I've been included in a Minnesota anthology "Under Purple Skies", now available on Amazon!

My second chapbook, "The Second Book of Pearl: The Cats" is now available as either a paper chapbook or as a downloadable item. See below for the Pay Pal link or click on its cover just to the right of the newest blog post to download to your Kindle, iPad, or Nook. Just $3.99 for inspired tales of gin, gambling addiction and inter-feline betrayal.

My first chapbook, I Was Raised to be A Lert is in its third printing and is available both via the PayPal link below and on smashwords! Order one? Download one? It's all for you, baby!

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Hold My Calls

I love a hot bubble bath.

It doesn’t have to be Cucumber Mandarin Monkey Lips from Bath and Bodyworks. The bubbles can be from a squirt of dish detergent and an egg beater.

My love of the hot bubble bath is not about the bubbles.

Forget about the bubbles. The bubbles are periphery.

It’s not even the bath. It’s not the bathroom or the tub or the towels or even, so help me, the hot water.

It is the combination of those things. The holy braid of hot water, bubbles, and a clean tub. The bath tub requires nothing of me but my presence. It’s not hard work, taking a bath; and I can do it like nobody’s business.

But mention “bath” to some people and they look at you as if you’ve suggested that they sit in a tepid tub of chicken broth.

Don’t get me wrong. I understand the shower. It has its place. When you’ve got dirty feet, when you’ve been sweating all day, when you’ve been at a particularly smoky bonfire, when you actually stink, then a shower is your best friend.

Trust me. I enjoy a good stink now and then – I mean, who doesn’t – and when I stink, I shower. But my lifestyle just doesn’t put me in the direct line of sight of a good funky stink very often.

But this isn’t about the shower, dagnab it! Forget the shower!

The bath. It’s about the bath. No one worries in a bathtub. No one gets bad news in a tub. Turn off the phone! Bring a book! Sit in the hot water, legs stretched out in front of you. Encourage a cat to balance on the edge of the tub, if only for the looks of suspicion that she’ll give your toes through the bubbles…

Scratch that. The cat is not the point.

The cat is periphery.

It’s the bubble bath. The bubble bath is the point.

And I feel the need to defend it.

38 comments:

Anonymous said...

I imagine my next hot bath to be in 16 years once The Boy is off to college. I do, however, take the occasional cold bath, but that's purely medical to reduce body temp when I'm sick or have a migraine.

Pearl said...

Joshua, we do a lot of that in MN in the summer, bring the temp down... Unless we're caught in outrageous thunderstorms. Then it's HOT bath. :-)

Anonymous said...

Sorry Pearl...I just can't share your love of the bath. Okay, when I was a kid and had boats and ducks and pouring tools at hand, yes, I loved a bath. Now...all I can see is the resulting bath tub ring. One needs to think...if I am sitting in the tub and the tub has a ring around it when I'm done, then, so do I. Just sayin' you know?

Silliyak said...

Pls compare and contrast with spa/hot tubs

vanilla said...

Stretching your legs out in front of you in a tub of hot water must be heavenly. But for some of us, our knees soar above the rim of the tub when we "stretch" our toes to the drain.
;-)

Pearl said...

Delores, there's a ring?! :-) Silly girl. You're not supposed to look at that!

Silliyak, :-) That made me laugh. Hot tubs? For me, a hot tub is an invitation to a fainting spell. And people who (can) drink in a hot tub? Invitation to a drunken fainting spell. The hot tub looks great, but none for me, sir. None for me.

Bossy Betty said...

No need to defend it. I am in one right now.

Pearl said...

Vanilla, I personally miss the days that I could lay down in a tub... One of my goals in life: giant, clawfooted tub...

Anonymous said...

I'm with mybabyjohn on this one. Besides, a shower is so quick and efficient. You take a shower, put on a robe, make a cup of tea and curl up in bed with a good read.

Besides, my cat always used to fall in.

Pearl said...

Bossy, loving the visual of bathtub commenters. ;-)

Pearl said...

haphazardlife, but what about the book?! Why won't anyone think of the book?! :-)

anon said...

I can't read by candle light Pearl, thats why there's no book : ) And fresh flowers! Right now I have an enormous bouquet of dark purple Gladiolas by the tub. I am not, however, commenting from the tub because my battery is shot and so I have to stay connected to a power source, which has serious potential for disaster written all over it.

Unknown said...

I have to confess, I'm addicted to hot showers; baths, not so much! But I like to skinny-dip.....does that count? I mentioned Dolly Squeakers in my post today.

Shelly said...

Nothing says luxury to me like a hot bath.
Shelly (La Tejana)

jenny_o said...

The people I know who share about this sort of thing, which is not many now that I think about it, seem to like one or the other but not both. Me, I can't get on board with baths. They are so fickle with their hot start and cold finish. Give me a nice shower any day (and no one suddenly turning on the taps in another part of the plumbing system, please! or else the temp argument is basically shot).

Almost Precious said...

In this crazy, hectic, fast paced world few people have time to even fix a bubble bath, let alone luxuriate in one. Me ? Yeah, I dig the bubbles and scented candles, soft jazz and maybe a glass of champagne ... well why not ? Bubbly on the outside, bubbly on the inside. :)

I think perhaps one of the reasons there are so many angry, agitated people in this world is that society in general just don't take enough hot, relaxing bubble baths.

Nancy/BLissed-Out Grandma said...

Yes, I like a good hot bath now and again. With bubbles and candles, if possible. When I was in college, I discovered that I could fill a plastic bowl with popcorn and it would float right in there with me. Talk about your decadent living!

Douglas said...

Here's my problem with baths... You lie in it and the dirt floats off your body and lays on the surface of the water (and in it). So you wash and scrub and then stand up laying all that dirt right back on your skin.

On the other hand, I do like hot tubs as long as they are not community ones where you can't go au naturel...

Anonymous said...

".....sit in a tepid tub of chicken broth."

Hmm...

Hmmmmmmmmmmm...

I can find nothing wrong with this.

Unknown said...

I miss my old bathtub: it was big enough to stretch out in.

Our present bathtubs require scrunching of limbs.

I ask you: how can one fully appreciate one's bath, all scrunched up?

Drake Sigar said...

I'm too big for a bathtub. :(

Beth M. Wood said...

The bath just needs to be thought of as a tool for relaxation, rather than a tool for cleanliness. Dirty? Shower. Then relax in your bubbly tub ; )

www.bethmwood.blogspot.com

Vinny C said...

SIGH! All I have is a shower.

kal said...

You tell 'em sister! I too enjoy a nice tub. The bubbles give me the sensation of relaxing in a big puffy cloud. And yes that IS lavander body wash and I did purchase it myself. Plus who would save that submarine and those frogmen when the dreaded Tub Octopus comes by which he seems to do whenever I get bored with the bubbles.

Notes From ABroad said...

I am right there with you on this one !
We were so so very fortunate to find an apt where the bathtub allows me to swim laps if I so wish.
Or just sink and drown because it is deeeep.
I like a hot soak in winter with candles and bubbles but even better, on a hot humid summer night, I love soaking until the bubbles all die, the water gets cold and I am all shriveled. Then I slide into bed all wrinkly and squeaky clean and sleep like a baby.
There is nothing like a soak in a bathtub.
( I used to buy LUSH products and their Bath melts were out of this world. .. of course, I now live on another planet where there is no LUSH)

KaLynn ("MiMi") said...

I soooo understand! When my kids were growing up they knew if the bathroom door was closed and I was on the other side, DO NOT DISTURB. If they got the nerve up and DISTURBED someone had better be bleeding or they would be once I opened that door. That was my get away from the world time. Still is.

Now I have to teach the dogs to not scratch on the door while I'm relaxing.......

Gigi said...

Oh Pearl - just another reason that I love you so - I can spend FOREVER in the bath with a glass of wine, a good book and the iPod playing in the background!

Elephant's Child said...

Warm bath (I can't do hot), bubbles, a book and a glass of bubblie. Bliss. I am with you all the way on this one.

Cheeseboy said...

I'd like a good bubble bath too, but that would involve actually cleaning my bathtub.

Kavi said...

But why ? Why do you need to defend it !?! It reigns. Doesnt it?!

:)

Dawn@Lighten Up! said...

Bubble Baths. I remember them. I had one once, in 1997. Before my daughter was born.

Rawknrobyn.blogspot.com said...

I couldn't agree more. I only take showers when there's no bathtub at my access. Smelly is okay with me. Going without my daily bath is not.
xoRobyn

Belle said...

I love baths too. I used to use them as an excuse to get away from my kids for an hour when hubby was home. Now I just like to soak my old body.

Glen said...

Anyone who can use the phrase - "dagnab it" deserves a nice bath - enjoy!

River said...

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE a hot bubble bath!!
Can't have them though because the pain in my neck makes lying back difficult, plus getting out of the slippery tub isn't easy for me anymore. There's no grab rails here.
Soon however, I won't have to worry about that anymore. I'm moving to a tiny flat with no tub, just a shower.

raydenzel1 said...

why when I think of a bubble bath, I think of really bad 70's music and and bad lighting?

Hospitable Scots Bachelor said...

Defend it???????? I didn't know it was under threat!

Pat said...

It's great if you are chilled to the marrow, depressed and at a loss. It's back to the womb.