tributation

I'm back in New Hampshire this week for a work program. I flew here Saturday morning after taking in the Mariners/Red Sox game at Safeco Field in Seattle. Even though the Sox lost, the game was a great segue for a return trip to the east coast. I came in early to spend some time with my awesome New England friends, who I love dearly. They're incredible and talented individuals.

RS, for example, picked me up at the airport after taking a red-eye flight from LA. He is amazingly good at riding road bikes and mountain bikes and making sangria. He's also super sweet, funny, and a good sport about all the ribbing he gets from GG. GG makes delicious hamburgers. He's king of "your mom" one-liners, a patient teacher and the most generous and giving guy I've ever met. He just married ED. She's an amazing athlete, an amazing daughter, an amazing sister and an amazing friend. She's also amazingly good at doing more in a week than most folks do in a year. She's the most generous and giving woman I've ever met, so her and GG are a great match. I love her. So does witty LS, who was a bridesmaid GG and ED's wedding and made their wedding rings. She has a rad job at the MFA in Boston, more talent decorating than should be allotted to one person, and a love of all things orange that she shares with her newly minted fiance, DJ. DJ rips on a snowboard and is my "eccentric engineering friend" who writes this highly entertaining blog. He sporadicly spews tourett-like outbursts that sometimes give us new insight into his true nature but primarily make us laugh. ET also makes me laugh. She's a kindred spirit, an all-American, a sweetheart and someone I must've known in a previous lifetime. She's married to ES, who has the most beautiful male smile I've ever seen and an even more beautiful heart that just beams out to whoever is lucky enough to be around him.

And such is the snapshot of my closest New England friends. We met as single twenty-somethings and celebrated our engagements and marriages together. Its amazing to have such ridiculously fun, unique and caring people to play and laugh with. We miss them, we love them. It was great to see them on Saturday.

Now we just need to get them out our way for a visit.