Since the Mom Death File Instructions specify that we let her friends take something from the house to remember her by, Dave and I have been hoarding heirlooms before the MomFest on Saturday. (We don't know what to call it; there's no service, so it isn't a memorial service. It isn't a visitation or a viewing. Frankly, it's a party in memory of Mom. I'm thinking of using "wake.")
I wanted to liberate her can opener, but Dave protested he had just bought some chili and needed to be able to get to it. I tagged the balsa-wood Christmas tree and the Dickens. We were rooting through her drawers (since you never know WHAT people will want to remember her by) and I found an old bottle of Chanel No. 5.
It's old, so you know it's got tortured civet in it.
I put some on. It smells like velvet and powder, not civets or ylang ylang. I tried to think of why, and I realized it smells like Mom going to the Purchasing Agents Dance in her green velvet dress.
I don't recall Mom wearing perfume on a regular basis. For one of their early anniversaries, my Dad bought her a perfume obelisk. I don't know what else to call it. A perfume reliquary? I tried to find it on Google Images.
It looked a little like these, if these were 8 inches tall:
...only Mom's wasn't as tasteful. I can't even call it Mom's, it was Dad's, and you could tell because behind the outrageous gilding, inside the crystal chamber, there was a naked gilt lady holding up the vial that contained the dauber and the perfume. How gaudy was it? I, a ten-year old, thought it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.
Mom thought it was so "lovely" she put it on the back of the toilet tank. Since it was top-heavy - "ours" was the size of the one on the left, but it stood on a base about the size of the gilt flower on top - I think Mom hoped it would fall off.
Of course, now I want it. I have no idea where it is.
Back before I became a scent sensitive PITA, I had a bottle of Chanel. Although I can't enjoy the aroma now, I sure relish the memories that come home to roost whenever Chanel is mentioned.
Those were the days.
Your dad would have liked the lamp in "A Christmas Story"?
Posted by: Zayrina | April 18, 2008 at 12:13 AM
Zayrina - Oh, my god, he would have loved it. In fact, he had a pair of plastic mannequin legs he dressed in hot pants.
Posted by: TheQueen | April 18, 2008 at 12:32 AM
You cannot make a comment like that and just leave it dangling!
Posted by: TravelSkite | April 18, 2008 at 02:28 AM
Big Dot - what more can I add? he had the lower torso and legs of a mannequin. I have no idea where he got them. (It might have been one of Mom's capers.) Last time I saw them they were in pink hotpants and mesh stockings in our bathtub.
Really, you don;t question things like that in Mom and Dads house. Things are what they are.
Posted by: TheQueen | April 18, 2008 at 02:42 AM
"Last time I saw them they were in pink hotpants and mesh stockings in our bathtub."
*Snort*
My father was an electrician. At our house it was wires, everything had wires hanging on it.
Man aesthetics.
Posted by: Zayrina | April 18, 2008 at 07:34 AM
I KNEW there was a reason I never liked Chanel No. 5. Civet Cats!!! Good grief!!!!
Posted by: Candy | April 18, 2008 at 03:29 PM
ZAyrina - EXPOSED WIRES? Right up there with wire hangers in moms house.
Candy - Well, not since the 90s...Least it isnt ambergris from tortured whales...
Posted by: TheQueen | April 18, 2008 at 06:45 PM
Do you think maybe it accidentally on purpose finally fell off the back of the toilet and shattered into a million pieces? Or that this is at least the story she had ready in case anyone ever asked?
Posted by: Sara | April 18, 2008 at 07:05 PM
Sara - no,actually, I think she gave it to some random person who admired it.
Posted by: TheQueen | April 20, 2008 at 12:56 AM
My mom was Chanel #9, but I don't have any of it. My stepdad kept it all. I have one teeny empty bottle of it that smells vaguely like it.
I don't know who or what is tortured for #9.
I have a pewter perfume bottle like those you show, only cheaper and yet less gaudy. It was given to me by the former wife of a friend, who was very cheap and gaudy. It was a very strange episode. I pretend now I don't know her.
Posted by: Sherri | April 20, 2008 at 09:53 AM
Sherri - Wow! Of course I had to google "Chanel no. 9" to see if there was animal torture, and found this instead:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=chanel+no.9
Posted by: TheQueen | April 21, 2008 at 01:19 AM
We had a mannequin out in the garden. The legs were in one bed, the torso/head in another. There were no arms. Eventually some rotten neighborhood boys stole it.
Posted by: magpie | April 21, 2008 at 12:55 PM
Magpie - oh, the brats. I always worry about leaving good stuff out in the yard or the front porch.
I say go to eBay and get a better mannequin. One of those with the protruding nipples.
Posted by: TheQueen | April 21, 2008 at 10:15 PM