April 2023 Part 2 - The LA Times Festival of Books

(Just a quick note:  If you are landed here because of a comment I left on your book blog, you might be more interested in my review blog, Carstairs Considers.  But you are very welcome to stick around here, too.)

Yes, April gets two posts.  I didn't want to combine the two.

April once again meant the LA Times Festival of Books.  I wound up going both days this year, something I haven't done for a while.  My friend could only be there on Sunday, but there were some authors I wanted to talk to on Saturday.  Outside of how high parking was, it was worth it.

Actually, Saturday, I wound up talking to several authors I hadn't planned to talk to and bought their books as a result.  Not that I've read them or have any idea when I will.  I need to read more.  If only I didn't care about things like food and shelter.

Sunday was a bit more about hanging out with my friend.  Yes, we talked to authors who were there, but we spent quite a bit of time just catching up.  Considering I hadn't seen her for a while, it was great.

April 2023 Part 1 - Home for Easter

(Just a quick note:  If you are landed here because of a comment I left on your book blog, you might be more interested in my review blog, Carstairs Considers.  But you are very welcome to stick around here, too.)

At the last minute, I decided to go home for Easter weekend.

I barely made it up in time for the Good Friday service on Friday.  Okay, so I had stopped and gotten dinner when I got into town, but I pulled in the church's parking lot about two minutes before the service started.  Actually, considering I drove several hundred miles, I'm pretty happy with that.

Anyway...

Saturday, I played some ultimate Frisbee with my brother.  I've cut back on how much I'm playing, so it was nice to play with that group.  As a surprise, someone I've played with in the greater LA ultimate community has moved to the area and was there.

I then hung out at my brother's house for a while.  We met up with our parents for my nephew's baseball game.  After dinner, I went back to Mom and Dad's to help them get ready for the next day.

After church Sunday morning, Mom and Dad hosted Easter.  My uncle came over (my aunt was sick), and a family friend was there as well.  It was a fun day.

The downside is that I was two days behind all the rest of the month.  Seriously, I finally caught up with everything that I needed to do on the 30th of the month.

March 2023 - A Fun Book Signing with Friends

(Just a quick note:  If you are landed here because of a comment I left on your book blog, you might be more interested in my review blog, Carstairs Considers.  But you are very welcome to stick around here, too.)

And a trip down memory lane.

I found out that a friend is the editor for Stuart Gibbs, a middle grade author I've been reading for years.  They are working together on a graphic novel he did for DC comics.  So when Stuart had a book signing in March, I went with her and her husband down to see him.

Of course, I was there to get some books signed, and I got in line.  They hopped in to say hi when it was my turn to get some books signed.  Stuart was surprised to make the connection, and I think they were a little surprised at how well he knew me.

After that, we grabbed some lunch at Cava, a Mediterranean chain I discovered while on the Canada and New England cruise I did last fall.  The one we went to was close to UCLA.  In fact, the close we got, the more I recognized the neighborhood.  Turned out it was across the street from the old location for The Mystery Bookstore, which I use to frequent quite a bit.  It was fun to be back in the neighborhood, but it made me wish we still had a good bookstore dedicated to mysteries in the LA area.

Along the way, we got to hang out, which was a delight.

February 2023 - The Flood

(Just a quick note:  If you are landed here because of a comment I left on your book blog, you might be more interested in my review blog, Carstairs Considers.  But you are very welcome to stick around here, too.)

If you haven't heard, we've had a lot of rain in 2023 in Southern California.  (And that was before Tropical Storm Hilary dumped more than a year's worth of rain on us in August.)

When I first moved into my condo, I used to have a real problem with my garage leaking in any rain storm when we got more than an inch.  That has stopped in recent years - partially because we haven't gotten much rain at all and partially because, I think, the HOA finally listened to me and beefed up the drainage next to my garage.

However, my garage did flood again in February.

We'd gotten plenty of rain in January and February, but one weekend, we got a heavy rain storm.  Like four inches overnight.  I figured if my garage was every going to flood, this was going to be what caused it.

And it flooded.

We aren't talking about just a little bit of water, it essentially flooded the entire flood of my garage.

I'd gotten lazy about what I put where, and so the water had plenty of things to take it from one item to the next.  I'm not sure if that helped it spread further than it would have or not.

I spent the next few days cleaning it up.  It seemed like the more I worked, the more stuff I found that was wet.  I throw away quite a bit of stuff, and the result is a garage that looks better.  Yes, I could still clean it up more, but it is better than it was.

I was glad that it never flooded again even with all the rain we kept getting through the spring.  Once was enough.  That also leads me to believe that we've got better drainage then we used to that just got overwhelmed that night.

January 2023 - Caribbean Cruise

(Just a quick note:  If you are landed here because of a comment I left on your book blog, you might be more interested in my review blog, Carstairs Considers.  But you are very welcome to stick around here, too.)

I started out the year on a fabulous note - I got to take a Caribbean cruise!

I'd been eyeing a 10 day cruise for a while that looked like a great list of ports.  I wasn't sure it was going to work to take the time off for it, but everyone at work took one some extra tasks so I could take the time off and go.  Well, there were some things I didn't do, but they weren't essential like the rest of it was.

Anyway, the cruise was round trip from Ft. Lauderdale.  The only bad part was my flights.  I took a red eye and arrived very early in the morning, with a couple of hours to kill in baggage claim in the morning.  My flight home was late, and I killed multiple hours sitting in the airport again.

But the rest?  It was fabulous!  There were three sea days, but the rest of it, we were in ports.

One highlight was stopping in Puerto Rico.  Since I signed up at the last minute, all the excursions for that day were sold out, but I reached out to a friend I'd made online who was living there.  We'd never met, but we had a fabulous day hanging out.  He and his wife showed me the island, and I'm sure I saw more of it than I would have with an excursion.

I did have excursions at the other stops.  One was a botanical garden, which was pretty.  I did paddling at two of them.  The paddling through the mangroves was a bit of a challenge due to the guy I was partnered with, but eventually we figured it out - sort of.  The other paddling went much smoother.  And I went snorkeling in St. Thomas.

I also made some friends on board the ship, which helped keep those days from being so long.  That was my issue with the Alaska cruise I had taken back in July 2022.

I was not ready to come home - especially since I came home to discover there had been an issue with some of the files that were run late the week before, and I had to fight people to get them run my first day back, meaning I got delayed in logging out.  Welcome back, right?

And, I've been pointing out duplicates in the cruises I was taking.  This was a new ship for me and a new destination as well.  However, I had the same cruise director as that Alaska cruise.  She is great, so no complaints, but I found it very funny.