My dear friend Gnat lives in Texas and spends time in Gilroy in the summer. It is easier for me to visit her in Gilroy than in Texas, so I took Momscar 200 miles northwest of Three Rivers for a handful of days. Yesterday I told you that we (Gnat and I, not Momscar and I) are astonishingly compatible, and since I haven’t been making art lately, I will tell you about some of our activities together.

We love to shop at thrift stores together, and have done this in Texas, Gilroy, Salinas, Pacific Grove, Rio Del Mar, and Watsonville. It was a severe disappointment to learn that there are no longer fitting rooms at California Goodwills. You may buy clothing, take it home, try it on, and then return it for store credit only. Sorry Goodwill Bigshots: no try, no buy.

Gnat found this fancy wooden puzzle. I only do puzzles when hanging out with friends, generally late at night. I had never heard of Quordle. There may be some sort of an internet scam saying the company is going out of business and selling puzzles that range from $50-$90 apiece at $4-8 apiece, and then never delivering. So if you want one, use eBay or Amazon.

We stayed up very late one night putting this thing together. There is a fair amount of hoodwinkery and bamboozlement involved, with the pieces quite different from normal jigsaw puzzles. Very intriguing, and it took us awhile. The next day Gnat did it again, timing herself at 52 minutes! (She’s kind of a puzzle genius.)

Gnat lives near a pumpkin patch. Why do we call these “patches” instead of “fields”? Prolly because it is kind of cute sounding. Gilroy is a very agricultural place, with many fields of row crops, greenhouses, and fruit stands. Pumpkin harvest begins in September, and those giant squashes are abundant.

My goal was to photograph it in the late afternoon/early evening light. That is what photographers call “the golden hour”, but I am in doubt about its duration being an entire hour. I almost missed it the first time I headed out with my new-to-me Big Girl camera.

Indisputably paintable. That makes this a business trip.

It was a very scruffy field, dried up vines and leaves, and weeds galore, called “redroot pigweed”, which the app Picture This said looked very unhealthy. Some neighbor kids came out and started bashing pumpkins with a stick and tossing some in the air to watch them go splat. Weird.