“I don’t think that [letter] means what you think it means.”

We cleaned out our garage so as to host the “annual” (minus 2020) block party. It was my beloved neighbor who kindly suggested we have it in our garage instead of on the street since we have pool and ping pong tables, shuffle board, and corn hole.

The day before the party, I watched, eyes narrowed, as this neighbor came and went merrily from her driveway, not a care in the world, as we spent hours clearing stuff out of the garage, hiding it in the shed, leaf blowing, sweeping, etc. (I kid, she’s lovely.)

At one point, unbeknownst to me, little Joe got the broom and decided to draw in the dirt, creating an incredible likeness of the letter “P.”

“This is not the P you’re looking for.”

When I saw it, I remarked to my husband, Paul, “You know, that’s not what they mean by marking your territory with p.”

The block party was great, BTW. It lasted five hours, even after I put the food away, hoping people would get hungry and go back to their own homes.

We decided we wouldn’t host again. In the past, we were able to just go home when we were done. This time, I figured it might look a little weird if we disappeared into our house and left people lounging in our garage. Then again, that might be a less subtle hint that removing the food. (Still kidding. Mostly.)

The fact that only the little kids played the games, with the brief exception of one retiree playing ping pong with my daughter, furthers my excuse to not host again.

On the other hand, having the impetus to clean the garage was nice. Our shed, however, looks abysmal. The night after the block party, I invited two couples to a back patio party so as to take advantage of the white curtain of blooming jasmine before it was gone, and the carpet of pink bougainvillea petals beyond.

So many beautiful, delicate flowers. A couple of times we’ve found a tiny hummingbird nest in there. The babies look like peanuts.

Bougainvillea (Thank you, spell check!) I suppose we should clean those petals up, but they’re hiding the dead grass. Dead grass caused by not clearing the petals. And so it goes on and on.

Since we’re cat sitting, and one friend is somewhat allergic, I let our guests walk through the garage to the backyard instead of running the dander gauntlet of the house.

One friend said, “Your garage is So Clean!”

At first I thought stacking events so close together might be a bad idea. But now: totally worth it.

What’s the state of your garage these days? Wanna take bets on how long until ours descends into chaos? Any pretty plants in your yard? What two movies have I (loosely) quoted?

Have a lovely weekend!