TBM-2004.27 – Recipe for an Easter Eve

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Description:

#Audio. #recipe #covidsmetamorphosis My version of a really simple Neopolitan classic.

Excerpt:

Always, on Easter Eve, with the kitchen smelling like vinegar, and our fingers stained blue, green, purple, we would make aglio e olio, which in our New Jersey, Neapolitan dialect becomes something  more akin to “ahlya awlya.”

Links and References

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the Auphonic iPhone app and Audacity.
  • Photo by Youjeen Cho on Unsplash
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Sound Effects are from Freesound.

Contact:

TBM-2004.23 – Family Planning

Robot head looking front on camera isolated on a black background

Description:

#Audio. #flashfiction #covidsmetamorphosis When your partner is a synthetic lifeform, family planning takes on a whole new dimension.

Excerpt:

We lost a son,” I corrected. And we had, two years before Elizabeth was born. Our son, Jake, had been stillborn. There had been no discernible cause. Sometimes, even with all the technology of many, many worlds, horrible things just… happened. “We are not building a replacement.”

Links and References

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the Auphonic iPhone app and Audacity.
  • Photo by stock photo from 123rf.com
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Sound Effects are from Freesound.

Contact:

TBM-2004.20 – One Perfect Sentence?

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Description:

#Audio. #essay #covidsmetamorphosis What determines whether or not a sentence is perfect?

Excerpt:

Maybe it should have seventeen syllables, all stretched out in a line like Hemingway wrote for warm-ups. “American sentences,” he called them.

Links and References

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the Auphonic iPhone app and Audacity.
  • Photo by Nick Morrison on Unsplash
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Sound Effects are from Freesound.

Contact:

TBM1912.25 – FelicesFiestas04 – Buñuelos

Buñuelos

Description:

#Audio. #essay #sliceoflife #holidaysinbajasurmexico Fried dough exists in every culture, but at Christmas in Mexico, you eat buñuelos.

Excerpt:

Traditionally, these are caseras  – homemade. You can’t typically buy them in stores, though sometimes you might pass someone selling them on the street. (We had Lupita make a bunch for us, both for the posada we hosted on Saturday evening, and to eat with hot chocolate this morning.) Also traditionally, you make them and gift them to other people.

Links and References

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the Auphonic iPhone app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Sound Effects are from Freesound.

Contact:

TBM1912.25 – FelicesFiestas03 – Lupita’s Frutería

Lupita's Pico de Gallo

Description:

#Audio. #essay #sliceoflife #holidaysinbajasurmexico Lupita’s Frutería is the source of the best pico de gallo.

Excerpt:

Now, pico de gallo itself is not a difficult thing to make. It’s just tomatos, onions, chili peppers and cilantro, maybe with a little bit of salt.

Links and References

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the Auphonic iPhone app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Sound Effects are from Freesound.

Contact:

TBM1912.24 – FelicesFiestas02 – Huevos y Tocino

The Bacon Guy's Truck

Description:

#Audio. #essay #sliceoflife #holidaysinbajasurmexico #huevosytocino We go shopping for eggs and bacon.

Excerpt:

Getting bacon (or smoked pork chops, ham, or chorizo) is a similar process. You drive to the bacon guy’s house. (I forgot to ask his first name, and everyone just calls him ‘the bacon guy’) His commercial truck was parked in his driveway. When we went, his wife was in the window of their laundry room, and she gestured us toward the back of the house, where the bacon guy came out in his butcher apron, and asks what you want, how much, and how you’d like it cut.

Links and References

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the Auphonic iPhone app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Sound Effects are from Freesound.

Contact:

TBM1912.23 – FelicesFiestas01 – Getting to La Paz

LAPAZ SIGN

Description:

#Audio. #essay #sliceoflife #holidaysinbajasurmexico

Excerpt:

There’s another, faster highway, but Route 1 twists and turns up into the mountains along the gulf coast, skirting through East Cape, where we always stop at Los Barriles for lunch at Roadrunner Café. Los Barriles has a huge ex-pat population – mostly folks from the US and Canada –  and the prices reflect that, but the food and service at Roadrunner are usually good, and there are clean bathrooms.

Links and References

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the Auphonic iPhone app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Sound Effects are from Freesound.

Contact:

TBM1912.04 – Advent04 – 37 Icicles

Description:

#Audio. #flashfic #holidailies  Ten days before Christmas the story I’m offering is “37 Icicles. ”

Excerpt:

“Oh, right, sorry.” She hesitated, the offered. “Well, let me treat you to a load? I really am sorry about the spaghetti incident…” She reached into her change purse to give him some coins for the machines, and blushed. “I’m out of quarters,” she said. “I’ve only got seventy-two – no, seventy-three cents left. Here, take it… I owe you two cents.” Her dark eyes were glowing with amusement. “I swear it’s not the same seventy-three cents you left me.”

Links and References

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the Auphonic iPhone app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Sound Effects are from Freesound.

Contact:

TBM1912.13 – Advent03 – Sea Story

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Description:

#Audio. #shortshortstory #Christmas… At Christmas time on the planet solstice, the Sea & Shore Patrol vessel Polaris finds something – and someone – unexpected.

Excerpt:

So… it was a cold and dark December evening, and Grandfa was standing watch on the SSP ship Polaris. There wasn’t a lot of traffic in or out of the Crystal City port at that time of year. Cargo shipments of gifts and specialty items for the winter holidays (Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, the Arcturian Moon Howl Festival and the Pacifican Celebration of the Stars, among them) typically came through the spaceport not the seaport, but there were still the occasional locals who went for winter sails, and got fouled up in the ice floes, or simply got too drunk on spiced wine to navigate home safely.

Links and References

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the BossJock iPad app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Music used for the opening and closing is a mix of Chris Zabriskie’s “The Oceans Continue to Rise” from the Free Music Archive and Kevoy’s clip of whales off the coast of French Polynesia from Freesound.
  • Chris Zabriskie’s song is also used under some readings.

Contact:

TBM-1912.12 – Advent02 – Trouble Bass

Trouble Bass

Description:

#Audio. #flashfic #holidailies  Twelve Days before Christmas, I offer “Trouble Bass…” It’s not a holiday story, necessarily, but it could be.

Excerpt:

“Economics is what you do. Music is what you are. Today you’re a trouble bass player.”

Trouble bass?”

“Yup. Iff’n you play for nice folks in clubs, it’s double bass, but when you play for the people who need to hear it, need it to keep their hearts whole, it’s trouble bass.”

Links and References

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the Auphonic iPhone app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Sound Effects are from Freesound.

Contact: