For someone who is not a parking lot attendant, I have spent a large portion of my leisure time in parking lots.
I fact, I am writing this right now from the Haddon Township Target parking lot. (There is a leasing opportunity, by the way.)
You may wonder how I can make such a bold claim. Or if you are anything like my mother, you will be concerned that I am doing untoward things in parking lots.
I mean sometimes I have been.
However, mostly parking lots have formed a before and after of some of the most important and memorable moments of my life. 
My husband joked that he would propose to me in a parking lot on the side of I-89 in Vermont. The ring apparently, was burning a hole in his pocket. Just hours before Nicholas was born, we picked up my old car from a parking lot. It had died the day before. Four days later, we’d have a white mini van to drive our three kids around.
In the parking lot after the Pearl Jam Randalls Island in 1996–Mike and I would recount the awesome, amazing incredible show we attended, the way the crowd moved and moved us and how during “Daughter,” when the shades went down in the song, Mike was hit in the head (and sort of knocked out) in the mosh pit and he rallied and the show was amazing and it rained and I think it might be the most amazing concert I ever attended.
Which of course makes me think of all the shows and all the parking lots. Pearl Jam, Lollapalooza, WDRE Festival, Y100 Festival, Live, New Kids on the Block, Maroon 5, Lady Gaga , Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Counting Crows. Speaking of Counting Crows—parking lots make me think of the Crows cover of Big Yellow Taxi ( you know they paved paradise and put up a parking lot.)
And when it comes to tailgating, games are where I’ve had the most epic adventures. Mike and I have been tailgating and attending Temple games since 1995. Our kids have grown up tailgating on Fall Saturdays. They know how to make a gourmet meal in a South Philly Parking Lot and how to play catch between the cars. We see our old friends and our new friends in that Temple Lot and for a few hours, all of us alumni and friends and family are at the same party—ready to cheer inside at the big show.
Parking lots are truly where it’s at, apparently.
Right now, we are tailgating with our kids and our town for fireworks. It’s raining. I’ve got a road soda. My middle kid ran off with some friends. My oldest and youngest are hanging out in the tailgate. And every couple minutes someone I love interrupts me. I love the interruption. It is marvelous to be so loved that no cares if they interrupt you—they just want to talk to you that badly. It’s a certain kind of familiarity that makes this interruption possible—and it is a blessing to be so familiar, in a parking lot.
It’s the best kind of spot to be.
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