30-Day Photo Challenge ~ Day Two

Day Two

~A picture of you and the person 

you have been closest with the longest~

At a Mariners vs Rangers game, Safeco Field
October 15, 2009

I couldn't tell you the first time I met my oldest friend, Amir.  But I do remember distinctly that I didn't like him.  Isn't that the way most great friendships begin?

It was high school...my junior year I think.  He moved to our school and instantly befriended my best friend, who also happened to be the absolute unrequited love of my life.  Naturally, I was jealous.  

He was loud.  And gregarious.  Smart and funny and really, really popular, right off the bat.  Hated him.

Not long after we met, he was invited to a concert with our group of friends.

"Seriously???" I groaned.  "Not that kid. He's sooooo annoying!"

I lost the argument with whomever had invited him, whomever was madly enamoured of him at that moment.

And I lost every one after that, until he ended up invited to a party at my house.  And I think the rest is history.

What do I love about him?

~ A trip to Boston, and sitting at the foot of the Harvard statue in our cashmere scarves, pretending like we could actually have been students there.

~ The summer in London that he surprised me with tickets to Lloyd Weber's Chess on stage in Piccadilly, and we went dancing at the Lyceum. Crazy fun.

~ Too many nights downtown, too many beers, prom at the Waldorf.  

~ The fact that my parents consider him a second son. 

~ A road trip we took to Vancouver BC for Mona's wedding.  We took mushrooms on the way.  Hello, it was college.  I lived in Eugene.  What a blast we had!

~ He made me a thousand cassette tapes of our favorite songs, and each song would have a little explanation of why he chose it.  Each tape had its own unique title.  He mailed them to me all through college and beyond.  I saved every one of them.  For whatever reason I cannot remember, we took to calling each other Scarlett and Rhett, so each of the tapes was addressed and signed that way.

~ He has never once, in all that time, forgotten my birthday. Nor has he forgotten to call and send a card.

~ He never lost touch with me, even when I wandered away and our friendship risked extinction.

~ He takes more pictures than I do.  And good ones.

~ He loves his family.  He adores and admires and respects his parents (his mom is now deceased and I know he misses her terribly.)  He is devoted to his father and his daughter and he's even nice to his ex-wife.

~ We have travelled across continents to see each other, to be in each others' weddings, to celebrate in each others' successes and cry through each others' failures.  

~ In thirty years, we have never had a single romantic encounter with each other and have never spent a single moment being jealous or wishing otherwise.

In July he's flying out here just to sit at Safeco in a Ranger's jersey, while the Mariners kick some Texas butt.  Or the other way around, it doesn't really matter.  

Baseball, beer and hotdogs with your oldest, truest friend.  It doesn't get much better than that.