It has been a far, far too busy autumn -- and we've missed posting about birthdays, anniversaries, trips to Staten Island and to Ellis Island, and more. But Hermione Granger and Optimus Prime hope you'll see more of Isabella's and Jonathan's adventures soon . . .
Dear Auntie Liz and Uncle Joe, I love being in Naples, and what I love about it is: the pool, the Big Pool, Naples Zoo, fishing, especially when I caught a fish. I loved this week with you. Love, Isabella
Isabella commemorated our wonderful trip with a massive diorama,
which included details like Isabella and Uncle Joseph fishing together,
a turtle swimming as the fish make ripples in the water,
With only a few days to go, I hereby break down and add to the innumerable Harry Potter predictions on the Web. Yes, of course, you don't need another source of HP predictions, if you care to look at any at all. But I need to put them on record with the (blissfully-ignorant-of- their-existence) world, before the last book comes out.
The following are a couple paragraphs from a page I typed up on November 28th, 2005, after a brief but intense (and, of course, embarrassing) spate of Harry Potter obsession. Since then, the contents of the rest of the page have either been confirmed false, been confirmed true, or are just no longer interesting to me. (If you don't know what the abbreviations and references are all about, then you are immune to Pottermania and should ignore this post.)
Here goes:
Snape loved Lily and is devoted to defeating V. and protecting Harry. They were both great at potions. (It is very unlikely, but perhaps not impossible, that they worked together so closely that the handwriting in the potions book was Lily’s – she may have written stuff in his book as he worked it out. HG says the handwriting looks like a woman’s.) Lily saw the good in people even when they didn’t see it in themselves. SS’s worst memory is calling Lily a mudblood. Snape hates James for “stealing” Lily from him, although she probably cared for SS only in a sisterly way. James got SS’s levitation spell from Lily. Snape was there when Lily and James were killed. SS may be devoted to giving his life to save Harry just as Lily did. His boggart and/or patronus would have something to do with this. This is why DD trusts him completely.
Harry is a Horcrux of Voldemort. The prophecy “neither shall live while the other survives” may be interpreted this way: V is not really alive now, because you have to be mortal to be alive. (See Fudge talking to Prime Minister.) V must be “alive” before he can be killed. He cannot be made alive – mortal – while Harry survives. Harry may have to sacrifice himself to defeat V. I think he will, somehow, survive the sacrifice. Perhaps all that matters is that Harry not care about his own survival. V is different in that all he cares about is survival.
[Wild speculation: If you put together all of the above pieces, you might wind up with a scenario where Harry is trying to kill himself to defeat V., and Snape is trying to save Harry’s life because he has sworn to do so ever since Lily’s death. V. is more afraid of death than of anything else, while our two good guys may be battling over who gets to sacrifice himself.]
Isabella: On 7/13/2007 Friday, we went to Coney Island. We went on the Boardwalk and saw the beach. We went on the caterpillar roller coaster. On the coaster, we went in a big apple and that was cool. I had a Nathan's hot dog for lunch, and some Chex Mix.
My favorite rides are the Tilt-a-Whirl and the Sea Serpent roller coaster. The last thing we saw was the Cyclone, but we didn't go on the Cyclone. I think Coney Island is special because it has a beach. Coney Island is named after a kind of bunny.
Joan: It was a Friday afternoon in July. The world (all of it that I had to worry about, anyway) was behaving as if the weekend had already begun. The weather was overcast but not rainy, very warm but not hot. Clearly, it was time to go to Coney Island. My reasons: 1. This may be the last summer that the Coney Island Boardwalk looks anything like this; 2. Jonathan's reaction, this past September, when he learned that all the amusement parks in the region would be closed for the next nine months, after we had somehow failed to visit one all summer; and 3. Because we can. There is something about the fact that we can get on the subway two blocks from our home, change trains once -- without changing platforms -- and emerge, finally, at a beach/boardwalk/amusement park, a place of great personal and national memories, that makes me feel a twinge of something that's the first step to weeping in joy. No tears are actually shed, mind you -- it's just a funny feeling in the back of my eyes. On the very long subway ride there and back, I read Harry Potter to Isabella. I realize now that Coney Island has the qualities of a magical place: It is old, strange, mysterious, run-down, exotic. British wizards train in some big old castle, but where would American practitioners of magic gather? Behind some boarded-up door in the shadow of the Wonder Wheel, I bet.
Jonathan: I was riding on that caterpillar ride. It was so fun! I liked the Tilt-a-Whirl, except I was scared. I was screaming on the Tilt-a-Whirl. [Joan: Then he wanted to go on it again, and did.]
Isabella reports: One rainy night, I heard croaking out the window, and I asked Grandma to go out to catch some toads. So she went out. She saw four toads. She caught one. She put him in the peeper's place. [The peeper was later named Harold.] He was too big. So we set up the terrarium and put him inside. We decided to put the peeper in too. So we did.
The toad we caught is named George. George is jumpy when you hold him and calm in the terrarium. He is a good toad. We named him after the George in Captain Underpants, and cooler than ever, he talks!
We are back from the Catskills, where we have some new friends, a big toad and a very small toad, named, respectively, George and Harold, from the trouble-making heroes of the Captain Underpants series.
George is very special because . . . he talks! He makes a chirpy sound that Isabella thinks sounds like a bird and I think sounds like a small sqeak toy determined to be understood.
Grandma, who is with George now in the Catskills, reports that when she came into the enclosed porch to check in on George and Harold this morning, George started to chirp when he saw her. She loved it, and she and George had a delightful exchange.
When I look head-on into George's eyes, I find myself thinking of HypnoToad.
