Also, this past week, I’ve been contemplating on taking horseback riding lessons. They’re offering a first free lesson in one of the stables in Swanzey so I was going to call to check that out.

Well, there was horseshit on the street today where the pumpkins entered for the carving contest were displayed. It smelled soooooo bad. I think my shoes might have a bit of gunk under them too.

I really have to think about this horseback-riding a lot. Ugh.

So, I went to my first pumpkin festival in my now hometown of Keene, NH. Here’s how it went.

I signed up to volunteer from 1-7 with the main guys at Center Stage. The only reason why I signed up was so that I could be at the festival by myself and not look like a complete loser because I didn’t have anybody to hang out with. Well, all that changed when a girl I work with, C, the only girl I work with, actually, said she’d meet me at 4 pm. So, okay, I said plans have changed and I’ll only be able to help out from 1-4.

I got in at 12:40 and by the time I got to the station where I was supposed to help out, I had a big smile on my face, excitement building up in my chest, and a pretty solid feeling of regret on volunteering. There seemed like there was so much I can do, so much I can see, and I was actually comfortable walking around by myself. I couldn’t believe I committed so much time working during my first-ever Pumpkin festival.

Anyway, so, even though there were only just old people at the booths, I decided to stop by and see if they needed help anyway. Things were pretty quiet, so I didn’t expect them to be jumping up and down to welcome my help. Well, they weren’t. In fact, they told me they were doing all right and that I could come back later if I wanted to help light up the pumpkins.

So I took a stroll. But I had that nagging feeling that I should at least find out some more if I can help out in any way.

So I approached a different booth to see if they needed help. They said they were all right, but that maybe I could check in at the hotel where they were selling the raffle tickets to guess how many pumpkins there are this year. So I went. Man oh man, of course they needed my help. Nobody wanted that job! I had to sort through I don’t know how many hundreds of raffle tickets. I think people guessed the most in the 31,000 region. The last record was in the 28,000 range. Luckily, I sorted faster than they sold tickets. I was out of there by 3pm. The manager at the hotel told me that I could probably collect the tickets from the other booths and then come back to sort them out. Sha right. I was out of there. I didn’t want to be stuck inside the hotel bar the whole day.

After that, feeling that I had at least done something good, (I mean, after all, that hour was worth 3 hours at a booth, at least) I told myself I can be done for the day. So I had a Swampdog (hotdog with cheese, peppers and onions: welcome to hicksville), and a cookie and hot chocolate. Then I went to the craftsfair. I got beef jerky (I didn’t like beef jerky the first time I tried it, but this was good! $4/strip though). And then I also got some crafty/souveniry junk worth $2. Of course I went around looking at pumpkins too.

Well, it was a very good day. The festival was great. Tons of cute kids in frumpy, warm costumes. Tons of adults in costumes as well. Happy times, friendly place, the sun was out, the pumpkins were lit. The pumpkins were amazing. I took tons of pictures during the day and I got a few pictures at night but ran out of film before I could take close up pictures of the pumpkins while they were lit up. You’d be surprised at the detail on the carvings on some of the pumpkins there. Amazing.

Hanging out with my only girl co-worker, who’s leaving in 3 weeks, was fun too. It was kind of a bonding session. It was tough because neither of us are very open, but we got to talking about people at work, some people in our lives, and everything and nothing in particular.

It was a great day. The best I’ve had in Keene so far. And I didn’t even see the fireworks. Go Keene. Go Sox!

BTW, here’s the best part:
I was with C walking along Main St, and there were boys walking behind us talking. I think they were talking about stores and stuff in ‘downtown’ Keene, aka Main St. I heard one of them say: “I would hate to live here.” In my face.

and on, and on, and on…

It’s the 5th game of the ALCS. Yankees lead us 3 to 1. If we lose this, we’re out. It’s 10:35 pm, the game started at 4:30. It’s 51 degrees (11 C) in Boston and the fans have been out for 6 hours in the cold. Score is tied at 4 for the Red Sox and Yankees. It’s the 14th inning. What else can I say?

Keep the faith.

Oh, and yeah, Yankees suck. Oooooh.