A Lovely Evening

The Everloving and I live in a small 7-unit apartment building. We have lived here for 19 years. Some friends of ours used to live in one of the other units but they have moved.  The Everloving has very occasionally visited one or other of the suites and once in a while we will bump into other residents by the mailboxes or the garage. But, besides those few instances, to be frank, in those 19 years we might have been living in separate buildings.

About a week ago, we received a hand-written invitation to an open house casual party from a couple that moved in earlier this year, and last night we attended. It was a marvelous event! The residents of one suite are in Florida, but folks from most of the other suites came along. We got to meet each other — some for the very first time — and chat.  Nothing exciting happened.  We learned a bit about each other, we swapped stories (good and bad) about our landlord, we ate each others’ Christmas baking. But the whole evening was a delight.

Apart from the pleasure I got from the evening, the reason I think this is worth writing about is because, as someone remarked last night, this is a very non-Vancouver thing to do, for apartment residents to get together just to meet and greet.  I have lived in small apartment buildings here for the last 40 years, in the West End, in Kerrisdale, and here off the Drive and this is the first time such a thing has been organized.

There was much talk about doing something similar in the spring or summer, and I can hardly wait!