Hanging Out with Friends

Alex and Amy visited this weekend—I had lunch with them and their friends Bill and Jen on Friday, then we all had dinner Friday night, then they came out to our place Sunday night and stayed over. They’re flying out this afternoon. I took yesterday off from work to spend time with them. It was great to see them, as always—as Alex put it, “always too short.” But he also pointed out that we manage to see each other at least once a year now, which is some consolation.
Last night we had several other friends over, which was a lot of fun. By far my favorite parts of the visit, however, were earlier in the day. Yesterday morning Alex and I went walking around in Queens (and found a local geocache) and then got breakfast at a local diner. We used to run around every Saturday, years back—we’d check out any garage sales we could find, run errands, go get comics, and have lunch, then play pool for a few hours. It was great, and this was very much of that mold, just the two of us wandering and chatting. Then yesterday afternoon, while my wife and daughter took a much-needed nap, Alex and Amy and I sprawled about in the living room. We have three couches, so we each had one, and we just lay there and chatted about various things for a few hours. It was great.
As I told Alex, I think a true friend is someone you don’t have to “do things” with—you can just relax and hang out and enjoy each other’s company. Which is exactly what we spent yesterday doing.