"Gentlemen, to evil!"

Clarke had a quick trip into town last night, so I skipped out an All Saint's volunteer banquet and had dinner with him and Chris and Gary. Chris and Clarke are friends from high school and Gary from the early Seattle days. I don't think the 4 of us have hung just on our own since the night before my wedding, 3 1/2 years ago.

There was a stretch back in the early 90's when we were hanging out almost every night. Gary and I were having career issues, Clarke had just failed the bar exam by a handful of points and Chris was back from grad school, a couple of papers shy of his Master's Degree and rejected from the Ph D program. So we had many a long night playing Risk and Illuminati and Caveman Games while Chris was reassuring us, "Yes, we're failing, but we're failing at a high level."

Since then, Clarke has been running his own law firm in Wenatchee, Chris is managing the technical writers at Adobe, and Gary recently left a long stint at Real to finish his undergrad degree and head to law school. All three have great children. Long way removed from our high level failings. (Then again we found out that some points are not far removed at all, as Chris is still pissed that he was the only one who did not get bumped to first class on the flight home from Hawaii ten years ago.)

It was one of those nights you sometimes have with old friends where the years apart fall away and you feel like you were here last only a few days ago. The conversation immediately slips into its old rhythms, but is not relegated to simple reminiscence, or even catch up on events, but the mixture of celebration and support that come from your best friends. They are good men and I am lucky to be their friend.

And the best news was that Chris' son Keaton had a clean MRI on Thursday. He is showing no signs of recurrence of the brain tumor, two years port diagnosis. Apparently the odds of recurrence drop dramatically at this point. He will still receive regular MRI checks and his physical and speech therapy continue, but he is now considered a long term survivor. Nothing much that can be said about that except a deeply heartfelt "Woo-Hoo!"