I sure succeeded at keeping myself busy this weekend, even during the 2/3 of it or so when I wasn't hanging out with anyone. But, because to me it was the Main Event of the weekend, I'll be focusing mostly on Friday evening, and what was actually the second of two social engagements that night: this year's Virtual Pumpkin Carving Party.

You could call it the "Third Annual Virtual Pumpkin Carving Party," but the past three years' photo albums are all combined with my complete history of Pumpkin Carving Parties, which now includes 14 different years and thus 14 different photo albums (there's a 15th album in the collection but it's all overlap, a history of my own carved pumpkins). The full history dates 5 years further back than that though, because I took a 5-year break from pumpkin carving parties between 2015 and 2019. So, prior to that I had 11 straight years of what had started as "Matthew's Friends Pumpkin Carving Parties." They were so called because Laney hosted the first few at her place, but were conceived as a gathering of Matthew's friends—just hosted at Laney's place. For the most part anyone there was also a friend of Laney's, to be fair.

In the early days we had far higher attendance: a gathering of eight people in both 2004 (the first year) and 2006; seven in 2008; six in 2005 and 2007. So there was a good, five-year run of pumpkin carving parties at Laney's house, with a good number of people each year.

That changed in 2009, when the attendance went down to just three: Shobhit, Barbara and me, now hosted at our condo. Laney returned by Barbara did not (because she had moved to Virginia) in 2010. The next year, 2011, was an anomaly in that it shifted to Gabriel and (then wife) Stephanie's house in Federal way, increasing participation to four, with Shobhit still in L.A. that year but with Gabriel, Stephanie and Tess all participating. The year after that, 2012, was down to two, with just Shauna and me, and that was done at Shauna's apartment. 2013 and 2014 were back at my place, these two years with the participation of Evan; 2013 was just her and me, and in 2014, when I moved it down to the Braeburn Condos community kitchen, Shauna returned to participate again. I actually had invited many more people but Evan and Shauna were the only ones who made it.

By 2015, I kind of washed my hands of trying to invite a bunch of people and having barely anyone make it. I spent the next five years effectively assuming I may never carve a pumpkin for Halloween again, or at the very least would not likely host a party for it again. The next shift came with the pandemic in 2020, when PCC encouraged team-building engagement by holding a virtual pumpkin carving party. At some point I mentioned this to Gabriel and Mandy, and that was how our first Virtual Pumpkin Carving party was born: the work contest was not going to include a virtual meeting during the actual carving, but Gabriel and Many and I decided we would all get on Zoom and carve together, an idea I was very excited about. The pumpkin I carved that year was very specific to PCC (I knew I would win the contest) and is still one of my favorites I have ever done, but the actual carving of it made for an excuse to hang out with friends, if only virtually during continued mandates against group gatherings.

Thus, a new tradition was born. I think in 2020 there was some sliver of hope that we could gather in person the next year, but 2021 brought with it variant spikes first of Delta and then Omicron: the Omicron explosion had not yet arrived (or even been detected), but in October 2021 we were still amidst the Delta variant "surge" (which feels like nothing in retrospect compared to Omicron over December and January last year, but it certainly felt like enough of a threat then). Gathering was thus still not advisable, so we did it virtually yet again last year.

There was actually a hot minute during our planning for this year's party that we were actually planning to meet in person. Lea was the one who sent the text saying they were open to this, and I was genuinely surprised; we basically all agreed to doing a home covid test before coming. I have a feeling Gabriel was never super comfortable with the idea from the start, and was likely relieved when we all agreed we would just do it virtually again—mostly out of logistical necessity: Gabriel really wanted Tess to participate, and since she transfers to Stephanie's house on Saturdays, that meant we would need to do it in the afternoon if we gathered on Saturday. I honestly thought it was a much better idea to do it at night, though, given what we were all literally to be doing (carving jack-o-lanterns into which candles would be placed), which made Friday more ideal—but, as I noted earlier, I had other plans right after work on Friday. They would not take all evening, but tacking a nearly one-hour drive to Federal way onto the proceedings really tightened the schedule there.

It just wound up being easier for all of us, logistically if not in terms of health risk, to stick with doing it over Zoom. (Last year we all did it on FaceTime instead; this year Many wanted to use her laptop which is not a Mac so we switched back to Zoom again.) For all I know this could be how it goes for years to come, regardless of what pandemic risks exist. I can live with that, although I would really love to do it in person again one of these days.

I have to admit, there was a lot to like about doing this with all of us in our own homes. When it was done, I was already home: I did not have to travel to it, nor did I have to travel back, much less lug a pumpkin and carving supplies to and from as well. The only real downside was an apparently occasionally weak signal, which caused a few glitches, making it difficult to hear what people said, and the sound quality was often poor even when I could hear people talking. There would have been very little to dislike if it were not for that, leaving only the fact that gathering in person is just by definition more fun and allows for deeper interpersonal connection.

Anyway. Much like my typical approach to Halloween costumes, my aim for pumpkin carving is not to make it too complicated—although several of my more intricate carvings over the years have been my favorites. This year, I Googled "scared face" to find a simple cartoon illustration to use as a template, and I'm very happy with the result. My pumpkins in both 2009 and in 2012 were both similar in concept, but I think this year's was far better in execution—probably because I found an online drawing to go off of.

I actually didn't think of putting the knife in its head until I was finally taking its picture. First, I jammed a carving saw into it. But then, to make it more authentic to slasher movies, I stabbed it with a steak knife. I thought about leaving it there through Halloween, but then decided leaving a partly exposed, real knife out around the cats was not a good idea, so I washed it and put it back into the knife holder. It still made for some pretty great pictures, though.

The party didn't even start until 8:00 on Friday night, but I went ahead and entered the Zoom room at 7:45, and since I was ready, I was just like, "fuck it" and started with carving the lid and then scooping out the insides—of which there was actually surprisingly little in my pumpkin. I was nearly done with the scooping when Lea entered the room just before 8:00, and then Mandy entered right on time, saying, "I didn't know you started already!" and saying she would have entered earlier. But, it wasn't her fault—I had just gone ahead and started early.

And, my pumpkin was simple enough that I was basically done first. I really thought about trying to carve a bullet hole in its forehead with blood dripping, but decided that much extra effort was unnecessary.

The Zoom call lasted a solid four hours, much of it just us hanging out and chatting after all our pumpkins were done. Mandy left the chat maybe half an hour earlier than the rest of us, but I stayed on the call with Lea and Gabriel, and for a few minutes with just Gabriel while Lea attended to some end-of-day needs, but she returned again after that, shortly before the call ended for good. Even if it could only be virtual, it was really nice to get to hang out with Gabriel again, as the opportunity seldom seems to come up anymore. I didn't see him even once over the summer; I last saw him in May.

We talked a lot about the Disney+ movie Andor, and how much he's turned around on how "boring" (his word!) he found its first couple of episodes but it seems to have made a different for him to wait until Saturday mornings to watch instead of attempting on Wednesday nights when it's released but he's really tired. Now he's all in, and this is actually very relevant to the pumpkin carving itself, because he sculpted the Andor logo into his pumpkin. He had already spray painted it black earlier in the day. And then after the call ended, he sent a video with a strobe light inside it to the group chat. On Saturday I sent an edited version back to the group chat, with the video slowed by half and the original audio replaced by a portion of the Andor main title theme. This took a small effort to get it done, as I could not find a way to get a copy of the original audio without purchasing it, so I just recorded it playing out my computer speakers using the Voice Memo app. It leaves the sound quality not quite ideal, yet surprisingly adequate for what I was going for.

Lea's and Tess's pumpkins were much cuter in nature, Lea having deliberately chosen a tall, oblong-shaped pumpkin; Tess carved the shape of a creature into hers which was very well done. (Tess is 15 now and pretty deeply steeped into typical teen behaviors—to Gabriel's eternal exasperation—but it was still very cool that she joined us all and participated. I don't often think about what kind of adult Tess will grow into, but I expect she will be one to be proud of.) Mandy's pumpkin was the most abstract of all of them this year, and one could make the case that hers was the best. I think we're all still partial to our own, though, and it felt like each of us was happy with our final design.

Now I'm wondering if Gabriel will read this and wonder why I didn't mention this or that, which has been a thing in the past. Not as much these days, really. Either way, I can't think of anything more to note regarding the pumpkin carving party on Friday, so that's all you get!

And now, a quick rundown of all the other events of the weekend.

Friday, before the pumpkin carving party: First meeting of Book Club from work that occurred after a book has actually been chosen—so, the second meeting overall, but the first with an actual book to discuss. These meetings happen over at Queen Anne Beerhall, which is within walking distance, and I arrived first and so claimed a table. We have more people actually reading the book choices apparently, but only one more person came this time than last, bring our count to four: it was myself, Steve, Mel, and now Kara. I have to admit, I was somewhat disappointed in the book discussion, as I found some of it weirdly dismissive and, in my opinion, wildly off base. I mean, of course we all can have differing opinions, and discussion would be pretty dull if we all felt the same way. But, not everyone even finished each section of the book and thus that made me consider certain opinions less valid, if they weren't borne of full consideration of the material.

On the upside, I really caught a lucky break for our second book, which is one I brought up both last month and this month just to say how much I loved it—and to recommend it to Kara in particular when it come up in conversation—and then Steve said he'd be happy to have it be our second choice. He had mentioned last month that he had already read Susan Orlean's The Library Book a couple of years ago; this time he said he'd be happy to read it again. Mel was perfectly happy to choose it too, and so it went. I just read it four months ago, which is far too recent for me to re-read it, but also recent enough that I can still hold a pretty passionate conversation about it—it's easily the best book I've read this year. What this means is, I have very little pressure in terms of reading for the next month; I just picked up a novel from the library last week, and I can just concentrate on that in the meantime. How nice!

Skyscrapers came up in conversation too for some reason, and thus so did the Smith Tower, as Kara's favorite Seattle building (I think this stemmed from The Library Book, its coverage of the downtown Los Angeles library's architecture, then that of the Central Library in Seattle, and then to other Seattle buildings). We wound up agreeing that our next Book Club shall happen in the Smith Tower Observatory Bar! It'll be in late November—the Monday after Thanksgiving, in fact—but maybe that will cut down on the crowds, and nighttime views of the city will be nice regardless. I've already been up the Smith Tower seven times over the years, twice now since they converted the observatory into a bar. This will thus make my eighth time up there, but my first since 2019 (I went up twice that year alone). I suppose it would have been more appropriate to meet to discuss The Library Book at the library, but whatever. [EDIT: I later looked up the Smith Tower Observatory Bar hours, and they are closed Mondays and Tuesdays. So much for that.]

I ate too much at Queen Anne Beerhall that night. The pretzel is only $7 during Happy Hour, but I had no idea how huge it was, and Kara had already had one too, so we had two to share between three of us—Steve abstained because his wife was taking him out for dinner afterward. The pretzel and the cocktail I had served as my dinner. I actually ordered an Old Fashioned for the first time in my life. It was . . . tolerable. Its usefulness was that because it wasn't sweet and delicious, I much more easily nursed that one drink over the entire time we were there.

Saturday morning I took myself to see the first of two overlong satires that I went to see over the weekend: Tár, which was as excellent as the critics say, if not as accessible to general audiences as one would hope. After finally seeing it, I'm not as convinced of Cate Blanchett's position as frontrunner for Best Actress as others seem to be, especially considering she already has two Oscars. I would love to find more podcast discussions of the film, though; that movie is ripe for discussion. I wish Laney were here to see it and talk about it with me, and not just because Blanchett is playing a lesbian for the second time since she was in Carol (which Laney and I saw together! and loved).

Unfortunately I was unable to use my AMC subscription to see it; it was only playing at Regal cinemas. I took the Light Rail to Northgate to see the 10:45 a.m. showing at Regal Thornton Place. At least it only cost me twelve bucks. The movie is 158 minutes long, so with preceding trailers it was a good three hours before I was out of there again. I came home and wound up writing a surprisingly long, 1300-word review.

Saturday evening was then spent next door with Alexia, watching our penultimate film in our Star Wars Movie Marathon: The Last Jedi, which still holds up incredibly well and which I really love. I think it is by a wide margin the best of the sequel trilogy films, and I had a blast watching it again.

I had made myself a quick dinner of a veggie hot dog before going over, just before which I had barely managed to finish my edit of that Andor Pumpkin video. When The Last Jedi ended, Alexia and I visited for a good while, to the point that it was a quarter till 10 p.m. when I finally came back home, and got on Skype briefly with Shobhit in India.

Sunday morning I headed to yet another movie, which I decided kind of at the last minute: I saw that Triangle of Sadness was playing at the AMC 10 in the U District, a bit of a surprise because it had already come and go at one of the SIFF theaters a few weeks ago and I hadn't had the time to see it. And, although I have no other movies scheduled for the rest of this week, I decided it was far better to see this one on Sunday because it has its own excessive run time: 147 minutes, only 11 minutes shorter than Tár and still two hours and 27 minutes long.

This one is more accessible than Tár, though, a quasi-anthology split into three parts, thus averaging 49 minutes each. The middle section in particular winds up being surprisingly gripping, as tragedy strikes a luxury yacht full of obscenely rich people. I thought a lot about Shobhit while watching that and thinking he would enjoy it; when I told him about it over Skype last night, he watched the trailer and was very entertained by it. I would be happy to watch it again with him whenever it becomes available streaming.

I decided I liked it just as much as Tár, in contrast to many other critics, and I gave both films an A-minus. I spent a lot of time in my review of Triangle of Sadness comparing the two, and was surprised to discover my review for this one also barely exceeded 1300 words.

I had no social engagements otherwise yesterday, and filled my time otherwise by watching the satisfying season finale of House of the Dragon and then catching up on the two episodes behind I was with Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. He did me a favor and took this week off, so I had only two episodes to watch last night instead of three. It's just as well; that may be a comedy show—and a very funny one at that—but his topics are often deeply depressing.

[posted 12:28 pm]