Social bonding.

I missed most of FanworksCon this weekend - a good chunk of Friday and almost all of Saturday. I got back to my computer in time for the Premieres vidshow, but everything else, I couldn't make it. Entirely because I made the call to go apple picking with family and friends that day instead. I knew either way, I'd have a wonderful time, so I decided to do the outdoors thing because vids are nonperishables and it's difficult to manage seeing anyone these days.

It's a decent orchard, well-acred with a fair amount of apple varities and some excellent pears, plus a shop with hard cider and other local goods for sale. The problem is that we went on the first weekend of October, after a long pandemic, on a day with postcard-perfect weather.

It took an hour for our lunch order to be ready. I know they've got what oven space they have and you can't rush good pizza - and it was pretty good pizza; rapini is an under-sung topping with that lovely bitter bite - and it would've been nice to have some heads-up about that ahead of time.

Though I'll say that because I was trying not to take my anger out on anyone, I found myself happy with my foresight to wear boots instead of sneakers, because it meant I could safely drop-kick apples.

After I ate, I kept doing it - not because I had anger to get out, but because it was amazingly fun. No two apples were the same shape and size, and none of them were perfectly round, either. I'd only use ones on the ground that humans wouldn't be taking home with them, didn't aim towards anyone, and stayed in the orchard area to keep the apples within a given space. I did almost hit someone one time, but that wasn't deliberate, and we all laughed after. But other than that, I had a lovely time trying to figure out the techniques, seeing the apples fly, doing what I could to get good spin and distance and height. One I kicked that split right in half. Another I kicked in such a way it went right up into the air and I caught it in my hands. Sometimes there'd be a spray of juice coming out against the sky.

All in all, pretty fun.

Also fun was walking around, seeing two little kids try and fail to catch a fairly sizeable grasshopper, and being able to say, "Let me," leaning over, and picking it up and handing it to them.

Not going to lie, I felt pretty cool for doing that.

I did some more tromping around by myself, enjoying the comparative wildness at the edges of the orchards and the ponds, watching the small field birds and the much bigger geese, picking a single pear and eating it without guilt because I knew I'd be buying plenty of stuff in the shop much later. Which I did - right before we left, because I wasn't about to go tromping around with glass bottles of high-quality apple cider and local bourbon in my backpack.

We all met up after a while, comparing apples and anecdotes, other people getting in on the drop-kicking fun.

There was some traffic on the way back, enough that I went from mildly to genuinely concerned, and the relief of getting to my apartment with just enough time for dinner before sliding right over to Premieres was itself as delicious as the pear.

Today, I got plenty of Fanworks in today, going to all the vid shows and panels I'd wanted to attend. There was a lot of good conversation, plenty to listen to, a solid reminder of why no matter what fic I write, fandom is my fandom most of all.

So a pretty good weekend, both with and without screens.