Transcript:

It’s the first color association most of us are taught: red means stop, and green means go. (According to the movie Starman, and most drivers, yellow means ‘go very fast,’ but that’s another story.)

When I was contemplating my interpretation of today’s August Break prompt – green – I originally considered using a photograph of some green beans I cooked recently. I love that they look green, smell green, taste green, and lend themselves to an audio interpretation:

• The rush of cool water over them as you rinse off the dirt.
• The satisfying snap as you remove the prickly end bits.
• The soft hiss of steam being released as they heat up during cooking.
• The muffled squeak when you chew them (my husband hates that part).

It would have been an appropriate, if awfully literal, interpretation of the prompt.

But then I saw the green ‘ready’ light on the microphone I recently acquired – a microphone called the Blue Mikey that plugs into the lightning port of an iPad (in my case, my brand new iPad mini). I hate the name, but I love the microphone because it means I don’t have to sit on my hands when I record in my living room or kitchen, and am using this setup instead of my lovely FocusRite Scarlet mic and pre-amp upstairs.

I come from an Italian family. I talk with my hands. A lot.

I mean, I use the upstairs rig for audio drama, but for this daily project, which isn’t quite on the fly, being able to sit at my table and watch the light shimmer on the swimming pool (which is no longer green thanks to the awesome pool guy I hired a year and a half ago) while I record is a very good thing.

There’s a green light on the mic and a green mic symbol in the app I’m using – BossJock – and green bars to tell me if my levels are okay, and then there’s the other kind of green as well…

The green of being inexperienced.

My podcasting is… lackadaisical at best. I joined Dog Days (late) a few years ago after Tabz and Nutty encouraged me to try it, and while (every year) Nutty encourages me to continue beyond the project and (every year) I mean to and don’t, I haven’t ever put enough time into learning the technical aspects of things to please myself.

It’s not that I’m not technical. I used to be a tech support trainer for a major computer company.

It has everything to do with how I choose to spend my time, and I find that writing and acting are more valuable to me than learning how to create a promo or even a slickly produced podcast.

There may even be an element of dread involved – if I have to spend that much time on it, this project becomes work and not fun. (Yes, this is ironic coming from the woman who writes book reviews and edits an ezine all day long, and then writes fanfic for fun and relaxation afterward, but, there it is.)

And so, instead, I look at the green light on the mic with just a little bit of trepidation, because I’m pretty sure the only person who digs what I’m writing is me, and I try to be cognizant of the way the green bar is rising and falling on the iPad screen, and when I finally press the green button labeled finish it’s with equal parts excitement and relief.

Links:

• The August Break
• Dog Days of Podcasting

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 David Popper’s “Village Song” as performed by Cello Journey. This music came from the podsafe music archive at Mevio’s Music Alley, which site is now defunct.

Contact Me:

• Email: missmelysse@gmail.com
• Instagram: Melysse
• Twitter: Melysse

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:09 — 3.5MB)

Transcript:

Yellow has never been my favorite color. I know it’s supposed to be a happy color, and I’m told it really warms up kitchens, especially, but I’ve never been fond of it. It might be because I have just enough olive in my skin tone that, with the exception of icy pastel yellow – the color of lemon sorbet – yellow clothing makes me look really sallow.

Even jaundiced.

I just don’t think the dying-of-scurvy look is that attractive.

But there are some yellow things I really appreciate.

I like the rich, saturated Tuscan yellow of the walls of my dining room.

I like the way lemons even smell yellow, and I especially like the way a bowl of lemons looks when it’s sitting out on the counter.

And I love sunflowers.

I’ve always loved sunflowers.

I’m an August Leo, so my birth flower (yes, that’s a thing) is the poppy. Actually there are two birth flowers for August: poppies and gladiolus. Now, I like both of those. I specially love buying tall stalks of glads for this ridiculously tall turquoise glass vase that lives in the Word Lounge.

But if it were up to me, the official birth flower for August would be the sunflower.

I mean, really, what could be more appropriate? Sunflowers are bright and cheerful – exactly what you need to chase away the deep summer doldrums. They follow the sun worshipfully, and, let’s face it, there isn’t a single Leo out there who doesn’t appreciate a little bit of worship from time to time.

But most of all, I like them because as far as flowers go, sunflowers, the classic bright-yellow discs with the thick green stalks, are fairly egalitarian. I mean, think about it. Sunflowers grow wild in freeway medians and along fields, but they’re also grown purposefully, so that their seeds can be put to use.

Sunflowers can be planted and cultivated, but they’re just as likely to spring up naturally. My grandfather once had a healthy crop of them spring into being in his compost heap, which we all thought was terribly funny at the time, though I don’t remember why.

A friend of mine has sunflowers growing in her front yard. Some years they’re more robust and more prolific than others, but in 2014 they were glorious and bountiful, and she brought me a bunch for my birthday, presented in a mason jar, which she apologized for, though honestly, I cannot imagine a more appropriate way to present them.

That mason jar full of sunflowers made me smile for days, until they finally faded away, as all flowers, and all summers do.

And sunflowers are the first thing I think of when I hear the word, ‘yellow.’

Well, that’s not entirely true.

The very first thing is the line from the first chapter of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, when Arthur Dent notices the bulldozer outside his house.

But sunflowers come right after.

 

Links:

• The August Break
• Dog Days of Podcasting

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 David Popper’s “Village Song” as performed by Cello Journey. This music came from the podsafe music archive at Mevio’s Music Alley, which site is now defunct.

Contact Me:

• Email: missmelysse@gmail.com
• Instagram: Melysse
• Twitter: Melysse

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:18 — 2.9MB)

Transcript:

Just inside the front door of my house, partnered with an antique writing desk, is a red leather wing chair. The seat is more than a little bit saggy. There is a large slash in the leather on one side of the chair. Many of the upholstery tacks that trace its contours are scratched, or have their once-shiny surfaces worn away.

To you, it’s probably just an old chair.

To me, it’s a piece of family history, and it’s a symbol of home.

Actually it’s a symbol of a lot of things. Having this chair in my house is one of the things that draws me back to reality when I’ve been living too much inside my head. It’s a tangible reminder that while I’m still, always, my mother’s daughter, I’m no longer anyone’s child.

You wouldn’t think I’d need a reminder of that, but every so often I have this disconnect, where I feel like Fuzzy and I aren’t really adults staring defiantly into the fast approaching face of fifty, but twenty-somethings in some off-kilter version of ‘playing house.’

But this chair is more than that.

This chair is where my grandfather sat and held me when I cried, or bounced me on his knee to make me giggle, or read endless stories to me. (He didn’t do all the voices, but you could hear the joy in his voice whenever he read to me – or to any child.)

This is the chair that served as a cave for me to hide in, a sheltered lumber yard for Tinker Toys, and a depot for the model trains that my grandfather collected, and taught me to love almost as much as he did.

In my head, this red chair is always positioned next to the drop-leaf table in my grandmother’s living room, the great picture window behind it, the couch across from it, and the table full of African violets to its right (if you’re facing it).

In my memories, my grandfather is still sitting in that chair, feet firmly planted on the ground, back supported by the chair, the latest issue of Newsweek or Model Railroader in his hand. In my mind’s eye, I can see the cotton button-down shirts he always wore, the white undershirt peeking out at the collar. I remember his sturdy work-shoes and the smell of his aftershave, and the way, if you complimented him, he would get this smug look on his face and say, “I’m a pretty kid.”

At some point, the red chair came to live with us – first with my mother, and later with me. I don’t remember the circumstances of its relocation. I only know I’m glad to have it.

I don’t sit in it very often. The desk it partners is more a catch-all for mail than an actual workspace. But it feels right to have it in my house, and sometimes, when the sun is at an oblique angle and the shadows are just so, I feel like my grandfather is still there, in his chair, waiting to read me a story.

(In memory of my grandfather, Edward F. Klindienst.)

Links:

• The August Break
• Dog Days of Podcasting

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 David Popper’s “Village Song” as performed by Cello Journey. This music came from the podsafe music archive at Mevio’s Music Alley, which site is now defunct.

Contact Me:

• Email: missmelysse@gmail.com
• Instagram: Melysse
• Twitter: Melysse

Or, you can leave a comment on this post.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:09 — 3.4MB)

Favorite Taste

Transcript:

It’s no secret that I’m something of an amateur foodie. I love exploring the foods of different cultures, and trying new recipes. There are some kinds of food I always come back to – certain kinds of sushi (unagi is my ultimate favorite), a really good chicken shawarma, and Neapolitan pizza like I grew up with, the way they make it at the Jersey shore.

But my favorite taste isn’t gourmet, nor is it something I make from scratch. It’s a combination of flavors: espresso or cappuccino – for the last year I’ve been drinking flat whites, which are basically a dry cappuccino – a banana at just the right amount of ripeness, so it’s still firm, but also completely sweet, and Milano cookies.

Milano cookies are my favorite commercially produced cookies. For years, I did what everyone did, bought the bag of fifteen cookies and tried (usually unsuccessfully) to make them last. A few months ago, though, I was in Costco and they had a plastic bin of 40 milano cookies wrapped in pairs, for only a dollar more than the bag of fifteen cookies I typically buy.

Not only did it come home with me, but it’s been at least three months and I haven’t yet emptied the bin.

Coffee, Milano cookies, and a banana- that combination is my favorite taste. What’s yours?

Links:

• The August Break
• Dog Days of Podcasting

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 David Popper’s “Village Song” as performed by Cello Journey. This music came from the podsafe music archive at Mevio’s Music Alley, which site is now defunct.

Contact Me:

• Email: missmelysse@gmail.com
• Instagram: Melysse
• Twitter: Melysse

Or, you can leave a comment on this post.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:52 — 1.9MB)