a year and twelve days

How can all this time have passed? I was reading a few of my favorite bloggers and left a comment on one when I felt a jolt, recalling that I had started a blog in the distant past. Why not just pick up the thread? So I am. The last post was about the summer of 2008 and here it is, halfway through the summer of 2009. Rather than assess the past year I just want to write about the tour of the Celestial Seasonings factory and my experience as the driver of an ice cream truck. Why? Because in the first case, I just read Donna Boucher's post about touring a brewery; second, she had photos of her daughter Katie with a popsicle from the ice cream truck.

We toured the CS factory in Boulder, Colorado and first I must say that I love to see all that sort of thing especially any sort of assembly line or mass production. This is weird since all my experiences working in those environments are negative. Seriously negative. So I was excited, more than the kids were, to tour and see the tea put into those little packets, thence into boxes . . . you get the idea. We had a cheery, aging hippie guide named Alice or Eileen or Violet. Anyway, she warned us that the mint vault was coming up next. Warned? Yes, she cautioned that some people found it overwhelming. As we stepped into the mint room I thought to myself, "Typical. There's a wuss in every crowd. Just a way to get attention." Then, all thought ceased. Sensation took over. The smell was so powerful I felt my knees buckle. No joke. Instantly, I felt more nauseated than on my most pregnant day. "So this is what a panic attack feels like. Arghhhhh! I felt I had to tough it out, so with tearing eyes and hand over nose and mouth I struggled along at the back of the group, vowing that I would never again be so callous toward the suffering of another. All these years later I just needed to be reminded of that tour and the feeling came back with such intensity. The power of olfactory memory.