23 trick-or-treaters this year, likely due to rain and construction. The last four were after we had started picking up and bringing things inside, and in fact after we'd sorted the candy into Keep and Share. (The Share candy stays outside overnight for the late crew, then goes with Belovedest to work. We don't have particularly much trouble with raccoons.) In the last party, the one with the umbrella hat and some sort of Studio Ghibli makeup (white face, red eye triangles) was enchanted with the glow sticks and picked one of the very few blue ones.

This year's innovation was doing the Wizard of Oz + Dark Side of the Moon thing with (much less cleverly timed) Chaos Emergency Doof Broadcast (Which is 4 hours of very silly DJ work), some of the Halloween episodes, with Addams Family Values on mute (several times through). We got the inflammable tango to "The Devil Went Down to Georgia", and a few other silly confluences. I think this is one of the ones where precise timing doesn't help all that much, but it's great when it happens. By the time the show had run out of explicitly spooky songs, it got a little less entertaining.

Belovedest was Jigglypuff. I was a very tired Dulcie (wearing my own nightgown and some exhaustion makeup). I ordered the wrong crust on 2 out of 3 pizzas, and the 3rd one was gluten free.
azurelunatic: Karkat Vantas yelling. His shirt has the astrological sign Cancer in grey. (Karkat Yell)
([personal profile] azurelunatic Oct. 28th, 2025 06:25 pm)
Video appointment with chemotherapist today. I'm done with immunotherapy! The scan says I've been stable.

I still have:

* bone strengthening (not marrow encouraging) med every 12 weeks, infused
* Scans every 3 months

So that means a trip or two to the cancer center every 3 months, although if they keep it at 3 months for the one and 12 weeks for the other, they may fall out of sync.

I should probably celebrate this?
dragonbat2006: Canon Error (Default)
([personal profile] dragonbat2006 posting in [community profile] little_details Oct. 27th, 2025 10:39 pm)
 I tried Googling and got general info on curriculum, specific schools, and alumnae pages, but not the specific details I'm looking for.

My main character is an upper class 13-year-old boy who, due to long-term illness/frailty was educated by tutors at home, but is now being sent away to school. (Probably England, but since he lives in Yorkshire, I'm not completely opposed to it being Scotland if it turns out that there are significant differences in school experiences between the two countries and Scotland would work better for my character.)

1. Would most pupils begin classes in the fall term as is typical today? As in, would it be realistic for him to begin in September? Or was it more of a rolling admissions thing?

2. How far in advance would his father need to contact the school to enrol/register him? Would there normally be an entrance exam, or would it normally be, 'We accept anyone who can pay the fee, provided there's space'?

3. When it comes to letters to and from home, would there be any reasonable expectation of privacy, or would it be common for staff to read each piece of correspondence? Specifically, the boy has a female cousin of the same age with whom he's quite close. Would he get into any sort of trouble for writing to her or would her letters to him be delivered?

4. If she were in the vicinity of the school, would it be possible for them to meet under the auspices of a chaperone, or would that be totally unheard of?

5. How much would the outbreak of WWI impact him? I would guess that some of the younger teachers would have enlisted over the summer and some of the older boys talking about hoping it won't be over before they get a chance to get in it. Would that mean larger than expected classes? 

Thanks so much!
mark: A photo of Mark kneeling on top of the Taal Volcano in the Philippines. It was a long hike. (Default)
([staff profile] mark posting in [site community profile] dw_maintenance Oct. 25th, 2025 08:42 am)

Good morning, afternoon, and evening!

We're doing some database and other light server maintenance this weekend (upgrading the version of MySQL we use in particular, but also probably doing some CDN work.)

I expect all of this to be pretty invisible except for some small "couple of minute" blips as we switch between machines, but there's a chance you will notice something untoward. I'll keep an eye on comments as per usual.

Ta for now!

azurelunatic: melting chocolate teapot (418)
([personal profile] azurelunatic Oct. 21st, 2025 10:56 pm)
Today Belovedest had to bust the teenagers for playing "the penis game" in the library.

[You say the word increasingly loudly, in turns, until someone loses the game by being told to cut it out or being asked to leave.]

The weather's getting colder, but I have evolved myself an outfit to wear outdoors for lounging while the weather's in the high 50s F -- my slightly ratty plush bathrobe underneath my much more windproof corduroy floor length duster. And the ta'al fingerless mgloves Mama knitted for me, in rainbow stripes. They're just the thing for keeping my hands warm while I'm on the phone.

I've discovered I do enjoy cauliflower "wings", even though I don't enjoy chicken wings.

The scooter has arrived. I am plotting how best to bedazzle it. It does have its own USB power outlet! It also has head and tail lights. It's better for approaching counters than the wheelchair, since the tiller is so close to me.

[personal profile] norabombay points out that given all the poorly supervised international visitors who have been in and out of the White House, they're going to have to take it down to the studs when they refit it for #48 to use. So the general devastation in the East Wing is small potatoes as far as outrage fodder. And anywhere that the last major update was 1947-ish must really need some yanking out of the century of the fruitbat.

My legs are doing better. In part this is because I stuck ibuprofen in my nightly pill box, since I'd been waking up with aching legs and shouting knees pretty consistently.

Medication: the medication definitely has some activity. The main activity seems to be that my appetite has been fading in and out of "did we recently have chemo?!" mode. I'm tempted to give myself a week off every few weeks.

Makeup: currently waiting on a liquid formulation of the eyeshadow that promised to match the eyeliner, because the color is fantastic and I want it in a wide brush. I guess the powder can work for blending it out. (The powder just does not want to cooperate and layer on thick enough to get the color shift effect, even with a wet brush.) My skin continues to behave itself better than my ability to use foundation; there are only a few spots where I want to color correct if I'm doing Full Battle Makeup.

Games: keeping up with all the Gems of War events is sometimes tiring, but it does make winding down my brain at night much easier than other things I could be doing.

Perfume: went through my massive perfume spreadsheet and filled in the formulation for all the BPAL (which is the same except for that one spray). Cracked myself up at some of the descriptions I've left. One particular exceedingly long-lasting one
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