My Doggy Nose

I am blessed with a doggy nose.

No, I don't mean I have a nose that looks like a dog's nose! I mean that, on a human scale, I have a very strong olfactory sense.

I love smelling fresh flowers, the interior of a bakery, somebody's barbecue grilling, and good home cooking!

I have a habit of sniffing brand new pages in a brand new book, fresh bread in the bakery section of a store, expensive perfume as I walk through a department store, shampoos, shower gels and lotions in any store--but especially in high-end boutiques like The Body Shop, and a dish when it arrives at my table in a restaurant.

My mom has a super strong sense of smell. Whenever she visited me, she'd tell me right away if something had an odor to it.! %-0 I'm thinking I got my strong olfactory sense from her.

I also have a habit of sniffing my clothes and hubby's clothes for the slightest hint of odor, the bathroom and the kitchen. Which brings me to say:

I am also cursed with a doggy nose! :-(

Evil odors manage to always waft toward my direction and attack my nostrils! I certainly do NOT go out of my way to seek them out.

Especially in warm and hotter than hell weather. That's when my olfactory senses are at their peak. The odors of everything and everybody are magnified. Yech!

Since I don't have a car anymore and have thus gotten used to taking public transportation again, evil odors attack yours truly with a vengeance. Even a bus or train's air conditioning doesn't always work to mask odors.

Once, someone puked on the bus and didn't clean it up. The bus driver should have left the bus in the bus lot downtown! It was very early in the morning; unfortunately, I wasn't able to take another bus because of where I needed to go at a certain time. So the bus driver put the a/c on full blast. That's like spreading road kill aroma throughout the bus! :-((

I've been overseas in a place where some people don't think of using deodorant. They use a a fancy, textured, glass bottle of cologne that I thought at first was a bottle of booze they were offering me to drink from! But no, it was cologne to mask body smells because they didn't wash often. Just pour a bit into your palms and slap it on your neck, arms, and wherever. Then pass the bottle along to the next person! It's actually refreshing! No big deal. We're quite spoiled here, really--having hot and cold water available at all hours, all year long.

Ah well, if everyone's stinky and sweaty in the heat of summer, then there's really no problem is there?

Yes and no!

No, because if you don't think about it and you get used to the fact that you're as bad as everyone else or vice versa, and there's not enough water to wash but once or twice a week, then so be it.

But if you're in the land of plenty and you're just being lazy, then yes, it could be problematic to others. It's only personal, for goodness sake! %-0 Once, I jumped out of my seat the moment an oversized, unkempt woman sat in front of me. I startled everyone on the bus with my lightening jump, but her odor was insufferable!

The worst odor linked to humans is foot odor. Hands down!

When discussing clients' idiosyncrasies in general one day, one of my massage therapist friends gave me a funny look and asked, "YOU smell people's feet?" Of course NOT. I was quite insulted when she asked me that. :-((

People with dirty feet wearing flip flops/thongs/zoris in the summer are exposing their bacterial footsies to the public. I hate it! Stay outdoors! Away from me! Stay inside, air conditioning will just spread your smell, akin to driving on breezy day down a rural road and being hit with the nasty aroma of road kill that you can't escape until you're in the safety of your home!

Strong bad smells affect me terribly: I get nauseated in an instant. :-((

Last week I sprayed air freshener on one of my clients feet before I started her massage. At least she warned me they were stinky. And they were. But the air freshener took care of that! ;-) It was a life saver...otherwise, I wouldn't have given her a foot massage, which I usually love to do because I love getting them myself.

Enough of people aroma! %-0

The worst smell of my early memory is Play Doh! That's why I stopped playing with it. I don't like the smell of freshly laid asphalt, either. It's worse in summertime than any other time of the year.

On the bright side, my favorite fragrance is my favorite perfume called Maja, from Spain. It was in the collection of my late favorite aunt, along with Chanel No. 5, which I also like, among others. But I like Maja best, after all these years. And I'm not even a perfume person unless I go out somewhere special, which isn't often.

I think the best smells are from food. :-) From food you love to eat!

My apartment sometimes smells like an international kitchen. When I first arrived nearly four years ago, it smelled like Chinese food on the first floor, Indian food on the second floor, and pizza on the third floor! I was so tempted to knock on their doors and ask what they were cooking because I was so hungry after unloading a Budget rental truck all day long--we're talking about moving STUFF from a three-bedroom house to a one-bedroom apt!

Probably good home-cooking aroma is closest to my heart. Homey Chinese food by my mom and family and relatives. Fresh seafood from my in-laws. Yummy!


I like to think of the good aromas, not the bad ones. That's one reason why I prefer winter over summer: you can't smell as much in winter! ;-D

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YIN TO Yang

Some men live for a rose.
Some die for its scent.

No rose but withers, nor its scent lasts.

What does a man want from a woman?

Her face of rose?
Or her scent of a saint?

What is it
but her ways of Yin.

--Pwu Jean Lee