Tag Archives: Bathtub Mermaid

Welcome Autumn

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autumn coffee

Autumn has always been my favorite season, and even though it doesn’t technically begin until tomorrow night, I wrote about it for Sunday Brunch over at All Things Girl this week. You can read it THERE or you can listen to it on my podcast HERE.

I’ve been a bit off-kilter this last week, staying up too late writing, waiting for updates from my parents who live in La Paz, BCS, Mexico and weathered Hurricane Odile last weekend (they still don’t have power, but Los Cabos is nearly flattened, so it’s all relative).

I pre-ordered the new iPhone 6 plus and it arrived on Friday, and I’m already in love, but I spent a good chunk of yesterday downgrading my iPad Air away from iOS 8 because iOS 8 breaks Audiobus, which means that podcasting apps don’t work.

I have lines to record for two different projects, but my voice is icky. Tomorrow is my studio day. Someone hold me to it.

It’s hard to believe September has just zoomed by and we’re almost into October.

I love fall.

Also? I’m ready for the mosquitoes to die.

DDoP: Fairy Dust

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Originally Written: June, 2008
Inspiration Word: fairy dust (I think)
Inspired By: Becca Rowan

She stopped in the village square, intrigued by the array of market stalls, all offering things never seen for sale in her own home town.

“Inspiration, just five dollars!” one of the peddlers called, holding up a glass bottle adorned with vines and flowers.

She was tempted, but was fairly certain that it was just an empty jar, however beautiful.

Booths offering warm nuts brushed shoulders with other booths offering half measures of imagination and ambition.

At the booth where fairy dust was sold, she could not resist, and traded $20 for a heavy cut-velvet bag.

Deep inside, possibilities glittered.

Listen: Bathtub Mermaid: Fairy Dust

DDoP: Pictophone

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Originally written: June, 2008
Inspiration word: Pictophone
Inspired by: Clay Robeson

Random sentences inspiring even more random drawings, which lead to other sentences, or just the connection between word and image in the slideshow of our own brains? Which is more real? More creative?

The answer? Both. And neither. To see a picture and be inspired is magic whether you share the results or not. To find a poem in a photograph, a novel in a portrait, a scandalous love story in the naturally occurring vignette of two people in the park…this is what the creative spark provides.

Whether with verbal pointillism or a game of pictophone, we connect the dots.

Listen: Bathtub Mermaid: Pictophone

Her Name is Jane

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Jane Honda

The Dog Days of Podcasting challenge began on Thursday. This is the text of my first episode, which you can hear at The BathtubMermaid

Her Name is Jane

We took her home on Tuesday evening, after a morning of testing, a discussion over a lunch of comfort food, and even using our “phone a friend’ option.

I said, “We should flip a coin.”

He said, “You know if we did that I’d insist that we flip it several times in a row, and then graph the responses.”

I said, “Three times is enough.”

We called our regular mechanic.

The manager said, “I like Subarus; they run forever. Get the 2015 Forester.”

The lead technician said, “I like Hondas; they run forever. Get the 2014 CR-V.”

After we hung up, he admitted that the manager’s first response was actually, “Buy whichever car the missus likes better.”
Smart man, that garage manager.

We called the dealer of the car we’d chosen, only to find that someone else was doing paperwork on it. “We have another one that meets all your specs,” he said, “but it’s got a navigational system, which means it’s $1,400 more expensive.”

He’d already tried to get us to consider a less expensive model than what we were considering, after listening to our needs and wants.
We bought the more expensive version.

Her name is Jane.

Jane Honda.

Post-Christmas Pajama Day Blues

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reading in bed

Sometimes, I have pajama days.

Often on those days, I never bother to get dressed in “real” clothes, but because I work from home, I still get stuff done.

Other times, I turn everything off, and don’t even pretend to work.

I woke up yesterday morning feeling exhausted and dehydrated. “I’m writing a book review, and going back to bed,” I told my husband and our housemate. “I’m taking a sick day.”

I’m not actually SICK-sick; there’s nothing contagious. I’m just a little sinussy, overtired, dehydrated, crabby, and Marco the foster-pup is driving my allergies crazy, which is odd, because I’m not typically allergic to dogs.

I just needed a pajama day.

I spent yesterday sleeping and cuddling animals (yes, even Marco) and reading a mystery novel that I thought I was supposed to review on Monday (but I actually have another week for) and did I mention sleeping? Sadly, though, it was fitful sleep. I was too hot, too cold, had to use the bathroom, was incredibly thirsty, wash, rinse, repeat.

I woke up this morning feeling worse. “You’re going to have to be responsible for your own lunch,” I told my husband. “I’m writing this book spotlight that is due in an hour, and going back to bed.”

Except I didn’t quite go back to sleep. Instead, I made myself an omelet, read some more of that mystery novel (it doesn’t usually take me more than a day to read anything, so I know I’m feeling sluggish even if I’m not actually sick.), and watched some bad TV.

Then I took a bath.

Never underestimate the restorative properties of a really good steep in a tub full of bubble bath.

I didn’t read, or anything. Just closed my eyes, and steeped. Brewed. Marinated.

Then I washed my hair. I don’t often wash my hair in the tub, but sometimes it’s easier to just do it while I’m there. And sometimes washing it in the tub gives it extra body; don’t ask me why.

I’m not depressed or anything.
I don’t even feel blah – I just feel really depleted.

Here’s to a long weekend with tea and books and dogs.

And just a few more pajama days.

Image credit: abhishek4383 / 123RF Stock Photo

On the First Day of Holidailies (2012)

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Caribbean Christmas

If there were a way I could blog from my bathtub – while it’s actually full of lovely hot water and bubbles and surrounded by glowing scented candles – I totally would. Instead, it’s 1:30 in the morning, which makes it, technically the second day of Holidailies, but since I haven’t actually been to bed yet, I figure we’ll call it day one despite the insistence of the clock and the calendar. (Besides, it’s still December 1st in California, which is where I lived when I began blogging in the first place, and so what if I’ve been in Texas for eight years now.)

(As an aside, this is longest I’ve ever lived anywhere in my entire LIFE, and I keep getting the itch to move every two years, but then I look around at all our masses of stuff, and think, “Until I’m rich enough to ditch everything and start from scratch, there’s no way I’m moving again.”)

I haven’t been blogging much. Still. Again. Lately.

Whatever.

I’ve been writing words upon words upon even more words, but…blogging. Not so much.

It’s not that I don’t want to.

It’s that, by the end of the day, if it comes to a choice between “soak in the bathtub and drink tea (or wine) while reading a book” or “blog about the fact that I’m not in the tub,” the former kind of wins.

But it’s December. It’s HOLIDAILIES. I’ve seen some of my favorite bloggers already posting their stuff – bloggers who, like me, used to be religious about posting and now make it an occasional thing. Bloggers I’ve been reading – at least in December – for, well, eight years? More for some. Less for others. But…yeah.

I don’t really feel Christmassy yet, I think because the weather is so disgustingly warm – unseasonably so, even for here – but I’m hoping Holidailies will help me.

So…Happy Holidailies from the Bathtub Mermaid, MissMeliss.

Happy Holidailies

Bubble-less

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I slept badly last night – was having a pre-migraine aura, and then just couldn’t get comfortable, and ended up waking stiff and sore and with a raging headache. Never fun. Caffeine didn’t help, either. I slept a lot and vegged a lot, and finally forced myself to at least get the work-writing done today, but my prose had no sizzle or pop.

My mother suggested taking a bath, but I’m still squicked by the large spider I killed in my tub while Fuzzy was away, and I’m out of bubble bath, and honestly, when it’s nearly 100 degrees outside a bath is not really the thing, even for a Bathtub Mermaid like myself.

I confess that I sometimes have issues with the design of my bathtub. It’s luxuriously deep and wide, but you have to step up onto a tile step and then into the tub, and it’s just tall enough that I’m not quite comfortable with it, especially when my head’s all spinny. Once in a while I fantasize about getting a walk in tub, but replacing a tub surrounded by tile really isn’t on my list of Must-Do home improvements.

Building a wet bar in the closet, however…