Circleville Punkin Show and Some Unwanted Excitement

Friday night we packed up the dog and drove to Circleville for my first Pumpkin Show (not festival, people correct you immediately if you say festival).  D had been stunned that I'd never heard of it, as I am an Ohioan by birth.  Apparently I should have, the Wall Street Journal even covered it. 

Get your gourd on

The show is hugely attended every year, and on Saturday the weather was perfect for spending the day strolling outdoors.  This past weekend was apparently the peak for the autumn leaf-viewing season.  

 

In the main intersection, there's a crowd of people that stop to gawk (as we did) at the winning entry for a giant pumpkin award.  This year's winner was 1400lbs.  D's mom tells me that people form committees for the betterment of their entry gourds, they put up tents over them so their vines don't get scorched in the summer sun, and they feed them things like milk, apparently.  

By the giant pumpkins is a gigantic gourd market, where you can buy squashes or punkins or what have you.  The selection looked great.  (But I didn't want to carry a punkin around all day)

One of the last warm fall days

Schoolchildren decorate punkins

People along the parade route go all out

Punkins, punkins, punkins

 

 

 

Crispier than expected

There are all sorts of pumpkin foods.  Pumpkin burgers, which did not appeal to me.  Corndogs with pumpkin sauce, the thought of which grossed me out slightly.  Pumpkin fudge, pumpkin brittle, and all manner of things.  Here's what we tried:

We ate the legendary punkin donuts from Lindsay's (nom)

We ate a punkin waffle, which was not what I expected

D ate fried cheese on a stick.

I ate punkin cheesecake

and I drank lots of birch beer.  lots and lots. 

I started to notice people wandering around the show with these hats.  These Davy Crockett-gone-Cutesy animal hats. D tried patiently not to judge me when I insisted on buying one of my own.  And wearing it.  All day long.  

Then he bought one to match me.   tee hee.

(There are more photos, but blogger is being buggy.  Can't seem to upload them. )

Sunday we packed up the car and the dog, and then said our goodbyes to the family.  As we did so, Dog seized the opportunity to plunder the scraps from friday night's dinner, which we had forgotten in the car.  I saw him in the front seat and ran to the car.  He was sucking down chicken bones.  We pulled him out of the car, tackled him, and I shoved my fingers into his mouth and then down his throat, trying to pull out the chicken bones, but pretty much failed at that.  Then we just looked at the dog and looked at eachother and didn't have a clue what to do. 

One of D's childhood pets was killed by ingesting poultry.  The brittle bone had snapped into a sharp point,  and had caused too much internal damage for her to be saved.  Knowing this, there was a lot of anxiety felt, not the least of which was felt by the dog, I'm sure.  He surely had no idea why we'd tackled him and dragged things out of his throat.  We spent the first twenty minutes of the car ride constantly looking in the back seat at the dog, not saying anything.  I was riddled with anxiety, and D tried to find some advice on the web.  

Is he acting normally?  Well no, but we were in a moving car and Dog gets carsick.  Does he seem to be in pain?  Well no, but again, he gets carsick and lays down looking quite pitiful.  Was that a pained expression in those doggy eyes, or a nauseous one?  It did not help the aforementioned anxiety that most things mentioned, "just wait, and if he vomits blood then..."  Wait for vomiting blood.  Fantastic advice.  We'll just wait. 

I'm more of a proactive girl, myself.  And D saw that my head was exploding, so he took some internet advice from a pit bull forum involving bread.  We stopped at a walmart and bought bread.  We fed him a few slices to either get him to throw up or to hopefully make it easier for him to pass the drumstick that had not been recovered.  Less than five minutes later the dog hurls all over the backseat (our third doggy-jackpot of the kind).  There was... so much... D fought to keep his punkin donuts down as he cleaned the backseat out one paper-towel-handful at a time.  I fought to keep my own punkin donut in place, as I sifted through the mess to try to see if the drumstick bone was in there.  It wasn't.  We piled back into the car, with D giving the dog dirty looks, and we cracked the windows.  The smell was ... yeah. 

It's now Tuesday, and he seems fine.  I still haven't seen the drumstick bone.  

I have been incrementally less concerned as the days have ticked by.  Sunday I was still anxiously eyeing him wondering if he was going to be okay.  But

Moving Day

My parents have been gleefully awaiting the day when I got my own home.  You see, in their basement up north, they have been housing some belongings of mine from when I lived there.  Furniture, family heirlooms, bins full of papers from grade-school to college, my high school band memorabilia, and some things my dad has recently bought for us at garage sales up north.  And so they arrived with smiles on their faces, in an enormous U-haul packed to capacity with so much stuff I was thunderstruck.  This is payback for the decade or so that they stored my stuff in their basement.  Clever vengeance, parents. 

So we basically had two U-haul loads and a van load and we are still not done.  I don’t see how this can happen, because I’m not a shopper.  I don’t have ten thousand purses or a shoe addiction. (Incidentally D has more shoes than I do, I’m just saying)  I've had a book-hoarding problem in the past, yes, because I wanted to be Belle in Beauty and the Beast, and have some gruff fella give me a palatial library.   

(Library of the Benedictine Monastery of Admont, Austria on topdesignmag)

(it looks even more like that dreamy library in this photo) 

But of course, every woman has wanted this.  I'm fairly sure.  And anyway, I'm getting much better.

We worked until my back gave out, which was just about the time that Superdad gave out, and our help's neck went out too.  And then I had a private moment of anxiety as I surveyed the sheer bedlam that had once been my quiet home with beautiful floors.  At present, it’s all boxes and dust and junk, strewn like fugly sprinkles on an otherwise tasty cupcake and its eating my brain.  This shall not stand. 

Anyway, we fed the help pizza from Hyde Park Pizza (thumbs up) and went to the St. Cecilia Festival. 

It was a lovely evening, and there were so many people!  There was a flea market, selling everything from teapots to quilting fabric to vhs tapes.  

Here I have uncovered someone’s formerly beloved cds. Tony Danza, yes, and formerly cutting edge (and perhaps, at one time, inoffensive?) cd-rom games such as “Working Woman Barbie.” 

At the flea market I met a local plant lady whose plants looked so happy and healthy I had to buy a sage, a parsley, and an astilbe.  They look fantastic.  (I will post photos next time, as they are somewhat related to a separate incident) When I told her I was new in town she informed me that every year she has a big sale in May, so I gave her my info to put in her book.  While I was browsing (and almost buying a begonia), some local ladies stopped to buy things and tell her they had been searching for her because they always buy from her every year.  Good to know, and nice to buy local.  And a dollar for a young plant?  You can’t beat that.  There was an auction tent, and D ogled a basset hound puppy that was entered into the auction (her price tag topped $400 before we left, needless to say we do not have a basset hound).  It was a nice escape from our home, which at present makes me feel like a junkslut. 

I bought fried oreos and watched the scarey rides.  

Also, there was, strangely, gambling tents set up for blackjack and other things.  And… I mean, I thought it was a little different but D was totally weirded out by it.  “It’s on the church grounds, this is holy ground.” he insisted.  “It’s the parking lot.” I argued, weakly.

The next day Superdad & D finished building the dishwasher cabinet.  It is so quiet, you cannot hear it unless you are standing in the doorway of the kitchen.  It’s amazing, and it far outshines the auditory performance of the model in our apartment that was dubbed “the Tidal Wave.” 

Photos to come.