"I don't believe in coincidences," a friend of mine said once, with a serious look on her face.

"That's so funny," I said. "I was just now thinking the exact same thing!"

In a true and just world, I would get more credit for jokes.

I actually don't believe in coincidences, any more than I believe in random coin flips, but maybe not in the way this lady meant. There are reasons for everything, histories and timing and various laws of physics; everything else is perspective. Wind and weight, among, say, a million other factors, determine how the coin spins in the air, although I'm still surprised sometimes when It comes up tails.

Pleasantly surprised, too, as I was the other night, basking in the glow of what felt like amazing coincidence if you didn't look too close. Eight of us were having dinner, seven middle-aged fogies and one college freshman, although frankly he was just there for the food.

Of the eight, though, four of our lives intersected on what could be viewed as sort of a mystical graph, or at least something to wonder about. Thirty-five years ago, we shared classes, teachers, dreams and some stuff none of us can remember in a high school far, far away. Several states away, in fact, and now here we were, breaking bread in a house on Mercer Island, all grown up and gray. I can marvel at the romance of that as well as anyone.

I won't spoil the story by relating all the mundane details of jobs, schools, relationships and ordinary choices that resulted in four former Phoenicians ending up in the Pacific Northwest, although I won't pretend that each of us was sprinkled with fairy dust at 15, either. It was just nice, and it always is; we try to get together several times a year, with our significant others along for the ride.

We don't talk about the past, although the past hangs around the table, adding flavor and allowing shorthand. It also influenced one conversation I had with the woman on my left, someone I remember well from 1973 and who seems more or less the same.

We were talking about what we know.

In his book "Outliers," Malcolm Gladwell writes about "The 10,000-Hour Rule," the idea that success comes from perfecting skill, and perfecting skill comes from doing it for 10,000 hours (nearly five years of 40-hour weeks, if you're curious and can't find a calculator). This makes sense, I guess, but after over half a century of being alive five years doesn't seem that long to me. I'm pretty sure I can do five years standing on my head, although I'm not sure that can be defined as success.

But I know things now, and this lady and I discussed how we were finally coming around to accepting that. Not opinions or philosophies; no matter what I think about a particular subject, I'm pretty sure there's someone out there, probably in my neighborhood, who's smarter and more experienced and disagrees completely.

I know things because I've done them for 10,000 hours, and that's probably conservative. I imagine I've spent that long just looking for screwdrivers and trying to match socks.

I know when to take a roasted chicken or loaf of bread out of the oven. I know how to avoid cutting my neck while shaving. I know what I like, what I don't, how to mow that awkward corner of the lawn and how to buy the perfect birthday gift for my wife (ask her what she wants and do that).

And I know how to be a parent.

Not any parent; ask me for advice on rearing children and I'll pretend to speak another language. But I know how to be a specific parent, which would be me, because I've spent more than 25 years doing it, making far more than 10,000 parenting decisions, at least two of which apparently were correct (one involved a personal check , long story).

And one of the reasons I have this parenting skill came to visit last week, flying cross-country from Boston, to please her father and to paint his bedroom.

Or apparently. She was in this house for maybe 10 minutes before she announced her makeover plans, one of her passions. "I can totally redo this room for maybe 70 bucks," she told me, but I know something about this, too, so I transferred money from savings and went out to the hardware store.

I also know something about writing a newspaper column, and boundaries. I know how to write about nothing so I end up out of room before I say something potentially embarrassing, so I'll just note that we had a great visit, I love my daughter, she's on her way home, I have a redecorated bedroom, and that orange paint on my pants? It's actually terracotta.