Today’s picture is actually only fitting on the side with today’s blog post. I came up with this picture over the weekend, freeing myself all Saturday afternoon from the rest of the world, sitting on the veranda and trying to paint the poppies that are about to finish blooming in the next one, two days. It’s getting hot here in the coming days and that will be then end of them. They bloom every year, and every year it is one or two flowers more. Without scent but with the most bright red color that you can imagine.

They come, bloom and then they die, and what is left, the seed pods, dried in summer, make great decorative elements in a bunch of flowers, or solo. Or they feed the birds.

Today I had to put the Une rose chyprée out of stock. I could not get the brown flacons produced anymore (ordered in October 2013. Yes, thirteen). You know: As simple as my flacon seems: It is actually, due to its geometry, very hard to produce and the glass chemistry plays an important part there and as we use colored glass the glass chemistry depends on the colors added. That’s what I learned. I am no expert really. One of my producers got a new furnace and since then they are trying to get the brownish glass flacon produced but so far got only a hundred or two done…Not enough really and in light of their waste: Not good. Thus, at some point we all decided to switch to clear glass. And now we are waiting for these. Thus, changes ahead again, although I really, really, really did not want this.

But then: there we go! I sometimes mention that I develop the “old man syndrome”. Or in positive words: I successfully trained myself to develop a selective attention deficit. I helps sometimes when reading reviews. Or dealing with folks who do not pay their invoices. It helps when things happen that you can’t change. Of course: It is a dangerous path. A thin line between blending something out and between absolutely uncoupling yourself from reality.

But developing a selective attention deficit can be helpful in everyday life. You can read the newspaper without worrying too much, too.

It is a survival strategy. I sort of learned it over the years, having had some role models in previous jobs. Mostly male. Mostly one or two generations older. That’s why I call it the old man syndrome, aka OMS. But as I have said: A slippery path. When developing full blown OMS, and when sitting isolated in some sort of cage or palace, like FIFA, you might be losing connection to reality.  And then it gets ugly and embarrassing, for everybody, even for the outsiders just watching the game.

Maybe there’s the link to the poppy illustration: There is a time for everything.

Anyhow; I really loved the color of the homage bottles, and I really loved the idea that I got some stability into the Tauer Perfumes brand and how it looks, with bottles and so on. But then, as my partner recently said: “almost nobody will care, Andy!” So there we go. Let’s hope for best.