It was so much harder to get along in the days before we knew. I used to over-schedule my vacations and feel guilty over canceling plans. And I'd always cancel plans. I'd have a migraine, wear out muscles or joints, get nauseated, or I'd just need a nap. These days I'm a lot smarter about scheduling get-togethers. And my daughter has learned how to work around my needs as well. She was very considerate about today, knowing that I'd need a recovery day after homecoming. I did conserve energy successfully yesterday, but she was absolutely right. I needed to sleep in and let things slide today. Daughter planned today to go hang out with her friends while I stayed in to drink coffee and watch football in relative calm in my basement. We intended to have dinner and maybe go to a movie once she returned and I had rested. Instead we went to the grocery store and got the kinds of snacks we would have bought at a theater for much more money, and stayed home to watch the early Harry Potter movies in anticipation of the new one in the franchise, due out in a month. I had very few chances to use the theater room Mr X created right before he left. Tonight we're using it as intended, with the lights dim and the sound system loud. Perfect recovery day, with no drama to proclaim my need for rest.
My daughter and I were quite taken with the Harry Potter series. Even when I was a librarian, at first I resisted getting into the books, because they were so wildly popular. My reasoning was that if everyone liked them, they must be quite pedestrian and mainstream and thus boring to me. My kids liked them well enough, but I didn't touch them until the third one in the series came out. I decided to give them a try, started at the beginning, and devoured them. They were nothing like I imagined. I thought they were brilliant. We started reading them aloud as a family, and I always wanted to be the one to do the reading. I was caught up in the arc of the story, and got deeply invested in the characters. Perhaps not as much as my daughter, though. She always felt a special kinship with Hermione Granger, a smart girl with uncontrollable hair. I can totally see it. I watched my kid grow up. It's a good fit.
We've both been geeking out on the internet retelling of the story called "Hermione Granger and the Goddamn Patriarchy." (Google it. It's NSFW, but it's great. I think it came out at the beginning of last year.) Our favorite part of it is the declaration, "She set that bitch on fire." After rereading the series this last year, my daughter found it particularly funny that Hermione seemed to have a fondness for little blue flames. When her tattoo artist suggested blue flames in the artwork she had done last week, we each got a great laugh over how apropos it was in the grand scheme of things. I've always thought my child was correct when she announced at age six that her life goals were to finish high school and then save the world. Watching her in action, the causes she champions and the examples she sets, I believe she still intends to do just that. Right after she sets that bitch on fire.
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