The Thessaliad Redux

So let's say you're someone who's been selling a bunch of BPAL imps and bottles they wanted to get shot of. And you take an order from someone in another country for one bottle and a bunch of imps. About a month later, you realise that, while the bottle is gone, you still have those imps. The customer in the other country hasn't been in touch with you to say that they got the bottle but that the imps were missing. So you, being a conscientious seller of such things, get in touch with the buyer and ask if they ever got the bottle. They tell you that no, the order never arrived. So there you are with the imps the buyer asked for, but no bottle. Whoops. After reaming out the person you put in charge of sending out the orders, what is your course of action?

a) Apologise to the buyer, explain the situation and offer a replacement bottle from the ones you haven't sold yet, hoping like hell there's something in there they want.
b) Apologise to the buyer, explain the situation and tell them that you are going to order a replacement bottle from a local distributor ... unless there's something they prefer from the ones you haven't sold yet.
c) Apologise to the buyer, explain the situation and tell them that you are going to order a replacement bottle of that scent or any other general catalogue item that the buyer might want to make up for the inconvenience ... unless there's something they prefer from the ones you haven't sold yet.

In this case, I am the buyer. A particularly charming young lady on LJ was the seller. And I got option C. So for the record, miss_twilight is pure awesome (so seriously, if you happen to trip over any of her posts on the BPAL addict forums on LJ? And you like anything you see there? I recommend her highly), and I am getting a bottle of Shoggoth, which I have been looking for forever. Seriously, I thought the only way I was going to get my hands on that scent was to go through the BPAL site, which ... well, there are issues there with British shipping and card purchases and I prefer to avoid it where possible. And I at least still have the imp of the bottle I ordered in the first place (Sea of Glass, my first BPAL courtesy tithenai along with Sudha Segara). I wouldn't have minded both - I mean, I wouldn't have ordered it if I didn't like it; I ordered the bottle of Summer's Last Will and Testament on the strength of the imp, after all - but ... whole. Bottle. Of Shoggoth. I should feel bad for the whole thing where I'm getting something for a little bit less than it's worth, but I can't feel too bad because if I was going to get exactly what I ordered, the buyer would have lost money anyway to replace it and it was not my mistake that lost me the bottle in the first place.

Incidentally, still working on the whole WoD perfume thing. There's just not much to say until my bloody empty imps get here. But they're shipping from, like, South Korea or something so I am not panicking yet. I need more bottles and I desperately need a few more scented oils before I can make half of what I want, though. And if you could see the collection I've already amassed? The fact that I can still say that is scary.

*ahem* I had massive attack of migraine today. This was not fun, as you can well imagine. It's a fair bit better now, in that I can actually see straight and my head doesn't feel like someone's drilling in it. This was not so much the case this morning, when someone in the local area close by my open-because-of-the-muggy window was doing construction work. Sure, it's damn near impossible to deal with a migraine at work, where impromptu meetings happen maybe a foot away from the back of my chair a few times a day and I'm trying to type near-indecipherable, heavily-accented pseudo-English through a nasty tape hiss, but it's better than someone drilling. Still, I dosed myself with the knock-out painkillers (I pray this goes away entirely soon because I cannot afford more knock-out painkillers and average OTC paracetamol does not work) and when I woke up, the construction work had gone away and my head felt better.

Peering out the window this afternoon, though, netted me an interesting sight. In the back garden three doors down sits a blue box. With doors. Over which are written 'Police Public Call Box'. Yes, the neighbours three doors down have a freakin' TARDIS in their back garden. I just wish I knew which flat it was so I could leave a note saying, "Awesome TARDIS, guys".

And, to continue the theme of 'a Warcrack mention with every post' ... why are there level 85 Alliance NPCs in a level 30-40 zone? I went in what I thought was just a tiny touch over my head earlier (fighting level 35-36 bears with my level 33 paladin to get at gold and iron deposits in Western Plaguelands) and was doing really well until I wandered down the road and smacked into what I think was a Draenei and a Human. I just had enough time to mouse over them and read, "........What do you mean, level 85?!?" when ... smush. Dead belf. I have since moved back to Northern Stranglethorn. Amazing how good the mining is in a freakin' jungle ... plus I have all those quests. Mostly killing things. Woo.

First of all ... way to go, New York!

*ahem*

This is my break time between various bits of Flatmageddon. It is good that I have a break, because I am having a hard time feeling my arms and both my ankles are made of dull, achy pain. It's been a long, long morning.

It started with me waking up at ten to seven in the frigging morning. Without even the alarm being set. I don't even know. Anyway, at around 10am, a charming fellow turned up with my bookshelf. Huzzah! I then spent nearly an hour and a half putting the thing together and let me tell you, Argos furniture is not as easy to put together as Ikea furniture. Thankfully, I have screwdrivers. I don't have a hammer so I can't exactly put the back on ... yet. Still, it'll do for the time being and now I have a bookshelf that doesn't lean precariously! Yay! And it's the perfect fit for where I had in mind and I can even reach the bathroom light switch! Awesome!

Anyway, so by then it was about 11:30, my arms were kind of numb and I thought I'd best look up directions to the post office. Which was about when I noticed that I'd got the opening hours for the post office bass-ackwards; it's weekdays that it's open from 8am-1pm and Saturdays that it's only open 'til midday. And it's a twenty-minute walk. So I threw on the first pair of shoes I could step into and fled. Which is why my calves hurt; clogs + power-walking = BAD IDEA. Nevertheless, I got to the post office before it closed and now I have the first batch of essential oils yay! I also noticed as I fled the house that there was a brown envelope in my mailbox, which I assumed (correctly) contained BPAL. So on the whole, it's been a good day for Things Arriving At My Door. And I actually still have a bottle of jojoba oil and that means that the perfume creation can start more or less whenever! WOO! I'm a little lacking in pipettes and bottles but I'll think of something. I always do.

I've just scoffed down lunch and am more or less going to crash for a little while before my man-with-van stuff gets here. I have the cash to pay the man, so that's okay, and I'll worry about unpacking everything later. I should probably have a bit more of a tidy-up so there aren't bags and boxes and bubble wrap all over the place but ... not now. Not yet. Maybe when things hurt a little less. I mean, seriously. OW.

...Maybe there could be a nap. That'd be nice.

Planning for Flatmageddon continues. Well, sort of, anyhow. I bought a bookshelf. I suppose it's £30 well spent, but I'm really hoping that when the Argos website says 'anywhere between 7am and 3pm' for delivery of the bloody thing, they mean the later end of that spectrum. I really don't want to have to wake up at 7am to collect a freakin' bookshelf. Still, at least I could get the thing delivered on Saturday, which is a bonus. This means I can hopefully have it put together and in place by the time the man-with-van turns up. Then I can decide which books go in the nice bookshelf (probably the ones I actually read) and which get stashed elsewhere.

Then I get to decide on the 'elsewhere'. I was looking over the flat last night and thinking about alternate storage space. There are a few options, particularly when talking about things I don't use very often. The kitchen cabinets, for example, are not flush against the ceiling, so I could conceivably store some things that I don't use regularly on top of that - it involves standing on a chair to get to it, but hey, as long as it's nothing overly heavy, I suppose... I've got a couple of boxes taking up floor space and those can probably go. I still need to track myself down a DVD rack, but I'll have a hunt-around at lunchtime and see what I can find. That'll free up most of the top shelf of my current bookshelf, which I can then hopefully use as workspace. There will be more furniture shifting when I get home. Maybe I can take off early today. Gods have mercy, I know things are going to look better and everything once I have this all sorted out but it's just looking incredibly daunting right now.

Still, there is some good news. My first lot of essential oils are turning up sometime in the next couple of days! (Wouldn't it be a hoot if my bookshelf, my oils and my man-in-van stuff turned up at about the same time? Ahahahaha, yeah, that'd be a headless-chicken abomination of organisation, I can tell you.) So hopefully I can get everything all sorted out and then hooray, I can start perfume-making! I'll do the prototypes with jojoba oil as base because that's what I can actually get my hands on without resorting to more online ordering, but that's just going to be practice run, I think. I'd much rather use grain alcohol but never mind; we work with what we have. And what I have is a lot of ideas. I don't know if this first batch is enough to get a complete line of anything (Changeling Kiths, Mage Trads, DA2 characters...) but it'll be a good start while I browse for other stuff.

Right, I'd best get on with it. My mind may be in the process of reorganising my flat (it's like playing Sims, only all in my brain) but there's still stuff to be typed. Too much to do. Always too much to do. Still, at least it keeps me occupied and out of mischief.

Sooooooo I got inspired again.

No, it's not the writing (though I'm doing that too). No, I'm gonna make perfume/cologne. Some will be WoD-themed. Some will not. Either way, there's gonna be perfume.

I tried not to. I really did. I turned around yesterday when this idea hit me upside the head and went to look up the scented oils I'd need in an effort to discourage myself with the prices of essential oils. (The ones I used to have are so old that they had to be binned.) However, not only did I find a couple of sites where the prices are really reasonable, I found a couple that do fragrance oils that you don't normally find as essential oils but you do find as top notes in BPAL or Arcana scents - leather, oatmeal, honey ... jelly bean, for crying out loud. And those are reasonably priced too. I even found tiny 1ml imp-bottles with wand caps!There are still a few oils that are going to cost the earth to have properly (neroli hellooooooo) and I'm going to have to find a good carrier oil or similar (depending on whether or not it haz an odour, I could use Sainsbury's own brand vodka, I guess) but ... yeah, I'm makin' perfume.

So the first few weeks is going to be ordering oils and experimentation. I may have a fairly good idea of what I want to do for scents like Boggan and Satyr and Celestial Chorus and Verbena and so on, but I need to try them out to see if they actually work before I send 'em anywhere. I've also had a few ideas for scents based on the HIPPIE books. (Carl cologne, and Eau de Mike. Dear gods, I am insane.) But I should have something of interest by the end of August.

Gods help me if I ever try to vent my Dragon Age fandom onto perfume. *suddenly has an idea for DA-themed perfumes* MAKE IT STOOOOOOP!

Right. Back to work before I really do go batshit because of my own overactive imagination.