From the beginning, The Armchair Squid has been about storytelling. Even in the initial sports blog stage, the vision was "every game is a story." So's every season, every player, every team, every tournament and so on. My fascination with Star Trek is anchored in my amazement with how Gene Roddenberry's genuinely simple concept has generated fertile narrative grounds for nearly six decades. No matter how much I shift from one topic to another, that same yearning for good stories remains.
I'll have the same basic posting schedule this year:
Tuesdays: Family Adventures
Fridays: Star Trek
For Star Trek, it's onward with both Deep Space Nine and Voyager. At this point, I expect I will stick with both series through to the end. After that, we'll see. At my current rate of one post per week, I have over 2.5 years to think about it so no rush. This year should get me deeply into DS9 Season 6 and Voyager Season 4.
It's time for a new direction with my Family Adventures posts. The blog has played a meaningful role in my life over the years. Perhaps most significantly, it's great for keeping me going with other hobbies. As I grow older, one of my most important "hobbies" is regular exercise. It is my aim this year to do a weekly post on my fitness adventures. My preferred "workout" is a walk in my neighborhood. That might not seem much but as I live in a hilly area of a mountainous state, such walks are a lot more strenuous than they would be for most people. You can expect a lot of photographs of the Vermont woodlands, too.
I am eternally grateful to those of you who stop by to read and engage. As always, if any of you enjoys reading The Squid half as much as I enjoy writing it, we're all doing fine.
The Armchair Squid turns seventeen years old today. It's time to hand out some hardware. The Squiddy goes to...
Biggest Surprise: Our Kid, the Sports Fan
It was the winter of 2006, twenty years ago. I had Olympic hockey on TV, our child's first exposure to the game. They ran to their room and grabbed the nearest hockey stick-like object - probably a wrapping paper tube - and returned to the living room yelling "My turn! My turn!" I was sure we had a future player on our hands.
That didn't exactly pan out. They grew into a performing arts kid instead. I can't complain. I was one, too.
Just in the past few years, they've found an unexpected interest in spectator sports. It started with professional wrestling, of all things. The two of us went to see Pro Wrestling GRIND in late February which would have been plenty enough of a surprise for me in itself even though it was technically my suggestion.
The real magic came with this year's Olympics when they fell in love with women's hockey. Wouldn't you know it, there's a relatively new professional league with a team in nearby Montreal! We went to a game during their spring break, then followed the rest of the season together on YouTube. When a new women's baseball league launched this summer, they were the ones who pushed for watching the inaugural game together.
This development has already had a major impact on my own sports-viewing habits and I expect it will continue to do so for a while.
Our cat - my all-time favorite cat - got cancer. We tried some of the lower cost treatment options but eventually made the tough choice and had her put down. I know it was the merciful, responsible decision. She was in pain. Still, I miss her. I expect I may always miss her.
Over the past year-plus, I've gone on a deep dive with the Hernandez brothers' Love and Rockets comics. Human Diastrophism was the second collection of Palomar stories I read. Palomar is a fictional Central American town where we get to know the residents over several generations. Cute little kids grow up to be young adults with complicated sex lives with the turn of a page. Terrible things happen to the community in this volume: a serial killer's rampage, an earthquake. Because of the intimacy of the narrative, I as the reader ache for my dear friends. Hernandez's masterful storytelling is best exhibited in a story about Pipo, a young woman who has moved from Palomar to Los Angeles. The tales told in the images and the text are entirely independent of one another.
Best Comics Find: Human Diastrophism by Gilbert Hernandez
Right wing Laura Stacey was the first star of the Montreal Victoire game we went to with two goals and an assist. Over the rest of the season, she became my favorite, the sort of player who, in addition to scoring plenty, is seemingly always diving across the ice after a loose puck. She plays with joy and competitive fire. Seriously, what more can you ask of a professional athlete?
The Victoire went on to win the Walter Cup, the Professional Women's Hockey League championship trophy. Stacey isn't even the team's best player. That would be her wife, Marie-Philip Poulin, considered by many to be women's hockey's GOAT. Poulin is captain of both the Victoire and the Canadian national team. Together, Stacey and Poulin form two thirds of Montreal's "Wife Line" along with left wing Abby Roque. They are almost certainly the best first line in the league and even with expansion, they're all coming back next season.
And, of course, Canada won silver in women's hockey at the Olympics: Stacey's third medal for her career (including one gold) and Poulin's fifth (three golds).
Up for some highlights? Here's every goal Stacey scored in the league this year: 7 in the regular season, 3 in the playoffs.
Best Family Adventure: Northampton, Massachusetts
Northampton has played a marvelous role in our lives over the past four years. Home to Smith College, it is also one of the great hippie enclaves of New England, by census data the gayest city in the United States and more female-forward than just about any place I've ever been. Smith, a women's college since its founding in 1871, is a big part of that, of course. But the female energy runs a lot deeper. No joke, I fell in love with the place and I already miss having an excuse to visit regularly. The kid's future plans are still forming and it is absolutely possible they could end up living in that part of the world again. But for now, I'll settle for wonderfully pleasant memories.
In his ongoing effort to broaden his own experiences, the Doctor creates a holodeck family for himself: a wife and two children. Predictably, they are all nauseatingly perfect. Torres makes a few tweaks to the program in order to provide the EMH - Kenneth to his family - with a more realistic experience. Shocker, his wife and kids are now quite a lot more resistant to his efforts to control them. What starts as chaos quickly turns to heartbreak when his daughter Bella suffers a terrible accident.
This is all part of the Doctor's wish to better understand his patients and it's an admirable goal. The real barrier isn't so much lack of experience as lack of emotional range. Last episode, I mentioned Kes's exceptional empathy. Her strength is the Doctor's deficit. Brilliant as he's constantly reminding everyone he is, he doesn't get people. Unfortunately, that's a real world problem for too many in the medical profession.
How does a computer program improve in this area? As this story demonstrates, confronting pain and loss is important. Perhaps most important of all for this particular character, admitting his own limits and vulnerability is essential.
The episode is good, but not nearly as good as the Starfleet Academy episode "The Life of the Stars" which referenced it 29 years later.
Wendy Schaal played the role of Charlene, the Doctor's holodeck wife. She was born in Chicago, July 2, 1954. Her father Richard Schall was also a television actor who later married Valerie Harper, a fact which certainly helped Wendy's own acting career. Wendy studied at Los Angeles City College.
Films have included Innerspace, The 'Burbs and Small Soldiers. On television, she's had regular roles on Fantasy Island, Good Grief and It's a Living. Early in her career, she made guest appearances on such classic shows as Little House on the Prairie, Rhoda and Welcome Back, Kotter among others. She's had a successful voice acting career, including playing Francine Smith on American Dad! for the past 22 seasons and counting.
A Chanticleer combines gin, lemon juice, raspberry syrup and egg whites. I got my recipe from The New York Bartender's Guide. The word chanticleer means rooster, often referring specifically to the rooster character in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. The drink was invented at New York's Waldorf-Astoria to celebrate the 1910 opening of Edmond Rostand's play Chantecler.
I have a new toy in my mixing arsenal: Fee Foam. It's essentially a synthetic egg white substitute, handy since the real thing has a very limited shelf life, even in the fridge. Plus, Fee Foam avoids allergic reactions, not to mention the current salmonella outbreak. I learned about the stuff from our niece, of all people, who works in a restaurant. Basically, you add 4-6 drops in lieu of an egg white before shaking. From what I've seen so far, the foam is not as impressive as what you get with the real thing. But the advantages are undeniable so I'm happy to play around with it.
Wife and child (over 21) agreed that the result tasted like melted sorbet - a bit on the sweet side but good.
My main association with the word chanticleer is the men's vocal group - the best in the world. Enjoy:
Quark is depressed. His bar is closed due to a space vole infestation. His enterprises are limited due to the revocation of his Ferengi business license. Plus, his annoying brother Rom is getting married! What's a guy to do? At Rom's suggestion, he goes home to Mom on Ferenginar. He really should have called ahead to let her know. He stumbles upon his mother's own love affair... with the Grand Negus!
While it's ostensibly an episode about the two brothers, "Ferengi Love Songs" ultimately centers around the role of women in Ferengi society. As established in "Family Business," the boys' mother Ishka is a financial genius. Unfortunately, this fact has become a liability as Ferengi females are forbidden to be involved in business, one of many restrictions on their lives. There's another problem now, though. The Negus's memory is failing with age and Ishka's behind-the-scenes advice has become essential.
Meanwhile, in Rom's case, he wants Leeta to sign a pre-nup. Understandably, she objects and it would seem the wedding is off. Rom is relatively progressive as Ferengi males go but he has trust issues lingering from his first marriage. He has to decide if he's willing to compromise in order to be with the woman he loves.
The story certainly has icky moments but to their credit, the writers lean into the discomfort rather than dancing around it. These are important areas of growth for several essential characters.
Cecily Adams played the role of Ishka. She is the second actor to play the part and this is her first of five appearances. Adams was born in New York City, February 6, 1958. She graduated from UC-Irvine.
Other television credits include Just Shoot Me!, Murphy Brown and Party of Five. Adams was also a successful casting director, primarily for television. Her highest profile job in that capacity was for That '70s Show.
Adams passed away in 2004. A non-smoker, she died of lung cancer.
I visited my parents again in DC this past week - the second time this summer.
My parents have lived in the city since the late '90s. It's their home. It has never quite felt like my home. I grew up in the Maryland suburbs. It really isn't so far and yet I haven't actually traveled out that way so much over the years. But one day last week, I went all in: 25,000 steps for the day. I walked around my old high school, my childhood home and beyond.
It occurred to me that part of the intimacy I feel for the places of my youth is a direct result of having spent so many years exploring it on foot. My body knows exactly how steep a particular hill is, for instance. The muscle memory is set firmly in my quads. While I had driven through our old neighborhood a few times over the years, this was my first time in ages engaging with it as a pedestrian. It felt right.
The biggest change is the newly constructed Metro line that goes right under my old street:
I did plenty of wandering in northwest DC on other days, taking in the National Cathedral,
Malcolm X Park (also know as Meridian Hill Park depending whom you ask), where I saw two different people blasting gospel music
and the unique atmosphere of Adams Morgan, well encapsulated by this store front:
Major Kira invites Tekeny Ghamor to the station in order to provide intel on the Cardassians. Back in Season 3's "Second Skin," Kira learned that a Cardassian operative, Iliana, who looked an awful lot like her had been sent undercover to infiltrate the Bajoran resistance. Ghamor was Iliana's father. In the midst of confusion and heartbreak, Kira and Ghamor formed a genuine, loving bond. Ghamor is no fan of the current Cardassian regime and is happy to help bring them down. To complicate matters for all involved, he's dying. Meanwhile, Dukat is demanding that Ghamor be extradited.
Without question, "Second Skin" is one of the very best DS9 episodes and well-deserving of a sequel. In all honesty, I would have preferred a continuation of the Iliana story but what we got instead is plenty interesting in its own right. Ghamor's death dredges up Kira's regrets about her own father's passing. The two tales are linked by the fear of dying alone and, of course, the accompanying remorse of the survivors. Confronting death and aging has been an important recurring theme with Trek from the beginning - clearly important topics for creator Gene Roddenberry.
"Ties of Blood and Water" adds rich complexity to the character of Kira Nerys who already had plenty. She must find forgiveness in her heart for Ghamor regarding his role in the occupation while also coming to terms with the grief she feels in losing him. Powerful stuff.
William Lucking played the role of Furel, one of Kira's comrades during the Resistance. Furel passed away in his first appearance, "The Darkness and the Light." In "Ties of Blood and Water," he appears in the flashback to Kira's father's death. This is the actor's second of three Trek appearances.
Lucking was born in Vicksburg, Michigan, June 17, 1941. He graduated from UCLA and the Pasadena Playhouse. He co-founded the Santa Paula Theater Center in 1986 and served as its artistic director for five years.
Films include The Magnificent Seven Ride!, The Rundown and Erin Brockovich. On television, Lucking had starring roles on Outlaws and Sons of Anarchy and a recurring role on The A-Team. Guest credits include M*A*S*H, The Greatest American Hero and The West Wing.
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