life post-potter

1. Well, Michelle, Scott and Angus are all finished the book too now, so I've gotten most of the OMG!!s out of my system. It was fast paced, but good, and the only times it really went where I would have preferred it didn't, it was erring on the side of cheez (the epilogue is kind of fanficky). Goodbye Potterverse, at least until I read you again. Possibly tomorrow.
Really, our prayers should be with the people at Mugglenet and various other fan and fic sites, who now have nothing but movies to look forward to (and the remaining books are so busy that they're going to have to make a real hash of the plot to even begin to fit things in).

2. Having finished the book by 3:30 yesterday, I went back and reread the last couple hundred pages for good measure before handing it off to Michelle. I was feeling sort of let down in the same way that I did when I saw the end of Return of the King - no more to look forward to. Luckily, Julia called and we discussed the state of Potter briefly, then we decided to drive to New Minas to catch the late show of the Order of the Phoenix, which buoyed my spirits considerably. Evenings with Julia are fun, and the movie was pretty good, though they had to cut out far too much for my liking.
Things that were genius:

• the kittens
• the mistletoe
• Ginny's dirty looks
  
• Tonks' wardrobe
• Helena Bonham Carter (Bellatrix Lestrange)
• Kreacher
• the Dementor attack
• the dream sequences were adequately creepy
• the Trelawney and Snape audit montage
  
• Crookshanks, both that he's not a cat and that he ate an ear. Go Crookshanks!
  

Things that made me frown:

• Harry looks kind of whiny being upset over one line, as one detention. Over and over for a week was a lot more striking.
• Grawp seemed awfully cuddly
• very little about the DA and the resistance
• very little of the Department of Mysteries or Grimmauld Place as locations
• very little in the way of dialogue, aside from what was painfully necessary

I hope they split the next couple movies into two each. There's just too much.

3. So today I woke up with a very sore jaw. It's been stiff for a couple of days, but today it was much worse, limiting my ability to chew, and spreading to my neck and eyes. I hope I'm not coming down with something picturesque like mumps.

4. Tomorrow I'm heading back to Freddy with my parents, with a new chair, lots of clean laundry, a freshly painted lamp, a vacuum to replace the one that Nick totalled, and a few things for the house, particularly the kitchen. I'm looking forward to finally finishing putting my house in order, and settling down to get lots of work done on the Fredericton show at work. I'm also hoping to have Danielle over for supper on Tuesday - it's been too long.

5. A few recipes I've been looking at:

• Roasted Garlic, Olive and Tomato Pasta Salad
• Red Onion Pickles