Smells Like Holy Spirit?

If you asked me what kind of laundry detergent my grandparents used, I would not have been able to tell you. Until today. When I opened up a box of Tide powder (which I don't usually buy), it was like I was instantly transported to the basement of their house in California. Mmmmmm...the smell was like a warm hug from the past, bringing forgotten memories and sensory surprises.

Isn't there something about the sense of smell that's just mysterious? To my knowledge we have yet to create a recording device for aromas. There is no camera or tape recorder for odor. Smells are elusive, yet pervasive. They can be blissfully pleasing, or tearfully unpleasant. Most of all I am amazed at the ability of smell to immerse us in a memory of a specific time, place, or person.

So all this has me thinking...I wonder what the throne room smells like?

Strange but true

I tagged myself by reading Everyday Mommy's "9 weird things" meme (which she lifted from discovered at GiBee's). I am sure I have plenty of weirdness to go around...here's my nine:

1. My left kidney was injured in a freak long-jumping accident when I was in high school and ceased to function thereafter. I now have one teensy-tiny kidney that doesn't work, and one super-size kidney that makes up the slack.
   
2. I was born in California, then moved to Oregon, then to Washington state. I always joked that I was either going to move to Alaska or become Canadian next, in keeping with the northward trend. But somehow I ended up in Missouri instead.
3. We do not own a television.
   
4. I lived in a geodesic dome until I graduated from high school.
   
5. I wear flip-flops basically year-round. I have worn flip-flops in the snow on numerous occasions.
6. I was a Campus Safety Supervisor in college. (Campus police, minus the weaponry. We had big flashlights and a hefty can of pepper spray - no guns. I never had to use my weapons, but sometims I got close.) Once, as the ranking officer on duty, I had to catch a bat that was flying around the all-girls dorm in the middle of the night, terrorizing the poor freshmen.
   
7. I can correctly spell antidisestablishmentarianism and supercalifragilisticexpialidocious without using spell check or looking at a dictionary. But sometimes I space out on how to spell friend or weird (which one is "ie", which is "ei"?).
   
8. I once cut a nerve in my finger and had to go to the emergency room and have surgery to repair it - all while I was dressed in a Pippi Longstocking costume, complete with huge shoes and braids sticking straight out the sides of my head.
   
9. I wear swim goggles when I cut onions to help reduce the burning-stinging-painful-crying ouch-factor.