Life

The Protein Policeman

Sunday night was the first dinner Judy and I had with our hockey boy. He had gotten back from Minnesota by bus before sunrise and helped our other hockey player, who was leaving Sunday, pack a few things before going to bed. When he woke up, he woke in a house that had only one hockey billet living in it—the guy he saw in the mirror.

He talked to us about the previous week of hockey life before meeting one of the other players for breakfast. The team had lost all three games at the Showcase. He claimed the somewhat lopsided scores weren’t the result of the goalies. They were the result of defensemen who had lost their first love. They prefer offense to defense.

I was a little nervous about the responsibility that had been handed to me for dinner. I marinated the chicken like I always do. The remaining hockey boy was the one with the pork allergy, which meant this wasn’t just a matter of putting dinner on the table. Now I had a small food-safety operation involving a teenager, a grill and my reputation as a competent adult.

I had already sprayed a couple of types of oven cleaner on the cooking grates. I scraped and scrubbed them, trying to remove every memory the grates had ever had of touching a sausage or a rack of ribs. I heated the grill to “really hot” a couple of times to cook off anything that might still be left on the grates. At that point, I was pretty sure the grill was cleaner than most surgical equipment.

And beyond all that, it would make me physically sick if something I fed him caused a reaction. I didn’t want to be the guy who sent our hockey player upstairs for the evening because Dad couldn’t properly decontaminate a grill.

After 5:00, Judy put the smashed potatoes into the oven to bake. The potatoes had already been boiled, so they would crisp up nicely. Paprika, onion and garlic powder, salt and pepper made these things almost good enough to eat without ketchup. Judy and the hockey boy seem to think Chick-fil-A sauce makes them even better.

The roasted broccoli isn’t incredible, but it does round out the textures the meal offers.

In parallel with everything else, Judy threw together some dough for cinnamon rolls. It quickly became clear she had done something to spank the yeast a little too hard. She gave the dough some more yeast vitamins and hoped she could salvage them. One tray would be for the “three of us.” Until we get another hockey boy, that’s what we are. The other tray would be for the family that had just had twins—aka my daughter’s family.

Shortly after 6:00, we sat down for dinner. I had some reservations about saying a Christian prayer with our Jewish hockey boy. Yes, the pork allergy does add a certain level of irony to that sentence. But Judy showed no hesitation, and we prayed.

As he ate his first plate, I kept waiting for him to spasm and fall off his chair. Then he had a second piece of chicken. Then a third. He let me know that any ill effects would take a little time to show up, which was exactly the kind of information I wanted to hear while eating dinner.

I attempted to enjoy my meal while still dealing with taste buds whose sensitivity had been dialed back to almost COVID-like levels. Would I pass this test? Would his mom come down hard on me if I fed him something that took him off his game? After dinner, he grabbed a couple of waters and headed upstairs. He’d let me know how he was doing when he came back down.

That was reassuring.

Sort of.

After Judy’s transformation back into her normal self while the “dish fairy” cleaned up the kitchen a few days ago, the dishes were piling up again. We put the leftovers we actually observed into appropriate containers and put them into the refrigerator. It appeared the dirty dishes would get at least another day to thrive while minimizing the amount of usable space on our counters.

While our hockey boy watched football, played video games or talked to important people in his life, including his hockey advisor, Judy coaxed the reluctant cinnamon rolls into a fluffy enough form that they should bake up okay. She covered them with cream cheese icing, which made whatever yeast trauma they had experienced earlier largely irrelevant.

They were good, and our hockey boy even decided they were worth the calories. He also let me know I hadn’t served him any flawed chicken. The pork cooties from the grill had been successfully purged, and I was free from guilt.

At least where the chicken was concerned.

After watching our show—we’re in Season 5 of Modern Family—we went to bed and read for a while. At some point, we heard noise in the kitchen that involved the microwave. Was chicken being heated up? Was another cinnamon roll being consumed? Was he eating something else?

At least one of those questions had to be answered “yes.”

I didn’t think much more about it until morning.

I started the coffee and inventoried the cinnamon rolls. No obituaries were necessary.

Then I thought about the chicken.

I looked in the refrigerator and didn’t see the chicken pan. I looked around the kitchen, wondering where that pan might have ended up. Of course, it was at the bottom of the stack of last night’s dishes.

And the chicken was still in it.

It had been sitting there the whole time.

For more than twelve hours, my carefully prepared, grill-decontaminated, pork-free chicken had been conducting a completely different food-safety experiment.

If we’d caught it before bed, we might have salvaged it. At that point, though, the difficult but correct move was to throw it away.

I tried to express my frustration to Judy without pointing fingers. Ultimately, we share the kitchen, so I deserve as much blame as she does. The bigger downer, at least from my perspective, was that I had spent all that time preparing and cooking the chicken. I had already factored it into the meal plans for the rest of the week.

Fried rice? Barbecue chicken pizza? Rice bowls?

All of those plans would now have to be rejiggered around the chicken that no longer existed.

Darn.

Just because we’re old and have accumulated a little wisdom doesn’t mean we’re always wise. Sometimes we assume the other person has something handled because, in our heads, of course they do. A simple question can prevent twelve hours of perfectly good chicken from becoming garbage.

And if you’re afraid of being considered a whiny nag, there’s a choice to make. Would you rather take the grilled chicken you labored over to the trash can with your tail between your legs, or get a little pushback from your wife because you asked whether somebody put it away?

Maybe this is the reminder I needed to take my role as the resident protein policeman more seriously.

I just need to figure out what hat a protein policeman wears.

The Great Stone Heist

A few weeks ago, I stumbled across the sales guy for our subdivision—the guy who “lives” in the model home. We hadn’t seen each other in a while, so we had a few things to catch up on. I needled him about whether the stuff he was throwing into the dumpster from the back of his truck was all work-related or whether he had snuck some junk from home into the truck purge. He admitted there may have been a little of both.

Whether the guilt was the reason he told me about a pallet of free stone sitting on the corner or whether it was just friendship, I didn’t think I was a candidate to use any of it. We did our typical fist bump and headed our separate ways—me on foot and him in his truck.

I mentioned the stone to my son as a possible landscaping option, but he couldn’t figure out how to use it either. Then I realized there might actually be a project for me. With almost no rain over the past few months, I had nearly forgotten about my ongoing “mulch sliding into the street” problem around our newly planted tree. I was confident it would eventually rain again, because apparently God has a sense of humor when it comes to landscaping.

I picked through the pile and found some ugly stones along with a bunch that were a pretty consistent thickness. I was still a little timid about reacquiring my old “stone whisperer” skills, so I went to Home Depot for a few supplies. Up to this point, the project had cost me exactly $0.

I needed gravel, topsoil and a stone hammer. The first two were easy. The hammer was more complicated. I looked through their entire inventory of hammers, searching for something with a square striking head and a backside that looked like a normal hammer, except without the part designed to pull nails. I wanted something solid that could chip a stone if reshaping became necessary.

Their selection was inadequate, but I found one that offered a few advantages over the hammers I already owned. And honestly, since the project was still practically free, the hammer was going to be my trophy of accomplishment.

At checkout, I mentioned the project to the clerk. He showed me where I could order the proper stone hammer through the service desk and handed me his business card. He later explained that he wasn’t blatantly soliciting customers for his side business while on the Home Depot clock, but he wasn’t opposed to it if the situation could be justified.

I admired the entrepreneurial spirit.

With the supplies in my trunk and my new hammer arriving by UPS the next day, I could see the project coming together.

Because I was still a little timid about my stonework, I texted the Home Depot guy about helping me. He had told me he was a stone mason, and I figured if I was going to do this, I might as well have someone around who actually knew what he was doing. I also mentioned the “stone stash” that would be his for the picking.

He came over the next day and said he could easily help. I offered to ride with him to the pile, but the pictures I had sent him apparently gave him enough confidence to find it himself.

Everything was fine until I got the text a few minutes later.

The supervisor had spotted him picking through the stones and thought he was some guy trying to scrounge free material without authorization.

Technically, he was.

He just had a better story.

I sent a few texts to my subdivision sales guy—the same guy who had originally told me about the stone—and got the situation cleaned up. It turned out nobody cared who took the stone. They just wanted the stone to disappear.

So the great stone heist was really just a communication problem.

This morning, my stone mason showed up promptly at 9:30. I had done some pre-work. I pulled back the weed mat and made sure the stones I had already hauled home were visible. Comparing the thickness of one stone to another was important, which was exactly the kind of highly technical responsibility I was hoping to avoid.

Our first goal was getting the wall about four inches above the curb. Once we established that height, we put the thickest stones on the bottom. That required some digging to get everything level, although the trick was not digging any deeper than necessary.

Once the foundation was established, we started on the cap—the top course of the wall. The stone mason ran his hand over the stones, feeling for changes in thickness. I pulled out my long level, because apparently I still had something to contribute.

The biggest challenge was keeping the cracks from lining up. The stones needed to overlap like Legos, with each piece connected to two or more others. That way, the wall gets stronger as it goes up instead of becoming a very expensive pile of rocks.

The final product wasn’t perfect, but considering my trophy hammer was the most expensive part of the project, I was happy.

My stone mason gave me a quote on replacing the plastic retaining wall in my flower beds. Then I went with him to pick a few more stones while providing cover from any supervisors who might need to boost their egos. Eventually, he headed out.

I cleaned up the area and made my wife put her shoes on so I could brag about the job we had done.

In my younger years, I would happily spend a few days doing a project that someone else could have completed in a few hours. Those days are behind me. I’m now perfectly happy to pay someone a fair wage to help preserve two things: my body and my self-esteem.

Preserving my body is obvious. The self-esteem part is a little more complicated. My wife has strong opinions about how certain things around the house should be done. I haven’t mowed the grass myself in years, and I have discovered that outsourcing a job comes with a valuable side benefit. If I don’t build the stone wall, any criticism Judy may have about the wall doesn’t stick to me. “Boy, I wish he had done a better job,” I can say, and suddenly, I’m on the same team.

I’m not afraid of the work. I’ve simply reached an age where I appreciate the strategic value of having someone else hold the hammer when the final inspection takes place. A good contractor saves you time. A great contractor gives you someone to blame.

A scapegoat for hire is a cheap version of marital bliss.

Yes, you can quote me on that one.

The Plans Could Wait

As my daughter and the twins prepared to spend their first night together outside of a hospital, my daughter’s body was remembering that it was no longer pregnant. Her body was rushing back toward its original configuration, and she realized it would be helpful to have a support parent nearby, just in case. Judy also fulfilled an earlier request from our daughter by delivering a French toast casserole for breakfast. Evidently, postpartum support now comes with catering.

When Judy returned around 8:30 in the morning, she wasn’t alone. Ellie was with her. I had been given a few days off from grandpa duty, so I was mentally prepared to give up whatever part of my day was necessary to keep her entertained. After our usual clementines, with the optional dried mango, I was ready to reacquaint myself with my granddaughter. The plans I had for the day were only marginally important anyway. The next few hours were a blur.

We walked to a different, more toddler-friendly playground about a mile from the house. Ellie was a little timid at first, but she eventually dove in. The slide was better than our usual one, and the tunnel was perfect for a game where Grandpa reached through one opening while Ellie crawled toward another. This qualified as premium entertainment. We wandered around the open area near the park, where one of Ellie’s favorite words, “doggie,” quickly became relevant. We found a dog in the backyard of one of the houses. He looked old, and I was initially concerned about his temperament. Then I noticed he had three legs. He didn’t look threatening, and he certainly wasn’t a threat, but we still had to return to that yard several times so Ellie could announce “doggie” to the appropriate recipient.

The playground also contained a pair of socks and shoes that appeared to belong to the same person. There was a small water playground nearby, but the water had been turned off for more than a couple of weeks. I have no idea how someone could leave their shoes there for that long without realizing they were missing. I know Ellie wouldn’t. The mile home was a different story. Ellie was ready to be home shortly after we left, which meant Grandpa eventually carried her for a significant portion of the trip. When she was walking, however, she was busy collecting weed samples from the yards along the sidewalk and dropping them into the storage compartment underneath the stroller. Eventually, she realized she would have to run tests on all of these samples and had failed to document where each one came from. The scientific process demanded that she throw them out.

She was more successful with some of her field research. At one house, she insisted on completely denuding a birch tree of its bark from about her shoulder height to her knees. She peeled off each piece, scrunched it in her hands, and moved on to the next piece. There was a “For Sale” sign in the yard, and I don’t think I saw any cameras capturing my discomfort. If this had been my child, I would have bolted her into the stroller, smiled through the screams, and kept moving. I am, however, a grandfather. Grandfatherhood has given me a remarkable ability to redefine questionable behavior as “a learning experience.”

Even dogs that showed no particular interest in participating from the other side of the street were awarded the title of “doggie.” I had to keep Ellie from hopping the curb and attempting to catch them and give them a hug. The dog walkers generally understood the situation and kept their doggies moving. The “Grandpa-carrying” portion of the walk introduced another concept: touching trees that hang over the sidewalk. Ellie saw no meaningful distinction between those trees and the trees that required Grandpa to walk across the brown stuff formerly known as grass. Grandpa won that battle, barely.

We share water on most walks. I tolerate a higher degree of floaties and crusties on my straw than many people would find acceptable. Ellie especially likes it when I drink a small Gatorade and leave a little in the bottom. I fully tighten the lid, then back it off just enough that she can unscrew it herself. She then buries the mouth of the bottle in her mouth and works diligently to extract every molecule of flavor remaining. This is one of the privileges of being a granddaughter.

Lunch was spaghetti, and its journey from plate to mouth was not especially efficient. Her clothes provided the clearest evidence. The bib captured what it could, but the fork-and-fist feeding techniques still have some limitations. The backup plan of peanut butter and toast also experienced some logistical challenges. When Ellie finally went down for her nap, I ran to the store for a couple of things we needed for dinner.

At WinCo, I ran into someone buying what appeared to be every bulk bay leaf in the store. “We live in the country,” she explained. “Our neighbor likes to make curry, so she always has us buy them when we come to WinCo.” There was obviously a reciprocal agreement involved, but I didn’t dig into it. Some relationships are best left to the bay leaves.

At Sam’s, I needed two bundles of flowers. Pink roses for our daughter and a nice arrangement for Judy. The woman handing out chip samples next to the flowers wasn’t having much luck. “I’m not moving any chips, so I might as well help you out.” She proceeded to help me pick out both flower bundles. She also showed me that there are bags on the side of the flower station to cover the bottoms of the stems. I have purchased flowers for decades and had somehow missed this entire system. I scanned everything with the app and checked out. I also avoided the chip samples. There are some sacrifices a man must make.

I wasn’t home for long before Ellie wailed. She had been talking to herself before I left, so I have no idea how long she actually slept. My attempt to watch our hockey boys play the Cow Punchers in Minnesota didn’t get very far. It wasn’t quite snack time, but Ellie had reviewed the schedule and decided it was. With Judy gone to take our son and daughter-in-law to the airport for their long journey to India, and me trying to keep a toddler entertained until her parents returned from doing “new baby” things, I didn’t make much progress on the dinner I was preparing for them.

Eventually, Judy returned, and everyone else left. I started prepping onions and stew meat for what I eventually called “Hungarian Beef Fajitas Pasta.” It isn’t the real name. It just seemed to best describe whatever combination of ingredients ended up in our bowls. Judy looked at the pile of dirty dishes and temporarily transformed into her alternate form: Dish Fairy. I’m not a Pokémon person, but the description seemed appropriate.

Between now and whenever our daughter’s life settles into some sort of manageable rhythm, Judy and I are going to be a couple of the lackeys who help make that possible. It isn’t exactly the vision I had for retirement, but I wouldn’t choose any other path. I get to attempt mind melds with my granddaughter. I get to watch two tiny babies begin their lives. I get to see our daughter figure out what it means to be a mother of three while knowing she doesn’t have to figure it out alone.

I’m learning that being involved isn’t a scheduled activity. There isn’t always an appointment on the calendar or a defined block of time where Grandpa is officially on duty. Sometimes it’s a casserole. Sometimes it’s flowers. Sometimes it’s carrying a tired toddler home while she collects weeds for a scientific study she will never complete. Sometimes it’s just being there.

I’m still working on the flexibility part of this retirement thing, especially when it involves putting my own plans aside. But there are worse things to learn how to do.

And right now, I’m in a pretty happy place.

Two More Players

Yesterday, I had no babysitting duties and no expectations to spend time with my pregnant daughter. It was the big day. Those creatures she had been supporting for a few months were finally going to come out, breathe their own air, and circulate their own blood. Her headaches, swollen legs, and all the other things I had heard about secondhand would either disappear forever or eventually convince her that her house needed more humans to love.

This left me with a rare set of circumstances. How was I going to spend a long day without something involving my family? Of course, Judy is family, but she is a big girl and can take care of herself. After the morning routine, where I refill her coffee a couple of times, she puts on her headset and goes into work mode for most of the day. Until dinner, I am only slightly more important than a piece of furniture.

Grandpa 2.0 was planning a more relaxed introduction to the new additions. I was excited to meet them, but with our first grandchild, we may have been a little closer to the smothering end of the spectrum. This time, we were more chill. We had been doing the “old, but still nimble enough” routine for a few months, and we knew our daughter had a much better grasp on parenting than we did when we first became grandparents. She was going to be locked into full-on mom mode. Beyond some tag-teaming of Ellie and a few nights when Momma Judy would stay over to help get the babies on a schedule, my role would remain at home with the hockey boys. I had my own small population to manage.

So, what did I do with this rare free day?

I did one really dumb thing.

My email is hosted at Google, and I decided I would play IT guru and clean up a few things. My email was working fine, but Google suggested a couple of tweaks that would supposedly make things better. After dipping my toes in the water and not breaking anything, I dove in. The result was that my usual ton of slightly-better-than-spam emails became almost nonexistent. The actual spam dried up, too. The only emails making it through were being forwarded from my Yahoo account.

I don’t need spam emails to feel popular, and I don’t need much of my regular email either. With all my bills on autopay, I can go days without an important email. So, while I am a little mad at myself, I suppose I have given myself the gift of not having to create new rules for the new breed of incoming emails or spend time deleting them. I will take the gift and thank myself.

You’re welcome.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw the guy who “lives” in the model home in our subdivision. With all the new construction going on, he told me about a pallet of rock that was free for the taking. I noodled on it for a while but couldn’t think of anything I could use it for. Then I noticed the tree near our mailbox was living with a ridiculous grade between the sidewalk and the street.

Obviously, the solution was free rocks.

I made two trips to gather enough stones to try to build a little stone wall around the tree. Many of the rocks were ugly, misshapen things, but as I dug through the pile, I found some pretty good ones on the bottom. Nothing worthy of its own photo shoot, but if I can pull this off, the tree should be happier. I also won’t have to buy any more “mulch glue” to keep the mulch from being sucked into the street. If the whole idea goes wrong, my biggest problem will be figuring out what to do with all the rocks I gathered. They’re pretty heavy, so it could become a multi-week project of selectively dropping them into the rolling trash bin. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

Since the hockey boys had blown us off for sushi the night before, and Judy and I don’t love garlic bread quite as much as they do, we didn’t bother making it for our Italian meal Sunday night. That didn’t mean it couldn’t become French toast. Judy cut the leftover bread in half and set me up with eight slices, which would get me through two meals. There was still some leftovers from Sunday, so Judy ate that.

We like breakfast for dinner. It just doesn’t make for much conversation. When two people are eating different things with limited options, you can’t say, “Give me another small serving of watermelon,” or whatever else might fill that little empty space in your belly. The plates were cleared, Judy headed to her bike for a few laps around the neighborhood, and I put my AirPods in and listened to my book while doing what I hope was the last watering of the year. I’m happy the heat is gone. I’m also really tired of watering every other day.

At some point during the day, one of our brief interactions produced the question, “I’m really hungry for some custard. What do you think?” Judy didn’t disagree, so I pulled up a recipe that has appeared on my Facebook feed approximately seventeen thousand times. While I finished watering and she got back from her bike ride, she jumped in and made it. After it went into the oven for 55 minutes with a water bath, we climbed into the hot tub. After the hot tub, we had time to start watching our shows before we even had the custard. Did we already watch the second season of The Pitt? Darn. I was looking forward to that.

We eventually ate the custard.

We both had seconds.

It was a pretty normal evening.

Except that somewhere in the middle of all this very important business, we were tracking the progress of our daughter delivering twins. We had been getting updates by text. Pitocin. Epidural. A trip to the OR. More waiting. More texts. We didn’t know exactly how things were going, but we knew enough to know that things were moving.

And then they were here.

Two healthy baby girls.

Our daughter didn’t need a C-section.

Just like that, the most spectacular thing happening in our family was unfolding while I was fixing email, collecting rocks, eating French toast, watering plants, making custard, and watching TV.

I’ll take a month of boring. I’ll take a year. I’ll take years where nothing particularly exciting happens and still call myself fortunate if days like this occasionally show up.

At our age, things happen. We don’t sweat every detail. Our kids are adults now. We get to cheer for them and give honest answers when they ask. We get to watch them navigate their own lives without feeling like we have to jump into every problem and solve it for them.

Before the kids were adults, one of my fears was, “What if something happens to my wife or me?” Now they’re out of the house, building families, solving adult problems, and occasionally making us grandparents twice over in a single evening.

We get to cheer. We get to compliment them when they handle something well. If they have a rough time, we can ask, “What did you learn? What would you do differently if something like that happens again?” We get to meet them wherever they are.

If we did our job well, maybe that’s what this stage of parenting is supposed to look like. Less hands-on, more coaching. We get to watch our kids use the skills they learned while they were living under our roof and hope they realize we weren’t completely clueless.

And if one of the benefits of being a coach is getting to interact with the second team, I’m pretty excited about my new roster.

Two more players.

I can’t wait to meet them.

Monday Had Other Ideas

Monday started like it normally does. Well, not completely normal. As the sun rises later, my requests for blackout curtains become less of an issue. Sleeping past 7:00 is something I take full advantage of this time of year. If daylight saving time ever gets the boot like my married son wants, I don’t care to know what that will do to my sleep. I’m already lucky if Judy wakes up before me and makes the coffee once a week. Breakfast lately has been homemade bagels, thanks to Judy’s new hobby. They aren’t perfect, but they’re getting there. Some could rise a little more. We’re also still figuring out whether freshly ground flour, which requires the flour mill that was part of the hobby, plays by the same rules as regular flour. Yesterday’s experiment was cinnamon bagels. So far, nobody has been hospitalized.

At 9:00, I had my regularly scheduled meeting with a friend in Asia. He listens to me overtalk, and I try to ask questions that help him with his English. He thinks he’s getting the better end of the deal, but I genuinely enjoy our conversations. He knows all about our hockey players, the Oklahoma heat, and the upcoming babies. I know about his son’s health challenges, his mom’s gardening, and life as a college professor. We talk about spiritual things, too, but we could easily fill an hour with random questions and whatever happens to be going on that week. It’s an hour well spent.

After that, I was surprised when my daughter wanted to hang out with Dad/Grandpa for a few hours. This was supposed to be the day she was induced, and she was ready to get those babies out of her belly. She had skipped church the day before because, according to her, she had an overwhelming desire to have them born. She stopped for coffee on the way over and announced that she had now carried the twins longer than she carried her first child. If Ellie were a casserole, she seemed to be baked just fine. Our plan was simple: pick up a few groceries so we could feed the hockey boys before they left for the showcase in Blaine, Minnesota.

The Walmart trip went pretty smoothly, other than deciding whether Ellie wanted to push the cart from the bottom rack or be carried. The part that nearly brought me to violence was installing the “I am not a baby anymore” car seat in the back seat. Between the cumbersome seat and the retracting seat belt, it took me nearly ten minutes to get it attached to my daughter’s standards. There are moments when you realize parenthood doesn’t end. It just eventually involves more complicated car seats.

When we got home, my daughter informed me that she had basically nothing to eat at her house. “Surely you have more food here than we do,” she said. With church people planning to provide meals after the babies arrive and regular donations available from our kitchen, she had wisely left room for the coming food influx. Her cupboards had become a nutritional wasteland by design.

Ellie happily took care of the mashed potatoes, corn, and watermelon. My daughter helped eliminate some of the leftovers the boys had brought home from restaurants and never eaten. We had chicken, steak, and some good roasted carrots. I even patted myself on the back for clearing enough containers out of the refrigerator to create the possibility of cooking something new. I confirmed that my son and daughter-in-law had received their invitation to dinner and started looking forward to making some fresh leftovers.

That lasted about five minutes.

The hockey boys texted to say they were going out for sushi with another player. Suddenly, dinner depended entirely on whether our son was coming over. Eventually, his text arrived. We had someone to cook for.

For dinner, I was primarily the sous chef. I chopped the broccoli so it would roast properly. Sam’s has stopped carrying the bags of broccoli that used to cost around $4, and now the quality has gone down while the price has headed toward $6. I’m not sure what corporate executive decided that was a good trade, but I assume he doesn’t eat broccoli. Since Judy has officially designated me “The Meat Trimmer,” I prepped the chicken breasts for their Shake ’n Bake treatment. She handled the eggplant Parmesan. The rest of us enjoyed it. She did not seem particularly interested in joining us on that opinion. I also picked basil from our volunteer plant out back, and Judy pulled together my favorite pasta to finish the meal.

Even without the hockey boys, our son brought his appetite. There was a little pasta left, but everything else was within one meal of disappearing. We caught up over dinner, and I got the update that their trip wasn’t canceled, just delayed until the paperwork and travel schedule cooperate.

Meanwhile, after numerous questions about my daughter’s Monday night trip to the hospital, my repeated text response of “She’s getting induced tonight” became an innocent lie. It turns out there was a rush on delivering babies before fall arrives. There were no beds.

So much for the scheduled induction.

A scheduled induction is a great idea in theory. In practice, the hospital gets to schedule the schedule. I let everyone know the arrival would be postponed about 12 hours, give or take. Really, the babies will arrive whenever they decide the accommodations are acceptable.

Before bed, we got our final updates from the boys. Of course, the $400 sushi dinner was the best sushi they had ever had. Our age-out boy informed us that the peptides he had wouldn’t get him through Sunday, so he would have to reduce the daily dose a little until he returned. The other boy, who had been concerned about his playing time, let us know that he had talked to the coach and was told that if he still felt the same way in a couple of weeks, they would work through it. We mixed in some encouragement and affirmation, knowing we wouldn’t be up to see them off before they left at 7:00 the next morning.

A little chaos mixed with a little resolution. That seems to be how life works when you live close to some of your adult children and invite a few extra adults-in-training into your life. We pause our shows for updates. We adjust our viewing expectations. We listen to what they’re thinking and occasionally discover that their problems have become our problems simply because they happened to mention them in the kitchen.

Every once in a while, I find myself wondering, “Is this what we signed up for?”

Then I remember the alternative.

Nothing happening. Nobody needing anything. No car seats to fight, no hockey players to feed, no babies refusing to follow the hospital schedule, no refrigerator full of mystery containers, and no reason to pause the show because somebody just walked through the door with an update.

Boring may be somewhere in my future. I’m just not in any hurry to meet it.

I’d rather be disappointed that I didn’t get everything done than pleased with myself because I never left anything on the To-Do list.

Yeah.

I agree with that most of the time.

The First Weekend

The weekend’s hockey adventures turned out pretty well. The boys were on the ice, and despite a few penalties and the obligatory complaints about “the worst referees ever,” they came away with two wins. We also moved our seats about three spaces to the left from last year. We still have a blind spot on the ice, but our new position is virtually puck-proof. I consider that a successful relocation. So, after the first weekend, what do I want to remember?

As we were walking in from the parking lot, we bumped into a “hockey friend” who sat near us last season. I don’t think his tickets were actually near us, but he seems to share my appreciation for a good puck-proof seating arrangement. He had his four-year-old son with him. He had also grown out his hair and gotten a perm. I usually turn off my biometric identification skills on the weekend, so it took me a couple of minutes to figure out who he was and remember his name. His son had come to a few games last season, too, but he wasn’t talking then. Our friend brought him up to our seats, and he sat next to Judy. After we talked for a while, Judy decided I should move over so I wouldn’t have to talk through her. We continued talking, but his son kept asking, “Can I sit by your mom again?” That got a chuckle. Not a big laugh. Just enough to acknowledge that I had somehow become Judy’s child.

The breakfast club from Friday morning also had some success on the ice. I know the bacon had nothing to do with it, but maybe the pancakes with mini chocolate chips did. Of the seven players who attended breakfast, seven of the team’s nine goals over the weekend came from those who were there. With that kind of statistical evidence, I suspect the superstitious players will not allow me to discontinue the breakfast tradition. I may have accidentally created a responsibility for myself.

There was also a little confusion through text when we were trying to meet our new hockey boy’s parents. Eventually, we connected with them during the intermission between the first and second periods. Because we’re trying to be careful with pork products, they told us about a local restaurant that wasn’t quite as careful. They had ordered him calamari and cannoli. The calamari had been fried in the same oil as some pork products, and the cannoli contained gelatin with some pig-derived ingredients. Fortunately, everything worked out. The lesson Judy and I took away was simple: when it comes to feeding this one, err on the side of caution. His parents attend a lot of his games, so we’ll be seeing them throughout the season. I’m sure we’ll eventually get the food thing figured out, preferably before I accidentally serve him something that requires a family meeting.

While we were talking with them, the “official residents” of the seats to my right decided they were feeling crowded. They either shoved or gently pushed our seat cushions to the left. There was plenty of room, so it wasn’t really a problem. The problem was that I am a rule follower. My ticket tells me where my seat is. I like sitting where my ticket tells me to sit. There is a certain comfort in knowing that the seat cushion beneath me has been legally assigned to me. Judy reminded me that this was a small issue and one I could afford to “let go.” In theory, that is what I did. I moved the cushion and continued watching the game. I said nothing. I caused no scene. Internally, however, I may have opened a small investigation.

Hockey games qualify for the national anthem, and sometimes we get Jimi Hendrix’s version. Sometimes we get local “talent” singing it. Both games this weekend were just music. Judy and I did our best to provide a low-volume duet for the people around us. I don’t believe I heard any other supporting voices, so I’m assuming our contribution was appreciated. I suppose pulling off that hat was more effort than I realized. At least everyone stood quietly and put their phones down while the music played. At this point, that’s practically worshiping an object in our culture.

The babies are due Monday. Since they seem committed to baking as long as possible, they didn’t interfere with our first hockey weekend. If they had, Judy would have stayed home with our granddaughter, and I would have gone to support our boys. With a trip to a NAHL tournament later this week and no home games until early October, we may actually have a little time to spend with the new babies without hockey intervention. Of course, there’s another side to that equation. Our daughter may have her own ideas about how much she wants to share the babies while she tries to figure out how to fit two new people into the life she was already living. I remember what it was like when our kids were little. You can love them more than you can explain and still occasionally wonder when you’re going to get to finish a cup of coffee. So we’ll see how that goes.

The referees this weekend were about the normal level of “bad.” The ice had its own problems, too, which made things more difficult for the guys. Penalties happen. Referees call what they think they see. Sometimes they’re right. Sometimes they aren’t. When they see something incorrectly and the boys know it, the boys occasionally do a little self-correction of their own. They use blind spots and obstacles on the ice to disguise their interventions. I’m not a fan of the fights. They’re too obvious. I don’t like dirty play, either. I’d much rather see the boys play clean and let the game take care of itself. But I understand the temptation to provide a little behavioral correction when the people assigned to enforce the rules seem to have misplaced their glasses.

The first weekend went well. It wasn’t perfect, but both of our boys got assists. The team swept the other team, which is a pretty good way to start a season. There’s a long way to go. Will the rest of the season go this well? Will the coach tinker with things too much and accidentally complicate some of the chemistry that might otherwise develop? There’s plenty of time for things to get messy and get fixed again. That’s part of what makes the beginning of a season fun. Nobody knows exactly where it’s going yet.

For now, the boys are playing well, we have our puck-proof seats, breakfast appears to be producing goals, and I have been promoted to hockey breakfast coordinator. There are worse jobs. We’ll keep showing up, keep encouraging them, and keep enjoying the conversations along the way.

The hockey season will eventually become a collection of scores, standings, injuries, wins, losses, and things I’ve forgotten. I suspect the things I’ll remember most will be much smaller than that: a four-year-old asking to sit by Judy, pancakes with mini chocolate chips, a seat cushion moved three inches to the left that I definitely let go, and two boys getting assists. Mostly, I’ll remember a lot of weekends spent watching these guys become a little more like the people they’re going to be.

Waiting for the Next Brick

I have struggled to string together a series of events that have a solid thread. I think the thread is there, but as I’ve been bombarded with updates and nuances to my original telling, I’ve found it difficult to hold the passion and focus until the end. It’s not a slump in writing ideas. It’s a slump in knowing what to do with them once I have them. So today’s tale will start with no particular destination—unless you consider completion a worthy target.

My daughter’s twins are nearly fully cooked. Thursday was another weekly ultrasound in the parade of ultrasounds she has endured over the past few weeks. I get to play Grandpa for a little while and spoil her as she waits to hear the words she really wants to hear: “Today is the day.” She knows Monday is the day for sure, but she wouldn’t complain if the twins decided to move the schedule up a little.

If I were pregnant with twins and had endured 45 days and counting of 100-plus-degree temperatures, I’m not sure I’d be displaying the same level of calm she has. She has endured the support socks, the poor nights of sleep, the extra parenting duties while her husband starts the second year of his doctorate, and the minor inconvenience of carrying around two additional human beings in a space that was clearly designed for one.

I’m glad she didn’t watch me too closely when she was growing up. If she had, she probably wouldn’t be able to summon a fraction of this calmness. Yes, another great trait she got from her mother.

Meanwhile, my son and his wife have been planning a trip to India for nearly a year. They sincerely want to go, but immigration issues have complicated things. Now that they’re married and my son is considering a job change, they have an opportunity to carve out a month and check a pretty significant box that has been sitting on their list for a while.

There’s just one little problem.

The immigration issue is still haunting them.

Their trip is supposed to begin next week, and as I write this, they’re waiting for an appointment with an immigration officer. They need to make their case that they can travel and feel confident there won’t be problems when they return. Could they have done a better job crossing all their T’s and dotting all their I’s? Yes. Probably. My son is good at figuring things out, but he admitted he didn’t realize how complicated marriage could be when your wife isn’t a U.S. citizen.

Apparently, marriage comes with more paperwork than the greeting card industry lets on.

I’m still hopeful they can pull the trip together. But once again, I’m in the wonderful position of watching something important unfold without having much ability to do anything about it.

Then there’s hockey.

The guillotine blade came down on one of our billet boys again this week. The blade cut deep. We thought this kid was going to stick. Selfishly, he was a really good fit with our family, too. But it wasn’t to be.

Within a few hours, I was being offered the opportunity to take in some boys from the lower-skilled team. That would have meant having boys from two teams, which would have meant we would almost never have a weekend off. So that wasn’t particularly appealing.

The next day, before our chopped hockey boy even had his flight information, the billet coordinator called about another player. This one had already committed to a college to play hockey and has considerably more hockey experience than our other boy.

With the coach bringing in so many players and teasing the limit of the import rule, we’re hopeful it will be a good season. The new boy will take some adjusting, but we’re hopeful we won’t have another player cut for a few months.

Which, in hockey terms, apparently qualifies as stability.

So here I am, watching my daughter wait for two babies to decide when they’re ready, my son wait for a government official to decide whether he can leave the country, and our hockey players wait to see whether they get to stay in ours.

And somewhere in the middle of all this, I watched two guys laying bricks in our neighborhood.

The guy on top was standing on scaffolding, laying bricks on the front of a house. The guy below was stacking three bricks and tossing them up to him. The top guy’s feet were about level with the other guy’s head, and the bricks came up at just the right angle for him to grab them. The three bricks stayed together, making the whole process look almost ridiculously simple.

Toss. Catch. Lay.

Repeat.

I thought, “That has to be a pretty nice balance between speed and efficiency.”

And then I stood there watching them for a while and wondered why the rest of life couldn’t work that way.

Someone knows what needs to happen. Someone else puts exactly what they need in their hands. Nobody has to guess what the other person wants. Nobody needs an immigration appointment. Nobody needs an ultrasound. Nobody gets cut from the hockey team.

Toss. Catch. Lay.

Of course, life doesn’t work that way.

There are emotions. Guilt. Dread. Uncertainty. There are conversations where everyone knows what needs to happen, but nobody wants to be the first person to say it. There are situations where the most direct path would probably be the easiest, yet we somehow choose the scenic route through a forest of hints, assumptions, second-guessing, and paperwork.

I suppose that’s why I’ve struggled with this post. I’ve been trying to find the cleanest way to connect several stories that don’t have clean endings yet.

Maybe there isn’t one.

The twins will arrive when they arrive. My son and his wife will either make their trip or they won’t. Our new hockey boy will eventually become either another member of the family or another name in the long list of boys who passed through our house.

For now, I’m just standing around watching.

Waiting for the next brick.

The Policy Has Been Revised

After an evening watching a disappointing football game, we went to bed at 10:30. To keep our commitment to our hockey boys, we turned the front porch light on so they could find their way home without taking out my roses along the front walkway. We have been doing this quite often lately. Friday night, they needed to watch the team they share the rink with play before heading out for food. Last night was also about food, but with a little more wardrobe involved.

Both of the junior hockey teams we have billeted for have a tradition of rookies dressing up as girls for a team dinner. The reason for putting considerable effort into shoes, dresses, wigs, and whatever else they can find is simple: the rookie who looks the best avoids paying his portion of the ridiculous food bill the veterans have intentionally inflated by ordering food they have no intention of eating. Our Alaska boy won this year. His $50 investment in a dress, shoes, and wig probably saved him about $300. The worst-dressed rookie pays double. The guys with beards apparently start the competition about three goals down.

Back to my pre-bed routine. For some reason, my nose decided to start bleeding. This wasn’t one of those casual little nosebleeds where you grab a tissue, wipe your nose, and get on with your life. This one earned the coveted two-tissue award. I asked Judy which towel I should use so I wouldn’t bloody up my hand towel. My white hot tub robe also received some unexpected splatter. Apparently, my nose had decided that bedtime was a good time to redecorate.

Judy’s response was very casual. I know why they call her “Dr. Mom” and not “Dr. Wife.” There was no frantic call for medical assistance, no dramatic assessment of my condition, and certainly no attempt to save my life. She basically let me bleed. To minimize any overnight leakage, I suggested grabbing an old towel to put over my pillow. She fully supported that plan. The usual “goodnight kiss” was answered with, “I don’t want to kiss you tonight.”

Nothing says “in sickness and in health” quite like your wife deciding that, for the moment, you are a communicable disease.

The next morning, with a strong desire to get my walk in before church and another 100-degree day waiting for us, I got up to find the towel on my pillow completely unblemished. Apparently, my nose had called it a night. I made the coffee and toasted some of Judy’s day-old, home-baked whole wheat bread, one of her evolving hobbies. There are worse ways to start the day, although I was beginning to wonder whether I was living with a doctor, a baker, or someone who was simply waiting for me to bleed out.

After my walk, I told Judy my nose seemed to be on the mend. I also expressed some concern about what had caused such an enthusiastic nosebleed. Her nosebleeds have all but stopped 5 years ago, so I was hoping mine would follow the same path. Maybe it was simply the heat, the low humidity, or some other weather-related nonsense that our bodies apparently feel obligated to complain about.

Of course, I couldn’t resist mentioning the possibility that my blood pressure was raging and that perhaps I was headed toward a stroke or some other exciting cardiovascular event. In the past, when I have brought up the possibility of dying from high blood pressure, Judy’s response has been, “If you go before me, I won’t remarry.”

It has always been one of those reassuring little marriage statements that somehow manages to be both loving and insulting. Apparently, though, the policy has been revised.

Knowing I was still fragile from the previous night’s trauma, Judy looked at me and said, “I have changed my mind. I think I will remarry.”

I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to discuss your replacement while the current model is still standing in front of you. But apparently, there is a grace period for these things.

The good news is that my nose seems to have returned to normal, and I have no reason to believe I’m about to fall over dead. I plan to be around for many more years. There is even a decent chance I will outlive Judy. After hearing her revised position on remarriage, I’m beginning to think that may not be the news she was hoping to hear.

But I was reminded of something this weekend: if you’re going to spend a lifetime dishing it out, you have to be willing to take it when the tables turn.

Even if the tables turn while you’re wearing a blood-speckled hot tub robe, sleeping with a towel over your pillow, and wondering whether your wife has already started browsing for your replacement.

Marriage is a beautiful thing.

Something Was Clearly Going On

With less than two weeks before my daughter finds out what it is like to have a normal human body again, we decided it was a good zoo day. Yesterday’s temperatures were below 90 degrees, and this morning was in the high 60s. Perfect? No. But compared to what Oklahoma has been handing us lately, it was practically sweater weather. With the clock ticking and the opportunity to see some animals actually moving around, we figured we should take advantage of it.

We were rewarded with a great view of the baby elephant born in late June. My daughter kept saying, “Dad, look at the little one.” I saw three elephant posteriors and assumed she was referring to the smallest rear in the crowd. Once I got up and looked around the post that had been blocking my view, I finally understood what she meant. The baby elephant was considerably cuter than the collection of backsides I had been studying. Apparently, I was not the only one impressed. The photographers were out in force, carrying camera lenses large enough to require their own parking spaces. The rest of the animals may not have been particularly active, but they had apparently agreed that the best place to spend the morning was directly in front of the prime viewing areas. The bears, lions, chimps, and gorillas all seemed willing to lean against the glass or accidentally pose for whatever picture the photographers wanted. At one of the chimp viewing areas, we watched a chimp picking up Cheerios scattered on his side of the glass. Even without opposable thumbs, he was doing a pretty good job. On our side of the glass, Ellie was sitting in her stroller with as many Cheerios as she needed to remain happy. It was a strangely appropriate moment. Sometimes it is the little things that make life worth living. Apparently, for both chimps and toddlers, those little things may be Cheerios.

The expected highlight of the trip was the water jets in the Asia area. When we arrived, Ellie seemed a little hesitant. Grandpa performed a variety of highly sophisticated demonstrations designed to make the water look like a good idea without actually getting wet himself. Either Ellie’s curiosity eventually won out, or my performance was more convincing than I realized. Her mom decided to put her in her swimsuit, just in case. A couple of well-timed geysers caught Ellie in the face, apparently giving her all the evidence she needed to reconsider the entire concept. Her attention quickly shifted to a “dead” water spout that she was determined to convince to come back to life. It refused to cooperate. She also discovered that there were many directions she could wander that did not involve water at all. Grandpa did what he could to turn this into a game, because apparently that is part of the job description.

Then came the more concerning behavior. As we passed other strollers and wagons filled with items brought by parents and grandparents to cool down their kids, Ellie began displaying some impressive foraging instincts. She would walk up to a stroller, inspect the contents, and determine what might be available. She grabbed a couple of water bottles, and I refused her multiple attempts to acquire snacks that did not belong to us. Yes, it was cute. It was also a little concerning to watch my granddaughter casually inventory the belongings of strangers. My daughter, meanwhile, stayed close to our stroller, apparently determined to defend our property from the same behavior. We eventually agreed that the “cooling off Ellie” portion of the zoo experience had been something of a bust.

It was after we got Ellie changed back into her clothes that my daughter told me the real story. Ellie had lost her bunny while they were running errands the day before. This was not some random stuffed animal that had been forgotten in the bottom of a toy box. This was Bunny. Her sleeping bunny. Her snuggle bunny. The little guy who apparently doesn’t mind being dragged around by his ears, dropped on his head, or subjected to whatever other indignities come with being a toddler’s favorite stuffed animal. He is her guy. And, based on the report of a difficult night of sleep the evening before, his absence was being noticed.

Suddenly, I had a theory about the zoo. Maybe Ellie’s stroller shopping wasn’t really about snacks or water bottles. Maybe it was a toddler’s attempt to find something—or someone—to fill the Bunny-shaped hole in her life. Her vocabulary is expanding, but it is still not quite advanced enough to explain the deep emotional trauma of losing a favorite stuffed animal. So instead of saying, “Grandpa, I am experiencing significant distress because my primary emotional support rabbit has disappeared,” she may have simply decided to check the nearest stroller for snacks. This particular practice apparently started in the church nursery and has now expanded to random strangers. We may have inadvertently raised a tiny, toddling, food critic with questionable boundaries.

When I told Judy about Bunny, she immediately said, “That poor thing. She loves Bunny.” And she is right. There will probably be a replacement Bunny before the weekend is over. If my memory is correct, the original may have been the generic light-pink variety from Walmart, which means we should be able to resolve this crisis without involving Interpol. This time, though, we may want to make a few improvements. Perhaps Bunny needs a leash. Maybe some Velcro. At the very least, an Apple AirTag. I am not prepared to spend another zoo day explaining to strangers why my granddaughter is conducting a personal inventory of their strollers.

Ellie is about to be promoted to big sister, which is wonderful, but she is also about to experience a fairly dramatic reduction in the amount of attention available to her when those twins arrive. Losing Bunny right before that transition probably isn’t helping. So, yes, she needs a new Bunny. She needs something familiar to sleep with, drag around, drop on his head, and generally subject to the same treatment the original Bunny endured. She also apparently needs Grandpa to stop her from stealing bottled water from strangers, but we can work on that one later.

For now, the priority is getting Bunny back—or finding his replacement. Because if losing one stuffed rabbit has already turned Ellie into a roaming toddler forager, I would prefer not to discover what happens when the twins arrive and she realizes there are now two additional people competing for her snacks, attention, and Cheerios. We may be raising a future criminal mastermind, and frankly, I would rather catch her in the stuffed-animal phase. A new Bunny, a tracking device, and a little extra attention seem like a small price to pay for keeping the family out of court.

The Unofficial Billet Boy Survival Guide

We have had hockey boys from all over the United States and even a couple of international locations. None of them have been perfect, although some have certainly worked harder at perfection than others.

With one of our boys leaving our household yesterday, it seemed like a good time to put down a few pointers for the hockey players who find themselves living in someone else’s house for a season. These won’t guarantee universal success, but they should increase your chances of becoming a favorite billet in our house.

Remember that your billet parents are responsible for you. If you want to spend the night at your girlfriend’s house, we are probably not the right billet house for you. We actually had one boy “move” to another billet house because the billet mom there didn’t care if he stayed at his girlfriend’s house instead of coming home.

If you choose to go down that road, I recommend buttering up your current billets first. Ask if they would mind making pizza for dinner. Maybe compliment the cooking. Make everyone feel like you are really connecting with them. Then, when the billet coordinator calls the next day to say you want to move, the whole puzzle will come together beautifully.

If you are under 21, there isn’t much wiggle room on alcohol in our house. My theory is pretty simple: you are here to play hockey. If you have other priorities, we probably aren’t going to be a great fit.

And if you decide to drink anyway and think you are being sneaky, remember that you are dealing with someone who has raised four children. I have seen things. I am also sneakier than you are.

We make a pretty serious effort to cook dinner every night. And if we fail at that, we usually beg you to indulge us on the occasional “warm-up” night where dinner might be less ambitious.

So if your mother decides to send a two- or three-pound bag of chicken nuggets to our front door without warning, there are only so many complimentary ways I can interpret that.

And if you don’t eat the dinner because you claim your ADHD medication makes you not hungry, but then order a meal from Uber Eats later that evening, I am going to notice. I may not say anything immediately, but I will notice. I have been doing this for a while.

We are happy to provide your water. And if you insist on spring water instead of filtered water, you are probably going to win that argument. No matter how many times I see the people at Sam’s Club peddling those five-gallon jugs, I will continue to walk past them.

I know you like your 16.9-ounce plastic bottles. You like being able to count them so you know exactly how much water you have consumed. That’s fine. But I do think you need to finish the bottle before taking credit for drinking it.

Turn off the lights.

This one varies by boy, but I have walked into the guys’ rooms and found as many as five lights on at one time. I am not judging. I am simply suggesting that if you can flick the switch on, you can flick the switch off.

Electricity is not free, despite what your bedroom may be telling you.

Technically, you can walk around the house shirtless. But out of respect for the women in the house, please wear a shirt.

The hot tub is an exemption.

I am not unreasonable.

We used to assign jobs. One boy would load or unload the dishwasher. Another would set the table. This worked beautifully right up until the boy with the job was taking a nap, out golfing, or otherwise unavailable for reasons that were apparently very important to him.

Hockey boys do a lot of napping.

So, to simplify things for the adults in the household, we have boiled our expectations down to two rules:

  1. Help clean off the table after dinner.
  2. If you make a mess or see something that needs to be done, take care of it.

This won’t get everyone on the same page, but at least it gets everyone pointed in the same direction.

Game-day breakfasts are a little different. We know the rules are going to slip sometimes, but as much as it depends on you, refrain from using inappropriate language.

There are younger fans around, and you are in a position to be a role model to them. There are plenty of role models in the world who curse without hesitation. Be willing to stand out and be different.

Besides, if you are going to spend the season in our house, I need to believe I have at least a little influence over you.

We know you like to shower.

I am not entirely sure why you need to shower before your nap, after your nap, and again before getting back on the ice, but apparently this is important to you.

Do what you have to do. Just don’t overdo it.

Hot water is not free, and I have yet to discover a hockey scholarship that includes unlimited water usage.

If it is here, it is yours to eat. That is typically what I tell the boys.

However, if you develop a particular affinity for something in the pantry or freezer, it might be helpful to let your billet parents know about it.

If you and your billet parent both develop a hankering for the same sweet or salty item on the same night, somebody may be disappointed. If I know what you like, I can at least keep an eye on it and try to keep it stocked.

This is one of the less complicated ways to keep the peace in a house full of hockey players.

Your parents and your billet parents are on the same team.

The best boys typically had parents who understood that. We are both trying to get their son through the season safely and successfully.

If there is an injury or a bout with the flu, we try to work together. I might say to one of our players, “Does your mom know about that injury? If you don’t tell her, I will text her tomorrow.”

We aren’t there to get involved in how they parent their son. We are there to provide some on-the-ground accountability.

Sometimes a hockey player’s enthusiasm can make him think that playing through something is more important than dealing with the thing he is playing through. That is where we can help.

I can’t guarantee that I have an infinite supply of wise words, but the next hockey boy I talk to will be far from my first.

Whether we are discussing a coach’s decision, a hockey situation, or whether he should eat more vegetables, I will probably have an opinion.

On the hockey stuff, I will defer to his parents and hockey adviser.

On the vegetables, he is going to have to develop a pretty strong resolve because we are not going to stop presenting them as an option.

Eventually, he may even eat one.

If you have your own vehicle, you may not always get a spot in the driveway.

And if your billet parents’ daughter is pregnant with twins and already has a toddler running around, be a gentleman. You may have to park somewhere else and walk a little farther.

This is not a complicated concept. You are young. Your legs work.

Pay your billet fees on time.

With the Warriors organization, billet parents pay the fees directly. When we first started with the Brahmas, billet parents paid the Brahmas, who then sent us a check. Now, we are paid directly by the parents, and we fill out a form online letting the organization know we have been paid.

A failure to pay on time comes with a warning. Multiple warnings come with penalties to the player.

But please don’t do what one parent did.

Her son had wanted to be traded for several weeks. We barely knew he had actually been traded before she sent us a Venmo request to refund the unused portion of that month’s billet fees.

Not surprisingly, this was not a hockey boy we were a particularly good match for.

It is unlikely that we would ever ask for a boy to be moved from our home. But it is also unlikely that we will shed many tears when some of them move on.

And that may be the strangest part of being a billet parent.

If you are going to live in our house for any length of time, you are going to spend some time marinating in our version of right and wrong. Where we think we can have an influence, we will. If we find ourselves pushing our ideals too far, we will back off.

It was our home before it was yours.

It will still be our home after you leave.

Even if every one of our boys gets cut, we aren’t going to lower our standards just to make sure we have hockey players sitting around the dinner table. Just like with our own children, the rules can flex. Some can be partially ignored. Every boy and every situation is a little different.

But the basic expectations remain.

Be respectful. Be responsible. Be considerate. Help out. Tell the truth. And, when somebody is trying to take care of you, recognize that they are actually trying to take care of you.

We wouldn’t be worthy of the title “billet parent” if we weren’t willing to roll up our sleeves, adjust the rules when necessary, and occasionally remind a hockey player that there is a world outside the rink.

And, despite all the lights left on, showers taken, chicken nuggets delivered, vegetables rejected, and questionable decisions made along the way, we really are glad to have them.

They come into our house as hockey players.

If we do it right, they leave having been part of our family for a little while.