My worst nightmare.

At least she wasn't sitting down...

NYC Woman Finds Python in the Toilet

New York Woman Screams After Seeing 7-Foot Python Peeking Out From Her Toilet

The Associated Press

NEW YORK

There was no Halloween bogeyman in the closet for one Brooklyn woman just a 7-foot-long python in her toilet. Nadege Brunacci was washing her hands in her bathroom before dawn Monday when she glanced back and saw the slithering serpent peeking out from her toilet, most of its body hidden in the pipes.

"I turned on the light and screamed," Brunacci, 38, told the New York Daily News. "It still makes my heart race."

Brunacci slammed down the lid, put a heavy box on top of the toilet and began calling for help, which came from her landlord and firefighters. Plumbers had to tear apart the downstairs neighbor's pipes to capture the snake, she said.

It's unclear how the snake made its way into the pipes.

Brunacci, a restaurateur, says she gave the snake to a friend who keeps it as a pet and named it after her.

Brunacci says she started using her daughter's training toilet after the scare in her third-floor apartment. And when she brushes her teeth, she said, "I'm looking over my shoulder."

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Copyright © 2007 ABC News Internet Ventures

Viva Knoxvegas!

Well, our trip to Tennessee was excellent. And now I've got 27 states marked off and Bryan's got 26... less than half to go! :)

On Friday we took our time heading out of town. The wedding wasn't until Saturday at 5pm, so I sort of thought we'd play it by ear on Friday... leave when we got around to it, stop when we got sick of driving, perhaps wander around one of those darling towns in the Southwestern part of the state that nary a Virginian sees. (I mean, seriously, how many native Virginians do you know who have ventured into that little tail part down there??)

What ended up happening was Bryan decided my car was in dire need of a bath and some serious cleanin', and I puttered around packing and picking up around the house until about 3:30 when we finally headed west. This late departure meant that there would be no daylight wandering in any town I'd never been to, but we did stop in cute Marion, VA and eat at a Macado's "downtown." Anytime you have to put "downtown" in quotes, you know it's tiny. Like, 3 blocks tiny. :) But it was nice... and I considered it a cultural experience. Amazing how different the accents are there from Richmond...

Since it was barely 10pm, we decided to keep going. We ended up saving $40 that night by staying in a Motel 6 about 40 miles outside of Knoxville. This hotel was clean, cheap, and right next to a Cracker Barrel, but it made me realize how spoiled I've become when it comes to hotels after 7+ years of business travel. I mean, they didn't even provide SHAMPOO! And just TWO pillows on the bed?! Oh, the squalor... ;-) Luckily the proximity to Cracker Barrel and my hungry husband provided me the rare opportunity to eat my beloved biscuits and gravy, and Saturday was off to a good start.

We headed into Knoxville, checked into the Marriott Downtown (which had EIGHT pillows on the bed, The Body Shop toiletries, and a down comforter!), and went exploring. Knoxville, or Knoxvegas, as I hear it's sometimes called, is a pretty town, right on the river (the Tennessee?? who knows. I should look at a map...). We wandered around a cute shopping area, drove through the "old city," and tried to go to the World's Fair Park. Unfortunately there was a giant brewery festival there, and we weren't interested in standing in a 3-block line and paying to go to something we'd only be at for an hour or so. So instead we went over to the University of Tennessee and walked around the campus. It's nice... but it's no UVA. Heck, it's not even as pretty as Penn State! :)

Then, the wedding. Stacy and Chris got married at a beautiful Civil War manor house, also situated on a hill above the river. The ceremony was beautiful, but not as beautiful as the bride. The reception was fun and I was so glad to see Stacy and Chris looking so happy and so in love. A few photos from the wedding:


On Sunday, we decided to stop in Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg on the way home. These towns were a little ways off our direct route home, but only by about 30 minutes. Neither of us had ever been to either, so we figured we might as well take the opportunity. I had heard of both places and knew that they were tourist destinations in Tennessee. I've known about Pigeon Forge since I was little, because of Dollywood. I have no idea if my Pop and Grandma actually went there, but I remember either stuff about Dollywood or stuff from Dollywood in their house when I was little. I always pictured a quaint mountain town, driving through the forest and all of the sudden coming upon an amusement park. Gatlinburg I have heard mentioned, but know of mainly because my college roomie and her husband went there for their honeymoon and got a chalet for a week. Again, I pictured quaint little mountain town.

Holy crap, was I wrong.

Let's start with Pigeon Forge, which is a combination of the following:

• Suburban sprawl main drag, such as Broad Street.
• Virginia Beach (or any beach) Boardwalk
• Las Vegas Strip
• State Fair Midway
• The Beltway around DC at rush hour.

Um, I had no idea you could cram so much STUFF in one stretch of highway! Not even highway, it was a road, really. But there was every type of store, every outlet, every restaurant, every show, every hotel, every theme of mini golf, every theme of go cart rental, every type of fair ride, even several "museums!" (I swear I saw a Hillbilly Museum.) I was in total sensory overload. WAY too much to process. And WOW can those people decorate. I have never seen so many dead cornstalks and pumpkins in my life! If nothing else, I certainly felt festive after driving through!

Finally, we made it through Pigeon Forge and started into the Great Smokey Mountains. Trees! Nature! This was what I was expecting. And a few miles later, Gatlinburg.

Yes, this is what we saw. Until we finally found somewhere to park and get out and actually walk around. Once we were out of the madness of traffic, we were actually able to enjoy this little town. Again, it wasn't what I expected, but I did at least feel like I could breathe in Gatlinburg. And it's beautiful there, surrounded by the Smokies.

We walked around for a bit and took a ride on the sky lift, which gave us a great view of the area.


After an essential stop at Auntie Mahalia's Candy Shop for fudge and chocolate covered pretzels, we headed home. We had a beautiful drive, and made it home by just after 10:00.

Homebodies.

This past weekend Bryan and I were total homebodies. And considering that I have only spent one full weekend at home since mid-August, that was just fine with me. I didn't really realize it until Monday morning when I was getting ready for work, but I got home on Friday afternoon and didn't leave my house again until I headed to work yesterday. I think Bryan did manage to get out a little bit, but I'm not even sure about that.

I spent my weekend inside the house: cleaning, doing laundry, reading magazines, and babysitting. Bryan spent his weekend in the garage doing maintenance to my dear Mitsubishi Eclipse that it has sorely needed for several years now. The end result was that when Sunday night came around, I had a great feeling of accomplishment, and yesterday when I went home I was invigorated to come home to a clean house... so much so that I cleaned some more! My new resolution (which has lasted already one day longer than most of my resolutions) is to, every day, spend 15 minutes putting things where they belong and/or organizing and 15 minutes actually cleaning (ie, sweeping, dusting, vacuuming, cleaning bathrooms), and do one load of laundry. I'm thinking if I can keep this up during the week, I should have significantly less big time cleaning to do on the weekends. We'll see how long it lasts...

On Saturday night I babysat for my friend Jodie. Her daughter Jordan is 8 and her son Dylan is 6. We had a fun time... Jordan was highly impressed by my construction paper cutting skills, my coloring skills and my drawing skills. Dylan was smitten with this tube thing my mom got me for my birthday... you spin it around and it makes a whistling noise (if you're from the South you've probably seen one of these before... I thought everyone had but Bryan didn't know what it was when I brought it home). We made pizza and brownies and Jordan made "nothing," where she threw everything she could get her hands on in a bowl and then we baked it. She wanted to tell Bryan it was his birthday cake, so we cut him a slice and she took it out to him in the garage. I was horrified to see him come in the house spitting green mush into the sink! I didn't think she'd actually let him eat it!!!!! Of course, Bryan knew it was probably not going to taste good but he was humoring her, and I think even though Jordan knew she hadn't really made a cake, part of her hoped that by some miracle she had invented a new tasty treat and she wanted to see if maybe it did taste good! (It didn't. Perhaps if she hadn't put dish soap in it would have...)

This weekend we are headed to Knoxville for a wedding. Should be fun! My friend Stacy is tying the knot. I met her several years ago when I worked at the Arthritis Foundation... she was a 2nd year at UVA whose mother had died from complications of rheumatoid arthritis and she wanted to start an arthritis awareness group. We met at Barnes and Noble to talk about it and she immediately became one of our most dedicated volunteers. Over the years, she went from volunteer to intern to employee in Tennessee to now being an Executive Director of a branch of the Arthritis Foundation in Tennessee. I couldn't be prouder of her and can't wait to see her marry her love!

happy anniversary to us!

oh, how time flies!

it's hard to believe our wedding was a year ago this past sunday. seems like it was only yesterday, but the past year has been a great one for us. we've continued to learn about each other and it feels like we are more in love now than ever. which may sound cheesy, but it's true.

we spent our anniversary weekend in washington, dc at the ritz carlton dc. i am fortunate to have a good friend who works for the company and got us the room for a great deal of less than half the going rate. we spent the weekend doing what we do best: being dorks in love. we spent many hours at the air and space museum, and a couple more at the natural history museum. we went to a mystery dinner theater on saturday night that was fun, but not at all like the episode of golden girls i expected it to be like. (i envisioned fake gunshots and fake blood and me jumping from my seat shouting, "Professor Plum! In the library! With the candlestick!" it was more like "Oh, ha, funny, that guy did it.")

our goal was to make it back to richmond before dark, but we hit traffic outside of DC and outside of richmond, too, so we didn't make it back until about 8:00. nevertheless, we were determined to recreate, to a small degree, our wedding day. we stopped at brown's island first, where we stood in the spot where we got married, smooched, and professed our continued love and commitment to each other. then we scurried over to main street station, where bryan carried me up the stairs one more time, in spite of the extra pounds on my derriere since last year and no wedding day endorphins to give him additional strength. then home we went, where we exchanged cards, tried not to watch the eagles get trampled by the giants, dimmed the lights in the living room and danced to our first dance song, ate some of our wedding cake (thanks, grandma, for saving that for us!) and finally crawled into bed and watched our wedding photo slideshow. it was the perfect anniversary weekend... a little practical sightseeing, a lot of fun with each other, and some romance thrown in for good measure.

at 5:45 or so, we stopped and snapped a picture of us. this is about the time we were actually pronounced married. i'm hoping we can make this an annual tradition so we can watch ourselves age... we shall see. i compared this picture to one of us on our wedding day right after we were married, and, i gotta say, we looked a little better last year. of course, we were trying harder. :)


i'm so grateful for the love we have, and hope we have many, many more years ahead together!

a PA labor day

for labor day weekend, bryan and i headed up to penn state for a day of football and fun, then to see his family in eastern pa. while it felt like a bit of a whirlwind trip, we had a great time.

saturday morning we got up before dawn and headed up... well, some interstate to state college, pa. i say some interstate because to be perfectly honest i slept from about powhite parkway to breezewood, pa. usually i worry about bryan staying awake but he was so excited about going to see a penn state football game that i knew we'd make it there in one piece. :)

we got to state college around 11:30am, parked the truck and set off for the illustrious beaver stadium. bryan likes to remind me every time this stadium comes up how much better it is than scott stadium in charlottesville. psh!, i say! just because your stadium is HUGE doesn't mean it's better!

although, i must admit, beaver stadium is pretty impressive...

it was a beautiful day for a football game, although i couldn't get over my empathy for florida international university. this is a team that went 0-12 last year. they didn't win a SINGLE GAME. and here they are, come to happy valley to get a royal ass whoopin'. i think i almost got myself sent back to the truck a few times because i just wanted them to do something right so they could leave with a little dignity... but that just did not happen. and it was sad. (little did i know, my beloved wahoos were off in wyoming putting on basically the same show as FIU... thank god i didn't have to see that, i would have probably shed some real tears... but there's always DUKE! and that's all i'll say about UVA football this time.)

so anyway, we had fun, penn state won, of course... and not by a little bit:


after the game we went back and moved the truck closer to the action that is college ave and headed that way for some lunch. i thought i might get a nice sit-down meal in a restaurant, but bryan's eyes began to glaze over when he started seeing all the pizza joints of his college years, so we ended up in a pizza joint where the woman told us we couldn't even order a small pizza because they were "so busy from the game." whatever. that was a line of crap, but we settled for a couple of slices and a one-fill only soda and were on our way.

we decided to relax a bit on the pretty enough campus of penn state (it doesn't compare to UVA, but it's alright... :) ). the sky was blue, the grass was cool and we were tired, a great combination for a nice siesta.


after our little break we headed to the famous penn state creamery for ice cream... you know the ice cream is good when people can major in dairy products!!!

finally, it was decision time. we brought with us an air matress and bedding with the thought we might camp out overnight at penn state rather than drive 3 hours to the in-laws or pay $250 for a hotel room. it was 8pm and we were not exactly in the mood for partying with the college kids, but not exactly in the mood for driving 3 hours either. so we drove around the RV parking lot and, once we realized we could stay there for free overnight, decided we'd stick around.

we headed back to college ave where the bars are and headed to the cafe, famous for its long island iced teas. we grabbed a spot on the patio and each ordered one. as we sat there, we debated how much we thought the tab would be when it came. i know alcohol is cheap at penn state, so i guessed $7 for both. bryan guessed $6. keep in mind, had we gone somewhere in richmond and ordered these drinks, we would have easily paid $7 each.
the final tab?

$4.25. for two good-sized cups filled with nothing but hard liquor and a splash of coke or, in my case, a splash of raspberry flavoring that cost me an extra $0.25. unreal!!! i would be very interested to see if people at penn state take statistically longer to finish their degrees, because with alcohol this cheap i don't know how the students are ever coherent!!

after our drinks, back to the truck, where bryan proceeded to blow up the air mattress. we have 2 air mattresses--a queen size and a twin size. we've slept on the twin before, but it wasn't easy. so i brought the queen, thinking if we laid it out right in the back of the truck, as we filled it up it would conform to the shapes of the wheel wells. WRONG! instead we had an air mattress valley, and every time either one of us moved all night, the other would roll down into the valley. it made for very sporadic sleeping. other than that, though, it was quite an adventure and a good story to tell our kids one day. :)

sunday morning we got up and headed towards allentown. the klinger family picnic was that afternoon, and we had just enough time to shower and change clothes and head over there. it's always fun to see the extended klinger family. we hung out and ate too much, chatted and bryan played volleyball and football. it was a great time!

monday was travel day, and back to the real world of kids going back to school and me having to race to beat the school bus out of my neighborhood in the mornings. if i leave before 7:06, i make it to the bus stop half a mile away with plenty of time to spare before the bus leaves at 7:15. if i leave at 7:06 or after, i am totally screwed and will most likely be racing the bus down hull street to the next stop. so obnoxious!!

weekend in san diego

So, yesterday Victoria and I returned from our weekend getaway to San Diego! Victoria didn't find out where we were going until we had checked in at the airport. I handed her the boarding passes and she looked at the first pass (to Atlanta) and was like... okay... I could see on her face she was a little confused, so I opened it up for her and showed her the Atlanta-San Diego tickets. She was pretty excited. :) I believe her words were, "You're the most awesome sister ever!" That's right. :) She had been pretty convinced we were going to New York. She didn't want to tell me that before she found out where we were going, but she even had her subway card from being there in the spring and showed that to me before we left my house that morning. :) I thought to myself, nope, won't need that where we're going!! :)

Unfortunately, to get the deal I got on the flights to SD, we had long layovers in Atlanta both ways. Oh well, it was worth it! We took a couple pictures in the airport to pass the time:

Once we finally got on the plane, we had a 4 hour flight and were supposed to get to SD by about 7:30pm Pacific time. I thought that would give us just enough time to get checked in the hotel and have dinner our first night there. That was all blown to hell by the 3 hours--that's right, THREE HOURS--we spent sitting in the plane on the runway waiting to take off. You gotta love summer thunderstorms. So we didn't arrive in San Diego until about 10:30p. We picked up our rental car (we got the young manager and he upgraded my $15/day compact car I booked on priceline to a nice, brand new Nissan Altima!) and headed to the hotel. Here's the car we got. We loved it... great on gas, and you turned it on by pushing a button. Crazy!

I had done a bit of research on San Diego for things to do, but decided I wanted to let Victoria decide what we'd do once we were there. Sadly for the kid in me, 16 is too old to want to go to the zoo or seaworld. :(

So on Saturday, we got up and headed to La Jolla for a "must eat" San Diego breakfast at Harry's Coffee Shop, then some shopping, then a stop at La Jolla Cove for our first beach experience of the weekend.

La Jolla is pretty cool... we walked along a street of hoity toity shops for a while and you would never know that just a couple blocks away was the grand Pacific. Here's our first view of the water:
We walked down, got into our bathing suits and found a spot on the beach at La Jolla Cove. Apparently this is a very popular spot for snorkeling and shore diving... we saw lots of people in scuba gear and wet suits! It's not a very big beach, but they really pack 'em in!

Victoria's first dip in the Pacific Ocean! As she said, "Two oceans down, two to go!"

We walked around the oceanfront at La Jolla for a while, and this was pretty much the only place I got to see any wildlife. There were lots of birds (after looking at these rocks for a few minutes it occurred to me that the rocks themselves are not actually white...):

And seals!! I loved the seals.

Once we were done in La Jolla, we headed back to our hotel to get ready for an evening on the town. We put on dresses and then headed down to the Gaslamp Quarter for some shopping and a nice dinner. After Victoria spent all the birthday money she brought with her, we walked around looking for a place for dinner and finally decided on one of those Brazilian barbeque places where there are guys walking around with various types of meat on skewers and they just keep bringing the meat until you turn your little signal to red. It was pretty cool, and Victoria got a yummy birthday cake to finish the meal:
She looks a little pinker there than she did in that photo of us at the beach, huh? :)

On Sunday, we got up early to make the most of our last day in SD. We headed out to Coronado Island and had a tasty breakfast at a French-style cafe. I decided that Bryan and I need to move to Coronado and Victoria decided she would stay summers with us. Bryan didn't buy this when I got home. Note to self: take him along next time so he knows how fabulous this would be.

After walking around Coronado for a while, it was back to the beach! The beach in Coronado was quite a bit larger than La Jolla Cove, so we had plenty of room to spread out.

We had a nice time on the golden flecked beach, except when Victoria decided we had to go swimming. That water was SO COLD. After a couple minutes I couldn't feel my toes, then my feet, then my legs... but I endured the numbness as much as I could so Vic would have some company in the water. :) After the second time in the water, though, I was out for good. She decided she'd go in without me.

After a few hours on the beach, we headed to Old Town San Diego to pass our last few hours. Old Town is great for Mexican food and cheap souvenirs, and we got some of both there. :)
Finally, it was time for us to return the rental car and head to the airport for our red-eye flight back home. The flight schedule was misery, but we decided it was worth it for the great weekend we spent in Sunny San Diego!

(PS--If you want to see all the pictures, you can check them out here.)

where does the time go?

so i just logged in to post because i realized it has been a while, but i didn't realize it's been since july!

there hasn't been a whole lot going on in my world... i did turn 29, and it was a nice birthday. i went to kings dominion for the day with my birthday twin jodie, then bryan took me out for a nice dinner. so weird that next year this time i'll be in my thirties. yeah, i know, i know, 30 isn't old. but still... it's always a big deal to enter a new decade of life. here's hoping 29 is as good a year or better as 28 was!

bryan and i have stayed busy this last month of the summer... we've been in town, but somehow the days and weekends are flying by. we've been doing some eating out, went to the watermelon festival, went to the pool once with our friend leslie (once... that's the first time i've been in the sun in a bathing suit since our vacation the first week of june!), i met up with my college roomie in williamsburg this past weekend... good times.

one thing i have really missed this summer is having the motorcycle... it's been sitting in our garage looking forlorn since bryan crashed it. until it was out of commission, i never realized 1) how much i enjoy motorcycle rides in WARM weather, and 2) how much easier it is to talk bryan into going places when he can take the bike. :)

tonight, i go pick up my little sister. i'm meeting her and my mom in staunton and then victoria and i are coming back to richmond. tomorrow we fly out for a weekend getaway, her sweet 16 birthday present from her big sister. she has asked that our destination remain a secret 'til we get to the airport and she has no choice but to know, so i can't tell you where we are going. but i can tell you i'm excited to get to spend a couple days with my sister! next year zech turns 16, so he'll have the same option, although he'll have other options like victoria did (shopping, cash to put towards something else), so i'm not sure he'll be down with a few days of quality time with his sister. :) teenage boys might not think that's as cool as girls... we'll see!

anyway, at least after this weekend i'll have more excitement to report on. :)

i should buy an umbrella. really.

about 2 months ago, maybe longer, the forecast was for rain and i, by some miracle, had actually remembered to bring my umbrella. i was actually a bit excited when a situation arose during the workday that required me to go outside to another building and it was raining, so rare is it that i actually have an umbrella with me when it rains. so i grabbed my cute black umbrella with the white polka dots and headed outside.

i get outside, open up the umbrella and am irritated to see that one arm of the thing just sort of dies. like, pops out of the top and then goes all crooked. i start to attempt repair, shoving the thing back in its hole, and another arm cracks. great. stupid umbrella. i stand under cover for a minute or two more, continuing my futile efforts to fix my little friend. ultimately, i realize the surgery is not going to be successful, so i chuck it in the trash and trot out into the rain. whatever, it's just a little water. and wouldn't ya know, it wasn't really raining, just a little sprinkle.

i made a mental note that day to pick up another umbrella the next time i was at target, which i'm sure was like, the next day or the day after. i go to target a lot. but here it is months later, and i still have not purchased a replacement umbrella. what the hell.

when i was in college, i learned that, really, i don't care for umbrellas. for one thing, when walking somewhere with friends in the rain (that happened a lot in college), it was either a pain in the butt if more than one person had an umbrella because they all bumped together, or it was a pain in the butt because either my friend had to hold the damned thing high enough for my tall self to fit under or i had to be the one to wield it effectively enough to keep both of us dry. i eventually decided that i disliked umbrellas more than i disliked being wet.

from then on, i see the weather forecast calling for rain, typically don't believe them or think that i'll probably not be caught in it anyway, and don't carry an umbrella. or, i see the forecast and realize that they aren't kidding and tell myself to grab the umbrella before i leave for work, then forget by the time i'm walking out the door. usually this turns out to be no big deal, but lately i've gotten too wet a couple times too many.

a couple of weeks ago i left work to torrential downpours. i was leaving a little early to go get a massage and it was imperative that i catch the 4:09pm bus, so when i got to the ground floor and looked out the window to a giant sheet of water, i scoured the ground floor for an empty trash bag and put it over my head. i went outside and realized that it was pretty stupid to have dry hair but the rest of me be soaking wet, so i ditched the plastic bag. i got to the corner where i needed to cross the street to catch the bus, and wouldn't you know the light turns green for the traffic to go. there i stood, completely exposed to the elements, no shelter or umbrella or raincoat anywhere to save me.

by the time i got across the street and under an awning, i was literally dripping. i dripped the entire 45 minute busride home, too. it. was. miserable. i just kept saying to myself, jesus, woman, DO NOT FORGET TO BUY AN UMBRELLA.

but i still haven't bought one. after that i was a little terrified of a repeat of that scene, so i started carrying around a yellow plastic poncho still in the package that bryan and i bought somewhere (don't remember when or why). and of course it never rains when i remember to bring THAT.

yesterday, i went to short pump town center to an appointment at the spa there. as i got close to the mall, i noticed some serious lightning happening right in the general location of the shopping center, and the emergency broadcast system came on the radio and told me there was a crazy storm in the vicinity. it wasn't raining at this point, so i wasn't too worried. i parked, and some big drops started falling a bit sporadically. i started towards the mall, and all of the sudden the sky opened up and the angels started pouring out their bathwater. i started to run towards the mall, slipping and sliding in my flip-flops, and finally made it to cover. soaking wet. dripping wet. like i had taken a shower with my clothes on and just stepped out and come to the mall.

i make it into the spa to find that the power is out! lovely. i ask for a towel after standing there dripping all over the floor for a few minutes (you'd think they may have asked if i needed one, the way i looked, but they did not), and ask if my service is going to happen. they decide they might be able to just use some candles, but after the phones and computers also went off about 5 minutes later, i decided to just go. which meant i was going to have to brave the rain. again.

this time, since i was already soaked, i took my time. took of my shoes and kicked in a few puddles and just headed home... i had intended to go to the grocery store and target on the way, but these errands are highly unpleasant when wearing wet denim shorts, wet shirt, and wet undergarments, so instead i just stopped at chipotle and went home.

"where are the bags?" bryan asked when i got there.

"don't ask, just eat," i said.

maybe today i'll finally make it out to get that umbrella... i do have the poncho in my bag in the meantime.

me and harry: our day together.

while i finished harry potter and the deathly hallows almost a week ago, i'm still transfixed to interviews with jk rowling, book reviews and listening to other peoples' opinions of the book. and a girl i work with, maia, was kind enough to give me a copy of the book on CD, so that's been the background of my work for the past couple of days.

after bryan got my number (#343 if you recall) last friday afternoon, i started adjusting the plan for the evening, hoping to get the book as quickly as possible.

it had already been decided that i would be going with a few friends to diagon alley, a party thrown by a small richmond book store that recreated the place where harry and friends buy all of their school supplies and such. i met up with krystyna and her husband joe, then bryan met us at diagon alley, then maia and andrew from work also met up with us. we wandered around for a bit, drank some "butterbeer" and people watched. we ran into my friend traci and her husband and friends, and tried on fun magical attire.

krystyna and joe

me and hagrid (he was kinda smelly, couldn't get too close)

while diagon alley was entertaining, it was really only about 30 min worth of entertainment and that had already been stretched into more than an hour what wtih all the meeting up with people and waiting for them to get there. we decided since it was about 10:30 and we had a good hour and a half until we could get our paws on our books that we'd go have a drink.

bryan, krystyna and joe

maia, andrew and me

i have to admit that while i enjoyed the company, i was antsy and mostly concerned with the minutes ticking off the clock. :) plus the bar we ended up in was SUPER loud and in my "old age" i despise shouting over loud music/other people shouting to have a conversation with my friends.

we finished our drinks and off we went to buy our books! maia was headed to the wal-mart on forest hill ave. and bryan and i were taking krystyna and joe back to their car near the barnes and noble i had a wristband for.

as we drove down the street to krystyna and joe's car, i noticed that the entire shopping center where the barnes and noble is was FULL of cars. and when i say entire shopping center, i am talking barnes and noble, several smaller stores, michael's, stein mart, several more smaller stores, old navy, cici's pizza and another restaurant. the whole parking lot was full!

so, my plan was that i would zip over to wal-mart and see if i could get the book quickly. if not, i'd go back to b&n since i was going to be waiting there a bit anyway.

bryan decided to come with me to wally world. we go in, and the place is like a ghost town! by this time it was around 12:05 or so, and i didn't see a single person leaving with their book. which was weird to me. we wandered around and still could not find any sign of harry! finally i asked someone, and she told me that they were selling it back at layaway. i guess they wanted to avoid a madhouse rush for the book???

so we get back to layaway, and, sure enough, there's a giant line. we walk towards the end of it and it just keeps on going and i say, "think this is more than 343 people?" and bryan says, "yes." so back to barnes and noble i went, even if i did have to wait an hour or two.

i get to barnes and noble and there are all kinds of happy-faced people leaving, book in hand. i get to the front of the store, push my way through the masses just in time to hear the man with the megaphone say, "numbers 250-300, come to the front of the store!"

sweet! they were really rolling through those numbers!! i had just enough time to go inside and use the bathroom before they called 300-350. i was up to the cash register, out of the store, and home with harry by 12:30am!

as you can imagine by the number of exclamation points in that last paragraph, i was very excited to have harry in hand. i sat with it for a few minutes, just looking at the cover, before i even opened it. reading this book meant the end of a great friendship, and while i couldn't wait to find out what happened, i was a bit inclined to put it off just a little bit, to make it last longer...

i read for about 20 minutes before falling asleep, but this was fine with me. i wanted to be fully alert to take it all in, so holding off reading too much until i woke up on saturday was a good plan.

saturday i woke up several times and forced myself to go back to sleep for a bit longer, knowing i was being a little ridiculous. i liken it to the point in your childhood where you know that santa isn't real, but you still wake up thrilled to open presents, and force yourself to stay in bed so that you aren't being such a little kid (this happened for me around, oh, 21 years old).

i made a pot of coffee and settled in for a day of reading. it was wonderful. the pages turned quickly and the book was action-packed and practically impossible to put down.

eventually bryan got up, and after chatting with him for a little while, he went outside. i heard the lawn mower come on and was S H O C K E D. i can't remember the last time he just cut the grass without moaning about it first! lemme tell ya, i was overwhelmed right then. a husband i've just told he can do whatever he wants all day as long as he leaves me alone who has decided to use that time to mow the lawn, and the final book in the greatest series ever all at once? i think i shivered a little bit before i got my focus back on harry. :)

what was odd is that the mower was only on briefly. i had no idea what that was all about, but by that point, as i said, i had refocused on harry and didn't care too much. i heard bryan banging around in the garage a bit, and then he came in and said, "come with me for a minute."

i went out back, and my dear, dear husband had put up the hammock we bought in mexico for me to read in! i had casually mentioned that it would be nice the day before, but i really did not expect him to put it up!

so i got a pillow and settled in--it was the perfect day for outdoor reading.

i spent the rest of the day reading, and finished around 7:30pm. i closed the book and again just looked at it with a smile and a sense of satisfaction. while it's sad to know that i won't experience harry's adventures that way again, i'm so happy to know him. :)

it's all over...

i'm finished with harry potter and the deathly hallows. 12 hours of reading counting the 30 min i got in last night before falling asleep minus a short trip to lowe's and several bathroom breaks, and now i never get to have the excitement of waiting for another harry potter book.

today was filled with tears, laughter, a few whoops of encouragement for my harry potter friends and ultimately a sense of closure. jk rowling, you are one amazing storyteller.