Cockroach Clusters

It has been way too long since I sat down to write (or type, in this case). The summer is bearing down upon all of us and I have been forced to stay home and while away my time in old t-shirts and shorts, sipping gratefully on some freshly blended watermelon juice and reading, actually, re-reading Harry Potter.

Let me tell you how this started. The audio book series of the same narrated by Jim Dale was greatly appreciated and recommended to me by my Uncle. He has to drive around a lot, so he used to pop in the CD and enjoy listening to Dale's perfectly modulated voice doing all the characters. So I managed to get my hands on it and gave it a listen. It must be noted that this was the first time I have ever tried an audio book. So every chapter took at least 30 minutes, the longest of the chapters being 45 minutes. Now, being a fairly fast reader, my patience wore out by the end of chapter 8 in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, not because of Dale's narration (which is fabulous, and I recommend it to all Potterheads), but because of the sheer amount of time it took to get to the suspense. If I was driving around myself, then listening to the audio book would have made sense. But I was sitting in my room and listening, without doing any other work at the time. Plus, my patience level has been at an all time low because of this blistering heat. So after chapter 8, I fished out my copy of the Sorcerer's Stone and continued my journey in Harry's world.

After I got done with book 1 (and I have read the series before, several times actually), I just grabbed the second one and devoured it like I had done the first time I had started with this wonderful magical adventure. Before I knew it, I was journeying with Harry, Hermione and The Weasleys to the Quidditch World Cup, laughing at Fred and George's attack on Umbridge with Fhizzing Whizbees, wiping down tears at Dumbledore's mangled body and discovering the secrets of the Deathly Hallows with the trio. It got over too soon. Way too soon. And as I approached the last few words on the last page of the last book, I was afraid. Afraid to let go of Harry, Ron and Hermione. Afraid to let go of Hogwarts and Hagrid. Afraid to not feel the same way about any other work of literature like I have for Harry Potter. So. Much. Fear. But then, I braved myself and finished reading those words and waited for the tears to come. They didn't. All I know is, if I don't have anybody else in the world, I will always have Harry, Ron and Hermione. And Hagrid, o' course!

And then I went ahead and got excited and ordered this:

So the magic isn't going to end after all!