Pumpkins Are a Girl Thing?

           Whatcom County could not have put on a more welcoming face for me to return to last week.  Bright, crisp, autumn days, brilliantly colored tree leaves, townspeople living intentional, artful days, and everywhere, everywhere piles of pumpkins.  No longer are there just the huge orange carving pumpkins, but now there are choices of artisanal whites and crimson oranges. 

            My plane landed one week ago at midnight and on the way home, my sons and I stopped in at our local Haggen store, open 24 hours, to pick up some kind of snack.  Turned out to be the remnants of that day’s sushi operation, which was just fine.  A cursory sweep through the store brought me to the check-out stand, arms loaded with the sushi, a six-pack of pumpkin microbrew beer, a pumpkin scented candle, and a Martha Stewart magazine that was screaming pumpkin everything.  I felt incredibly happy. 

            The week has been nonstop familiarity bliss.  I do love this city and I haven’t been here in the fall for over 15 years.  That must explain why all of my sensory memories are around me and my two darling preschoolers enjoying walks and other rambling outings, seasonal cooking projects, and fall gardening.  I am magnetically attracted to the garden shops this week, longing to spend a Saturday cleaning the beds for winter and planting a few new edibles: fruit or nut trees or perhaps some grapes, and definitely some bulbs.  I resisted, but it was difficult.

            Gabe and I were at Starbucks yesterday morning, early, and heard the woman behind us blurt out this order, “I’ll have a nonfat, decaf, pumpkin latte (I think there were several more directives, but I can’t even think what they would be) and a pumpkin scone.”  As we walked out of the store I commented that her order was just basically pumpkin vehicles.  She didn’t even want the caffeine in the coffee.  Gabe then unloaded the observation he had previously kept to himself which was that women are crazy about pumpkins.  He claims that from the first day that October hits, every woman he sees oozes with pumpkin loving mania, stringing up little jack-o-lantern lights in her work space, keeping a constant pumpkin drink at hand, making cute orange cookies and cupcakes.  He felt almost suffocated by it and later in the day his brother agreed.

            Now I know that there are men who also love pumpkins, particularly if they grow them or especially if the carving of them involves the use of power tools.  But to take a little goo out of this autumnal blog there will be no gratuitous pictures of pumpkins, just the beginnings of some blustery weather on a Lummi Island afternoon.  But I'm wondering, is it possible to die of pumpkin candle asphyxiation in a poorly ventilated room?