Wednesday, August 5, 2009

won't you be my neighbor?

if you've read my blog for long, or you know me,
you know that i love me some oakland.
some people may treat it as the much maligned, full of issues stepchild of san francisco,
but i beg to differ.
(don't get me wrong, i know oakland has plenty of problems, 
but it is a much richer place than most give it credit for.)

san francisco isn't "the city."
oakland is.

i also love our street.
we are a mish-mash 
of ages, cultures, backgrounds, socio-economic levels, languages, life experiences.
but how to you get to know these things about each other unless you meet 
and talk about more than the weather?
unless we pause for longer than the brief hello over putting out the garbage to learn about who we are living next to and across from?

last night was national night out, so we joined our neighbors in enjoying the august evening,
talking
making new friends
hanging with old friends
(this is our next door neighbor tiffany
who gave little m her nickname roro when she was an itty bitty baby)
eating ice cream for dinner
catching up on the neighborhood gab
we stayed out far past little m's bedtime...
but it was worth it!

i heart you oakland, and you too, agua vista street!

3 comments:

  1. i love neighborhood night out! we crash the georgia street party every year!

    ReplyDelete
  2. It was definitely a great night out. Having been away, I felt a reintroduction was in order and hope that we can make these events more regular occurrences. My favorite story of the night came when I was talking to Carlos Sr. He said that be served Bobby Kennedy dinner the night he was assassinated in LA. Just one of the many stories we miss out on if we don't take the time to build with each other. THanks for the post!

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  3. Hi,

    I saw this one the news. Looks like a great experience. Kind of bummed no one in my neighborhood did this.  I'm Hua, the director of Wellsphere's HealthBlogger Network, a network of over 2,000 of the best health writers on the web (including doctors, nurses, healthy living professionals, and expert patients).  I think your blog would be a great addition to the Network, and I'd like to invite you to learn more about it and apply to join at Wellsphere.com/health-blogger.  Once approved by our Chief Medical Officer, your posts will be republished on Wellsphere where they will be available to over 5 million monthly visitors who come to the site looking for health information and support. There’s no cost and no extra work for you!  The HealthBlogger page (http://www.wellsphere.com/health-blogger) provides details about participation, but if you have any questions please feel free to email me at hua@wellsphere.com.

    Best,
    Hua

    ReplyDelete

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