July 2005
Harry Potter and the Asheville Wolf Pack!
(continued)
Thursday
Got an email from Allan saying to call them, because
Ginger's modem got fried in a lightning storm, and she couldn't get her
email with my travel plans. So I called her, and she told me she
was spending the day running errands, getting hair dye for the kids'
Harry Potter party, planning to make robes for them tomorrow, and she
didn't think she'd be able to find Harry Potter glasses -- "How many do
you need?" I asked. "Do you have some???" She said she'd only
need them for Ethan (6), who's going to be Harry -- Simon (8 1/2)'s
Ron,
and Jameson's (3 1/2) Hermione. Or Ginny Weasley, we're not sure. I
assured her they were OFFICIAL Harry Potter glasses, as Kaye and I had
gotten them at the last book's release, and he'll be thrilled.
After I hung up from this inspiring conversation, I
dumped my boring packing plans and dove into my Halloween boxes to
retrieve
the shimmery Halloween cloth I bought a few years ago in the
after-Halloween sale for tablecloths or cloaks or whatever (Kaye had
used the extra I'd gotten for her for a Professor Trelawney costume at
a VaTech
event). I figured Ginger and I could use them (one was sheer
silvery with stars and moons, the other was solid black with gold
witches and pumpkins) for shawls. I also threw into the bag a
cheap black waist-high cape I don't remember getting at some
after-Halloween sale (maybe for Allan), and a long black hair wig just
in case, plus, of course, the Harry Potter glasses (and some
celebratory Harry Potter candy I had stashed away for special
occasions). When I showed Dad the silvery cloth, he said, "Oh, an
invisibility cloak!" and I quite agreed -- it DID look like the
invisibility cloak from the movie.
A few hours later, I pulled in front of their
Asheville house, Jameson was standing at the street, with Simon up a
tree playing his flute/whistle, to greet me. "Mom's upstairs in the
shower washing the dye out of Ethan's hair," Simon said, and informed
me they were all dying their hair for the party the next day -- black
for Ethan, and red for him and Jameson. And I'd just missed
Allan, who'd left for sound check. At the door, Ethan, in just a
towel -- and light blue/green hair -- watched us walk up to the
house. Simon told him to put some pants on. Inside the
house, I was hugged and jumped by Jameson and engulfed in conversation
from the three, and it wasn't long before Ethan's towel was just being
held at the very specific location for minimum coverage before he
dropped it entirely and walked around naked.
I could hear a pretty overwhelmed Ginger from the
kitchen, calling hello to me while she was finishing dinner (angel hair
pasta and an Italian chicken sauce -- Simon had made the salad, which,
she told me later, involved the length of the kitchen and several bowls
and utensils -- just like me). She looked wiped, and said they
weren't going to the show, she just couldn't get them there -- well, I
could go ahead and she'd try to bring them later. They'll
probably come. But not until later.
Ethan's looking a little blue about his hair (Ginger
said she wasn't allowed to read the instructions long enough to get to
the part where it said not to dye blond hair, and she'll try a
different color combo tomorrow that she thinks will work), so I pulled
out the HP glasses to cheer him up and happily set them on his
nose. He brightened up a little and disappeared to check himself
out in the mirror in another room, then he returned and announced, "NO
WAY am I wearing those glasses -- they make me look goofy!" and I fell
apart laughing. Oh, well! He liked the wire rim ones they found
in a secondhand shop, which was fine (I'm happy to return the official
ones to my collection).
In the middle of all this, a woman dropped by to
pick up her share of the chickens (Allan and Ginger started raising
chickens for eggs for their family a couple of months ago, and started
out with a crate of chicks, most of which were divided among friends
and whatnot to raise on their own). (I'm quickly informed there had
been an accident where Ginger and Allan accidentally killed three
chicks, and six that went to the neighbors' got killed in his fancy
coop by a raccoon -- other than that, everybody survived and
thrived). So Ginger had to drop what she was doing and we went
out to investigate the chicken situation -- I was very interested, as I
hadn't seen them since they were chicks when I visited them in May
(first day of their arrival).
The woman was taking away
three, leaving them with
four, and Ginger called Simon, Ethan and Jameson to the backyard to
confirm which chickens were allowed to leave -- she did NOT want to be
accused of sending away their favorites (Pink Flame, particularly --
Jameson's favorite, named by Jameson at chickhood). Ginger let
the chickens out (because she was hoping to avoid climbing in to the
coop), and then there were seven little chickens stepping and running
and hopping around in the backyard, while Jameson ran after them to
"help" (which helped scatter them) and Simon and Ethan got lost in
them. Eventually, Jameson confirmed which one -- no wait, it's
this one, no wait, it's THIS one -- was Pink Flame, and also White
Wing, and they'd also be keeping Shadow Back and Attila the Hen (she
was the biggest). The woman happily left with three chickens that
miraculously got caught and stayed in the cardboard box (Ginger
eventually put on coop shoes and caught them via cornering them in the
coop).
Back in the house to set out dinner on the deck,
Simon asked me if he could go with me to Allan's show, I said if it's
okay with his mom ("We'll see"), and by dinner Simon had decided that
that meant yes and Ethan wanted to come too, but Ginger said No way (a
little more than Marilyn could probably handle at this age, which I
understood). During dinner, Jameson told me the story of "One day...
Mommy and Daddy... killed three chicks!" (Ginger later explained
that the instructions said they could slide the coop along, and the
chicks would know to move with the coop, but they all gathered in a
group at one end -- the end where Ethan was standing and watching,
unfortunately -- and three got crushed under the coop wall as it slid
over them.)
Dinner over, Simon rode with me over to the YWCA for
the concert, and Allan met us at the ticket table. The first part
of the show was the Poetry Alive! graduation performance, so I got to
watch them do their thing, including a performance of one of Allan's
poems ("Elbows" from his Blood-Hungry Spleen book), which made it even
nicer. Shortly into it, the rest of the Wolf pack arrived, Ethan
finding us and sitting between me and Simon on the two chairs, while
Ginger and Jameson sat in the back.
Then The Dead Poets hit the stage (after a break and
a lengthy "Stretch!" intro during a sound equipment fix), which was as
thoroughly enjoyable as I'd always imagined. And from the first
note, Jameson ran in front of the stage (we'd all moved to the front
row after the break) and danced and ran back and forth, spinning and
jumping and dancing in front of the stage. Ethan joined her, and
eventually Allan introduced them as "The Dead Poet Dancers," adding "a
poetical moshpit."
Back at the house (after Simon and I helped them
load out, which scored me a copy of their new EP, "Inspired by the
Moooos: Bootlegs from the barn"), the kids in bed, we three stayed up,
drank wine, talked movies and writing and stuff. We started in
the den, moved onto the deck, the rain (it's ALWAYS RAINING they
wailed) moved us back inside -- where I showed them the HP candy and
magical cloth booty I brought for the next day, and they said
"Invisibility cloak!" the moment I pulled it out. I said, "That's
what Dad said, too!" -- and we finally surrender to bed at 1.
(Staying up for the midnight party the next night was going to be
tough, following this late hour night!)
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