LEGOmania

i’m Barb, and i’m an AFOL–that’s adult fan of LEGO, for those of you who don’t know. a few years ago, i rediscovered LEGOs when i was in a hypomanic state. i couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t read, couldn’t get anything done, basically. i don’t know where the idea came from, but i asked Brian to bring home a LEGO set for me. i was able to put it together because the instructions didn’t have words, just pictures, and it left me with a sense of accomplishment–i was finally able to start and finish a task.

i fell in love. we started buying sets for me to put together, and eventually, i came to collect Harry Potter and Star Wars (of course) LEGO sets. i’m not creative enough to build my own creations (known as MOCs), except that one time i built a Whomping Willow Tree, with Mr. Weasley’s Ford Anglia caught in it and everything. and even that was based on a picture on the back of a box for the Aragog the giant spider set.

the Harry Potter sets are modular, so you can connect several of them together. my Hogwarts castle was 4 stories tall and although the room where Fluffy the Hellhound resided might not have been on the correct floor, the room below it that contained the Devil’s Snare did lead to the Chamber of the Keys, and so on.

the problem with having a LEGO Hogwarts is the giant Natividad-Nodurft cats that i’m sure Hagrid would have loved to teach in one of his Care of Magical Creatures classes. these oversized felines stomped through the Hogwarts grounds like Godzilla through Tokyo, destroying the Whomping Willow Tree, Dumbledore’s office, even the castle itself! all that’s left of Hogwarts around here is the Chamber of Secrets, hidden well below the castle, that is, on the second book shelf instead of the very top of it.

my one other attempt at a MOC was recreating the Battle of Naboo. i’ve amassed a fairly large Gungan army and an even larger battle droid army. the problem with having a LEGO Star Wars universe is the CAT-CAT walkers that destroy everything in their paths, much like the AT-ATs the Imperials would later develop, decades after this battle. Hee Seop in particular, loved to reach for the shelf on which the fight was commencing only to knock battle droids off and bat them around. the Gungans, i didn’t mind.

i have several Star Wars and HP sets that are still in unopened boxes. those i’ve already built will be dismantled and stored in Ziploc bags. until we live someplace where we can have a cat-free zone, or at least get shelves with glass-front doors, the wars between good and evil will have to continue to take place in my imagination.