Sally: A brief journey; an excursion or trip.
For this week’s Saturday Sally, I am doing a couple follow-ups to my own letters. The first thing is that I tried a tip I wrote about in a What I Learned from TV post. I tried putting salt in a candle to see if the candle burned longer. I put two identical Vance Kitira candles side by side and burned them for four evenings.
And the result is that the salt made not one bit of difference, and in fact, the salted candle was worse looking today than it was on Tuesday when I began my experiment.
Did I do it wrong? I sprinkled salt right in the wick area, and outside it for good measure. Anyhow, I just wanted to give you an honest report.
A year ago July I wrote about Roz Chast’s book Can’t we talk about something more PLEASANT? She wrote an epilogue to the book in The New Yorker a few months ago. You may find it here. It is quite wonderful, and a fitting end to her book.
Aw, thanks for sharing Roz's epilogue, Nan. Rudi & I really enjoyed that book, too, & it's nice to see her get some closure.
ReplyDeleteShe is really one of a kind, and I so enjoy her work.
DeleteNan, thanks for trying the salt/candle thing, you saved me the trouble. Disappointing!
ReplyDeleteKim
I'm delighted you even thought of trying it!
DeleteOh Nan -- thank you so much for posting the link to Roz Chast's epilogue. Isn't this amazing! I wish I could somehow copy the link and put it at the end of my Kindle Fire copy of "...Pleasant', because that is one of very few Kindle books that I go back to re-read every so often. I'm so glad to have read the end of the story.
ReplyDeleteI have another blog friend who does that grave stuff -- what a great service it is.
And now I am going to go and get rid of some of my big bag of pencils and ball points before my kids have to do it after ... "So many pencils.' (just like her parents and mine). Anyway ..... thank you bunches.
I am so very happy that you were interested and that you read it. Hey, you might need those pens and pencils!!!
DeleteThank you for doing the salt test! I'd heard that tip myself many years ago but never tried it. As far as I can logically explain, candles last longer the harder they are. It's a bit like with soaps: A soap bar freshly "out of the press" will be wonderfully scented and give off a lot of foam. But it will also be used up very quickly. Storing a soap bar (or a candle) in a reasonably cool and dry place for half a year, a year or even longer will make last it longer; it does not rub off (or burn off) so quickly.
ReplyDeleteMy Mum always buys the candles for our Christmas tree when they are available at a reduced price in January and then keeps them until next Christmas - almost a year. They really do last longer that way!
I try to do the same with soap bars, but I am not always successful in keeping them that long :-) Sometimes I am given wonderfully scented soap as a gift, and can't wait using it.
Very, very interesting! Thanks.
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