Borders at Midnight

The sixth Harry Potter book became available at midnight. This is the fifth time we've done the midnight thing:

Kiddie A and I went to the local Borders bookstore. The party there started at 9 pm, and we probably got there around 9:20 - she wanted to be there at 9, but I thought, hey, do we really need to be there for a full three hours? She wore her "Muggle" T-shirt from Hot Topic, I wore my Gryffindor Quidditch T-shirt that I had gotten at the NYC Warner Bros store years ago. It looks like any regular team shirt. I figured there would be a few other adults with Harry Potter attire.

Boy, was I wrong!

There were ALOT of non-kids wearing not just Harry Potter commercially made t-shirts, but young adults and older youth in costume! Mostly these were in what you might think of typical private school garb - white oxford shirt and tie (in the proper Hogwarts House colors, of course) and the girls wore pleated plaid skirts and the boys wore black or dark blue slacks. Add the black robe and you've got a Hogwarts student.

So, we got our numbered tickets to get our two books and took a look at the stations set up around the store. Cute, but definitely geared towards the younger kids. We did pick up an activity packet which amounted to a trivia game, which Kiddie A enjoyed.

There were WAY TOO many people in the store. The cafe was quickly filled with people who parked themselves at the tables. All the other chairs were grabbed and people were either sitting on the floor or wandering around. I wonder what a fire marshall would have said about it.
Kiddie A kept asking me what time it was. Frequently giving little squeals. She could barely contain herself. She had been getting more excited as the days and hours got closer. The store manager did a blow-by-blow "NORAD" annoucement of the Half-Blood Prince's approach to the store (like the Santa reports at Xmas that the TV and radio stations do) as he travelled across the Atlantic towards the East Coast. They also had employees dressed up as various characters wandering around.

Finally midnight arrived and the store started to call out numbers in groups of 25. Our numbers were 155 and 156. The line for the registers quickly got long, so I got in line and told Kiddie to come when she got the books. But then the line moved quickly, and I (and a few other women) had to let others go in front of us to allow time for our book-gathers time to retrieve the books and catch up to us in line. It wasn't too bad, and we were out of the store by 12:15.

Kiddie A started to read the book to me as we drove home, but we're pretty close, so she didn't get a chance to finish the first chapter.

Kiddie B demanded her book almost as soon as I got in the door. She had stayed to have a post-camp shower after watching the Stargate season openers.

So both stayed up to read. I told Kiddie A that I was downstairs (where it's much cooler) watching Stargate and to bring down the book when she was ready to quit for the night - uh - morning. I watched TV until about 2:00 and then I gave up. Soon after I fell asleep she came down with the book, and I mumbled that I was too tired.

BUT THEN at 3 am we had a terrific thunderstorm!! Incredible lightening - woke us all up. Flash after flash, house-shaking rumble after rumble. Heavy, loud rain. So, now that I was awake, I did read a few chapters of the book before tiring enough to sleep again. Not sure how much sleep I really got - not alot. I'm feeling pretty darn wasted at the moment.

The Kiddies need to pack for Band Camp, which starts tomorrow. I've already run one errand this morning to get things they need. I came back to find them reading again - "are you ready?" I asked.

"Uh, I'm not sure."
"Well, how about making sure?"
Grumble grumble

I'm torn. If I let them read, then I have a better chance of one of them finishing (probably Kiddie A) the book before they go and then I'll have it to read for myself ...