off families and luxury items, but in my experience it happens nearly across the board: even my verge-of-financial-crisis acquaintances will periodically startle me with what they will pay for a product or experience, and education and cars and foods and homes can qualify just as the purer luxuries (perfume, make-up, liquor) do. Even though my starting example of perfume puts us in the mindset of total unnecessaries, notice that to my late mother-in-law, my Startling Expense was a can of tomato sauce. Other people's Startling Expenses seem like a foolish waste of money whether you're poorer or richer than they are, whether the item in question is a pint of ice cream or a college degree; it's the way Startling Expenses ARE. The instant temptation is to think that WE would not squander money that way if WE were in their shoes, and GOODNESS what a waste that spending seems to us when we can barely afford to buy our own Item That is a Good Value and Certainly Not an Equally Startling Expense!

If it is hard for you to think of what your own Startling Expenses are, because they just make so much SENSE you don't notice them or think of them that way, you could ask a frank friend (a friend who doesn't spend money the same way you do) to tell you. Or, think of times when you've said "You should never skimp on _____!," or "Well, it COSTS more, but it's WORTH it," or "I'd rather spend money on ____ than on something that's gone in ten seconds!," or "Well, TIME is valuable, too," or "Well, I think it's important to TREAT yourself," or "But it's important for the kids to grow up where...," or "But you can use/wear it forever!," or "Well, the per-use price isn't really...," or "EXPERIENCES are the really valuable things!," or "Well, it's IMPORTANT to ____," or "It's an INVESTMENT," or really any expense-justifying remark.

Such reasons are often TRUE; they also helpfully mark the areas where we know we spend more, and/or where we are hoping to persuade other people that they should do so too. And such are the things I say about my perfumes. Which we can talk about later.

Cherry Stem; Skirted Swimsuits

I admit that being able to neatly de-pit a cherry in my closed mouth is not the same kind of talent as being able to tie a cherry stem into a knot under similar circumstances. But aren't we getting tired of the cherry stem trick anyway? What is that trick intended to communicate? "If there is any sense in which you can compare your proportions to a cherry stem, have I got an experience for you"?

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Elizabeth has gotten it into her head that two-piece swimsuits ALWAYS have skirts, and that if they DON'T, that they are extremely embarrassing. A one-piece doesn't have to have a skirt: that's fine by her. And she doesn't like any two-piece suit that shows any skin between the two pieces, so her two-piece suits are basically just one-piece suits cut in half for bathroom-break convenience. BUT THEY MUST HAVE SKIRTS. Otherwise ICK!! She was a little startled by me not knowing this already.

I was a little annoyed, because I bought her a number of suits last year on good clearances, and none of the two-piece ones have skirts. But I am not fully annoyed, because when you pay $3.24 for a swimming suit, one of the upsides is that it's not a big deal if it doesn't fit or if the child hates it or IF IT TURNS OUT THERE IS AN UNWRITTEN RULE ABOUT SKIRTS.

Family Size, and How It Influences Family Size

Caitlin and I were emailing more about the decision to have children, and something came up that I want to talk about with a larger sample.

I was mentioning how people often cite their own families of origin when explaining their reproduction decisions---but that those decisions can be completely opposite. For example, one sibling from a six-sibling set can say, "Well, I came from a big family so that feels natural to me"---while someone from the same sibling set can say, "Well, I came from a big family and I don't really want that; we're planning one or maybe two kids."

And it's hard to know how much we're affected by society. When we say, "There were two kids in my family so that seems right to me," how much of the "seems right" is from growing up in a family with two kids, and how much of it is from growing up in a society where two kids is the norm?

And we're probably also affected by what's typical in our extended families. Did everyone have two kids except your family which had six? Or did everyone have five or six kids except for your family of two kids? Or was your family with the majority?

Here's what I would be interested in knowing: How does the size of your Growing-Up Family figure into your thoughts and decisions about how many children to have (including if that number of children-to-have is zero), if at all? That is, would you say a sentence such as: "Well, I came from a family of ____, so I _____"? Or wouldn't you do that? (In which case I would still want to know the size of the family you came from, and the size of the family you're making or intending to make.)

Close Call Haiku

Water cup at lips
Just in time, movement noticed
Ant and me, both saved.

Clothing Overage; Soothing Plumpage Idea; Henry at Home

I placed a few orders for kid clothing to fill in some gaps in our supply. Then I got caught up on the laundry of one of the 2-kid rooms and realized my folly. Whoops.

Well, the drawers don't really NEED to close. And also, how often do I get caught up on laundry? So I don't think it'll be an issue. There. Rationalized it.

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If you are of a plumpish persuasion, may I suggest taking up cooking and/or baking? A career would be ideal, but even as a hobby it works. Just as the sentence "It's a family name" seems to settle people's agitation about a peculiar baby name, being a good cook/baker seems to settle people's agitation about plumpness. "Ah, that makes sense, then; we LIKE that combination," they think, and their brains send them some soothing chemicals.

Additional benefit: if you cook or bake and you're plump, people make assumptions about your good nature. Even if you are a bit of an anxious mess, people persist in thinking of you as having a cheerful and generous personality.

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Henry is missing another day of his Expensive But Worth Every Penny summer program, and it is driving me nuts. I just HATE "losing money" like that. I'm using the quotes to show that I understand that the money is spent either way and I'm not actually losing anything. Nothing except SIX HOURS OF RELATIVE PEACE, that is.

I don't know what he has. He has a sore throat and low appetite, and his fever has gone over 102 but mostly stays in the normal-to-101 range (known as the "He's kind of warm" range). He has a rash on his legs, especially at the knees, and it's also on his arms, his ears, and his upper buttular region. I'd thought strep, but both the short and long strep tests came back negative. So maybe the rash is a reaction to something he encountered outdoors, and then he's just got a cold? I don't know. Kid illness is baffling.