100 Orgasms for My Senses

Inspired by Michèle, I concocted this list, not about me, but about things that make my five senses tingle:

For my sense of taste:
1. A nice glass of orange juice in the morning.
2. Followed by a good cup of coffee – with milk, no sugar.
3. Beer – Yiengling on tap is my favorite (I never drink it to excess, though.)
4. Champagne. It pretty much gives you the best kind of buzz.
5. Spaghetti with pesto.
6. Lamb, my favorite meat.
7. Indian food.
8. Sushi with wasabe.
9. Vichyssoise.
10. Ben & Jerry’s chunky monkey ice cream, even though I am not a huge ice cream eater.
11. Martinis – I had my first one on my last birthday, and loved it, even though I never really drink hard liquor.
12. Good, fresh, French baguette – which you can only find in France.
13. My father’s apple tarts. No one could make them like he did. He took the recipe with him when he died (and he tried to teach me how to make them, but I could never do it!)
14. Barbecued just about anything, but especially baby back ribs.
15. Bananas, my favorite fruit. But they cannot be really ripe.
16. A nice cup of earl grey tea and a chocolate chip cookie on a cold winter night.
17. Couscous – I make a very wicked one.
18. White asparagus – which I have only had in France, never in the U.S.
19. Prawns – I am not actually sure that I am using the right term here. In French, it is “crevettes grises,” and they are small and very fragrant. I have never eaten them anywhere else than in northern France. Excellent with bread and butter.
20. The chicken salad sandwich on whole wheat bread with lettuce and tomato that they make at our local coffee shop.

For my sense of hearing:
1. My daughter’s singing voice.
2. Marty’s speaking voice – the sexiest voice ever.
3. Silence around and in my house in the evening, when I am working.
4. The music of Erik Satie.
5. Puccini’s La Bohème
6. Everything that Mozart wrote with which I am familiar.
7. Most of the Beatles’ songs.
8. Many early Elvis Costello songs.
9. Most Talking Heads’ and David Byrne’s music.
10. Some Mid-Eastern musical idioms.
11. My cell phone’s ring (it’s “Light My Candle” from the musical “Rent.”)
12. Some inflections of Chrissie Hynde’s voice on the song “Don’t Get Me Wrong.”
13. Rock music using traditional Irish music instruments and idioms – think of The Pogues, here.
14. Birds chirping in the early morning at the beginning of Spring.
15. A cat purring.
16. The sound of rain – even if it’s a violent rainstorm – on a hot summer day.
17. Nicely performed choral music.
18. Background music on my computer when I am working (it does not matter what it is, because I like all the music that I have stored on my i-Tunes.)
19. The sound of a champagne bottle being opened, it’s a very happy sound to me.
20. The sound of the Portuguese language.

For my sense of touch:
1. Being hugged by my daughter.
2. Cuddling with Marty, being held by him.
3. My comforter.
4. My plain grey Hanes t-shirt.
5. My winter pajama bottoms.
6. Kittens.
7. The clean, cool water of a mountain brook.
8. A clean, soft, oversize bath towel.
9. A nice, hot shower.
10. My Evian face cream. Not a fancy, age-defying cream, but I love it, and stock up on it every time I go to France.
11. An occasional bubble bath.
12. My pillow.
13. Actually, my bed – I love it because it’s firm enough, and very comfortable.
14. My winter robe – I bought it only two or three years ago, I never wore a robe before.
15. Snow – I do not like winter, but I like touching clean snow.
16. Cashmere – and I don’t even own one single cashmere sweater.
17. Good quality, high thread count cotton bed sheets – I cannot even claim to own any, but I should.
18. The sun on my skin whenever I sunbathe – which, because it is bad for you, I very seldom do.
19. Putting on a t-shirt or a sweatshirt that just came out of the dryer, on a cold day.
20. Probably a good, professional massage, even though I have never had one. Isn’t it high time I tried one?

For my sense of sight:
1. My daughter – any time.
2. Marty’s boyish grin when he appears at my door.
3. Johnny Depp.
4. Vincent Pérez in the movie Indochine.
5. A very elegantly dressed and well-groomed woman – I makes me envious of an ideal that I feel I am incapable of reaching.
6. Place Furstenberg in Paris – because of an old photo taken there of my mother and godmother in the 1950’s. I’d love to get my hands on that photo.
7. The Eiffel Tower, from any place from which it can be seen, at any time of day or night.
8. The Statue of Liberty.
9. Antique books and maps – I wish I could afford them.
10. Beautiful flower gardens – and one of my dreams is to go to Holland to see the tulip fields.
11. Any painting by Vermeer.
12. Most Gustave Moreau’s paintings.
13. Tintin comic books by Hergé.
14. Peanuts comic strips by Charles Schultz.
15. The moment when a movie theater goes dark and the previews begin.
16. A beautiful sunset or sunrise.
17. Annecy, France, and its vicinity.
18. Nicely designed, good quality furniture (I really do not own any piece of such furniture.)
19. My place, especially when I come back to it after a trip.
20. A beautifully presented entrée at a very high class restaurant (and, believe me, my experience here is rather limited.)

For my sense of smell:
1. The smell of wood burning in a fireplace. I have never had a fireplace, and it is one of my dreams to live in a house that has one someday.
2. The scent of fresh mint
3. The smell of curry – but not overly pungent.
4. The fragrance of a lightly scented musk cream.
5. The scent of bread baking.
6. The scent of clean laundry – but only my own and my mother’s. Each has its distinctive fragrance, and I love it when my clothes smell like my mother’s laundry for a little bit of time after I return from France.
7. The scent around my place after a rainstorm on a summer’s day.
8. The smell of my place – our space has its own odor, which can be found nowhere else.
9. The smell in my daughter’s room when she is here, and her own scent which, again, is hers alone.
10. Marty’s deodorant – I don’t know what he uses (I don’t really pay attention – all men’s deodorants look the same to me), but it smells damn good.
11. The smell of something being barbecued.
12. The scent of fresh basil.
13. The smell of Chinese food, of which I can get a whiff when I walk by the local Chinese restaurant.
14. The somewhat institutional smell of my office at the university.
15. The scent of tanning oil.
16. The smell of incense being burned in Roman Catholic churches – it’s actually a scent that many people really hate, but I love it.
17. The scent of my deodorant – Suave, Light Breeze (one of the cheapest deodorants on the market, and the only one I have found to which I am not allergic.)
18. The smell of my house on Thanksgiving day, when dinner is being cooked.
19. The smell of the air at the ocean/beach.
20. The scent of a pine forest – nothing will ever equal that of the forests where I walked when on vacation in the Landes area of France when I was a teenager.