Kindess of Strangers and Strangeness of Squash

We had a nice experience this week when we decided to treat ourselves to coffee-shop hot chocolate only to have our drinks paid for us by another couple. They had given the waitress some money and told her it was to pay for drinks for the next people to order, which was us. We thought we must be on Candid Camera, but the couple were just being nice and said to us that we should do something nice for a stranger in turn. We weren’t so imaginative though in giving the waitress $3 and a homeless person $5. In keeping with the kindness theme of the week, Sarah bought doughnuts for her students and staff (and had a couple herself!). I didn’t do anything else nice.

This weekend was the 10th annual pumpkin weigh-off. Twenty or so sites throughout North America compete to see who can produce the heaviest, genetically modified, tasteless, warped, freaky pumpkins. The World Record (I suspect this is ANOTHER example of a “World” record that only North America takes part in) pumpkin weighed 1449 lbs. In case you can’t estimate this weight, imagine three 483 lbs little whales mashed together.

The pumpkins are a triumph of man’s command of nature as they can gain 30lbs in a day and only take 70 days to grow to maximum girth. They actual weigh-off takes a couple of hours as each pumpkin must be lifted onto the scales by means of two fork-lift trucks. We only stayed to see a couple of weighings. There were other examples of massive fruit and vegetables, see photos. I’ve no idea what the winning grower gets, but apparently the pumpkins are given a fittingly bizarre end: next weekend they are thrown into a river, the tops are sliced off and the pulp removed so that Martha Stewart can sail away (see Globe and Mail or search for "Martha Stewart Pumpkin Windsor").

We left the pumpkins to battle it out and headed to Kingston for Sarah’s Aunt’s birthday. We enjoyed the evening with family and had a lovely BBQ and birthday cake.

We left after dark and on the way home we were stopped at a police check point. This reminded us of the time we were driving to Sarah's parents and were pulled over by the police and Sarah had a case of Smirnoff Ice at her feet. The Canadian police were also looking for drunk drivers, so it was lucky that I hadn't had a drop. It was also lucky that the cops were not very observant because after half an hour of driving after the check point I realised that I didn't have my car lights on!