Welcome to the Friday Perfume Chat Room, perfumistas! I envision this chat room as a weekly drop-in spot online, where readers may ask questions, suggest fragrances, tell others their SOTD, comment on new releases or old favorites, and respond to each other. The perennial theme is fragrance, but we can interpret that broadly. This is meant to be a kind space, so please try not to give or take offense, and let’s all agree to disagree when opinions differ. In fragrance as in life, your mileage may vary! YMMV.

Today is Friday, May 5 — happy Cinco de Mayo! We had drama a few days ago that has a happy ending. Our sweet dog Lucy slipped out of our back yard and went missing for the rest of that day and overnight. We searched the whole neighborhood and the next one over on foot and by car. Our three young adult children, several friends, and passersby joined in. Night fell, and still no sign of Lucy. She is 10 years old but in excellent health, so we worried on multiple fronts, including, has she gotten sick or injured and can’t get home; or, has she gone so far, given her good health, that she can’t safely find her way back? She has only ever gotten out of our fenced, gated, locked back garden a few times in her ten years, and has never gone further than a block or two away, at most. Once, she went to the end of our block; and once, she got to the sidewalk and then ran back up our driveway and into the back yard! We only knew she had been gone because friends of our had seen her on the sidewalk and came to our door to tell us.

So this overnight disappearance was very alarming, to say the least. Happily, our next door neighbor let us know early the next morning that he had found her, trapped in the small locked enclosure where his HVAC unit sits in their back yard. He had been away all day, didn’t see our email to neighbors until late that night, and didn’t see her until the next morning. We think she jumped down there (it’s on a slope) and then couldn’t get out. She’s not a big barker, and she wouldn’t have been able to hear us calling her with the unit’s fan running. So my husband rushed next door to get her, and the prodigal returned, safe and sound.

I need a calming scent this week! I think I’ll wear DSH’s Smudge Nebula, which isn’t, strictly speaking, a body fragrance but which works beautifully as one. We’re looking forward to our upcoming trip to Bermuda, when we’ll visit the Lili Bermuda perfumery, among other sites.

Now that it’s May, and we’ve had lots of “April showers”, do you have May flowers? Real, or perfume?