In which I return to the world....

Look! It's a cat, with sticks and books! That would be Evangeline, that would be a scarf (started at the Harry Potter party at Border's, July 20-21) and...well yeah, some of the earlier books.

OK - so I went to the party at Border's Friday night with my friend Ginny, and we were both in costume. I wore a black gown and my Halloween lovely pointy witch hat bedecked with velvety autumn leaves and a couple of sparkly spiders. Someone asked who I was - and I said "I teach an elective on the Worship and Reverence of Bears." "Oh, I'd take that" said she. She was maybe 17, there with a few (hundred?) of her school chums. Last time I went to the party at Barnes & Noble, and I think it was a better party, but that may be because a) it's a bigger store; b) their chairs for sitting in are first-rate; and c) they had more stuff to do and going on. They also had lots of things at their cafe for the occasion (they'd invented a Butter Beer - non-alcoholic - in fact. Tasty).

That being said - I go all over teary when surrounded by bazillions of kids approximately eight and up (and an equal number of grown-ups) who are THAT excited and enthusiastic about a BOOK. Not an e-book, not an electronic game book, not a "uses AAA batteries not included" type book. An old-fashioned hard-cover lots-of-pages-with-words-on-them book. Restores my faith in humanity and childhood and Imagination. NOTE: rant on my terror of the loss of Imagination among Children and Adults will be saved for a later time.

I wasn't even going to buy my book there! I ordered it from Amazon a long time ago, and they guaranteed delivery Saturday (for standard book rate). We did run into other old friends there, so after taking Ginny home (around 10:30; she's not a night owl) I went back and stayed until the count-down. I spent the time chatting and knitting (see above). It's Patons SWS yarn, "Natural Earth", and it's yet another muffler but uncomplicated and I love the yarn. Ginny pointed out (no pun intended) that my Brittany needles made mighty fine wands.....

I determined to just plain stay home Saturday until The Book came, in case I had to sign for it. The mail came at about 1:00, no book. I continued my knitting and fretting, and then at 3:15 pm the mail-lady came BACK, and when I answered the door said "Gee, I found this among my other packages, sorry I didn't see it when I delivered the regular mail." AAAAAaaaaarrrrgh!

However, THERE IT WAS! I jotted a quick note here and then turned OFF Daisy, the television and the radio to eliminate any chance of encountering a Spoiler. I poured me a new iced tea and started reading....

Sunday morning I decided to treat myself, so I took Mr. Potter out to The Sow's Ear, my favoritest yarn/coffee shop; there was only one other patron there at the time. And he ALMOST dropped a spoiler! He made a comment to the Nice Young Clerk!! I clapped my hands over my ears and shouted "NO NO NO!!" She was horrified, apologetic, and said she was going to make signs declaring the shop a Spoiler-Free Zone....the guy, however, said nothing. It may have been just my frame of mind over the near-hazard, but I was frosted. I mean, there was no one else in there, I CLEARLY had my copy of the book and was reading. Grumblemutterpfooey. Probably inadvertent, but I was frosted just the same. (The spoiler he dropped turned out to be a truth, but it didn't do any real harm. Still, "Grrrr."

I had to quit for a while Sunday afternoon to attend a send-off party for a friend of Mr. Dearling's (he's going to Vermont to continue school, I'm jealous); began reading immediately upon getting home, read through supper, did the dishes and settled down for some Serious Reading. At 5:00 a.m. Monday I realized my eyes were watering and I'd read the same sentence six times so I admitted defeat and went to bed. Got up about 10:00 a.m (whoooah, when was the last time I slept THAT late?) and continued reading, finishing the book about 7:30 p.m. Again, I will say no more, for a while at least. The book's been handed over to Lovely Daughter. I will say only: I was infinitely satisfied.

Now then - a few days BEFORE *the day*, Mr. Dearling himself suggested taking in the new HP movie - at the iMax! Needless to say, I was agreeable. We don't see movies in the theatre too often, just seems awfully pricey, but this was clearly one that warranted not only the big screen but the iMax. As we went in, we were handed "special glasses" and learned that, at the end, there was a bit - the beginning of which was signalled by the appearance of flashing little green glasses icons at the bottom of the screen - which was 3-D!! Seemed a tad hokey, but I discovered when we got to that point that the image went slightly double-image such as the 3-D movies in days of yore did so I put on my weird glasses. (They did fit over anyone's regular spectacles, by the way.) Well...Mr. Dearling said the effect was quite stunning; unfortunately my left eye, the Store-Bought, isn't 100% so I didn't get the full effect, but no loss. I think the whole iMax thing is pretty outrageous. NOTE: the eye isn't really store-bought, I had a corneal transplant some years back and the vision is somewhat limited in it, although not enough to completely affect regular depth perception. I was glad to have seen the movie, from a "refresh-the-memory" point of view, before reading "Deathly Hallows". Man, when I was a kid I would have SO gone to Hogwart's, given the chance.

Before this whole Harry Potter immersion experience in Anticipation and Delight occurred I had a Traumatic Incident which resulted in my crying in Macy's. Not traumatic in the really dreadful sense, but enough that I cried in Macy's. I'll leave that story for the next couple of days; I'm still basking in the HarryPotterness of it all.