Evidence of Harry Potter in My Neighborhood

As I run in the mornings, up and down the streets of my neighborhood, I sometimes come across strange items. This morning, for instance, I found a quarter and put it in the tip jar at the Starbucks.
But sometimes, like a detective,  I begin to see a pattern. And I've decided the pattern is that Harry Potter and his wizarding friends live among us.
Today, I saw this shard of mirror on the sidewalk.

Everyone who has read Harry Potter remembers that his godfather Sirius gave him a two-way mirror so they could communicate. In the final book, Harry has only a shard of the mirror left, but he uses that shard to ask for help when he is held captive in the Malfoy's dungeon.
I didn't stop to use it, since running with a shard of mirror might be a bad idea.

Another sure sign of wizards in my neighborhood was this broom beside a tree.

From the discarded newspaper, it's obvious that a distracted wizard was reading the paper while riding his broom before he crashed.
I hope he was okay and eventually came back for the broom.

And another sign is this adorable cat trying to hide on top of my kitchen cabinets.

Actually, it's my cat, and he isn't wearing glasses like Professor McGonagall does when she transforms into a cat, but I figured I needed a third sign.
I'll be on the hopeful lookout for other clues that Harry Potter and his wizarding friends have come to Grandview Heights, Ohio.

Family Day

For the first time this summer, we reprised our family activities, roping in everyone to see the latest Harry Potter movie.
Grace and Spencer had already been to see it, but Earl, Tucker and I hadn't seen it yet. So we trooped out Tuesday morning to beat the crowds and cool down in the theater.

My family loves, loves, loves the Harry Potter stories and movies. We have been going to the release night for books and movies as long as I can remember. Every family car trip is soothed with the sounds of Jim Dale, the narrator on the Harry Potter CDs. Even now, we're in the middle of listening to the last one again.
My kids loved growing up with Harry Potter.
One of my friends said she didn't want to see the movie characters all grown up because she felt like she was seeing her own kids grown and moving on.
I don't feel that way. I was okay with seeing Harry and Ginny with their own kids.
(I would say spoiler alert, but if you don't know how the book ends then you shouldn't go see the movie anyway, IMHO.)
I did get a little teary in the movie when Harry's parents appear, along with his godfather. They tell him how proud they are and I felt my eyes well up. And again when he was a baby and his Mom was about to die and she turned to the crib and just kept saying, "Mummy loves you, Harry. Daddy loves you." Those are the words you would want your child to hear before you die.
Anyway, in spite of what some people might say, and in spite of the fact that the producers didn't follow the book exactly, the movie was spectacular.
My own family left blinking in the sunlight and when we turned on the car to drive home, there was Harry again, still on his adventure.
It's like we teach students when writing about literature. You write in the present tense, because literature is always happening in the present, it will never be past.
And Harry's adventure will come to life again every time we open the books or slide in the disks.
Plus, someday, I'll have grandchildren who won't know the story of the boy wizard, the boy who lived.

My Yearly Tour of France Over

I'm so sad that the Tour de France has ended -- even though it was eating into a lot of my time with its four hours of coverage on Versus every morning.
We started watching the Tour de France to see the beautiful countryside. Then, of course, we got into the competitiveness of it.
So if you didn't see the bicycles zooming around mountain roads without guardrails or the camera panning over castles, I'll give you a brief run down of the highlights that I saw.
Andy Schleck, a lanky 25-year-old from Luxembourg, took the lead in the mountains ahead of Alberto Contador, a 27-year-old Spaniard, who won the tour last year. Contador was on Lance Armstrong's team last year. He always rode for himself instead of the team so he wasn't my favorite.
Biking has some strange rules. It isn't everyone out for himself. They work together as a team. And if someone wrecks or has bike difficulties, the rest of the race will slow down and wait for him. It's kind of bizarre because it isn't cut throat like most sports are here in the U.S.
I was watching on the day that Armstrong crashed three times and found himself unable to win the Tour de France. I felt bad for him.
I was watching during the mountain phases when Contador stayed right on Schleck's tail. Schleck was 31 seconds ahead of Contador and the two of them stayed together, keeping an eye on each other. As Contador followed the wheel of Schleck's bike down a winding mountain, I suggested that Schleck try a "Wronski feint" which is a term from Harry Potter. In Harry Potter, they are on broomsticks and the person dives toward the ground so the other person follows. Then the first person pulls up at the last minute, while the second person crashes. I thought that might work for Schleck if he headed toward the edge then pulled back at the last minute. Contador might go right off the side of the road. But it didn't happen.
The next day in the Pyrenees again, Schleck still in the lead with 31 seconds, he makes a move in the mountains. He starts to take off and Contador starts to follow. Then Schleck hesitates like he can't pedal his bike. The chain comes off. Contador is about 50 feet behind him and he speeds away while Schleck must stop and fix the chain. Schleck rides like mad to catch up but ends up 8 seconds behind Contador.
There was a lot of controversy about this and whether Contador should have "attacked" while Schleck had mechanical difficulties. It wasn't the gentlmanly thing to do.

Photo from www.lexpress.mu
That's Contador in the yellow jersey and Schleck in the white jersey on the right.

The two of them stayed together the rest of the mountain stages and Contador won a time trial by 31 seconds, putting him 39 seconds ahead of Schleck overall.
It still seems like a slightly dirty win.
I loved watching them zip through the streets of Paris around the bend at the top of the Champs Elysees and past the Tuileries, which the British announcers called the Twillery.
My yearly vacation to France through the television is now ended.

Turbulent Run

Today is Memorial Day in the United States. That's a day when we're supposed to honor people who served in the military, but mostly we have cook outs and sales in stores.
I slept in (for me) and got up to read the newspaper on the front porch. Then I dressed for my morning run. The wind had picked up a little by then and the leaves were whispering as if they were already falling raindrops. I shook Earl awake and asked if he'd put the top up on the convertible. It's a two-person job now that the motor has burned out on the convertible top. He said he had and rolled over to go back to sleep.
I headed out into the humid morning to enjoy the breezes sweeping along. I'd run more than a mile and a half before the first raindrops struck me. I'd been hearing a sound that could have been far away thunder or might have been an airplane or loud truck. Who was I to judge?
I was just coming out of a cul de sac that I run for an extra half mile when the sky opened and the rain fell in torrents. Still, a little rain is no big deal. I'd worn my running cap and it kept the rain off my face.
Then from behind me, a loud boom made me jump. The thunder, followed by a streak of lightning, was so loud and close that it set off car alarms. I paused, wondering what to do. Should I move onto the sidewalk and stay under the trees? I know, I know, I should never stand under a tree during a thunder storm, but I didn't want to run in the middle of the road away from the trees either.
There were a couple of friends' houses not too far away. The one who was closest would still be asleep. The other was three blocks away, and she might be awake. If not, she had a large front porch that could shelter me.
I started to sprint (for me) running hard down the sidewalk. The safety of my friend's porch was within three blocks. After two blocks of sprinting, I could feel my heart pounding. I was going to have to slow down or walk, I thought. Another bolt of lightning followed by booming thunder urged me to keep going. And I thought about the Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire movie I'd watched the night before when he was ready to give up underwater and gave one last blast to pull himself to the surface. "Ascendio!" I shouted in my head and I made my legs keep pumping.
I reached the porch and peered in the doorway. Anne had just gotten up. Wearing a pink sleep shirt, she let me in and gave me a towel.
I was still about a mile from home. My slumbering husband was rousted from bed to fetch me, and he grumbled about it all the way home through the standing water on the road and the claps of thunder above.

To See Harry Potter or Not To See

I'm not one of those people who is really debating whether to see the new Harry Potter movie. I will see it. The only problem is deciding when. My family is going tonight at the midnight movie. Well, everyone except Tucker who is spending the night at a friend's house and said friend lives in a family that doesn't believe dinosaurs existed, much less that something like Harry Potter could not be evil. He will have to wait to see the movie.
But Grace and Spencer are going with a group of friends who will dress up like Rita Skeeter, Snape and Hagrid and join in the raucous fun that is HP. These kids all grew up together. Not just my kids and their friends, but with Harry and his friends. They all got letters when they were 11 inviting them to Hogwarts. (We were the ultimate nerds.) They loved the books and have reread number six in anticipation of tonight's grand opening.
My husband will leave work at 11:30 and drive to the theater to meet them, and they won't be embarrassed to sit with their dad. It's like a family reunion with a lot more killing and dueling.
The problem is that I have to teach at 8 in the morning. So, if I stay up until three, no way am I getting up at my usual 5 a.m. That means no morning run, no morning writing on my novel. That means I'll be groggy and ineffective all day when I'm already behind on grading papers and I get another batch tomorrow. I also need to prepare for Thursday's class tomorrow. I don't know. I'm just overwhelmed with all of the work I have this quarter, even though I chant every day, only three more weeks. I'm teaching two five-week courses, which means we shove twice the work into half the time.
So is the 153 minutes of escape going to be worth the catch up for the rest of the week? On the other hand, I heard this might be the best one of the bunch. What to do, what to do...

Not So Dark Harry Potter

Last night, I dressed all in black, not because I live in New York (I don't) but because I was Belatrix LeStrange at a Harry Potter party. After helping my kids gather their costumes, I didn't have the energy to do much more than slip on black clothes with a black felt cape over it, knowing my naturally frizzy hair and pale skin could fill in the rest of the role.
I was in it for the long run. The party started at 7 and the movie began at midnight. Usually, my husband does the midnight movies. He has seen all of the Harry Potter movies as well as the Pirates of the Caribbean flicks. My job is to come home with my youngest son and we are snoozing by 10 p.m.
Yesterday, my 11-year-old decided he was ready for the midnight movie. There I was, yawning in the theater seat at 11:30. I was a little apprehensive on his behalf, having heard the rumors about the darkness of this movie, following the teen wizard angst Harry Potter showed in the book.
Yet, I stayed awake for the entire movie and thought it was great. Rather than being overly dark, scary and violent, I was inspired by the moments of love, friendship and light-heartedness.
Everyone who has read the book, knows that at the end, Voldemort tries to inhabit Harry's body, but he can't stay because Harry feels love and hope. So during this scene, which could have been fairly gruesome, Harry is flashing back to all of the love he felt throughout his life and throughout the movie. Flashes of Harry, Ron and Hermione sharing a grin after Harry's first kiss. The joy of the students as they created patronus spells and watched the animal shapes gallop around the room. Harry's parents grinning at him from a picture frame. Harry's godfather embracing him in a bear hug.
In the end, I found the movie much more hopeful than hopeless.
Today, my children slept until almost noon, recovering from the late night. But as my 11-year-old climbed in my lap today, proud of his late night, I could still see the faint lightning-shaped scar on his forehead.