When two things happen at the same time, you have to take notice.

When I was a kid growing up in Massachusetts for a couple years, my parents would sometimes get some ice cream that came three flavors to a container. No, it wasn't the usual Chocolate, Vanilla and Strawberry. It was Coffee, Vanilla and Orange. Not only did this flavor combo stick in my mind forever, but the colors did too. There was pale brown coffee which was not at all like the medium pinkish brown of chocolate. There was the off-white of the vanilla, which seemed to have more flavor than the vanilla of the more popular trio. And then there was the orange, a pale orange like a dreamsickle. I'm not sure if this was orange sherbet or if it was orange flavored ice cream. I guess it really doesn't matter.

Now as an only child of two only children, I had no source to get hand-me-downs. But since this was Massachusetts, the area my Dad grew up, he had an aunt (my Great Aunt Helen). One time we went to visit her in Rhode Island and she had some visitors who I assume were related to me very distantly. Either Aunt Helen or someone else gave my parents a few dresses that used to belong to a girl. They seemed rather old in style because these relatives probably wore them quite a while ago, but one I liked because it had the same exact colors of that Coffee, Vanilla and Orange ice cream. It had a vanilla top, coffee bottom, and orange trim and sash.

One time I was wearing that exact dress when my parents took me to a store. I had long blond hair, and a store clerk told me I looked like Alice in Wonderland. I was too young to read the book myself, but I did have the book and was familiar with John Tenniel's illustrations. Yes, I did look like Alice.

Although I outgrew the dress by the time we moved to New York, I think we were still able to find the ice cream. But by the time we moved to Colorado, it had disappeared off the shelf. Was it a regional specialty like Moxie? Or was it something from that era that disappeared at the dawning of the age of Aquarius?

I was playing around with essential oils today and realized I have those exact components...Coffee, Vanilla and Orange. So I created a blend...very gourmand. Yum. When I get to the point of offering scents commercially, that will definitely be one of the first.

Labels: Scents, This Boring Life