Stack o’ pumpkins.

pumpkinstack.jpg

The things you miss when you don’t keep up with Martha Stewart. This is my first Halloween here, and apparently the thing here is not the giant plastic bag that looks like a pumpkin stuffed with leaves, and it’s not the inflatable yard goblins (although I’ve seen a couple in Harper Woods), and it’s not the full-goose-bozo yard-littered-with-tombstones-plus-skull-lights-everywhere.

It’s the heirloom pumpkin stack, seen here: Pile an assortment of exotic varieties of gourd and pumpkin atop one another in graduated sizes. Price for the one pictured above: $40.

Uh, no. But it’s rather cool. We went to the Eastern Market Saturday and bought two of the boring conventional orange variety and one white one, just because I’ve never had a white pumpkin before and they’re sort of different. Plus a pot of mums. At heart, I am a deeply conventional person.

Oh, the market was the place to be Saturday. (The photo above was taken at the season-ending festival at the West Park Farm Market, in GPP, which was also a place to be, but not the place to be.) You have never seen such bounty — peppers of every size, shape and heat-delivery efficiency. Tomatoes. Cucumbers. Greens. Apples. Grapes. This, that and the other thing. There was even a guy selling live chickens. I watched a Vietnamese man buy one and carry it away by the legs, as thoiugh it were a bag of acorn squash. I wonder where it met its end. Did he wring its neck in the parking lot, to make the drive home easier? Or did it face the chop in his back yard?

(I freely admit: I’m a carnivore who would be a vegetarian if I had to do it myself. Although I could probably manage the occasional chicken.)

And that was the weekend — food-gathering and porch-decorating and spaghetti and meatballs. A pretty good one.

Oh, and Amy got published in the New York Times. Don’t bother calling her anymore — her rates just went waaaaay up.

(I actually knew someone — a pretty mediocre feminist writer — who said being published on the NYT op-ed page was the turning point in her career, the key that opened all future doors. So there.)

Posted at 9:00 pm in Uncategorized |
 

10 responses to “Stack o’ pumpkins.”

  1. anonymous said on September 25, 2005 at 10:39 pm

    I’ve been reading NNC for a long time, and Amy as well, from your links. So when I opened my NYT today, I had an, “oh, I know her!” moment. Even though, well, I don’t.

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  2. Laura said on September 26, 2005 at 12:50 pm

    (I actually knew someone — a pretty mediocre feminist writer — who said being published on the NYT op-ed page was the turning point in her career, the key that opened all future doors. So there.)

    Yes, but a mediocre writer *with ambition*–you can discount that.

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  3. Laura said on September 26, 2005 at 12:50 pm

    (I actually knew someone — a pretty mediocre feminist writer — who said being published on the NYT op-ed page was the turning point in her career, the key that opened all future doors. So there.)

    Yes, but a mediocre writer *with ambition*–you can’t discount that.

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  4. Laura said on September 26, 2005 at 12:52 pm

    Note to self: proof, then post.

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  5. alex said on September 26, 2005 at 6:56 pm

    Hate to rain on Amy’s parade, but it seems to me that the pure of heart and soul have so many other options available through which to channel their energies it’s unlikely very many would opt for the Catholic priesthood. A purge of homosexuals may make for good PR in the short run, if it doesn’t decimate what remains of the priesthood’s ranks altogether. I’m not so sure it’s a good idea, not that I have a whole lot invested in what the Catholic Church does, but it seems to me those who have lived, sinned and erred are all the better qualified to minister to the rank and file than those who haven’t. A fifty-something analysand who’s been around the block a hundred times brings a helluva lot more to the job than a boy who’s been a hothouse flower from the age of thirteen.

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  6. Douglas said on September 26, 2005 at 7:36 pm

    Amy writes well, but I cannot imagine disagreeing with her position more than I do. The question is not the right of a religous organisation to do this, it is whether doing this is right. To justify this policy one would have to believe that homosexuality is a sin, that homosexuals, unlike heterosexuals, cannot control their sexual urges, and that God in Her wisdom endowed 5 to 10 percent of Her creations with a sexual/romantic interest in the same sex and then excluded them from working for Her and promoting Her message because of the very thing She had created in them. Wouldn’t that be a very perverse Supreme Being?

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  7. Nance said on September 26, 2005 at 8:10 pm

    I don’t have a dog in this fight, but all I have to say is: If they think they have a priest shortage NOW…

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  8. Claire said on September 26, 2005 at 11:24 pm

    Seems to me that if a priest is a homosexual, but remains celebate, he is just as qualified as a heterosexual. I thought sexual temptation or desires were one thing; acting on them was another.

    Speaking of acting on them, when I was in college, I had a boyfriend who had this almost angelically boyish face, with clear blue eyes and blonde hair. He was also very warm and friendly. I worked part-time at a hospital in Ann Arbor where there was a priest on staff, I’ll call him Father “Bob.” I didn’t know him personally. One day, Father Bob happened to meet my then boyfriend somewhere on campus or in the city. They struck up a conversation and became friends. Father Bob would call my boyfriend and buy him lunch. My boyfriend thought it was so nice, being a cash-strapped college student. I thought nothing of it at first. Finally, I realized that Father Bob was going out with my boyfriend more than I was. I told my boyfriend something is wrong when I am jealous of a priest for heaven’s sake! Well, sure enough, one day my boyfriend came over, all distressed, Father Bob told him he loved him, and tried to kiss him. That day was surreal. But it’s a true story. Kinda weird, kinda sad.

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  9. brian stouder said on September 27, 2005 at 12:08 am

    Not only I don’t have a dog in this fight – I don’t even have a dog! – but Amy’s article was clear, sharp, and educational. (I tried to say in form ative, and then remebered the earlier post on comments. It’s amazing how often I trip over the I-word)

    Claire – that was DEFINITELY kinda weird and kinda sad!

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  10. MichaelG said on September 27, 2005 at 9:13 am

    Well said, Douglas. Very well said.

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