Shoe's Net: science

"Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousand of miles and all the years you have lived." --Helen Keller

The sense of smell has been shown to be strongly linked to memories. You can read more about the physiology of olfactory memory on Wikipedia, from the New York Times, or from ABC Science.

When Officer Squid comes home in the wee hours of the morning, I can sometimes tell what he's been up to. Maybe he stopped for a donut on the way home, or had a beer with the team after work. I can usually tell when he has been to the jail. Icky! But normally, I'm not bothered too much and am able to settle sleepily back into my warm cocoon quite easily.

Recently, he came home and snuggled in, and I immediately smelled a very strong odor. Actually, the odor itself wasn't that strong, nor was it tremendously unpleasant in and of itself. But I was hit hard. The odor was extremely unpleasant to me. There was a whiff of latex, but that usually doesn't bother me. I had flashes of Jack, but that wasn't the whole of the memory. I couldn't quite grasp the memory, but I became very emotional. It surprised me! I got uncomfortable and upset and had to turn away. I was on the verge of crying! I wasn't quite sure what had happened!

"What is that smell?" I asked. "Did you go to the jail?"

"No," he answered. "Not tonight."

I was still for a moment--just a moment--and I had it.

"Did you go to the hospital?"

"Yes, I was there to talk to a lady who had been in an accident."

Wow. Incredible. He had brought back terrible memories on his person. I had really never been hit that hard by an odor memory.

Some of my favorite olfactory memories are schoolroom (rare to find these days; I think the lack of chalkboards has changed the mixture) and the mix of tar and eucalyptus (think UCSB on a warm day). What are your best and worst olfactory memories?

Last week I got to experience --twice-- a rare (for me) yet typical (for Santa Barbara) event.

On Tuesday, I, along with the other field staff at Visiting Nurse and Hospice Care of Santa Barbara were invited to a VNCH board member's home for wine and hors d'oeuvre as a thank-you for our work. Her husband is the retired CEO of a large global corporation which makes $21 billion in revenue yearly.

What. a. home. Of all the wonderful homes that I've seen as a home care clinician, this was the most opulent. It sits on 21 acres of prime Montecito hilltop; the house is surrounded by avocado orchards. They built it over 4 1/2 years and made every detail perfect. A few examples: the oven is a four-parter; each little oven has its own temperature (150º, 250º, 350º and 450º). The laundry room/flower arranging room is beautiful! As I was playing with the light switch, the Mister came and explained the workings of it. It was pretty complex, but I'm sure it let them control the lights in just the way they wanted! The landscaping is gorgeous: a rose garden and plenty of native plants. The pool is very pretty, and I noticed the water level comes exactly to the bottom of the layer of decorative tile.

The house has a tower just in case you want to see a few more miles out over the channel. As some of us were walking up the staircase to the tower, some other folks, recent immigrants, were walking down. One of them exclaimed, "Welcome to America!" Indeed.

Both Mister and Missus are kind, down-to-earth people. Her interest in supporting VNHC came from her personal experience with a hospice organization in Texas. Both of them came from humble beginnings, and I guess they just can't help it that our society worships corporations and they reaped the benefits. It was really a pleasure to visit their house.

Then, on Sunday, the four of us were privileged to tour the Dreier Collection, a private collection of television and movie memorabilia, fossils and minerals, and sports memorabilia, among other collectibles. Doug Dreier is president of the board of directors of the Police Activities League, and police and fire personnel were invited to an open house of the collection over the weekend.

Wow. Wow.

Here is another CEO, this time a building company, whose family's personal interests have become a huge collection.

A Harry Potter room! As Erin was geeking, Mr. Dreier let her hold Dumbledore's wand!

Erin made a list of a few of the items from the Harry Potter films.

Tom Felton's (Draco Malfoy) Quidditch robe
Harry's Acceptance Letter
The flying car's License plate
A Nimbus 2001
Fleur Delacour's costume
The basilisk fang
Harry's glasses
Dumbledore's glasses
Dumbledore's robe (Mr. Drier showed us the electronics inside that made it spark!)
The Sorting Scroll
McGonagall's wand
Hagrid's shirt
Filch's costume
Sweater worn by Daniel Radcliff
A Howler
A Chocolate Frog card -it has a tiny green screen for the wizard picture!
A Snitch
Harry's Trunk

A Star Wars room. Chewie's mask! Costumes! All the original art for the original poster, beginning with drawings before any cast members were cast.

A Lucille Ball room, with costumes, scripts, divorce papers...and her Emmy (and that dress she wore for the Emmy Awards)!

Other movie memorabilia:
Edward Scissorhands's hands!
An Oompa loompa costume
The original Original Willy Wonka suit
Grandpa Joe's suit
Everlasting Gobstopper
Golden egg
Veruca Salt's golden ticket
A golden ticket from the 2005 movie
The candy bar from which Charlie got his ticket
Willy Wonka's cane (Johnny Depp's)
Wonka candy from each movie

Austin Powers's costume and costumes of his friends Fook Yu and Fook Me
Map of Middle Earth
Ferris Beuller's jacket
Forrest Gump's costume
The prop cardboard ad campaign in Forrest Gump
Spartan costume from 300
The Terminator's jacket and weapons
Fonzie's jacket
Ricky Bobby's driving suit
Kal-El's and Lara's costumes
Officer Poncharelli's uniform
Michael Jackson costumes, and the Glove
Autographed guitars from a lot of rock musicians

And there were non-movie collectibles: Pez, WWII toys and memorabilia, collections of lion tchotchkes (including a couple Picasso lion sketches), a sun room, frog tchotchkes, and oh, my too much to list or remember.

There was a G.I. Joe room with a large diorama of a battle scene. Next to it, a case of just about every G.I. Joe ever made.

And that is just a very few!

I didn't spend much time in the enormous sports room, because frankly by that time I had started hyperventilating and becoming overwhelmed after being in the First Edition room.

A bat used by Babe Ruth
Mickey Mantle's bat
Shaq's shoes (they are ENORMOUS)
uniforms from various players, in all sports
Tons of autographed baseballs and TONS of baseball cards, going all the way back to the very first baseball card from 1869

The Gem and Fossil room had minerals and gems of every kind, meteorites, and an impressive collection of fossils of all kinds. Hard to imagine the hours and care it took to excavate the hundreds of fossilized spiney sea creatures!

Dinosaur eggs!
A complete dinosaur fossil! (Their's was more complete and more beautiful than this one, but in similar substrate)
Fossilized turtles!
Fossilized colonies of sand dollars (dozens, not just two like in this photo)!
Tons of trilobites...all species, very amazingly preserved and excavated
A fossil of a fish eating a smaller fish
Several meteorites, including large ones
A meteorite that was embedded in a tree
A large ammonite that was fossilized by pyrite. Ooooh! pretty! (the specimen we saw was both halves and much more stunning than this picture)
...and many, many more specimens too numerous to list or remember!

And the book room. First editions. (Breathe, Izzy, breathe!). First editions of British Harry Potter, John Steinbeck, Dr. Seuss, Mark Twain! Oh, my! And of course, not only first editions, but PERFECT first editions. Gotta keep breathing....

Of course, none of us brought cameras (WHAT WERE WE THINKING?!). But here are a couple links to see a little.

From infive.com We didn't see the cars or walk around the grounds for the sculptures.

An article from Window Magazine. And a narrated slideshow.

Welcome to America!