The Haiku of Reasonable Comfort

( Apparently the LiveJournal Haiku Generator is infatuated with Rowan Atkinson... )

But on the third try I got this, much more personally appropriate, little gem:

more checkmate cries i
was busy last night and this
morning and never

Not only is it a good description of the way Simon's ear-piercing yells tend to stop me from getting any work done, "checkmate cries" sounds like a fragment of a Talk Talk lyric. Heh.

Ladies and gentlemen, my husband

Overheard in the past couple of weeks:

"I think we should put Simon up for auction on eBay, don't you, Nicholas? He's still cute, you never know what we might get..."

and

"You know, Nicholas, we had other little boys before you and Simon came along. But they're not here anymore, because we cooked them and ate them."*

Apparently, I married Calvin's dad. "MOMMMMMMMM!!!"
--
*Don't worry, he did explain to Nicholas that he was only joking. Eventually. But I don't think Nicholas fully understood or believed him in either case; if he had he no doubt would have been upset, but as it was he only giggled.

Reading HP Aloud -- OotP Chapter 1

I read Books 1-4 aloud to my husband just a couple months after GoF came out -- he enjoys the stories but doesn't read for pleasure -- and tonight we finally started on OotP. I have great fun doing this, because it appeals to the buried actress in me: I try to do as professional-sounding and nuanced a reading as possible, including all the voices and accents. (It's probably a good thing I've never listened to the HP audios, as they'd only make me self-conscious, or else mess up my personal catalogue of character voices.)

An especially good thing about reading out loud is that it forces me to read and notice every word, which I wouldn't ordinarily do. Close reading also yields new questions and insights, and I hope to share those here on a semi-regular basis -- though I can't guarantee I'll cover every chapter. But I can make a start on it, at least:

( Thoughts on Chapter One )

Comments, anyone?