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| score! kabocha |
I think the alluring thing about the bigger squash is that it takes some Umph (and a good heavy knife) to prepare them for baking, which is in turn, really easy. Having squash around really makes me happy--they totally lend a nice presence--they make me think of being at the State Fair with my family, where I'd see like 800 lb pumpkins alongside really pretty Best in Show squash and also of the Berenstein Bears story in which Papa Bear reads books to the pumpkin he's growing out in the punkin patch.
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| I placed it on my bar to sit by its squash cousin..a cute lil pie pumpkin that I also have plans to bake this week. |
Plusss, these squashes make me think of carving pumpkins with my Dad in our garage.I would draw out a design and he would operate the knife. I remember feeling impatience on at least one occasion as I got older because I didn't get to actually carve it myself, but I am so glad I never had to skip trick-or-treating because I was in the ER. And I was always proud of the pumpkins we created. My favorite one was one we did of a pirate.
The weather is finally cool enough to run comfortably outdoors! Well it's actually been cool the past few weeks, but it went from mega-hot to considerably cooler in such a short time that I needed a bit of time to get used to it! That said, yesterday afternoon I wanted nothing more than to go explore on foot!
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| I'd just finished watching Harold and Maude and was ready to seize the day. |
I went out for a run around my neighborhood and ended up over to the track at the nearby high school, where I ran with my friend Carlos last Sunday. It's a really nice, springy red track in a big stadium, because track is so big here..jk, I'm pretty sure it actually has something to do with that finely manicured green stuff with white stripes on the inside of the track. So it's really a treasure to have such a nice track (open to the public!) so close by. I can hear the sound of silence as I run through the neighborhood here..not like a creepy silence, just a really calm one. All the streets have "Oak" in the name and many of the houses have big maroon Aggie flags stuck on mini-flagpoles in their lawns, so I got a bit lost on the corner of Oak Briar and Lazy Oaks, but asked a woman walking her dog what street I was headed for and got turned in the right direction. I loved seeing red, orange, and yellow mums out on people's front porches--my mom, Brother and I always picked out mums and gourds for our Halloween display when we would go get our pumpkins in the rural areas near our house.
And for Halloween, I went out last night with my friends and I dressed up as...
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| Uh, what is she? |
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| I dunno, her camera was out of focus |
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| Hmmm.. |
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| Oh, a mime! |
All I had to do was add some face makeup, which I took all of $1 and like 8 minutes, to the idea I had for a burglar costume. I wore black from head to foot, and gloves. Oh, and I added some red lipstick, too. I must say I wasn't a very good mime, as I talked a lot. But I did do some miming throughout the night. My friend Fenix, who is from Colombia said, "You're a mimo?" And I was like YES (assuming that mimo=mime in Spanish, which it does). Fenix said that there are lots of mimes in Bogota, and they are even hired by the mayor to encourage citizens not to behave better: to not jaywalk, litter, or drive poorly. I found a news story about it:
"Initially 20 professional mimes shadowed pedestrians who didn't follow crossing rules: A pedestrian running across the road would be tracked by a mime who mocked his every move. Mimes also poked fun at reckless drivers. The program was so popular that another 400 people were trained as mimes."
Oh, did I mention Northgate (the College Station bar/downtown scene) was cuhhhraaazy! Now I get the feeling for what Franklin St. at UNC is like on Halloween, minus the fires. Thousands of people in costume, filling streets and bars really is a sight to behold. I really enjoyed bar-hopping with my friends The Gingerbread Man + Puss in Boots (Eric and Yuhong), a skunk + a mad scientist (Carrie and George), girl Robin Hood + a vampire (Xin-Xue and Carlos), and two free-spirited oragami people (Jan and Fenix). I got to enjoy a glass of Dogfish Head Punkin, which I had all but given up on having this season, as it came and went so fast from the specialty wine/beer store.
Jan and Fenix challenged the idea that you had to be something that people could identify and say, "You're a ______?" which is kinda a standard greeting on Halloween. Jan and Fenix wore black body suits (Jan's even covered his face) and they had dozens of colorful oragami animals and flowers safety-pinned to their front side. Fenix had some really ornate flowers in her hair and had painted her face too. They had spent all afternoon doing oragami together, which I just thought was more adorable than anything.
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