Today’s Ten on Tuesday topic appealed to me not just because I’m just home from a long drive that followed a depressing vet diagnosis and a stomach ailment (just so you don’t feel too bad for me, the visit also included a birthday party, a baby, and a best friend) and could use a quick list-as-post fodder, but also because smell is such a powerful emotion-producer.

Here are ten of my favorite scents:

1. Vanilla — It’s the smell of all great baked items and the most basic and beautiful base for ice cream.
2. The ocean — Salt, sunscreen (or anything coconutty that reminds me of it), drying seaweed… Anyone who tells you they love the smell of the shore except for low tide doesn’t really love the smell of the shore. It’s all or nothing, baby.
3. Pizza — If the scents of tomatoes, yeast, and cheese don’t waft past you as you open the door of a pizzeria, back out the door and run like the wind, because it will not satisfy that longing deep inside you.
4. Freshly washed hair — Particularly if it’s baby shampoo, but just about any will do.
5. Laundry dried outside — The dryer makes for the coziest towels, but otherwise nothing beats laundry just pulled in from the line.
6. Play-doh — I’m not proud. I have several containers I keep around as aromatherapy on bad days.
7. Crayola crayons — Did you know my generation is the first one to have equally vivid positive memories of manufactured items as of natural ones?
8. Sun-kissed berries — Strawberries, raspberries, blackberries: It really doesn’t matter which.
9. Fresh flowers — Roses (ones that actually smell rosy, as opposed to some of the more long-lasting recent strains they’ve developed), lilacs, clover, violets, hyacinths, and lavender are all simply lovely.
10. The weather changing — You can smell snow coming in the winter. There’s an electric smell just before a summer thunderstorm. Leaves mouldering under your feet mean fall has arrived. And deep, wet, earthworm-turned earth says spring is right around the corner.

What smells make you dance with joy?

It’s Thursday once more [actually, now it's Friday; I meant to finish this post last night on the drive north, but didn't get the chance. Oops!], which means it’s time for three beautiful things from the past week:

1. Daffodils were sighted on the walk home last night and crocuses this afternoon.

2. Rudi and I got to see the Low Anthem, an energetic and instrumentally gifted quartet who sound like the offspring of Arcade Fire and Union Station, last Thursday night at the old Sixth and I Synagogue. The venue was lovely, a random woman gave us her spare ticket while we were waiting in line to buy ours, and the concert was fantastic. You can listen to a stream of the show from NPR here. And if you are able to catch them when they perform near you, make sure you do.

3. Friday afternoon, Susan texted me to invite me over to her place for happy hour, offering me water and wheat thins and a wee little guy instead of beer and peanuts and crowds. Was there even a choice? I spent several hours hanging out with her and Holden and Phillip (after he arrived home from work). It was the best happy hour I’ve had in ages.

How about you? What was beautiful in your world this week?

Thank you for stopping by.

Soe can’t come to the blog right now. After that meeting that took her away too early and kept her away too late on the days she’s supposed to lie around cushioning me, she caught some sort of sniffly thing that she says has turned into a sinus infection and a really obnoxious cough that keeps waking me up when I lie between her and Rudi.

So I’m forced to lie above her head instead. It’s a rough life. I appreciate your checking to see how I’m doing. I’m sure I’ll be fine soon.

Truly,

Della