Food

Apparently, We Had Plans

As a rule, my wife and I don’t plan to be gone every evening, with every day of the week becoming progressively more exciting and culminating in a series of weekend events worthy of numerous pictures and social media postings. We are more the “What series do you want to watch tonight?” people. So when the hockey boys had a “meet and greet” at a local restaurant where all the season ticket holders, billets (us), and boys were invited, we decided to sit this one out. I am not always looking for that particular hockey vibe. Fortunately, a couple from church had been talking about having us over for dinner for several weeks, after an earlier invitation was canceled because of illness. So, without actually thinking, “Let’s use this night to kill two birds with one stone,” that is pretty much what happened. We could have a pleasant evening with another couple, have conversations about things other than hockey, and do it in a house where, when my conversation meter reached capacity, I could theoretically just stare at something on the wall. Our boys knew what we were doing and had already decided whether they would grab their warmups at our house or at the restaurant. That cleared our dinner-prep schedule, so we made the ten-minute drive and arrived at 6:00.

Our hosts live on an acre, which immediately made the evening more interesting than anything I could have found on television. I went out back and talked with the husband while Judy and his wife had a good conversation inside. The highlight for me was the buffalo hide hanging in the garage that their daughter was tanning herself. It is eventually destined to become a rug in the middle of the living room, assuming it survives the tanning process. Before it gets there, however, it needs one more step that involves something called “smoking the hide.” I am not sure exactly what that entails, but I know enough about home projects to recognize the beginning of a sentence that ends with, “Well, that didn’t go quite as planned.” The husband seemed happy to support his daughter’s project, although he was less enthusiastic about his workshop being temporarily converted into a buffalo-processing facility. The deer hides they had done previously were apparently much easier. A buffalo, it turns out, brings considerably more hair and considerably more buffalo to the project. She had already been warned that Dad’s shop was no longer in the tanning business.

Dinner was chicken thighs with the bone in, risotto, and roasted broccoli, and it was really good. The hostess did mention, “It might be a little salty.” My immediate response was, “I’ve never had it before. It tastes fine.” The part of my brain that occasionally insists on honesty eventually agreed with her. The chicken gravy poured over the risotto did not exactly move us in the opposite direction, either. Still, it was a good meal with good color balance, and I ate two chicken thighs, so apparently I was not suffering. Had my mother-in-law cooked it, I probably would have been a little more honest. The hostess also reminded me of something I had apparently said when she asked at church how I would feel if she invited us to dinner. According to her, my response was, “Well, can you cook?” Apparently, she saw through my crusty exterior and decided to take the risk. She was rewarded with an enthusiastic second helping and only moderate criticism of the sodium content.

It was not the kind of meal we would normally make for the hockey boys, but that has less to do with the food than with the fact that I am already tired of eating the extra warmups they refuse to eat. The husband did his part by scraping everyone’s plates as he carried them toward the sink and eventually the dishwasher. I apologized for not being a chicken-skin eater. There was no obvious penalty, so I assume I remain welcome. Their fictional “upstairs maid” is the husband. In our house, the frequently vacationing “dish fairy” is Judy.

At some point during dinner, the conversation turned to marriage, and the hostess told us about the first thirteen years of theirs. They had made themselves crazy trying to come up with gifts for every minor and major holiday. She wanted good gifts, and he apparently had trouble determining what qualified as a good gift. By their thirteenth anniversary, they had reached the point where the whole thing had become more work than celebration. So they lived their thirteenth anniversary like any other day. They went about their business and didn’t even realize what day it was until they heard a “Congratulations” on their answering machine as the day was winding down. That was apparently the moment they realized they had spent thirteen years creating a tremendous amount of busyness for very little return. From that day forward, their marriage became a little saner. There is probably a lesson in there somewhere, although after thirty-five years of marriage, I am still suspicious of any lesson that involves buying fewer gifts.

Eventually, it was time to deal with the peach pie that had been sitting there staring at us from the dining area. The peach was good, and the ice cream was an excellent supporting actor. My only suggestion for future guests would be to ask how large a piece they want before cutting it. One-eighth of a large pie is not a serving. It is a commitment. Both Judy and I are good guests, so we cleaned our plates. That does not mean we were grateful for being made quite that full, but we did our part to maintain the illusion of good manners.

The most contentious portion of the evening came when we started talking about books and television shows. I mentioned that I thought the character of Reacher on Amazon was basically a shallow gorilla. The hostess did not take that particularly well. I also mentioned that Lee Child, the author of the Reacher books, has talked publicly about smoking marijuana while writing. Judging by the reaction from our hosts, this was apparently not information I needed to bring to the table. I felt the elbow from Judy even though she wasn’t sitting next to me. I explained that I thought the characters often make a poor transition from books to television, which did not improve my standing. Eventually, I agreed to read the first two Reacher books and report back. Judy did not identify any other major problems with my performance that evening, so apparently the invisible elbows were doing their job.

Just as the Reacher impasse appeared to be settling down, we got a text from the hockey boys. Two of their teammates were coming over to use the hot tub. Since it was almost 9:00 and four hockey players plus a hot tub creates a mathematical equation I did not want to solve, we decided it was time to say our goodbyes. It had been a good evening. Our first “date” with this couple had been a hockey game in late winter, and the follow-up was much more relaxed and insightful. Between their camping schedule and the arrival of the twins, it may be 2027 before we manage another one. At least we now know where we stand on buffalo hides, pie portions, and Reacher.

When we got home, the four hockey boys settled into our back porch area between the hot tub and the fire pit and proceeded to hang out for another hour and a half. At one point, I had to tease the boy from Michigan. “So, if I go to Michigan, do I need to set the clock back an hour and a second?” He seemed a little frustrated with the question and, more importantly, with the fact that this was even a topic of conversation. I eventually left him with this: “We can squabble about Ohio State and Michigan, but have no doubt I will be cheering for you when you have your Warriors jersey on.” Apparently, there are limits to my loyalty, but they are not quite as narrow as my opinions on college football.

As Judy and I did our pre-sleep reading, the boys continued their animated conversation on the patio. With our bedroom right next door, sleep and four late-teenage hockey players were never going to coexist peacefully. A little after 10:30, Judy turned off her light and commented, “It is about time they end the party.” And it did. Somehow, her womanly will continues to force us males to submit to her wishes, even when she is lying in bed and the males in question are several feet away on a patio. I am not sure how this works. I just know it does.

For a night that was supposed to be our low-end-of-the-excitement-spectrum evening, it turned out to be a pretty busy one. We had dinner with friends, learned about buffalo tanning, debated the proper amount of pie, offended someone over Reacher, argued about Michigan, and hosted four hockey boys late into the evening. And somewhere in all of that, there was a reminder that adults and late teenagers (i.e. young adults) who are not related to each other can actually live together, laugh together, jab at each other, and occasionally even learn something from one another.

The boys will keep playing hockey, eating breakfast with us on the Fridays of home weekends, arguing about sports, and figuring out how to live with a bunch of other guys. They will eventually move on to different teams, different cities, different jobs, and whatever comes next in their lives. The friendships they are forming now may end up being more important than anything happening on the ice. Learning how to share a house, give each other space, work through differences, and still enjoy being together is part of growing up that doesn’t show up on a hockey schedule.

For Judy and me, there is something pretty special about getting to watch that happen up close. We didn’t set out to become the parents of a bunch of unrelated teenage hockey players, and I’m still not entirely sure how we ended up with four of them on our back porch at 10:30 on a Thursday night. But these are the kinds of evenings that tend to become memories long after the hot tub has been drained, the breakfast dishes have been put away, and the boys have moved on to whatever comes next. Maybe that’s the real benefit of having a house that occasionally feels a little too full. Sometimes the best parts of life are the things you never planned for.

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.

When Hockey Boys Get Fired

Yesterday was the expected day when we might lose one, two, or, remotely, all three of our boys. The last scenario was so unlikely that I barely gave it a thought. Yet, in junior hockey, nothing is impossible. We do our part and let the hockey people do theirs. We keep food on the table, water chilled in the fridge, and a reasonably comfortable place for the boys to sleep. Sometimes, the rest is completely out of our hands. And sometimes, completely unrelated events have a strange way of tying the day together.

Per my commitment to myself, I stayed in bed until the boys had left. I took my walk, ran some errands, and still heard nothing that gave me any clarity about whether one of our boys had been cut. I was beginning to hope we might somehow avoid this particular round of cuts, but then the call from the billet coordinator came. We made a feeble attempt at small talk before she cut through it with, “When people see a call from me, they know it isn’t good news.” She was right. The most recent addition to our household was no longer a member of the team and would be leaving us soon.

Before the call, I had started cutting up vegetables for dinner. I was planning on cubed and roasted sweet potatoes with rosemary and broccoli when I realized I also had two and a half heads of cauliflower. Apparently, I had been preparing for a cauliflower shortage that never materialized. The cauliflower went into the oven after being made a little more roasting-friendly and sprinkled with paprika. It wasn’t likely to be wildly popular with the hockey boys, but our son and daughter-in-law would probably find it tasty.

Everything was somewhere in the roasting process when the call came about our player being cut. We let him know how sorry we were and were grateful that the coach was already working to help find him another team. Meanwhile, the vegetables were consuming most of our available roasting pans, so my wife improvised. She covered a round pizza pan with foil for the salmon. Since the other vegetables were still hogging the oven space, she put the salmon in at a slight angle. This seemed like a perfectly reasonable solution at the time.

It was not.

The angle turned out to be the catalyst for a great deal of excitement. Oil and grease from the salmon and its marinade leaked down into the bottom of the oven. My wife barely had time to notice that the oven was smoking before the situation graduated to a full-blown fire. Somewhere between the smoke and the flames, the vegetables were removed from the oven. Somewhere between the fire being doused with salt and the contents of a fire extinguisher, all of the interconnected smoke alarms started chirping together.

All of them except the one in our bedroom, which had been removed a few months earlier after deciding that replacing its battery was merely a suggestion and that chirping indefinitely was its true calling.

At this point, it didn’t matter that it was 100 degrees outside and somewhere in the mid-70s inside. We needed to get the smoke out. The front of the house was opened up to the elements, and the windows at the back of the house were opened to give the smoke a clear path to the great outdoors. Unfortunately, some flies apparently found our new ventilation system irresistible and decided to move in.

After a few minutes, the hockey boys finally emerged from their second-floor cave to see what the smoke alarms were singing about. The smell of smoke was not lost on them. I thought, “Stick to cornhole, boys. You don’t seem like firemen material.” One of the boys was making an airport run, so he missed all of the excitement. He may still have a future in firefighting.

As we worked our way through dinner, I gradually closed windows and doors, hoping I could get the house back down to an acceptable temperature by bedtime. Dinner itself was uneventful. Frankly, after seeing flames somewhere other than the grill, nothing else about the meal was going to seem particularly dramatic.

Our daughter and granddaughter left right after dinner. We wanted to make sure they were gone before we opened the oven. If there was going to be another round of smoke, we preferred to deal with it without a toddler in the middle of the operation. Fortunately, there wasn’t any more smoke. My wife, however, was not convinced. She went from room to room, convinced the entire house was still a disaster area. I suspected her clothes or hair might have been carrying the smell around, but my wife thinks what she thinks. Her nose had completely lost the scent by the next morning, so apparently the house survived its inspection.

My wife eventually ended the adventure by posting a picture on Facebook. Her initial comment didn’t seem to take responsibility for the fire, but in the replies, she owned the circumstances that created it. I have made enough mistakes in my life without having people assume this was another episode of Andy screwing something up.

Our hockey boy, meanwhile, had no one to blame for being cut from the team. The coach was working with his advisor to try to find a team willing to trade for him. Would he stay with us for a couple of days? Would he be in limbo until another team became available? We didn’t know. His problem didn’t have nearly as simple a resolution as our oven problem.

Once the fire was out, we could clean up the mess. We could remove the burned material, wipe down the oven, and eventually get things back to normal. We had some control over the variables. Once our hockey boy was essentially “fired” from the team, he had far less control over what came next. He had to depend on another team being willing to take a chance on him and find a place for his skill level. And through all of that, he would need to maintain a positive attitude while dealing with whatever other hiccups the season decided to throw at him.

That is where the two stories really came together for me.

We may have lost the use of our oven until my wife gets around to cleaning out the sins of yesterday. But when you are a hockey boy in our house, you are here as long as you need to be while you figure out what the next steps are going to look like. Our oven may have had a fire, and the team may have fired our hockey boy, but we aren’t going to burn our relationship with him while he figures out where he goes from here.

With no oven, our last meal with him may not be pizza.

But we’ll make sure it is a good one.

Date Night, Retirement Style

Family visits start Saturday in Columbus, and our daughter’s crew is off doing their own pre-twins celebration, which meant Judy and I had the house and no real plan for dinner. Last week’s Sam’s Club haul was gone — cooked, eaten, or handed off to kids. Nobody wanted warm-ups. So we went out.

In our defense, we barely tried to stock the fridge for these ten days between trips. We split a Costco pizza across three meals with a couple of bag salads propping it up. We got a burrito bowl from Chipotle and ate our own chips with it, which I’ve decided counts as cooking out. I also grilled some chicken. That’s real. I marinated it and everything.

We’re also deep in our post-cruise phase, which means yogurt and protein shakes for lunch, because apparently the responsible move after a week of unlimited soft serve and buffets is to eat like we’re training for something.

Before picking a restaurant, we did what any financially disciplined household does: dug through the gift card drawer. This particular card came from our hockey boy, who totaled his car on the way to practice — a gift for “going above and beyond,” which is a generous way of describing talking to a police officer before 9:00 outside a charter school. It didn’t have much left on it, but Bricktown Brewery had a happy hour hamburger special and an all-day pizza deal if we got seated before 6:00. That was all the motivation we needed to get out the door.

I tried to be an aggressive driver. Someone else tried to be an aggressive driver at me. I missed the entrance to the restaurant entirely, had to loop around at the light, and dropped Judy off to fight for our spot on the waitlist before anyone else could sneak their name in ahead of ours. Ten to fifteen minute wait, she reported. A good number. Enough to stretch the gift card to its full potential while doing penance for the opulence of our European trip.

We were seated by 5:45 and already knew our order before the menus hit the table. When the waiter asked about drinks, we let him know we’d be getting the free ones that came with the ten-dollar hamburger deal. Lemonade for both of us. I asked Judy if I was worth the extra dollar fifty for sweet potato fries. She said yes, which, if you’ve been married a couple dozen years, is code for “I love you” and also “please stop asking me this.”

I should mention that settling into the gap between trips does not bring out my best self. Judy knows this and indulges me anyway, more than she probably should.

Pizzas kept coming out of the kitchen while we sipped our lemonade, and half-priced wood-fired pizza is a genuinely hard thing to say no to. But the foil in our toaster oven was still greasy from the Costco pizza’s reign of terror, so we held the line. Barely.

The hamburgers arrived just before 6:00. Same basket, different colored fries. Ketchup was not my choice of condiment for sweet potato fries, but they were never the main event anyway. The burger was the star. Judy cut hers in half to create the illusion of restraint, then barely paused before starting on the second half. Her fries had come cold. We considered asking for new ones, but since she had no intention of eating them regardless, sending them back felt like theater. I’ve been a jerk before. Usually to family. I know my limits.

She tossed me a few of her fries before we noticed our baskets were mostly empty and flagged down the check.

Turns out the gift card only had $6.50 left on it. Judy handled payment, which has been her job ever since I developed a reputation for being stingy on tips. She’s better at that kind of math than I am — more aware, more generous. Every so often she asks me to bump it up a couple of dollars, and I don’t put up much of a fight. We both like the total to land on a round number, so a dollar or two of rounding doesn’t bother me.

By the time we got back in the car, only forty minutes had passed since we put our names down. The restaurant probably would’ve preferred we lingered over a beer or two, but they held up their end of the deal, and so did we. Judy didn’t plan on getting home in time for Wheel of Fortune, but with the food coming out that fast, it was hard to avoid.

Her word for the whole night was “efficient.” We’re both home all day — she’s working remotely, I’m on babysitting duty when it’s offered — so by dinner we’ve already said everything we need to say to each other. No chit-chat required. We’re deep into overlap territory on our list of conversation topics, and with more travel ahead, we’ll be leaning on our European stories for a while. We tell them well. People seem to think we’re funny. Really, we’re just two people who’ve rehearsed the same bits on each other enough times to have the timing down.

Efficient eaters, happiest in our own recliners. You will not find a more thrilling dinner date than us.

The Scouting Report

My wife plans our vacations. I show up. She books the excursions, maps the sea days, and treats the whole operation like a project with deliverables. I am the deliverable. So when she said we needed to scout Bricktown Brewery before Thursday’s call with the event coordinator, I understood my assignment.

Getting out the door first required a small act of theater. Our daughter was coming to pick up Ellie, but she had to walk the dog first. To be ready the moment she arrived, I had to get myself changed, which meant deploying every distraction technique available to a grandfather who did not want to be late. No closets were involved. Barely.

Downtown OKC at 5:00 is not gridlock, but it’s a reminder the city has grown. We made it in about 25 minutes from the south side, including the obligatory backup at our subdivision. On the drive, I thought about what my other son said when he was up for the wedding shower: “Oklahoma is like a scaled-down Texas.” I get it. Texas is crowded and very sure of itself, and I miss parts of it. Not that part.

Parking across the street ran nearly $17 for two hours. Convenient, noted, never recommending it to family members who drove 12 hours and already think Oklahoma is a flyover state.

The windows of the brewery were covered in Thunder graphics. OKC up 1-0 on the Lakers, the city doing its collective thing. Depending how the series goes, there might even be a home game that weekend—but even without that, late May in Oklahoma is always worth celebrating for the simple fact that tornado season is almost over.

Inside, we were seated immediately. We asked about specials. Our waiter had just received a text that apparently required his full attention, so we got something between an answer and a guess. We ordered chicken sandwiches anyway—hers with slaw, mine Nashville hot—and moved on.

While waiting on our food, my wife went upstairs to inspect the event space. Her checklist: could 8-9 tables fit comfortably, and would there be a microphone for announcements? The microphone question matters. She’s the polished one. If you want clean and professional, you hand it to her. If you want a slip of the tongue and at least one rabbit trail the audience has to wade through, you hand it to me. I’ll be involved if necessary. She knows this about me.

She came back down with photos. Plenty of room. Then came the menu conversation—proteins, vegetarian options for about 10% of the crowd, which menu pages to photograph before the call. She took pictures of everything. I suggested tenders. She didn’t reject the idea.

We paid with a gift card from one of our hockey boys. I can’t remember if it was after we helped him through totaling his car or after Judy wrote his college recommendation letter—probably the letter. Her recommendations are tight and punchy. Mine tend to wander into the fourth paragraph before making the point, which is why she writes them and I don’t.

On the way out, she made her notes for Thursday’s call. Cheaper parking options. Menu decisions. Headcount confirmed. As we drove home, we noticed how close the river walk was to the parking lot—a possible quiet end to the night before the wedding, weather and family chaos permitting.

Somewhere under Mother’s Day and our son’s birthday, our anniversary will pass this weekend without much ceremony. But tonight we had a meal together in a city we’ve grown to love, watching Judy do the thing she does—prepared, thorough, thinking three steps ahead—and I thought about how all that early penny-pinching gave us this. A good town. Kids nearby. A son getting married.

Thirty-five years. I genuinely don’t know how we got here, and I’m not entirely sure why she stayed. She says it isn’t pity. I’m going with sense of humor. It’s the only explanation that holds up.

I Love You More Before 8 P.M

I had a busy day.

Not “storming the beaches of Normandy” busy, but “Oklahoma suburban dad with three doctors, a land rush anniversary, and a fajita deadline” busy. By the time it was over, my social skills had clocked out at 5 p.m. and left the rest of me to freelance the damage.

Fun fact: this particular Tuesday in Oklahoma is the anniversary of the Land Run of 1889. It’s the day people lined up, waited for the cannon, and sprinted for free dirt. The nickname “Sooners” came from the folks who slipped out before the start time. They didn’t cheat; they just identified as “time-flexible.” Meanwhile, I wasn’t cheating anything. I was just trying to survive my schedule.

The day started with me putting the final touches on a project I lovingly call “Bleeding the Benefits Dry” at my wife’s employer. The schedule was aggressive. Some men are made for times like this. I am not one of those men — I am, however, just enough of one to say yes and then regret it in stages.

First stop: the dentist. Routine cleaning, plus a cavity that earned me a bonus visit the next day. On Day One, I wore a bright turquoise shirt. On Day Two, I wore red. I could have worn the same pants, but I cannot let the dental staff know I am capable of a multi-day streak with the same shirt. There are mysteries I prefer to keep between me and my laundry basket. The cavity fill itself was painless. The drill fired up right as Huey Lewis and the News started singing “Heart and Soul,” which felt like my molar’s last request.

From there, the GPS announced I’d arrive at the dermatologist in NW OKC with less than ten minutes to spare. I did what was necessary to buy a little more time and arrived in reasonable shape. Once inside, they weighed me and generously shared my BMI while I was still fully dressed, shoes and all. I’m fairly certain Mr. Body Mass Index never intended his invention to be used in “winter coat plus wallet” mode, but here we are.

The doctor came in apologizing about thin walls and how they talk to reduce stress. What I learned next was that Integris has decided dermatology is now a luxury, and they’re dropping coverage. My earlier-in-the-week appointment turned out to be a minor miracle of timing. The doc, however, was locked and loaded with his cryotherapy gun and not afraid to use it. He addressed a couple of spots on my back and one in my eyebrow — an old acquaintance, originally treated twelve and a half years ago after a trip to China. Most spots barely registered on the “Did you do something, Doc?” scale. The eyebrow one probably wasn’t cancerous, he said; it was just growing with more enthusiasm than I wanted on my face. He double-tapped it and sent it to keratosis jail. If anyone wants to post bail, they’re welcome to it. I don’t need that barnacle of aging marring the wrinkles and other disfigurements already collecting on my face.

Parting instructions: a blister may form. Don’t pop it. It’s nature’s band-aid. Use Vaseline.

I am a man who now has Vaseline on his mental checklist.

The GPS said I could make it home before Ellie woke up. The gas gauge disagreed. The next driver is also my wife, so I filled the tank and accepted I’d be a few minutes late. Marriages are built on these small surrenders.

She was still sleeping when I arrived, which gave me a short breather. When she woke at noon, I was on duty until 3:15. She got her bottle and then spent forty-five minutes making faces and drooling all over her peanut butter toast. She’s operating on gum-and-slobber settings right now, but the volume of drool and the frequency of bib changes suggest teeth are on the way. The afternoon was mostly play and exploration, followed by the subtle art of convincing her it was nap time. Grandpa has his methods. None are scientifically validated, but they eventually work.

Before she was up again, I slipped out to the eye doctor. I paid the small fee for the retinal camera instead of the dilation drops — quick, easy, no blurry afternoon to manage. I aced the vision test. My prescription hasn’t changed. The doctor couldn’t find the floaters or the Fuchs’ Iris Crypts. Boring is good. I awarded this the Best Doctor Appointment of the Day, an honor it earned simply by not finding anything worth worrying about.

One grocery run for guacamole fixings later, and I was home for dinner. My daughter had already sliced the peppers and onions and put them in the oven to roast. There was marinated chicken to grill and Ellie to entertain. When we sat down, we could have won a regional Mexican condiment award: homemade guac, cilantro salsa, and street corn dip, with strawberry shortcake queued up for dessert. It was a good dinner. The kind of good that tricks you into thinking you still have gas left in the tank.

After dinner, my son and I took a walk. He filled me in on honeymoon plans and some work challenges. Good conversation. But when we got back, I was already sliding toward wind-down mode, and I retreated to the den hoping my wife and I could salvage some TV time together.

That was the plan.

That was not what happened.

His fiancée came over for strawberry shortcake and, more dangerously, conversation. I sat in the den watching the clock, wondering at what point a household should put a “Closed” sign on dessert service. My daughter, who had been at the house most of the day working her online job while we babysat, wrapped up her final call around 9:20.

That was my moment.

I walked out of the den and announced: “Everybody needs to leave so I can get ready for bed. I had a busy day and I am tired.”

That line doesn’t invite much counter-dialogue. They shut down their conversations and headed for the door. My son walked his fiancée home. He probably apologized on my behalf and explained it wasn’t personal — just one of his dad’s quirks. That is, unfortunately, a very accurate assessment.

Here’s what I know about myself after all these years: I’m usually a happy, snarky guy. But when the tank is empty and the façade runs out, I become a less pleasant version of myself. He is not the one you want at game night or in a room full of people who are still wide awake and full of things to say. The den is supposed to be where I go to keep him contained. Sometimes it’s just where he simmers until he needs to vent. I am responsible for all of it. I’m just not always able to steer it in the moment.

So to the people who had to deal with that side of me — I’m sorry.

If you’re scheduling time with me, mornings are good, afternoons are fine, and evenings are a gamble. After 8 p.m., you’re probably working with about 75% of my usual civility, and that’s on a calm night. Consider this your operating manual: Andy is at his best — and yes, it’s a narrow best — until about dinner time.

I love you all. I just love you more before 8 p.m.

The Trade-Off

Last night, our final hockey boy took me, my son, and his fiancée out to dinner. Judy was off on her own adventure, which meant I was the oldest person at the table by a comfortable margin and absolutely fine with that arrangement.

He picked Meddy’s, a Mediterranean place we’d been watching open up for weeks without ever actually going. Hockey schedules. Baby logistics. The couch. You know how it goes. But when the offer came, Meddy’s was the unanimous answer, and within about ten minutes of eating, we were all quietly annoyed at ourselves for waiting. Our first visit the previous week demanded this encore.

I got the lamb. Not something I’ve historically sought out, but this version — seasoned vegetables, crispy potatoes, a cilantro salad that overperformed — made a strong case. The only problem was the banana bread I’d eaten around four o’clock, back when dinner was still scheduled for 6:30. By the time we actually sat down, my stomach had already filed its paperwork. I did what I could and left the rest in a to-go box, fully intending to eat it for lunch the next day.

That was the plan, anyway.

The next morning, my son — one month out from his wedding, freshly relocated from his apartment — was heading to work. The coffee hadn’t quite landed yet. I looked at the fridge and, without a single moment of reflection, said: “You want my leftovers from last night?”

I expected a polite no. What I got was “Well, if you’re sure!” delivered with genuine enthusiasm, and honestly, what was I going to do — take it back? The box was gone. My lunch was gone. I stood there with the refrigerator open, staring at my backup options, which were not the same.

To his credit, he’d already eaten the same lamb dish as me at the restaurant the night before, plus half of whatever the hockey boy ordered — some salmon situation that sounded improbable and apparently tasted great. My son can eat! My leftovers went to an appreciative home, which is about the best consolation available when you’ve done something entirely to yourself.

But that wasn’t the part of the night I kept thinking about.

As we were wrapping up, the hockey boy asked to get out of the booth. He slipped away for a minute, came back, and handed me a gift card. “Since Judy couldn’t be here, I wanted to make sure she doesn’t miss out. Make sure you bring her back once she gets home.”

I’ve said before that teenagers aren’t always known for this kind of thing, and the hockey boys who’ve come through our house have been good kids — but “emotionally intuitive” isn’t usually the headline. This one is different. He’s not perfect, but he notices things, and he acts on what he notices, and that’s rarer than it sounds.

Our other boy aged out this season, so he’s done and onto college near his home in Wisconsin. This one, if he can get through the injury-trade-coach lottery that determines everything in junior hockey, we’re hoping comes back. We’d take him again without a second thought.

So yes — I gave away a perfectly good lunch for no reason. But I also watched a teenager think of my wife before I did.

Some trades are worth it.

The Pudding Aisle

My daughter and I had a cooking project last Tuesday. She went through my “make these someday” recipe stack, picked her favorite, and we drove to the store to collect what we needed.

I always end up in the pudding aisle.

I’m a pudding voyeur from way back. Pre-COVID, the butterscotch section alone gave me options — store brand, off-brand, multiple sizes. Now it’s just Jell-O, one size, take it or leave it. I leave the chocolate lovers their big box. I don’t need to understand them.

The cook-or-instant question isn’t really a question. Pudding is not meant to meet cold milk in a bowl and get stirred into submission. It’s meant to dirty a pan. It’s meant to thicken slowly while you stand there wondering if you’ve stirred constantly enough to avoid burning it. There’s a small gamble involved, and I appreciate that in a dessert. If you reach for the instant box, you’ve already answered something about yourself.

My daughter — the one I babysit for — has been known to locate the butterscotch box sitting in my cabinet, waiting for someone with patience and standards. I’ll make it for myself if I have to. But knowing someone thinks me worthy of a cooked product is a better feeling than I probably should admit.

Way back when my wife and I were dating, my future mother-in-law bought me a butterscotch pie. To make me feel welcome, I think. She didn’t bake it herself, which, in retrospect, was the correct level of effort for someone who hadn’t decided about me yet. I didn’t make nearly enough of a fuss over it — being a young man of profound emotional stupidity, I offered the bare minimum of gratitude. I’m making up for it now by gatekeeping the pudding aisle. It’s called growth.

I used to make homemade butterscotch pudding too, in the double-boiler era. Every recipe I look at now just says “saucepan.” If you’re currently content with the pre-made plastic-cupped pudding from the refrigerated aisle, I’m not angry. I’m just disappointed.

Many of my taste preferences have shifted over the decades. The butterscotch ones have not moved an inch. They remain loyal, patient, and occasionally indulged.

And I probably shouldn’t mention this, but my granddaughter tried a small spoonful the other day. The look on her face was familiar. I’m choosing to believe it’s genetic.

Feeding the Ungrateful

The first night with a new hockey player, we made pasta with roasted cherry tomatoes. He had told us beforehand, “I eat everything.” After dinner, he quietly revised that to “everything but tomatoes” — with the look of someone who’d just been served a plate of gravel. Good to know. Lesson learned.

We have been feeding a rotating cast of hockey players, exchange students, and our own four kids long enough to know that the dinner table is not a democracy. It’s a negotiation, and we are usually the ones making concessions.

The extra challenge with hockey boys is their shelf life. One week you’ve learned a kid’s specific enthusiasm for jalapeño sausages, and the next week he’s injured or traded, replaced by someone who eyes a Hebrew National hot dog like it’s a personal insult. Being nimble is the only way to survive. This year, broccoli has been universally accepted. Brussels sprouts with a hot honey glaze were a shocking upset victory. The Hebrew National — gold standard of my youth — has not had a good season.

The safe foods exist for a reason. Grilled burgers, sliders, tater tots, mac and cheese, and pizza that warms up well in the toaster oven. Both the meat-lovers’ and the BBQ chicken versions are improved by bacon, which I consider self-evident.

Speaking of bacon — I call it the Paradox of the Bacon. Bacon on a pizza: consumed without hesitation. That same piece slides off onto the plate: suddenly toxic, fit only for the trash. I don’t know what molecular threshold determines when meat loses its dignity, but it is apparently non-negotiable. The unwritten rule, imported from somewhere I was not consulted, is that wasting food is acceptable provided you were enjoying it moments earlier. That wasn’t taught at my table. But staging an intervention for young men unlikely to change their habits based on my disappointment is not a good use of dinner conversation — especially when they’re already eyeing the door.

The complications stack up fast. My wife picks out mushrooms with the precision of a diamond sorter, so mushrooms get roasted separately now and left to fend for themselves. Tomatoes are a minefield. Meat in the sauce gets carefully excavated like a crime scene. My son’s fiancée has moved us to vegetarian baked beans, whose label cheerfully claims they “Make Burgers and Hot Dogs Even Better” — which feels like a passive-aggressive way to sell beans, but here we are. Seafood options evaporated after a quiet veto years ago. Chicken and pork are cheaper anyway.

And then there is the brisket — the meat that doesn’t care about my feelings. We have invested. It has returned nothing but chewy heartache. The oven is kinder than the smoker, but the oven is already running the sides, and getting everything to the table at the same temperature at the same time is a project I have not solved.

What I’ve learned is that you don’t perfect a recipe for an audience that eats around it. You stick to the reliable choices, you guard the refrigerator’s sovereignty against the slow creep of warmups that age out or multiply, and you remember that the dinner table is really just a place to sit together.

They know this, too. Which is why, when the meal doesn’t land, the move is always the same: “I think I’m going to run out for ice cream.”

You go get your ice cream. I’ll be glad I didn’t double the recipe.

The Sunday Vortex: A Sacred Trust (and a Lot of Bacon)

I ask myself, “Am I really living in Oklahoma?” more often than you’d think. Usually, it’s somewhere between church, junior hockey logistics, and negotiating a meal that works for seven people—one of whom has apparently decided bacon is the enemy. That’s Oklahoma life. The clock runs it, the weather comments on it, and the menu is always up for debate.

The Granddaughter Tax

Sunday mornings start at Bible study and church, where our daughter and son-in-law reliably end up beside us. The real perk, though, comes at the end of the service: a brief, glorious window with our granddaughter. I made some nonsense noises until she reached for me, and I want to be clear—that is a win.

I make no claims to being her favorite person, but I am absolutely certain I am her favorite grandpa. (I’m also her only one, but I’ve learned not to audit the wins. You take them.)

Diplomatic Dining

One phone call with my daughter confirmed the headcount. The plan: bacon pasta. The complication: one vegetarian at the table. Her solution was delivered with the energy of someone explaining gravity to a confused golden retriever: “Pull out some of the pasta before adding the bacon, Dad.” I said, “Of course,” like I’d always known that. I had not always known that. The vortex does things to your brain.

The Wind’s Opinion

I managed to squeeze in my walk before the cooking started—a small miracle. After a mid-90s Saturday, Sunday was manageable, though the Oklahoma wind let me know about it for thirty minutes.

To drown out the gale, I’m working through a women’s mystery on Kindle Unlimited. It’s not my usual lane, but it’s included in the subscription, and it’s kept me out of the WWII concentration-camp romance spiral my wife has apparently completed in its entirety. We all make different choices.

A Word About the Hockey Boys

If you’re not familiar with junior hockey, here’s the short version: we host young athletes—gap-year guys sharpening their skills before college hockey—from late summer through May. They are large, they eat aggressively, and they usually solve our bacon problems by limiting themselves to a pound (It is a lot!), so we just make a little more than that.

This weekend, the “supply chain” was offline. The boys played in Amarillo on Friday and Saturday before trekking down to Odessa. They were mid-trip on the long haul back to OKC today, and while I rooted for them from my living room TV, the scoreboard wasn’t kind. With the boys on the road, I was forced into a rare position: I had to cook bacon that didn’t first have an appointment with breakfast.

The Bacon Manifesto

I cook bacon in the oven now. Parchment paper on the bottom, grease pooling in a shallow golden layer, the result being what I can only describe as perfect floppy bacon—cooked through, never burnt, yielding. Yes, the house doesn’t smell like a diner fire right away, but the taste is entirely there. This is what growth looks like.

Between the bacon, the banana cake my wife had staged for the oven, and the focaccia already doing its thing on the counter, the kitchen was finally catching up to what a Sunday is supposed to feel like.

Why It’s Worth the Chaos

Broccoli roasted, focaccia out, and the bacon supply retired with dignity. We sat around a table that had needed some diplomatic negotiating to populate and celebrated our granddaughter’s latest month-iversary (two days early, but who’s counting?).

We do a lot for the hockey boys, and we’re glad to. But for the family meal, there is something that feels less like an obligation and more like an anchor. The week is loud. The vortex is always spinning. We’re pretty lucky to have this one on our weekly calendar.