I had a terrible, wonderful idea on Sunday. I was looking through my knitting books, and looking through the HP knitting book, I was all "Oh! Gillian will be eleven in August! I could knit her many things in House colors!" This rapidly morphed into "We could do a Hogwarts-themed school year next year!" and by the time I had recovered from my sheer brilliance, I discovered I had, in my delirium, posted my idea to facebook, where raving_liberal confirmed I was not the only mother of a ten year old to nurse such wild ideas about the upcoming school year.

Well. So I posted about the academics of it on my public homeschool blog: Welcome to Hogwarts, and even got an offer from a herbalist for materials for Herbology. Score! And, really, I can find ways to make academics fit into just about any framework.

But the magic of it...

So, if you were going to have a Hogwarts-themed homeschool year, what would you want to be included?

Pretty soon I am going to start mixing up "Terminus" and "Transformus" even more so than my flist already has confused me. :)

Which makes me ponder the big questions. Like. Harry Potter and The Visit to Burning Man? Or something.

Kelly, who knows, this could be the blockbuster follow up to Harry and Draco Visit The Farm!

I've decided that, in my mind, 8x02, A La Cart, was the last episode of CSI. It was one of the best episodes to emerge between seasons six, seven, and what little I have seen of eight, if not the best episode of those seasons. I praised it immediately following its airing.

It's how I'd rather think of the show, rather than the rest of this season that I have seen, Jorja Fox leaving and consequently, Sara exiting the lab.

The Grissom/Sara romance never sat well with me, once it was actually explicit. There was a time in seasons four and five that I would have liked to see it, as a natural resolution of the very careful build of sexual tension between the two characters. Once the relationship was begun, however, the writers forgot a fundamental rule: show, don't tell.

They told the viewers that Sara and Grissom were involved, that they were in love, but it was never shown. Not to my satisifaction. They took something with a great deal of potential and killed it.

While I was thinking about this fact, I realized why the Harry/Ginny aspects of canon don't sit well with me. Everything else about the books is explicit, but we're never really shown the why of Harry/Ginny. It's just, whoo, chest monster! Snogging! and suddenly there is no one for Harry but Ginny. Yes, a great case could be made for why Ginny... but we're never shown it, not in my view. We're just supposed to accept what it told.

All of this came to mind while I was thinking about fandom. Fandom was a huge, huge part of my life for quite a bit of time, and I don't regret any of that time. I gained some fabulous people from it, and it kept me sane in difficult times. I miss it, but I also realize that I can't recapture it, and that I seem to be... losing fandoms? I can't really bear to play in the CSI playground now, and while there are a few hints of things I'd still like to do with HP, I know that I don't have time to RP, as much as I'd love to RP. I know that I don't really have the time to write fic of the length I'd love to write. Maybe someday, again, but not now.

That said, I wish I could RP on occasion. Someone or someones who'd want to play with angry TSW!Harry on occasion, because gee, he's still storming. And, ooh, how much would I love a chance to play with my Lily? I absolutely adore my Lily. I know I can't commit to a game, though. How irritating.

My house is quiet. It's the kind of quiet that once led to fic and RP and all manner of interesting things, but not at present.

• Until my boy from Tennessee puts his hat in the ring, and if he doesn't, my vote is going to the boy from North Carolina.

• I still love TWW. I finally started watching S7. I think it was denial. You know, if I don't rewatch S7, I don't have to admit, again, that it is gone.

• Along those same lines, I think my mind is still dealing with DH. I'll being doing something else, and suddenly something will hit me from it. I know that sounds bizarre, but there it is.

• I started placing girls in troops today. This is awesome. It's doing something real, unlike some of the service unit jobs.

• Despite the first point, I really want my boy from Tennessee in the ring. So very very badly. As I've mentioned, twenty years.

• I purchased my lovely MacBook in April. I have never used the Remote. I went to remove it from the box, and it was not there. I am not sure if it was ever there, really, since I haven't used it and don't recall ever removing it. Sam thinks there is a spare one lying around at his work that I can use for a few things; after that, I will have to use AppleCare to get a new Remote. How depressing is that? Of course, once I get a new one, I predict finding the old one within fourteen days.

• I found a veterinarian to which to take the feline occupant of the household. She's up in Woodstock, but she does more holistic things and supposed to be more understanding of not vaccinating pets. I don't know that I wouldn't vaccinate an outdoor animal (I haven't had occasion to look into it one way or another), but I really see no point in injecting things into my cat that never is around other animals and never goes outside. I realize that most veterinarians aren't going to see things that way, however, so to find one that is more understanding is important.

• I bought a book on Friday night called Deer Hunting for Jesus. It's about progressives, Republicans, and the working class. I just started it and already it's saying some of things that I think really ought to be said. The title is just a bonus.

• All of my house has been decluttered excepting the office area upstairs, at this point. The library is not finished, mainly because I need to go to Ikea and get more shelves for my Billys, but it's not really in need of decluttering. This, of course, means that the case of the missing Remote is even more perplexing.

• I also went a bit nuts in the bargain books section on Friday night. In my defense, what was I supposed to do for five hours whilst I waited for the book? I did go to Johnny Rockets and get a milkshake at one point, but most places around Borders were closed by nine or so.

• My goal is to finish the office area (and the library) by Gillian's birthday party, which is on Saturday August 4. I suppose that means I ought to get to work on that, say, today.

• I have more coherent thoughts about DH coming - ( I can't imagine this is a spoiler, but just in caseCollapse )

• I really ought to take my shower now, since I have to leave the house in a bit over an hour. I'm procrastinating. Don't I get to procrastinate a bit? I've already gone on a forty-five minute walk and done a thirty-minute exercise dvd.

( Where on the deck my canon lies, my ship is cold and deadCollapse )

"It is some dream that in my heart,
Has fallen cold and dead."

So, I had planned to go to that book reading tonight in Little Five. I was getting blah about having to find a place to park, though (I failed parallel parking when I took my driver's license test; you're allowed to fail one thing and that was mine. I haven't improved since that time.).

Sam came home and asked me when I was going to see OotP!Movie. I replied that I really wasn't sure when I would get a chance. He reached into his wallet, handed me a twenty, and told me to go see it tonight.

So I did.

( Spoilery, I SupposeCollapse )

Also, I don't know that I'm quite ready for next Friday evening. Closed canon and open canon are two entirely different things. I don't feel like I'm that active in HP fandom any longer, obviously, and while there are local groups, I'm just not that into cosplay and so forth, which they are. Nothing wrong with that, it's just not something upon which I want to spend that much energy. My idea of a costume is my Slyth scarf and a cheap old Halloween cloak, and that's about how much effort I put into it if I dress up.

Still, though... HP. Without HP, I wouldn't have an LJ. I wouldn't know my darling wives. Jacob wouldn't have a goddessmother. And while there will still be two more movies, there will still be fic, there will still be fandom... part of it is definitely ending next Friday at midnight.

It's really just more weird than anything.

Brit Burns Bum

Obviously, they are attempting to cover up the incident by saying it was a firecracker, rather than admitting it was a wand. ;) This younger generation of wizards, will they never learn...

Reading my flist reminded me that I had a very strange dream last night involving myself, a Victoria's Secret superstore (with a playground in the middle of it), the character Catherine from CSI:, and aegeus. Don't ask me.

My car is once again legal. I forgot to get my renewal before my birthday so I had to go get its emissions tested and then pay the lovely tag fee + ad valorum tax to get my little '2005' sticker. Now, they were replacing plates this year, but because the state budget is in such a bad place, they changed their minds around June or July, so the rest of us get to keep our old (prettier!) plates. Hooray for a autumn birthday, I say.

The bad news with that, though, is that if I want a vanity plate whenever we get another car, it will be in the new style. Ah well. I want a vanity plate rather badly. Silly, but eh.

I thought I had an appointment this morning for blood work, so I went upstairs to check last night around 11 pm. Turns out I was wrong, the appointment was yesterday at 11 am. Oops. So now I'm going to have to wait yet again to get my bloodwork done. I'll be lucky if the midwife doesn't think I'm deliberately avoiding bloodwork. I swear to god I'm not.

I feel like I should write something tonight, but I'm just not sure what. We shall see.

If you honestly think Harry, post-OotP, would be consumed by guilt over Sirius's death, please comment and tell me why. I really don't get this tendency to make Harry suddenly feel guilty. Whether or not he SHOULD feel guilty is a different issue, but making a 15 year old look at things that way? I just don't get it. Convince me, if you think you can.

(Of course, if you agree with me, you can tell me that too. :D )