Today you can call me Zelda, because I'm bringing all the Link-age.

Hello dear reader!

Today I'm going to offer you all this list of links of fun and interesting things, perfumey and non, that I have come across on the tubes during my long dark winter of plaguery. I recommend all the items on this list if you've got an hour to kill and want to do a little web exploring with me. This list is lovingly brought to you by me and my beloved elder cat, Terric.

~ First, let's talk about the perfume linkage:

While I was trying to defeat the plague, it appears everyone has released their winter 2013 lists, because there are a group of bloggers one could consider the Five Families of Perfume Blogging, and in case you haven't noticed, they tend to simulcast these things. Instead of rushing to give you mine, I'll give you a list of links to everyone else's and a few words of my own about each. Really nothing like critiquing the critique, is there? Yeah, I'm being lazy. Sorry.

• Angela of Now Smell This! gives us her list of Top 10 Scents for Winter.  I love this list, and would echo two of her choices: Annick Goutal Duel and Aftelier Wild Roses. If you've never read Angela's writing, she's terrific, and her regular posting day is Monday.  

• Grain de Musc also released its Winter Top 10. I can't really comment on this list because I haven't tried any of these scents, but the By Kilian's In the Garden of Good and Evil and Arabian Nights scents are already in my LuckyScent basket, so hopefully I'll get to those soon.

• Here you will find Perfume Posse's Top 10 Winter Scent List written complied from six of PP's fabulous bloggers. Of this list I'd endorse Bvlgari BLV Pour Homme, CB I Hate Perfume Winter 1972, and Le Labo Vanille 44. I still need to try Prada Candy.

• Bois de Jasmin's Favorite Fragrances for Winter Days includes a few personal favorites: Donna Karan Black Cashmere, DSH Perfumes Winter White (Holiday No. 4), and biehl parfumkunstwerke eo01.

• And last but never least, there is a winter scents offering from Tom of Perfume-Smellin' Things. Since Tom is located in So Cal, he admits there hasn't been a lot of call for wintery scents, but the comments mentioned Bal a Versailles, which I think is nice for February for all sorts of reasons (smexy!), and I have to give a winter shout out to this sexy scent, as well as Guerlain Shalimar, which I love in cool weather.

So there you have it. A list of wintery scents I like that are also endorsed by the Dons of perfume blogging. Can't beat that now, can you?

~ And while I'm on excellent perfume pieces, allow me to also recommend the following:

• In a Non-Top 10 Winter Scent list offering, this "Perfume Primer" piece of the "Much Maligned Fruity Floral"  from Perfume Shrine is great.   I myself have written two third of my own version championing those fruity florals I enjoy...and then left to malinger in the dusty corners of my hard drive.  Until I can get my act together, this is a good read. It also includes a lot of history of the development of the fruity floral that I was not previously fully aware of, so give it a gander.

• From Perfume Posse, there's a nice piece about the best perfumes not enough people know about.  I myself haven't found the hidden greatness of Puredistance, but I agree with a few of the others on this list.  In fact, maybe I'll make one of my own...

• Perfume-in-Progress has a brief but interesting piece on the artisanal business model of perfumery, with a link to an interview with Mandy Aftel wherein she reflects on her life as a independent business owner/perfumer.

• Also, I meant to share this super hilarious piece from Parfümieren months ago about the twelve step affirmation of perfume addiction. It is a truly great, and I am sorry I sat on it so long. (Ed. note: Sadly, this blog has gone private recently due to online harassment, so I've removed the link. It is too bad; it is a great site.)

And then there's the perfume SHOPPING! I offer the following:

• The lovely and talented Amanda at Essentual Alchemy wrote in with the following note:

As some of you know, Kevin had a difficult battle with cancer. About a week ago, Kevin caught one of the strains of flu that was going around, in spite of his flu shot. Who knew! While he's recovering I need to put my business into high gear, and generate fast income. 
So I'm here to offer a BOO FLU event - BOO FLU equals more good smells for you! For one week, starting Tuesday, Feb. 5 through Feb. 12. 

Here's a couple of options to play with me:   

~ Buy 4 EdP sprays, get 1 free!

~ I'll have a special coupon – Please use code: BOOFLU at checkout to receive 25% off your total.  

Need Valentine's Day gifts? I love putting together custom perfume packages for people. 

As a victim of this year's dreaded flu season, I feel Amanda's pain.  Also, cancer seems to be touching a lot of people in my life right now, so I have a special place in my heart for Amanda, Kevin, and Kevin's post-cancer health struggles. Hitting the BOO FLU event isn't just shopping; it's a mitzvah, and you get nice perfume as a bonus.

I have reviewed a number of Essentual Alchemy scents, so don't forget to check the review list.  

• Also, from the lovely Dawn Spencer Hurwitz at DSH Perfumes:

Love is in the air at DSH! It's our Valentine's Day Sale.

In the midst of the winter chill, we're staying cozy and warm with the delicious kisses of our favorite softly spicy and gourmand scents-- so perfect to celebrate Valentine's Day. St. Valentine, Piment et Chocolat, Vanille Botanique and our fab Les Rouges Collection Box top our fave picks and to make things even sweeter we're giving 15% off site wide through 2.18.13.

Just use coupon code: sweetheart13 for you or your sweetheart this Valentine's Day & share the love! 

I have reviewed a number of DSH Perfumes scents, so again don't forget to check the review list for suggestions. I'm doing a Valentine's recommendations post soonish as well, so keep an eye out for that.

In non-perfume related items, I found these interesting:

~ The Terror Of "Twin Peaks": His Name Is BOB presents a terrific piece on the mystery and terror that is Twin Peaks's accidental boogeyman. Massive spoiler for the initiated.  Massive.  Seriously.  This will ruin the series for you if you haven't seen it all the way through to the bitter end.  If you have, though, read away! Thanks to my friend and reader Anna F. for the link!

~ Dedicated Hunger Games fans found the Quarter Quell’s  arena shooting location on Google Earth. How freaking dedicated do you have to be to search the globe for that kind of image!?! So awesome. My hats off to those District 12 sponsors. I should be so lucky to have such fans some day.

~ A group of friends has spent the past 23 years playing an elaborate game of 'tag.' My favorite part is that the lawyer of the group drafted the "Tag Participation Agreement" and they all signed. Now that's some lawyering I can get behind.

~ This list of bizarre twists on classic fairy tales is at least partly familiar to me (Cinder is on my 'too read' list and El Hubs has collected Fables since it began – we both love it) but there are several I wasn't familiar with. I'm most intrigued by the western Snow White for I love the western motif, and I am definitely going to find a copy of Anne Sexton's Transformations. Poetry + reinterpreted fairy tales? I'm already in love.

~ The lovely Smith sisters, both Audrey and Ashley, sent me this great photo essay showing Former Secretary Hillary Clinton in every country she's visited as Secretary of State. Apparently she set a new record for foreign visits. Are you ready for the count? 112! Incredible. And all over the world, we had this smart, thoughtful, passionate, shrewd woman representing our country. I'm deeply proud she was our SoS.

~ If you like dystopian, paranormal & supernatural YA reads and you aren't already stalking HarperTeen's Pitch Dark Days site and following their twitter, you should be. My favs in this group are: Boundless, the conclusion of Cynthia Hand's Unearthly trilogy; Everbound. the sequel to Brodi Ashton's terrific Everneath; and Requiem the conclusion to Lauren Oliver's dystopian world where love is a disease. But I have to say, I find routinely new authors to love among the Pitch Dark Days collection, so get if you like your YA dark, then get thee to the website and start browsing!

~ Just in time for Valentine's Day, Crave Online brings readers this piece on six loving couples Marvel recently destroyed. I really enjoyed it, both for the couple histories, and for the critique of how hard it is to have a relationship as a hero, particularly if Jason Aaron has anything to do say about it. Reading all the way to the end certainly made me appreciate how easy David and I have it with our random arguments over whose turn it is to do some neglected chore. Also, it underscore that a love that last fifty years or more is bound to encounter big challenges, so be generous with one another and appreciate the time you have.  A good message as we approach the Cupid season, or any time of year, really.

~ Thanks to our lovely friend and reader, Jillian, for the link to this unique fashion tumblr, which provides outfits based on characters from literature. It is a great tumblr! I don't care what you're a fan of – they've got it. Here are a few of my favorites:

• Classic Greeks like Antigone 
• Modern YA favorites like Karou from Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone and District 12's gritty heroine, Katniss Everdeen 
• Harry Potter characters good/bad/ugly, like the loathsome Rita Skeeter 
• Classic literary figures like Street Car Named Desire's Blanche Dubois 
• Long time youthful favorites like Sweet Valley High's famous twinsome, Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield 
• And last, but never least, in honor of my deep and unabiding love for The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, the wonderful author Jane Austen. (Yes, they have all our Pride and Prejudice favs as well!)

The full character/outfit list is here.

Okay. That's it for me today. Hope this gives you lots to click through, keeping you busy and entertained until I return. Work is busy but good, in a trying-to-keep-my-head-above-water sort of way.

Until then, dear reader, don't forget to read deeply and smell pretty!

Brown paper packages, tied up with string....

Dear reader:

Because I owe you a full post, but it may take until this next weekend to get it to you, I offer the following brief reflections, links, and photos to tide you over.

Flowers from my yard next to a painting
I own on my desk at work... FN1.

On watering the lawn...

I watered the law for the first time last week. I don't mean this lawn, or a lawn of my own. I mean I haven't lived in a house for more than a few weeks since I was a little girl, and even back then yard work was done by people other than me (i.e. my brother) because I had a lot of the indoor chores and nursing responsibilities. So this is the first time in my life that I can remember deliberately turning on a hose and watering a lawn. It was late afternoon/early evening. I stood in the shadow of the house with my thumb pressed over the end of the nozzle.

 As the water hit the parched grass and tree roots and bark, I smelt their thirst. Is that a weird thing to say? Maybe. True, though. I smelt the relief of the earth and the way the dirt turned from dust back into something more, the water and the wetness and the life. It was a visceral scent experience that left me feeling more aware of the space around me, and I thought, "I have to tell someone." I wanted to say it was sweet, or earthy, or green, but it was and wasn't those things, the sum of the parts being more than their individual pieces summed up in some neat cosmic column. It made me love and marvel at the Earth can manage without and often in spite of us. We should take better care of it.

On random acts of kindess....

So tired....

A few days ago I stood sobbing in one of the worst neighborhoods in Portland next to my broken car, trying to figure out who I could call to help me. In my despair, I hardly noticed as a car pulled up next to me. This is a reflection of my general unhingedness, as I am usually hyper-aware of stranger danger and the like.

A nice little old man got out and helped me, even offering to follow me to his cousin's auto repair place if I needed. I declined since I was very far from my house and couldn't figure out how to get home without having to take a very expensive taxi during rush hour. He told me to be careful and drove away.

Thank goodness for the goodness in the world. Sometimes it is the only thing you can keep faith in.

On aquatics...

I normally hate what passes for an aquatic scent, but it has been so hot here (breaking 100 degrees!) and I have been dessssperate. Luckily for me, I have been the recipient of some of the based water inspired scents I've ever been lucky enough to try, so get ready for a little something-something about that soon.

On books...

This last week and weekend I was mostly housebound outside of work, and while I spent the bulk of my time working, working, working on putting the house together, I also read three books. All three were terrific, so I thought I'd tell you all about them really briefly.

I read the second installation of Veronica Roth's series, Insurgent. For fans of The Hunger Games (Happy DVD release!), I think you'd enjoy the adventures and inner struggles of the heroine, Tris. I think the books are tightly written and fast paced. High on my list of recommended YA dystopian reading.

Speaking of dystopia (so hot right now!), I also read Lauren Oliver's Delirium. Oliver's writing has a lyrical quality to it that is beautiful, lush, and majestic. It made me want to visit Portland, Maine (or "the other Portland," as we call it) to see how much the fiction and the reality overlapped. It is a beautiful book, and I'm excited to see where the second in the series, Pandemonium takes the story.

So many books...and we
took over ten boxed to Powells.
We're book hoarders!

Last, I finally sat down and read John Green's The Fault in Our Stars. And by sat down and read it, I mean I literally sat down on the couch and read the entire thing in one sitting. I couldn't put it down. It was the most entertaining, hilarious serious book about cancer I think you could ever read. I still can't get over the all the ways it shouldn't work but magically does. It deserves all the intensely high praise it gets; I bet I read it again within the year. It's a very dense book; lots of big ideas compressed into throw away lines of funny dialogue. I cannot imagine how much work it took.  Truly an accomplishment of the writer that so much is done with such a conservation of language.

Thanks to Hillary K. for demanding I read it, and then coming home from Europe, so I would finally get around to it.

Okay readers. That's all the news that is fit to print for now, I'm afraid. I'll be back soon though.

_________________
FN1. To clarify, sometimes when I say "my," I mean, "I possess the bundle of rights pertaining to said object," not as in "I created that."  "My" sometimes (most often, in fact, in colloquial speech) implies ,"I have the rights to said object or property, including the right to transfer, lease, sell, destroy, or keep said objection."

And that's your law & linguistics lesson of the day.

David just told me to stop feeding the trolls, so I'm done now.