Elizabeth vs. the Jaywalker

Ever since Ack posted a bunch of links to her favorite knitting sites I have been obsessed with making a pair of Jaywalkers.
Months went by as I finished other projects, attempted new sock knitting techniques, and plotted my yarn purchases.
I received some KnitPicks Essential in Meadow Multi

I read the pattern. I realized that 76 sts on size 2 needles would be huh-uge. I spent some time swatching and adjusting. I came up with this.
A Drunken Jaywalker sock...
Now while I do find the pooling interesting, I knew this was not quite right. I put the sock an a holder and set it aside. For two months...
Over Christmas break I purchase some Adrafil Knitcol. This, I thought, would be perfect for Jaywalkers.
I grabbed my Harmony size 1's/32"circular and cast on. I was sick in bed with a cold. So I got down to the heel rather quickly.At this point problems arise:
1. I'm at a place in my knitting career where I know the basic sock recipe. Even in my medicated haze I could see the heel flap was extraordinarily large for me. So I ripped back and tried again. Better in length, but still to wide which means the sock in general is just too...damn...big. I could rip back and put in a fiddly decrease, but that would look weird. Nothing for it but to order some 0's from Knit Picks, rip all the way out, and try again.
2. Sirius has managed to chew off the end of one of the 1's forcing me to sand it down to a somewhat serviceable point and refinish it with nail polish. The needle is still usable if I keep the stunted needle in my left hand, but I ordered a new one anyway.
3. There will not be enough yarn. I can see the amount I have left in the ball after the heel flap is not enough for the foot. I only have two balls. I need three. I head back to the LYS of purchase. No Yarn. None left in that color. We looked thoroughly, trust me.
I immediately went home and checked on WEBS. There was, and I'm not kidding, one ball left in color #45. I bought it. I don't care about the dye lot, at this point finishing the socks and making them fit is a vendetta. Color is irrelevant.

Meanwhile the Drunken Jaywalker has fallen down and landed in the frog pond. I'm still keeping the picture up on Ravelry because I really do enjoy that funky pooling.

So I wait for the three-legged mule that delivers the mail to bring me needles and yarn.

The needles and yarn arrive-on the same day no less. I cast on the size 0's. I cast on two at once thinking to expedite the process. I realize when I get to the end of the ribbing I have only 72 stitches per sock. I should have 76. This mistake is because I cast on the Jaywalkers immediately after the Secret of the Stole cast on-which is 71 inches. (I don't really get the logic either-please don't ask me.) I increase to the right amount. I knit 2 inches. I measure the socks. Even going down a needle size, even tightening my tension as much as possible, it is still 9" around. Too.. Damn... Big!
So I rip out again.
This time I swatch the zig zag pattern and I take out 1 stitch from each panel so I am casting on a total of 68 stitches instead of 76. At this point I am one with the zig zag pattern so I can comfortably adjust the amount of stitches. I cast on 34 sts for my swatch, when completed the swatch should be half the size of the sock-4 inches. I knit for 2 inches in my loose-ish style. (I am lazy about swatching and on socks at least I can adjust the length as I go.) I steam blocked the swatch. (Again-lazy. Or maybe impatient?) It is 4 inches wide.
I've cast on again. At 68 sts I am only knitting 6 sts between the decreases and increases, everything else is the same. I can proportionally adjust the rest of the pattern as I go. I'm up to 2" now and everything is going OK. So far, I will not be lulled into a false sense of security. CONSTANT VIGILANCE! People at work keep looking at me funny as they have noticed I'm always knitting yet never seem to be making any progress on these socks. That's OK, when they are finished I may wear them for the entire day at work without shoes. Including my appearance on stage for the intermission shift. The 250 people in the Yale Rep audience can admire my f-ing cool socks that took some serious blood, sweat, and tears to make.

How Doctors Think

By Jerome Groopman
I can't recall how I heard about this book. But read it, you won't be sorry. Recently, I had some health issues and came up against my usual wall of frustration with the health care system. Here's how it goes...
1. You are in excruciating pain and suspect you have a kidney stone. You drag your ass to Yale Health Services in the middle of the night. It should be noted I am not a pain wuss by any means. I lived life with a partially blocked intestine for a year and a half for Christ's sake.
2. A half-awake resident gives you no diagnosis and sends you home with some pain killers. She gives you paper work to bring to the lab the next day for blood work and tells you to stop by radiology for an ultrasound.
3. Next day (Tuesday) you go to the lab, you give some blood. You stop by radiology and make an appointment, the soonest you can get is two mornings from now. (Thursday)
4. You dutifully drink your water and have your ultrasound. You ask who you can call to get the results. The tech tells you to call your PCP. The problem here is I don't have a PCP because she left months ago to teach at the med school. (Primary Care Physician)
5. The next day (Friday) is spent calling around and getting transferred to various people while trying to track down results.
6. Someone (A nurse? Maybe?) finally calls you back and tells you everything is negative. You express that you are still having twinges of pain and should you be concerned about this? Should you in fact, see a doctor in the not too distant future? "Umm...sure?" So you get an appointment for the next week.
7. Next week (Monday) you see the doctor. He suspects that there may have been a kidney stone but of course because no tests were done at the time of the actual excruciating pain it's hard to tell. For sure you likely have arthritis in your hips from the Crohn's Disease. The doctor tells you if the pain comes back to call and he will do a CAT scan immediately, but why go through the radiation exposure if it's not necessary. You ask this man to please, please, please be your doctor. He is nice, he is smart, he listens, he knows his way around Crohn's, and he has admired your knitting you brought with you into the waiting room.
8. You still have the occasional twinges of pain but nothing major. You check out How Doctors Think by Jerome Groopman and read it in three days.
9. A few days later (Friday) you are finishing up at work, untangling a ball of yarn on the couch in your office and you have a stabbing pain in your bladder and practicality pee yourself. You hobble to the bathroom, urinate and lo and behold, a stone! Maybe...wait... that could be dirt? Or maybe a stone? At any rate I am not sticking my hand into the toilet at work as I know how often it is cleaned. (Which is to say never.)
10. Upon reflection you decide not to call the doctor. He will only be disappointed you did not retrieve the maybe- stone from the toilet. Besides, other than the arthritis, you feel fine.

Now it should be said I do have really good health care. I am very lucky to work at a University with a billion-million dollar endowment and it's own internal medical system. All the health care is paid for and I don't need to worry about my insurance denying me a procedure because it costs too much. I want a CAT scan? Step right up! We've got like 8 of 'em that we own, so no waiting. If you needed a transplant, the biggest obstacle would be getting the organ. There would be a line of doctors and med students rearing to transplant. I am very, very fortunate and suspect that I could never leave this job.
However, for all the money falling out of Uncle Yale's ass the two biggest issues I have with medicine are time and the doctors themselves. I had these issues at the craptastic Salem Clinic, so I know these are equal opportunity problems.
The issue of time: Note that it took 10 steps to get from excruciating pain to passing a stone. And that it is still a-maybe I passed a stone. My biggest gripe has always been the time it takes from experiencing pain to seeing a doctor and that said pain or problem can go away in the interim.
The issue of the Doctor: or my point and do I have one? How Doctors Think brilliantly explains how doctors are trained to diagnose a patient. It also brilliantly explains what the hell to do about it when you feel like you are not getting the proper diagnosis or treatment. The main device in explaining these quandaries is the experiences that Dr. Groopman has had personally and with his patients, and even with some random people he just knows. I was particularly comforted that Dr. G had to see 5 (5!) different specialists to get the proper diagnosis and treatment for a chronic wrist pain. One of said specialists suggested an invasive exploratory surgery and that he would just "figure it out when he got in there." Excuse me? WTF?!
Dr. G's style is completely accessible, with only a few little sections of medical jargon. The fact that it is peppered with personal experiences makes it even more interesting.

From this book I learned the most important things in dealing with the Doctor are:
1. Like your Doctor. If you do not like your doctor, transfer to another immediately. Dislike breeds distrust. Twice I have had doctors criticize things about my life that are none of their business. I did not go back to see either one. First impressions with Doctors are the same as anybody else. If you don't like them immediately, chances are you won't ever like them at all. Just because they have a medical degree doesn't mean they are not an asshole.
2. Make sure your Doctor listens to you. I can't tell you the number of times I've been listing off symptoms and the doctor has been nodding aimlessly, not making eye contact, and "hmm"-ing vaguely. Said doctors usually made a diagnosis from previous charts and never really focused on what was happening in the present. This kind of attitude is how I got to a place where my intestine perforated. It is always helpful to make notes before the appointment, refer to said notes so you don't get off topic, and never leave until you are satisfied.
*It is very possible that the doctor is not listening because he/she has a legitimate issue on his/her mind. It is also perfectly OK to point this out. "You seem a little distracted. Should we reschedule for another time when you can be more focused?" Sure it would be a pain to reschedule, but I would rather have undivided attention later, than distraction now. I had an appointment once where the doctor had clearly just come from a very distressing moment. Subsequently I felt blown off because it was clear she wasn't listening. I wish I had said something then, because I just ended up making an appointment with someone else anyway.
3. Ask questions that will lead you both to the correct answer. If you feel like your appointment is giving you unsatisfactory answers, then ask more questions. "Could it be ___? If not, why?" Again, if you can make a list of questions before the appointment and refer to it.

Back in the Blogging Saddle Again

Dearest Blog,
I have not posted to this blog since Nov. 12th 2007.
Little Blog-I am sorry.
I will not bore you with the excuses, I was busy-enough said.
Won't happen again.

Love,
ElizaB

P.S I know you are jealous of Ravelry. I will make time for both of you-I promise.

I Burn, I Burn...

My past few weeks have been tied up with the usual work at the Rep, and also with my latest design project. Ellen Rosand, a Dept of Music Prof recently received a grant from the Mellon Foundation which she has used to fund the Yale Baroque Opera Project. Their inaugural piece Ardo, Ardo: Montiverdi In Motion's costumes were designed by yours truly. I ended up using the abstract paintings of the music director Richard Lalli for color inspiration, much to his delight. So over the course of two days many white clothes purchased from the Dharma Trading Co. ended up in a dye pot and here's the result...Now I'm inspired to start dyeing sock yarn. I had forgotten how much I had enjoyed dyeing until I worked on this project. The picture above is Ariadne from the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur in the Montiverdi piece Lamento L'Arianna. The Yale Schola Cantorum singers (dressed in black) created the physical labyrinth, Theseus unwound his ball of red yarn and left his end on the edge of the stage. Ariadne enters with her end and sings her aria, eventually she finds the other end with no one there, betrayed and heartbroken, she dies. I love the yarn amongst the people labyrinth.

Photos by Ethan Heard

Getting My Elizabethan On

This is a very delayed entry. I simply have not had the time to put this experience to blog as it were. Though I have gone over it in my head about a hundred times since.
During our run of Richard II at the Rep our dramaturg made arrangements for the cast to go over to the Yale Elizabethan Club for a little show and tell. Being a Shakespeare fan I tagged along and had such an amazing time. I had no idea this club even existed much less that their vault held so many fine Elizabethan treasures. It is indeed an actual vault set into a little closet space off one of the parlors. The club member in charge of our group kindly pulled out a First Folio to let us look at. (Look at, but definitely not touch.) He also showed us several original Quatros which he let us handle, which we did with great reverence. There was a copy of the sonnets with the famed dedication page. Also the plays Hamlet, Richard II, and Romeo and Juliet. The R&J actually had cuts and notes made in it by a former owner which was fascinating.
By far my favorite item was a letter they acquired at a Christie's auction written by Queen E herself. It was a letter addressed to her Good Bess (Elizabeth Throckmorton) consoling her on the death of her husband. I didn't realize the significance of this letter until I saw the movie Elizabeth The Golden Age the next day. This is not just consoling her Lady in Waiting about a death but the death of Sir Walter Raleigh. It appears to be written in her own hand and not dictated and merely signed. It was very sincere and is even more interesting now that I know the details behind it.
Inspired by this visit and the viewing of the new movie, I spent some time in the library of the Yale Center for British Art. They have a copy of the Janet Arnold book Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlocked. This is a rare book which details the clothing of Queen Elizabeth I, based on portraits, surviving inventories of the Wardrobe of Robes, and other original documents. It's amazing and of course on reference only at the library. It in turn has inspired a few knitting projects based on Elizabethan portraiture.

First, is Lord Leicester's Leg Warmers. These are inspired by the pattern on the pumpkin breeches worn by Robert Dudley in this portrait at the YCBA. The chevron striping on the beeches inspired a lace pattern of my own design. This took a couple days to work out, first the pattern then an adjustment for the scale of the leg warmers. I'm using Knitpicks Wool of the Andes in the shoreline twist colorway of brown and purple. I cast on on size 6 dpn's for the ribbing with a plan to switch to magic loop on a size 7 circ when I get to the pattern. Unfortunately I've stalled out having little time to knit with Ardo taking up all of my time. But now that Ardo is up and soon over I will have time to curl up with the kitties and knit.

Progress thus far...
I'm really liking twisting my knit stitches by knitting into the back of the stitch. It's a much firmer ribbing than I normally manage and by not twisting the purl stitch it's creating a lace effect between the 2 knit stitches.

Old Friends...And New Ones

I have recently been revisiting an old favorite book series. The original Dragonlance Chronicles by Margret Weis and Tracy Hickman. I read these rather obsessively in high school. (Me, obsessive? No!) In retrospect they are really just a rip-off of Lord of the Rings. Though they are a creative rip-off with good characters. But I equate them to old friends. You've changed, they haven't. You look at them with new eyes and while you may not feel the same affection you once did, you can appreciate them for what they are.




Even more interesting is the new Lost Chronicles series written by the same authors. These are stories that fill in the time jumps in the original tales. I have to say the plot line is expertly crafted and I have yet to find a discrepancy in that department. however the characters and their language is different. Significantly so in some cases. That being said I enjoyed both Dragons of the Dwarven Depths and Dragons of the Highlord Skies.






Dwarven Depths is the story between Autumn Twilight and Winter Night. The companions go on a quest for the mythical Hammer of Kharas while trying to protect the group of refugees from Pax Tharkas. Highlord Skies focuses on the events surrounding the recovery of the Dragon Orb. These events are counterpointed by Kitiara's quest for power amongst the Dragon Highlords and her journey to challenge the death knight Lord Soth. I found that these books gave two characters in particular a new amount of depth, Flint and Kitiara. I ended up liking both a lot more once I got some more background and traveled with them through a quest of sorts. All in all I could look past some of the clunkyness of the Lost Chronicles and enjoy these as much as the originals.

OK now we REALLY return to our regularly scheduled programming...

I mean it this time... There's even a new look to be excited about.

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming...

After an extended interlude I like to call The Elm Shakespeare Company, I have returned to blogging. I have still been reading, just not writing. Updated posts continue below...

Stumbling on Happiness

By Daniel Gilbert
The self-help book industry is huge, giving the public much advice on how to be thin, be sucessful and ultimately how to be happy. This book does not tell you how to be happy. What it does tell you is how the human brain functions in the pursuit of happiness. It gives us suggestions on how to utilize this information, but it does not tell you how to be happy.
What we learn is we cannot ever reasonably predict our future feelings due to our imagination. We are the only creatures on this planet who not only think about, but imagine the future. But current and past influences skew our imaginations into a warped version of what our future may bring. We think this imagining is the way things absolutely will be and then are constantly disappointed in outcomes that are diferent.
Society is also a factor. We are told make more, spend more, breed more, ultimately to keep society functioning for the greater good, not for our individual happiness. Case in point, I do not want to have children. I don't like 'em, I don't know what to do with them. I can reasonably predict I would feel resentful towards them. I feel resentment towards my neighbor when his screaming wakes me up at 7:30 am, why wouldn't I feel resentful towards a screaming baby at that hour? Even if it's the blood of my loins and all. So I choose to not have children so I do not make some poor child unhappy with my terrible parenting, and I'm making myself happy by not feeling resentful and bitter for 18 years. But society would have me have children, so there are more people to fuel the economy. "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." be damned, you need to have children and while your at it you need to buy a $900 stroller.
So what can we do to be happy? As I said there is no instruction list in this book. What I took away from it is I need to make predictions based of what I know, not what I imagine. For example, I have Crohn's Disease. Popcorn makes it act up. Popcorn smells really good. When someone makes popcorn and it smells so good, it is tempting to eat some. Now I could eat the popcorn, I could savor that puffy, salty, buttery goodness and be really happy about it for about 5 minutes. But what I know is about 24 hours later, I will be curled up on my bathroom floor for about 5 hours praying for death. According to Mr. Gilbert the way the brain works, it would actually have me keep eating the popcorn, resulting in 5 hours of pain for the 5 minutes of pleasure. This is true as it took me several years to figure out the same action would keep producing the same result. Fortunately, I'm already on the road to happiness as I have retrained myself over the years not to eat things that cause Crohn's flare ups, no matter how good that food may taste.
So for an experiment I'm going to try a new way of thinking about loosing weight. I've always gone into the weight loss thing with the idea that if I lose weight things will be so much better! Clothes will fit! Boys will like me! I will be able to manage my finances! OK, maybe not the latter but you get the point. What I know is if I loose weight I will physically feel better. When I was 20lbs lighter I could move faster, lift more, and wasn't so wiped out all the time. I shouldn't imagine what it will be like because I can't know what the outcome will be. So my goal is to loose weight to gain physical health. To be able to do run for an emergency at work and not feel like I'm having a minor heart attack. Anything else is just icing on the cake.

The Lovely Bones

By Alice Sebold
You'd have to be living under a rock not to at least have seen this book around. I've seen it many times and as usual, I refused to hop on the bandwagon right away. I'm glad I finally got on for the ride. The narrative of this book is really different than anything I've ever read. Susie Salmon at fourteen is brutally raped and murdered by her neighbor. The rest of the book is Susie watching her family, friends, and her killer from her personalized heaven.
What's really interesting is that instead of first person narrative from each character we get first person emotions and actions through Susie. Because she is dead she can sense the thoughts and feelings of the other characters and express them to us. This is really brilliant as we get so many perspectives on the story but through only one "voice."
The actions and plot are very realistic. This is life in the suburbs. All the houses look the same but behind the similar facades are broken hearts, broken marriages, weak adults, strong children, murderers, and unhappiness. The end is not tied up neatly in a bow, and I appreciate that as life never is. This is an impressive debut novel. Alice Sebold's next novel is due out in October and I'm looking forward to reading it. Peter Jackson is directing the movie, which is very exciting as he is good at the adaptations.

Atonement

By Ian McEwan
I had started Atonement last year and didn't finish. I tried again, letting the locale of Edgerton Park and oppressive heat of Connecticut in the summer put me in the world of an English country manor in August. I found myself completely drawn in by the story, characters, and McEwan's writing style. Briony is a girl of thirteen who is isolated and over-imaginative. (I can relate!) She misconstrues an encounter she witnesses between her sister, Celia and a family friend, Robbie. This leads to her accusing him of the reap of her cousin. In turn it leads to the destruction of her family. We then see the continuation of Robbie's life after his release from prison. He is now a soldier in the Army retreating from Dunkirk. He and Celia are still in contact. Briony is now a nurse, like Celia, and tries to atone for her sins though her work. It is still not enough and she tracks down her family in an attempt to redress the wrongs against Robbie and clear his name.
The end is Briony in her 70's, a successful novelist and the author of all we have read before. Were the previous accounts true? Parts are explained and parts are left to the readers imagination. I actually wish it had been a little less specific in regards to Robbie and Celia's outcomes. But I do see where the fictional author is attempting to use her novel as her atonement which is something she could not do in her actions. Much is made that until her "character's" are all dead, the novel will not be published. Briony herself is dying, so it is unclear if she will even be able to atone, or worse be aware of it if she does. This is the irony of Briony's situation, she has been diagnosed with vascular dementia. The person who over-fantasized will now be stripped of her mind and the guilt over her accusation may be relieved but she may not even be aware of it. Sad ending. It will be interesting to see how the movie pans out.

The Cider House Rules

By John Irving
I spent my re-read of Deathly Hallows with the other two authors from the charity event I attended last year. Stephen King organized a fund raiser for The Haven Foundation and Doctors Without Borders. He read from his work as did J.K. Rowling and John Irving. My three favorite authors in one setting at Radio City Music Hall. It was heaven!
Anyway to recreate the triumvirate I listened to The Cider House Rules on audio book. Cider House is one of my favorite Irving novels. It doesn't deal with the usual issues of his main characters and this has a nice historical backdrop of the US during the first half of the 20th century. It also goes into detail about a controversial subject, abortion. I must say reading the graphic detail and hearing it are two different things. Reading any of it doesn't phase me, but hearing the squelchier details was a little much. The narrator Grover Gardener has a suitable reading voice. He doesn't do "voices", but I don't think " voices " are necessary for the story. It sound's as if Homer Wells himself were telling the tale at the end of his life.

Cell

By Stephen King
How does one make the transition from Harry Potter Mania back to their regular reading. With a zombie novel of course! I had read this book last summer and enjoyed it. I wanted to read something familiar and comforting. This novel is classic King, I think of it as sort of a mini-The Stand.
Take a common item in society-cell phones. Make them destructive-everyone who uses them turns into a zombie. Break down society-zombies vs. the normal people. Have a big confrontation between the two-normal people blow up the zombies. End on a vague but hopeful note-leading man tries to heal partially zombified son, but we don't know whether it worked or not. I'd like to think it did.
This is short by King's standards-only 450 pages. It cooks along at a fast pace and has some surprising and shocking twists. As usual the character's are the best, including Tom-King's first Homosexual!

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

So as promised, more on Deathly Hallows. However I feel a little Harry Pottered-out. So instead of a detailed post (which would be long) I have made a list of my Five Favorite Things about this book...
1. Severus Snape's back story. Yes he's ultimately on Harry's side but it's so much more complex than good and evil. The biggest surprise, Snape and Lilly BFF's! Never saw that coming.
2. The Deathly Hallows. New mythology at this late stage of the game? Yes!
3. Neville Longbottom, he could have been the chosen one. In this book he proves he was equal to the task.
4. Harry's use of the Hallows and Horcruxes for the greater good and not his own purposes.
5. Voldemort's stupidity. He doesn't trust, he has a huge superiority complex, and he's assumptive. I love that part of his undoing was thinking only he knew of the Room of Requirement. Where did he think all that crap came from?

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

It's a little over 24 hours since I picked up the book at Borders yesterday at midnight. This was without a doubt the best read of my 30 years on this earth. I will write more later as I am just going to reread the book again at a slower pace. I also wish to not spoil the book for anyone.

Some of my favorite moments:
"Dawlish is still in St. Mungo's and Gran's on the run."
"You know, sometimes I think we Sort too soon..."
"NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!"

Thanks Jo this was well worth the wait.

The Order of the Phoenix

I enjoy Order of the Phoenix a great deal more than most. Sure it has Angry Harry-but if I had to go through all that I'd be pissed too. My favorite parts:
1. Voldemort's possession of Harry and then vacating the premises when love is in the air. I can just see Volde jumping around saying "Ewww!....Love...Nasty!"
2. Umbridge getting hauled off by Centaurs.
3. Neville kicking ass.
4. Luna Lovegood.
5. The badges given out at the Ministry of Magic "Harry Potter-Rescue Mission."

The Deathly Hallows

So I've just discovered that there are major spoilerish happenings on the interwebs. People who ordered their copies of Deatly hallows from DeepDiscounts.com got their books already. (Lucky bastards.) Of course these idiots are now posting scans of the book on the internet. Again-bastards. So I think I am headed into official internet silence. After tomorrow's internet orders for the shows I'm designing, other than email checks and whatever blog posts I can manage, there will be no other internet viewings until after the book is finished.
More time to spend with the cats.
UPDATE: The following piece in the Times is causing an uproar, claiming it has spoilers galore. I don't think it does. It has hints and mentions a few things from previous books but it does not give details. I thought it was the perfect thing to read to quench any taste I might have had for a spoiler.
This piece from the NY Times is great. It is their carefully worded review of the book. Again who are these people that just go buy the book early? So unfair!

Goblet of Fire

I finished Goblet of Fire two days ago. It is my least favorite of the books but it does have some key points for the series at large.

1.No one stops being a Death Eater. Sirius mentions this to Harry when describing Karkaroff. It is indeed true as Karkaroff is killed later. Every other Death Eater has either died in the line of duty or on Volde's orders. Foreshadowing to Snape's Death? You betcha. Draco's death? Could be the reprieve, likely he'll be used alive to torment Narcissa and Lucius for a while at least.

2. Mad-Eye Moody fake out. One of the best fake-outs in the history of Literature. Absolutely Brilliant. It even works so well when you know the conceit and are re-reading and thinking about it from Barty Crouch Jr.'s point of view. Why is he so nice to Neville? He's sneaky and manipulative sure, he's trying to emulate Moody, and he wants Harry to figure out the Gillyweed thing. But Mad-Eye Barty is really kind to Neville. Residual guilt perhaps? He was stopped in his Death Eater tracks by a Dementor so I suppose we'll never know.

3. Snape's reveal of the Dark Mark. I think this tiny moment is HUGE and proof of Snape's true colors more on this at the Snape Theory.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

In the third installment of the Harry Potter series we really get the ball rolling. Major characters and plot points are introduced. This is my favorite of all the books so far. Mainly because we are introduced to the Marauders and their backstory. We also meet Trelawney and see how divination works in the Wizarding World. And let's not forget, Gryffindor finally wins the Quidditch Cup. The most brilliant part of the book is JKR's writing. She frequently set's us up and bowls us over with plot twist after plot twist.

HP&POA brings up several big questions that as of book 6 have not been answered:
Why is Neville so afraid of Snape? Sure Snape is very critical of Neville, but so is Neville's whole family. Neville is terrified of Snape. Does Neville know more of Snape's history than we think? I belive that's possible. Neville's Grandmother has told him all about his parents, Voldemort, and the Death Eaters. What has she told him about Sanpe? I hope we find out in Book 7.
When we are first made privy to the events of Halloween '81 by Sirius he mentions how he was to check on Wormtail that night. When he didn't find Wormtail, he went to check on Lily & James and found them dead. If Sirius was not the secret keeper, how would he know where to go? I hope we get a clear description of this night in Book 7, because I am so confused.
How did Peter Pettigrew get sorted into Gryffindor? And what made him adopt such Slytheriny ways? I think we will find Wormtail's redemption as a Gryffindor in Book 7.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

After finishing Year 2 of the Harry Potter Series I've noticed a few more subtle clues to the outcome of the books. We are introduced to a Horcrux in this book in the form of Tom Riddle's diary. Though at this time it is only viewed as a serious piece of dark magic. Harry instinctively destroys the Horcrux, which is probably a path he should stick to for destroying the rest considering Dumbledore's hand in Book 6. This secret Horcrux introduction is mirrored in Book 6 where the Horcruxes are a major plot device and explained, though somewhat inefficiently.

During the post-action Dumbledore wrap-up, Dumbledore explains to Harry why he is a Parselmouth. "Voldemort put a bit of himself in me?" says Harry. Well, upon further reflection this supports the Harry is a Horcrux theory now doesn't it? I know this has been a major key to that theory but in now observing the structure of Years 1 & 2 it seems far more likely. Harry mentions to Riddle that he does not know why the spell Voldemort cast backfired, in fact no one does. My theory is since he had intended to make a Horcrux from Harry's murder, he probably had to cast Avada Kedavra and the Horcrux spell at the same time. The spells hit Harry, who was protected by Lily's sacrafice, and the spells flew and backfired everywhere. Most likely turning Harry into an accidental Horcrux in the process.

I also wonder if Harry will make a return to the Chamber of Secrets on his Horcrux hunt. There is no item specifially mentioned in the text that could be a Horcrux, but Harry could go into the lair of the Basalisk now that it's dead. Voldemort might not have left it there before graduating, but he could have dropped it of during his application for the DADA job.

There's not much going on with Snape in this book. Knowing JKR, there probably is something crucial but oh-so-subtle that I'm missing.