Fun weekend

I had a really good weekend. On Saturday, Ralph went to archery while I knit. Afterward we decided to go to the Orange County Fair, but along the way we passed a Boomers and changed our minds: mini golf was calling our name! By means of much cheating, do-overs, and creative scoring we both managed to finish the course only a little bit above par. On the way home we stopped at The Cheesecake Factory for dinner, where we both had a wonderful chicken & biscuits dinner. Ralph had cheesecake--well, not for dessert exactly since he asked the waitress to bring it first & ate most of it before the meal arrived--and I had tiramisu for my afters.

On Sunday, I went & picked up some needles to make these socks: http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEwinter09/PATTskew.php (sorry, I can never get Blogger to link properly). I'm using some white/orange/brown self-striping yarn that Lizard gave me for my birthday. Then it was off to meet PH2 & MH2 for a showing of Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows Part 2, which I thought was pretty good. I like the book more, and I thought Part 1 was a better adaptation. Then we went to the pub for dinner. I had a corned beef boxty which is sort of an Irish crepe & absolutely adored it. I was able to get in about an hour's worth of knitting before bedtime and finished the toe of the first sock.

So how was YOUR weekend?

So how old IS Hermione, anyway?

In honor of the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II, I am going to ramble on about something that has bothered me for a while: How old is Hermione? Here's what we know:

Hermione started at Hogwarts the same year as Harry (source: Sorcerer's Stone; Hermione is sorted by the Sorting Hat, making her a first-year student)
Hermione's birthday is in September (source: Prisoner of Azkaban; Hermione herself states this)
Hermione is older than Harry (sources: Half-Blood Prince; Hermione takes the Apparition exam with Ron, and one had to be 17 on or before the end of April to take it. Harry was still only 16 at that point. Deathly Hallows; Hermione is one of the decoy Harrys, and it is stated that all of the decoys are of age (that is to say, 17 or older) while Harry is still only 16 at that point of the story.)

The only way for all three of these things to be true is if Hermione turned 12 the first September she attended Hogwarts, which would mean either she started school a year late (and with her brains/magic skills, this is unlikely) or you have to already be 11 on your first day of school. But then there's Angelina Johnson. Angelina turns 17 in Goblet of Fire, as do Fred & George. All three are in their 6th year at this point (Fred & George leave the school halfway through their final year in Order of the Phoenix, and Angelina states in the same book that it is her last year as well). However--Angelina's birthday is in October, and the Weasley twins were born in April; both of these facts are stated in Goblet of Fire. So unless Angelina skipped a grade, she was only 10 when she started at Hogwarts, not 11.

Now, Ralph has argued that the re-lived hours via the Time Turner (see Prisoner of Azkaban) is the reason for the increased age, however I disagree for several reasons, not the least of which is she didn't re-live a whole year, only a few hours per school day in order to attend extra classes. Presuming 9 repeated hours per day x 20 days per month x 10 months gives you only 75 days added to your age (9 x 20 = 180, x 10 = 1800 hours, divided by 24 hours = 75). While that might make her older than Harry, it still wouldn't make her old enough to take the Apparition exam when Ron does.

And for those of you who have made it this far, today's photo is of my MIL's pear tree, taken over 4th of July weekend.

Sleeeeepy

So the cat decided to sneak out the back door last night. Again. He came back at 5:00 am screaming for his breakfast. Dumb cat.

Monday night Ralph & I went to a free concert put on by The Band of the California Battalion. It was all Civil War-era music played on period instruments (two of them genuine, the others replicas). All the musicians were in period costumes as well. The conductor gave a little talk about each song before they played it (for example, troop leaders on both sides banned their musicians from playing Home, Sweet Home because it was too emotional). It was a lot of fun.

Planning on seeing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 this weekend with our friends MH2 & PH2. This weekend also marks the start of the Orange County Fair, although I don't know if we'll be going this weekend or next. Or the weekend after that. We'll go at some point during the run, I'm sure.

Almost done with the praying mantis. All the parts are knit up (except the eyes) and I'm working on sewing it all together & stuffing it. This project has been a real pain in the patootie and I hope it'll all be worth it once it's done.

Such a crankypants

Again, I apologize for the lack of posts. I just need to get a more interesting life so I have things to talk about. Things other than complaining, I mean.

Had a not-so-enjoyable 4th of July weekend. Our truck had been overheating when pulling the trailer on hills, so we recently had $4,000 worth of work done on it to fix the problem (including new brakes, new radiator, new thermostat, new hoses. . .) Now, bearing that in mind, take a look at today's photo. That, my friends, is the gash the fan belt cut into the new-but-improperly-installed radiator hose, causing the truck to vastly overheat & leave us pretty much stranded in the Mojave desert. I won't go into too many details, but highlights of the nightmare include having to soak all three dogs twice so they didn't get heat stroke as we sat in the trailer waiting for the engine to cool down (something it really couldn't do in the 100+ degree desert weather); finding a place to drop the trailer for the weekend so we could finish driving to Bishop; discovering that we hadn't packed any food (normally the trailer is well-stocked, and we'd planned on picking things up along the way); and basically the 4-1/2 hour drive to Bishop turned into a 12-1/2 hour ordeal. This also meant that the time we'd intended to spend visiting family was greatly curtailed, as we arrived 8 hours later than planned & had to leave at 2:00 am on Monday instead of 1:00 in the afternoon so we could get the truck & trailer through the desert before it got hot. Grumble, grumble, grumble...

And, of course, there was the usual dealing with Halitosis on the 4th of July itself. Last year wasn't too bad, however this year there were a lot more fireworks (and by the sound of it, they were a lot closer to the house) and she was a nervous wreck. Next year we plan to get some sedatives from the vet well in advance & hopefully she will be more relaxed.

Oh, and the pond was low, so Ralph put the hose in it to top it off--then forgot about it. For four hours. Yeah, a 100% water change is NOT a good thing. Every fish in the pond died. Crap.

On the more cheerful side, we've seen two pretty good movies in the past month: "X-Men First Class" and "Green Lantern." I had a little trouble wrapping my brain around Kevin Bacon being a bad guy in "X-Men" even though he *did* do a very good job at it. "Green Lantern" was a lot better than I expected based on the previews. And, of course, we've got some movies that look good coming out soon, such as the last "Harry Potter," so that's something to look forward to. And the Orange County Fair starts in a couple weeks, that should be fun.

Hope to post again soon, and with something not so whiney.