A Visit From Sandy Klaws

Sandy Klaws

 

‘Twas the night before Christmas, and down in the deep,
Not a creature was stirring, nor making a peep.
The seashells were hung by the coral with care,
In hopes that Old Sandy Klaws soon would be there.

The merkids were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of shipwrecks sailed through their heads.
And Neptune with his trident, and I with my tail,
Had just settled down to a seaweed-filled tale.

When atop the sea, there arose such a clatter,
I surfaced to see just what was the matter.
Up, up  to the shore, I swam like a flash,
Slicing through waves with nary a splash.

Moonlight reflecting on the smooth as glass sea,
Seemed as bright as the midday sun  – well, to me.
When what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a pontoon sleigh, pulled by eight dolphins, dear.

Though the  crustacean driver never would pause,
I knew in a moment, it was Sandy Klaws.
More rapid than makos his porpoises came,
and he clicked and whistled and called out their names.

“Now Splashy, now Coral, now Finny and Bubbles,
On Glisten, on Ripple, on Shimmer and Troubles!
To the top of the waves, to the top of the wall,
Now swim ahead, swim ahead, swim ahead all!”

As phosphoresence that in the  ship’s wake glows,
to the crest of the wave, the dolphins, they rose.
Then down to the sea caves those silver forms dove,
with the boat full of toys and of course Mr Klows – er – Klaws

And then with a splish-splash I heard in my cove,
the frolicking sound of the dolphins he drove.
As I floated toward them without making a sound,
down the waterspout Sandy Klaws came with a bound.

He was dressed all in kelp from his head to his shell,
with barnacle decorations shining as well.
A bundle of toys he held in his pincher,
and he looked like an orca contemplating dinner.

His eyestalks rotated, his feet –  how they skittered!
His mouth parts and beard were all dusted with glitter.
His first legs were holding on tight to a bow,
and his whole carapace did certainly glow.

He couldn’t have smiled (crabs don’t have teeth),
but his bubbles encircled him just like a wreath.
He had a broad shell, and a hard belly plate,
and his color was pink from the shrimp he ate.

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old crab
And I laughed as I offered a plated sand dab.
But he ducked his eyes and waved me away,
and I realized he was keeping his pinchers at bay.

He spoke not word, but emptied his bag,
leaving something for every mermaid and sea hag.
Then snapping his claw like a bone castanet,
he rode the up waterspout, fast as a jet.

He scuttled to his sleigh, to his team clicked and whistled,
and away they all swam like a Landwalker’s missile.
Still, I heard him exclaim as his bubble trail died…
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a Good Tide!

Counting Down

tree

I’m participating, this year, in three simultaneous daily projects related to the holiday season.

On Twitter, I’m doing #MusicAdvent, which involves sharing a youtube music video every day for the first 25 days of December. Every year there’s a theme, and this year it’s super-easy, just covers. I’ve been participating for years, but for some reason, this is the first time it occurred to me to create my playlist before the first day, which has made my life a lot easier.

On my blog, MissMeliss.com (where you’re reading this) I’m participating in Holidailies, which involves writing every day from December 1st – January 1st. I’m two days behind at the moment, though I will catch up, because what I thought was a severe sinus infection turned out to be pneumonia with a side of pleurisy. I have a z-pack and steroids, but steroids really mess me up – I haven’t been sleeping, I’m edgy, and when I took the pill on Friday, it sent me from zero to acute migraine with no aura in about ten minutes (the weather didn’t help) and then I had to take Imitrex, which basically flattens me. There was no way I was going to write. I didn’t have enough brain.

That leads to my third project this month, which is happening on my podcast – you can find out about that at BathtubMermaid.com  the Dog Days of Advent, which is flexible, in that some people do twenty-four or twenty-five episodes, some people do twelve, some people count down to Christmas, and some people span it. It’s from the same community as the Dog Days of Podcast that I’ve been doing every August for several years now. Earlier in the week, before I knew how sick I was, I’d lost my voice, and another participant offered to read for me, but I didn’t have enough pre-written to get an episode in on Saturday.

My doctor told me that even writing and recording in bed was more than she wanted me to do, but except for chills and a fever than comes and goes, I’ve mostly just been off-kilter, but Saturday was spent rearranging furniture in four rooms of our house, and between the pneumonia, which has left me too winded to exercise, and the physical work, I managed to push my recently-reconstructed knee too hard. It’s hurting in a way it hasn’t since right after surgery, but it feels stable. I suspect today, Sunday, will be spent in extremely sedentary activities like watching Hallmark Christmas movies in bed.

But enough whining.

The cleaning and rearranging, the various December projects, even the medications I’m on, all share a common theme: counting down. The cleaning is part of counting down to my mother’s arrival in about ten days. The pills are me counting down until I feel better. And the projects are counting down to Christmas, which still and always sends me into a mood of childlike delight, and the end of the year.

And in the midst of all of it, I open doors on my advent calendar – a tradition my godmother has been sharing with me for as long as I can remember. We don’t do chocolate or cheese or tea in our calendars. Nor do we have cool treasure boxes of toys and trinkets for each day. Sometimes I wish we did that, but mostly, I like the simplicity of the oversized greeting card with the tiny doors on the front.

Counting down seems to be a human need. We cross off days, check completed items off our to-do lists, and feel the every-present ticking of time.

 

Five Things…

Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash

I haven’t used my blog as an actual journal in a few years, mainly because I’ve been writing a monthly column in the e-zine Modern Creative Life for three years and was doing something similar for the e-zine All Things Girl for several years before that. Personal essays and columns aren’t that different, and I haven’t had the need to share deep parts of myself with relative strangers lately.

But I’m sick. I almost wasn’t able to put a podcast episode together for tomorrow. I’m participating in the Dog Days of Advent, and another participant messaged me on Facebook and asked if I had something ready that she could record. The community that has formed from a bunch of podcast nerds (as one of the other participants describes us) who all commit to doing a daily podcast in the month of August and then sign on to do something similar in December is a lovely group of people. Funny, warm, bright, geeky. I’m not always terribly chatty, but there isn’t one of them I don’t appreciate.

And tonight, two of them became my – what was the term we used in the early nineties? – short duration personal saviors.

So, tonight I’m writing a right and proper blog post instead of a piece of flash-fic because it’s late, and I can’t talk (literally) and none of my usual sources for prompts are speaking to me

But the December Reflections prompt for today is “Five things about me…” (okay, it’s actually tomorrows, I’ve been using them as inspiration, not actually participating the way you’re meant to).

And the number five is resonating in my head.

The number five is a frequent number for list-posts and list-memes – five television shows you like, five things about yourself, five people, living or dead, you’d invite to dinner, five notes in the ascending arpeggios we sing in vocal warm-ups… you get the idea.

I think it’s because five isn’t an overwhelming number. Ten can feel like too many, and three is too few, but five is just right. And it’s balanced… in design you always want odd numbers of things. Five stems of irises in a vase, five candles in an arrangement.

Not to mention that humans have five fingers on each hand and five fingers on each toe.

But my other association with “five things” is from improv.  I spent years as part of the Dallas ComedySportz troupe and “Five Things” was one of our featured games. It’s a game where we use mime and gibberish to convey five activities with audience-suggested replacements. So, the activity might be cleaning a toilet, but we’re cleaning it at Elvis’s house and instead of a scrub brush we’re using spaghetti, and instead of toilet bowl cleaner, we’re using gummy bears.

So, what are five things about me. Well today, they’re:

  1. I have a sinus infection that’s settled in my ears and throat, and I can’t talk.
  2. I have very sweet friends who take time from their days to record for me so I don’t miss a day of a project.
  3. There are four dogs in the room with me, and they’re all peacefully asleep, and their breathing is the most comforting sound ever.
  4. I haven’t decorated for Christmas because we’re meant to be moving furniture around on Saturday.
  5. I’m craving salt.

I suppose I was meant to write more permanent things, but really, not much in life is permanent. And I was never much good at following rules.

*This flash-fic inspired by a prompt from December Reflections.
Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash

 

Fool’s Gold

georgetownlake

We weren’t supposed to ride our bikes out to the reservoir. Certainly, we weren’t supposed to play on its rocky shore, but it was 1977 or 78 and we were innocent – the world was innocent – or at least, it seemed that way.

And so we rode our bikes along the frontage rode of the highway, mine still bearing the red, white and blue streamers from the 4th of July bike parade, and we parked them on reasonably level ground. Then we took old beach towels, purloined snacks, and cans of soda from our baskets and set up a sort of picnic area, before we went close to the water.

We were imaginative seven- and eight- year olds. Jeff decided that the big chunks of dried mud from where the water had receded over the summer were actually fossilized dinosaur turds. “Boys are so gross,” Monica and I said to each other behind his back. But out loud we asked, “What kind of dinosaur?”

“It’s from the Megapod,” Jeff insisted. “It’s Megapodtastic!”

“More like mega-disgusting,” I said. But it was Georgetown, Colorado. We’d all been to the natural history museum in Denver on school trips. We knew that dinosaurs had lived here once, just like we were certain the cannibalistic Goat-Man still haunted the woods outside town. It could have been ancient dino-dung, or at least, our child-brains didn’t immediately reject the idea.

We continued to enjoy the afternoon. A lonely kayaker appeared on the far side of the reservoir at one point. We hadn’t seen him arrive, and we never saw him leave, he just ghosted across our field of vision the same way a shark will sometimes swim near you without actually bothering you. You don’t see it, but you know you’re not alone.

“Maybe he’s searching for dinosaur bones,” I suggested, mostly kidding.

Maybe he’s fishing for the lake monster,” Jeff responded. “Hey, is it true you and Gil are going together?”

Gil was the older man in my life. A fourth-grader, to my second, and he’d asked me to go with him after the mandatory school square dance recital. Of course, in elementary school, going together didn’t mean much. We never touched, except in dance class, we never spent much time together. I think we sort of sat near each other at lunch. Whatever.

“Here,” Jeff opened a can of Mr. Pibb and handed it to me. It was still slightly cool. “See, it didn’t even explode. Told ya.”

I took a sip, just as Monica, who’d taken her shoes off and was dancing in and out of the water – even in the hottest part of summer, that reservoir was cold – shouted for us to join her. “Guys! Come here!! Look what I found!”

I took my soda with me as Jeff and I went to join her, looking down into the water, where she was pointing at gold sparkles on the rocks.

“What the-what the hey?” Jeff squatted down and pulled out a handful of the rocks. “It’s gold!” He said. “We’re gonna be rich!”

We immediately gathered as many of the glittery-gold rocks as our young hands could carry, stuffing our pockets and the baskets of our bikes. We ended up sharing my Mr. Pibb – all three of this – as we stared at our collection.

“Now what?” Monica asked.

“We go to the rock shop, and have Sidney tell us how much it’s worth. He sells gold nuggets. I bet he buys them, too,” Jeff said.

The ride back to town was longer and slower with our collection of rocks, but we didn’t mind. Jeff said he would use the money to hire a running coach – his older brother was a track star, and he wanted to be even better. Monica said she wanted the Barbie dreamhouse she’d been wishing for. Me? I didn’t know what to say. Admitting that all I wanted was books and games seemed wrong somehow.

But when we got to the rock shop, Sidney had bad news for us. Oh, he made a show of looking at each rock very carefully, but then he sat us at the table in the middle of his store, the one where the rock polisher was usually grumbling and burbling. “Bad news, kids. What you have isn’t gold. It’s mica?”

“Mica?” I asked.

“Some people call it ‘Fool’s Gold.’

“So, it’s not worth anything?” I asked. Well, one of us had to get all the information.

“‘Fraid not,” Sidney said. “But don’t feel bad. I have grown-ups bring this stuff in all the time. Why don’t you each choose a polished rock before you go, to remind you to keep exploring.”

We were disappointed, of course. I mean, we’d been millionaires for a whole hour and suddenly we were just normal kids again. Still, a free polished rock could not be turned down. “Thanks Sid,” Jeff said. “Thank you,” Monica added. “Thank you, Sidney,” I wrapped up.

We left his store with mostly empty pockets, and stood on the sidewalk, where our bikes were waiting, and the light was waning. “It’s getting late,” Monica said. “I should go.”

“Yeah, me, too,” I said. “Mom might let me put price-tags on stuff for extra money. You guys want to do something tomorrow?”

“We could go to the little park,” Jeff said. “I heard all the levels – ” He meant terraces but hadn’t yet learned that word – “are there to hide the fact that it’s an Indian burial ground.”

“Sure,” I said. “Maybe we’ll meet a ghost.”

Monica didn’t look thrilled by our idea. “I think I have to do stuff at home tomorrow,” she said. “I’ll let you know.”

But we knew she wouldn’t.

The three of us went in different directions. Jeff went down the dirt road that led to the neighborhood tucked into the edge of the woods. I’d ridden my bike down that road after twilight once and had been convinced the Headless Horseman was chasing me the whole way. Never mind that the Headless Horseman lived in New York, and not Colorado.

Monica went up the hill. Her family lived in a big old house, but it was creaky and leaning in places. I think the idea of hunting for ghosts didn’t appeal to her, because she lived with so many.  Visits to her house were hard because all they had to play with were half-complete board games, none of which were meant for only two people.

And I went back down the block, around the main square, and across the street to the building where my mother owned a store, and we lived in the apartment above it, but I knew better than to bring my bike in through the front. I locked it under the back stars behind the building, climbed up to the back entrance of our apartment, and walked through it, down the front stairs, and into the store.

Mom was finishing with a customer, but when they’d gone, she smiled at me. “You look tired and dirty,” she said. “What have you been up to today.”

“Out with Jeff and Monica,” I said. “We were seriously wandering and talking about stuff.”

Mom smiled. If she knew where our wanderings had taken us, she would not have been so pleasant.

“Go upstairs and clean up,” she said. “We’re driving to Idaho Springs tonight.”

“Idaho Springs? Why?”

“Because Floyd has the projector fixed and is doing the first weekend of Mad Movie Mayhem.”

“And we’re going? Really?”

“We’re going,” Mom said. “Really.”

I didn’t answer her. I just turned around and ran back upstairs to change. My dog greeted me at the door, and I brought her into my room with me. “Sorry we didn’t spend much time together today,” I told her as I ran my fingers through her curly white fur. The little park was within walking distance and had soft grass that was perfect for poodle paws. “But tomorrow is another day, and with any luck, you’ll get to come out with me then.”

Thoughts from the Bath

My usual Saturday evening ritual, at least in cool weather, is to soak in the tub while listening to Selected Shorts on NPR. (I know. I live a wild life.) I use the time to just relax, away from smartphones and computer screens. Sometimes one of the dogs will join me in the bathroom, splashed on the floor like a puddle of breathing fur, but most of the time the current pack all congregates on my bed, as if they’re guarding me from whatever might come through the bedroom and into my bathroom.

So far, their vigilance has paid off, and only my husband has ever come into the room. I’m sure they feel very smug about their track record.

Sometimes in the bath, I plot out the stories I’m working on.

Often, I read.

Last night, however, as I soaked in lavender-scented water and formed castles out of the mounds of bubbles, I let my mind wander and ended up with a stream-of-consciousness that was part life commentary and part idle musing.

It went something like this:

I really need a pedicure. It’s been over a month since I had my toenails done, and hey, this purple polish has pretty good staying power, but really, purple in December? I want to make that chocolate gingerbread again, the one we put the peppermint schnapps frosting on, and I can’t remember where I put the recipe. I just realized; it’s almost Christmas and I haven’t yet used my Christmas mugs. This weird warm weather is freaking me out. I’m so tired of mosquitoes. I promised Deb I’d shoot a picture of her book somewhere in my house. Is that a thing now? I didn’t ask any of my friends to take pictures with my book. Should I have done that. Oh, hey, that quantum relationship thing I wrote for Medium needs to be in the next book; everyone seemed to really like it. What day is tomorrow in MusicAdvent? Oh, right, it began on the first so tomorrow’s the 20th. What letter are we on? Oh, right T. We’re on T. T-t-t-t-t-t-t-t. Oh! that scene in Easy A just popped into my brain.

You get the idea.

Holidailies 2015

 

Buy this Book: The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales From The (Holiday) Tub

The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the (Holiday) Tub

File this under shameless self promotion.

I haven’t posted an entry here in two days, because I’ve been busy editing my book.

MY BOOK

I’ve been part of Holidailies for over a decade now (this is my eleventh year), and I’ve amassed quite a lot of holiday-related content, many of which were designated ‘best of…’ in their years of publication.

You could cull through all of my archives (a decade of archives) to find the best ones, but why, when you can buy my book?

Just in time for Christmas (or Hanukkah, Yule, Kwanzaa, whatever – it’s kind of Christmassy though, because that’s my winter holiday of choice) comes The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales From the (Holiday) Tub, and it’s available from Amazon either in paperback or for your kindle.

Here, have a very brief excerpt.

I used to walk my dog, a poodle mix named Taffy, through the packed powder in Georgetown, CO, and then flagrantly disobey my mother’s rules (and common sense), by taking her down near the frigid waters of Clear Creek, to the place behind the post office where the bank was climbable and the sandbars that were islands in the summer became mini-glaciers in the winter.

It was in the curve of that creek that my friends and I would spend hours pretending to be arctic explorers, while Taffy played the alternate parts of either a sled dog or a polar bear.

Afterwards, we’d trudge home (because trudging is really the only way you walk through snow), and I’d de-mat her paws, and we’d cuddle by the fire, while I drank cocoa with tiny marshmallows.

(Somewhat ironically, while people can get the paperback by Monday with Prime shipping, I won’t receive my author copies til after Christmas.)

Holidailies 2015

Never Let Your Bath Water Get Too Cold

Mermaid in Tub Every Saturday night, once the days are cool enough and the sky gets dark early enough, I have an appointment with my bathtub.

I light candles, use scented bubbles, bring a glass of tea, or wine, or just cool water and a book, and I soak for about forty minutes. A self-described bathtub mermaid, I feel like my entire spirit is quenched by my ritual bubble baths. (In summer, I’m in the pool almost every day.)

I don’t exactly bathe alone.

I have  standing date, you see, with NPR’s show Selected Shorts, in which actors from stage and screen read short stories. Because I prefer fiction to non-fiction, I actually like Selected Shorts better than The Moth, even though I’ve always kind of wanted to be part of a storytelling group.

My bath habit is more than just something I enjoy. It’s a form of meditation for me. It’s a way for me to recharge my creative juices at the same time that I’m letting a clay masque rejuvenate my skin. It’s the one place where I feel like time can stop and my brain, which is constantly spinning, can rest.

I’m really bad at sleeping, but I’m great at taking baths.

I’ve missed my Saturday date for two weeks in a row now. Thanksgiving weekend, we had a guest-puppy with explosive poo issues, and his crate was in my bathroom. Then we had ants for a week, a result of a lot of rain, and over this weekend I was ill (I’m still dealing with this stupid cold/sinus thing) and too miserable to even consider soaking in the tub.

I’ve resolved that this coming Saturday, I’m having my bubble bath no matter who is in my house or what is going on in the world.

After all, even bathtub mermaids their limits.

Holidailies 2015

Audio: The Bathtub Mermaid on Crayons

I climbed the stairs to my studio to record lines for an audio drama, and ended up working on a podcast as well.
Actually, first I recorded new opening and closing bits for my podcast so I finally have a general template for easy, easy production.
Then I riffed on crayons in a personal essay. I’m not sure what the exact schedule of the podcast is going to be, but probably around the first and fifteenth of every month. It works for me, I think to do it regularly, but not to the point of it being a stressful project.

Listen to On Crayons: http://www.bathtubmermaid.com/2015/09/tbm-1509-16-on-crayons/

It’s that time…

Mermaid Lounge It’s that time again. That time of year when I join the insanity known as The Dog Days of Podcasting, and commit to doing a podcast a day for thirty consecutive days.

This year’s project began on Tuesday (which, coincidentally, was my last day of The 100 Day Project), and continues through September 4th, and you can find my stuff at The Bathtub Mermaid, but I’m also in iTunes. (There should be an itunes link in the collection of social media icons in my sidebar.)

In previous years I’ve had oodles of essays and flash fiction to share, but I’ve been busy on other projects this year, so I’m mixing it up with interviews, creative non-fiction pieces written earlier this summer, and pieces inspired by the 100 notecards currently adorning the front and sides of my refrigerator.

The things is, my creativity always wanes in July, but my birthday is in August, and as soon as the calendar page flipped, I was inspired again.

So watch out – and listen to my Tales from the Tub – you might be pleasantly surprised.

Welcome Autumn

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.