Five for Friday, October 9

This morning, my husband sighed heavily and said, “All right, let’s put this week to rest.” I thought that was an excellent suggestion.

In that spirit, here are this week’s Five for Friday. Here’s wishing you a relaxing weekend and a much-less-hectic week to come.

1. Have you heard about the projected pumpkin shortage this fall? Experts are recommending that you buy your cans of Thanksgiving pumpkin early, and don’t count on fresh pumpkins being available at all. (I wonder what this means for the giant pumpkin pies of Costco fame. Can you freeze pumpkin pie? If so, now might be the time to get your freezer ready.)
2. As long as you’re stocking up, you might as well try this recipe for gluten-free pumpkin doughnuts with cream cheese glaze. I certainly plan to.
3. Autumn always makes me feel a little melancholy, but I was really comforted to read this article providing an alternative way of thinking about grief. The upshot: it’s okay to feel okay after the death of someone you love. (I’ve spent a lot of time worried that I wasn’t sad enough about my mom’s death this past summer, and I’m feeling better about my reaction now that I know it’s quite common and actually healthy.)
4. The Best American Short Stories 2015 has just been released. I love this annual anthology–a really good short story is the best way to get a little hit of literary genius without making the commitment a novel requires.
5. And finally: the refugee crisis has been all over the news lately, and a lot of the conversation surrounding immigration to the United States in general hasn’t been, shall we say, complimentary of those in search of a new home. I think it’s really important to remember that the newest immigrants to the United States are the best-educated group in our country’s history. So the next time you hear someone making a disparaging comment about “those people” and the reasons why they’ve come to the U.S., perhaps you’ll want to point out that newer immigrants are more likely to be college educated that U.S.-born citizens. Perhaps that means we have something to learn from them.