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Shawn and his wife and kids came down to visit. Shawn and I figured out that our friendship is now old enough to have graduated college and be out on it’s own looking for it’s first job. His wife Kathy, who I’ve been informed I’ve been putting a C, where a K, belongs. I’ve only known her for about ten years. I vow to spell her name correct from this point on. But we have so many Cathys that we know, that some differentiation in e-mails and blogs, maybe necessary like having that room full of Jennifers and Jasons. I’m doing business with the grown up Jennifers these days. I think I’m talking to two assistants and one editor, though I think there’s a fourth one that just started somewhere, but she let’s us call her Jen.

Trinity was pleased that our visitors had kids for her to play with. Since I haven’t talked to Shawn if it’s okay to use his kids real name, I’ll do initials until I check. K is only a little bit older than Trin. F is several years younger. We all did the St. Louis Science Center on Saturday in the morning. We even visited Build a Dino, which is a subset of Build-A-Bear. Afternoon, the kids went off with grandma. They did lot’s of fun stuff including a movie. Charles joined us, for the visit, so much of the visiting was Shawn and he exchanging funny cop and military stories. They both have a gift for retelling an experience and making it even funnier. The adults got to sit around and talk without having to censor what we said for the munchkin brigade. All of you parents out there know what I mean, when I say, that it’s nice to just be able to talk, and not worry that you’re being overheard. Hell, it’s nice to be able to cuss without teaching anyone else your bad habits. No topic off limits, because of gentler ears. It had been a long time since we’d all got to sit around and talk like that. We owe grandma like flowers, or something.

Late in our grownup time, somehow we got on the topic of the movie Real Genius. All four of the other adults were quoting entire sections of dialogue. I had to admit I’d never seen the movie. Charles volunteered to go home and get it. Shawn went with him so that he could have an excuse to ride in the Skyline. Charles has been doing even more work on the car, and the purr of it’s engine is closer and closer to simply being a sophisticated growl. They probably also wanted to talk shop without any of us civilians around. No matter how good we are at talking cop or military when it comes down to it the three of us have never been there, never done that. Not for real. So, they got to go out and do guy bonding, while the three of us continued to talk about everything under the sun.

After the kids went to bed we all stayed up to watch the movie. It was as good as everyone said it was, and I’d forgotten how pretty Val Kilmer was back in the day. He’s still handsome, don’t get me wrong, but he was positively delicate. You don’t see that often in men. The movie came out in 1985, so the movie, like Shawn’s friendship with me is old enough to have graduated college and be employed. But, like all good movies, it holds up, and Jon has ordered a copy so we can own it. It was a good movie to watch as a group, and led us into more discussions about everything. We talked until Shawn had to call it since they were driving back home the next day. Charles went home and Jon and I finally went to bed ourselves at about 4:00. Little sleep, but well worth it.