Rust Valley

A few weeks ago, I wrote about a fantastically clever housewarming party that my partner Beth and I threw when we moved to Pittsburgh. That post remains one of the most popular on the site.

Recently, we were invited (well, “invited” is a stretch—more on that in a minute) to another very clever party. The general idea was this:

• If you have kids’ stuff that you want to get rid of, come to this party.
• If you need kids’ stuff (for new babies, or growing toddlers, come to this party.
• Put all the stuff you don’t want anymore in a big pile (which the guests all carefully sorted).
• Take what you need or want.
• Everything left over gets donated to charity after the event.

Simple, clever, amazingly useful. The party built community (people met each other, helped care for each other’s kids, etc.) while solving a practical set of problems: how do you redistribute the amazing pile of baby crap that exists in the world.

Erica, the creator of this party, made it further amazing by showering guests in incredible food and drink. Sangría. Beer. Fresh scones. Madeleines. Watermelon. Roasted corn. The list goes on. Her house on the North Side had a fantastic side yard where everyone could gather and the kids could all run around and play.

As I mentioned before, we weren’t really invited to this party. Our new friend Andrea (who came to the aforementioned housewarming party), heard about this party from a friend, who heard about it from another friend. Who may (or may not) have been invited by Erica. The email chain was long enough to cause my attention to waver halfway through. What’s interesting about all of that is that we went, we were welcome and we had a great time. This is an incredibly open, interesting city, socially.

Chalk another one up to Pittsburgh as a fantastic place to live.