However, the owls were good to me. A UPS delivery owl dropped off my copy of Deathly Hallows in the entryway to my apartment building some time before 6:30 Saturday morning (and placed it appropriately enough in a large spider web!). While I felt foolish checking so early in the morning and even more foolish standing outside in Mickey Mouse pajamas, I ignored my embarrassment, hugging the box to my chest and breathing deeply to hold back unexpected tears.

It was strange, but I felt the way I felt as a small child on Christmas morning in the days when Santa still left presents for me. I could not decide whether I wanted to open the box or not. I worried. Were the contents exactly what I wished for or was it another undesired pair of socks disguised in a festive box?

Overcome by too much anticipation and too little sleep, I did not open the box that morning. Instead, I slept, beginning the book only when I felt rested enough to do so and finishing the last lines late Monday night. And, although I had a few complaints (mostly concerning the epilogue and the treatment of a favorite character), I felt satisfied with how the story ended.

Of course, as a girl with a never-ending reading queue, I did not dwell too long on the end of Harry’s adventures. By Tuesday evening, I was prowling the local bookstores and libraries again, returning home with two books from Curious George and a tote bag full of books from the Boston Public Library. I must confess, however, that I have not given up on Harry quite yet; the Japanese-language edition of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was among the library books.

I am happy to announce that, at last, I am done with my graduate studies at Simmons College. Yesterday, in celebration of my newly discovered freedom, I read Book the First of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events and enjoyed a home cooked meal of puttanesca sauce with “interestingly shaped noodles”. And, I have more playful diversions planned for the next few weeks.

As promised, I am planning to resume blogging on a regular basis. Please bear with me as I get back into the swing of things and prepare to move this weblog to WordPress.

This meeting has been mostly work and very little play for me. However, yesterday, I was able to visit the exhibits where I scored a free copy of the Norton Anthology of Children’s Literature and managed to get all of my textbooks for next semester for half price. And, after this meeting, I will finally get a chance to do touristy things like eat on the Riverwalk and tour the Alamo.

I hope to post more soon–if not from San Antonio, then from Boston.

Much of my early childhood is now orange — not only in the Kodak prints in photo albums and boxes, but also in my memory. With only photographs (and a handful of family stories) to recreate my New York childhood, my view of things is easily distorted. In my memory, my great-grandparents’ brownstone in Brooklyn is pinkish orange, as are my first toys, my first birthday cake, and all of the other objects and moments of my earliest years. Perhaps, this is why whenever I am in New York City now, the colors seems unusually bright, sharp, and somehow wrong.

In many ways, it is too late to preserve my own childhood, but if I ever have children, I think I will follow the advice our guest lecturer gave today and take one black and white photo of my children every year. Black and white, at least, leaves something for the imagination.

Further reading

For information on preserving family photographs, visit the Library Preservation at Harvard “Caring for Personal Collections” webliography.

Sorry for all of the recent site-hopping. With any luck, Frassle or some combination of Frassle and my other weblogs will be my location for the foreseeable future.

Addendum: I forgot to mention RSS feeds. There is a feed for the regular blog post section of my publisher site and a feed for my noteworthy links. Enjoy!

Earlier this week I stumbled across an online exhibit from 2002 of miniature libraries from the children’s book collections at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Perhaps, I should construct a (extremely) miniature library like the one pictured on the introductory page for my action figure. I will have to call it an action figure’s library and not a doll’s library; otherwise, some of my colleagues may take offense.