Author Archives: Sparky
Carnival Venezia cruise – preview
Marlene and I have 4 cruises booked for 2025. Tomorrow we embark on the first and shortest of the four – a mere 7 days. It is on the Carnival Venezia, a new ship for both of us. This is a sister ship of the Carnival Luminosa which we took across the Pacific Ocean a … Continue reading
“Promise Me” by Harlan Coben
Copyright 2006 by Harlan Coben, published Signet, a division of Penguin Books Ltd, London. I like Harlan Coben’s books. This is the 12th Coben book I have reviewed and I may have read a few that I didn’t review. All have been good. Some have been spectacularly good. This one is nearly spectacularly good. Coben … Continue reading
Fort Myers Seafood Festival 2025
The Fort Myers Seafood Festival is an annual event. We went last year and went Saturday afternoon this year (it is a 3-day festival). The food is great, but overpriced. The music is terrific and free. We go for the music. Two of our favorite groups – Memphis Lightning and Deb and the Dynamics – … Continue reading
Welcoming 2025
Marlene and I had our third New Year’s Eve and, for the third time, went out dancing. This time, like last year, we went to the Eagles Club. The band was better this year – The Unforgiven – but not many people were dancing. Not a problem for us. We don’t mind showing off on … Continue reading
“Christmas in a Jugular Vein” by David Benjamin
Copyright 2024 by David Benjamin. Published by Last Kid Books, Madison WI. David Benjamin, one of my oldest and best friends is a very imaginative writer with a keen sense of the absurd. He is a master of the short essay. He calls them “screeds” which isn’t fair to him as the term implies an … Continue reading
Quinceañera
As I have been on this planet for over 75 years, it is not often that I get to experience something I have never experienced before. But I had a “first” last Saturday: my first Quinceañera – a coming-out party for a Hispanic girl turning 15. In this case it was the granddaughter of a … Continue reading
Garage sale!
I don’t know if I mentioned this, but Marlene has hoarding tendencies. She has WAY more stuff than she needs. Yes, I am a minimalist – that is one of the reasons that I have been perfectly happy living in a 400 square foot RV for 12 years – but she is the exact opposite. … Continue reading
You call THAT a storm?
We had back-to-back hurricanes this month here in Fort Myers. They both packed a lot of punch and did major damage in other places. Yes, there was some damage locally but for the most part they missed me. The second – Milton – came closest to a direct hit but landed about 50 miles north. … Continue reading
Around the world?
Marlene and I have done a lot of traveling together in the two years since we met – a transatlantic cruise, a transpacific cruise, several Caribbean cruises and road trips to GA and New England. We just booked another Caribbean cruise for January 2025, for my birthday, and have a 25-night cruise through the Panama … Continue reading
A Florida low
It might be a meteorological low that is responsible, but what I mean is that the weather in Fort Myers this week – or this entire month, for that matter – is the worst I have ever seen since arriving in Florida over 10 years ago. And I have been through 5 hurricanes and 2 … Continue reading »