Homeward Pinkly

Yesterday was spent drying out from a very wet Thursday and involved the usual Friday afternoon jaunt to Brew City which was anything but dry.  It was, by necessity, a short celebration of the First Friday of the Week because we were scheduled to drive up to Keene for our annual Pumpkinfest weekend.  This event is more about going home than seeing thousands of orange gourdes and the Keene Friend graciously allows us to descend upon him each year and ply his acknowledged excellence as a fantastic host.

We first had to properly prepare the house for a Saturday showing.  The realtor who canceled earlier in the week (allegedly scared off by the ABFA) was coming back for a look so my wife had to transform the house into surgical suite level cleanliness.  We'll never have to worry about Ebola with her around, a virus wouldn't stand a chance.  When I got home she was in SS guard mode and Buddy was cowering in the basement trying unsuccessfully not to shed any more fur.  A frantic hour and a half later we finally eased past her inspection standards well enough to get on the road. 

We were only a half hour from Keene when she gasped and said we had to turn around.  She'd forgot her blood pressure medication, allegedly because she was so distracted supervising me - its her "go to" excuse (usually for good reason).  I told her there was no way I was turning around (I had visions of imminent pizza in my mind) but I promised to get up early I the morning and return home to get the medication while she slept.

Half Expected These Guys to Step Out

This proved acceptable and we completed the trip.  When we rounded the corner of Keene Friend's home we were confronted with a scene straight out of Animal House.  He lives near the campus of Keene State College and all of the surrounding houses are inhabited by students.  They'd seized control of the street and were partying hard which Buddy found fascinating.  They grudgingly moved off the street long enough for us to pass by but not without rendering one of those patented college kid looks of absolute disdain that I had the temerity to drive on a road they were partying on.  My wife absolutely refused permission to run a couple of them over.  I'm using a little bit of artistic license here as for the most part they were very well behaved and just seemed to be having fun.

Apparently the Pumpkinfest has turned into an event for college aged kids as well.  There was even a small bus parked across the street and one of Keene Friend's neighbors  stopped by to inform him there would be a lot of kids camping out in their back yard - so - Par-tay!  Keene Friend was charged with finding a surrogate Zorba's for us where we could score both beer and pizza, a task he performed admirably.  The college kids kept their hijinks down to a dull roar as we middle aged dudes crashed and burned after a long day.

I continued my voracious and very conspicuous consumption of the Travis McGee series by John D. MacDonald by knocking off Nightmare in Pink.  This one has Trav travelling up to New York City to help the daughter of an old Army buddy with whom he promptly falls in love with.  He soon runs afoul of a very well organized group of evil doers who make the mistake of trying to incarcerate him. The resulting carnage is especially satisfying.  I am once again reminded why McGee holds such a special place for me - he's all heart.  I've already started on the third book, powerless to resist.