(no subject)

Yesterday was Nicholas's birthday. Three years old... wow. I can't decide whether the question in my mind is "Has it really been that long?" or "Hasn't it been longer?" But then, I feel the same way about knowing my fifth anniversary is coming up. In some ways it seems like yesterday, and in others I feel like I've been married forever. Such is the caprice of memory, I guess.

This was the first birthday that Nicholas was really old enough to appreciate, and it made the event a good deal more fun. (Simon's first birthday, two weeks ago, was pretty much a non-event for all of us.) We didn't make a big fuss, it was just pizza and cake with the family, but that was quite enough for him. He was so thrilled with all his presents -- just the concept of having presents to open was a thrill all by itself -- and so proud of himself for being able to blow out the candles on his birthday cake (though it took three tries). And you could tell he was just relishing the fact that he was finally three. He's been wanting to be three ever since he turned two. :)

I hope to have a new essay to post here soon, but I have resigned myself to being pretty much useless as far as intelligent discourse is concerned until I've read OotP, so it'll be next week at the earliest, I should think. I'm sure I've lost half my blog readership over the past month, having had so little of any substance to say... so for those who have gamely stuck around in spite of that, I thank you.

It's down / down to the wire...

I got this done just barely in time to beat the OotP rush. I suspect that if I'd waited to do it until after the book came out, it would probably never have been posted at all. But upon request, and for whatever it may be worth, here it is:

( 40 Things About Maud )

It'll be interesting to see exactly how much of this does turn out to be erroneous or irrelevant once OotP hits the shelves. It will definitely be worth a rueful chuckle if Snape turns out to have a wife tucked away somewhere. (Though given JKR's stated opinion on the subject of Snape and romance, I doubt it.)

Heh.

Interesting chiefly because it's one of the very few non-ugly pics of Hugo Weaving's Elrond I've seen, and also because I think it a bit more accurate than the answer I got the first time around, which was Yoda. (Yoda???)