the problem with lilacs
Last night we had a 70th birthday party for my thesis advisor at our house and had a bunch of people—grad students and professors—over for a catered dinner from a local Thai place. Hoping to make the place smell good and look better, I gathered bunches of lilacs from the lilac bush outside our back door and placed them around the apartment. So far, so good. The problem was, one of my thesis advisors started having a MAJOR allergic reaction to something, and was clearly miserable. Of course, he stuck around e ven though he was sneezing continuously and dealing with a major runny nose and tearing eyes . I felt terrible, as you can imagine, and eventually collected all my bouquets and put them outside. I joked that now I know his weakness, I am going to hide a huge bunch of lilacs in a corner for my doctoral defense; he will be too distracted by his allergies to give me too much trouble. He laughed, dryly. The problem with the smell of lilacs—both in perfumery and in bouquet making,