Longtime readers of my blogs, from back in the LiveJournal days, may recall that for eleven years straight, I co-hosted or hosted a Pumpkin Carving Party in October. These happened between 2004 and 2014, and for the first five years they were held at Laney's house. We used to call them "Matthew's Friends Pumpkin Carving Parties," because I was the one who wanted to have them, but Laney offered the space at her place. The name stuck for several years, even though eventually other friends who were Laney's friends first also participated (Charlie and Cavin; Thayer and Hayley; Mac was there the first couple of years).

But, then Laney moved into a much smaller place, and there just wasn't the space for it. And really, three years after the party tradition began, Shobhit and I moved into this condo, and within a few years attendees of the party became so low in number that we could easily host in our own living room. The last year I did it, in 2014, I reserved the Braeburn Condos Community Kitchen—only to have only Shauna and Evan show up.

By the time 2015 rolled around, I finally abandoned the tradition. Not enough people showed up for it anymore; Shobhit was five years into liviving in New York and then Los Angeles by that point; I believe it was around that time Laney herself had moved temporarily to Olympia; even Barbara had moved by to Virginia five years prior, by that point.

On my pumpkin carving parties history collection page on Flickr, I just yesterday wrote the history of who attended each year. I skipped a full five years between then and now: 2015 through 2019, no pumpkin carving parties. Those parties used to be the third of usually three Halloween themed photo albums each year: Pumpkin Carving Party; Halloween at PCC; the main Halloween one. Following years, the pumpkin carving parties were replaced by regular Halloween parties held another day in October that was not Halloween itself: with Shobhit at the home of some actor friend of his in Los Angeles; at Jennifer and Eric's house; or, as in the case of last year, the AA "Boo Bash" Gina and Beth invited their family to, so Dad and Sherri and Angel and I went, in Olympia.

Well, this is 2020: no parties. At least, not in-person parties. We won't get the usual Halloween festivities at the office at PCC either, because we aren't working at the office. And this is really, specifically, how the pumpkin carving party this year—held over Zoom—came to fruition. Largely thanks to suggestions I had made myself, on Friday next week the PCC office will hold a "Halloween Happy Hour" on Zoom, a festivity option for the holiday for those of us working at home. And I did not come up with this idea, but Adrienne came up with the idea of incorporating an office pumpkin carving competition.

You can bet I was going to participate in that. And, I knew I would thus have to get a pumpkin and carve it sometime this weekend. That was when it occurred to me: why not do a pumpkin carving party again, just over Zoom this time? Assuming Laney would not have the same kind of interest in this as she had for the in-person parties at her house a decade and a half ago, I opted to see if Gabriel was interested—and I included Mandy in the text thread, thinking she might be interested too. They both were. Yay!

Side note: one of the pumpkin carving parties between 2004 and 2014 was with Gabriel too. It was in 2011, with just Gabriel, Tess, and Stephanie—at Stephanie's house on the lake, down in Federal Way. So I've actually done a pumpkin carving party with Gabriel once before; it's just been nine years. (As for Laney, who was so integral to the early history of these parties, after the first five were held at her house between 2004 and 2008, she only ever attended again one time, in 2010.)

Anyway. Clear until just yesterday, that collection of photo albums on Flickr was entitled "Matthew's Friends Pumpkin Carving Parties." That was a throwback to those first five years, though. I finally just changed it to "Pumpkin Carving Parties." And now there's a new photo album for 2020! The first since 2014.

My original suggestion had been to do the pumpkin carving party today, Saturday, because I had scheduled this month's Happy Hour with Laney for after work yesterday. Gabriel asked if we could switch to Friday so Tess could participate, and Laney was fine with rescheduling Happy Hour for today—which worked out better for her and me as well anyway. Tess's friend Kara joined via Zoom from her own home as well, so we had four feeds on the Zoom call.

So: my pumpkin design? Let's say it got . . . mixed reviews. Mandy thought it was amazing. Gabriel thought it was dumb, my transparent attempt at kissing ass for this work contest. Well? When it comes to shamelessness, I cannot be outdone. I am in it to win it!

Gabriel actually asked me, "How many people at your work are just going to react to this with eye rolls?" I said, "Literally no one." I should have thought to mention this but I didn't think to: I have a years-long history of very openly being very much in love with PCC. So, this will actually surprise no one. In fact, even if I don't win the contest (and I think I have a real chance, but it depends on the talent and inventiveness on display among those with whom I am competing), and I absolutely confident many, many of my coworkers will be genuinely delighted by it. Side note: my design is a riff on the PCC logo, new-ish as part of a rebranding from just a few years ago. The logo was designed specifically so different little food related icons could be set inside the middle C; mine puts a skull there. The official name of the company is PCC Community Markets; I changed it to "PCC Spooky Markets." It's layered!

I took the longest to finish my carving, mostly because of all those letters in "Spooky Markets." I was carving those out well into the fairly lengthy time just hanging out and chatting over Zoom, when no one else was still carving theirs. Lea carved an adorable ghost; Tess carved something called a Pachimari (also adorable); Kara carved an incredible Jack Skellington face; Mandy carved a fantastic little house; Gabriel went political and just carved the word "vote"—and even that one was great. All the pumpkins were great. The only one that got any negative feedback was mine because of Gabriel's bad attitude about it. Ha!

Somehow it was decided we should add an "ice cream social" to the festivities. Gabriel and Lea wanted to have ice cream, and Lea, half-jokingly, asked the rest of us, "Does anyone else want some ice cream?" Facetiously, Mandy immediately piped in with her home address.

And then, Lea started to take her seriously. Mandy then assured her she doesn't want ice cream delivered to her house. Gabriel then said, "Now you'll see the difference between my two friends." And . . . well, he was totally right. I waited just a few minutes before saying, "I want to say something!" Once I got everyone's attention, I also recited my home address.

Lea actually ordered me some ice cream via DoorDash. I did feel kind of bad when Lea somehow landed on Salt & Straw as the ice cream store of choice—we have several on Capitol Hill, but I bet it came up first in her search because they are so popular, and also delicious. They are also incredibly expensive: $13 a pint! Holy fuck. Our most expensive pints we sell at PCC are barely half that, and that's more than I'm ever willing to pay for. I finally started to resist—okay, just a little—because that's just the cost of the pints; it doesn't factor in the cost of ordering for delivery, or whatever tip Lea gave the guy. Lea said no fewer than two times, "It's fine."

So, we had our ice cream social, shortly after 9:00. Mandy just drank her Coke while Gabriel and Lea and I ate ice cream. My salted caramel swirl ice cream was delicious. Shobhit got home around 9:30 and he turned on the TV so I took my iPad back to the bedroom, but shortly thereafter Mandy had to go because her dog vomited twice, and that was basically the end of the party.

As I mentioned earlier, due to last night's virtual pumpkin carving party (the party being virtual, not the pumpkin carving, which was very literal), October Happy Hour with Laney was rescheduled for this afternoon. Given how fast the sun is setting these days, shifting from 5:30 pm on a Friday to 2 pm on a Saturday worked very well for us. We were there at Volunteer Park for a good two and a half hours, finally leaving only because it was so cold—a cold front just moved in this weekend, but we had agreed that so long as it was dry, we could bundle up and still meet at the park, especially if we could sit in the sun.

And, sit in the sun we did. I even carried my own lawn chair all the way up there this time, so I would not have to sit on the blanket tote on the cold grass. I had my fingerless gloves, and actually for a good couple of hours, even at around 48°, so long as we were in the sun we were fine. But then, some three or four times we shifted our chairs several feet to the south, because the sun's movement across the sky was surprisingly quick and we kept finding ourselves in shade, which was too cold.

And we did try to stick it out a bit longer even after the sun was too far behind the trees and there was no longer any sun to sit in. But, we didn't last long after that. "I'm fucking freezing," Laney declared, and we called it a day.

It was still really nice, and I'm glad we were once more able to make meeting in person work. This was our third month we managed it: August, September, October. We had been thinking about doing it in July but scrapped the idea that month, I can't remember why. I don't think it was the weather; maybe Laney had been feeling under the weather too recently or something. And right now we're even keeping the possibility open for even meeting in the park for Happy Hour in November, but only if it's no colder than it was today, and again it's dry. In November, that's a pretty tall order, so we'll see. She even mentioned a restaurant with outdoor seaing she might be willing to go to, which is the one place she's been to eat, only once she says, since quarantine started. And only if it can be like it was for her the previous time, at an outdoor table at least 20 feet from any other customers. I don't think she can I can keep 10 feet between us at the same table, though, so that seems iffy.

Well, anyway. It's been a very nice weekend so far. I don't usually post an update like this during the weekend but an event with its own photo album always calls for its own dedicated blog post.

[posted 7:36 pm]

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