One evening last week I was sitting in my living room doing something when I thought I smelled fresh basil which struck me as odd since I did not have any fresh basil in the house. If any basil was still around from making lemon basil sorbet--say, stuck under the fridge or down between the stove and a cabinet--it certainly wouldn't be fresh-smelling. I searched around the kitchen but found nothing. I wiped down all the counters and washed the kitchen floor, but continued to get little whiffs over the next couple days until it began to make me a little crazy. I even crawled around the kitchen floor on my tummy trying to figure out where the fresh basil was hidden (Isis thought that part was super fun), and came to the conclusion that I was either a) suffering from a brain tumor that was causing me to smell phantom odors, or b) being haunted by a basil-scented ghost.

Finally, Saturday night I tried crawling around the floor again, this time in the living room... and discovered the basil smell coming from the new plug-in cat "anti-stress" thingamabob I'd just bought. The brand I'd bought previously never had any kind of odor, but I'd bought a different brand this time because it was cheaper. The new brand smells like--guess what? Basil.

Other randomness: The Hermès Birkin bag is kind of a hot item among people who care about that kind of thing, but I've always liked the Kelly bag better. Hermès, who has an awesome website, has Kelly bags in 7 different designs, plus a blanks one, that you can print out and assemble yourself.

photo courtesy wildeherb