Agriculture Day and October, the Thinning of the Veil

This morning I finally worked one of the two farm share shifts for our local veggie co-op that we had originally scheduled for early August before the manure struck the air-moving device. It was a really wonderful day for it--perfect autumn weather. There were about 9 or 10 people, some of whom have been working weekly or daily for their share (there are various options.) I picked spinach, chard, spring onions, and soybeans. Also pulled up a lot of plastic mulch, in the course of which I found a teensy little groggy salamander. I thought it was a strange black-and-red worm at first, then a baby snake, then I saw the tiny legs and realized what it was. I would have liked Limelet to have been there so he could see it.

I chatted with a German woman, who is a midwife, about the thing everyone notices when they move here (meaning the US, not Pennsylvania in particular)--you have to use a car to get anywhere (for the most part), and also about citizenship issues. There was also a trio of young female friends there, two of whom so did not fit my stereotype of hippie farm co-op types at all, but there they were. At break time they were discussing potential Halloween costumes, and explained that they were planning to "sexify" something normally not sexy at all. Which I found pretty humorous and subversive considering that's pretty much the theme of most commercial women's costumes anyway. One had settled on being a sexy plumber.

The topic drifted to other costumes while I eavesdropped someone else's conversation about moussaka recipes (too bad I dislike eggplant/aubergines). I heard the young women discussing the possibility of being Willy Wonka--the Gene Wilder version, not Johnny Depp--as well as the difficulty of finding good couples' costume ideas. At which I suggested that someone should be a sexy Willy Wonka. Another one of the young women later mentioned that she and her boyfriend were planning to see Hall & Oates live soon, as they were both obsessed with the retro band. I wondered aloud why they weren't dressing as H&O, but she said that it would cause conflict, because both would want to be Oates--though perhaps they could go as Oates and Oates...ah, to be young again, when others don't fault you for doing really, really silly things.

Once home, I took a nap for an hour or so, as I'd been up since 4:30 a.m. (asthma, not Limelet issues.) I suddenly awoke from a very deep sleep, hearing Limelet's voice outside on the porch. He was talking with my mother, who had fetched him from daycare, and they didn't have a key to get in. I jumped up and ran downstairs and flung open the door, then stood there shaking with sleepiness as I remembered that my mother died several years ago, and in any case didn't live around here. The weirdest part was that it didn't seem weird--it seemed completely natural and everyday. Would that it were.