Park Slope has become such a crowd scene on weekends when the neighborhood fills with all the people who work in Manhattan during the week. Most noticible are the twenty-somethings, who come out for brunch, shopping, and group-promendading down Seventh and Fifth Avenues.

I am almost completely unaware of them until the weekends.

Husbands and fathers are also in full force. Often I’ll recognize a child or a baby in a stroller with his/her dad and say to myself: "So that’s the father."

The weekend pedestrian traffic jams are a stark contrast to the almost provincial pace of weekday life. Gone are the post-drop-off moms at Connecticutt Muffin or the convergence of Caribbean babysitters at the Mojo.

Weekdays have their predictable rhythms; Seventh Avenue street life ebbs and flows

Monday to Friday, there’s the school day rush, which brings crowds of parents and kids to and from PS 321, John Jay, Berkeley Carroll and St. Francis onto the Avenue. Lunchtime is a madhouse of PS 321 fourth and fifth graders at Pinos and Mojo and the MS 51ers galavanting on Fifth Avenue. Late afternoon, the high schoolers move in to shock the neighbors with their rock ‘n roll antics.

The evening rush begins around five. But all those commuters in their city clothes have a destination: groceries they need to buy, children that must be retrieved from afterschool or playdates. And then the Avenue clears again for the quiet weekday night.

But the weekend  crowds are another order of magnitude altogether.

Lately, I find myself retreating from the weekend shuffle. On Thursday or Fridays, I’ll often force myself to do an errand, like picking up the dry cleaning or going to Tarzian Hardware. Something I know will be difficult to do on the weekend.

I’ve actually got a growing list of activities I don’t even bother with on weekends:
–The Park Slope Food Coop is helaciously crowded; a must to avoid.
–I don’t go near the Second Street Cafe for weekend brunch;  it’s been the only game in town for so long and there’s always a big crowd outside.
–You won’t catch me in the post office or trying to get my hair colored at Michaels Hair Salon.
–Little Things is a nightmare zone of stroller gridlock and cranky birthday-gift-buying parents on a long cashier line.
–Starbucks, which I generally avoid anyway, is chock full of day sitters and crowds of who knows who.
–Going out to dinner on a Friday or Saturday night on Fifth Avenue

There are, however, distinct pleasures of the Park Slope weekend. Running in Prospect Park before 10 a.m. with the weekend runners can be eupohoric, as is shopping at the Farmer’s Market at Grand Army Plaza. Brunch at Beso is always a dependable treat; despite the crowd, it’s usually possible to find a seat for breakfast Cuban style topped off with a huge cafe con leche.

Stoop sitting is probably the perfect spring weekend activity. I watch the kids on Third Street ride their bikes, color the sidewalk with chalk, use garbage can lids for baseball bases, set up lemonade stands, and sell their old books and toys in front of their buildings.

They are virtually growing up before my eyes.

It’s also fun to converse with the grown ups as they pass our yard. Sometimes I see the same people many times in one weekend day. There they are with the dog, now they’re going out for a run, walking to the mailbox with the red Netflix envelope, time to pack the kids in the car for a slumber party…

For me the weekends are best viewed from our stoop; life slowly passing before my Park Slope eyes.