March of Dimes walk - another note

Hey all,

This is still not the big post ... that should be tomorrow. However, I wanted you to know that I just found out Farmers is matching donations, so if you gave money, it will count double. I was pretty tickled to know that. Would have been nice to know in advance, but hey! Telling me what's going on after it's gone on is the Farmers way.

For what it's worth, donations are still open. Not sure they ever close, to tell the truth.

Great article

Hi guys, late again to post about the walk and the concert. I really will, really really will, but it will probably be tomorrow night.

Here is a great article on our wastefulness. Nothing new, just elegantly said. (And how much did I waste in grad school, so that I can work in a no-education-required entry-level job? Argh!)

Quick notes

Here is a beautiful statement released by the missing boy's mom.

The walk and concert were wonderful, and hey, my plants are coming up, and it's hot and beautiful outside! Life is sweet. I promised an update on March of Dimes and the Red Elvises... I will add it later, when I have access to pictures. Either tonight or tomorrow.

Tomorrow evening, off on a new adventure: we are driving our pelican friend to LAX to send him/her to Saint Louis zoo. Wish us luck. I'll try to take pictures, but the pelican will already be crated for transport when we pick him/her up, so they may be a bust.

March of Dimes

If you are planning to donate, you can do so even after the walk. The walk is tomorrow. Scroll down for a clickable widget if you care to sponsor me, or if you just want to donate to the March outright, that's easy to do, too.

I believe everyone should pick their causes themselves. These are some of the reasons I believe in THIS cause:

The research they fund may give us a dearly wanted child.

The research they fund has consoled and informed us during our four miscarriages during the last two years.

The research they fund will probably lengthen my life span; my blood clots too quickly and I am prone to clots and strokes, but wouldn't have known it until I had a nasty event if I hadn't been tested for it during the battery of infertility tests.

They save lives, sanity, emotions, marriages, families.

In other news... a friend of my closest coworker is suffering and I am sad for her.

Take 4 minutes and watch this, it's great

Hi all, just sharing something brilliant I found by way of Thoughtviper (see my sidebar for a linky).

Wolf loves pork

Help me reach my goal! Sponsor Me at March for Babies!

Hi all,

The March for Babies is this coming Saturday. I am still looking for sponsors. I've set a very modest goal of $50 for myself this year because I know how broke everyone is. My brother and partner will also be walking, but I'm not sure they've signed up for the walk on the site. Last year I signed them up and they may be spoiled. :)

This is a cause that means a lot to me -- the March of Dimes' research may give me a child, and may indeed save my life, since I would not otherwise have sought a diagnosis of thrombophilia and might have had a stroke if untreated. If you choose to participate, I'd be honored if you would sponsor me. If not, no worries. Just be active for a cause that you are passionate about.

In the interests of full disclosure... We are probably only walking about half of the course this year; due to complete spacebrain, we said yes to a Red Elvises concert the same night and I think conserving some of our energy will be a must... especially for Robert, who will be driving us to the Elvises concert in between the two. Yikes.

Love you all!




I kind of flunked the widget size. Forgive me!

It reads, "One day, all babies will be born healthy. Help me reach my goal."

Oakmoss

Last night I noodled around VERY briefly in the perfume lab, tincturing water-decaf Italian roast coffee beans for the coffee scent (Yeah, I know they make coffee EO, but this smells so amazing. Seriously.) and diluting the oakmoss absolute I have been ignoring.

Oakmoss absolute smells like, well, mushroomy, dirty moss. But if you dilute it, it has magically pretty chameleonic undertones of powder, fruity sweetness, richly earthy muskiness, cleanly sweaty human... it's beautiful. Who knew (other than everyone except me)?

I decanted my dilution into a bottle, and still had a little too much to fit. Into the few drops of dilution I sloshed a splash of perfumer's alcohol, a few drops of coffee tincture from the small test batch, and a couple drops of vetiver.

Wow. Wow. Wow. It's not a formula, there was NOTHING scientific about the mixture, as it was purely a proof-of-concept thing to see how those scents would go together and it's too strong anyway.

On me, it smelled like James Bond's perfume of choice: No. 89 by Floris. (That is, a powdery, dirty/clean sweetness that smells elegantly composed but slightly vulnerable on a man and smells like poncy fan-dancing burlesque on me.) My impromptu, all-base-notes combo smelled powdery sweet, feminine and naughty... and has potential.

On Pat, it smelled like cold, salted earth upon which one had poured musk and broken raw, pungent tendrils of vetiver. He was not fond of it.

On Robert, it smelled beautifully masculine: rich, musky and slightly floral, with a sparkling freshness of vetiver's airier aspects and an overarching tartness of coffee. He was fond of it.

On Micah, it smelled like a rather balanced men's cologne: musky, earthy, chypreed, lightened by the vetiver and with the coffee in fully articulate debate with his own cigarette-smoker's skin scent.

So, I seem to have thrown together a doppelganger that is something different with everyone. Pat says, "You should not sell this one. Who knows what people will get from it? It could be AWFUL."

I am daydreaming today of monkeying with these elements more scientifically.