Potter Approacheth

Well, two weeks turned into a month...I'm still in the Adirondacks, and will be here for the foreseeable future, despite terrible weather and blackouts and sloooow internet connection. The dial-up service in the mountains doesn't bother me so much...after all, who cares about the internet really...I hate to admit I do! But it's not a necessity. For me, though, lights and hot and cold running water are. We were without these for a very dark sixteen hours or so last week...the power went down as I approached checkout in AC Moore with E, my arms full of Peaches and Creme to make "warshrags" galore from "Mason Dixon Knitting." The lights dimmed and died, leaving a gaggle of ladies thwarted in their crafting needs. We drove away, disheartened, right into an insanely busy intersection with no functioning traffic lights! Wow, Kamikaze-style left turn! I attached myself to the bumper of the car in front and followed her lead back to the highway, returning home to nineteenth-century darkness, a freezer full o' melting food, and NO FLASHLIGHTS. E was excited, and Sissy and I put a bright face on it. The candlelight was pretty loverly.

The weather has been uniformly gloomy, H.P. Lovecraftian really. The Adirondacks do get eerie in perpetual twilight--the trees are so tall around our house that they block out the light anyway, and now we're in a gothic novel. I adore rainy days, but the fog and mist and thunder have become unnerving.

I have gotten a perfect rainy day UPS shipment, though: a Charlotte's Web kit with five lovely skeins of Koigu, a busload of aforementioned Peaches and Creme for disclothes, and...drumroll please (well, in my yarn-addled mind, at least)...a box of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino for new Ripple. I shall call this one Debbie. Sissy finished her immense worsted ripple--it's fantastic and so cozy. A named it Gorgar, and the nickname "Gorgo" has stuck, after my sister tried out "Elmer" and "Madge" to no avail. Gorgo seems like the newest pet in a household of pets...his softness is so alluring that we've all slept under him at one time or another, even in his incomplete stages.

And finally, the ultimate rainy-day treat: the new Potter. How I've longed for this day to come. A and I are buying two copies at midnight, and then going into a total media blackout. Let no spoilers sully the experience. I am rooting for Snape to be ambivalently non-evil. My crush on the dark professor has been vindicated by an article my friend sent me, discussing Snape as Byronic hero, and some of the sexy fan fic surrounding his mythos. My friend warned me that I might be scarred by reading some of this online s&m stuff, but of course that couldn't keep me away...I read, and was duly scarred, not to mention blushing. However, it does tell me that I'm not alone in my maybe misplaced luv.

If you dare, google "Veresna Ussep." Not for the prudish, or the blushing, the faint-hearted, the J.K. purists, or even for me. But it's pretty darn well-written. Wonder if Jo has read this stuff?

Well, happy Pottering to any fellow fans who happen here...