5:00 Fridays – Meyer Lemme-Have-Some-More Aid

Our annual block party is this weekend. We’ve been in the neighborhood for eight years, and the block party has been a long-standing tradition for twice as long. Neighbors who’ve moved away even return for the escapades. Friends of neighbors are bucking to get on the invite list. It’s that cool of a shindig.

We close off the street and replace the cars with foosball tables, basketball hoops, bean bag toss, even a giant checker board painted in the middle of the street that requires red and black bucket lids as the checkers. You can actually see the checker board painted on the street on Google Earth. Kids run amok on scooters, skateboards, ripsticks, bikes, and there’s even a resident unicycle expert who would astound you. We fire up grills, blast some tunes (I’m in charge of music , so you can bet there’s a great mix of bad music you are too embarrassed to admit you love.), and set up lawn chairs. In the middle of the street. Then comes the merriment. Amazing homemade food, often with ingredients from resident gardens. Desserts galore. Buckets of lemonade. Sugared up kids. Beer swilling parents. Revelry all around. And because we live in an old neighborhood built in a time when community meant something different than a bucolic-sounding subdivision name and neighborhood pool and clubhouse, we all have front porches. If it rains, we just salvage the dessert and beer first and take shelter under a porch while the kids frolic in the rain. A few lousy drops have yet to derail this much anticipated neighborhood soiree.

Did I mention there’s an ice cream truck coming this year? I hope the bomb pops cost a dime like they did back in the day.

I’ll be whipping up a couple pitchers of lemonade this year. And it’s not suitable for underage consumption. Today’s cocktail features my new favorite citrus fruit. I mean, you do have a favorite citrus fruit, right? I also have a favorite temperature. (It’s 82 degrees if you must know.)

Meyer Lemme-Have-Some-More Aid