In my excitement at having received my Harry Potter book yesterday morning, I forgot to publish this draft. Duh! So I will post it today, together with an update. First, the post that didn’t get posted yesterday:

July 23: I was just about to write my research post of the day when the doorbell rang. UPS just delivered my U.S. copy of Book 7 in the Harry Potter series. I could have bought the British edition here last Saturday when the book was released, but since I bought (and loved!) my first Harry Potter books in the U.S. before they became so amazingly popular, I didn’t want to break with…tradition, even if it meant waiting a few extra days to read it. Anyway, that was really FAST! I expected the package to arrive on Wednesday at the very earliest. By the way, the expedited international priority delivery cost more than the book itself (but was well worth it!).

Since Saturday morning, I have avoided reading any news on Internet, I have not read one single newspaper, and I have not watched or listened to any news. Sounds ridiculous, but I hate to know how a book ends before I read it (I never flip to the last page, no matter how curious I am), and I knew that the end of this saga would be broadcast all over the place. It was. Even my parents (who did watch the news), who are not Harry Potter fans, know how Book 7 ends! Anyway, I am glad to say that I still have NO idea what happens, so I am going to retreat downstairs with Peekaboo now and bury my nose in the book. Forget my post. I will think about that tomorrow.

I have probably just undermined my credibility as a serious researcher, but, as we say in Italy, pazienza! 😉

July 24: I am more than halfway through the HP book, in spite of Peekaboo distracting me by trying to chew on and tear the pages and batting furiously at the images inside the book. When she gets tired, she reads the book with me, as you can see from the photo. I will post something more serious tomorrow. Today I have to finish this book!