Pump(kin) Up the Volume and Your Mission For Monday

In considering this coming Manic Monday Mission, Donald mentioned that pumpkins make people happy. And you know, he's right? So somewhere in my head the song "Pump Up the Volume" appeared amidst the barely-caffeinated sludge. I hit my favorite "how did that one song go?" site (Love you, YouTube! You totally came through for me again! Call me!) and found the song and video. The second I hit play, Dee Dee popped up at my elbow and started dancing. Jumping. Clapping. Breakdancing. I had barely recovered from seeing my four-year-old spinning on the plastic floor cover thingie at my desk (she'd pushed the chair entirely away) when she stopped, hands on the floor and tights-covered bottom in the air, and dance-floor yelled "I have the funky moves!"

It's genetic. Guard your sons, dear readers, because I know how this story turns out.

Anyway, consider this your sountrack for the coming mission:



Back to what Donald said. Pumpkins do make people happy. The shape are color are visually appealing, they are a beautiful symbol of the new season, people of all ages take pride in decorating them for Hallowe'en, and they're yummy. We're two home-made pies into the autumn (Donald has this, um, habit of baking them) with many more to come, so our countertop is about to be covered with pumpkins of all sorts and sizes as the pie program gets into full swing.

This was all flitting around in my head when he said, "You should make Monday's Mission be pumpkin action shots."

"Do what?" I took another swig of coffee, because this is how I deal with thinking in the morning.

"Pumpkin action shots. You know someone is going to throw one off the top of a house and take a series of photos as it falls."

"Mmm." Tick tock tick tock while the frizzy-headed woman thinks about this. "Someone would be sure to put one in front of a computer."

"Yeah! Do pumpkin action shots!" He was almost hopping from foot to foot in excitement. We'll be bringing this up in family therapy, by the way, because nobody gets this excited about pumpkins every year (or this early in the day) without some deep-seated issues behind it.

I relate this conversation simply so you know to whom blame for this mission should be attributed. He caught me at the most vulnerable time of the day, before my neurons were properly lubed with the Divine Brew, and by the time I'd started to wake up a little bit the idea had taken hold.

So here's your Mission, for real and true and no more babble: photograph or film a pumpkin action shot. Take your pumpkin to the playground, take it for a walk, take it to the tractor-pull with you.

Whatever pops your cork and makes your pumpkin happy, do it and send me proof in the form of an emailed photo (which may end up on the Manic Monday Flickr group Justin so nicely set up for me) or a video link so I can embed it into Monday's post.