Boofus!

In honor of Monday, I will introduce another fall theme that's sure to be recurring: Josh and I love pumpkins.

It's not about eating them.  I don't get into the pumpkin spice latte craze that sweeps the nation every autumn, and I really don't even like pumpkin pie.  (I know, I know.)  I've only recently become a fanatic about my pumpkin and black bean soup.  But we love carving pumpkins - at least once per season, usually more.  This tradition emerged in 2004, when Josh and I stumbled across a clearance-priced carving toolkit, complete with a booklet of stencil designs, in a now-defunct Mall of America bookstore.  

The purists among my readers will frown at the mention of stencils, which generated controversy (and an eventual ban) at last year's pumpkin carving party with a larger group of friends.  I do go free-form sometimes, but the use of stencils hinges on one time-honored tradition: Boofus!

Boofus is my favorite design from that booklet, and one year Josh made enough photocopies of that stencil to last the rest of my life. Every year, Josh carves Draculantern, a legitimately scary design.  Both of them - Boofus especially - have become part of our cast of characters at home. They often take the fall for mischief and pranks.  (Boofus' facial expression often just looks sheepish.) I wanted to include a photo of the first Boofus, circa 2004, but I found it in my photo album and remembered that there's no point because, well, he looks the same every year.

In journalism, there is a phrase called "burying the lede," where a writer hides the pertinent part of a news story several paragraphs down.  Does this transition seem abrupt?

Perhaps this weekend found Josh and I driving 50 minutes on the interstate to a pumpkin farm hailed on the internet as an absolute barrel of fun: a fantastic corn maze, a petting zoo, pick-your-own pumpkin patches and fall treats.  One of us may have not vetted this internet recommendation as closely as she should have and became nervous en route to the pumpkin patch that it was much too far to drive for such a question mark.  Upon arrival, the two of us may have found a small pumpkin market with a frayed, thin corn maze, about five other shoppers and a lone kitten trailing us.  It's possible that we bought three pre-picked pumpkins and were back in the car for the long trip home within five minutes.

This pumpkin farm will go unidentified because, save for a smidge of false advertising, it is definitely not the farm's fault that we chose to drive to it, particularly with high expectations.  Josh is free and clear of blame, too.  It's totally my fault!  It seemed like a good idea at the time!  The saving grace of the mini-fiasco is that at least we actually did come home with three beautiful, enormous pumpkins.

That little one is from my CSA box.  I just wanted to include it.

With chicken chili on the stove and the slugfest known as NLCS Game 6 on TV in the background, let the carving begin!

First, cleaning the pumpkin - always equal parts yucky and fun:

Next is stencil preparation - and your first glimpse at Boofus.  How could anyone not love a face like that?

 

His face starts to emerge:

And voila!  Our first pumpkins of 2011 are complete.  In case you needed clarification, Boofus is on the left and Draculantern is on the right.  Draculantern is creepy, but I only have eyes for Boofus and his weird, wobbly smile.

Scary stuff, no?  Stay tuned for more pumpkin-carving this month - we'll just be getting our pumpkins a little closer to home next time!

Satuday light

For the last 16 weekends I've spent in town, Saturday mornings have meant one thing: a long run, usually with my running club.  That involved having an alarm clock ring at 6:00, groaning for a long minute and then eating my bowl of oatmeal as fast as I could in order to make it to the club's meeting spot to start the run at 7:00.  That means I forgot what Saturday mornings in my apartment looked like.  Today I slept in until 9:00 (!!), tottered into the kitchen to make coffee and gasped at what I saw on the wall.

  

That's the sunlight shining just perfectly to shadow the vines outside onto the wall inside.  I want a stencil like this!

It reminded me that the sunlight and its tricks are worth watching at this time of the year.  When the temperatures are cooler, you can appreciate the sunlight because it's not merely boiling one's skin.  It's lower and kinder and more interesting.  It creates wonderful long shadows earlier in the day, like these scenes from my walk yesterday:

Later in the morning, we met some of our neighbors for the first time, including a new friend who is four and three-quarters years old.  We raked and raked a Whole Lotta Leaves and then had a little picnic together.  Now I am piled under a yellow down comforter in the living room, watching my Tennessee Volunteers battle LSU.  LSU is on top 17-7 at halftime, but Rocky Top is right in it.  After the game, Josh and I will catch some more sunlight before the Tigers-Rangers playoffs continue tonight!

October weekends.  Nuff said.

Friday fluff

Or maybe Friday fur?

Before you wonder where I'm going with this post, just know that it's not relevant to anything at all.  I was cleaning out my camera the other night and found the image of this little fella, taken at Paws on Grand 2011.  Let's say I am posting his picture because exactly two months and one week have passed since that event.  Or because I have dogs on the brain.  Or because he has a Twins charm on his collar.  Or because he is furry.  

Happy Friday.

Life has been happening

Despite the marathon musings here at Miles and Laurel, life has been progressing as usual this week.  The only differences: my time spent on the couch has been much higher than the traditional 52-week average and my time running has been much lower.  That's fine by me.  I will start up some slow, shorty, easy runs next week, but a break is healthy and fun.

In the spirit of Marvelous Monday, I bring you Thumbs Up Thursday, featuring five photos about what I've been up to this week. You'll note a return to comfortable territory.

1) Josh and I flew home on Monday.  I don't question how the universe works, but of all things, I wanted nachos in a bad way by late Monday afternoon.  We drove to the grocery store in the rain to get ingredients, and my mom texted me a sunset alert.  I responded that this was just not possible.  By the time we got home, it was indeed great sunset light.  Lesson learned: Mom is always right!

 

2) This is Tuesday morning.  I love the early morning light, even though this photo was taken - yeep - after the clock struck eight.  Another season is on its way.

3) The leaves are falling at full speed now.  September was really dry, but yesterday it poured rain - the first real soaker in a long time.  The precipitation was much needed for practical things like trees, yards, and farms. But I also love how the leaves look on the sidewalk after a hard rain, and this was the first peek at that all season.

That gray weather also launched me in a fervent search for more soup recipes.  I just found spicy corn and chicken chili, which I will try this weekend.  We're attending a potluck on Saturday and I decided to make some bars that involve a hodge-podge of M&Ms, peanut butter, butter, flour, and sugar.  That combination is pretty low-risk.

4) My mom came to St. Paul yesterday, and we went on a great long walk.  We stopped at a spot overlooking the Mississippi.  Can you tell this lady and I are related?  We were practically hip-checking each other out of the way during the photo-snapping process.

5) My mom is fab.  As if a relaxing October afternoon stroll wasn't enough, she packed a big tub of pesto vegetable soup - and this:

In case it was at all unclear, that isn't a petite sandwich bag full of candy corn and peanuts and decorated with Halloween ribbons.  It's a gallon-sized Ziploc.  It will probably last months weeks a few days. Yum.

Thumbs up, Thursday.

Jumpin Jammerz

Reader, until I switched jobs, I used to travel the friendly skies a lot for work every autumn.  If that were the case this year, I have the feeling that Skymall content would join leaves and clouds as Miles and Laurel's most recurring themes.  I love Skymall.

Someday I promise I will offer better technology than my current junior varsity practice of taking photos of crunched-up newspaper and catalog pages - but today's not that day.  For now, feast your eyes on the following ad.  Can you ferret out the best part of the copy?

I think a lot of you probably got it.  Ready?

The enthusiastic testimonial from "Actor - Ryan Gosling" begs a wide range of questions, doesn't it?  

The most obvious: Who is we?  Was he sitting around a fireplace with Eva Mendes or Rachel McAdams (back in the day) wearing matching Jumpin Jammerz?  Does this mean Ryan Gosling and Ellen were shooting the breeze about Jumpin Jammerz, and if so, how did they get to that topic?  Does a clip of him saying this actually exist?  (I would pay to see it.)

I think Ryan calling the Jumpin Jammerz "wildly comfortable" instead of simply the pedestrian "comfortable" is the icing on the cake.  And because I saw Ides of March very recently and call Lars and the Real Girl one of my favorite movies, I am indeed - wait for it - wildly comfortable being on a first-name basis with Ryan.

Are there more questions that I haven't addressed?  Do you think you can work the phrase "wildly comfortable" into a conversation today?  And most importantly: Do you find yourself wanting a set of Jumpin Jammerz or what?