Year 7 at Hogwarts

This article came out today, for the Contra Costa Times and Oakland Tribune:

Pigging out at Hogwarts

NBC11 will be coming to my house 11am on Friday to interview me in my decor – ack! All you Bay Area crew, set your Tivos for the news! Hope I don’t sound stupid! 😛

Oh my gosh…NBC11 just called and their feature reporter really wants to do the story but he’s the live at 10am guy, so he’ll be here with the truck & broadcast mast at 9:30!!! I gotta set my alarm to be hair & makeup ready before they get here!

So please everyone local, set your Tivos for NBC11 for 10am, and she said it’ll be on a LOT, at 5pm, 11pm, maybe Saturday too!

*breathe, breathe*

Done with 11 chocolate cakes to make up the cake cliffs, all the gingerbread castle buildings are assembled except for each roof, but entire display still needs assembly…going to the grocery store now for the last fresh provisions..I usually do that the night before, but since NBC11 wants to see some food mocked up in the morning, I’m going now!

After going to sleep at 5am (ugh!) I set my alarm for 8am so I could iron my white shirt for my Gryffindor student uniform while my eyes were waking up enough for my contact lenses. Still in my bathrobe at 9am, at my door arrives Kevin, aka Kevvy the House-Elf who already cut all the butterbeer labels for me last Saturday, saying “I thought you’d like someone to take photos during the interview since I’m sure you’ll want to blog this!” AWESOME – you read my mind, Kevin! Thank you SO much!!! 😀

As I was frantically trying to make myself camera-ready by 9:30, I missed my phone that due to the 4.0 earthquake in Oakland this morning the live reporter & crew were sent up there instead, but they’d still be sending a camera & reporter hopefully by 10:30 for a later edited spot. At least I was ready & had extra time, plus they can edit me & chop out anything stupid…heh! I think it went well, they were impressed with all my stuff (“have you thought of doing parties for a living?” was unfortunately off-camera!), Kevin agreed I sounded fine (whew!), and they have way more footage of course than I’m sure they’ll be able to use. The plan is they will edit together a segment, and whoever the reporter is live at whatever local bookstore line they choose, they’ll report, then cut to my interview, but unsure yet whether 5pm, 6pm, 11pm or all three. My Tivo is set for all three, but I don’t have an easy way of exporting from the Tivo, so I hope one of my more up-to-date AV-geek friends will catch it on an exportable format! Mary Ann Favreau (sp?) is the reporter, and she made sure to get my URL correct since she said they’ll be linking it on NBC11.com. I mentioned about my Google #1 status for Halloween Recipes and she said “We’ll have to remember you for Halloween!” haha…!

NBC11 Interviewing Britta – July 20th

I’m on too much adrenaline to take a nap, and my dragon costume isn’t ready yet and I wanted to wear it to the bookstore tonight…still have to finish the last ice cream cone spires on the edible Hogwarts castle, which was used as the backdrop for my interview. That was totally worth the lack of sleep to have it so ready for TV, even though it’s not quite complete! 😀

Party tomorrow & plenty to do! Everyone enjoy their weekend, HP-related or otherwise!

It’s all over! 78 total guests throughout the party! 5 less than the Year Six party, with a lot more room to move at this house, plus thankfully only in the 80s vs. 100+ degrees! Only 15 of them were kids, then plus Bud the dog again, who even got Sorted this year! 😉

(Edited 6:41pm: oops, looking at photos I realized I forgot three who came and hadn’t RSVPd…revised totals: 81 total guests, 16 were kids!)

Peerless Potion = The Patterson Family was the only group really making potions except for Beginning Potions, so they got a group medal

Outstanding Owl Ogler = Kaelyn who found 26! I thought I only put out 24? heh…

Honorable Horcrux Hunter = Daniel – tie-breaker based on most enthusiasm that he found them all!

Stupendous Spell Spotter = no one did, so I “auctioned it off” so now Karin has homework! 11 inches of parchment to me by Friday showing that you’ve completed the entire quiz! 😉

Whirled Word Wizard = Tracy, since Dave, Wendy & crew got through 38 rushing to finish in time for the prizes! 😉

Most Creative Costume = Doug as Firenze the Centaur, with hind legs & freshly-grown beard just for the costume!

Most Authentic Costume = Ben as Draco, complete with freshly-bleached hair and full robes, tie, prefect badge & wand

Best Costume – Ruth as Nearly-Headless Nick (hostess got most votes as the dragon but is ineligible to win!)

The Dobby Award for Best Edible Creation = Tracia for her Pensieve Pinwheels, complete with runes saying “PENSIEVE PINWHEELS YUM YUM” around her Pensieve Bowl! It was hard to decide with some very clever entries, but that extra bit of enthusiastic detail edged her into the front running for the Gilded Sock trophy!

(Thanks to Keith for tallying the costume votes as I was deciding and presenting on the other awards! That worked very well!)

Year Seven at Hogwarts – Full Party Details

We’re still collecting party photos from people, plus I did clean up the absolutely necessary stuff, but decided to relax & read vs. thoroughly clean up & take decor photos yesterday (no spoilers please since I’m only 2/3rds through!) but there are quite a few good pix here already:

http://gallery.britta.com/Year7

I don’t have the video yet of my news spot, but when I do & get it posted, I’ll let everyone know… 🙂

I got email late Saturday night from an editor at Epicurious.com asking how my party went and if I had any new recipes…here’s the article live!

http://www.epicurious.com/features/blogs/editor/2007/07/harry-potter-re.html

😀

I created a YouTube account just to host my NBC11 interview in hopes of saving our webserver traffic load…For those of who you haven’t seen it already, enjoy! 🙂