Harry Potter (no spoilers)

I read HP7 straight through, no real break, about 11 hours. Oh I cried in the last quarter. I felt awful still today. I have never had a book that affected me so. I feel profoundly emotionally raw. And I'm not just mourning for the characters that died (but how it hurt. No, not that one, please) but also for the ones that lived, like I've lost a dear friend. I have never in all my life felt so sad at the end of a book, series or not. I think that is a testament to the power of the writing and the grip of the story. Maybe I am too easily lost in a fictional world, maybe I need to get a life, but the end of Harry Potter is much harder to deal with than I expected it would be. At the same time, I am satisfied with the ending. JKR did what had to be done. It all makes sense. There are no loose ends. The only thing I wonder, and maybe I just missed it, is that she said there would be someone who comes to magic late in life, that the magic didn't show in until adulthood, and I didn't see that.

In other news of the weekend, while waiting for HP7 to get here from Amazon, we went to REI and got our very own paddles and tent. The tent is an REI Taj 3, and I am very excited. They let us set it up in the store so we could see how it went together and how roomy it is. It goes together super easily, and is definetly roomy enough for us and all our stuff. It even has an attic, a stretchy peice of netting across the top, under the netting "skylight" which will be handy for small, easily lost things. It also has several pockets on the inside, and two doors, each with it's own vestibule. I also got what I think will be a great pair of canoeing shoes from L.L.Bean. I think they will work out really well. I am not worried about the traction, even though the lady at REI said "you're not wearing those to the Boundary Waters are you?" They should dry quickly, be comfy both while in the boat and portaging, and they're cute. I might get another pair just 'cause I like 'em. And they come in red (I got the blue ones).

All in all, a Saturday well spent. Today, we went and tried a frozen custard place in Excelsior called Adele's. Pretty good all around. I enjoyed my chili cheese dog and James liked his BBQ pork sandwich and vanilla shake. The custard wasn't quite as good as the shake for some reason, and we agreed that Liberty frozen custard in MPLS has a better plain vanilla cone. He found one more custard place not far from here that we will try next weekend.