Barbara Hambly's Blog, page 21
September 1, 2012
I am so touched by the people who have contributed to my ...
I am so touched by the people who have contributed to my "Race for the Rescues" 5K for animal charities here in LA. This is especially poignant for me because I lost my most beloved pet back in April, and because Damsel the Pekinese has recently begun to fade. She's down from 10 pounds to just over six now, and is on a cocktail of meds whose side-effect is that I have to clean her up in the sink every couple of days. She's perky, happy, and very much herself, and has a good quality of life, but... it's a nuisance. And I have to keep an eye on her. And she REALLY doesn't like that sink thing.
Thank you all. And thank you, in advance, to those who haven't yet made up their minds to go to www.racefortherescues.org (and look up the "participants" button, and look for my name...), and put a couple bucks towards those who're at the back of the line for charity, all over the country... and whose only offense, in thousands of cases, was being born to mamas whose owners didn't get around to - or didn't believe in - having them spayed. (Or whose owners got them on a whim and then decided they couldn't cope with the whole feeding-and-walking thing).
Meanwhile, a lovely day of work on Asher & Ysidro #5 - with laundry, tea, and peaceful silence. The next couple of weekends are going to be pretty crowded, so I'm enjoying this one.
Thank you all. And thank you, in advance, to those who haven't yet made up their minds to go to www.racefortherescues.org (and look up the "participants" button, and look for my name...), and put a couple bucks towards those who're at the back of the line for charity, all over the country... and whose only offense, in thousands of cases, was being born to mamas whose owners didn't get around to - or didn't believe in - having them spayed. (Or whose owners got them on a whim and then decided they couldn't cope with the whole feeding-and-walking thing).
Meanwhile, a lovely day of work on Asher & Ysidro #5 - with laundry, tea, and peaceful silence. The next couple of weekends are going to be pretty crowded, so I'm enjoying this one.
August 26, 2012
A small dinner last night to celebrate my birthday - I th...
A small dinner last night to celebrate my birthday - I think I have the most amazing group of friends since the Fellowship of the Ring.
Today will be spent taking down the tent, putting away the lanterns, (thank GOD I washed the coffee-cups and wine-glasses last night so I didn't come downstairs to a Morning Mess) and doing laundry. My friend Laurel always brings a cake: she's a professional artist and LOVES to cake-decorate. She asked, what kind of theme should she do, and I said, How about Japanese? So she brought a cake that looked like a giant piece of sushi, with dark fruit-roll wrapping around its sides (which nobody ate - that stuff is nasty!) and PERFECT jello-shot balls (made in a mini-round-ice-cube tray) to look like salmon roe on a bed of cocoanut. With a giant piece of sushi for dessert, of course the meal was mainly Greek: apps, Greek salad, and a phenomenal zuccini salad.
After setting up the tent, putting up tables and chairs, and then sitting up talking on the patio until almost midnight, I slept in so late that Gus (the big gray tabby) came up to wake me: the boy is VERY invested in his breakfast.
Classes start tomorrow, so it's prep today.
Today will be spent taking down the tent, putting away the lanterns, (thank GOD I washed the coffee-cups and wine-glasses last night so I didn't come downstairs to a Morning Mess) and doing laundry. My friend Laurel always brings a cake: she's a professional artist and LOVES to cake-decorate. She asked, what kind of theme should she do, and I said, How about Japanese? So she brought a cake that looked like a giant piece of sushi, with dark fruit-roll wrapping around its sides (which nobody ate - that stuff is nasty!) and PERFECT jello-shot balls (made in a mini-round-ice-cube tray) to look like salmon roe on a bed of cocoanut. With a giant piece of sushi for dessert, of course the meal was mainly Greek: apps, Greek salad, and a phenomenal zuccini salad.
After setting up the tent, putting up tables and chairs, and then sitting up talking on the patio until almost midnight, I slept in so late that Gus (the big gray tabby) came up to wake me: the boy is VERY invested in his breakfast.
Classes start tomorrow, so it's prep today.
August 20, 2012
Okay, it's that time again!Once more, this year, I ha...
Okay, it's that time again!
Once more, this year, I have signed up to do the 5K walk to raise funds for Animal Rescue in Los Angeles. My fund-raising goal is $500 - I have a "page" on Race For the Rescues website (www.racefortherescues.org).
Please - go to that website, click the "Find Participant" button, find me (BarbaraHambly), and donate what you can. Animals are at the very bottom of the rather shallow charity pool these days: rescue organizations and no-kill shelters work hard to take up the slack of people who don't spay and neuter their pets, who abandon their pets ("Oh, they'll be fine in the wild..."), who acquire animals without the slightest idea of the responsibilities involved toward another living creature and then dump them if it turns out to be not convenient. The animals themselves are completely innocent of what human society does to them.
I'm not sure I'll be able to do the entire 5K this year (knee issues), but at least I can raise the funds for a contribution.
Thank you ALL for whatever you can contribute!
Once more, this year, I have signed up to do the 5K walk to raise funds for Animal Rescue in Los Angeles. My fund-raising goal is $500 - I have a "page" on Race For the Rescues website (www.racefortherescues.org).
Please - go to that website, click the "Find Participant" button, find me (BarbaraHambly), and donate what you can. Animals are at the very bottom of the rather shallow charity pool these days: rescue organizations and no-kill shelters work hard to take up the slack of people who don't spay and neuter their pets, who abandon their pets ("Oh, they'll be fine in the wild..."), who acquire animals without the slightest idea of the responsibilities involved toward another living creature and then dump them if it turns out to be not convenient. The animals themselves are completely innocent of what human society does to them.
I'm not sure I'll be able to do the entire 5K this year (knee issues), but at least I can raise the funds for a contribution.
Thank you ALL for whatever you can contribute!
August 19, 2012
As twilight was falling and I was sitting on the picnic-b...
As twilight was falling and I was sitting on the picnic-blanket in Griffith Park, waiting for the open-air performance of A Comedy of Errors to start, glimpsed a tall young guy on the edge of the crowd wearing a bow-tie and blue suspenders... I looked a second time and yes, it was the Eleventh Doctor, along with the Tenth (in his long brown greatcoat, and God knows how he stood the heat!) with the lovely River Song. Excellent and unexpected costumes, and totally tickled me because I'm betting 3/4 of the crowd spread out over the lawn had no idea who those were. Stealth cosplay, as someone on Facebook described it.
The play was hilarious. The picnic phenomenal (including a salad of fresh home-grown tomatoes, watermelon chunks, and harissa: amazing!). The heat never cooled off; it was still in the 80s when the cast were taking final bows at quarter to ten. It was the last of the three plays we've seen this summer, and a reminder that the summer is winding to its close. I've spent the morning prepping PowerPoint slides for my class - and still very anxious because I've been cut back to one class (all the adjuncts have, despite the fact that students are desperate to get into these classes because they're required to transfer - there's simply no money to pay for instructors). The class I have is an honors history class, which are always great fun to teach: no worry, at least, about whether the reading-level of the students is up to the text or the primary source material I assign.
August 6, 2012
A question:I got onto Goodreads - I was supposedly doing ...
A question:
I got onto Goodreads - I was supposedly doing a Q&A there, but there were no Q's - and a number of people have said they'd like to be my "Friends" there and they'd like to follow my "reviews." Does anybody here know HOW one goes about putting up "reviews" on Goodreads? I'd like to do so, and can't figure it out (there isn't even a link for it, and the "recommendations" link seems to dump me into OTHER peoples' recommendations for ME... of which I get tons without even going onto Goodreads.
And, I'm not going to tell Goodreads' search-engine what kind of books I like because I don't share that information... all it gets is tons of unsolicited recommendations that I'm not interested in.
But if people want reviews and recommendations from ME - and it would be mostly research books - how would I do that?
Many thanks.
(By the way, I DID figure out where the stylus was on the Nintendo DS, but I find I actually like using a bamboo skewer instead. It's longer and handles better).
I got onto Goodreads - I was supposedly doing a Q&A there, but there were no Q's - and a number of people have said they'd like to be my "Friends" there and they'd like to follow my "reviews." Does anybody here know HOW one goes about putting up "reviews" on Goodreads? I'd like to do so, and can't figure it out (there isn't even a link for it, and the "recommendations" link seems to dump me into OTHER peoples' recommendations for ME... of which I get tons without even going onto Goodreads.
And, I'm not going to tell Goodreads' search-engine what kind of books I like because I don't share that information... all it gets is tons of unsolicited recommendations that I'm not interested in.
But if people want reviews and recommendations from ME - and it would be mostly research books - how would I do that?
Many thanks.
(By the way, I DID figure out where the stylus was on the Nintendo DS, but I find I actually like using a bamboo skewer instead. It's longer and handles better).
Now that the upheaval of The Big Job Interview is past (a...
Now that the upheaval of The Big Job Interview is past (and no, I didn't get it - vexing and anxiety-producing), it's settled into being a quiet summer. I'm back in First Draft - Asher & Ysidro - but have time to do the non-writing things that can be done with very little money. I've mentioned the Hollywood Bowl and Shakespeare in the Park picnics with friends - lovely summer twilights - and I'm able to work more on studying my Japanese. (Weirdly, that little "My Japanese Coach" game on the DS is a VERY useful review and drill). I found a class in ATS dance near me, and have returned with pleasure to it. I've gotten a good deal of sewing done, and am working on a John & Jenny story for the website.
All small and peaceful stuff.
And slaughtering monsters on Diablo.
All small and peaceful stuff.
And slaughtering monsters on Diablo.
August 2, 2012
Just got a sort of Holy Grail of research: a friend recom...
Just got a sort of Holy Grail of research: a friend recommended "The Value of a Dollar" - prices of EVERYTHING from colonial times to the year 2000.
How much did a farm-worker in Philadelphia earn in 1806? Forty cents a day. Coal was three cents a bushel. A horse cost $50 (how good a horse? Bet you paid more if you were trying to match a pair... and anyway, it ain't the horse that costs, but the feed...)
I am, needless to say, delighted. I have a 3-foot shelf of books containing this sort of information, and I STILL have to extrapolate sometimes. For English prices I usually use Liza Picard's incredible series on London (Elizabethan, Restoration, 18th Century, and Victorian)...
And I was also tickled to death to find a manga of Asterix le Gaulois IN JAPANESE... where the producer RE-DREW THE ARTWORK (presumably for copyright reasons).
I've also just acquired a refurbished Nintendo DS with "My Japanese Coach" to assist my study of the language. I'm currently using a bamboo skewer as a stylus. There's a stylus installed SOMEWHERE in that sleek little box, (I saw the girl at the store put it in) but I can't remember where it is and it's impossible to find. Any help would be appreciated.
How much did a farm-worker in Philadelphia earn in 1806? Forty cents a day. Coal was three cents a bushel. A horse cost $50 (how good a horse? Bet you paid more if you were trying to match a pair... and anyway, it ain't the horse that costs, but the feed...)
I am, needless to say, delighted. I have a 3-foot shelf of books containing this sort of information, and I STILL have to extrapolate sometimes. For English prices I usually use Liza Picard's incredible series on London (Elizabethan, Restoration, 18th Century, and Victorian)...
And I was also tickled to death to find a manga of Asterix le Gaulois IN JAPANESE... where the producer RE-DREW THE ARTWORK (presumably for copyright reasons).
I've also just acquired a refurbished Nintendo DS with "My Japanese Coach" to assist my study of the language. I'm currently using a bamboo skewer as a stylus. There's a stylus installed SOMEWHERE in that sleek little box, (I saw the girl at the store put it in) but I can't remember where it is and it's impossible to find. Any help would be appreciated.
July 25, 2012
Just checked on the news-line and yes, there WAS a minor ...
Just checked on the news-line and yes, there WAS a minor earthquake at 3:18 this morning, apparently directly under my house ("west of downtown Los Angeles in vicinity of Culver City and Inglewood..."). I guessed it was pretty close - it was only a single shock - and it scared the bejeezus out of the cats, but as quakes go it was very small potatoes (a 3.7).
July 24, 2012
Back in the day when I was working on the first of the va...
Back in the day when I was working on the first of the vampire books, Those Who Hunt the Night, I went to London for a World Fantasy Con, and found a bookstore there that specialized in old Baedekker's Guides. I spent ENTIRELY too much money on them, but boy, am I glad I did! Accurate maps of London and Oxford (and every other town in Britain) in 1905... what a useful delight!
July 22, 2012
A warm, peaceful morning, looking forward to a day of wor...
A warm, peaceful morning, looking forward to a day of work. As usual, the outline I sent in to the publisher to sell the book has to be extensively re-worked ("They were going to do that? Seriously? Hmn."), and it's interesting, after doing three "road-trip" Asher/Ysidro books, to be back strictly in London, dealing with the London vampire nest and the interactions between vampires and humans. (And such issues as the "London Season", particularly in 1913).
Another Bowl night Thursday - VERY much looking forward to it. It's being a curiously social summer. Now that the fret and worry of prepping for a job interview is past (for a job I didn't get), I can actually rest and refuel (or I can until the nice folks at Severn House hit me with the notes on Good Man Friday).
But, first drafts are always tiring.
Another Bowl night Thursday - VERY much looking forward to it. It's being a curiously social summer. Now that the fret and worry of prepping for a job interview is past (for a job I didn't get), I can actually rest and refuel (or I can until the nice folks at Severn House hit me with the notes on Good Man Friday).
But, first drafts are always tiring.
