Sense of scents

Lately I have been noticing scents. Some are good and some are really bad, and some just are. I won't go into detail about the bad ones, except to say that yesterday, my usually clean coworker really needed to take a bath. Let's bathe every day, people!

Happily, most of the scents I have been noticing are good ones, and I am very glad to notice them. For the past month or so, I have been having flashbacks to the office my mother worked in when I was a kid, taken there by the combined smell of strong coffee and a dentist's office. Mom's office was a doctor's office with lots of coffee, so that makes sense. I get these scents in the lobby of my office building every morning (where there is a both Starbucks and the entrance to a dentist's office), and they make me curiously happy. I liked going to see Mom at work, and there was something friendly and reassuring about the building she worked in (despite the scary medical-ness of it) and the room she and her boss (our doctor) shared as an office. The people were friendly, and the music (oldtime jazz/swing music) was entrancing and promised all sorts of untold wonders. I loved that music.

Happy scent number 2: On the occasional morning this winter, when I leave the passenger cabin on the upper deck of the ferry upon arrival in Seattle and walk out onto the deck itself, I have noticed a lovely, rich bakery smell. It's faint, and it smells like the scent that pours out of the open doors of Specialty's Cafe and Bakery, which I sometimes walk by on my way to work. Specialty's is not that close to the ferry, so I may be imagining it, and the bakery scent I noticed on the ferry yesterday was not the same bakery scent that came out of Specialty's when I walked by 10 minutes later, but it was a scent that they often produce. They keep their doors open, and I think they actively pump their rich, buttery scent out to the sidewalk from multiple outlets up to a block or so away. You can almost see the currents of good-smelling air pouring out of the doors, and you can definitely see the currents of people pouring in, like water swirling down a drain. Keeping those doors open is a really smart marketing idea, although they are heating the outside. I can't eat any of their lovely warm cookies (nut issues), but I can enjoy their smell. I think I enjoy their smell much more than I would if I could eat the actual cookies.

Happy scent #3: On Valentine's Day, I stopped by a sidewalk flower vendor and bought myself two bunches of tulips - one bunch has beautiful light orange petals, and the other has delicate white petals. Both have lovely green stems and leaves, and the whole thing is just really pretty in a light blue vase in my office window. The flowers opened once they got in water (and next to the heater vent), and they have a scent. I have never noticed a tulip scent before, and would have scoffed at anyone who said that tulips smell. But they do. The orange ones have a stronger scent than the white ones, but they are also open more. I never noticed that daffodils have a scent before, either, but a friend proved me wrong the other day. Either that or the flower vendors are adding scent... Horrible thought. We are still months away from flowers blooming in yards here, but it is supposed to be 60 degrees and sunny on Monday (oh, happy day! and a holiday), so there is hope!