This is a first for me. I’m blogging using my iPhone and a portable keyboard. I live with superior tech support (my husband and my 13 year old son are a force) so between them they figured this out.
We’ve been without an internet connection, phones or electricity most of the day. Around 2:30 this morning a drunk teenage driver crashed into a power pole one house over. The driver and his passenger were unharmed, but the ensuing mess inconvenienced a lot of people and caused thousands of dollars in damage. The good news: they hit the *pole*. A few yards to the left and they would have plowed through a fence into a yard and a bedroom.
What this crazy day did was help me put a few things in perspective. For starters, it’s not the end of the world that I dropped my newly harvested pumpkin (the biggest one in the patch) splitting it wide open. My nickname is Ms. Overachiever. For some reason I thought I could tuck a slippery, round pumpkin under one arm while carrying the kitchen scrap bin with the other. My treasured pumpkin rolled right out of the crook of my arm and landed with a thud.
No! Those orangey orbs of goodness are such a high point of my gardening experience. For a few seconds I simply wanted to deny what I had done. There was no getting around it though. There it sat, split wide open. One moment I marveled that it would last through the end of October. The next moment is was clear it would turn to mush by week’s end.
My careless handling of the pumpkin is hardly comparable to the damage of an inebriated driver, but it is a reminder of the fragility of life. Be sure to hug your loved ones as often as you can and remember to treat your precious pumpkins with the respect they deserve.
[insert split pumpkin photo here]…I guess that will have to wait until tech support is done watching a soccer game. Check back next week for a peek.
Gardening Nirvana 
So sorry about your pumpkin!!
I completely understand the technology problem! The whole time I was on this year’s bike adventure, I was not able to upload my photos to my blog. I finally just gave up and am posting my travel blog / photos now that I am home.
But yes ,,, a crash like that does put things into perspective, doesn’t it? A friend’s daughter survived such an accident one week ago, but the driver did not. Just awful … speed and alcohol … devastating.
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Hi LB!
Thanks for the pumpkin condolences.
I’m very sorry to hear about your friend’s daughter. What a devastating thing to go through. Speed and alcohol are often deadly. I don’t know what the answer is. I like the idea of cars that won’t start if the driver has booze on their breath. They simply couldn’t go anywhere and cause death and sadness and grief.
Thanks for stopping by.
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What a mess, thank goodness no one was injured. It amazes me that more accidents don’t happen like this. There’s a club at the end of the block and we hear all kinds of inebriated people leaving at 2:00am and then speeding out of the lot. The cops could just sit there and be busy for hours.
Sorry to hear about your lovely pumpkin. I tend to do this too. Did you see the pic on FB where someone was carrying 10 grocery bags into the house to avoid a second trip? Yep, it’s me.
We used to have a lot more power outages at the lake. It’s brutal and you don’t realize how many things you use in the day that require power (like the circulating pump for our boiler and water system there). Hope you didn’t have your freezer food thaw.
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I’ve been thinking the same thing all weekend. I often wonder why the police aren’t camped outside of those places, too. That’s rough to have that racket so close by.
Yeah, bummer about the pumpkin. I’ll have to go find that facebook link. You and me again: peas in a pod!
I imagine it was more of a hardship at the lake with the power out. We are all so spoiled with the internet. We kept the fridge and freezer closed so things did okay. I’m grateful for that.
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