Month: May 2025

But I digress, to mourn Peter David.

Last weekend, Peter David, a writer of “stuff” – comic books, TV shows, novels, and such – passed away. He was only 68, which in the United States is around retirement age (unless you’re in Congress). Since I saw the news, I’ve been reflecting on the unusual impact Peter David had on my fandom. Picture a geeky butterfly flapping its wings somewhere.

In grad school, a friend and I decided to drive up to Orlando for MegaCon, which was primarily a comic book convention at the time. He wanted to hear Peter David speak; being a Babylon 5 (B5) fan, I wanted to hear J. Michael Straczynski. They were scheduled back-to-back, so we sat down for both. I came out of Peter David’s talk with an awareness that he had written some B5 episodes, a book called Howling Mad, and some funny “But I Digress” columns about Star Wars. I was working in Interlibrary Loan on campus at the time and set some challenges for my co-worker when I asked her to find those for me. (I have since acquired my own copy of Howling Mad.) I followed with my own research into Peter David and discovered that he was listed as a guest at DragonCon that summer.

If you recall my past discussion of DragonCon, it was my first exposure to Out of the Box Publishing and John Kovalic’s work (actually the 2nd year I attended). A few years later, that familiarity with both John and Out of the Box Publishing saw me hanging out at their GenCon booth playing Shipwrecked with a couple who were involved in the now-defunct Chicago Gamers Conclave, a Thanksgiving weekend gaming convention. Attending that convention brought Capricon to my attention, along with a reintroduction to some gamers I had met at Wizard World over a year before, and an invitation to a tabletop role-playing group, where I met my ex-husband.

The ripple effects of that geeky butterfly include exposure to John Kovalic’s work and as a result, my subsequent involvement in Dorkstock; meeting the father of my favorite human child (don’t worry, she knows she ranks above the cats too); and my introduction to Chicago’s fan-run conventions (one of which I co-chaired this year). That’s a pretty big impact for listening to a guy talk about Skippy, the Jedi droid; the “Bear”bylon 5 incident, and a wolf that got bitten by a werewolf.

Do you ever wonder what your ripple effects are?

Puerto de la Cruz: Accommodations

Continuing our adventures from sitting through a timeshare talk in January, we explored the available locations from the RCI resort directory for an 8-day/7-night stay and decided to visit Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands. And by “we,” I mean that Cassandra did all of the research and I booked the flights. Yay for a live-in travel planner! (The Margaritaville cruise we took in March was also a reward for attending the talk. If you’re counting, that’s 3 nights in Virginia, a 2-night cruise, and 7 nights in Tenerife in exchange for our attendance.)

Having selected the Canary Islands as our destination, and narrowed it down to Tenerife (the largest of the Canary Islands), selecting which of the available resorts to stay at was probably the easy part – Club Casablanca (as named on the RCI website) or Apartamentos Casablanca (as noted on local signage) is in easy walking or transit distance of many attractions on the north end of the island, including Loro Parque, a world-famous zoo.

  • Looking across the street from our apartment's balcony, there are palm trees lining the street in front of 2- and 3-story buildings, with taller buildings, more trees, and ocean in the background.
  • Looking up the hill from our apartment's balcony, there are cars and trees lining the street. A tall building slightly up the hill is a hotel, with a shorter club or restaurant section nearer to our balcony. We never went in, but we could hear live music almost every night and see people enjoying themselves.
  • Looking down the hill from our balcony, there's an water playground at the neighboring hotel that was under construction during our stay. The angle of the photo hides how steep the road becomes just around the curve as pedestrians choose between the longer winding path or a long set of stairs towards the ocean.
  • A nighttime view of the main pool (there's also a small child pool) at the Apartamentos Casablanca, with lounge chairs and umbrellas for use during the day. The pool area includes several trees and is enclosed by the various buildings that make up the resort.

We had an amazing time at the Apartamentos Casablanca, from the smooth check-in process through our departure a week later. No, I take that back, it began when I e-mailed about extending our stay by arriving one day earlier, asking for pricing. We received a reply within a day, and the cost of the extra night was less than the airfare savings that prompted the request. Every staff member was friendly, and everyone whose responsibilities included regular interactions with guests was at least bilingual – probably more, given that signage around town was usually in English, Spanish, and German, with some restaurants featuring additional (usually European) languages.

The resort buildings essentially filled a city block, enclosing the restaurant, patio, and pool area. (The outside-facing ground floor had businesses around half the block.) The pool photo I shared above was the only one I could take in nice weather without people; there were almost always people at the pool when it was open, even if the weather was a bit chilly by my standards on several days. (Yes, low 60s is chilly for the pool. Yes, I checked my temperature blanket spreadsheet to see what the highs were while we were there.) There’s a game room (pool, air hockey, ping pong, an arcade game, and a play area for younger kids) and laundry room (coin-operated – the front desk will make change) open through late evening hours.

Our apartment had a balcony facing the street, which meant we could see the ocean and hear the nightly live music from the hotel across the street. The restaurant at our hotel also featured nightly live music, which we mostly heard in passing as we headed to our room, though we made a point of attending a flamenco performance one evening. We had a small kitchen, so ate breakfast in the apartment most days, usually eating lunch and dinner elsewhere – there were plenty of good options in walking distance. (That’s a later post!)

We would be delighted to stay at the Apartamentos Casablanca if we’re in Puerto de la Cruz again. That said, there are areas to explore in the northeast and south sides of the islands as well, and points of interest on the other islands. Hopefully we’ll have future opportunities for adventures in the Canary Islands.

Not surprisingly, I’m tired.

Near the end of April, we flew to Tenerife North Airport in the Canary Islands, spending just over a week at a resort in Puerto de la Cruz. It was fabulous and I have some lovely photos to share here… but not today.

The day after we returned, we had ten yards of mulch delivered shortly before we left to see Cats. On principle, I immediately grabbed a couple buckets, so I could say I had started it on it the same day it arrived. One of our neighbors immediately popped out to offer a loan of his wheelbarrow, because our neighbors are awesome that way. I assured him I had one, and sure enough, by the time he stepped out for his newspaper the next morning, I had made a significant dent in the pile using our garden cart. By the following Sunday – Mother’s Day in the United States – the pile was down to about half of its original size.

The remainder of the 10 yards of mulch that was delivered - slightly over half of it is left.

And that’s about where it’s still at today. We spent a good chunk of Mother’s Day helping out in someone else’s garden – enough that even with sunscreen and a hat, my face was a bit pink in a photo taken the following evening. The fact that I wasn’t near home for that photo added to my tiredness – I flew out Monday morning to attend a conference in Washington, DC, and flew back Wednesday afternoon. Alas, there was no time to be a tourist on this trip, unlike last year’s visit for the same conference, and the conference was just as full an experience as it was last year, ranging from breakfast hours to team dinners.

I took this morning “off” to recover – which really just means I didn’t launch straight into early morning mulching again, opting instead to deal with unpacking and laundry. And since my weather app says it’s 94 degrees Fahrenheit outside (the forecast was for 88 with some rain, and it hasn’t rained), I will certainly not be moving mulch this evening. Especially since I am still, not surprisingly, tired.

The Paramount Theatre presents Cats: Le Cirque du Chat

I was surprised when the Paramount Theatre announced that Cats was in this Broadway season; Cats was part of the first Paramount season we subscribed to (2014-15?), and we’ve been season ticket holders since then. In fact, it was the first show of the season and the smoke effects set off the fire alarm that fall afternoon. The decision made more sense once they announced that it was a different interpretation – the classic music from Cats combined with a Cirque du Soleil style presentation created “Le Cirque du Chat.”

Cats playbill image, featuring the silhouette of a person with cat ears and a tail balanced in an acrobatic pose on a ring hanging above many other cat shapes and the word "Cats"

Your typical Cats performers are already more flexible than the average person, with assorted flips and balancing acts across the stage stretching the imagination as to the trouble cats can get into. Le Cirque du Chat adds gravity-defying acrobatics to the mix, with various characters twisting precariously above the stage, sometimes cavorting in pairs in displays of both trust and skill.

This is, of course, in addition to the singing and dancing on the stage; it is, after all, a Broadway show. As always, the Paramount shines in their selection of talented cast members; this would have been a fabulous show even without the circus re-imagining. If you have the opportunity, I highly recommend seeing this distinctive rendition of Cats at the Paramount.

Melting! Melting! It’s *how* old?

There was, alas, a casualty from the power outage I mentioned last week. The following Monday, we realized that the large freezer in the garage, which came with the house, was clearing experiencing a meltdown. Not a minor one of the “oops, I left the door cracked open” variety which causes a build-up of ice… the previous build up (from one of those incidents) was clearly melting over the entire contents of the freezer.

An inside view of a large freezer with one shelf encased in ice

At a pause in the mad scramble to squish the contents of a larger freezer into a smaller – and not empty – one, I paused to Google the freezer model, on the off chance that it might be reparable. I haven’t located the serial number, so I don’t know the exact age… according to the search results, the Sears Coldspot freezer model was replaced by Kenmore in 1976.

Needless to say, I was flabbergasted, and have progressed from wondering at its sudden demise to appreciating the quality and extended lifespan of this freezer. We will certainly miss it.