Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Sunday Potluck with the Block Group


Ok, here’s what you have to imagine: 50 or so people, ranging from a few months old to 75, filling up a Catholic church basement on a balmy Sunday evening. They migrate from table to table, catching up with friends, meeting new neighbors, indulging conversation about everything from the best taqueria in town to the overdue need for speed bumps. At first they’re segregated by language, but in time the Anglos get bold enough to call up what they remember from high-school Spanish, and Guty and Jaime playfully refuse their lapses back into English. Thirteen-year-old Pamela translates like a pro.

Plates are filled with Mike and Cindy’s guacamole, Carmen’s arroz con gandules, Emily and Devin’s corn muffins and chili, Sonja’s fruit salad, and Matt and Jen’s vegan chocolate chip cookies.

Kids run around like dervishes without a single fall, scrape, tear, or argument. One five-year-old, whose nametag reads “Rey, aka Juno,” announces himself a superhero, and when asked about his superpower pulls two small containers of hand sanitizer from his pockets and eagerly disinfects whoever offers a hand.

And the reason you have to imagine all of this is because for all the things I remembered—from the block-group sign-up sheet to important dates to local-police contact information—the one thing I forgot was my camera. So this photo of the last remaining spoonful of couscous with pistachios (my contribution to this fete) is the only tangible evidence that such an event even happened. Trust me that it was raucous fun.

2 comments:

Diana Sudyka said...

A germ free super hero, is my kind of hero.

kkurtz said...

I will be installing the Germophobe
Signal Light on my roof pronto!

this Hero may have his work cut out for him.