I'm alive. I'm ALIIIIVEE!!!

What started out as a tickle a week or two ago was diagnosed as bronchitis, pharyngitis, and an upper respiratory infection. The doctor told me that with the medicines she gave me, I'd be feeling better in about 24 hours. It was more like 30, but I'm so happy to have been downgraded to "bad cold" level that I could sing. well, if not for those coughing fits...but at least I have my appetite back and can swallow without pain clear up into my ears!

The Caring Musician

"Tonight I wanna Cry" by Keith Urban was immediately followed on my internet radio this morning by James Taylor's "You've got a friend." How nice of James to care that much about Keith. I imagine that after James wraps up serenading him, they'll go out, have a drink or two, and poke fun at all their Exes. After a few hours of laughs they'll feel much better and part their ways, James to go "Up on the Roof" and Keith returning to his egocentric life where he thinks everyone wants to be him.

Fun Coversation

The other day I walked into my friend Shaun's office at work and saw that he was putting a book on CD onto his MP3 player. The book was called "Great figures in the New Testament"

Me: So who has the greatest figure in the new testament.
Shaun (nodding and grinning and eyebrows bouncing): Ruth! Wait....that's old testament. Paul! (grinning and giving the thumbs up.)

The LeakyMug theory

Okay, I'm not going to try transcribe the theory after all, but the gist of it was that James gave the invisibility cloak to Dumbledore to add protections to for Harry and perhaps the whole Potter family. One of these protections was possibly a tracking device.

In the defense of this, the theorist inteviewed sites that whenever harry loses his cloak or leaves it somewhere and doesn't retrieve it himself, it's always dumbledore who brings it back. Left on the tower in Sorcerers/philosopher's stone? Dumbledore brings it back.

Also, in book 6 when dumbledore commands harry to keep the cloak with him, could it be so that if harry is whisked off by another port key or gets himself into some sort of other trouble, that dumbledore can find him immediately? Also, why does dumbledore always know what kind of trouble harry is in and where he is to save him at the last second, and yet not know about fred and george's many exploits and explorations or the marauder's map?

What else could have been added to the cloak? Could that be why JK Rowling described this question as "Crucial"?

interesting. Not only does it allow harry to get into trouble, it protects him and prevents him from getting in too much trouble.

Reggie Black and the mystery Cloak

for this entry, I've just copied my post from the Harry Potter for Adults Yahoo!Group. Next entry, I think I may try to transcribe a theory I heard on a leakymug podcast (www.leakymug.com) about how maybe Dumbledore was "tweaking" the features of the invisibility cloak for James and Lilly. I think I like that theory too.

The question about when/where the cloak was used by Dumbledore is interesting to think about. So far, all I've come up with is that it may have been for hiding and/or moving Regulus Black. Dumbledore is not thetype of man to offer to do something he doesn't know he can do, so itstands to reason that when he offered to hide Draco and Narcissaby "Killing" them, that he had done it before. Whose death would he have needed to fake in the past? We also know that he is a very kind person and is forgiving of those (like Snape) who he believes to have turned from Master Riddle. And if he's faked a death before, why couldn'tit be Reggie's?

The next little bit of this theory comes from Red Hen (http://www.redhen-publications.com/Potterverse.html). PerhapsReggie turned his coat and snape and dumbledore helped hide him. Snape would take the credit for killing him, thus moving up in the Death Eater hierarchy, and Dumbledore would hide reggie until he (dumbledore)felt the threat of LV was gone for good. And what better way to hide someone than in an invisibility cloak? This also makes sense on how Harry will find the rest of the horcruxes in one book when it has taken 6 books to find the ring, thediary, and (possibly) the locket. He could just ask the one man(Reggie) that knows for sure about the locket and possibly a few otherhorcruxes as well. The snag to this theory, though, is the question of why Reggie would have stayed in hiding in the years between Voldemort's downfall and his return to power. That's why I think maybe the Theory from the LeakyMug is a little more acceptable, though as you'll see it's a big "Big-Brother"-ish.

I'm not dead yet!

I know its been over a week. When I can get some time, my next entry will be about trying to figure out the mystery surrounding why dumbledore had James Potters cloak in the Harry Potter books. Just gotta find the time...

The Dangers of Djibouti

We were at a family reunion the other day for Erin's dad's family and I was quietly eating dinner listening to a relative whose name I can't now remember (so we'll call her Random Relative) talk about how her daugher is in the foreign service and working at the US embassy in Djibouti (pronounced, at least by RR as Ja-booty). With a name like that for a country, I just had to join in.

me (looking up from my dinner): So do they get a lot of earthquakes in Djibouti?
RR: no....I don't think so....
me: Good! You cause a lot of damage when you shake Djibouti.

RR smiled sympathetically. Erin's mom "kicked" me under the table with her knee.