Post Potter Post

Gainesville

Well, no one has any doubts about what I was doing last night instead of blogging. I read all night-- but then fell asleep at 5:00 AM, just 30 pages from the end! Slept til noon, did my normal "morning" routines, then read the last 30 pages at my leisure.

I am very very satisfied with the ending. Excellent job! I immediately went back to the first one and started reading it again, and was just astounded at how much of it was there from the very beginning, how many threads and characters she revisited and tied up at the end. What a tour de force. Going to be hard stopping myself from re-reading all seven of them. Plus listening to to the rest of them-- own the first three on tape and loved them. (Jim Dale is a wonderful reader.) I need to decide for the rest whether to borrow tapes from the library, buy CD's, or both!

And for the record, my guesses about the fates of Harry, his two pals, Snape, Dumbledore, Hagrid and You-Know-Who were correct. The details... not so much, so there was plenty of suspense and surprise.

Julia, re-reading #6 will definitely pay off. Wish I'd done it.

I'm still playing catch-up post-Potter. Last night I fixed a pork chop thing with capers and kalamatas that Bill liked, with spaghetti squash. Tonight, a rather strange tomato juice-based gazpacho with flaked canned salmon added, along with a spinach salad that had not nearly enough spinach to support the quantity of other stuff (minced red onion, chopped walnuts, bacon bits, basalmic vinaigrette) that I put into it.

Yesterday I changed and laundered towels and swiffered the floors. Nice to have routines that kick in almost without thinking, when caught up in a strange mania like this.

Hope the trip to Lake City goes well. Look forward to hearing a full report. Also looking forward to hear what Sandy created for Julia and Lucille.

The Old Fashioned craze continues, last night and tonight. I just figured out it takes a 14 item mis en place to create these babies. Not counting the ice.