For My Own Good

So today we woke up to a power outage. The second thing I noticed, after the blank face of my clock-radio staring at me, was the silence. No ceiling fan, no a/c, no hum from the chorus of heat pumps outside. Fortunately, we woke up in time to get Josh off to his first day of photography class. Also, it was a beautiful morning, and with windows open for a cross-breeze, the house stayed airy and cool. There were lots of power trucks out in the parking lot all morning, and any of my neighbors who paused to inquire about progress, received the same answer: We don't know how it happened. It'll be fixed in about an hour. From my chair by the open window in the living room, I overheard the workman say this three times over the course of 2 1/2 hours. Once I'd read the newspaper and done all the puzzles, I spent the rest of the morning thinking of things I could do with all this quiet time, and then remembering that I couldn't do them because there was no power. I particularly missed my laptop and wifi connection.

When it still wasn't on at noon, we picked Josh and Treat up from class, went out to lunch at a new place, where we ran into 4 friends from school, and then went to the pool for the afternoon. It was a nice day.

One of the things we're doing while Josh is here this time is a Harry Potter film festival. We plan to re-watch the first five movies in order to prepare for the sixth, Half-Blood Prince, which will be released on July 15th. It's silly, but it's fun. I've noticed that my knowledge of magical things (not to mention important plot points of the series) has faded considerably over the last two years since Deathly Hallows was released. I remember things in broad strokes, and it's odd what has stayed with me. It's interesting, too, what resonates now that didn't really register before. When we watched Sorceror's Stone this time, it was the Mirror of Erised. The image of Harry spending hours gazing into the mirror, watching the false reflection of his heart's desire, reminded me a little bit of the time I sit in front of my computer screen on the internet, reading and writing, searching for important information, and checking my messages and comments: I expend a lot of mental and emotional energy maintaining these virtual bonds, and there are times when it's hard to shut down and go out in the real world to do real things.

Sometimes I think if Dumbledore lived here, he might have to take my laptop and move it to a new location. Hey! Maybe that's what happened this morning.