Archive for October, 2006

Pass the Courvoisier … Famous cognac brand becomes men’s fragrance.

Courvoisier, which is said to have been the preferred cognac (brandy) of Napoleon, is entering the fragrance arena. Beam Global Spirits & Wine Inc., a unit of Fortune Brands, announced that its flagship cognac brand will become the world’s first luxury spirit brand to enter the high-end fragrance market through the launch of Courvoisier l’Edition Impériale.

Unfortunately, I think they kind of missed the boat on this one:

Kraft’s Baron described L’edition Imperiale as a woody oriental, reminiscent of the barrels used to age the cognac, surrounded by a hint of flowers which represent the grapes used to make the brandy, which comes from France’s Cognac region.

But he added the perfume doesn’t smell like cognac or alcohol.

Well, really then, what’s the point? Call me when you’ve developed the Boone’s Farm perfume spray — the homemade stuff is really causing a mess of the place! Tell me, what booze do you like to douse yourself in?

You may ask yourself, where in the world have I been to just not blog for oh, over a month? And you may ask yourself, hey where’s the remote control? And when I say you, I mean the 3 people who are possibly still checking this blog and by may I mean “may not” … but really, why get into details? Exactly my point. I was going to write this whole epic saga about my absence, but I really have so much to catch up on and so many other things just waiting for my special treatment, I decided to just provide you with the recap version. Because I know you’ve missed me.

A few days before Labor Day I was out of town while my daughter was on a cruise to the Bahamas (I know!), there was some concern if the trip would take place due to a few tropical storms/hurricanes forming. Luckily everything went well, and she had a great time. While she was gone, Tropical Storm/Depression Ernesto decided to stay mostly out of her way, and turned northward instead. Sending rain up the East coast, causing a lot of rain while I was at the:

and caused things to be:

Unfortunately while the rain flooded the courts in Queens, back home it was also flooding my apartment, which resulted in a lot of this:

and ultimately some of this:

and finally forced me to do this:

So one week I’m just enjoying the last days of summer … and the next I’m moving my entire apartment two floors up. Which was much more of a pain in the ass than I’m making it sound here. Unfortunately my leasing company was little help … and … well … stairs. I’m finally settled in for the most part and things are back to normal, but I will say . Besides all of that we have started school here and 4th grade is already proving to be an adventure. Add that to a hectic slate of projects, work requests and just … life and it’s been a bit difficult to get back into the swing of things. I should also mention I’ve been conquering the internets in even more ways here and here, not to mention all my other usual rounds.

So … what have you been up to?

It’s that time again already … on Saturday we made our yearly trek out to Stribling Orchard. Even though we set out later than we did last year, the leaves have barely started to change here and the weather is still trying to decide if it’s late summer or post-Thanksgiving. Driving out to the edge of Shenandoah is an easy trip, and the contrast from start to end is striking — both from point a to point b and in the change in attitude even after you’ve returned. It’s like a peeling away of every overcrowded thought with each mile further out you go. When we finally got out to the orchard, the apples were fairly picked over, since it is the middle of October already, but there were some really nice Rome, Red Delicious and Stayman apples to be had … and really, you can’t have too many apples since you need at least one a day. So somehow we ended up picking 13 pounds of apples. I guess I need to start making some pies soon. Of course while we were there we had to pick up some cider, jams and other things … and then got a nice lunch at the food shack. (Yes, shack.) Oh sure, I probably brought home too many apples, but really, what better way to spend a fall afternoon than walking through an orchard with a cute 9-year-old plucking apples from the trees?

With all this talk about apples, I should also mention that we did pick out a pumpkin, so I think that means we’re totally set for autumn.

And speaking of orchards, I wanted to take this opportunity to mention another orchard. The Cherry Orchard is a relatively new blog penned by none other than my boyfriend. At first glance, you may think to yourself “oh not another political blog”, but the guy is pretty smart (I mean, he is with me after all) and has a unique, considered approach that deftly combines history, religion, philosophy and human emotion to attempt to define and understand the somewhat overwhelming state of the world today. So you know, if you’re into that sort of thing, stop on by and solve a world problem or two.