Catching up ...

There’s nothing like a relaxing weekend surrounded by good friends …

On Friday night, Kates and I ventured into Chicagoland for a rendezvous with our friends Steve and Emily, and then Tad and Jen met us at O’Hare fresh off their flights into town for a weekend wedding. We went to a pizza joint, sharing in good conversation and pitchers of beer and, of course, pizza with baseball playoff games on a big screen TV in the background … On Sunday morning, we got a random call from Ray and Leah wanting to come up and watch the Packer game because our fair stations to the south only show a lesser team. We shared in good conversation over chips, salsa, Diet Cokes and chilli with the Packers finally giving us a good, old-fashioned Green Bay win …

But here we are, the more we get together, no matter how fast the last decade of knowing each other has passed, and yet how short of a time it seems, as full-fledged adults. No matter how much we still feel like kids.

Back then, we were driving across town to pick up the other friend, amid conversations about the hottest girl in school or the homework assignment that was frustrating us. This weekend, we were driving to the airport to pick up the friend who was flying cross country to meet us, amid talks about the journey of marriage, the plights of finances and mortgages …

And we looked through yearbooks, reminiscing about friends that still seem so close, although change has sent them so far away …

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The Packer win was fun and all, but, darn, was I sorry I missed the Astros-Braves game. 18 innings!

18 INNINGS!

Ah, well. Braves fans stink anyway …

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OK. Seriously now. I think I’m all caught up on the TV and ready to settle in for the fall. … and it’s kind of sad. Of all the new shows that I had such high hopes for, it seems like ‘Commander in Chief’ might be the only one I’ll stick with. …I’m not quite sold on ‘Invasion’ yet. And while I really do like ‘War At Home,’ and ‘How I Met Your Mother,’ I won’t be canceling my plans on Sunday and Monday nights to watch them.

… I still say ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ is the best show on TV right now, on a Sunday night that is loaded with ‘West Wing’ on NBC, ‘War at Home’ on Fox and ‘Desperate Housewives’ on ABC all showing before ‘Grey’s’…

It looks like I’m still sticking to CBS on Monday nights (but turning it off when CSI comes on -- don’t get me started on why I hate cops shows …), ABC on Wednesday nights and NBC on Thursday nights.

…And on the other nights, you can pretty much take your pick from whatever you’re in the mood for. On Tuesdays ABC has ‘According to Jim’ and ‘Commander in Chief,’ but NBC has ‘The Office’ and CBS has ’Amazing Race,’ even though the whole family thing is going to deter me from watching that for a few weeks (here's why) …Then on Friday nights, I’m usually so exhausted from the week, I’ll take just about anything that will make me laugh -- that means anything on the WB (‘Reba’ might be one of the most underrated comedies on TV), ABC (‘Hope & Faith ’ and ‘Hot Properties’) or a good marathon of ‘Friday Night Stand-Up’ on ‘Comedy Central.’