Here is Pinky, posing with the pumpkin and gourd I bought today. I realize that Pinky isn’t, and never was, pink, but I apparently wasn’t all that concerned with color as a 3-year-old girl — and I’m conscious enough now to be able to match my pumpkin with my orange pillowcases for this picture, so hopefully I’ve recovered myself since then.
At Damian’s suggestion, we embarked on this pumpkin-picking excursion early today — and although it involved waking up at the ungodly hour of 10 a.m. on a Saturday, enlisting the help of our hall director and other drivers in the building to help make the trip, and sliding around in the mud and rain searching for pumpkins all morning, the outing was a definite success. Out of my group, Kayla drove, meaning an appropriate mix of showtunes and country music on the way to the farm, where RJ, as expected, found the largest pumpkin he could (aside from the $50 monstrosity sitting in front of the register). Dan was far more interested in the deformed pumpkins and even more phallic-looking gourds, while I spent most of my time looking through the baskets of mini pumpkins for the cutest one, contemplating the possibility of cooking pumpkin seeds in the microwave. (In my household, anything involving actual cooking is strictly frowned upon — but I’ve escaped from inheriting at least some of my mother’s foodisms, as the only thing she really eats other than raw vegetables is buffalo, something I’m not so inclined to try…)
After buying our pumpkins, Kayla, RJ, Dan, Liz and I set off for the dollar store, where everyone bought lights for their Jack-O-Lanterns. Once again, our purchases pretty accurately summed us up as a group, with Kayla buying a raincoat for Dexter, RJ getting a whole pile of useless items that will somehow, one day, come in handy, and Dan finding yet another black hat to add to his collection of all black clothing. I, of course, was more interested in the candy aisle, while Liz seemed to be the only one who could remember what we actually came in for.
Clearly, we’re an interesting bunch of people.
I love days like this, bumming around with friends. I buy so many pumpkins this time of year, usually just for an excuse to visit the pumpkin patches regularly.