Mariachi

I've heard mariachi music here and there my whole life, but I had never actually seen a mariachi band preform live until 2010. I was awestruck. 

I used to go to rock concerts all the time but since college I've lost interest. I don't care for the noise level or being squashed in a crowd. But when I went to the Museum of Northern Arizona's Celebraciónes de la Gente and saw Mariachi Sol Azteca preform I couldn't move from my seat. Mariachi is epic. It is brimming with life and love. Plus, the whole matching charro outfit thing is just cinematic. The musicians make me feel like the world is a bit more interesting and romantic than I sometimes suppose it to be; like every wayward glance that falls upon a strange man is weighted with future assignations, heroic deeds, and love everlasting.

I want to marry a Mexicano (for authenticity) just so we can have a mariachi band at our wedding. And I loathe weddings! I think I just want to plop into the experience of being Mexican in Mexico and being the bride at a rapturous traditional wedding with colorful paper garland, el lazo around mine and my husband's necks, thirteen gold coins in my pocket, and dancing to mariachi.

Lady Primrose's Tryst Perfume

I like the idea of having a signature scent, and I think I've cultivated mine despite the bans on scents at work (at which I spend most of my scent cultivating time). I found a bottle of Tryst dusting silk (or powder, for us laypersons) at a boutique store in Cedarburg, Wisconsin years ago and it was exactly what I was looking for.

This is how the perfumer (or nez) describes it:

Inspirations: Glamorous, opulent, dazzling. A couture style.

Fragrance Notes: Sophisticated floral. Green florals, white jasmine, fleur d'orangery.

To me it's delicate, ladylike, and unassuming. The kind of thing a boyfriend wouldn't hate. It reminds me of an Edwardian white lace lawn dress. And it's what I imagine Anne Shirley smelled like when she told Gilbert she didn't want diamond sunbursts or marble halls.

When my last boyfriend was off exploring foreign lands for the entire summer I would softly dust my letters to him in Tryst. He told me it got him through those three months. And he still remarks on it, sighing deeply to drink in the scent. And that was my mission after all. I wanted a scent that relaxes and seduces in a guileless, come hither sort of way.

Names

Elysia Eugenie Helem ;)

I liked Sadie before it was cool. 

One of my favorite things to do is name things. And if there's nothing to name I like to just think about names. Especially if they're alliterative and/or start with a B. I used to be all for making names up until that became just a little too ghetto. Not even ghetto as much as just... meaningless. I know that's obvious but there really is something kind of meaningless in made up names. Especially if they've got that whole faux Italian thing going on and start and/or end with an A. I'm way over that. I love European names (Western & Eastern) and love love them when they come with a story. 

A few of my cats over the years have been: Freya (Norwegian goddess associated with love, beauty, fertility, gold, war, and death), Sveva (no ones knows what it means but it reminds me of one of my favorite books "I Dreamed of Africa"), Zipporah (Moses' wife), and Solveig (I pronounce it Sol-vee instead of the correct Sool-vi).

I cannot wait to have children and name them. In fact, I think I want to name children more than I actually want to have them. My husband will have absolutely no say in the matter unless he has an awesome family name somewhere in his ancestry that will suffice. The danger is shortened versions. I love Briseis, for example, but loathe Bree.

Here are some current favorites:

• Peregrine (for a girl)
• Ondine (German myth)
• Edit (Ee-dit, Norwegian)
• Holiday (middle)
• Lumen (for a girl)
• Ebury
• Story (yes, I actually liked Lady in the Water)
• Barbury (middle)
• Baring (middle)
• Bray (middle)
• Briseis (Bri-say-es, Greek myth)
• Kaia (ancestor's name)
• Ivadel (ancestor's name, middle)
• Cressida
• Axtel (family name, middle)
• Wise (family name, middle)
• Briony (reminds me of the sea)
• Elysium (Elys for short, Greek myth)
• Beaudet (makes me think of Baudelaire or Lemony Snicket for some reason)
• Nova
• Eisa (a Norwegian myth or the Quaranic name for Jesus)
• Beyla (another Norwegian myth but it reminds me of Nadia Comaneci's trainer)
• Eitri (another Norwegian myth, I like how it's starts like my name)
• Embla (another Norwegian myth)
• Hero (Much Ado About Nothing! She shouldn't have taken Claudio back)
• Shoshana (I wish I could say I loved this before Inglorious Basterds)
• Havalah (my deceased sister's name. I, like my mom, love the shortened Hava)
• Arietty (From The Borrowers! Not the new movie Arietty, which will likely ruin the name for me.)
• Wilder (as in Almonzo)
• Aeronwy (Dylan Thomas' daughter's name, love it except for the inevitable shortening to Erin)
• Bastian (my son WILL be named this no matter what, after the kid in The Neverending Story, the Bastian of the movie, not the book. He was weird in the book)
• Fable 
• Arrow
• Brightly
• Gemma

Plumiscuous Plum Mistelle

The first winery I ever visited was Forbidden Fruit in British Columbia's Okanagan Valley. Some friends and I had been camping in the Interior over the May Two-Four and my boyfriend at the time had visited this organic fruit farm nearby years before and said it was fantastic--so we stopped. Now, I've only been drinking wine for a few years and I'm still on the fence. I can now drink most types without grimacing but I wouldn't say I LOVE wine. I'd still usually prefer a cocktail. But then I tried the fruit wines at Forbidden Fruit and was completely blown away. The Plumiscuous Plum Mistelle is my absolute favorite. It's probably the best beverage I've ever had. It's a fortified red plum wine "made from Euro and Asian red plums. The aromas of this wine embrace the exotic delicate plum, and the palate exudes ripe plum, tropical fruit, melon and notes of strawberry and cranberry." It's freaking amazing, okay? I went back the following year and bought more bottles, which I have used on various special occasions, such as when I see one of those initial trip friends again after a long time apart. It's bottled summer.

Poohsticks

"I think we all ought to play Poohsticks," So they did.

I have very fond memories of playing Poohsticks on various rivers and streams all over the world. Why? Good question. It's such a simple game and yet somehow it seems to me as though it's indicative of a good childhood. It makes me think of lazy summer afternoons when days had no hours and we'd just ramble about talking nonsense and exploring the world--picking through stones on the side of a bank or pointing out crayfish for the boys to catch. 

Poohsticks reminds me how differently I interact with nature now. Before it was about play and learning and now it's about endurance. Having just come off an Alpine hike that left my body aching I kept wondering if it was more fun to put myself through that for the sake of the view at the top and bragging rights than if I'd stopped by the river along the way and spent the day discovering its small beauties and ecosystem and, of course, racing Poohsticks.

Azurite Fire King Glassware

"Damn fine cup of coffee."

"Fire-King is an Anchor Hocking brand of glassware similar to Pyrex and made of low expansion borosilicate glass." I don't consider myself a true collector but this is the one thing I actively seek out. That, and antique Pequot bed linens--but we'll save that for another post. I'd had a thing for milk glass but my fervor was ignited by Agent Dale Cooper's coffee cup in Twin Peaks [see previous post]. I had to have one. And as luck would have it my local antique store had the exact same mug! Unfortunately that one broke during my move back out West but I've since found more. This brand has a huge following. Thank goodness I'm an Azurite fan though. The Jade-ite pieces are the most popular (thanks, Martha Stewart).

I've noticed my affinity for opaque pastels crosses over into a lot of other areas. For instance, I only eat opaque fruit snacks (that'll have to be another post as well).

Audrey Horne

"Because I'm Audrey Horne and I get what I want."

Audrey Horne. Oh, Audrey Horne. I am too young to have watched Twin Peaks when it first aired but I discovered it a few years ago while living on the Northwest Coast and fell in love. It's very strange, yes, but there was just something about it--and something about Audrey Horne. She was played by actress Sherilyn Fenn, which is a cinematic name in and of itself (I love multi-syllabic given names followed by a simple surname). She was the rich daughter of sleazeball hotelier, Ben Horne, and has an unabashed crush on FBI Agent Dale Cooper. I think what I love most about her (besides her rockin' '50s prep inspired wardrobe) is that she was incredibly sexy for someone so naive and inexperienced--and not in an awkward Lolita way. She was kooky but could get away with it with God-given bedroom glances and mad cherry stem tongue knotting skills. It's really difficult to accurately describe the impression she leaves. She had a good heart and and put herself in danger for the sake of others and yet she was separate from everyone else--aloof. She created faux-cinematic situations in which she played the femme fatale even though she was anything but. She was spoiled and constantly sought attention but not in an overt way and that didn't define her. She was not the spoiled heiress. That was not her title even though she was those things. She was ethereal. And I love how she was both seductive and virginal at the same time! So often we think or we're told that those two qualities are mutually exclusive but they weren't for Audrey.

She's my beau ideal. My saddle-shoed oxymoronic beau ideal.

Jasmine Tea

Teavana's Jasmine Dragon Phoenix Pearls. Yum!

After years of "hating" tea, which began as simply an inclination and was later confirmed when my cousin, Emily, and I were told by our grandmother to always accept tea when offered on our first trip to Ireland as young teens. I think if I'd put more sugar in those cups it would have been okay. But sometime in, hmmm, 2006? Sometime in 2006 I decided it was totally cool to be a tea drinker and when Emily and I were in Chicago one day we had dinner at Frontera Grill and as it was cold and I was attempting to be healthy, I ordered jasmine tea. A blend I'd picked at random. It was the first cup of tea I'd ever enjoyed and therefore has a soft spot in my heart.

Collis Verum

[Please correct my Latin if I'm wrong] Ha! "My Latin" makes it sound as though I have it. I don't. Barely. Collis Verum refers to the grassy hill and forest across the street from the house where I grew up. We (I) named it Collis Verum (Truth Hill) because whenever we'd head up there to lay on the grass, the softest grass I've ever known, it was just incredibly easy to bare all (verbally, that is). Being up there felt like we were living the lyrics to Alphaville's "Forever Young" (I prefer Youth Group's cover).

It wasn't just the truth thing, the hill was so much more. We spent endless hours up there building imaginary worlds, like Aesir Navaa, the land of which I was Empress. There were our fairy houses, the idea for which was directly stolen from "Fairy Tale: A True Story" (1997), and our archeological expeditions where we dug through the rocks deposited there by long dead pioneer farmers who removed them from their fields and dumped them on top of their garbage. And what wonderful garbage it was! I will forever love green glass lemon juicers because of that initial find. I memorized and recited "Romeo + Juliet" in its entirety on that hill. I have precious memories of my favorite dug, Rusty, on that hill. I'd like to say I kissed my first boy on that hill but that would be complete fabrication. I did however daydream constantly about kissing my first boy on that hill. First boy and first elf. I made up this wild story about a beautiful elf prince living on the other side of a thin veil between our worlds on that hill. He could pass through and fell madly in love with me. I did fancy I saw an elf up there once. Or a troll. Or a magical humanoid of some sort. I very clearly saw a short man in a dark cape and hat with a tall wooden staff hobble down the backside of the hill and into the forest. I halfheartedly ran after him and lost my nerve when he disappeared into the brush. Now I consider myself a logical person but I know what I saw that day and no one can change my mind about that. Not nut'n, not nobody, not no how.

I can still remember the swarms of dragonflies covering the milkweed, and the way the white dogs were dyed orange after a day running through the mysterious grass pollen. I remember climbing trees there on the first day of the New Millennium, which was strangely warm. I remember being chased by a coyote after my two cowardly dogs left me to fend for myself. I remember seeing the abandoned freezers tipped sideways from a distance and telling my younger brother they were coffins. I remember finding the rare Jack-in-the-Pulpits that I'd only just read about in science class. I remember weaving bracelets and ropes out of the grass. I remember that slightly skittish feeling I got when I went into the woods alone. And accidentally eating that giant mushroom we found that mom sauteed thinking it was diced chicken. Mushrooms, gross.

I could literally spend the rest of the afternoon writing those "I remember's", especially now that the legal owner of the hill has decided it should be another cornfield. I will hate him with a fiery passion for the remainder of my life, BTW. But for now I'll end with this:

Forever Young (1984)

Let's dance in style, let's dance for a while
Heaven can wait we're only watching the skies
Hoping for the best but expecting the worst
Are you gonna drop the bomb or not?

Let us die young or let us live forever
We don't have the power but we never say never
Sitting in a sandpit, life is a short trip
The music's for the sad man

Can you imagine when this race is won
Turn our golden faces into the sun
Praising our leaders we're getting in tune
The music's played by the, the madman

Forever young, I want to be forever young
Do you really want to live forever?
Forever, or never

Some are like water, some are like the heat
Some are a melody and some are the beat
Sooner or later they all will be gone
Why don't they stay young?

It's so hard to get old without a cause
I don't want to perish like a fading rose
Youth like diamonds in the sun
And diamonds are forever

So many adventures couldn't happen today
So many songs we forgot to play
So many dreams are swinging out of the blue
We let 'em come true

Forever young, I want to be forever young
Do you really want to live forever?
Forever, or never

Brideshead Revisited Sountrack

My favorite instrument is the piano and I love finding ethereal little pieces like "Sebastian" by Adrian Johnston and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. I think I'll forever be disappointed that my life is not an ongoing movie, but compositions such as this (when listened to on the bus with very good headphones) somehow make the anonymous masses cinematic.