They called it Pumpkin Mauna Kea.
Every year we visit the pumpkin patch, imagining scenes of autumn breezes and caramel apples, and every year we step out of the car into the blistering cushion of heat that sits in the valley and join the groaning hordes shuffling bleakly through the fields, shedding water bottles and articles of clothes and the occasional old person.
In the festival compound, families cram into every puddle of shade cast by bouncy houses and food tents, pouring water straight over their children's heads and watching it steam on contact.
We bunched under the hay ride tent and waited for the tractor to pull up, surveying the miles of pumpkin vines punctuated by the brief flare of human combustion.
Parents were overtaken by a sort of desperate cheer. They hollered along with the live country music and thumbed out stacks of five-dollar bills for carnival food. "We are having FUN!" yelled the dad next to us, "Good old fashioned fun that we will NEVER FORGET!"
And for all that, it really was memorable fun. We rumbled through the fields on bales of hay, ran through the vines to grab pumpkins before we could blister with sunburn, hobbled under their weight through the dust and heat mirage to pay whatever the guy at the door arbitrarily decided to charge us ($15) and hauled ass back through the rows of cars to the safety of air conditioning.
Seasonal childhood memory ACHIEVED.
It's all candy and pie from here out.
Sorry you baked your children. Loved "punctuated by the brief flare of human combustion."
ReplyDeleteMy Plucky Knitter birthday yarn came today. I thought I was breaking out of usual green mode by getting gray, but it turns out Kraken? is green. Renee (sig O) said if I knew a thing about Krakens I woulda KNOWN it'd be green. Anyway, it's beeee-yoo-ti-full and I lerve it.
Nice! Sounds like a reasonable compromise, a dark and almost-neutral green. My knitpicks order came in and the tween claimed it. I did sneak some hand-painted sock yarn in there, in my perpetual stubborn attempt to prove I am not allergic to superwash. Which I kind of am. And I'm knitting unsolicited hats at work, which I'll send to people who will be like, 'Um, thanks? Are we close enough friends for handknitted things?' Crippling self doubt trumped by compulsive need to knit until I forget.
ReplyDeleteAlso, what are you making with the kraken?
ReplyDeleteWhat means the tween claimed it? The tween demanded it be knitted into something for him? (Otherwise, what in the world would tween do with your yarn?)
ReplyDeletePlucky will be this: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/florence-27 As yet unstarted. (Once I start, it may be something else, as my approach to encountering any knitting difficulties is to immediately abandon ship.)
Oh, I can so relate to the look of discomfort on faces of people who don't get that the knitted thing is a response to the pleasure of knitting itself, and the desire to make a thing that will be perfect for the recipient, and not a plea for gifts in return or an attempt to lessen distance. Friend who taught me to knit said she dealt with issue by making art project she titled Hats without Heads. (Mine would be called Refusal to Learn from Experience.)
Yeah, the boy liked the color and said it was about time I made something for him, so I'm making a cabled zip-up thing. It had ridiculous bobbles up the front of it on either side of the zipper, which he said looked like dalek bumps and I said looked like cat nipples. Win/win, he said.
ReplyDeleteLovely pattern! Ill have to progress-stalk you on ravelry.