TBM1912.31 – FelicesFiestas07 – Cidre, Ponche & Rompope

rompope

Description:

#Audio. #essay #sliceoflife #holidaysinbajasurmexico The three drinks of Christmas are cidre, ponche, and rompope.

Excerpt:

Since it’s New Years Eve, it seems appropriate to talk about the three drinks that are used to celebrate Christmas in Mexico: Cidre, Ponche and Rompope.

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:

TBM1912.26 – FelicesFiestas05 – Mazapánes

Mazapánes

Description:

#Audio. #essay #sliceoflife #holidaysinbajasurmexico Mazapánes are a Mexican holiday tradition, and that’s not all that’s special about them.

Excerpt:

When Mom brought these around at her posada, all the Mexican guests immediately lit up, recognizing the special holiday treat. The American and Canadian guests had to be introduced to this new delicacy..

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 – 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:

TBM1912.24 – 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:

TBM1912.04 – 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

christmas-tall-ship-500x310

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-1912.01 – Advent01 – Anticipation

Christmas Anticipation

Description:

#Audio. #flashfic #holidailies  On day one of the Dog Days of Advent, Anticipation begins.

Excerpt:

The kitchen waited expectantly for the ritual to begin. It was like this every year at this time… when the first snow fell, when the stars seemed somehow brighter in the crisp, cold sky, the appliances would begin to Anticipate.

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:

TBM-1812.30 – DDOA-024 – 8thDayAfterXmas

Entenmanns

Description:

#Audio. #Blog Entenmann’s coffeecake – the taste of home.

Excerpt:

And more often than not, the dessert would be an Entenmann’s coffeecake. The kind with a crumb topping and pastry cheese filling. That taste, slightly metallic from the foil tray, but always just enough sweetness to temper the strongest of coffees (or the brattiest of little girls) was the taste of my childhood. I remember it as strongly as I do my grandfather’s raisin bread or my grandmother’s meatballs or her recipe for pasta e fagiolli, which, by the way, is nothing like the swill they serve at the Olive Garden.Train whistles never sound anything but mournful. My friend Stonefish says it’s just the physics of sound, but I think it’s more. I think there’s a romanticism associated with trains that never quite leaves us.

Links and References

  • Read the text of this piece at MissMeliss.com
  • Check out all the participants in the Dog Days of Advent.
  • “The Twelve Days After Christmas” was written by Frederick Silver

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-1812.29 – DDOA-023 – 6thDayAfterXmas

sandra-ahn-mode--cropped-350283-unsplash

Description:

#Audio. #Blog Musings on trains, real and toy.

Excerpt:

Train whistles never sound anything but mournful. My friend Stonefish says it’s just the physics of sound, but I think it’s more. I think there’s a romanticism associated with trains that never quite leaves us.

Links and References

  • Read the text of this piece at MissMeliss.com
  • Check out all the participants in the Dog Days of Advent.
  • “The Twelve Days After Christmas” was written by Frederick Silver

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-1812.28 – DDOA-022 – 3rdDayAfterXmas

bossier-city

Description:

#Audio. #Blog Recording from Bossier City, LA, where we drove to see my aunt.

Excerpt:

I had a pot of coffee sent to the room (literally, they sent an urn) and we shared one enormous slice of cheesecake, and it was a nice way to catch up without anyone having to wash a dish. I gave my aunt and uncle and cousin some Dude, Sweet Chocolate, which is possibly the best chocolate on Earth, and they gave us local coffee and biscotti, made by the people in the care home where my cousin is a nurse.

Links and References

  • Read the text of this piece at MissMeliss.com
  • Check out all the participants in the Dog Days of Advent.
  • “The Twelve Days After Christmas” was written by Frederick Silver

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: