Mostly Harmless: A Defense of the Kind-Hearted Annoyance

This is a further explanation of one of the titles included on my “semi-retired” business card. (Reminder Wrangler)

My wife has a habit of looking at me and saying, “Can you remind me to call so-and-so tomorrow?” or “I have a doctor’s appointment; don’t let me forget.”

She seems to believe I have a dedicated “Spouse Schedule” processor running in the background of my brain at all times. In her mind, she’s delegating a task. In my mind, she has just hit “Install” on a piece of high-persistence malware.

Being a human reminder is a high-stakes game. It comes with two distinct curses: the crushing dread of forgetting, and the social suicide of over-reminding.

The “Nag” Sacrifice

Admittedly, smartphones have chipped away at my market share. But even in a world of haptic feedback, I still find ways to offer my “invaluable” services. As I’ve grown older, I’ve become so committed to the role that I have officially slipped into the “nag” category.

I am a human pop-up ad. I am the “Update Required” notification that you can’t swipe away. I have willingly tanked my reputation, descending into that murky social basement occupied by influencers and other bottom-dwellers of the untrustworthy food chain.

Why do I make this sacrifice? Because when she says “Remind me,” it is a binding contract. That initial charge supersedes any later, frustrated comments like, “Okay, you can stop reminding me now!” I bought in until the objective was completed, honey. I’m a shareholder in this phone call now. Why can’t you stay as committed as I am?

The Glory of the Checkbox

I understand she has a full-time job and “life distractions” that are several priority levels above our current joint focus. But for me, the task stays on my mental dashboard until the very last second.

I can’t take it off the list until I look at her and start to open my mouth. Usually, before a single syllable escapes, she snaps: “It’s done. Okay?”

Victory. With that comment, I get to check two boxes. First, the “self-tickler” part of my brain finally stops itching. Second, and more importantly, I go to Google Tasks and watch my “Completed” count climb from 627 to 628. For a semi-retired grandpa, that is a statistical triumph worth celebrating.

Bring Back the Nag

My life isn’t overly complicated, and I like it that way. It’s these small, irritating transactions that give me value.

While your phone may give you a reminder from the cold obscurity of a pocket, you should consider bringing a kind-hearted nag back into your life. We are mostly harmless, we take your chores more seriously than you do, and we only want the best for you—mostly so we can finally stop thinking about your dentist appointment and move on with our lives.

The “Get-To” vs. The “Have-To”

I’m currently coming off a 60-day streak from my other blog, and I’m protective of that momentum. With “Grandpa’s Daycare” eating up about 30 hours of my week, I never truly know which day will be the one where the wheels fall off. My goal for this past weekend was simple: bank a three-day buffer of posts so I could breathe.

I missed that goal by 100%.

It started Saturday at 4:30 AM with an airport run for my wife. Here’s what 4:30 AM looks like: three cars on the road, darkness that makes 7:30 AM look like high noon, and a version of me with zero sarcasm loaded. I’m a sarcastic person by nature — it’s basically my factory setting — but apparently it doesn’t boot up until after sunrise. My wit didn’t come back online until I was halfway home, alone, with no one to appreciate it.

That low-grade exhaustion shadowed me the rest of the day. My son and his fiancée came over for quality baby time, and my job quietly shifted. My future DIL is anxious to start her own family, so when she’s in the room, my grandpa instincts take a back seat. My real role became reading the baby’s cues and redirecting — making sure the DIL banked every possible minute of the Ellie experience she craved. I’m not just watching my grandkid grow. I’m watching my future family grow.

I wasn’t exactly winning “Host of the Year,” but the baby stayed alive, so I’ll call it a win.

Then came Sunday. And the Eggplant Experiment.

My son wanted to make Eggplant Parmesan, which — fine. Noble ambition. The problem was his vision was… limited. One small eggplant will not feed a crowd. Bread it, fry it, done. No sauce. No provolone. No oven time. Now, most of his cooking lives in the Instant Pot or air fryer, clean and contained. Hand him a pan and grease, and you’ve introduced variables: splatter, smoke, and a look on his face that says he’s improvising in real time. Sensing a nutritional void and a quiet anti-eggplant contingency in the house, I scrambled. I resurrected some chicken parm from Thursday night, prayed I could add enough juiciness to make the “recycle” respectable. By then, the endless volley of “Where is the…?” and “How do I…?” questions had made any hope of retreating to my den to bank those blog posts evaporate.

Dinner blurred for me. After the dishes were cleared, my reward for the day was another airport run to pick up my wife. I felt a little guilty about leaving the house mid-activity, told the kids so, and then spent the drive enjoying fifteen minutes without anyone asking me where anything was. Getting her home before 8:30 PM is a world better than an 11:00 PM pickup. Some wins are quiet.

Later, sitting with zero banked posts and approximately zero relaxation, I chewed on that question from my future DIL — something rooted in our faith, about whether certain things we’re called to do feel more like obligation than privilege. “Do you get it?” The contrast she was drawing: some things in the Christian life aren’t always fun, but with the right mindset, you get to participate in something most people don’t even realize is available to them.

As I thought about this question, I reviewed my weekend. Do I get it?

Yes. I get a life so full of stories I don’t have time to write them all. I get to be a dad and a granddad multiple times a day. I get to cook for people I love — and not every time I do, do I feel grateful, I’ll be honest. But if I have to cook anyway, I might as well frame it as a “get to” rather than a “have to.” The food tastes the same either way. The choice is just which version of yourself shows up at the table.

When you’re exhausted, it can all feel like a “have-to.” But it’s a “get-to” that most people would pay a premium for.

The Morning Scrimmage: Why Every Marriage Needs a “Billeted” Punching Bag

My wife and I have been married for nearly 35 years, and I’ve learned one absolute truth: Marriage isn’t just about love; it’s about managing the “chirps.”

I am a natural-born chirper. If I have a witty observation or a mild grievance, it bounces around my skull like a puck rattling around a dryer drum until it finds an exit. My wife, however, is a “slow-thaw” morning person. She is not a fan of dialogue—and certainly not banter—until she’s well into her second cup of coffee.

For the sake of our domestic harmony, I have to get those chirps out of my system without bumping into her morning rhythm. Fortunately, we have “The Boys.”

The Peanut Butter Defense

Currently, our kitchen is populated by billeted hockey players. They are the perfect targets. They provide the friction I need to reach my “optimum flow” without waking the dragon — my wife, who is lovely precisely because she hasn’t spoken yet.

Take, for instance, the “Bagel Bandit.” This kid has a specific talent for “nutty perfection.” He’ll smear peanut butter on a bagel and then, as a final flourish, leave a thick glob on the knife before dropping it in the sink. Within minutes, that peanut butter undergoes a chemical bonding process that makes it “dishwasher-proof.”

On a morning when my wife is still on her first cup, I’ll drop a line on the Bandit:

  • “The dishwasher is a machine, son, not a miracle worker. Clean the blade.”
  • “If you lick that knife clean, the dishwasher will thank you for your service.”

The “Agile” boys—the ones with a high hockey IQ—will fire back. The “Slow-Mo” rookies just nod and say, “Okay, next time,” while they internally calculate how many minutes until practice.

The Buffer Zone

There is a method to my madness. My wife knows I like to banter, and as long as I don’t go too hard on the kids, she lets me run my plays. In fact, she’s grateful. By the time she’s ready for conversation, I’ve already burned off my sass on a 19-year-old defenseman.

The boys are the grease that keeps the marriage rolling through the years. When my wife is an “obstacle” to my flow—meaning she just wants to eat her toast in peace—the hockey boys step in to cover the difference.

The Sentiment in the Sarcasm

I’ll admit, the sentimental side of this gets hidden under the layers of trash talk. But it’s there. My wife gets the lion’s share of my heart, and whatever is left over goes to these boys who have become part of our daily chaos.

We had a visitor the other day who mentioned he does the dishes for his billet mom because she’s been ill. I looked at my most “agile” resident and asked if he’d ever consider such a noble act.

He didn’t miss a beat: “Well, if you were gravely ill, I might consider it. But since you’re healthy, I guess I’ll just keep letting you sharpen your wit on my dish-loading skills.”

After he made his comment, we exchanged a glance. We both knew the chirping wasn’t entirely one-sided.

The Long Game

How long will we keep these “billeted victims (their term, not mine)”  around? Only until the grandchildren are old enough to hold their own in a verbal sparring match. I need a house full of relatives with finely honed wits to keep me humble.

Until then, I’ll keep chirping at the boys. It keeps my mind sharp, the sink (mostly) clear, and my 35-year marriage exactly where it needs to be: in a state of graceful, quiet, peanut-butter-free peace.

The Accidental Friday Tradition

The Hockey Boy Breakfast started innocently.

When we were billets (We billet the hockey boys, and we call them “our billets.” They might call us billet parents. Everyone is flexible with the words.) for the Lone Star Brahmas in North Richland Hills, we had four boys staying with us for the season. Feeding four teenage hockey players breakfast on a Friday morning seemed reasonable. Noble, even.

Somewhere between “Sure, you guys can come over” and “Why are there 11 giants in my kitchen?” the ranks swelled.

By mid-season, 8–12 boys would drift in every Friday after their morning skate before a home game. They didn’t knock so much as appear, all six-foot-three in team-issued hoodies with some smaller guys with equal appetites.

And just like that, it became a tradition.

The Menu (We Don’t Cut Corners)

The core lineup has never changed: bacon, pancakes, eggs, and orange juice.

This is not a minimalist operation.

When egg prices briefly required a small business loan, we did not flinch. We accepted a few donations from parents, yes — but corners were not cut. If anything, we leaned in harder.

Time crunch? French toast casserole goes in the oven.

Waffles? Tried it. The logistical gymnastics required to produce enough waffles for a hockey roster was not worth the microscopic increase in joy. Teenage boys are equal-opportunity syrup consumers. Soft pancake, crispy waffle — their gratitude level remains statistically identical.

Whipped cream in a can? Available. Hot sauce for eggs? Upon request.

We are not amateurs.

Stovetop Combat

In the early days, bacon was war.

Two pans on the stove. Sometimes, three if sausage joined the party. Six pounds of bacon. Occasionally more. Cook time: 1.5+ hours with constant monitoring.

The boys would consume nearly all of it with the detached appreciation of men who have never purchased groceries.

What they did not see was the slow accumulation of bacon grease. When you don’t drain it after every batch — because you’re in a hurry and slightly overconfident — it builds. It speeds cooking. It also splatters like it holds a personal grudge against your forearms.

There were casualties. Mostly mine.

The Upgrade

Now that we’re billeting in OKC, I’ve made two major adjustments.

First: thickness. We have graduated from budget grocery bacon to Sam’s Club extra-thick, this-is-a-commitment bacon. We have standards.

Second: the oven.

Two cookie sheets. Parchment paper. 400 degrees. Allegedly 20 minutes. (This is optimistic with thick bacon. I am just quoting my search results.)

Is the timing perfect? No. Is it more predictable than grease artillery fire? Yes. Do the boys care how I cook the bacon? No. Do the boys care how thick the bacon is? They would eat bacon steaks if I could cook them!

All they care about is the smell and the fatty flavor of the thick bacon.

When they walk in after morning skate and the entire house smells like bacon, their mood shifts instantly. You can see it. Hockey intensity melts into something softer. They sit around the table, start loading up, and become calorie-intake machines.

That smell is the real welcome sign.

Why We Keep Doing It

Does it cost time? Yes. Does it cost money? Also yes.

If efficiency were the goal, this tradition would have died in week three.

We do it because these are our billet boys.

Sure, I like to imagine one of them occasionally thinking, “Wow, we’ve got great billet parents.” That might happen.

But let’s be honest. The more likely recruiting pitch is: “Hey guys, my billet parents make this killer thick bacon on Fridays. You should come over.”

And that’s fine with me.

When you feed 10–12 teenage hockey players carbs and protein in your kitchen, something happens. You learn names, personalities, and which one of them will absolutely forget to load their fork in the dishwasher.

And that night at the rink, it changes how you watch.

“Hey, dear — that guy was at our breakfast this morning.”

Suddenly, it’s not just a roster. It’s our boys.

The Warmups (And the Leftovers)

Sometimes there’s an afternoon encore.

When our granddaughter gets dropped off on Friday, pancakes mysteriously appear on her high chair tray. My son-in-law leaves with a plate of protein and carbs because he knows better than to refuse free bacon.

And if there’s an especially heroic amount left over? It gets chopped up for pizza night. Chicken BBQ and meat lovers, no bacon left behind.

What Sticks

Long after the season ends, I have a feeling the boys won’t remember the exact score of some random Friday night home game.

But they might remember the smell of thick-cut bacon when they walked in the door.

And that’s worth every splatter.

The Price of a Name (and a Perk)

I proposed to her on my birthday thirty-five years ago. It was the best gift I ever got, but it also kicked off a season of high-stakes negotiations. Back then—before kids, mortgages, minivans, and the general sense that I should stretch before standing up—we hit the big question: What are we calling ourselves once we’re married?

She was a freshly minted attorney, which meant this wasn’t the old-fashioned “she’ll take your name” layup I thought it might be. I tried logic. I tried the “think of the children” argument. I probably even tried sounding worldly and modern, which I absolutely was not. But attorneys don’t accept logic as payment. They want terms.

So, I started mentally inventorying what I could offer in a trade. She didn’t smoke, so I couldn’t nobly quit smoking. She wasn’t a vegetarian, so I didn’t have to pretend tofu was a personality. But there was one thing she loved with the kind of devotion usually reserved for religion or college football.

Coffee.

She treated coffee like a constitutional right—after dinner, with dessert, on weekends, on weekdays. Meanwhile, I had never intentionally purchased a cup in my life. The only coffee I’d ever choked down was during an in-home sales job when a customer brought me a piece of apple pie and a black coffee. I wanted the sale, so I drank that lukewarm battery acid like it was a dare, praying my stomach wouldn’t stage a coup on the drive home.

During those months of seating charts and cake tastings, I figured coffee might be the ultimate bargaining chip to seal the deal on the name. It turns out there was no real wrinkle at all; she would’ve taken my name without requiring caffeine-based reparations. She just wanted to see me sweat a little.

But here’s the twist: I ended up liking the stuff.

Thirty-five years later, I like it for breakfast with my peanut‑butter bagel. I sometimes like the quiet of an afternoon cup with something sweet. And most of all, I like bringing her morning refills. It feels like one of those tiny, everyday vows you keep long after the wedding is over.

In the end, she got the name, I got a lifelong habit, and we both got the better end of the deal.

The Fridge Commissioner (Revised Season)

My wife is definitely trying to lose weight, and I’m always “open to the idea” myself. That’s the problem with warm-ups — leftovers, for the uninitiated. They’re the enemy of dieting. They sit there in the fridge, looking innocent, but they know exactly what they’re doing. They whisper. They tempt. They multiply.

And because I hate throwing food away, I’m the one who ends up eating them. I haven’t had a protein shake for lunch in over two weeks. Not because I’m committed to a new lifestyle, but because I’m cleaning up “a little of this and a little of that” like a man who’s been drafted into a war he didn’t sign up for.

This is how I became the Fridge Commissioner — the guy who makes the final call on what gets saved, what gets pitched, and what gets eaten out of sheer guilt. It’s not glamorous work. No one thanks you for it. But if the containers start overflowing, I’m the one who has to step in before the fridge becomes a crime scene.

Meanwhile, the hockey boys are still here. They like home-cooked meals, and we like cooking them. The day of preparation is never the issue. It’s everything after that.

In past seasons, the boys helped with warm-ups. They’d eat anything. They were like friendly garbage disposals with good attitudes. And here’s the thing I didn’t realize at the time: an empty fridge meant something. It meant we’d made something worth eating twice. It meant I was good at this.

This year? Different story.

Unless it’s pizza or a particular favorite, the containers just sit there. The boys seem to have more money for eating out than I ever did at their age. They roll in with bags from places I didn’t even know teenagers frequented (Still plenty of Chipotle, too.) . And they shower constantly — ten times a day, by my estimate. If they get up on the wrong side of the bed, that’s apparently grounds for a shower. If they breathe wrong, shower. If they think about showering, shower.

We’re compensated for feeding them and providing water access, but still — the warm-ups remain untouched. Which means I have no idea if Tuesday’s chicken was actually good or just good enough to eat once.

It wasn’t always like this. When our kids were younger, we had a whole system. If we cleaned out a bunch of warm-ups in one night, there was a reward. Empty containers meant progress. Some of the food combinations that ended up in the same bowl should never have been introduced to each other, but it didn’t matter. Dad was happy, the fridge had breathing room, and the kids got Dairy Queen or homemade blizzards. Warm-up bait worked every time.

These methods do not work on hockey players.

The only strategy that works with them — and with my wife dieting — is simple: only make what will be eaten that night. No leftovers. No warm-ups. No fridge archaeology. It does mean that someone wandering downstairs at 9:30 (usually a hockey boy) won’t have many options, but that’s what chicken nuggets and the air fryer are for. They’ll survive.

I’ve also had to accept that I sometimes care about the meal more than they do. Hockey boys don’t always say “great meal” or “thanks for cooking.” They’re not rude about it, they’re just teenagers. But I used to get the feedback anyway. Empty containers were the review. If the warm-ups disappeared, I’d won.

Now I make one meal and move on. No encores. No second-day votes of confidence.

Still… some of our meals make really good warm-ups. And that’s the tragedy of it all.

The Retirement of a Workhorse: A Eulogy in Carnitas

The spices were piled on the pork butt with the jalapenos on top.

Sunday’s lunch was a milestone. Our youngest grandchild was dedicated at church—and while she is currently our only grandchild, we speak of her in terms that suggest a full basketball team is waiting on the bench for the coach to send them in. My daughter and son-in-law were surrounded by family, and the day felt appropriately momentous.

My wife had volunteered to host the meal, and we eventually settled on our signature carnitas. It’s a “start it the night before” kind of meal, which is much kinder to the nerves than trying to crank out chicken on a grill after church. I even snapped a photo of the full crockpot for the family cookbook I’m assembling, blissfully unaware it would be the machine’s final portrait.

The Last Supper (Lunch really, but “supper” sounds more foreboding)

The meal was a triumph. Eleven of us (counting the guest of honor) kept the conversation lively while a significant portion of the carnitas disappeared.

The Great Escape

As the party wound down and the cleanup began, the grace extended to our seasoned crockpot was forgotten. The front panel sticker—the one that actually tells you what the buttons do—finally gave up the ghost and peeled off.

But the real issue wasn’t aesthetic. My wife discovered a pool of carnitas broth on the floor when we got up in the morning. This pork shoulder had more fat than usual, and as it rendered overnight, the broth level rose. The lid no longer sealed tight against the pot. Once the liquid peaked past the dome, the leak allowed the brothy contents to escape.

To the Picnic in the Sky

This crockpot had served us for at least sixteen years. We brought it from Ohio. It outlasted its predecessor, which met its end when I dropped a frozen pork loin into it and cracked the crock clean in two.

Fate—or perhaps a premonition—had intervened a week earlier when we spotted a deal on a slightly larger model at Sam’s Club. With a successor already waiting in the wings, we sent the old crockpot to that great church picnic in the sky.

No gold watch. Just gratitude for sixteen years of carnitas.

The Ellie Effect

Being a grandpa to a granddaughter who’s still measured in months is not a role for anyone who enjoys a slow pace. Ellie is almost nine months old, and she’s developing so fast that last month’s toys are basically wall décor. Her mind is making these huge leaps, and the adults in the house are scrambling to keep everything one step safer than it was yesterday. We never know when the next mental or physical jump is coming, only that it’s coming sooner than we think.

Right in the middle of our living/playroom sits a table that has become Ellie’s personal stage. It’s the perfect height for a pre‑walker with ambition. She’ll grab a hand, a toy, or just her own determination to hoist herself upright. Once she’s standing, her eyes sweep the surface like she’s conducting a security inspection. What can I reach? What belongs to me now? Does that orange thing look like it might taste good?

I used to think she was studying the objects. Now I know she’s studying us. She’s calculating whether she needs to stretch a little farther — and whether we’ll stop her before she claims something she shouldn’t.

For the past few weeks, my wife and I played a ridiculous game of “table shuffle.” Candles, screwdrivers, pens, coasters — anything remotely interesting or dangerous — got nudged from one side of the table to the other depending on where Ellie approached. We convinced ourselves this was a strategy. Really, it was two adults procrastinating while a baby outsmarted us.

Eventually, we surrendered. The table was cleared. A clean slate. A blank canvas for Ellie’s daily experiments. Every morning when she arrives — and I’m with her 25 to 30 hours a week, so I’ve seen this show plenty — we scatter her growing collection of pre‑toddler toys across the surface. Her eyes light up as her fingers make contact with whatever object she has decided she must possess. It’s her stage, and we’re the stage crew.

But the table era won’t last forever. I got a preview of the next chapter the other day. I was helping her walk — hands in mine, feet doing that determined little stomp — when she stopped at the bottom of the stairs. She planted her feet, put her hands on the first step, and looked all the way to the top like she was sizing up a mountain she fully intended to climb.

That’s when I realized it: the Ellie Effect isn’t slowing down. As she gets stronger and braver, the house will get safer for her and a little less convenient for the rest of us. And honestly, that’s fine. She’s not going to savor this moment for long, and neither should I. She’s training for her next adventure. I’m just lucky enough to have a front‑row seat.

Big Bones and the BMI That Never Stood a Chance

My mother always had an explanation ready for why I never fit the BMI chart. She didn’t need science or statistics — she had something better: maternal confidence. She’d look at me, shrug like it was the most obvious thing in the world, and say, “You just have big bones.”

That was her entire medical opinion. No copay required.

And honestly, she wasn’t wrong about the spirit of it. I’ve never fit the chart. Not as a kid in a small Christian school where the gene pool was basically a puddle. Not in the country high school where the puddle got wider but not deeper. Not even after Basic Training, when I briefly achieved the closest thing to “normal” the BMI would ever allow.

My job growing up was simple: be big, look athletic enough, and protect my brain from whatever forces were trying to keep it from reaching its potential. After Basic Training, the weight came back like it had been waiting in the car the whole time. It’s been remarkably consistent ever since. My clothes from years ago still fit. My doctors have stopped giving me the “you should lose some weight” speech. At this point, my body is about as predictable as my electric bill or my bedtime.

Somewhere along the way, I realized that not fitting the chart doesn’t mean something is wrong with you. Sometimes the chart just wasn’t designed with you in mind. Sometimes the chart is wrong. Sometimes the chart needs to mind its own business.

Everyone has something that knocks them out of the norm. Mine just happens to be visible on a scale. Yours might be hiding in your personality, your habits, or that one hobby you don’t tell people about until you know them well enough.

These days, my attempts to lose weight fall into the “sure, why not” category. Occasionally I even “sympathy diet” with my wife when she decides she likes food more than me — which isn’t true, but chocolate is a close second. Mostly, though, I’ve learned to lean into the areas where I can be judged on merit instead of metrics created to make everyone feel like they’re supposed to fit into the same box.

I’m not my BMI. I’m not my weight. I’m not even my mother’s “big bones,” though I’ll admit the line has aged surprisingly well.

So no, I don’t fit the chart. I probably never will. But the chart never really knew what to do with me anyway.

Hockey Boy Broth

When we moved to Oklahoma to be near our soon‑to‑arrive granddaughter, we bought a house with space for a backyard hot tub. A few months later: hot tub, pergola, grill, generator — the full “we can survive anything but a direct tornado hit” package. Part of the deal was that my wife would handle the chemicals. This was a great plan until it wasn’t.

Somewhere between the third and fifteenth water test at the pool store, I became the reluctant caretaker of the tub. Over time, I learned enough to keep the water clear and the employees from greeting me by name. I even became a semi‑competent “hot‑tub whisperer,” spraying filters, checking levels, and pretending I knew what alkalinity actually meant. My wife and I enjoyed the tub a few nights a week, letting the jets work on our aging joints. The jets are its whole personality.

Then the hockey boys arrived.

They live with us during the season — not our kids, but “our kids” for those months — and they discovered the hot tub like explorers stumbling upon a natural spring. They didn’t use it constantly, but when they did, they treated it like a giant, silent crockpot. No jets. No circulation. Just two teenage athletes sitting motionless in 104‑degree water, marinating like slow‑cooking briskets.

I tried to explain — gently at first, then with the passion of a man who has seen too many water‑testing printouts — that the jets are not optional. The jets keep the nasties moving. The jets are the sanitation system. The jets are the difference between “spa” and “soup.”

They nodded politely and continued soaking in contemplative silence, scrolling through hockey reels, texting, singing, or simply existing in the tub like two large dumplings. If I’m lucky, I might get thirty seconds of jet activity before they settle back into their preferred mode: simmer.

And that’s when it hit me. Chicken broth. Beef broth. Vegetable broth—all available at Walmart. Human broth? Not on the shelves for a reason. Yet here I am, steward of the simmering teenage stock, responsible for skimming the surface and restoring balance to the backyard cauldron.

Still, as much as I complain — and as much as my wife wishes I’d complain less — I’m glad they’re here. Their presence breaks up the quiet, gives the house a pulse, and reminds us that life is more than routines and chemical levels. I’d rather manage the broth from the hockey boys who live with us for the season than from strangers we don’t love.

So I sigh. Then I smile. Then I go check the chlorine.