Mar 22 2025 - And the Smell Is

 

I heard this on the radio this week while in a store, perhaps Dollarama.  The question of the day was posed with some prize in store for the correct answer.  I looked it up online and found this: Happy Monday! Here is today's Nearly Impossible Question! from Cubby and Christine Mornings of 106.7 FM Q: 93% of people can recognize this smell in 1 second...what is it? A: Peanut butter The post was from 2023, so maybe they repeat these fun questions.   All kinds of interesting things relate to smell - asking the question about what can we all identify within 3 seconds brings a raft of "Smell Stories" A Reddit post goes like this: What is up with thrift store smell? Can anyone explain? It's a combination of sweat, oil, skin, and other things the human body might make, plus things like gasoline, car exhaust, food, perfume, and ...  Here's the Quora retrieval for the question: "There is a true story of a woman named Joy Milne who thought her husband suddenly smelled bad. She had him try bathing more, using cologne, deodorant… you name it, but he could not shake that musky smell. However, here is the funny thing, no one else could smell what she smelled on him. It wasn’t until 12 years later he was diagnosed with Parkinson's and she was introduced into a room of other patients that she noticed they all smelled of this musky smell. Her observation piqued the interest of scientists who decided to research what she could smell, and whether this could be harnessed to help identify people with the neurological condition. During the study, she was able to identify all the Parkinson patients by smell and only made one error where she identified a person in the control group as well. Funny enough, this person in the control group later developed Parkinson's. In 2019, researchers at the University of Manchester announced they had identified molecules linked to the disease found in skin swabs. The scientists have now developed a test using this information all thanks to Ms. Milne who could smell Pa"rkinson's disease when no one else could. So maybe you too have a heightened sense of smell. I went and verified the story so you can read about Joy's story HERE.  I guess smell is a topic now that Spring is here.  It is in the air  - the smell of moist earth, decayed leaves and witch hazel blossoms,  which have a rose scent.

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The Frog Princess

It is time now for the Frog Princess.  I found out yesterday about the fairy tale classification system.  This is type 402 - animal bride - in the ATU Index. "The Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index (ATU Index) is a catalogue of folktale types used in folklore studies. The ATU Index is the product of a series of revisions and expansions by an international group of scholars: Originally composed in German by Finnish folklorist Antti Aarne (1910); the index was translated into English, revised, and expanded by American folklorist Stith Thompson (1928, 1961); and later further revised and expanded by German folklorist Hans-Jörg Uther (2004). The ATU Index, along with Thompson's Motif-Index of Folk-Literature (1932) (with which it is used in tandem) is an essential tool for folklorists." ~Wikipedia "The king (or an old peasant woman, in Lang's version) wants his three sons to marry. To accomplish this, he creates a test to help them find brides. The king tells each prince to shoot an arrow. According to the King's rules, each prince will find his bride where the arrow lands. The youngest son's arrow is picked up by a frog. The king assigns his three prospective daughters-in-law various tasks, such as spinning cloth and baking bread. In every task, the frog far outperforms the two other lazy brides-to-be. In some versions, the frog uses magic to accomplish the tasks, and though the other brides attempt to emulate the frog, they cannot perform the magic. Still, the young prince is ashamed of his frog bride until she is magically transformed into a human princess." Can you imagine being considered the heroine because of the ability to perform household tasks for a King.  What does he need a daughter-in-law servant for?   There's the core of fairy tale lessons:  innocence, beauty and virtue are valued as the attribute a woman should possess (and passivity is good too). Ambition is evil and possessed by witches and stepmothers. I read this article by Dr. Silima Nanda   "The Portrayal of Women in the Fary Tales" and had to admit it was discouraging to find out about social and cultural values through the centuries.  Rather than dwell on the past, the index of tales is fascinating  - I found the index HERE.  It starts with animal tales and progresses through to people tales. For example, ATU 425 - Beauty and the beast ATU 440 - The Frog King ATU 510A - Cinderella Our pictures for today are our Spring stories - what's blooming in the garden yesterday.

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Spring Flower Parade

It's so pleasing to have beautiful hellebores, crocuses and snowdrops blooming, as well as the witch hazel shrub which has been perfuming the garden for last week or so.  This is the start of the great flower parade.