Halloween Fun Day

Halloween is tied with Christmas for my favourite holiday, though i must admit it has lost a little something since i can't go trick or treating anymore. god i miss that candy.

i don't know what it is about it, but i have always loved it. i was very excited this year because i thought i would have ample time to enjoy the festivities, but somehow, i am nearly constantly busy despite my lack of any real employment.

i still haven't watched the nightmare before christmas, and i have done that every halloween and christmas since it came out. i must do that before i go to europe. thats the other thing. i decided to book a trip to europe in the second week of october, and will be leaving on tuesday. i went to vermont for a few days in the beginning, then connecticut, and am going back to connecticut tomorrow. every other day has been filled with some non-halloween activity. it was out of control. and so very wrong

so i decided this need to be remedied. all of my halloween fun was to happen in one day. with my friends sarah and ramon. they are married. they are just two of my married friends. i say this because they dont like being classified as my married friends, but yet i continue to do it.

anyway, we had planned out a super day of apple picking, pumpkin picking, pumpkin soup making, pumpkin carving, and possibly movie watching and board game playing. it was to be a thing of greatness. and it was. it really was. but it wouldnt be a day out with me unless something odd happened.

we get to eastmont orchards, where i have picked apples ever since i was young, at 10:15 am. i was so excited because the website said they were picking pippin apples from mid-october to the end of the season. i love pippin apples. and i have never found them elsewhere. we tried to rationalize why the parking lot was so empty. 'oh its a weekday' 'yeah and it's early in the morning' ' and its cold' 'right!' ' yeah!' 'this is going to be so great!'

we walk up to the people who hand you bags, take two and venture towards the trees. we walk around a bit, trying to stay optimistic, but slowly coming to the realization that there was not one single apple on a tree. not one. all i wanted was to pick one apple. off of a tree. not the ground.

it seemed they were picking 'drop apples' at a discounted price. ahem. yes. ground apples. apples that have fallen to the ground. a fruitarian's dream. but i am not a fruitarian. nor is sarah. or ramon. but what's this? a nice looking pippin apple on the ground! well..maybe if i just pick up the one.. BAH IT S MUSHY! and then i proceed to do my ew this is gross dance, very much like the one i do after i find out a bug was on me.

we soon decide that this stinks. and these apples stink. and WHY oh WHY could they not hold on for a nother week? WHY APPLES???? the carnage of dead apples was unbelievable. we also found a large poop from some unknown animal i can't even begin to guess. we moved on to the pumpkins.

we discuss our pumpkins and when i say i don't know what i am carving, sarah tells me "sometimes you have to let the pumpkin decide for you." so poetic. but then i saw it. it was a leaner. it had personality. it was mine. i decided it looked scared, like someone had just jumped out at it and it leaned back to get away. one thing led to another and i wound up buying two; another leaner to be the scary pumpkin.

so after the failure of the apples i suggest we go to delicious orchards to purchase apples and get some hot cider. which we did. we also made a breakfast of all the delicious samples they have out. crazy hippies we are.

we get back and make some delicious pumpkin soup, as well as come cous cous with great veggies. true hippies. then we set into the pumpkins.

as ramon plans out his Death Star (!!! you need to see it to believe it) and i start tracing out my scared face, i notice sarah struggling a bit. i feel like something must be wrong, pumpkins are not this hard to cut. so i try to poke a hole in it with little poker and it feels like going into wood. sarah tries to use her poker. it bends at a 90 degree angle. she abandons her steak knife for a futile attempt at using the little carving kit saw. which breaks off. in the pumpkin.

eventually she muscles through it like the champ she is and she breaks off the top. we gather around to see what kind of freakish insides it has, and we notice there is a thick white layer right underneath the orange skin that i have never seen before. how do these things happen? it was the strangest pumpkin of steel i have ever encountered.

our halloween day certainly had its tricks and treats, but it seems like it is always something wierd with us. i don't know,. maybe it's because we are weird. maybe its because the universe wants us to have stories to tell. maybe its so i can waste all of your lives by writing long posts and never editing anything. this may not even make sense. maybe i didnt even write it.....

mwahahahahaha.

happy halloween