Have I forgotten Harry?

Hardly. I've finished reading Deathly Hallows again, and find that I like it better each time through. I've rewatched "Order of the Phoenix" several times as it was on HBO a lot in August. I liked that as a movie, but I kept waiting for Fawkes to swoop in and swallow up the snake attacking in the Ministry battle. Of course, Hollywood can't seem to bring themselves to include the very Christian elements of any of the books, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that it was left out.

I was unhappy, like many fans, that Warner Brothers pushed the release of "Half-Blood Prince: movie to next summer. But having recently read some of the reviews of the early screenings, maybe that's not such a disappointment after all. It seems that it would allow them to fix the things that are wrong or decide to include the things omitted, such as Dumbledore's funeral. But since they are starting to shoot the next installment in February, I'm not holding my breath for that to happen.

And I've been reading. I started reading John Granger's book, How Harry Cast His Spell, which is great. But then I got his other book (that apparently is being redone for release later), The Deathly Hallows Lectures. Also great. I've decided to finish that first. One of the books that John has mentioned more than once is Dante's Divine Comedy, which I might have read a portion of in high school, but certainly not the whole thing. I was in Barnes and Noble and saw one of their copies of it and decided it was time to add that to my library. The one that I have is a translation by Longfellow with the illustrations by Gustave Dore. It's a slow read, but I don't think it's the sort of book to race through, so I'm reading it in smaller sections, one canto per read at the most.

I'm looking forward to, and have already reserved, the 10 Anniversary edition of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in September and The Tales of Beedle the Bard in December. Sometimes this fall, Travis Prinzi's book will be out, and I'll probably buy the one by Melissa Anelli from The Leaky Cauldron, a look at how the fandom of Harry Potter happened.

And in the meantime, we are preparing for a trip to the east coast this fall to Virginia. I'll finally get to see many of those historical sites that used to consume all my interest. So in addition to reading all about Harry, I'm trying to brush up on American history, which I've ignored for a number of years.

And we have choir starting again - really starting with a rehearsal every week and singing at least three Sundays a month. I'm quite happy about that but it does fill up my schedule. The adult Bible study classes begin this evening. I'll be continuing the one that I've been in for the last several years. It's a precepts study that started with Genesis and we've been working out way through the Old Testament. Having finished 2 Samuel last spring, we are ready for Kings and Chronicles.

Fall has turned out to be very busy at our house, so I haven't been blogging here much, though I've added some things to my other one, Eeyore's Ramblings, about the fan reactions to the HBP movie delay and about church. I have some photo work to do, a short "movie" from our church's last Guatemala trip, actually printing the photos from our April trip to Walt Disney World, the photos we will take in Virginia, Thanksgiving at our house. . .

Can we just skip to December? Things might be a little calmer by then. Oh, wait, no they won't. What am I thinking?

My point is, that it isn't likely that I will update here any more frequently than I have been. But I do check other Harry Potter blogs, and other friend's blogs every day, sometimes with a comment, but sometimes not.

Pat