No Strings Attached

Posted By Kathleen David on November 25, 2011

The first one is more for tomorrow rather than today. Tomorrow is the 2nd Small Business Saturday (find more information here) The idea is that after you raid the big box stores, take a moment and patronize the smaller businesses in your area. In my town there are many businesses that are owned by either people I know or I know someone in their extended family.

The shoe shop we use is owned by the nephew of one of my neighbors. Yes, the shoes are about 5 to 10 bucks more but I know that I got solid shoes and if there is something wrong even down the road passed the 30 days, I can talk to someone face to face about it. I had a pair of not cheap sneakers that the soles started to separate way before the shoes were worn out. They looked at it and agreed it was a manufacturing defect and replaced the shoes.

So tomorrow think smaller local businesses for those gift you have left to shop for.

Also for the more unique, there are all kinds of people who do beautiful work in various crafts on the internet. I actually have an Esty Shop that I will be for the first time putting stuff into this year. Once I have it, I’ll post a link. But Esty and other sites have one of a kind items that you can’t find in the big box stores.

There is also Crazy 8 (more info here) Peter had a book there as well as other friends of mine. You can buy physical copies or electronic copies of these books. Just as important is if you have a local bookstore that isn’t part of what is left of the large chains. Help give a shop-owner a better holiday.

So think small tomorrow. Your local merchants probably need the sales more than the Big Box Stores.

Oh and I have three Phluzzies for sale for the holidays. More on those later.

I am grateful for small business.

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Posted By Kathleen David on November 24, 2011

I have a lot to be thankful for. I know that I am a very lucky person who has been very blessed. So today in no real order other than what my uncoffeed brain can come up with, here are some, but not all, of the things I am thankful for.

I am thankful for my family as a whole by blood, by marriage, and by choice. I have a pretty nifty group of people who have my back and are there for me no matter what. I don’t take this lightly. One thing about web logs and the internet is that you learn a lot about situations you have never found yourself in. I know that my relationship with my family is that rare one with very little drama within. If there is drama, it gets resolved pretty doggone quick.

I am thankful for my friends. I have a rather eclectic group of people I call friend. But then I have had a rather eclectic life so far so it is understandable. Some of my friends are now famous and I can say I knew them when and have the photos to blackmail prove it. Peter and I have three sets of friends that we share. His friends before we got together, my friends before we got together, and our mutual friends which are people we both knew before we were an item. But after so many years we just call them all our friends. And we appreciate each and every one of you.

I am thankful for the various careers I have had over the years. My work history may seem a little all over the map but if you look at it carefully, I tended towards creative jobs or organizational jobs. Jobs like that keep my brain very happy and make me a happy little worker. And it is amazing how stuff I learned for one job translates into the other things I have done over the years. I am trying to figure out what is next for me but I think things will work out for the best.

I am thankful for fandom in all its myriad forms. Fandom has led to some of my most interesting adventures. And with that I will give thanks for the Internet which has allowed me to converse with fans all over the world and to “meet” people that I would have never knew existed without the Internet. Also through Peter I have been able to go to other countries and meet other fans which is cool indeed. Fandom helped me in some of my darkest hours during my life and I appreciate it.

I am thankful for a roof over my head, food to eat and clean clothes to wear. I know entirely too many people who don’t have all three this year.

I am thankful to all my teachers over the years. I have learned a lot from others and try to pay it back by teaching others. Yesterday I went to Caroline’s class room and taught them how to make a puppet that I made way back in my elementary days. The kids were happy with the puppets and some were happy to find out that they had paper folding skills that they didn’t know they had. I am always will to teach others the things I know. I don’t hold back my knowledge because I want it to go on and maybe what I did yesterday will translate to one of those kids doing the same down the road in 20 years or so.

And finally dear reader, I am thankful for you. Knowing that others read my web log makes me feel accomplished for some strange reason. I started this so my family could keep up with what was going on here but it had become more than that and that’s really cool to me.

So eat some good food and go see the Muppets this weekend, help it become #1 at the Box office so they will do more stuff with the Muppets.

And have a Happy Thanksgiving

I am grateful for so much in my life.

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Posted By Kathleen David on November 23, 2011

One of them I knew and the other was introduced to me in passing once. Both were greats in their field but were more than just what they were known for.

I read Dragonflight and Dragonquest when I was in my early teens. I love the world and the world building within it. I got the White Dragon for Christmas the year it was published. I read DragonSong, DragonSinger, and DragonDrums as they were published. I knew that if Anne’s name was on it, I was in for a good solid book. I first met Anne at some convention in the South and found her to be a very lovely person. We sat and listened as she told us tales of the publishing industry and other topics she knew like horses and fencing.

Fast forward a number of years later and I am working with Shelly Shapiro, Anne’s editor at Del Rey, and I get to help with the production of the YA version of Dragonflight with illustrations by Tony DiTerlizzi. I am quite proud of the final book. By this point Anne knew who I was and we had some good conversations about various topics.

Anne knew how to tell a story both written and orally. If books didn’t exist, Anne would have been that person in the village that all the kids go to to hear stories. She could get you laughing so hard your sides would hurt. I will always treasure my time with her.

John Neville and I crossed paths in New York. I don’t remember who introduced us to each other but we had a brief and polite chat standing backstage somewhere on Broadway. I was going to Yale at the time. About a year later the Adventures of Baron Munchausen hit the screen. I didn’t associate the suave gentleman that I met with the Baron until much later. Sort of wished I had met him later so I could tell him how much I enjoyed his performance.

He rebuilt the Stratford Festival which was going down the tubes but now is a powerhouse. He was an actor’s director and could pull some performances out of people that they didn’t even know they could do. He loved the theater with a passion.

I think I am going to put on Baron Muchausen while I work on some other stuff today. Caroline wants to read Dragonsong because it is at her reading level so I will be getting her a copy of that.

My sympathies are with both the McCaffrey family and the Neville family.

I am grateful that I did get to meet two such wonderful people.

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Posted By Kathleen David on November 22, 2011

This is Thanksgiving week here in the USA. Which means there is a lot going on and a lot that has gone on this past weekend.

Let’s start with the weekend.

The Great Allentown Comic Con was fun. Peter talked to a lot of fans, sold some books, and signed a lot of autographs. Peter was substituting for Bob Greenberger who couldn’t go. Caroline and I decided to go along for the weekend just to get out of the house for a bit. I am glad we did.

Friday we drove to Allentown with the usual traffic and a lot of construction that made it very interesting to get to Allentown. We got to the hotel in time to watch Peter’s episode of Young Justice on Cartoon Network. It was fun to watch.

Saturday we went to the venue and set up for the convention. Michael Jan Friedman and J.K. Woodward were seated near us. Well seated once I found chairs for us to sit on. There was a bit of a problem with hanging onto chairs. I hung out while Mike and Peter did their panel. After lunch, I took Caroline to the Crayola experience in Easton. That was a lot of fun. We did various projects through the complex. I think my favorite was painting with hot crayon wax. I learned a bunch about the properties of Crayola Model Magic that I want to play around with.

We went to the Canal Museum which is above the Crayola factory and Caroline learned a lot about canals and commerce in one place. She had fun playing with all the hands on exhibits that let her explore the best way to get a boat UP the canal. I think we spend as much time in the Canal museum as we did in the Crayola part. I can recommend both to parents.

That evening we had a nice meal with Michael and then we all watched “Midnight in Paris” which was a lovely Woody Allen movie. Probably one of the best performances I have seen from Owen Wilson.

Sunday I took Peter back to the venue. Caroline and I drove down to Philadelphia to visit the first American Zoo. It is interesting to see the old contrasting with the new within a very limited space. They have some really nice exhibits. Caroline’s favorite was the big cat exhibit. She watched a jaguar cub play and torment his mother for quite a while. She watched the tigers that kept coming over where she was. The lions were bouncing around. This was the most active set of big cats I think I have seen at a zoo. We spent four hours going around the zoo learning about the animals. The zookeepers were very helpful and informative. We learned a lot about the Kangaroo tribe that lives there including the pecking order and the social dynamics of the group.

The drive home took a little longer and would have taken even longer if we hadn’t used our GPS and the Google Maps on the iPad to get around some serious messes on the various roads we needed to get home.

Ariel is coming home today because she won a contest to bowl with Avril Lavigne in the city. I am going with her as her plus one. It’s at a bowling alley that is 18+ as of 6:00pm. I am guessing that it will be an interesting evening. More on that tomorrow I think.

Tomorrow there are a couple of things on the table and, of course, Thursday is Thanksgiving. Then we are onto Caroline’s birthday and the rest of the holidays we celebrate in December.

I am grateful that Caroline had a good weekend.

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Posted By Kathleen David on November 17, 2011

Peter is currently working on a document he is calling the Fan/Pro bill of Rights. This came out of some things that have been happening at conventions but are getting more worrisome as time goes on. Especially now with the Internet and Tweeting, stories of bad behavior along with pictures and/or Video, things get around a lot faster than they did in the old days or the 70s some of us like to call them. You can find out more at his web site

This weekend is the Great Allentown Comic Con which Peter, Caroline, and I will be attending. This will be Caroline’s and my first time attending this convention. It has an interesting line up of guests and some interesting panels and the like.

I have been on both sides of the table as it were. I started as a fan going to conventions and eventually found myself standing on the other side of the table with the pro badge attached to my lapel.

So here are my thoughts on conventions and fan/pro interaction in no particular order just how they came to my brain.

I do like to know if you read this web log. I know statistically that I have plenty of visitors to my blogs but it is nice to meet the people who read it too.

Peter doesn’t charge for autographs. I have heard a lot of rumblings over the years about autograph charges. I kindly ask for the fans to stop and think a moment. Many of the actors who come to the shows are between gigs or are well known for a show that may have been off the air over 10 years ago. How do they make their money that weekend? Selling autographs and photos to their fans. The myth of the huge per diem that all actors who attended a convention is just that, a myth. Some conventions pay for airfare and hotel. Some, rare indeed, do give a stipend for food and the like. So the money you pay the actor is the money that they are earning that weekend by working at the convention. And believe me, a convention is work for a pro. It is another part of your job as a professional.

If you have a question about puppetry, ask me. I am more than willing to ramble on about puppets and how they work. One of my purposes in life is to educate as many people as I can about puppetry.

Caroline will be selling drawings at the convention. She might be taking requests.

When two pros go away from their respective tables to a corner to talk, please give them some room. That is not the time to approach them about autographs. When we do this, it is probably because we have something that we need to discuss away from the majority of the convention. I can’t tell you the number of times this has happened to me but it has been enough that it does irk me a bit.

Photography is a wonderful thing and it is great to record your visual memories on your phone or camera. However in the middle of the traffic pattern is not a great place to set up a shot. I will apologize now for any pictures I screw up because I have to get from point A to point B and don’t have the 5 to 10 minutes for everyone to get their photos. If my path is blocked, I will find a way through as some people who are still probably swearing at me from DragonCon well know. There are ways and places to take photos that don’t bring the convention to a total halt. New York Comic Con actually had some official spots where people could take pictures of others in costume which worked pretty doggone well.

During show hours, don’t monopolize the pro’s time. This goes for other pros as well as fans. This also goes for Q & A panels as well. There is only so much time and figure that your “cute” question has already been asked and if I hear one more fan asked for a pro’s phone number, I am hitting them with a clue bat. Can I have a hug is not an appropriate question for a Q & A. Now understand I am not saying don’t talk to the pro but at least be aware of what is going on around you and how many people are behind you waiting for an autograph and a moment of the pro’s time too. After hours all bets are off.

Conventions are fun but for the pro they are also part of the job so it changes rather drastically from when one was just a fan.

I look forward to meeting some of you this weekend.

I am grateful for both my fan life and my pro life.

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