There's Always Stuff...

...to blog about.

We went to the mall today. I really needed to have my eyebrows waxed (hey, if you did not want to know, why are you reading this?), stop in at Yankee Candle Company and get my eyeglasses adjusted. The wonderful guy at Lens Crafters told me I need new glasses, so I will do that after Boston. He's right. It's been about three years, so I am overdue for them.

While in the mall, we saw closed stores (including a wonderful jewelry place - very disappointing) and school displays. And fat people. If you want to see what a fat nation we are, spend ten minutes in any food court of any mall.

There were also a million and one teenagers. Ugh.

You know I think kids are best when sautéed and I stand by that assertion. Crying kids, whining kids, stubborn kids, pissy looking kids, kids running loose down the hallways, kids yakking away - it was sensory kid overload. There were even two little monsters running loose in the place where I was getting my eyebrows waxed! Who goes for a manucure and brings their not-well-trained kids to do this? File your nails at home and wait until you get a babysitter to do this.

For those of you curling your upper lip at the idea of getting your eyebrows waxed, don't knock it if you haven't had it done. It beats the hell out of plucking, an ongoing form of torture. I don't shave anything any more. I go to Lucy to have my armpits and legs waxed, which is about 45 minutes in exchange for several weeks of hair-free body parts; and every six weeks to the place in the mall which makes my eyebrows no longer resemble caterpillars in under five minutes. And waxing hurts for maybe 5 seconds, then it's done. It is easy and long-lasting.

We went to Yankee Candle Company next. I love scented candles. I have this delightfully big house with lots of rooms and I burn a different candle in each room and then have that ambiance that makes any regular room smell like magic! Today I'm only burning two - one in my office, where I am blogging my butt off (Fireside) and one in the eating area off the kitchen (Mountain Pine). Those are not typical April fragrances, but I haven't gotten around to swapping out the winter fragrances for the spring ones.

While there I gave each new fragrance a wiff. You really have to wonder about some of this stuff and what the marketing people are thinking... Okay, for example: Black Cherry, Honeysuckle, Pineapple Cilantro - these are all pretty easy to imagine, if you know what they smell like. Right? That's easy. How about Beautiful Day? What does that smell like? Or Early Sunrise? Drift Away? There is one called Storm Watch but I don't really know what that smells like either. Maybe they should develop Severe Thunderstorm, which would smell like ozone - you know, that sharp ozone smell that you get while or right after a real screamer of a storm takes all the humidity out of the air. That would be a really cool candle.

Some where better than others, which is always the case. Sun & Sand doesn't smell that amazing but Early Sunrise (very similar to Island Spa) has a lovely, tangy fragrance. You just don't know until you smell them. Years ago, a good friend bought me Key Lime Pie. It smelled like Windex. Yikes.

Yankee Candle Company undoubtedly got a wake up call when it realised that all those big-hot fragrances they retired are showing up on e-bay and selling for huge sums of money. I know, as I do some candle buying on e-bay (thank you, Barbara!). I will ocassionally lay out $75.00 or more for fragrance that absolutely cannot be found anywhere else. With 40 hours of burning time (or more, if you know how to keep the wick trimmed and such) it is well worth it to me. And some fragrances are too good to let go. So now in the stores there is one section devoted to "left over" fragrances that one could not find at all but suddenly are showing up.

Green Grass, Sandalwood and Eucalyptus are there. Today, however, my heart nearly stopped when I saw Garden Cucumber! I rushed to the counter, put down the items I had in my hands and went back to pick one up. I slowly took the lid off and brought it to my nose...

... and wrinkled my nose in horror.

I tried smelling the candle, too. I picked all five of the jars and tried first the lid, which is what you are supposed to smell, then the candle. It was awful. Awful! It smelled like noxious chemicals, not Garden Cucumber. It was vile. I was crushed. Here I thought they'd brought back a 20-year-old best selling fragrance but instead either lost the original formula or are pulling a fast one. It was terrible.

I'm going to write to Yankee Candle about that. If you can't do it right, don't do it.

And I will have buy it on e-bay as I have done in the past. I know who to go to and what to look for to ensure I have the original and not this terrible remake.

I went to the fragrance place and picked up three bottles of eau de parfum and that has a funny story, too, but I'm ready for dinner and tired of typing!