Fall Fatalities

This is your backyard. Now start raking.

As much as I love Fall and all the wondrous and joyous things it brings me, there are a few things about this season that I think we, at least those of us who live in the Mid-Atlantic to Northeast region of the United States, could go without. You know what I'm talking about; Raking Leaves.

I understand why we have to do it, I mean who wants a beautiful blanket of autumn leaves on your lawn, transforming the quickly dying grass into a mini cornucopia of colors until the snow comes down? certainly something so evil as these must be destroyed. But no not by the adults who want them gone - by their children who couldn't care less if there is a pile of leaves in the backyard or not.

Your parents bug you for days and days on end to go rake the leaves up and eventually you have to do it, for a fee of course. But the fee is so insubstantial that we might as well be child workers in the Great Depression for the little reward we get out of this unpleasant task. The leaves always have weird things like twigs and mud and SPIDER CRICKETS in them, and for some reason are always slightly damp even if it hasn't rained in a while....

If you have parents like mine, then bagging is even worse than raking. My parents make us fill a bag, then sit on it in order to compress the leaves and simultaneously making it harder to meet my bagging quota for the day. When I am finally done after 3 and a half hours of bagging I am cold, sweaty, irritable, and smell faintly of mold and forest. I shower and get handed 4 dollars by my parents. One. for. each. bag.

So for those of you who live in temperate regions, Kudos. For those of you who live in Cities, Great. For those of you who live in a Coniferous forest, that's unfair. And for people who live in woodlands and actual forests, my thoughts are with you this November.

ONE

Yes my friends, tomorrow we witness the beginning of the end of the Harry Potter movies, The Penultimate Peril, the Second to Last Hurrah- The Deathly Hallows.

to thank those of you who read, I will give you some cool FACTS today

1. Fred and George were born on April Fools Day

2. Peeves, being a poltergeist, was never a living person. He is not a ghost but an indestructible spirit of chaos.

3. Dementors don't breed. They grow whereve there is decay.

4. Rowling has stated that Crookshanks is half-kneazle ( a kneazle is a highly intelligent, cat-like animal that has a penchant for sniffing out suspicious characters and fowl-play)

5. A magical quill detects the birth of every magical child in England, then McGonagall sends them and owl when they turn 11

6. When Ron sees Tom Riddle recieved an award for special services to the school he jokes that "Maybe he murdered Myrtle; that would've doen everyone a favour" when in fact, Myrtle died because she saw the basilisk that Tom had sent for

7. Most of the wizards in the Black family (extended too) are named after stars or constellations.

Well guys, its been fun, real, enlightening, but most of all MIND BLOWING (ps. the number of facts is no coincidence)

6

6 days is less than a week guys, just think about it. On another note, I got interviewed today about Harry Potter for The Capital, and the article should be out next week in...six days! so if anything I said actually gets put in there, you guys will be the first to get a personalized link :)
Onto today's fact:
JKR gives us a hint early on that Fluffy's weakness is music - in fact, we learn it the first time we meet the beloved three-headed canine, who is sleeping when our friends first meet it. Why is Fluffy sleeping though? BECAUSE in the hallway right outside the room with fluffy in it, Peeves is outside, talking in a SINGSONG voice. meaning that Fluffy was lulled into sleep by hearing Peeves sing, which is a top notch use of foreshadowing, in my opinion

BOOOOOOM. MIND BLOWN.