Book Club: Living the scar

Just like the boy who lived I, too, grew up with scar on my forehead that had a spectacular story attached to it, mind you my story probably wasn’t quite as dramatic as Harry Potter’s. I didn’t have Death Eaters chasing after me with unforgiveable curses after all, but I did have a gushing of blood, oh did I ever.

While Potter got his scar from Voldemort’s wand, I got mine from my dear sister’s golf club. I was six-year’s-old and was trying to figure out how to hit a golf ball in our backyard. After many failed attempts, my big sister grabbed the club out of my hands and told me to move over, she’d show me how it was done. Apparently, I didn’t move over far enough. She hit the ball, and on the follow through, she also connected with my forehead. And as the blood splurted out like a jet stream, she grabbed my forehead, while my brother grabbed my screaming mouth, and in unison they frantically whisper shouted, “Don’t tell mom! Don’t tell mom!”

I finished reading the Harry Potter series years ago, but for the past three months, the boy wizard was back in my life helping to calm my road rage – through audiobooks.

I used to be the kind of person who turned my nose up at the mere mention of an audiobook. I love the act of reading, love flipping the pages, love being thrown into a fictional world, and leaving all reality behind. But that commute of mine was really getting to me; it had me frazzled and stressed and throwing F bombs and near tears almost every day. So when a friend of mine suggested I listen to audiobooks on my way to and from work, I decided why not.

My only rule: I couldn’t listen to a book that I hadn’t yet read, I would not in any way sully my love of reading just to ease my road rage, no way. And so, Harry Potter was perfect; seven books, 116 hours, 12 weeks of wizarding magic. I wasn’t sure how I would react to the books so many years after reading them (I read the first one 11 years ago). But I fell in love with these books all over again, and maybe even more so, because I’d already read them and was able to really focus in on everything that was going on. I laughed, I smiled, I got all warm and fuzzy inside, and Ron Weasly didn’t annoy me quite as much as he had when I first read the books. But I also got sad, and my stomach lurched when I knew doom was on its way, and yes, there were even tears, and softly spoken “Ohs”  just like there were when reading the books … I probably looked like a bit of a nutter driving down the highway, but hey, least I wasn’t screaming at the fellow drivers 😀

And Jim Dale did a really great job, he was expressive and had voices for all the characters and really made me feel like I was there too, just like I do when I’ve got my nose buried inside the pages of a fantastic novel. I especially loved when he voiced Hermione Granger and Ginny Weasly and Mrs. Weasly and pretty much any of the female voices. Although, I was somewhat stumped as to why Bellatrix Lestrange had a French accent while her cousin Sirius Black (my favourite!) and her sister Narcissa Malfoy did not?

With Harry Potter ending for me today (there was a bit of an emptiness in me just as there was when I finished reading the last book) I’m in the market for more audiobooks … maybe a little Chris Noth in my future? Yum 😉

Do you ever listen to audiobooks?

TONIGHT’S TRAINER RIDE:

  • 7 p.m. BG before: 10.7 (30 minutes after I’d eaten and 1 mmol higher than before dinner)
  • Temp basal: -80 per cent (set an hour before the ride)
  • Time: 60 minutes
  • @35 minutes: BG 3.7 (crud!)
  • 5 minutes ab work: hundred, twisty crunch thing, crunches
  • 8:30 p.m. BG after: 5.6

I’ve really got to figure out how NOT to have low blood sugars on the trainer after dinner. I think maybe there might be some experiments in the near future … like maybe only giving half my dinner bolus dose. I’m already not doing any BG corrections, and not counting all carbs, but it seems that’s just not good enough. Any suggestions?

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