Harry Potter in Hogwarts Square

I know what you are thinking, this is soooooo last week, but I unfortunately have a one week lag time when it comes to these things.

Anyway, for one night and one night only Harvard Square became Hogwarts Square. This was so big that, based on the picture below, either

a) All the news stations in town stopped in to cover it

or

b) 4 extra terrestrials thought it would be a good cover for them to "phone home"



The purpose behind all this commotion was that the 7th and final Harry Potter book came out last Saturday at 12:01 AM. People throughout Cambridge and the lands far and wide had ordered their books from the Harvard Bookstore in Harvard Square with the intention of picking up their book as soon as they hit the market on Saturday, and the Business Association of Harvard Square thought,

"$$cha-ching$$"

The square itself was not dressed up but those who visited did. Check out Dumbledore and his girlfriends.

a Weasley relative and friend

and someone swiped the sorting hat.

My friends and I went to UNO's for dinner where Adrianne attempted magic our waiting buzzer.

Unfortunately it didn't work, and we waited another 15 minutes before we were finally seated. We had a lovely dinner of pizza and UNO favorites renamed in honor of the Pottermania of the evening.

After dinner we headed over to Harva...ur...Hogwarts Yard to see the Potter inspired bands. We had unfortunately missed the Hungarian Horntails as well as Draco and the Malfoys, but we did get to see Harry and the Potters whose songs were based on plot lines and scenarios from the book. There was a ditty about Umbridge, one about Hagrid's beard and another about saving Jeanie from Dean.

I'm afraid my pictures for this part of the evening didn't turn out well, but everyone was having a lot of fun and I'm glad I had the chance to experience this once in a life time event. ;o)

New York or dating

It's been 24 days since my interview in New York, and no word at all on the internship. I'm afraid I'm beginning to lose confidence.

But no worries, there's some good news about not moving to New York. If you will, please refer to the map below. I clipped it out of the February 2007 National Geographic (fyi--there are always fascinating yet odd tidbits about love in the Feb. editions). This particular map shows the distribution of single people across the country. The blue dots are male, and the orange dots are female.


















If you'll take a quick look at the map, you can see what I call a middle school dance phenomena. All the guys on one side and all the girls on the other. ;o)

Now click on the map to take a closer look at Boston versus New York. I like dating. Dating is a good thing, and for some reason I find Boston's demographic a little more encouraging than New York's. I mean 185,000 more females than males, come on.

So although I may not get my dream internship in NYC, I can take comfort in knowing I have a better chance of finding a boyfriend in Boston. But then again I've always wanted to live in Seattle or maybe LA. I wonder what internships I might find there. ;o)

Please define Suffolk

I work at a law school, and we often receive some unusual questions, which I can generally answer or refer to more appropriate office, but this one had me stumped.

Me: Good morning Suffolk Law School
Lady: Yes, can you tell me what the law school is named for?
Me: Since we are located in Suffolk County, I would assume we are named after the county.
Lady: And what does the word Suffolk mean?
Me: Sorry?
Lady: If you are named after it, it must be of the utmost importance.
Me: I'm afraid I don't know what it means.
Lady: Well how many counties are in Massachusetts?
Me: I'm a Massachusetts transplant, I don't know that one either.

The conversation got worse from there. I soon felt like I was on an episode of "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?" and apparently I am not.

After the woman hung up, I did a quick Google search and I can now tell you that:

• Suffolk County was named after a county in eastern England and the word means "southern people" as opposed to Norfolk County which means "northern people."
  
• There are 14 counties in Massachusetts
• Suffolk County is 58.52 square miles
  
• The Massachusetts state cookie is chocolate chip ;o)

Name that Religion

Who would have thought that finding out that I am Morman could inspire such an entertaining conversation:

Coworker 1 "You're Mormon? You don't meet that many of them."
Me "There aren't so many out this way, but there's quite a few out west."
Coworker 1 "Wait.....who are those people in Utah. Quakers?"
Me "Uh....Mormons."
Coworker 1 "Mormons, really? I met a Mormon once when I ran a B and B. He was real nice, but I really like the Quaker commercials."
Coworker 2 "You mean the oatmeal?"
Coworker 1 "No, these real nice commercials."
Me "The Mormons do a lot of commericials about families."
Coworker 1 "Oh that's it. You really do some great commercials."

And the conversation got worse as we moved to another coworker's desk.

Me to Coworker 3 "Did you know I'm a Quaker."
Coworker 3 "Aren't you Mormon?"
Coworker 1 "I get the Quakers and the Mormons mixed up."
Coworker 3 "Quakers do the furniture."
Me "The Quakers don't do furniture. You sure you're not thinking of the Amish?"
Coworker 3 "No, the Quakers make this furniture with a simple design."
Coworker 1 "You mean Shaker furniture?"
Coworker 3 "Shaker, Quaker, baker, whatever."

At this point I'm dying with laughter. Welcome to Religion 101, and it's going to be a tough course. ;o)

"Ain't" ain't a word but "Ginormous" is

The truth is that "ain't" is indeed a word. Don't believe me? It's in most major English dictionaries.

Each year about 50 new words are deemed legitmate and inducted into word-dom (which happens to be a non-word that I think will be on next year's list ;o).

I have also learned that my much loved and almost favorite non-word "ginormous" is finally being welcomed into the covers of the Merriam-Webster dictionary along with a number of other non-words which can all be viewed at http://www.m-w.com/info/newwords07.htm .

Perhaps you are wondering how a non-word earns this great honor. Well, "ginormous" did it by winning a popularity contest. It stayed in the rankings for the top ten favorite non-words for a period of years before it was considered. If you'd like to stay on top of the new terminology before it becomes terminology, you can check out the favorite non-word list at: at http://www.m-w.com/info/favorite.htm.

And for the few of you who may scoff at American English and dictionaries, you can see the new British English words in the Oxford dictionary: http://www.askoxford.com/worldofwords/newwords/?view=uk

BINGO - It's flapjack time

As promised in my 6/5/07 entry:

After searching the internet far and wide for Irish flapjack recipes, I did some experimenting in the kitchen, and I believe I have finally settled on the recipe I'd like to share with you all. Although, I've been informed that it might not be the most authentic recipe, I can assure you that it's darn close to the first flapjack I had in Ireland.

I hope you enjoy!!!

Chocolate-covered Flapjacks

1/3 cup walnuts (finely chopped)
1/4 cup chopped coconut (or granola, puffed-rice cereal, rolled oats)
1/3 cup bran (oat or wheat)
3/4 cup quick oats
2/3 cup condensed milk
1 teaspoon molasses
1 1/4 C. dark chocolate chips

Line an 8x8 cake pan with enough parchment paper so it extends up the sides of the pan

Mix together in a bowl the walnuts, coconut, bran, and oats with a wooden spoon.

In a small saucepan, heat the molasses and condensed milk. When warm and thoroughly blended, remove from heat and pour into the bowl with the oat mixture. Mix well with a wooden spoon. Scoop the mixture into the baking pan, pressing down evenly all over and bake in the centre of the oven for about 25 minutes at 350ºF or until golden brown. After that leave it to get quite cold.

Melt the dark chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water (make sure the bowl doesn't touch the water). Lift the oat mixture out of the pan by pulling the exposed edges of the parchment paper. Loosen it from the parchment paper and turn it out upside down onto a plate. Spoon the melted chocolate onto the cake and spread evenly. Then just cool the cake in the fridge for about an hour and cut it into 16 bars.

Tuxedo at a Square Dance

While driving ridiculous speeds along I-84 from NYC to Boston at 1 AM, downing Diet Cokes, and rocking out to hard rock, reggae, and 90's favorites (I still can't get "but you said he's just a friend" out of my head) I had some time to contemplate this trip from which I was returning.

Imagine yourself dressed to the hilt in a ball gown or tuxedo headed to a "fancy" event. You check and recheck your hair or makeup while you travel. You take every precaution that you'll arrive on time, and then upon walking through the door you discover you are at a square dance, and everyone else is wearing jeans. Can you say awkward? Good, I knew you could.

That would my experience on Monday. I went in to NYC for an internship interview for a children's television production. After listening to some very sage advice I made sure I looked as professional as possible. I purchased a suit, straightened my hair, and even had a manicure. I arrived 15 minutes early, only to discover that I was WAY over-dressed. Everyone else in the office was wearing jeans, t-shirts, and khakis. I looked like a lawyer, ready to serve papers. I'm just hoping that the suit wasn't a deterrent, and I still get the internship.

Keep your fingers crossed for me, and I'll keep you posted on the result.