who are the Neglected Embryos?

.Keeping in the vein of meeting up with old friends, I found someone else I used to be really close to. I have been reading Mr. M.E. Palin's "Full Circle," where he goes around the whole Pacific Rim. And he gets to Chile, and it made me think of a guy I used to work with at the Au Bon Pain in the North Shore Mall.

His name is Eddie, or Eduardo, and he is honestly one of the sweetest, funniest, kindest people I have EVER known in my life. I used to work with him, with my buddy Scott, and this other guy Fred (for the life of me I can't remember his name at all, which pisses me off because he was awesome and I'd love to know what he's up to these days...).

Eddie grew up in Chile, and I don't exactly know his whole story, but he ended up living up here in Massachusetts. He was a college student, and so were the rest of us, and the four of us would work together, and talk about everything from music to spirituality to business... Eddie always had some funny thing to add, and like me and Scott would constantly pose ridiculous questions or give irrationally stupid answers to serious queries from others. We laughed a lot. I always enjoyed him, and just sort of lost track of him after I stopped working there.

I briefly hooked up with him again for a while when we were living in Lynn, MA. He lived right around the corner, and had married his lovely girlfriend Adrianna, who is from Ecuador. Then we moved north and Poof, I lost him again.

So reading about Chile made me think of Eddie, and all the funny shit we talked about. He bought me a nice alpaca winter hat once and I still have it. I think of him every time I wear it.

So I picked up the phone, called information in Lynn, and sure enough he's still there. I talked to Adrianna and caught up. They have a 2 1/2 year old son named Claudio now. And I can't wait to talk to Eddie. Hopefully in the coming week I'll be able to hook up with him.

So I have pictures now. Which I have been saving. And I'll use this part 2 page to post them. I'll start with pics from Chris and Chrissy's wedding:

Geoff and Jessica sit on the floor waiting for the DJ to do his thing. Note the fact that Geoff has his eyes closed, the way he does in most pictures taken with a flash, and Jessica knows how to sit like a lady on the floor, NOT! They do look cute dressed up though...

Here I am dancing with Geoff, who looks adorable in his dinosaur tie, and I look drunk off my ass, but really am not yet. That happens later... Too bad I look like total shit here, or else this'd be a great pic.

We are not at all sure where she gets it from, but Jessica LOVES to dance at weddings. Here, she is doing her patented Hammer Hands move. She's got a great facial expression while she does this, a tough punk lip thing with her chin sticking out. This totally knocks me on my ass laughing when I see her do it. I love this kid! Go girl, go!

Okay, NOW I am totally drunk, still looking like total shit, but, Christopher and I are mocking that crap Celine Dion theme to Titanic song. We were thrusting our hands up to the sky when ever she sang "Far" and looking wistfully up in the air. I am obviously laughing after a good hand thrust. Chris is wistfully singing "Wherever you are... blah blah blah... my heart will go on..." I hate that song.

The best picture of the day is this great shot of Doug being a "power mad titan of industry," complete with stogie. Looks like he is off to crush another union uprising at his steel mill! Look out you slacker millworkers, D.W. Geiger, billionaire, on his way to kick your asses! HA!

This next set of pics is courtesy of my sister, taken at my Aunt and Uncle's 40th wedding anniversary:

From Left to Right, Casey (age 7?) Nicholas, (3 or 4 months younger than Geoff) and Geoff himself. Geoff looks like he wants to kick someone's ass. I love this pic because my son is a full 3 years, maybe more, younger than Casey and is almost the same friggin' height. What kind of monster child do I have. And look how much bigger he is than poor Nicky! I also love it because he's wearing a dress shirt and short pants. Something so British Prep School impish about that. Makes me giggle. Too bad he had his tie off.

Here I am with my sister and our Gammy. Gammy turned 81 last week and I forgot to send her a friggin birthday card (STUPID, STUPID! as I hit myself in the head a la Chris Farley)... I like this picture. We look particulary cute. Gammy lives down cape and we don't see her often enough. Linda and I both bemoan this often. We may plan a weekend in October to go down, hotel it, and hang out.

Sisters are doin' it for themselves! Linda held the camera out arms length and snapped this while my father sat there and bitched and moaned that he could take the picture for us. Something about doing this though is a riot. It isn't the same when someone takes the picture for you. The one holding the camera always gets right in the perfect spot. I like this one a lot. We don't have a lot of pictures together. I do have a couple from my wedding and some from Jessica being little, and a great one from when she came to visit me in college one Easter weekend. It is SO 1980s that it slays me. I should scan that one and put it up! She'd kill me.

Okay. That's it for today's boring slide show. I'm glad to get this posted up. Been meaning to all week. Things have just been too damn busy though! Glad to have some time to breathe.