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Health & Fitness

Sense of Smell

Today I am grateful for my sense of smell.  It is the first day of Spring and not a moment too soon.  I want to smell freshly mown lawn.  I can’t wait.  The ice and snow are gone. . .for now, but with temperatures in the 30’s it will be awhile before the grass grows.  Sigh.

 

But lawn isn’t the only smell I love.  All I have to do is look at a picture of a crusty loaf of bread and I can smell it baking in my grandma’s kitchen.  It’s the same with pie, cookies or a cake baking in the oven.   This week I made a huge pot of vegetable soup.  The smell of garlic, cabbage, tomatoes, celery, onions permeated the house for days.  I love that because it validates that life is happening in this house.

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These smells are why realtors tell you to bake a pie so that the house smells “homey” when people come to see it.  When we were planning on moving to Pennsylvania from Wisconsin at first I made an apple pie from scratch every time the house was shown.  My husband was a happy man, but it got to be too much work so eventually I made one more pie, baked it, froze it, hauled it out again, baked it again, then froze it again, and on and on and so forth.  His poor nose about twitched off his face.  “I smell pie.  Where’s the pie?” He’d ask.  “I froze it for the next showing.”  What a gyp!  He was not happy.

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Not all smells are great.  The other morning I smelled skunk the moment I went outside.  Yuk.  Took my breath away and reminded me of the time one got into our den at a former house.  The smell woke us up.  We ran downstairs armed with a broom and vacuum hose to see our big black dog proudly standing guard over the skunk corpse.  Good boy!  I guess.  He was a Neufoundland mix and gargantuan and the skunk got him before he got it.  We wrapped him in an old sheet and loaded him into the back of John’s vintage, red, Beetle convertible to be dipped in whatever they dip impossibly stinky dogs in.  He looked like ET in the back seat.  Only bigger.  And blacker.  With a stubbier neck and no wrinkles.  That summer every time he took a swim in the pool you would get a whiff of his victory.

 

In an acting class we did an exercise where you had to maintain a frozen pose while others in the class tried get you to break freeze without touching you.  I’m really good at this and even did it once in a museum of life-like sculptures, scaring the crap out of some poor old man when I finally did moved.  In the acting class no one could break me.  They clapped, made faces, sang, did tricks, you name it.  I stayed frozen.  Then someone took a garbage can that had week-old lunches of rotten fruit, spoiled meat, and sour milk moldering in it and set it behind me.  I didn’t make it five more minutes before I was breaking freeze because it stunk so badly.

 

I can’t go near a potpourri or scented candle store.  I cannot tolerate cigarette smoke anymore, even though I once smoked and I’ve always hated cigar smoke.  I don’t like many perfumes, especially when someone takes a bath in them and I can’t escape.  Diesel fuel is awful even though it reminds me of Jakarta.

 

At Christmas time we went to our son’s house and John wanted to build a fire in their fireplace while we waited with the grandkids for their parents to get home. Our son had already told his kids, “Do NOT let grandpa make a fire.  I will make it when we get back.”  Clearly he remembers the back-draft, smoke laced, first-fire-of-the-year-and-which-way-is-open-for-the-flue years of his youth!  The smell of burning wood lingered in the house for weeks.

 

Even though there are many unpleasant smells, I’m still grateful because along with the bad comes the good.  Chocolate.  Rip open any candy bar and it’s there, or cocoa, cake, brownies, cookies.  Stop me, I’m weakening!  My sister and I used to meet for lunch and after we were done, we’d walk through Clinton, NJ.  In the afternoon the restaurant would bake their special dark chocolate/raspberry bombe.  Bombe is right.  It exploded in our nostrils like TNT until we were hypnotized back to the restaurant, begging for a piece even though it was still in the oven.  “We’ll wait!” we’d say in unison like Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum.

 

Bacon frying is great.  Early morning, outside at a campground, it ratchets up to spectacular.  Coffee brewing is up there.  Even if you don’t like coffee, the smell is pretty awesome.  Smelling the neck of a baby defies description.  If it’s a grandchild it’s better than gold.  Puppy breath, while not perfume, is almost as sweet.  Meat cooking on a charcoal fire screams summer.

 

Then there is the unmistakable smell of the damp earth after a warm Spring rain. . .which I can’t wait for. . .because newly mown lawn won’t be far behind.  Hurry!  Please!

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