Ursula, and Having Fun with Reviews

I’ll certainly be dropping a more formal review – complete with all of my normal notes and such – at the end of the post as usual, but the thing that this week’s strain, Ursula, got me thinking about is the other end of one of the various spectrums on which one can describe not just cannabis but anything really: short, playful, sometimes quippy takes.

Returning readers will know that I am verbose, long-winded, sometimes even pedantic when it comes to talking about cannabis. I find myself on tangent after tangent, so much that I’ve begun describing my blog in brief to people as “It’s mostly rambling stoner dad stories or mini lessons on something related to cannabis, and by the end of 1500 or 2000 words, I finally get to the review.” This usually gets a chuckle and a promise to read (which as I can see by the numbers is increasing, which is flattering).

But I don’t always have that kind of time when I’m budtending. Some days feel like back-to-back-to-back customers for my whole shift, and even when there aren’t customers, as the bar supervisor I’m responsible for keeping that whole part of the store running by updating and making new displays for a bar that contains – at current – nearly 200 individual items, for keeping our beverage fridge stocked and organized which accounts for another 30 or so products with anywhere from 12 to over 100 units each, for monitoring my budtenders’ adherence to our protocols, distributing and tracking trade samples, and all of the other non-supervisor duties that working the bar entails.

So, as much as I’d love to spend 20 minutes or so with every customer who needs or wants the time, I just don’t have it. And some customers don’t want or need that much anyway, but what they might instead want is that super short description or hot take or whatever. I’m not naturally inclined to respond to “What’s good here?” with “Blah strain is fire,” and leave it at that, but sometimes that’s all a customer needs to hear. So I’ve latched onto some strain descriptions that are specific (sometimes overly so) to the strain, but are shorter and soundbite-ier, to instill in my customers that I am both taking this seriously when it comes to my sincerity and experience, while respecting their time and their needs.

Some of my favorites (I’ll get to Ursula below) include:

Moose and Lobsta: It doesn’t so much taste or smell like an old private library, but it’s reminiscent of one: old leather and dark wood, vanilla and bourbon. It’s very sophisticated, but the high makes me want to be standing ankle deep in a lake and have my hand on a tree. It’s quite nice.

Super Lemon Haze: A couple of older gentlemen and I were talking about Super Lemon Haze a couple of years ago, and one of them summed it up perfectly. It’s his “gettin’ shit done” strain. Which is perfect, so I asked to steal that.

Headbanger: I mean, this kind of does what it says. It’s a real party strain, stoney but energizing, heavy but motivating. It bangs heads.

LitreaCola: This strain consistently answers the question “What’s your heaviest Indica?” even if we happen to have something that tests higher in THC, which we rarely do.

Sour Sniffits: If you want a happy energy, Sour Sniffits. This was my Thanksgiving weed last year. Three of us were responsible for cooking for something like 18 people, and we had this, a grinder, and a bowl in the basement on the workbench, and we’d pop down any time we all had a second between cooking tasks, take a couple hits, then back up, then back down when we could, and it was perfect.

Funk Mountain: I think of it this way: some strains are mood enhancers; they take whatever you’re feeling and make it bigger. Some strains are mood elevators; they move your mood up a step or two on the ladder. Funk Mountain – for me – is a mood elevator. If I’m feeling down, it brings me up a bit; if I’m already feeling good, it just makes me feel even better.

Silver Kush: You want to smell one that’s like really good stinky? Like foul, but still really good somehow?

Elvis: It smells like walking through a deciduous forest the morning after a rain and coming across a recently fallen tree, but that’s been down just long enough that mushrooms are growing on it.

Anyway, those are some of my favorite go-to descriptions, if I’m keeping it brief.

So, Ursula. I’m hoping you see where this might be going, particularly if you’ve read any of the posts where I’ve talked about my kids.

“Ursula. Like the sea witch.”

Both because we refer to ourselves as “mermaids” at work, and because I’m the father of two daughters who’ve recently had a stretch of being pretty into The Little Mermaid, any reference to the Disney movies or stage production is going to get some traction in my brain.

As an aside, I frequently make the “Mer-man.” *coughs* “Merman!” line of Ben Stiller’s from Zoolander too.

So, when we received an order from Green Truck recently – the first time we’ve carried that cultivator – I gravitated toward Ursula right off because of the name. The lineage didn’t impress me much as neither were strains I had a particular love for (‘09 Animal Cookies x Grape Cream Cake). They’re not bad, they’re just not strains that have ever blown my mind specifically. So, the name got my attention, but the aroma was also really impressive. It was sweet and grapey on the first pass, but subsequent inhalations brought up a broadly fruity tone underneath the specific grape aroma, like a grape plucked from a fruit salad. Intermingled were floral and very light cream notes.

The buds are pretty, if a little plain. They’re a good color: medium to bright green, with soft, pale clusters of pistils throughout. They were a little flat texture-wise though. There was little to no evidence of trichomes coming off on my fingers, but it seemed to be very well cured, having a solid feel and breaking apart easily, but not crumbling to dust either. The two eights I’ve opened each had a solid nug that would probably weigh close to but not above 2 grams of the 3.5 total, with the rest of the weight distributed among about 5 smaller little nugs.

The smoke was interesting, in that it did the thing where it tastes almost nothing like the aroma. I’ll admit, the smoke was not my favorite, though fans of cheesy or exceptional “Hazey”-tasting strains will probably really enjoy the smoke. For me though, this is one of those times where I’m going to use the cilantro tasting like soap excuse, and say that maybe I’m the minority, because for me, the flavor is like a lingering sour truffle oil aftertaste mostly. But like I said, the weedy flavor is a personal preference, just not mine typically. As I’ve said before, I endeavor to present both honestly and objectively, so I mean no offense to the people at Green Truck.

As for the high, Ursula comes back into my favor here. The high hit that real sweet spot of being upliftingly euphoric while simultaneously being so very very relaxing, but without hitting couch-lock levels of sleepy. I was pleasantly chilled out, but with no fear of falling asleep on the couch by accident. And when I did turn in for the night, I slept very soundly, waking up the next morning feeling rested.

But to bring it all back around to the short, sometimes quippy takes on strains, I immediately started workshopping some for Ursula. So far I’ve got:

• Like the sea witch, but less “steal your voice” and more “steal your anxiety.”
• It’s like if Ursula from The Little Mermaid was more grapey and super chill, and less villainous and evil.
• As a mermaid, at first I felt threatened by Ursula, but she’s really quite pleasant and relaxing once you get to know her.
• I’m left speechless by Ursula, but not so much that I end up in her garden of “poor unfortunate souls.”