Horcrux: cheap on Amazon

We have some big news.

Are you sitting down?

Kendon and I

finished Harry Potter!

11.11.11 was a big day for us.  We hunkered down on the futon with a bag full of Wendy’s and didn’t stop reading until the Horcruxes had all been found and Voldemort had been defeated and Harry and Ginny had sent their little red-headed babies off on the Hogwarts Express and every last natural-cut French fry had been consumed.

We closed that very last book with a new sense of meaning in life and a determination to pass on the bazillion life lessons of Harry to our own offspring one day.   We discussed the brilliance of J.K. Rowling as she interweaved characters, generations and objects to create a culminating tapestry of meaning.  We discussed the epiphanies we experienced as we ended the last chapter of the last book, after nine months of seven years of Hogwarts.  It was a bit like closing a chapter in our lives, we decided.

Conveniently, the last movie came out on DVD last night.  “Perfect!” we shouted.  It was like 11.11.11 was the day when the stars aligned and magic really happened and dreams really did come true.  So we bought the entire BluRay series.  And, hours after finishing Book 7, we watched Movie 7 Part 2 for the first time ever.

I’m not exactly sure what we were expecting.  All that I remember after putting it in are flashes of memory that include explosions, bad acting, and making out.  Nothing made sense.  No stars aligned.  Voldemort laughed at the end in such a jovial manner that I laughed with him and wanted to give him a high five.  Which isn’t right at all.  We finished the movie and I racked my brain trying to remember what life lessons we were supposed to draw from this.  I tried to remember what Dumbledore had told Harry that was so deep. Because he couldn’t have possibly had time to say it in the 30 seconds screen time he was given. 

That DVD become like a disgusting Horcrux.  It ruined our mood.  It ruined 11.11.11.  So we destroyed it.  Actually we sent it back to Amazon after paying a small restocking fee.  And that’s close enough for us.

Our wearisome weekend

Oh, our weekend, you ask?  Boring, really.  Uneventful.

We just went to a chilling thrilling outdoor showing of “Sleepy Hollow” with some friends who drank hot chocolate with us afterward while we crashed our remote-control helicopter into every hanging artifact in our tiny living room.

And we went to art class together and drew warthogs and hyenas and roosters and dragonflies that were holding very still for us in the university’s museum of dead stuffed animals.  And the teacher said he liked my wolf.

And we had dinner and dessert with neighbors we’ve never met then bonded so well that we planned a game night which we carried out on Sunday and which sealed our friendship as neighbors because no one got too mad when I expressed my desire to kick everyone’s trash at all games always.

And all we did was redo our bathroom completely by ridding ourselves of our antique pink rug and overly floral shower curtain to make room for brightly-colored forest creatures and a lime green toilet rug.

And we modestly planned our Hogwartlicious Halloween costumes while eating our favorite pita chips with our favorite hummus and marveling at African kudu hunters who skillfully hid from a man-eating leopard on Human Planet.

Then we just went to church and got asked to be emergency preparedness coordinators and we said yes because we can’t wait to learn how to be emergency prepared.

My weekend is possibly the boringest thing on the entire Internet at THIS MOMENT. With the possible exception of watching mussels grow:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/story/2007/12/28/musselcam-interesting.html  

Enemies of date night

Friday night is date night.

At least that's what we say. Usually it goes like this: Me: "YAY! DATE NIIIIIIIIGHT!" Kendon: "Oh.... yeah. What do you want to do?" Me: "Uhhhhhh.... Dang it. I hadn't thought about PLANNING anything. You?" Kendon: "I'm tired. Let's read Harry Potter and snuggle."

So then date night turns into the-same-thing-we-do-every-night night, and I wake up way too early Saturday morning grumpily thinking that's it's another weekday.

But I decided tonight would be different.

So I went to the Polynesian Cultural Center after classes to buy student-rate tickets for the one and only annual WORLD FIREKNIFE COMPETITION! Shirtless greasy Polynesians spinning around giant sticks that are totally ON FIRE! It was going to be the best date night surprise.

Except for this.

I marched up to the ticket booth, debit card in hand, feeling further confident at seeing my good ol' buddy Ben at the ticket window. "Hi Ben!" said I exuberantly. Said Ben: "Hey Val. You pregnant?"

I was slightly less exuberant at this question. But in seconds I regained my composure, answered in the NOT affirmative, and said I was there to buy 2 student-rate tickets to the large greasy fire-twirling men (who perform, mind you, for a mere 10 minutes at the intermission of the regular night show).

"You have to come back tonight," said buddy Ben, looking annoyingly important with his shiny name badge and aloha shirt. "You can't buy a ticket until five o'clock."

"Oh." I was getting less excited about my surprise. I had been fantasizing about hiding the tickets somewhere romantic for Kendon to find when he came home... like in a grilled cheese sandwich. I turned to leave, then remembered one last question:

"Ben, how much are student-rate tickets?"

Ben did some important calculations in his shiny ticket-booth computer, then looked back up at me and said, "$43.16."

"No, no," said I, thinking he may be calculating my fictional unborn twins AND my husband into the pricing. "I mean for one person. A student person. It can't be more than $10 for a student person.... Right?"

"$43.16," repeated my only sort-of buddy Ben, then, "Unless you have a friend who works here. Employees get discounts."

I searched his face for a "hint-hint" grin. None came. The badge of my acquaintance Ben was way too shiny. It hurt my eyes when he puffed out his chest like that.

"What if we just poke our head in at intermission?" I asked. "We just want to see the men twirl their fiery knives! We don't care about the show." I did some math of my own without even needing an important shiny computer and said, "Surely we don't need to pay $83 just for some head-poking at an intermission....?"

"Yep. You do," said my enemy Ben.

And that is how, on this Friday date-night afternoon, I left the Polynesian Cultural Center with no tickets and a fat complex. I wonder if a Harry Potter book can fit inside a grilled cheese sandwich.