Tag Archives: San Mateo

This post has been smoldering for awhile. It took a few months to sniff out the photos (note to self: use only my camera).

A great thing about my neighborhood is that everybody knows each other. We have a neighborhood contact list. And block captains. And block parties. I have never experienced this before.

On Independence Day they (the block captains?) get a permit to shut down the street to cars, and everybody brings food, and one of the People With Children rents a bouncy castle for the whole neighborhood, and everybody gets drunk by noon on Chardonnay, and nobody has to drive anywhere. It’s fun, in a suburbia kind of way. And people seem to like us.

Anyway, there’s an initiative here on the peninsula to raise awareness about the dangers of fireworks – like hey don’t shoot off bottle rockets and accidentally burn down an entire wilderness area. If you contact the fire department and let them know that you’re having a block party, they’ll send a firetruck to visit your block.

As this is a Public Relations effort, only the hottest of firefighters are out representing the department. Kids love it!

The ladies love it.

I too approached the handsome fireman for a picture.

But I would never objectify men. There is another item on the agenda.

Note: The key here is Surprise. If you ask permission ahead of time, people tend to come up with a reason to say No. But if you ambush someone with a strange but innocuous request, they’ll say yes before they can think of a good reason to say no. But you have to be fast about it. Hence, Flash Fitting. Take this guy for instance. He’s like, “What the F is going on here in the suburbs?”   Happy 4th of July!