beetiger

My imps arrived late Thursday night, and I've been working through them. Definitely interesting stuff. I decided to go ahead and try them straight, since most of their clients apparrently do, and since they provided little applicator wands in the bottles so I'm assuming that is the perfumer's inent as well. I still think several of them would benefit from dilution to be more balanced before they fade, though.

( Hamadryad )
( Zephyr )
( Hetairae )
( Snake Oil )
( Bengal )
( Shanghai )
( The Coiled Serpent )

yunatwilight was kind enough to send over her own package of imps for the weekend, so I'll be looking at those too. Fun!

I rarely do this kind of stuff, but ladyperegrine tagged me, so I'll indulge her.

Guilt:

Culinary - Marshmallow Peeps - Yay! It's almost Peeps season! There's no way that these aren't objectively horrible, but I just crave these in-season. (Forget those Marshmallow ghosts and stuff that Just Born tries to push on us in other candy seasons; they're Just Not Right.)The purple ones are the best. (Yes, they all taste identical, I don't care.) The scariest part is, they are actually best slightly stale. So the right way to do it is to open the package, at just one 'cause you can't wait, and then put them aside for a few days. They also make good microwave s'mores. Peep squish!

Literary - 'Cosmo' magazine - It's so dreadfully offensive, but I can't resist picking one up if I see it at the doctor's office or something. When I used to travel alone for work, I'd let myself buy one if I had a wait in the airport. I grew up looking at my mother's copies, and somehow it stuck.

Audio(visual) -Open Forum with Harold Camping- This is an evangelist Christian call-in radio program, where the head of Family Radio answers questions about the Bible. He got a lot of crap for mispredicting the end times back in 1994, but apparently people still trust him. He says that all organized churches have been taken over by Satan, and that True Believers should leave them. He's crazy, but really quite consistent. I enjoy trying to figure out what he's going to say in response to any particular question. When I drive by myself in the evenings, I listen.

Musical - Deborah Harry. Her music hit me at a critical time in my adolescence, during my parents' divorce. I used to play "Heart of Glass" over the phone to a boy, whole phone calls just listening to albums together from two locations. Unfortunately, her range is so different than mine that I sound like squeaky hell whenever I try to sing along. But I still somehow feel driven to perform "Rapture" in Karaoke bars.

Celebrity - Paul Simon. He's cute, he's a good lyricist, I've had a crush on him since the eighth grade, and I can ignore the fact that he's kinda sold out and turned into a grade-A asshole in recent years. I recently bought Rhys a copy of a new Sesame Street video just 'cause he had a guest appearance in it.

I tag...you! But only if you wanna.

I laid Rhys' night clothes out before I put him into the bath tonight, choosing the pinkest of the laundry-stained pajamas. He saw what I had, and he literally started *dancing*.

"Wow! Pink! I getting pink pajamas! I *love* pink pajamas!"

I tried to be nonchalant. "They certainly are pink. Do you like them?"

"Pink pajamas! Pink Rhys' favorite color!" He danced around, then tried to grab them and put them on, although I told him he had to wait until after the bath.

So I guess I'm not going to have a problem getting him to wear them.

( Happy boy! )

I know that some of you may be finding this meme kind of tedious, but I'd actually find it really really helpful and grounding if some nontrivial number of you could do this for me.

My Johari chart.

I got a new camera (The Casio Exilim Z55 -- hey, don't give me crap, it's got Pentax lenses, it's superlight, and it wasn't too pricey.)

We went to the Bronx Zoo on Sunday. It was a special request from Rhys (every day for the previous week or so), but it gave me an excuse to play with the camera. The Bronx Zoo has some really beautifully-executed exhibits, and I've goten to know it pretty well, since we have a pass and I go about once a month or so. January's pleasantly deserted there, even if some of the seasonal exhibits are closed. The Tiger Mountain exhibit is especially well-done, and of course my favorite. Rhys is especially fond of the Mouse House. This time, we got to see a baby acouchi nursing, which was pretty cool.

And I got to play with my new camera. I haven't particularly figured out how to optimize it for wildlife photography yet, but the files are huge compared to my old camera (5 megapixels instead of 2), so at least I've got a lot of file to play with.

So now I have some new user icons. No text on them yet, so feel free to make suggestions if you feel inspired.

OK, I'm officially getting old. I threw my back out this morning while delivering a big container of bean salad for charity.

Now I am hoping to sneak in a warm bath while my son naps.

Ow. Owowow. This hurts. Luckily I got a peppermint bath fizzy from Scrub Yer Butt Soap in my last Sampler, so I get to use it.

Ow.

I've got about a dozen each of American Apparel T-shirts, the toddler cap sleeve type(code 4121) in size 2, 4, and 6, new and unprinted, that aren't working very well for me in my product line. I'd rather sell them all at once to someone who can use them than to discount one color in my shop. Anyone interested?

(The issue with them, by the way, is that they run *very* small compared to everything else I sell. I bought them originally because the lavender color isn't available in the main toddler line, and I thought it was just a styling issue. But the sizing is about 1 to 1 1/2 sizes smaller than the other toddler shirts. I do mention this on my site, but not in an obvious enough way, and people have complain one too many times for me to be happy about it. They're great, very nicely styled little shirts. Just teeny. Figure the 2 = 18-24 months, 4 = 2, and 6 = 4.)

I guess I could also print them for someone at some sort of a bulk discount, if that were useful.

I'm probably going to kick myself for missing the obivous...but is it one of you who lives in Cupertino, CA? We just recieved a lovely gift of handprinted clothing for RHys, but with no card enclosed, and I'd like to figure out who sent it!

Happy Sunreturn, all. More later if I have time -- I'm collecting candles and candles and candles right now!

( a poem )

There's a tiny little wisp of strangeness drifting through me now, and among other things, I seem to want to do something interesting to my hair. Not noticeable from a mile away, but definitely something out of the ordinary.

Therefore, two questions to you who might know:
1)If you do something like a manic panic or special effects dye on unbleached, brown hair, what do you get? Lovely purple(or whatever) highlights? Nothing at all? A muddy purple brown color that looks hideous?

2)Does anyone know of a dye out there that comes out as a raven black with noticeable blue or purple highlights? (Bleaching okay, it's not that I want to avoid bleaching, I just want a more subtle effect than bright purple).

3)If you use a black permanent dye and then use a manic panic or something on top of that once it is done, what do you get?

On a possibly related note, we saw a gang of those retired ladies with the red hats and the purple shirts at the Katonah Museum. I know, I know, it's a social club. But if they're all going to dress alike in their wacky (and very well-composed, despite the color clash) uniforms, meeting perfectly reasonable expectations of what older women do (like go to museums), don't you think they are missing the original point of the poem entirely? I want to see them having a spitting contest in the mall. *Then* I'll be impressed.