Our Train Trip to KC - Part 1

DC to Chicago – 2^nd Day, Tuesday

At last it was light out, and we got up and went for breakfast. We had just ordered our food when the attendant told us there was a problem with our train connection in NY, and we needed to call Guest Services to see what changes were being made in our plans, and it couldn’t wait, because we were only ½ hour away from DC, which was the possible place we could change trains. So I sat there, calling Guest Services. First the line was busy, then I was on hold. Time was ticking by. The attendant came back and said the conductor had called for us, and we were to get off at DC, which was now 20 minutes away.

We forgot about breakfast and hurried back to our room to gather our stuff. The attendant was very helpful in helping us get our stuff off the train and onto the platform. She even took our claim check to the baggage car and got our 1 piece of checked luggage so it would travel to NY without us.

Not knowing what else to do, I left Hubby on the platform with all our luggage while I went off to find the ticket counter to ask for help. The ticket people gave me new tickets for the rest of our trip, and one took me to show me where the lounge was at. Apparently, since we had sleeper accommodations, we were entitled to use the lounge! Furthermore, we had gotten an upgrade for the next leg of our journey and would have a bedroom rather than a roomette.

As he was about to leave me, I asked him for help in rescuing Hubby, who was still down on the platform with too much luggage for both of us to carry, let alone him. He asked another employee for help, and that employee, whose radio was chattering away at him, said yes, there was a Red Cap helping him get to the lounge. I thanked them and wandered back toward the gate I had come from, expecting to see them somewhere on the way. I didn’t find them, but my phone rang. Hubby was wondering where I was, he was at the lounge.

I went to the lounge.

I saw him as soon as I entered, and all our luggage was in the temporary storage room. The lounge attendant could have printed our new tickets for us, but couldn’t check luggage, so I took Hubby carryon and went back to the ticket counter to get it checked in.

It was not quite 9. Our train wouldn’t leave until 4.

The DC station was huge; multi-leveled, with lots of hallways, doorways to the outside, stores galore and signs all over the place. I was glad to get back to the peaceful oasis of the lounge, where we could have our pick of coffee or soft drinks and a variety of snacks. It wasn’t breakfast, but it helped soothe our jangled nerves. Hubby pulled out the laptop and worked on his WiP until about 2. I worked in my notebook until he got done with the laptop, then I switched and started working on a short story I had barely begun.

We did leave the lounge once, about lunchtime, to go to the food court in search of ‘real fool’. All that was available was fast food, so we each picked something and went back to the lounge to eat.

We had been told to be in the lounge at 3:00 to be ready to catch our train. I packed up the laptop and put it back in our luggage about 2:45. At 3:00, they announced there was a problem with the displays, they weren’t updating as needed, but the lounge employees and the red caps could see the correct times, and they would get us to our trains on time.

About 3:30, a red cap came looking for my party of 2. He helped us get our luggage out to his golf cart and zipped us out to our train. We were in a 2-level car, so we had to climb a tiny square staircase. The train’s attendant helped get our stuff upstairs and to our room. It was at least twice as big as our roomette had been, with a couch along one side, and a bathroom, sink and chair on the other. We put our carryon bag on a shelf above the single chair, piled the boxes and cpaps on the sofa, and we both got to sit near the window.

Soon the attendant arrived to take our orders for supper. There was no dining car, only a café car, so their choices of food were limited, and everything was microwaved. (Okay, I suppose the bread, salad and drinks were not.) What I had wasn’t great food, but it was edible. And it came with a complimentary alcoholic drink. (Try getting complimentary drinks on an airline!)

We ate at 5:45, and it was dark by the time we got done. Hubby had finished his word count for the day and he hadn’t brought anything to read, so he decided it was time to turn in! After all, we had to get up by 6 to get breakfast before he hit Chicago. We had the attendant make up the bottom bed, which we’d been told could hold 2 people ‘snugly’, and place all our boxes on the upper bunk.

Okay, we tried, but after 40 years of sharing a CA King bed, we couldn’t make a not-quite-full bed work for us. After a couple hours, I climbed out and told Hubby I would sleep in the chair. I’ve slept sitting up many times and didn’t think it would be a problem. It was.

 

Our Train Trip to KC - Part 1

Day 1 – Orlando to New York

For a change of pace, we decided to take a train trip. Why? Well, a cruise ship would not get from Orlando (inland) to KC (even further inland). The trip was to meet our latest grandchild. We didn’t want to sit for hours in a brew of germ soup before we met her, so we didn’t want to fly. Ditto for a bus. We thought about driving, but didn’t look forward to it, what with stopping every hour for a restroom break, finding a motel every evening, and the big cities with their maniac traffic.

So I took a look at railroads. I wanted some kind of room for us, so we could cut back on the # of germs we’d face and have a place to lay down and sleep. So I asked for a roomette for the two of us. It seemed a little expensive, but maybe not, if you considered that not only were they transporting us and our luggage, but feeding us and providing lodging as well. We decided to do it, just so we could say, “Yes, we’ve ridden a train, and we remember doing it.”

The day came for us to start our journey. The dishes were in the dishwasher, getting cleaned. Everything was packed. The taxi was on its way to get us. The Amtrak station was in a part of Orlando we didn’t know, and it didn’t have any long-term parking there, so I had hired a taxi to take us there.

The taxi driver was surprised at the amount of luggage we had; 2 carryon suitcases, 2 mixer sets and a juicer still in their boxes (Christmas gifts), and 2 cpaps, but we got them all in his car, and got us to the station about ½ hour before I thought he would.

It was a nice almost-winter day in Orlando. The sky was deeply overcast, a soft breeze blew, and the temperature was in the low to middle 70s. We got Hubby settled on a bench on the platform, the luggage piled around him, and I went inside to the ticket window to ask questions.

That was when I got the news; they could not accept the boxed kitchen equipment as checked luggage. Even though I had called and asked if I could substitute Christmas gifts for some of my checked luggage, and was told yes, this guy said they did not accept boxes as checked luggage. So we put our heads together to figure out how to get everything to our destination with us. The solution was to pick one of the carry-ons, take out our medications, and take the bag to be checked luggage. Everything else had to be carried onto the train by us and stored in our roomette.

Our roomette was smaller than we had imagined. If you see some youtuber on traveling on trains and their ‘roomette’ has a tiny bathroom in it, that’s not what we got. Our train had that type of room, but our room was even smaller: Two seats facing each other, a small sink beside one seat and a trash can beside the other. There was a cubby hole way up at ceiling level that could be used to store some luggage. Hubby managed to shove the carry-on bag and 1 cpap in there, but it was hard to reach, and none of the boxes would fit in it.

The train left the station at 1:36 PM. We were informed we could go to the dining car at 2 and have lunch. We had purchased a quick bite at the hot dog stand at the train station; we hadn’t thought we’d get any lunch otherwise. But lunch sounded good, so at 2 pm, we lurched our way to the dining car. (Those movies that show people nonchalantly walking down train hallways and confidently stepping from car to car don’t take into account the swaying and jolting that an actual train does.) As we plopped down in a booth, I told Hubby I didn’t have my sea legs. He replied that the sea doesn’t usually toss you around this much.

Later, as we sat in our roomette entertaining ourselves, we asked each other how we liked the train ride so far. Despite the snafu with the luggage, I thought that getting ourselves to the mode of transportation was far less intense than getting through the airport. And despite having luggage piled up around us, the seats are bigger and more comfortable on an airplane. It had gotten dark, and we were still traveling (we would have stopped by then if we were driving). And it’s not as far a walk to the dining car as it was to the dining room on our last cruise.

I think I like it.

 

After a supper that Hubby said was at least as good as, if not better than, cruise ship meals, we had the attendant make our roomette into a pair of bunk beds. The steps to get onto the top bunk were at least 2 steps tall, maybe more, but I eventually got up there.

 

It was, I think, the longest night I’ve ever experienced. The train was rocking, which I thought would help me fall asleep. Instead, it kept me awake as I feared rolling off the bed, despite the safety harness intended to keep me in the bed. I clutched the safety harness for reassurance and finally fell asleep, but I woke up so often, it must have been a light sleep.

 

The Dr Who Cruise Part 7

Saturday, 10/28 – Day at Sea

We didn’t have any reason to get up, so we didn’t set an alarm, and got up when we woke up, which turned out to be about 8 AM. We went to the Main Dining room for breakfast, where Hubby was able to get Eggs Benedict, which he couldn’t get in the buffet. After hanging around our cabin until 11:30, we went to deck 5 to refill our beverage cups with soda at the pizza place. Then we went to the deck 3 Main Dining room for lunch.

After lunch, we watched a little tv in our cabin, then decided to go to the hot tub. Once I got into a swimsuit, Hubby confirmed that I had a bruise along my upper back/lower neck. Left-overs from the massage I’d gotten two days earlier. We found room in an infinity-view hot tub in the Solarium, a section that is for adults only. I tried to get my bruises submerged in the water as much as possible, but I had to hang on and squat, and the movement of the water tended to move me this way and that. The water was agreeably hot, and after about 25 minutes, I decided I was done.

While I was getting out of the tub, I noticed a man come into the Solarium with his daughter in a stroller. He paused right in front of the sign saying guests 18+ were welcome to rearrange the towels in the stroller so that his daughter would nap. Then a woman came in with her toddler son and stopped to stare at that sign. She turned to me and asked, “This is for kids, right?” I told her it wasn’t, and she turned around and left. The man with the stroller was still there, and later, as Hubby and I walked to the other side of the Solarium in search of towels, the man came pushing his stroller among all the adults as if his daughter belonged there. Some people just don’t believe the rules apply to them.

Then we went back to our cabin and packed as much as we could. As usual, we decided to carry them out ourselves, so we could toss the last few items in in the morning. Hubby decided to go walking, and I decided to catch up with my writing. (Blogs don’t write themselves, and neither do Works in Progress.)

After a while, Hubby returned with two photos. One he had bought from the couple who had organized the semi-group photo the night before, and a copy of the official group photo from D, which was part of our membership. He told me he had been told that they had had the readings and autograph sessions at 3 PM, and nobody had known how to get hold of us to tell us, because D didn’t know our cabin number. This was usually held after dinner on the last night, not the middle of the afternoon, but the last day wasn’t usually a day at sea. So we missed that activity and were saddened, but we had the photos.

We took the photos with us to dinner, and Hubby borrowed a sharpie from Jon (monster) and flitted from table to table getting autographs. In fact, two or three of the monsters approached him to give him autographed photos that they had prepared for us. We came back to the cabin with more photos than we had taken, which left us feeling happier. Eventually, D will edit all the video and audio he took during the cruise into a CD, and we will get a copy of that CD as part of our membership. That will include the reading of the stories/scripts, so eventually, we’ll get to hear those, too.

So we set the alarm to get us up to get off the ship and turned in.

The Dr Who Cruise Part 6

Friday, October 27 – Mexico

The alarm got us up at 6 AM. We crawled out of bed and got to the buffet for breakfast by 6:30. After eating, we slogged back to our cabin for bottles of water for the excursion. We each confessed that we were tired, and debated if we should even go on a 4-hour walking tour of Mayan Ruins. So we went down to the ship’s conference center, where the group was meeting, to tell D we wouldn’t make it to the ruins. Then another elevator ride up to our cabin, where I fell into bed.

About 2 hours later, I woke up and climbed out of bed. Again. We had about an hour before lunch would be served in the buffet, so we went to the card room, where I wrote. Hubby was done with his DW script and had turned it over to D on the only thumb drive he had brought with him, so he didn’t feel he could write. He tried to play solitaire on the laptop but got frustrated when it didn’t react as quickly as he thought it should. He took the laptop back to our cabin and walked until lunch time.

We were joined in the buffet by 2 other DW people, so we had conversation during lunch. Back in our room, we watched “Night at the Museum” (#1) to pass some time before we needed to head for the Music Hall, where Dominic would give a musical recital at 3:30. Dominic is a composer who has worked with the DW show.

We left our cabin about 2:50 and went to deck 8 to stroll through Central Park, which took us right to the Music Hall. We got there about 3 PM. The hall wasn’t open yet. We talked with a couple other early-birds for maybe 10 minutes, then Hubby wandered off into Central Park. I followed him until I found a table where I could sit and continue writing. It wasn’t long before Hubby returned with a couple desserts, which we devoured at my little table. Then back to the Music Hall, where we could now get in and choose our seats.

Hubby picked seats located in front of a small stage set to the left of the main stage. D asked us to move because the small stage was where Dominick was going to be. So we moved to seats at the bar, about 3 feet from where we had been sitting.

The music started at 3:30 and continued until 4:33 or thereabouts. It was great fun, a composition based on DW music. After it was over, we all had to beat feet to the Aqua Theater on deck 6, so the photographer could get our group photo taken. After that, I stopped at the candy shop to buy some jelly beans, and then we returned to our cabin, where I convinced Hubby to lay down for a nap.

About 7, we headed for the social hour at the chosen bar. We traveled aft via deck 5, where we found several members of the DW group waiting to get a group photo, so we joined them. After the photo, we went to the floating bar, which periodically rises very slowly to deck 8. By the time we got off on 8, it was after 7:30, so Hubby and I took an elevator back to deck 5 and joined the crowd collecting in front of the doors for the Main Dining Room. At 7:40, those doors opened, and for once, we were not the last ones to our table.

The Dining Room was offering lobster tails. I think everybody at our table ordered one. Some—like me—also ordered a 2^nd main dish. The lobster tails were served, and several of them were then handed off to people who had ordered one, but wanted a second. (The ship was charging for a second lobster tail, but not for other second main courses.) So, for 20-30 minutes, I sat with a lobster tail in front of me as a favor for my husband. I was hungry, so I ate the carrots and broccoli, which I wasn’t sure he would eat anyway. When Hubby finally finished his first tail, we were exchanging plates when the waiter grabbed the empty plate and whisked it away, then brought my actual main course. It was cheese tortellini, and I enjoyed it a lot. I hope Hubby enjoyed his lobster tails as well.

The Dr Who cruise - Part 5

October 26, Thursday – Roatan

We got up at 7 with no shore excursion to do. Hubby did have a 9 AM appointment with 2 other fan writers to collaborate on a short story. The DW guests would do a table reading of the freshly written stories on the last evening of the cruise. Since he had that appointment, he opted to go to the buffet for breakfast. I wanted to go to the Main Dining Room. I like the Main Dining Room for breakfast and lunch because it’s less noisy, less confusing and less hurried than the buffet.

After breakfast, I went to the card room to do some writing. This would give the steward a chance to clean our cabin.

We had appointments at the spa for a couples massage. We arrived almost ½ hour early and had paperwork to fill out. For some reason, when it was time for our massages, they decided it was too soon after his stent was put, and they could not do a massage on him. Who knew one would effect the other? So I was the only one to get a massage after all. I knew I’d been dealing with a lot of stress, but she was really working my muscles hard! Afterwards, she told me my leg muscles were as hard as a wall. A few hours later, I realized my calves were sore, and my upper back/lower neck felt bruised. (Hubby confirmed that I was bruised there.)

Hubby came back after my massage, and the two of us went to the buffet for lunch. Then we went back to our cabin to write, but Hubby seemed restless and kept going off to walk about. One time when he came back, he brought the 2 women from Australia who were the rest of his writing team. He had made a change to their script and wanted to get their opinions on it.

The two ladies had found themselves with nothing to do for the afternoon. D had told them to just take a taxi to the dolphin experience, and everybody would meet there. They went to the taxi stand, but couldn’t get a good deal, so they just came back aboard. We had a nice chat, they approved the change to the script, and then they gave him their email addresses so he could send them a copy of the script once he got home.

About 7, Hubby told me to go down to the Schooner Bar and he’d catch up with me. I said I would first go to the pizza place to fill my tumbler with pop so I’d have something to drink at the bar, and he said okay. With such a large group, we very nearly took up all the seats at the bar, so I sat down with the first batch of DW people I saw, thinking I would see Hub when he arrived. A short time later, Tim came by and told me Hubby was farther into the bar, holding a chair for me. So I went to join him, but if he was ‘following’ me, how did he get ahead of me? Why didn’t he call to me when he saw me come in? Is it any wonder we lose each other?

We went to dinner, and the guest at our table tonight was a companion of the Troughton DW way back in the late 60s. Unexpectedly, another table complained that there were too many people at their table, and not everyone could sit down. So D went over to see what was going on, and even though he had already been at our table once, Ross came over to join our table. Double fun! And there was no soup drama tonight, although the servers did break out into a dance. And those diners who were so inclined joined in.

Others at our table were going mini-golfing after dinner, while others were going bar hopping. But our group shore excursion the next day started at 7:30 AM, so we went to our cabin and to bed.

The Dr Who Cruise Part 4

Oct 25, Wednesday, - Cozumel, Mexico

We got up at 7 and had breakfast in the buffet. We had a shore excursion to learn about Mexico’s Day of the Dead. We needed to be on the shore by 8:45 at Station 4. Just before we left the ship, Hubby realized that he had left the camera in the cabin and ran back to get it. Sensory overload hit me as I reached the end of the dock and tried to find the sign for Station 4. I finally found it, hiding behind Station 5, which was hiding behind Station 6. Oberto was our guide, and he had paperwork for me to fill out. I found a table and chairs in the shade and started filling out the paperwork. Hubby showed up, so I started filling out the paperwork for him, and showed him where to sign in.

At 9AM, Oberto gathered us all together and walked us out of the crowded business section to a place where buses and taxis were waiting. He divided us into 4 different groups and put each group into a taxi van. The taxis drove us to Playa Mia, about 10 minutes from the terminal.

At Playa Mia, there was a tour put together by a cacao company, and that was what we were there for. We walked along a wandering path through a small patch of jungle. Along the way, we were shown a ‘typical Mayan hut’ and given a tiny tostada with a daub of filling as our first taste test. We were shown examples of the various spice plants they add to their cocoa drink and given a small wooden spoon with some cacao candy on it for our 2^nd taste test.

 After that, we climbed to the 2^nd floor of the cacao shop and were given a few minutes to decorate an altar for the Day of the Dead. Then we got to cross a bridge to the 2^nd story of the next building. They handed out small wooden skull faces that we could color using sharpies. And when we finished that, they had more things to taste; enchiladas, toquitos, a deep purple water made by boiling a certain type of flower, regular water, and some Mayan cocoa. The food was okay, and I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about spicy cocoa made with water and not milk, but I tried it, and it was good.

We were given 20 minutes to shop in the various stores, and there were several in the area. Hubby went down the street far enough to find 2 swimming pools and the shoreline. Then we were put back in taxis and sent back to the terminal

Sensory overload again as we made our way through the first building and its myriad shops. When we came out into the sunlight, I asked Hubby where he wanted to go, and he said ‘to the ship’. I said, “Come on, it’s this way,” and he said, “Go ahead, I’ll catch up.” I thought he wanted to find a bathroom, so I walked forward about a short block, and then waited for him to ‘catch up.’ I must have waited at least half an hour before I decided he was a grown man and the location of the ship was obvious, so I made my way to the dock and walked most of the way to the ship, then paused to sit on a bench and rest for a moment. And that’s where he found me. He was angry that I’d ‘gotten lost’ when he had OBVIOUSLY told me to go ‘back to the ship’. Not the way I remembered it at all.

Having found each other, we went to our cabin for our special tumblers, and then went to the buffet to hydrate and eat some lunch. That’s where we found A, another DW cruiser, so we sat and talked for a while.

Afterwards, we went to our cabin and worked on our stories for the afternoon. I laid down for an hour nap, and Hubby got up and went walk-about a couple times. He’s not one to stay sitting for long periods at a time. I also took a quick shower to wash away the sweat from our shore excursion, but by the time the ship pulled anchor and left Cozumel, I was deep into my writing.

When I decided to go to the group’s social hour, the boat was rocking. I felt like I had lost my sea legs. This was a bit alarming because I ‘lose my balance’ entirely too often, even on dry land. But I got to the Schooner Bar safely and found a seat on the fringe of our big group.

Before long, it was time to go to dinner. We had 2 go down 1 deck, and the elevators were mobbed, so we walked down the stairs, some of us gripping the banister as if our lives depended on it. When we got to our table, we found that Tim and George were the ‘monster’ guests for our table tonight. Tim is very outgoing and lots of fun. George has worked with Tim on lots of DW episodes, but this was his first time on the DW cruise. He seemed to be warming up to the group’s off-beat camaraderie.

We did have a touch of drama during our meal. Apparently, a server somehow dropped a bowl of soup. Some of the soup bounced as high as the ceiling, other splatters landed on 3 of the diners at our table. Hubby had a couple drops land on him. The lady next to him went through two cloth napkins wiping off splatters that hit her. Tim got so much soup on his shirt that he went back to his cabin to get a fresh shirt. Many jokes were made about the incident.

Several members of the table decided to go do the onboard zipline. I don’t know if they got their nighttime zipping done; the ship may have been swaying too much for that activity to be available. If not, they were looking forward to barhopping after that, so I’m sure they had lots of fun. Hubby and I didn’t have a beverage package that included alcohol, so we went back to our cabin to write, but that didn’t last long before we started yawning and decided to go to bed.

The Dr Who Cruise Part 3

Tuesday, Oct 24 – a Day at Sea

This was a day at sea, and we were supposed to sleep in, because all the breakfast venues opened an hour later than usual. We got up at 7 and went to the Main Dining Room for breakfast, only to find they weren’t open yet. So we grabbed an elevator to the 15^th deck, where the buffet was open.

Half an hour later, we headed back to our cabin, and at 9:30, Hubby headed for the conference center for a 10 AM meeting with his writing team.

About an hour later, I went down to see how they were doing. D, the organizer of the cruise, was there and was listing the days and times that he had activities planned. Lo and behold, some of the actors who usually get cast as monsters in DW were giving a presentation at 4 PM THAT DAY on their work, complete with photos, videos and props. I made sure of the presentation time when the meeting broke up, and then Hubby and I went to the card room (there was no library aboard the Wonder) to do some writing.

Around noon we went to the Main Dining Room for lunch, then back to our cabin to relax. We considered going to the hot tub, but opted to stay in our room and write.

At 3:30, we started for the conference center, which should have been an elevator ride straight down 7 decks, but we decided to walk to the aft (back) of the ship to check out a venue on deck 12 we hadn’t seen yet. It turned out to be an expensive restaurant with ‘imaginative cuisine’. So now we knew.

While we were waiting for an elevator, we met up with D (our cruise organizer), who started telling us about some of the hassles of having such a large group. Then we realized we were aft, and the conference center was forward, so we had to beat feet to get there.

The ‘monster review’ was 2 hours long and great fun. Ross, Tim and Jon had photos and videos of various roles they had played, and not only in Dr Who. The photos included them in the make-up chair, usually getting lots of prosthetics put on. The videos included such things as a group of monster actors practicing walking in unison, in whatever strange style had been worked out for them. Tim even brought a mask that fit over his head, and the hands that went with it for one of his monsters.

Before we knew it, it was 6 PM, and since this was a formal night for dining, we needed to return to our cabins and change. I had brought a dress to wear for formal nights, and a pair of heels, two things I hardly ever wear. Halfway to the aft of the ship, I remembered why I hardly ever wear heels; my knees were complaining, my hips weren’t happy, my ankles felt weak and uncertain, and my feet were screaming in pain. I decided right then that on the walk back to our cabin, I would take off the heels and walk in my stocking feet. Unfortunately, when we headed back to our room, we walked through the Promenade deck, which was very crowded. I didn’t dare take off my shoes until we reached deck 10 and the relative emptiness of cabin area hallways.

The Dr Who Cruise Part 2

Monday, Oct 23 – A Day at Cocoa Key.

 

We got up at 7 and went to the buffet for breakfast. The ship had docked at Cocoa Key, but hadn’t given out any newsletters to tell us what to expect. We didn’t know when we could go ashore, or even what deck we needed to go to in order to do that.

Sunday, I had walked 12,250 steps, far more than the 2K I sometimes manage at home. My legs had ached all night and were still ackey, so I took a pain pill. But my legs still bothered me at 10:40 when we left the ship to look around the island. It wasn’t long before I admitted I needed to sit for a while. I found a lounge chair and sat down in the shade. Hubby went off to look around.

 About 1 ½ hours later, when he came back, my legs felt much better, and I was more alert. He was tired from walking almost 10K steps already, so he sat down to rest. I checked my steps, and I had already walked 7K steps. Hubby rested for about 15 minutes, then we walked back to the ship.

We went to Guest Services to ask about internet service. We had brought a laptop for Hubby to work on, but we couldn’t get Word to work because it ‘couldn’t confirm we had an account with Microsoft, so please connect to the internet.’ What a bummer. We don’t usually buy an internet package on a cruise ship because the service is so lousy. But he couldn’t work without Word, so we bought internet service for 1 day to see if that would solve the problem. After all, I had used the laptop for a couple of weeks when my desktop died, and it had worked fine, but it was always connected to the internet during that time.

 We took to our cabin the instructions for signing in, and I sat down to work with the laptop, getting it onto the internet. Hubby laid down on the bed and fell asleep. He almost never takes a daytime nap. He woke up about an hour later and asked how I was doing. I was done, and Word was working perfectly. He rolled over and went back to sleep for another hour. So I changed some color settings to see if he could see the cursor any easier. He had complained how hard it was to see a white cursor on a white background. I played some games, but the color was odd; red cards were black, and black cards were blue.

Hubby awoke about 3, and we went to the pizza place for a bite to eat. After returning to our cabin, he worked on his stories, and I worked on my blog.

About 6 o’clock, we left to explore a section of the ship we hadn’t been to yet, the Boardwalk. It had a carousel, a candy shop, a hot dog stand, a hamburger joint, a sports bar or two and a rock-climbing wall, so it didn’t take us long to explore it.

We still had a ½ hour before meeting the others for social hour. We thought about going to the floating bar and riding it from the 5^th deck to the 8^th deck, but it had already left deck 5 and hadn’t yet reached deck 8. So we returned to our cabin and got the special tumblers that proved we had a beverage package, and then came back for social hour. With a group as large as ours, it’s hard to find enough chairs in any 1 bar, but we did the best we could.

We had a nice dinner with 2 actors who played various monsters on Dr Who. Hubby did his interpretation of a social butterfly, flitting from table to table to talk to members of the talent and some fan writers about some ideas he had for a story. After dinner, we returned to our cabin, worked for about an hour, and then turned in.

The Dr Who Cruise Part 1

About every 15 or 16 months, a friend of ours organizes a Dr Who Cruise. It generally is fairly small, maybe 40 people. This year’s was the largest so far, with 72 guests signing up for it, including about a dozen ‘talents’ and 26 members of one family! The next few blogs will follow Hubby and me as we enjoyed the cruise.

 

Sunday, Oct 22 – We’d been looking forward to this cruise, and now it was time to get to it. First, I got out of bed at 5:20 AM to load the dishwasher, because who wants to come home to a sink full of dirty dishes? Then I cleaned out 3 email boxes and packed my cpap for the trip. About 9:30, we tossed the suitcases into the Toyota, put my car in the garage, and we were off.

 

Getting to the parking lot at Port Canaveral was mostly uneventful, although there had been some confusion when I wanted to mapquest the directions to get there. Turns out there are 2 lots with very similar names, and I had made a reservation at Lot B when I thought I was making a reservation at Lot A. But that got straightened out before we left home, and the directions to get there were simple. However, we didn’t see the sign for the parking lot until we were driving past it, so we made a couple u-turns to get back to it. We arrived about 2 minutes late for our reservation, but we were the first ones on the 11:15 shuttle to the ship. By 11:25. The shuttle was full to the gills and took off.

 

This was a Western Caribbean cruise on the Wonder of the Seas, Royal Caribbean’s largest ship. We’d been to the Caribbean several times but traveling with our DW friends was always fun.

 

Once we got to the terminal, it was practically a walk-through to get to the ship. Of course, my artificial knees set off the security alarm, so that slowed us down a bit, but not for long.

 

The first thing to do is to go to our muster station, so we know what to do ‘in case of an emergency’, so we asked how to get there. Our muster station was through the spa area and deep in the fitness area, which seemed a strange place to put it, but we didn’t ask questions. Perhaps there was a nearby exit to the outside deck that I didn’t notice.

 

The buffet is always a madhouse on debarkation day, so we thought we’d try the main dining room, but that had a private event for those passengers who had bought the ‘key’ package, and we hadn’t, so we ended up in the buffet anyway. At least we got to claim our soft-drink package and didn’t have to rely on the buffet’s watered-down juices.

 

By the time we finished lunch, our cabin was ready for us. But we had packed everything in the suitcases except our travel documents and whatever I could stuff in my fanny pack, so there was little we could do there until our suitcases showed up. In the meantime, we explored various decks, looking for ‘quiet spots’ where we’d be able to work. John had brought some short stories to on and edit on the laptop, and I would be writing on my blog and current WiP using pen and paper.

 

We went to the fitness center about 4:30 to see if they drew our names for a spa raffle. We didn’t win anything in the raffle, but we decided to sign up for the Managers Special, which was a 75 minute massage. We made our appointments for Thursday at noon, without knowing what our DW schedule for that day might look like.

 

Our cabin was a surprise. It was pretty much a normal cabin, except it had an extra 7 or 8 feet to it. The ceiling sloped down in that area, and in the middle of the slope was a big picture window looking out over the bow of the ship. Next to the window was a button and a sign asking that we close the curtain in the evenings so as not to disturb those working on the bridge. It took us a minute to figure out that button, which was 3 buttons in one, but we did understood it before night fell.

 

Our group’s dining time was 7:45PM, and those who wanted to could meet at the Schooner Bar at 7:00 for a social hour. At about 7:45, we would all go down to the Main Dining Room and find the table we were assigned to. On the first day, I didn’t realize the Main Dining Room was located on 3 decks, so I went down to deck 4, because that was where I remembered seeing the sign for it. There was a long line to get in, but it moved pretty quickly. When I got to the maître d’ and gave my cabin number, he informed me I was on the wrong floor and sent me up to deck 5. When I got to the deck 5 maitre d’, he started to show me to my table, got distracted by his radio, and told me to ‘look around, your party is around here somewhere.’ I knew a moment of sensory overload; there was a sea of faces around me, and I couldn’t pick out 1 that looked familiar. Then I heard Hubby calling my name, and I was united with the friends who were sharing a table with us.

 

After dinner, those fans who were interested went to the conference center to discuss ‘creative endeavors’ for the cruise. Sometimes the fans write a short DW episode and film it during the cruise, but with only 7 days, that didn’t seem feasible. So it was decided to split the creative fans into groups and let them write stories 5-7 pages long. On the last night of the cruise, the professional talent would read the stories out loud to the group.

 

The gathering was turned over to the creative fans. I couldn’t participate this time because I had deadlines to meet. Hubby was placed in charge of one writing group, and he spent some time talking to the other members about story ideas. Eventually, we crawled off to our cabin and went to bed.

Report on Bartow Con

I knew Bartow Con was coming long before it got here. But for a long time, I didn’t think I would be going to it. They had no more vendor’s tables, and the word was that the Klingon table would be outside. I burn at the drop of a sunbeam and don’t handle heat well, so I saw no reason for me to go.

 

But then I was reminded that I was navigator for my husband’s shuttle. I couldn’t get my own costume done in time, so I borrowed a TOS (the original series) costume and got myself ready to navigate. By then, thank goodness, the ‘club’ tables had been moved to a room inside the building. So we loaded up the shuttle with cargo and a passenger and headed out.

 

The event was held on Saturday, Oct 14, at the Bartow Civic Center in Bartow FL. We had to have our area set up and ready by 9:30 AM on the 14^th, or we could arrive Friday afternoon and set it up. We opted to set up on Friday, so we left our home about noon, picked up our passenger about 1, and headed for Bartow using highways and some local roads. We thought about using I4 to get us about halfway there, but it was several miles north of our position, and would have taken us longer.

 

The trip was uneventful except we accidentally turned a little early before we actually reached Bartow City Limits. Luckily, that road dumped us onto Old Bartow Road, which we followed south and came right to the hotel we had booked. So we checked in, unloaded things not needed at our table, and had a very late lunch before we went to the Civic Center.

 

It took us maybe an hour to unload our shuttle and set up our area. Other Klingons were already there, helping the Federation set up their area, but they were mostly done with that and were very helpful in getting us set up. Having accomplished that, we went back to the hotel, had supper and settled in for the night.

 

In the morning on Saturday, hubby was a bit under the weather, so I drove our passenger to the Civic Center and dropped him off. On the way back, I stopped and got some basic meds to treat my hubby. He was mostly garbed when I got to the hotel room, so I helped him finish up, and we were off, arriving at the Civic Center a few minutes before 10, which was when the even began. I dropped Hubby off at the door, then parked the shuttle in the grass with the other shuttles.

 

Our space was in a room with 4 ‘clubs’ having space, and half the room was set up as a panel room. It took some time for people to find this room, but by the time the first panel took place about noon, visitors were pretty common. Two more Klingons showed up about 10:30, meaning we had 8 Klingons in uniform for this event.

 

I spent most of the day at the table space, handing out brochures, business cards and keychains. That allowed the others to wander about the con, seeing what was where and who was there. About 4 times, hubby came back with a cup of flavored shaved ice, which we shared between us. One time, he sent me to get a shaved ice, so I could get whatever flavor I wanted. On my way, I picked up a bag of popcorn, which turned out to be very salty. And another time, one of the Klingons was enjoying some Birthday Cake-flavored cotton candy. I had never heard of that flavor, so she offered me a taste. I pulled off a tiny fluff, and it very definitely tasted like birthday cake!

 

Three times, we gathered all the Klingons together to get some group photos taken at various photo opportunities. The photos were fun, but the process of getting everybody gathered together in one place was like herding cats!

 

Let me describe the venue. The civic center has 2 ‘main entrances’, both of which open into a large room with a stage. This room was filled with vendors selling books, patches, uniforms, foodstuffs, craft items, retro toys… Lots of stuff! There was a smaller room to the south of the west entrance, and this seemed to be full of artists selling their wares. If you turn north before you come in the west entrance, there is another room with more vendors and a guy with 4 or 5 backdrops for photo ops. Now, back through the main room. On the north side of the stage, there was a short hallway that led to the VIP room, where the media guests were selling photos and autographs. There were also other VIPs, such as best-selling authors and the like. If you go through this room and out the other side, you come to an open-air hallway and you find the room where we were located.

Several food trucks were in the parking lot outside the west entrance. If it sounds confusing, it was; there was at least one room I wasn’t aware of before we went to it to have photos taken.

I think we were all agreed that Bartow Con 2023 was not a bad effort for a first con. I don’t know what kind of meeting rooms the local hotels might offer, but they might deserve a look. If the committee finds the Civic Center is their only choice, they might make maps of the facility available, either on the wall near doorways or in a brochure that also lists the panels and where they are located. And if they can find another room, they might consider offering gaming, which is generally pretty popular at these types of gatherings. I wasn’t able to watch it, but I understand their costume call was popular, and in front of the stage was crowded as people waited to hear who won what prize in which category.

 

After the last panel in our room ended about 5:30, 5 or 6 of us started tearing down our display. I walked to the shuttle and brought it around to the closest entrance so we could load up.

 

Five of us were staying at the same hotel, so we all went to supper together and enjoyed ourselves before returning to our rooms for the night.

 

In the morning, we piled our suitcases in the shuttle and headed out a little after 9. I was a little foggy-headed this morning and found myself confused about what direction we would turn as we tried to follow the instructions backwards. Once I confessed that, our passenger got out his Google Maps and took over navigating, sending us cross country on county roads and local streets until we finally got to his house. We helped him unload his stuff, and then headed home, arriving about 11:30.

 

We feel the journey was a success.

Writing Is Like Sewing

I’ve been spending some time these last few days sewing on a new costume for myself. At first, I thought I had a deadline that it had to be wearable by Saturday, Oct 14. During the 2^nd day of working on it, my husband pointed out I didn’t need it until the middle of February. Whew! That was a big relief. Because, based on how much I was getting done each day, it was NOT going to be done by Oct 14. Not unless I started working on it every waking hour, and even then it would be iffy. Besides, concentrating on that and doing nothing else would lead to massive fatigue, lots of mistakes and TONS of frustration.

Today, I set the project away and worked on my husband’s costume, which needed some repairs. That he wants done by Oct 14, and I think I can get it done. If I don’t super-glue my fingers to it.

But I got to thinking about how much sewing is kind of like writing. Or vice versa.

The typical person who wants to sew a dress, for instance, starts with a pattern, a plan. Much like a person who puts together an outline to help them get from concept to a rough draft.

But I’m starting from scratch without a pattern. I know what I want it to look like, but I’m working on it much like I work on a story; by trying to figure out how the pieces go together as I go along. I don’t often sew by the seat of my pants, but I definitely write that way.

The first part of my story, er, costume, is to take strips of different materials and sew them together to make a striped body. Kind of like pulling together sentences and paragraphs to make a scene.

Once, I wasn’t paying much attention, and I sewed the seam on the wrong side. So I had to take time to rip that seam out and do it correctly. Rather as if I had written a scene that didn’t take the story where I wanted it to go, so I had to try again.

Later, I will have to decide where the neck and sleeves go and cut the striped material accordingly. Consider that the first couple passes of editing or re-writing: Cutting out words, paragraphs, even entire chapters that aren’t needed for the final product.

And finally, there’s all the hemming and doing the finishing touches of the costume. That, I figure, is like a final polish to a story.

Hey, don’t blame me if you think my muse has got a screw loose, comparing sewing and writing. Possibly she does (have a loose screw) but sewing and writing have both been on my mind this past week.

Lost Continent

We’ve all heard of Atlantis, which was a ‘continent’ or at least a city that reportedly sank into the ocean due to some natural disaster. Every few years, there is some report in the news of the latest theory about where that continent or city was located.

When I was considerably younger, I read at least one book about the lost continent of Lemuria. I keep wanting to say the book I read was written by Lin Carter, who did write about Lemuria (before it sank into oblivion), but it was so long ago that the name of the continent is all I remember. Nowadays, Wikipedia says that a lost continent called Lemuria was proposed in 1864 by zoologist Philip Sclater, who theorized it was located in the Indian Ocean. The idea was debunked in the 20^th century once scientists understood plate tectonics and continental drift.

But a team of scientists really have discovered a lost continent now, which they are calling Zealandia. Most of it is underwater, but New Zealand and some other islands stand up far enough to be above the ocean. Zealandia is more than half the size of Australia, and it extends northwest and southeast of the New Zealand islands.

It was a part of Gondwana when that supercontinent existed, but when it started to break apart, Zealandia was one of the parts, breaking away around 81 million years ago. Then 95% of that part, Zealandia, sank beneath the waves.

The scientists have finished mapping Zealandia recently after 20 years of work, and they state that it contains a vast array of diverse rocks that proves it is made of continental crust, so it is not just a section of seafloor.

Zealandia is sometimes referred to as Earth’s 8^th continent.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zealandia

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/scientists-finally-finished-mapping-earth-s-8th-continent-zealandia-helping-them-solve-the-lost-continent-s-mysterious-history/ar-AA1hu1QE?ocid=mailsignout&pc=U591&cvid=71bd9ad3ca8b4b63b9e2633f4f699f75&ei=36#image=AA1bYYe9|1

Report on Necronomicon 2023

We got home from Necronomicon about 7 PM on Sunday. We left everything in the car to be unloaded in the morning, because we were tired. (We aren’t spring chickens any more!) But I’m counting the convention a success!

We left about 8:15 AM on Friday to pick up Mark, who was going with us. His house is about an hour from our home, and the convention hotel was a little more than an hour from his house. Being old and intimidated by our smart phones, we tend to print the route we need to take by using mapquest or google maps on our desk computers. It worked well for this trip except at the end, where the instructions said things like, turn right and go 387 feet, make a u-turn and go 219 feet, turn right and go 121 feet. How are we supposed to measure feet when we’re in a car? Anyway, I told my hubby to make a u-turn at the first intersection, only to realize that intersection led to the parking lot of the hotel we wanted! By the time I realized that, he had made the u-turn and was at the lights where we had originally turned right. Eventually, we turned around and got to the hotel.

It was a little after 11 AM, and my table was supposed to be set up by noon, so we decided to get a luggage cart to take my 5 boxes of books to my table. But we actually unloaded everything onto the luggage cart and I went inside to see if we could check in for our hotel room. Yes, we could! So John and Mark took the boxes to my table, where John started unpacking the books; Mark took the luggage to our hotel room; and I got us all registered for the con. Then I went back to the table, handed out badges and program books, and finished setting up the table. Now I could settle in for the rest of the day, talking to the other authors in the Author Alley and trying to be friendly to potential customers that walked by.

John and Mark sometimes sat with me at the table, studying the schedule, reading the program book and talking about whatever was on their mind. At times one or both would wander away to check out a panel or activity, the art show, the dealer’s room. I made a fast walk around the dealer’s room, but never got to the art show. I tried to talk to the other authors, but on Friday, the tables to the left of me and directly across from me were empty. And after a couple of hours, the table across from me and to the left was suddenly empty too. There had been an author there, with his book, but now he was gone, and nobody saw him pack up and go.

The con had an activity called ‘Cthulu Crafts’ all 3 days of the con, which John went to see what it involved, looking for something that Klingons might be able to use. He talked to the host and mentioned that Klingons had an activity they did called ‘Paint and Take’. Later on Saturday, the young man in charge of scheduling stopped John in the hall and asked if might be interested in doing a ‘Paint and Take’ at the next con. So John and Mark started talking about finding other Klingons to come with them next year and what they might be able to do besides a Paint & Take. I wonder what customers would say if I manned my table as a Klingon for a day at next year’s con.

John and I had 2 panels to do. The first was on Saturday at 11:15 AM, and it was on ‘What Inspired Me to Write’. I had come up with 7 questions to help keep the conversation going. With 6 panelists, we filled up the hour and didn’t get too repetitive, so I was feeling pretty good. We also had an author there who was one of the con’s Guests of Honor, and he sometimes put in his 2 cents worth, which was also an ego boost for me.

Our 2^nd panel was Sunday at 11 AM, and this one was about “How I Write.” Again, 4 other authors joined us, and only 1 was a repeat from the day before. I had 9 questions to ask, and the answers were diverse, pointing out that there is no one ‘correct’ way to right, er, I mean write.

Two people approached me during the convention. One was an editor who was looking for free-lance work. It is very hard to edit your own books, so I may be looking her up. The other woman was a free lance graphic artist. I may soon have work for her, too.

At 8 PM on Saturday, there was a panel on self-publishing that I wanted to go to, so John and I took down the table about 6:30 so I could get supper, since I hadn’t gotten any lunch. The restaurant was quick at getting our food to us, and I had some time to spare before the panel, so I went up to the con suite, and had some chips, a glass of cola, and some pop corn before I went to the panel.

Now, self-publishing is a big subject to cover in 1 hour. And when the hour was over, Brenda (only 1 panelist showed up) decided to take us to Salon G, which was supposed to be empty for the next hour. But when we got there, another group had been given the room to use, so a few of us die-hards who wanted to know more gathered around an empty table in Author Alley and talked for another 1 ½ hours. By then I was the only one left listening. Brenda gave me her personal email address, in case I had more questions, and promised to introduce me to Kevin on Sunday, who could give me more information on email lists.

Sure enough, as soon as I got my table set up on Sunday, Brenda was there with 2 men to talk to me; Kevin about email lists, and Robert of Westerfield Studios. So I had a talk with Kevin about email lists and bookfunnel. And then I had a nice talk with Robert about multi-media and how he could help me get the word out about our books. He mentioned some things that I knew existed but didn’t have a clue how to do.

And everybody told me to start getting our books made into audible books!

I considered it a very productive convention for me, having made those contacts and had those conversations.

And the cherry on top of the whole convention was that I sold 4 books! That’s the biggest sales I’ve had at any convention. My sales actually covered the cost of the table for once!

Two of the books were John’s ‘The Stone Builders’, which you can download for free at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/565000. In it, Humans and Wassarans have co-colonized a planet, and now they discovered it was colonized once before by a race who built everything out of stone. But the Stone Builders had abandoned their colony in a hurry. Why? And was the threat still here?

The third book was John’s ‘The Waste Gun’, where a scientist has found a way to get rid of radioactive waste permanently. But an eco-terrorist sees it as poisoning the Earth and is determined to stop him. This one isn’t available as an e-book right now, as I flubbed up the formatting of the manuscript before I got it published as an e-book, but I’ll let you know when it is published.

The final book was an anthology of short stories about vampires called ‘These Vampires Don’t Sparkle’. This one wasn’t published by me, but I have a story in it, on page 155. I don’t know if it was ever published as an e-book, but the hard copy was put out 9 years ago by Sky Warrior Book Publishing. There is a 2^nd volume called ‘These Vampires Still Don’t Sparkle’. I just checked with Amazon, which said volume 1 was out of print, and they only have 1 used paperback of volume 2 for sale. So my chances of getting any more of either one of them are pretty slim.

I look forward to going back to Necronomicon in 2024.

A Personal Appearance

I’m getting excited! For the first time in a lo-o-ng time, MoonPhaze is sending both of its authors to make an appearance together. That’s me and my husband, John Lars Shoberg. Both of us. At the same event. Namely, Necronomicon in Tampa FL.

We were supposed to go together to Gainesville in January, to sell our books at a bookfair that’s held there annually. Unfortunately, John’s health at that time was pretty poor, and I went without him. It wasn’t the same at all. He’s the one who can talk to just about anyone, on a large variety of subjects, so I usually rely on him to help break the ice with potential customers. I tried to engage people in conversation, but I’m just not as good at it as he is. I was completely drained by the end of the day.

This time, his health still isn’t very good, but he’s going with me. It will be up to me to sell the books, while he will wander around, attending panels and making new friends. We are on 2 panels together: “How I Do My Job (Writing)” and “What Inspired Me to Do This Job (Writing)”. They were the suggestions I made when the person doing the panel scheduling told me he had been informed that it was not acceptable to have authors who are not The Guest of Honor do readings. That’s so different from Mid-West cons. So that’s what I came up with off the top of my head. And the scheduler said, “Great! Let’s do them both!”

If you come to Necronomicon this weekend (Sept 22-24, 2023), look for the MoonPhaze table. I will be manning that. And watch for John among the other attendees. We’d both love to talk to you. Feel free to browse through our books, and I won’t be averse to sell you some. Or if you prefer e-books, I have a bunch of coupons I’d like to hand out this weekend. You can get the ebooks for 50% off or for free, and not have to carry books around with you all weekend. And we don’t charge for autographs, if you want one of those!

Yes, I’m getting excited. Which is different than being nervous. Nervous is me at a table, trying to sell books or at least talk to people about books. You’d think I’d get used to it and not get so nervous anymore. Here’s hoping the nervousness isn’t as bad this time.

One Important Step in Marketing

Most of you know that I publish books that my husband and I write. It means I wear a lot of different hats. The most difficult job, out of all the jobs that I do, is to try to convince potential readers to give our books a chance. Quite frankly, I don’t know what I’m doing, in that respect. I’ve taken classes, I’ve read books, I’ve gone to seminars, and I still don’t really know what I’m doing. It’s very frustrating.

One thing I did a few years ago was to set up website for my company. And last year, I set up a second website, just to deal with the e-versions of our books. That 2^nd website worked well enough to get me the beginnings of an email list, but even when I ran some ridiculously priced sales, I never sold any ebooks from that site. I finally figured out why; I had never set up the ‘accept payment’ part of the website.

It had a well-known e-commerce software package ready to be used, but I had never activated it. This spring, I spent the better part of a month trying to jump through the hoops to get that software activated. And that was with plenty of help from the support team of my hosting company. Trying to follow the instructions was as bad as trying to read a legal document. I was so confused!

But I got it done. At least, they tell me I have.

But it made me think… Had I ever set up the ‘accept payment’ part of my first website? I did not know. I knew I should look into that, and the sooner, the better. But a broken arm got in my way, and I couldn’t really do much on the computer. When the arm got better, life in general intruded… okay, I procrastinated, because I was afraid it would have the same well-known e-commerce software package attached to it, and I didn’t know if the support team for that hosting company would be as helpful. I very much cringed at the thought of going through that same confusing set-up process.

But, I’m happy to reveal, I took a deep breath earlier this week, and I tackled my original website. I did not find that dreaded e-commerce software when I looked at my website’s dashboard. I contacted the support team to find out how I do it. The chat bots didn’t understand my question, but I finally got a real person, who explained how to set it up and even gave me the website for doing so. Sounded simple, but was it really? I am here to report that it was as easy as setting up a Paypal account, and I got it done within half an hour. Hooray for me!

Now, how do I get people to buy something? That seems to be my perpetual question.

By the way, the original website is www.MoonPhaze.com, and the website for ebooks is www.MoonPhazeBooks.com. One needs a drastic overhaul, and the other needs a firm tweaking. Those will keep me busy for the next several months.

What Makes it Pizza?

Many of you may have been eating pizza a lot longer than I have, relatively speaking. It wasn’t until towards the end of my senior year in high school that those of us students who worked on performing the school play decided after our performance to drive to the nearest big town and get some pizza. Before that, I had no idea what pizza was. I wondered if I would like it, as we waited for it to be delivered to our tables.

I think it was a round pizza, but it was cut into squares. I can’t say it was love at first bite, but it had a lot of tastes. It had 2 or 3 types of meat on it, and a tomato sauce, and probably onions and green peppers. I wasn’t too happy with the onions, but I didn’t make a fuss over them. I didn’t want anybody to think I was weird. Everybody else thought it was great.

I’ve had a lot of pizza since then. Mostly, it’s been round pizzas, cut into slices, with tomato sauce and cheese. Various meats, vegetables and occasionally even fruit would be on it. (I love a good ham and pineapple pizza.)

About 2 decades ago, I started noticing a new pizza in the grocery store freezers. It was called chicken margarita pizza, or something like that. Instead of tomato sauce, it had some sort of white sauce. I couldn’t tell if it had any cheese at all. The meat was chicken, and there may have been a few vegetables and herbs on it. It didn’t look like pizza to me at all.

All this comes up because I just read a brief article in Archeology magazine. The on-going excavation of Pompeii had unearthed another fresco, one of a still-life on a table. There was a large tray on the table, with a slab of focaccia bread on it. There also was a variety of fruit in the picture. The question asked by the article was, is this a picture of the forerunner of pizza? Of course, back then, they didn’t have access to anything resembling tomatoes, so it wouldn’t have had a tomato sauce. But the scientists thought it looked like focaccia bread covered in various fruits.

Would they have called it pizza? I doubt it; languages change over time. But I rather like the sound of it. A slab of bread covered in fruit. Maybe with a drizzle of olive oil and some appropriate herbs and spices.

I don’t think I’ve seen focaccia bread available in the grocery store since we moved to Florida. To me, it always looked a bit like an extra large slab of fried bread dough. Maybe next time I make that delicacy, I’ll try making a ‘fruit pizza’ out of some of it. What do you think, would you try making a fruit pizza? Would you taste one?

Alas, I am not supposed to have bread, fried or not, so it could take me a while to get to that food experiment. 

When Did Humans Reach the Americas?

This question has been simmering in the back of my mind for decades. I’ve given panels on it at science fiction conventions, and I’ve written blogs on the subject before, too. I believe the last blog I wrote about it theorized that an ice-free channel through the North American glaciers of the last ice age opened up about 14,000 years ago. And therefore people who had crossed the Bering landbridge sometime before that were finally able to leave Alaska and find their way south to the plains of central North America. And from there, they could have gone on to populate all the rest of North America, Central America and South America.

But even that might not be right.

The other night, we watched a documentary about fossilized footprints in the White Sands National Park in New Mexico. Although the area is a desert now, during the last ice age, it housed a large lake. The fossilized footprints recorded the presence of Columbian mammoths, great ground sloths, North American camels and horses. And among all those footprints, it is not at all unusual to find lots of human footprints.

Scientists have to work fast to learn all they can from these footprints, because as soon as they are revealed by the wind blowing the sand away, the blowing sand starts to erode the footprints away. For these are not the usual fossils that have been turned into stone. Some of the footprints are impressions in the sand, that had been filled with silt that was finer than the sand around them. Others are outlined with bulging sand indicating the weight of the animal. All of them dried out when the lake dried up, and little has happened to the area to disturb them. Except the blowing wind.

A number of scientists work the site each year, and I was left with the impression that each year presents a new batch of footprints, at a slightly lower level than the year before.

One year—and it didn’t say what year it was—a pair of scientists who are experts at radio-carbon dating dug a trench in the sand, going down through several layers of human footprints. But you can’t radio-carbon date sand; you can only radio-carbon date organic material, like plants or animals. By examining the layers between the human footprints, they were able to find organic material, such as seeds or pollen. They packaged up a number of these samples and took them back to their lab in Denver to date them.

Two years later, the narrator visited them in their lab to ask what kind of dates they had gotten from their samples. They said they had gotten dates between 21,000 and 23,000 years ago! That would have been long before the ice-free trail through the glaciers had opened up!

At the very end of the show, the narrator was talking to another scientist, and wondered how humans could have gotten so far south before the glaciers had started to melt. The anthropologist said they had probably followed the Pacific coastline, starting in Alaska and working their way south. But, he pointed out, the sea level was much lower at that time (as much as 400 feet lower), with so much water tied up in the glaciers, so any settlements they might have established would be underwater now. He suggested we should be doing more diving along the coastline to find them.

Okay. Who still thinks that ancient alien visitors brought a herd of humans to the Americas? (This was the last suggestion I made when I gave this talk at conventions.)

Life Goes On

Every once in a while – I’m sure you’ve all experienced it – life decides to kick you, just to see how you react. And there are times when life decides to repeat the experiment (ad nauseum) for an extended period of time. It’s a real bummer, and the longer it goes on, the bummier it gets. (I know, ‘bummier’ is not a real word. Blame the creative artiste within me. I think it gets the thought across.)

Well, for the past 8-9 months, that’s what this household has been going through; one of the bummiest rough patches I think I’ve been through that didn’t involve people dying. Lots of illness in the house, some of which we are still working our way through, a treasure trove of doctor’s appointments to schedule and then get to. Sometimes as many as 3 appointments in one day. A car accident that killed one of our cars, 2 air conditioners going out (one in our remaining car) and computer equipment dying.

There’s an old saying I’m familiar with, about insanity being to repeat the same action, expecting a different outcome. And it occurs to me that in a way, that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve been getting up every morning, doing what I had to do, and expecting things to get better.

Maybe insanity wins, because I’m beginning to believe things might be getting better. I don’t want to jinx it or anything, but I’ve now had 2 weeks where I did not call the doctor’s office to schedule an appointment for one of us. No urgent care or emergency room visits. Just working our way through a number of appointments that I set up when I was ‘doing what I had to do’.

It’s kind of been the same in my endeavors to market our books. For a lot of those same months, I worked diligently at marketing, but nothing seemed to make any difference. This past couple of weeks, I started looking at a different angle on my marketing. It involved laying out a bit of money, but hey, it takes money to grow money, right? (At least that’s what the rich people say.) But about a week ago, it occurred to me that I could do the exact same thing by making use of the outlets I already have established. Without putting out any large sum of money. So the last few days, I’ve been designing new business cards and coupons to hand out at the next science fiction convention I go to. Which happens to be in September. Wish me luck, okay?

Life can be a bummer for a while. But at the same time, life goes on. One has to be ready for the bummerness to go away, which it eventually will. Then you can reach up for the goodness, take a deep breath, and move on in relief.