The Third Street Cafe is in full summer swing. This year it’s hop hop hopping. Maybe it’s the colorful umbrella someone found. Or the brand new Weber we split with the Kravitzes.

Most nights now, we can be found downstairs sitting at the green plastic table in the green plastic chairs drinking wine, chatting up the neighbors, dodging frisbees, disciplining our children as they vroom down the street on bikes, skates, scooters. We even discipline the children from neighboring buildings who seem to love our yard and wreak havoc.

Takes a street to raise a child, I guess. Third Street.

Ravi, the 13-year-old boy who lives downstairs, plays sitar sitting on a beautiful Indian cloth on the stoop. He even burns incense. He and his mother went to Queens and bought him a beautiful brown and gold silk robe and Indian pants.

He looks like an Indian prince. Sitar is fast becoming the soundtrack of this summer.

Other friends make our Third Street Cafe a fun place to be. Fofolle and her boyfriend Jack Twist, so named for his spot-on imitation of the Jake Gyllenhall character in Brokeback Mountain,  joined us at the cafe.

"I can’t quit you, Ennis." Is fast becoming the quote of the summer.

Sunday, Fofolle was selling skirts in front of the Third Street Cafe. It got so hot, I splurged for four six-packs of Corona beer and limes to cool us all off. Spent the day trying to sell skirts, handing out cards, cheering her on. Drinking Corona beer.

That night, my next door neighbor hosted a barbecue for friends and graciously invited everyone in the building to join in. There was so much food: lobster tails, steaks, hot dogs, hamburgers. "We don’t usually have such fancy barbecue," Teen Spirit said.

Food. Much of the weekend was about food. Namely: barbecue.  On the fourth of July, there was another barbecue. The Kravitzes, Mr. Kravitz’s mom and dad, Phized, Ravi and family, Fofolle, Jack Twist: they were all there.

Mr. Kravitz’s father is a master at the barbecue and he mans the grill. Steak, salmon, turkey burgers, corn. More food, more festivity. Jack Twist made sure everyone had enough beer and entertained the kids with puppet shows and rides on his shoulders. He also let them paint his fingernails.

Come summer, we live on the street. There’s no air conditioning at the Third Street Cafe. You have to go back to your apartment every now and again to cool off in frosty air conditioner air. Hot, humid, sweaty, we park ourselves on our chairs…

That’s life at the Third Street Cafe.