No.

No, I do not have my grandmother held captive in a bottle. I’m not the sort of person that collects things like Bonsai Kittens.

What I HAVE… is this:

It’s Rose Milk.

Apparently you can get it online at Drugstore.com for over $9 per bottle. I got mine at a local 99cent and more store for about $1.50.

Anyway… I picked it up a while back on one of those excursions with lecram to get yummy noodle soup from Pho 75 #2. Yes. That’s the name of the restaurant. The little 99 cent + store is next door. It also happens to be the place he found that pretty, flashing Christmas lighter that features in his vlog Christmas greeting.

Rose Milk… the very scent brings back memories of Grandma’s sunny kitchen after a day out in her yard, helping her pull weeds, or pick flowers, or… I don’t know what it was I used to do while she did REAL yard work… I probably got in the way more than anything.

Still, I can vividly recall climbing those steep concrete steps (which probably aren’t nearly as steep as an adult) up to the back porch, the creak of the door going in… then the echo-y sound opening the door from the tiny enclosed porch into the kitchen. “Let’s wash our hands, now…” she would say. I’d drag the step stool over to the sink and clamber up to wash my hands next to her. The water flowed in a glistening stream down over her aged, but always shapely and graceful, hands. Then I washed my hands and we both dried them with a flour sack tea towel with bright embroidery on it. Then the Rose Milk. No sense in getting chapped and sore hands.

We’d stand there by the kitchen sink, sun streaming in through the window. The honey-colored wood of the cabinets glowed. Her honey-colored hair shone. Her beautiful milk-white skin and my tanned little hands now rose scented. “Now we can sit down for a while, I’m tuckered. Go get your embroidery and we’ll see what’s on the television.” Her warm aqua eyes brooked no argument, and I would never have dreamed of it anyway. Time with Grandma was always interesting. I was always doing something, even when we were sitting down. No chance for boredom.

Hm. I should revive that habit.

But now I have the pink bottle in MY kitchen. The scent is more than a little strong. In fact, it’s a bit overpowering.

But it’s handy when I’ve had my hands in dishwater a lot and they’re feeling a little sore. It seems I have inherited Gran’s chronic dry skin. And… it’s a bit of nostalgia for one of the few people that I have truly felt loved by.

It’s Grandma. In a bottle.