The Half-Blood Prince

I know I'm a bit behind the times, but I just finished Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I must say that I was quite surprised, impressed, saddened, upset, mad, satisfied and, more than anything, anxious already about the final book of the series. I understand that a lot of people felt dissatisfied with this particular book but this is the "darkest before dawn" book of the series and I don't think people were prepared for that. More than any other book of the series, this is the Two Towers or Empire Strikes Back of Harry Potter. It ended the way it did because it had to.

My wife and I, who are big fans of the series both in print and on celluloid, have been speculating quite a bit about the outcome of the series particularly what surprises and twists might lay ahead for we eager readers.

So does anyone else have any thoughts about what's in store for the final installment of the Harry Potter series? I'm curious to see what the rest of you think so I'll reserve my own thoughts until later.

The Pallbearer

My wife's aunt died this past weekend. She was diagnosed with lung cancer in February and succumbed Friday afternoon. She is survived by her husband and 2 children. She never smoked.

She was 39. I'll say that again. She was 39.

We buried her today and Randy (her husband - my wife's uncle) asked me, along with several of his other nephews, to be pallbearers. It was odd but not uncomfortably so. The more I sat there during mass (I'm not Catholic but my wife's family is) the more I began to wonder why this happens. I choked back tears for this person whom I'd hardly gotten the chance to know, sad about the injustice of it all. The priest said that God called her home. What? Why? How can taking a woman in the prime of her life away from her husband and children be "part of God's cosmic plan"? This is something we are told to rationalise why it's okay that they died so young. The truth is they don't know either. I also hate it when people use that phrase "part of God's cosmic plan". These people are selling something. You should run away from them.

The truth of the matter is bad things happen to good people. There's no rhyme or reason to it. They just do. But it is, yet again, a reminder that we should live our lives to their absolute fullest savouring every possible moment and those people in our lives that help give them meaning.

Billing

My wife and I were having a funny conversation today. She was telling me about her day (and the guy she works for, who's fun too - insert sarcastic voice here). Friday is her last official day at work. She was telling me, though, that they've been having a very difficult filling her position (which, as the title alludes to, is the billing position). Anyway, since the beginning of the year 5 people (including my wife) have had this job.

So I've come to the following conclusion: her position is akin to the Defense Against the Dark Arts position at Hogwarts. Nobody seems to be able to keep the position. And yes, Jaques, I do believe that makes the owner Voldemort. Harry Potter is awesome!!!

Looking A Gift Horse In The Mouth

Yesterday at work we had an interesting occurrence. Our phone lines worked for about 20 minutes out of the whole day. That's right. 20 minutes. (Freaking Southwestern Bell.) So I spent the better part of the day trying to figure out which was worse, being here and getting paid to literally sit on my ass and do nothing all day or being here with nothing to do when, frankly, I could have been doing other (more pressing) things at home. Now I realise that I'm seriously looking a gift horse in the mouth but it was kind of annoying (mostly because I don't handle boredom well). The least they could have done is say, "Go home, we're still going to pay you". That seems reasonable to me. Riiiiiiiight.