Victor, Hugo, Steve and Elaine

Yesterday Jen, Oni and I voyaged up to Beverly, MA where our good friends Steve and Elaine live. The Amazing Bob stayed home to mind our herd of felines and keep a close watch on the game. What game? Red Sox versus the Orioles of course. We won 7-3 BTW.

Steve and I have known each other since Junior High when we’d distribute my older sister’s underground newspaper, printed in that stinky, blurry, purple mimeograph ink, together. Steve and I were 14 year old total RADICALS, man!

High school arrived -- the Watergate Hearings began on May 17, 1973, that crook Nixon gave his 'I'm not a crook’ speech in November of ’73  (our sophomore year). Then, just before junior year began, Nixon resigned. Older sister was off to college -- no more Armadillo Free Press.

Steve and I fell out of touch. Billions of years passed -- truly, we went from Proterozoic to Cenozoic in the intervening years. And then I received a pamphlet from our high school’s class of ’76 reunion committee. Everyone who could be found was listed, along with our respective locations, contact info and all that.

I love reading about all these folks who I knew or knew of so many decades ago. Not only do I get to read snippets of interesting lives (Janet owns a successful travel company! Tina's a Speech Pathologist! Jean's a Respiratory Therapist!) , I get to engage in a wee bit of almost, sort of, mostly, guilt-free schadenfruede (who's been married and divorced three times before hitting 50, who's gained so much weight that they're unrecognizable and all that sad shit).

And there was Steve, living just a few towns north of me and working at Mass General Hospital -- my home away from home. I emailed him, not imagining for one red hot minute that he’d remember me but he did!

Back to 2013 though...

Yesterday’s visit was fab. We walked around Beverly’s art filled, charming downtown, debated best guitarists EVAH (Steve Vai versus Jeff Beck?) over some tremendous French red wine whose name utterly escapes me, had THE tastiest meal {baked brie, salmon, veggies, homemade Amaretto ice cream (!!)} and watched their capering, tumbling new kittens, Victor and Hugo.

Dinner and a show -- what’s not to love?

The blurry legless ride home

To cap off the tremendous meal, Steve brought out this wild bourbon -- Jefferson’s Reserve or Buffalo Trace? I’m unsure now since, after the wonderful wines, incredible meal and a shot or two of the lovely digestif, I was pretty much legless.

Jen and Oni poured me into the backseat of the car and home we cruised.

Steve and Elaine are awesome plus -- I’m just crazy about the two of them. We don’t get to see them enough.

When did all our lives/schedules become so complicated and jam packed?