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MissMelisshttp://www.missmeliss.com

Starlight and Whalesong

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Whale Encounter by Kareem Alqaq

Last Saturday, I went to see the grey whales, and got to pet one.

This morning, I wrote about it at All Things Girl.

Most of us think of humpback whales when we think of whale watching, but – at least here in Baja – it’s the grey whales you come to see, and it’s evident from their behavior that the whales are also here to see us. Quite social, it’s almost as if they’re trained. We are in the water with four other boats and there are three or four mother-calf pairs. The mothers, massive creatures that you never see in their entirety, stay farther away from us, monitoring the situation, but the calves are like puppies, going from boat to boat, rolling over to blink at you, or meet your gaze with theirs – they have eyelashes!!! – begging for skritches and belly-rubs, smiling and showing off their baleen.

Here’s an excerpt. For the whole piece, click here: Sunday Brunch: The Hottest Blood of All.

The Crimson Cape is LIVE!

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SEMINAR_55_cover_by_Frank_Harbuck_III

Several months ago, I auditioned for a role at Pendant Audio, and even though I’d never done anything on their radar, I was cast.

Three days ago, the episode I was in – Episode 55 of their anthology series, Seminar, went live. My section: The Crimson Cape starts around 17 minutes in, but you should totally listen to the whole thing because it’s awesome.

Link to Seminar show page:
http://pendantaudio.com/seminar.php#new

Download the episode:

Seminar 55

Download the commentary track:

Seminar 55 Commentary.

Valentine…

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valentine coffee

Happy Valentine’s Day. Several years ago, when I discovered this poem, it instantly became my favorite love poem EVER. For many years I posted it in my blog on Valentine’s Day. Last year, I posted a poem by Harold Pinter, instead.

As I write this, my Valentine is away on a business trip, so I won’t see him til tomorrow morning. Still, it seems appropriate to post this rather…earthy…celebration of love.

May this day be full of love and light no matter the status of your relationship.

Valentine
The things about you I appreciate
May seem indelicate:
I’d like to find you in the shower
And chase the soap for half an hour.
I’d like to have you in my power
And see your eyes dilate.
I’d like to have your back to scour
And other parts to lubricate.
Sometimes I feel it is my fate
To chase you screaming up a tower
Or make you cower
By asking you to differentiate
Nietzsche from Schopenhauer.
I’d like successfully to guess your weight
And win you at a fête.
I’d like to offer you a flower.

I like the hair upon your shoulders,
Falling like water over boulders.
I like the shoulders too: they are essential.
Your collar-bones have great potential
(I’d like your particulars in folders
Marked Confidential).

I like your cheeks, I like your nose,
I like the way your lips disclose
The neat arrangement of your teeth
(Half above and half beneath)
In rows.

I like your eyes, I like their fringes.
The way they focus on me gives me twinges.
Your upper arms drive me berserk.
I like the way your elbows work.
On hinges …

I like your wrists, I like your glands,
I like the fingers on your hands.
I’d like to teach them how to count,
And certain things we might exchange,
Something familiar for something strange.
I’d like to give you just the right amount
And get some change.

I like it when you tilt your cheek up.
I like the way you not and hold a teacup.
I like your legs when you unwind them.
Even in trousers I don’t mind them.
I like each softly-moulded kneecap.

I like the little crease behind them.
I’d always know, without a recap,
Where to find them.

I like the sculpture of your ears.
I like the way your profile disappears
Whenever you decide to turn and face me.
I’d like to cross two hemispheres
And have you chase me.
I’d like to smuggle you across frontiers
Or sail with you at night into Tangiers.
I’d like you to embrace me.

I’d like to see you ironing your skirt
And cancelling other dates.
I’d like to button up your shirt.
I like the way your chest inflates.
I’d like to soothe you when you’re hurt
Or frightened senseless by invertebrates.

I’d like you even if you were malign
And had a yen for sudden homicide.
I’d let you put insecticide
Into my wine.
I’d even like you if you were Bride
Of Frankenstein
Or something ghoulish out of Mamoulian’s
Jekyll and Hyde.
I’d even like you as my Julian
Or Norwich or Cathleen ni Houlihan.
How melodramatic
If you were something muttering in attics
Like Mrs Rochester or a student of Boolean
Mathematics.

You are the end of self-abuse.
You are the eternal feminine.
I’d like to find a good excuse
To call on you and find you in.
I’d like to put my hand beneath your chin,
And see you grin.
I’d like to taste your Charlotte Russe,
I’d like to feel my lips upon your skin
I’d like to make you reproduce.

I’d like you in my confidence.
I’d like to be your second look.
I’d like to let you try the French Defence
And mate you with my rook.
I’d like to be your preference
And hence
I’d like to be around when you unhook.
I’d like to be your only audience,
The final name in your appointment book,
Your future tense.

~John Fuller

Image credit: byheaven / 123RF Stock Photo

Music for a Rainy Day: Interwar Duets

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Cello, Leaning I’m not sure when I found the Interwar Duets, a collection of music for cello and violin from the period between World Wars I & II, but they’ve become a sort of favorite of mine since sometime last fall.

It began, I think, with a search for something two characters could be playing in a fiction piece I was working on then (and have laid aside, but will go back to soon). I wanted something interesting, something with a story, but something the average listener would probably not be familiar with.

It’s hard for me to listen to anything with lyrics when I’m writing, because I get distracted by the desire – no, the NEED – to either sing along, or get up and dance, or both. The thing is, I’m not good with quiet either, and my writing studio doesn’t have a television any more.

Whatever the reason, these duets have become ingrained in my being, and I find them particularly haunting in dismal, gray weather like today’s, probably because they were inspired by a rather dismal, gray, state of being in Europe.

Never heard them? Here’s a RHAPSODY LINK.

Image credit: demian1975 / 123RF Stock Photo

Reclamation

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Writey and Typey and Reclaimy

Last night, after all our guests had gone home, we were lucky that the cleaning was essentially limited to putting dishes in the dishwasher. We’ll be taking down the Christmas decorations tomorrow and Saturday, because I like them to linger a little bit.

There’s a fine line, though, with seasonal decor. Take it down too soon, and you regret it, feeling like you’ve sacrificed part of your celebration. Wait too long, though, and once-magical ornaments and fairy lights feel more like a pushy bellboy angling for a larger tip.

Still, we’ve taken one important step: for the first time since before Thanksgiving, we’ve removed the leaf from the kitchen table, shrinking it from a generous oval to an intimate round breakfast table once again.

Part of me misses the extra space – many mornings we all had our laptops strewn across the larger surface – but mostly I’m glad to have the space AROUND the table back, because it means the dogs aren’t quite so on top of each other as they move in and out of the back door.

It’s a first step toward reclamation, but an important one. The second step, begun this morning, was the cessation of the use of Christmas mugs. In truth, some are more ‘winter’ than truly Christmas, but it’s almost time to bring forth the Valentine’s Day mugs, and overlapping is tacky.

In other news: I’ve been really tired, and really writey, and I don’t mind the tiredness because it’s induced by the writeyness.

Happy 2014, indeed.

This Is the New Year

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2014

Happy 2014.

I woke this morning to the crying of a puppy who was in dire need of marking the New Year’s start by, well, marking, but once I left our bedroom I was greeted by the first rays of true dawn, and the intoxicating smell of nearly-cooked brisket (We marinated it in espresso and JD BBQ sauce, and it’s been in the oven at 225 since midnight (The coffee helps tenderize and provides a smokey undertone.).).

I spent yesterday feeling overwhelmed by having so much to do and learned several small lessons, the most important being that even when the Parking Goddess smiles upon you it is far wiser to avoid CostCo on New Year’s Eve.

Between cooking and chatting and shopping and wrangling dogs I wrote 5,000 words of a story. It’s just fanfic, but it made me happy to write it, and it was posted just after midnight, and I consider the fact that I greeted the new year at my keyboard in a happy, writing groove to be an incredibly auspicious sign.

Well, I would if I believed in signs.

Today, in just a few hours, we’re having friends come over to celebrate with us by sharing food and laughter. And possibly the champagne we never bothered to open last night, because by the time midnight rolled around we were exhausted, and couldn’t see the point in opening bubbly for three adults when one of them doesn’t even drink.

Instead, we toasted the arrival of 2014 with glasses of Mexican Coca-cola, and went to bed with smiles on our faces.

The puppy and the chihuahua have now finished outside, and the big dogs are having their morning romp. I’m going to go take a shower before I feed them.

Happy New Year.

Have a song to get you into the spirit of things, it’s a recent favorite of mine: “This Is the New Year” by Ian Axel:

Image Credit: Yulia Glam

You say Slumgullion, I say Schlumgallian

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Schlumgallion

It’s one of those days. You know the kind: when you’ve been busy doing stuff all day, and you know you’ve been productive, but you’re not really sure exactly how. It’s been one of those puttery days, when you bask in creativity and execute tasks here and there, and start projects that you don’t care if you finish – those days are lovely.

But they end in those evenings, those nights really, when you realize that, oh, damn, we actually do have to eat dinner, and payday isn’t til tomorrow so pizza is NOT an option, and anyway, we can’t really justify ordering pizza when we have a house full of ingredients.

So you improvise.

For me, improvisation in the kitchen generally begins with sauteing onion and garlic in olive oil. I mean, really, what can’t you do with onion and garlic? So we started with that. And we added some 98% lean organic grass-fed ground beef that was mostly defrosted because I remembered to take it out earlier, but not really early enough.

Oh! There are mushrooms in the fridge. We should use those.

Oh! And tomato paste, because why not? And Worcestershire sauce, because it adds bite. Hmm. This is a little young. Squeeze in some lemon. Garlic and onion powders. Italian herb blend. Merlot-infused sea salt. Freshly ground black pepper. Stir til it bubbles, but it’s not quite complete.

Go to the fridge – nothing inspiring. Beets, but they SO don’t work with this. Maybe the freezer? Jackpot! A frozen veggie blend, kept around for “emergencies” just like this one.

So you add that and you stir, and then you turn the heat way down, and put a lid on it…what else? What else? Oh, awesome! Pasta.

I have this cannister on my counter. Whenever I make a pasta dish and don’t use all the macaroni or rotini or whatever, I put the extra (dry, uncooked) pasta in the cannister (note: dear autocorrect, canNister is an acceptable spelling for this word. Use one ‘n’ or two. Both are good). Nights like tonight, that pasta gets boiled in hot water, olive oil, a little salt, and when it’s done, it goes into the tomato and beef mixture.

Voila! a meal that isn’t horribly unhealthy, and doesn’t take forever to make, either.

But what do you call it.

Well, I grew up calling it, at least phonetically, “Schlumgallian,” with the assumption it was a family-originated made-up name for “throwing the kitchen sink in a pan,” but then I learned that there’s actually a dish called “Slumgullion,” which is an Irish word and refers to a “watery beef stew.”

Feral Kitchen‘s version of Slumgullion is not really that different from what I made. You can see their recipe here.

Mine is in the image at the top of the page, but the whole point of this dish is that you can make it with whatever’s at hand.

A Day Without Coffee

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meteor coffee

I posted the other day that I was feeling blechy but not really sick, but last night – this morning really – that changed. I finished my column for All Things Girl just after midnight, and was watching Call the Midwife on Netflix.

(By the way if you haven’t seen Call the Midwife, do so. It’s a well-done BBC drama about midwifery in the 1950s and there are tons of fantastic female characters.)

And then my stomach, which had been tender all day, impelled me to go worship the porcelain god.

I must be very devout because I continued my bended-knee worshiping until nearly six AM, at which point I FINALLY, BLISSFULLY, was able to sleep.

I woke around 8 am to tell Fuzzy the dogs were fussing, and woke again around ten-thirty because I was sure they were fussing again, only to find out that they weren’t even in the room, because he’d fed them and taken them out…without being asked.

I made some tea and toast, and, somewhere, found the energy to start a batch of chicken soup in the crockpot and crashed again, woke up later, starving and somehow thought a peanut butter and banana sandwich would be okay for a lunch…and got lucky. I think I was craving comfort foods.

Went back to sleep, with Max and Perry in the bed with me…their doggy breathing is so relaxing to listen to…and slept til 6:30 or so.

And now? Now it’s nearly midnight, and I’ve had no coffee, and I’m not sure if I still feel SICK or if I’m just TIRED, but it’s probably both, and so I shall say Good Night.

Bubbles

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Bubble Glass and Candles

In the china hutch in my dining room is a collection of bubble glasses, each originally a pale pastel, though the tint has aged into mere hints of color. They were my grandmothers, then my mothers, then mine. I used them a few times a year, mostly for special occasions: Egg nog on Christmas Eve, brandy on New Year’s Eve, sometimes champagne because I don’t own flutes. Well, I do, but I like the bubble glasses better.

At times, they seem as fragile, these hemispheres of translucent colored glass, as soap bubbles. There are times when I think they might just float into the air, tinkling as they meet each other in a gravity-defying toast, and then settling back into the waiting hands of myself and a few carefully chosen friends.

* * *

I can’t imagine soaking in a bubble-less bath. Ever since childhood, with the exception of a few flirtations with the “blue water” created by Vaseline Intensive Care Bath Beads, I have loved bubble baths, and longed for a deep tub, full of soft piles of white bubbles.

My favorite bathtub was in the apartment where I lived with my mother when I was nine. It was in Ocean Grove, New Jersey, and it was a claw foot tub, and if you craned your head in just the right way, you could see the ocean through the tiny window.

My second-favorite bathtub was in the house Fuzzy and I rented in Sioux Falls, SD, our last year there. It was a prairie cottage, and it, too, had a cast iron claw foot tub, in a bright, airy bathroom.

My third-favorite bathtub is in the house we have now, in my (well, our) bathroom. The tub upstairs, the one guests use, is a plain old tub-and-shower combo with glass doors (I detest sliding doors on tubs). But in our bathroom, the master bathroom on the ground floor, we have a garden tub. It’s wide enough for two, and deep, and it’s set in a window (though, sadly, that window can’t be opened), and I spend many, many hours there, 40 minutes at a time.

Sometimes, when I’m soaking in the tub, one of the dogs comes to say hello, and I will catch up a handful of bubbles and blow them into the air. Teddy often ends up with bubbles on his head, and he tries to eat the ones that float. Max is more cautious (though he has a taste for scented (flavored??) bathwater. Perry lingers at the edge of the room. Cleo used to sit on the step into my tub and wait for me to finish. I miss her at bathtime.

* * *

When you’re in the ocean, you pay attention to the bubbles because they tell you which way is UP. I remember a couple of times, when I was a kid, and reckless, being rolled in whitewater when I misjudged where a wave would break. It disorients you. It makes you understand how people can drown in shallow water. Breakers are rough, even when the sand is less than a foot below you.

As I write this, I’m watching Blackfish, the documentary about the killer whales at Sea World. (I hate that we do this to animals. It’s one thing to have zoos to preserve species, it’s quite another to imprison animals solely for our entertainment.)

I shouldn’t be watching this right before sleep.
I keep watching the bubbles.

Image credit: limpido / 123RF Stock Photo

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