Barbara Hambly's Blog, page 56

Research Question Alert - Help!

All you railroad buffs out there - I need help and the Internet apparently has no idea what I'm talking about.

European railroad cars pre-WWI (1911, to be exact). I know first-class were compartments, each entered separately from the platform. What about third-class? Was it a Pullman-style, single chamber with benches? Or was it just grubbier compartments that anyone could get into? And, where would I find this information? Is there any site anyone knows about that has a (gasp!) layout of trai...

Comfort and Joy

A most lovely Christmas. The stove actually cooked the roast beef (I always think the laws of physics will decide to suspend themselves when I'm cooking for people I care about), the roux actually roux'd itself properly for the creamed spinach sauce, there were ginormous piles of presents and non-stop talking. Everybody liked what they got. There's now a distinct academic "side" to the family - myself, my nephew, and his lady, so during the after-party there was much discussion of pre-Columbi...

Hall Deckage - Victory over Kitties

Having a Master's Degree, it only took me 3 days to figure out how to avoid the issue of having Hall Deckage that didn't look like Kitty Jungle-Gym. (At least, I hope the problem is solved...)

Instead of hanging fake-pine garlands around the ceiling molding as I usually do, and hanging ornaments from the garlands (Gus is a good enough jumper to get to the top of the 7-foot Chinese Cabinet, and from there would tightrope on the garlands) I simply made rosettes from curly ribbon bows with orname...

Operation Clean Sweep

About three times a year all 12 feet of dining table gets taken down to the wood, preparatory to a Family Occasion. The cats are puzzled. Where's the piles and piles of flat white things? Where's all the pens? All the books? All the Scantrons? We must lie on this to make it acceptable again.

Having accomplished this act of virtue, I feel like I've bought myself two days of uninterrupted working. The morning was spent driving out to the College to drop off a) the grades and b) the acceptance fo...

Little Christmas

I've come to think of the Saturday Before Christmas as a sort of Little Christmas: the night everyone has their Christmas Party. Certainly everyone on my friend Laurie's block was ALSO having THEIR Christmas Parties, which made for exciting parking and long walks in the cold.

Yet, the usual excellent food and fascinating conversation (who knew that people can make houses out of storage-containers?), and catching up on friends with whom one only communicates via rumor... and lots of cats. As th...

Search and destroy

Christmas shopping is done.

And, at the last minute I scored another class for next semester, US History again - so I have the notes - at a time that works well for me. So I'm pleased.

Many exams to grade. As an extra-credit question on 20th century I asked for the Three People who would be People of the Century for the 20th Century. So far, I have numerous votes for Martin Luther King, a large number for FDR, several for Bill Clinton (???), one for Father Coughlin (!!!), and one for Abraham ...

One down...

Final this morning. Already it feels like it was days ago. I have a large pile of exams to grade, though I'll read many of them during the first part of Final #2 Wednesday evening - waiting for the first turn-ins.

Thankfully, I've reached that wonderful point in Blood Maidens where you come over the top of the roller-coaster and the whole story is a straight drop from there - first a, then b, then c, no more question about, Do I need to put in this scene here or...?

But, far too tired to do an...

Gray

Pouring-ass rain, cold; clouds of sea-gulls over LA.

Fluffy cat and Pekinese sharing the big blue chair before the heater, their backs scrupulously turned to one another but hips touching. ("I'm only sleeping with HER because it's COLD...") (Although periodically Damsel WILL mount Jasmine, whose attitude - to that or anything else - is, Hey, Whatever.)

Hot tea and vampires.

The nice folks at LiveJournal actually got back to me muc...

The nice folks at LiveJournal actually got back to me much more quickly than I'd expected - and yes, the problem with the "XYZ's virtual gift" announcement inundation seems to have been a backlog on their list... but I've removed that particular announcement from my Profile nevertheless. I'm pleased you're all getting virtual gifts, of course, but it simply isn't my business. I attempted to thank the Help Staff by clicking the "tell us if this answer helped" link and got zippo - ditto for the...

Need advice soon!

In the past 24 hours, my e-mail has been inundated with LiveJournal "notifications" that this or that person has received a New Virtual Gift. After the first 200 or so, I changed my account settings to say, "Don't notify me." Notifications still flood in, about one per minute.

Having made this change, how long does it take for the change to be implemented?

Is there a way I can get in touch with the folks at LJ other than the "Contact Me" box (which might or might not get read)?

Like so many...