Posted By admin on July 21, 2007

A few days ago I told Jade of the big event they were planning in Silver Spring for the Deathly Hallows Harry Potter book. Probably the most exciting thing to her was that they were transforming part of Ellsworth Ave. into Diagon Alley. Whole Foods would have butterbeer and edible wands, the local pub is “The Leaky Cauldron” - and so on. It was a cute idea and outshined the Waldorf event in her mind. Besides, we weren’t 100% sure she would be able to pick up her book at the Waldorf store because - thanks to that week of my internet being down - I reserved the book two days later than required in order to pick it up at the store on the 21st. So, Jade decided she’d rather go to the event that had the Diagon Alley angle and get the book the next day.

We went to Silver Spring. Man was Jade disappointed.

It was OVERWHELMED with people - we were late for most of the stuff…no butterbeer, no free edible wands, no ice cream - because we were late for much of it thanks to the HORRIFIC traffic. The two parking garages and all of the streets near the Borders were totally full. So you would approach the garage at a crawl, find out it was full, then have to figure out a way to turn around. Thank goodness somebody was nice enough to give us a little space to turn around. So we crawled through traffic as the minutes ticked by. When we FINALLY found a parking space we had to push our way, walk, wait, walk, wait - there were a number of handicapped people as well who could barely move through the place - not to mention people with baby strollers.

They had a number of events scheduled. The Potter Bee (spelling Bee) The Great Snape Debate and question contest and all of that was handled poorly. You couldn’t hear a WORD anybody was saying. It was hot. And most of the activities were for little kids. Even the events that could have been for older kids - what were they supposed to do? We were over by the trivia question event which had mostly kids who looked to be five to ten answering questions - what is a teenager to do? Muscle in on the little kids to win a sticker?

We stood around for more than forty minutes with these sorts of in-audible activites going on around us in order to be sure that Jade and Will could be in the costume contest, which seemed like it would be for all ages because there were people there of all ages dressed up.

First, let me say the “stage” that all of this was going on at was about four feet deep and eight feet wide - about the size of a table. They managed to be the first older folks in line behind a bunch of kiddies. That’s when the final bad spell was cast - a costume contest debacle which Will takes responsibility for and kept feeling bad about most of the way home. See, folks would come up on the stage and the announcer dude would ask them their name and then when the wee ones would answer he’d ask who they were supposed to be. Most of the first bunch of folks you couldn’t really tell who they were supposed to be, they were little girls in Halloween witch costumes mostly, shyly declaring themselves to be Hermione, or the Weasley girl. So Will (as Mad Eye) gets up there and declares that some folks call him Mad Eye - ever the actor he was IN character, but Jade said, proudly I’m JADE! Then she waited for the emcee to ask who her costume was, but he didn’t because I think Will’s answer threw him off (wow, didn’t take much!) he never asked Jade who she was supposed to be - which was Tonks. With Mad Eye they made a great pair, I will post a photo. Also, I think that they should have had age divided costume contests for such a large event.

Also, I think they really should have thought about the teen and adult crowd a bit more - the adult and teen fans far outnumbered the kids. Not that the kids shouldn’t have fun too, mind you - but it would have been nice to have had something age-appropriate for everybody.

Well, that was the last straw - an hour driving, no treats, too crowded, no pals and no book in sight - so we decided we’d had enough of Silver Spring’s sweaty crush and started walking back to the car. Some point about half way Jade just plain old got upset and her daddy comforted her and I called Anna, who I knew was at the Waldorf Borders and asked how it was going - she said it wasn’t horrid and that they were accepting walk-ins.

We rushed home (just over an hour) got Jade’s pre-order paper (just in case), went to the Waldorf Borders and they had us on the list after all - so she was able to get her book, which she began reading the moment we got home, which was around two-something.

She was in much better spirits having run into some pals from school and walking away with the book and a small box of Bertie Bots.

Here are some photos from the evening:

Will and Jade make great Order of the Phoenix cohorts as Mad Eye Moody and Nymphadora Tonks. I think it would have been even BETTER if Jade had had her pink hair still. Will was stopped at least ten times to have his photo taken and little kids came up to him to tell him what a cool costume he had - the pair of them together definitly turned heads.

We endured the dreaded Borders doorway several times with little payoff.

The only thing that made it bearable was the costumes - it was fun seeing what folks came up with. Jade actually said I HAD to get a photo of this Expecto Patronum one. Clev-ah.

Robert in his favorite section.

On our way back to the car Jade was crushed by the disappointment of the evening and began to get a bit wet-eyed. Jade gets quiet and doesn’t like to show it, but her daddy could tell how upset she was, so he tried to make it better.

Alls mostly well that ends not so horrible. Jade in line with her book - it was just shy of 2am. We grabbed some Bertie Bots at the counter too.

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