I was caught in the terrible rainstorms today...honestly, the storm was right overhead, what with the simultaneous lightening and thunderstorming and the creepy green clouds that made it look like 10 p.m. instead of 11:30 a.m.

BUT the weather yesterday was most excellent. A few of my friends from NYC came "down the shore" for some beach time. The picture is an unusual bookmark...maybe not so much for the beach.

I'm attempting to pack to head to a convention this week, but I will try and post a blog before I go. This will likely relate to driving as its been my biggest frustration this week, what with the large amount of tourists on the island now. It's bad.

animal house

Check out this display I saw at the local CVS. Ping pong balls--which I normally don't think to get at CVS--right above Solo cups. And, Gasp!, next to hangover cure. Let's see, they wouldn't be trying to cater to a certain 20-something party animal element, now would they?

I'm a little under-the-weather with an ear/sinus infection today--I'll spare you the details--but I am hoping to be 100 percent by tomorrow, when my friends Ben and Liz come down to spend a day at the beach. The weather has been really nice--sunny but not too hot, with just the right amount of breeze.

Also, I went to Atlantic City the other day to see Harry Potter on the IMAX in 3D. It was pretty much awesome. Unfortunately, I had this little kid (maybe 10-12-years-old) sitting next to me who felt it necessary to keep a running dialogue of what was happening in the movie as it happens...and was often wrong. I think it was the wrong part that got to me. Since I'm not an aggressive person--especially not towards children--I didn't say anything (I did look at him in attempt to make him understand he was disturbing me) until he turned around to the person behind him and said "Could you PLEASE stop kicking my chair" in an exasperated tone.


!!! went I, in my head. OK now its on. If he sees fit to tell someone that they are disturbing his peace, I will do the same. So I tapped him and said "you asked her to stop kicking your chair? Now I have to ask you to stop talking through the movie." He looked at me and...DIDN'T STOP TALKING! He said "She's still 'effin (he used the real word) kicking my chair." So I said "And you're still talking."


YESSS victory over a 10-year-old kid! My life is complete. or something.

Sensory memories

Several days in the past weeks have been hot and humid (humidity just goes with living on an island!) Whenever I cross a certain street on my drive back from work at night, just for a moment I am not driving back to Long Beach Island, but feel like I am in another place. Specifically, India.

The scent of the salt, seawater and humidity in the night air reminds me so much of Bombay, where I lived for 4 months my senior year of college. It smells like a million trips to India with my family, where the Bombay airport was our first welcome back, the hot, stuffy, smelly air feeling too close after the climate controlled airplane, though there we were limited to a few feet radius.

The smell always annoyed me and I'd go back with stories of how I hated that Bombay was our first welcome back and that it was foreigner's/first-time visitor's initial impression of India. I was generally pretty cross after spending close to 24 hours on a plane.

But these last few days its been making me feel sort of homesick. I was born and raised in Minnesota, not in India, but as I grow older I appreciate our visits to my parent's home country even more. I'm sure I am not alone in this sentiment, from being the picky American girl who turned up her nose at the thick, unpasteurized milk and the dust that lay everywhere, to an adult who sort of longs for visits.

Of course, visits back are never relaxing. People always think "oh she is taking two weeks off from work for vacation" but it is not vacation, it is a trip. Its traveling for so long then meeting hundreds of people, running from place to place...very little time to relax.

Anyway, its interesting how senses can bring back memories...and for some reason the sensory memories that I remember most are always ones that bring me back to India: climbing stairs in my high school reminding me of the narrow staircase to my grandma's house. Sweeping my floor reminding me of the sound of the stiff brushes used to clean the floors, daily. A car horn reminding me of the crowded streets. And the thick, heavy night air reminding me of car rides from the airport, after spending 24 hours on a plane and 24 months away.

And I'm done

I fell asleep for about an hour around Chapter 10, dreamed (dreamt?) fitfully about Harry Potter and imagined it was all part of the book before waking up and just reading. I kept pausing but didn't feel tired, so I kept going on. At one point, I looked out my window and noticed the dark blue sky...so I fed into an impulse, threw a scarf around my neck and drove to the beach to watch the sunset...book in tow.

It ended up being quite poignant because I read about a random sunrise in the book while the sun was rising (this is not a spoiler in any way, it was just a sunrise). That was a pretty neat feeling. Plus, I got to sit on the lifeguard chair! woo!

I don't think I'll ever be awake early enough to see a sunrise over the ocean ever again (unless its winter and then it will be much colder) but I am glad I did it last night.

Even though right now I am so tired I have no idea how I will work 8 hours...

Getting amped!

OK, this is the second-to-last HP fangirl post you will have to read. I am getting excited--I am meeting someone in two hours for a pre-book cup of joe (we don't want to be getting sleepy!) and its just amazing that in 5 hours we will have the book in our hands! I'm sort of sad because I love looking forward to a new book. Like I wrote, I am going to try to savor it, but its sort of like eating cookies: you think you will just have one, but then you have another and then just a little piece here and then another little piece and suddenly all is left are crumbs.

i think I'll make cookies.

HP SAFE ZONE

I would like to note here that my blog will be an HP-safe zone. Meaning I am not going to blog about any spoilers or reveal anything about the book...except maybe a few emotions at how I felt reading it. Tears will mean nothing necessarily because I am bound to cry anyways (today I cried when someone won on the Price is Right.) None of my emotions will give away spoilers.

I am excited because today I found out my editor is a big HP fan and we spent 10 minutes on the phone talking theories and predictions. I'm getting so excited again!

You won't hear it here though! I will return, instead, to regular Jersey Shore blogging instead.

But today? Wearing my Dumbledore t-shirt.

EXHAUSTED

Tonight is about relaxing with my favorite scar-headed wizard and his crew...can you believe I've been so busy I have yet to see HP5? I was in the parking lot of the theater last night when I got called back into work to cover something.

I put together a little slideshow of my last few weeks, to try and capture the crazy. Its missing a few pics, but I'll get those in later. Click on the links below

EXHAUSTED!

On being absent

Sorry for the long delay, it's been a week (19 days really) of crazy in my life, including the past week of little to no internet. And now back home my internet is down so I am stealing a few moments of time at work to update this blog.

Harry Potter mania has gripped the nation! I claim to be part of that mania, but I've been feeling very unPotterheadish lately, partially because I've been so crazy-busy that I haven't even see the movie...6 days after its release! I WILL go tonight, however, because if that movie is out for a full week and I haven't seen it...I don't even know how to finish that sentence.

To expound further on that thought, I wrote a guest blog for the Star Tribune's Potter Blotter, run by Headmistress Maria (as we call her, she doesn't refer to herself as that!) After you read, feel free to comment too! It's a great little community.

One thing I didn't write there is something that Maria suggested, that part of my HP fervor is having the flames of fandom fanned by my friends (say that Five times Fast). It's hard to get manic when you are doing it alone.

Another thing that came up in the comments is about supporting local independent bookstores as opposed to big monolithic chain stores, especially for Harry Potter books. It took me awhile (mostly because I was gone and didn't have time to think about it) but I found a local bookstore in Beach Haven, called Island Book Store, on Bay Ave.

The lady who owns the store (Catherine) said her daughter was in charge of it and actually threatened to rent an owl for the release, so it sounds pretty good!

Also, because of something else I posted on Potter Blotter, another local person found me and emailed me, and we are likely going to meet up at this release. So the flames of fandom may continue to being fanned unFettered. Fun.

mid-craziness-two-weeks

Only have a second to update. I got back from Cali late Wednesday and crashed. Worked Thursday and spent Friday and today unpacking, laundering, cleaning my house and REpacking for the next 7 days--NYC tonight, Pittsburgh Sunday and Monday and Delaware Tuesday through Friday for work training.


I promise to do a little photo update soon, like a cute Flickr slideshow or something. Until then, you can check out a few photos on Sam's site, including some terrible singing during a touching moment.


And I also promise that after this, I am not leaving my place unless I absolutely have to. Like Aug. 1-4 to Miami for the AAJA convention and Aug. 6 for my cousin's 1st birthday in North Jersey. And Aug. 24 to Baltimore for a Twins-Orioles game.

But, you know, other than that, staying at home. =)