spoiledcat_77

Currently, Wax and I are the little old ladies who only drive once a week. We live in a tiny town whose downtown is only a few streets across, on a small island, and we typically drive to the supermarket to get groceries once a week, not because walking there takes more than ten minutes, but because bringing a week's worth of groceries home (without a sled and a bunch of snow, or a little red wagon that we don't have) is uncomfortable on foot. Several winters in a row we have caused problems for our poor car by not driving often enough or for long enough when it was cold.

On the other hand, we have to have the car now for when we do need to leave town (buses into Kaarina and Turku from here are a pain; the regional 24h veterinary ER is on the other side of Turku, so we definitely did drive there at like 3 am one time when Snookums had a seizure).

I used to kind of enjoy driving, and I drove frequently aged 16-21, but only automatic transmissions. waxjism had an old car when I first moved here, but it was stick shift and I couldn't drive it and she couldn't teach me. We eventually got rid of it, and I never swapped my US driver's licence for a Finnish one (you can when it it hasn't expired yet).

Wax, who has never liked driving, has been urging me to learn to drive and get a license since we moved here and got the car.

Well, apparently, because I have at one time had a driver's licence from another country it's impossible to apply online for a learning-to-drive permit like everyone else can; I have to go in person to the office in Turku. I guess I'm doing that this week.

Neve the wild mini phalaenopsis orchid started to bloom! From above you can kinda see the size difference compared to Georges and Ella next to her. She's got so many buds already.

Wax's philodendron Jungle Boogie or Henderson's Pride, if that is in fact the one it is (apparently hard to tell, came without a proper label, on sale after being sadly mistreated at a hardware store), has made a new leaf recently and it's making a branch. I really love the leaves which are very majestic, but I keep trying and failing to get pictures of it. It's just so large and the light is from the wrong direction where it lives.

1. I used to spend maybe 8-12 hours per week on a sideblog on Tumblr for images from the history of the decorative arts. Then I succumbed to the idea of talking to the followers directly (it has around 8000 which is waaaaaay more than my normal Tumblr or my pet photo blog) and got some asks that threw me into social confusion and then shame and avoidance and I just didn't update it for like three years. In retrospect, also, the amount of time I was spending on it shortly before I stopped was not practical and sustainable. But I got into a discussion about rococo, and started looking some things up in curiosity, and I had never posted very much about rococo before. And now I started posting there again a bit! (It's called designobjectory.) It started a week ago with curiosity about the early output of KPM porcelain (the royal porcelain manufactory of Prussia originally, iconic) and has led to the discovery of Weimar classicism in the form of Goethe's house.

2. I inked my two 1.1-mm stub nib fountain pens — well, actually, a Lamy Safari 1.1-mm stub and a vintage Pelikan 400 (mine is brown tortoiseshell, a holiday present a few years ago) with a (pre-existing) custom oblique stub that is about 1.1. — and have been practicing calligraphy a bit, which I haven't done in a while because I haven't had any of my italic pens inked. I spent some time on Gothic capitals, because I want to do more Rotunda, and then Carolingian, which I haven't bothered practicing in the longest time.

As you all are potentially aware, I have an allergy to at least one (unknown id) perfume and am hyper sensitive to other (many, but not all) perfumes and some natural fragrances. Besides one lavender tea incident, the throat swelling has only ever been in response to perfumed products on the lower half of my face for longer than the time it takes to wash it back off (so it's not TOO scary, since I always have time to escape). Hypersensitivity isn't the same as allergy, but when you add the knowledge that some unknown perfume aggressors out there will make my airway swell mostly closed, the hypersensitivity becomes very alarming and hard to deal with. Am I sneezing and feeling like I'm gonna choke because Smell, or am I risking anaphylaxis?

So as you can imagine, I usually buy unscented cosmetics, hygiene products, etc. And that's not always enough! As I was saying to twistedchick recently, sometimes I have to discard unscented products due to the smells of ingredients. Common offenders include burning (how?), ozone (this isn't unbearable but it's very annoying), a vaguely "gone off" smell in some moisturizers (rancid oils? Or some kind of fungal ingredient??), and urine (WHY! I know it's because they use urea in the manufacture but that's an issue I would think they would consider urgent to fix???)

But sometimes I feel compelled to try scented products because there doesn't seem to be a good unscented alternative. If you have any special requirements for shampoo and conditioner - in my case, I have low-porosity hair and lots of common ingredients don't work for me - there tend to be no unscented options, because unscented products are already considered a special requirement. I have decided that I need a new leave in conditioner that's more effective for holding curls and waves without frizz, and maybe a curl cream. (I don't like gel but it's always there if I can't find a good cream solution.)

Well, I tried a John Frieda Frizz Ease "curl revitalizing oil spray" today with great hopes.

My first impression was "this smells like my mother in law". waxjism agrees. It's a perfume, and the product does contain a little patchouli but it's not exactly patchouli that smells like her (but it is musky). The ingredients include "perfume", as usual, which should be illegal anywhere btw, so that's not much help.

Anyway, it's strong enough that I don't like it and will have to give it away, but it's not strong enough that I need to wash it out a day early, as long as my hair is kept back out of my face.

I've been reading the occasional perfume review reblogged by cleolinda and have got the idea it could be oud or some rose-related thing. Or maybe it's the combination of patchouli with one of these other things? I'm medium confident that it's not moringa...

( full ingredients list )