Thinking about community

Last Friday, my neighborhood had a block party. It was a lot of fun, and I ate way too much.

So now I'm thinking about other places I've lived and some of the other community activities I've been a part of.

I've participated in Community Theatre and been the assistant organist for my parents' church
I've been to and volunteered at SF conventions and worked at Ren Fest.
I've been to both a threshing bee and a barn-raising.
I've been to more Finnish and Swedish cultural events than I can count, but few of them recently.
I've taken part in Centennial celebrations for two small central MN towns.

But I'm pretty sure this was my first block party.

We all discussed how we have occasionally seen our neighbors but didn't necessarily even know their names and how we have to do this again.

I'm no extrovert, so I've never been good at meeting people, even if I see them regularly. It was nice to have a structure for doing that.

My landlords' granddaughters made friends with a couple kids from a couple blocks away and everyone was introduced to very very fine Indian cooking by the couple who live on the corner. They brought homemade paneer (YUM!), chicken curry, samosas and mint chutney, plus a couple other things I couldn't identify but were awfully tasty.

I need to get better at participating in things like this.