old friends

I happily answered the doorbell's summons and found Rickey standing there in the Florida sunshine, direct from fall in New York. After the rush of embraces, introductions (to Sage, Mom and Jack) and various "Oh my god" moments, we sat down to catch up on curve balls of the past 6 six years.

Nikki and I recounted our own personal adventures as well as the heartbreaking seal-napping of our beloved Kotik, while Rickey gave us a lesson in surviving in America.

Later on, he delighted us with a pair of presents - both games! As an avid gamer himself, and fully aware that my wife and I suffer from the same addiction, he gave us hard-to-find copies of El Grande and Carcasonne, which we proceeded to play merrily until the wee hours of the morning (Vin and Charles, tell Ralph he'll love these new games).

The great thing is that he's spending the entire weekend here with us - and oddly, it is as if very little time has passed, happily picking up conversation where we last left off, with a smug shrug at all the years gone by.