This weekend so far has been so busy it's nuts. I don't even have time to tell you about all I did today right now. I need to tell you about last night. And I still have laundry to put away and ironing to do, goddammit!

Last night was my Pumpkin Carving "Party." It was the first pivot with what had once been a longstanding tradition in four years. The past four years have been virtual pumpkin carving parties with Gabriel, Lea, Tes and Mandy. It was something for us all to do "together" for the holiday in 2020 when we were not supposed to be gathering. Plenty of people were gathering by October 2021, but most of this group were not yet ready for that. By 2022 and especially 2023, we kept doing virtual pumpkin carving parties more because it was easier than having any of us travel thirty miles to get together.

Prior to 2020, though, I went five years with no pumpkin carving parties at all. That was 2015-2019. Prior to that, I had or attended a pumpkin carving party every year for eleven years. These started in 2004 with what we called the "Matthew's Friends Pumpkin Carving Party," because it was slanted toward my friends as invited guests, but Laney hosted at her place. The parties were at her house the first five years.

By 2009, I pivoted to hosting at my place, either in the condo or in the Community Kitchen downstairs and in the West building of The Braeburn. This was also when Charlie and Cavin stopped being able to make it, and each year the makeup of the group started to change, and more to the point, fewer and fewer people attended overall. Before this year, not even Laney had participated in a Pumpkin Carving Party since 2010. I did have one brief pivot to carving pumpkins with Gabriel and Stephanie and Tess at Stephanie's place in Federal Way in 2012, but returned to hosting at my place in 2013—when I had only one person attend: Evan (who now lives in Portland).

By 2014, I managed to get Evan and Shauna over; that year we carved in the Community Kitchen downstairs—just as Laney and I did last night. But by 2015, I was kind of disillusioned by most people not coming, and I was over it. I stopped bothering for the next five years. But, I was delighted when the idea of a virtual pumpkin carving party was proposed in 2020, with a new group for the makings of an annual tradition. And indeed, those went on for four years and were always really fun.

A couple of key things were different this year, though. Laney moved back to Capitol Hill last year, but it was in late October and she was too busy settling in to participate in things like a pumpkin carving party, or Alexia's and my annual Capitol Hill Halloween Walk (which Laney also plans to join for this year). I can't remember all the reasons she couldn't make the pumpkin carving party between 2011 and 2014, but I'm sure more often than not she was just busy with work, and a portion of that stretch she lived in Olympia. She retired in 2020, which was when covid hit, and between 2021 and 2022 she was living in her van and traveling the country. Then in October 2023, as I said, she finally moved back to Capitol Hill permanently, this time only six blocks away.

Now Laney and I spend more time together than we ever did before last year. She's a year in at her apartment and totally settled in. She both had the time and was totally down for carving pumpkins together.

Mind you, I had not forgotten the Gabriel group. I figured I could invite them all to join us, and we could all take covid tests if desired. Barring that, we could do a hybrid version and still do a Virtual Pumpkin Carving Party, with Laney in person with me. But, here's the other thing that was different this year: I had already selected October 25 as the date to do this, with too much planned on other days to be able to schedule it another time. And it was not until after I had reserved the Community Kitchen anyway, that I learned Gabriel and Tess would be out of the country. They went to Mexico City! To watch car racing! They'll be back by Halloween itself, as I recall.

Anyway, I texted the group chat to say the rest of them were still welcome to join us. Mandy said then that she might. I texted Lea and Mandy together outside the group chat on Monday to say this again, but Lea said she was carving with Gabriel and Tess on Tuesday, before Gabriel and Tess would be leaving. That made sense. Mandy replied again that she might come, but there was no further communication after that, and she never came. Honestly this was what I predicted to myself from the start.

But! A two-person party with a super fun person is still a party! It's kind of funny how totally fine I was this year with a "party" of only two, when in the mid-2010s I was over it when each year I could only get one or two people to show up. At that time, it felt like wasted effort.

Maybe it's an age thing? It's another decade down the road now, and now I'm totally fine with whoever I can get to join us. I really should have looked at the history because Shauna has come in the past, and I should have invited her. Maybe next year. Had Shobhit been home and not at work, he probably would have come down to hang out a bit. I did tell Laney she was welcome to invite Jessica and Mike, and she did, but Jessica was too exhausted from the previous week at work on the Washington State Ferries.

I should take some notes and be more organized about this next year. I have my doubts that the Gabriel group will actually come, but I'll invite them again anyway—you never know. (Next year could also still keep the door open for the hybrid version that never materialized this year.) I shall invite Laney, Jessica and Mike, Shauna, and possibly even Alexia–who, incidentally, texted me a spectacular pumkin she carved just as Laney and I were packing up to leave last night. I think Alexia may have carved her pumpkin yesterday too, which made me feel a little bad that I did not think to invite her.

Granted, Alexia lives in Issaquah. Much like Gabriel and Lea in Federal Way and Mandy in Tacoma, I also kind of get the idea of not necessarily wanting to transport jack-o-lanterns from city to city. It's a lot easier to just do that in your own home. Laney, at least, is only six blocks away. But, we'll still see how things shake out next year.

Anyway, I managed to buy my pumpkin at Trader Joe's on Wednesday. it was the only one left that still had a stem attached at the top. Laney bought two small pumpkins. It was still a fair amount of weight, so even though she's only six blocks away she still took the bus here and back. In any event, we may have had only two for the "party"—but we had three jack-o-lanterns,

And we had a great time. It was fun carving the pumpkins, both of us feeling like we weren't doing that great of a job until we actually turned the lights off and observed the pumpkins with lit candles inside them. It was fun posing for the pictures with the pumpkins, which we finally decided to do inside the theater room because there are no windows in there and therefore no other light coming in. And we even spent probably nearly an hour after that, just sitting and chatting next to the fake fireplace in the Community Kitchen. I had the room reserved between 6:00 and 10:00 so we had plenty of time. It was barely after 9:00 when Laney caught the bus back down to Broadway. Prior to that, we chatted a lot about my 22 years at PCC and how both the company and the nature of my job there has evolved.

The last thing I did was put the lit pumpkin on the balcony and then go down to the street to get a couple of photos from there. Laney was still at the bus stop so I saw her again. In fact I rushed up next to the bus shelter and said, "Boo!" She said, "You scared the shit out of me!" I almost didn't believe her: "Really?" She said, "Yes!" And then she crossed the street with me to look up at the evil eyes I carved into my pumpkin, which actually turned out way better than I expected.

Laney crossed the street back to the bus stop, and moments later the bus came and picked her up. I went back upstairs and set about processing the photos for this year's photo album—only 18 shots this year, a record low for my entire history of pumpkin carving parties, albeit not by a wide margin: 2010 and 2011 both had only 19 shots each.

This year was the 20th anniversary of the first-ever Matthew's Friends Pumpkin Carving Party. I sure wish I had realized that last night. Oh well.

[posted 8:46 pm]