En Fuego

The weekend started with me feeling lazy. You know, sometimes you just don’t have the drive to do the chores that need to be done. What I should have done was get up and knock out the yard work. It was overcast and cooler, but I just wanted to stay in bed. When I finally crept out of bed and into the kitchen, I cooked up some sausage and egg tacos. I’d been on a sausage taco kick. It’s just a damn good combination, no matter the delivery method.

After the nice meal, I curled up on the couch and read my book — or rather, a graphic novel on my iPad: Providence. It was written by Alan Moore, author of Watchmen and V for Vendetta. His works are always pretty R-rated and not exactly for the faint of heart. That said, I was really enjoying this one, and I was glad I decided to read it. It’s really experimental: half of each chapter plays out as a comic, while the other half is written as a journal entry. It’s heavily based on various works by H. P. Lovecraft, so of course I enjoyed it. All the Easter eggs scattered throughout really appealed to me.

After finishing a chapter, Yvette and I had some errands to run. We still needed a few more things for Teegan’s graduation party the following day. We needed to knock that shit out — just a few more decorations. You can never have too many, right? Though, is that really true? I think you probably can.

Yvette went to order the food: Cane’s chicken tenders. A lot of them. (As we later found out, you can definitely have too many.) I was in charge of adding a little variety to the spread: Hawaiian sliders. I had called my second mother for the recipe, and she provided it. The recipe is pretty basic aside from the secret sauce: Hawaiian rolls, ham, and cheese. The sauce is what gives it that WOW moment when you bite in. (I’m sorry, folks, but I’m not going to share that recipe with you.) Damn good. It had been many years since I’d had them. I assembled the sliders and placed them in my mother’s fridge to be baked the following Sunday. My part was done.

Once I got home, it was back to cooking in the kitchen, this time for the family. I decided on chicken verde enchiladas. We had some rotisserie chicken that I shredded and rolled into corn tortillas with cheese. I smothered them in a healthy amount of verde sauce and baked them. The end result was consumed rapidly by the entire family.

The evening was upon us, and with a full belly and a couple of beers, sleep found me with open arms.

Sunday morning, Yvette got up early to start decorating for Teegan’s graduation party. It was once again cloudy and relatively cool, so I decided it was about damn time I did the yard work. I couldn’t put it off for another week. We would become the blight of the neighborhood. It had to be done, no matter how badly I wasn’t looking forward to it.

I put my headphones on, found some jams, and welcomed the mindset to mow. The jams certainly helped. I really have no idea how I used to mow the yard without them. My God, that must have been awful. Why the hell did it take me until this year to do yard work with music? WTF was wrong with me?

Idiot.

After about an hour and a half, I was done. Damn the yard.

I needed to go bake the Hawaiian sliders, so I quickly got cleaned up and dressed for the party. Someone needed to get ice, so I accepted that duty as well. On my way to my mother’s house, I drove right past the ice machine and had to turn around. I was already failing at one of my jobs. I set the oven and put the sliders in before letting it fully preheat. It was crunch time, and I couldn’t wait forever.

I set my alarm, and while I waited, I read more of my book. I was in another place and time, far, far away from reality, when suddenly I was pulled back to earth by the chimes of my phone. Twenty minutes had already passed.

I checked the sliders and decided they needed a little more time. Rather than go back to my story, I gathered up every utensil I thought we might need. Enough time had passed, and the sliders were done. The smell hit me immediately. My God, it took an extreme measure of self-control not to eat one on the spot.

On the way to the party, something magical happened to me. Something that has never happened before. I made it across town without hitting a single red light. That’s twenty green lights. It honestly felt surreal. I was stunned — disbelief at what had happened to me. Boy, what a feeling. It made me even more excited about the graduation party.

It turned out we had plenty of food: my sliders, four pizzas, and 200 chicken strips from Cane’s. Not to mention all the various desserts. (Can you have too many of anything? What do you all think?) Hell, we even had a fucking fondue set. How retro is that?

Everyone seemed a little timid with the food at first. We really encouraged them to pig out, but I guess they didn’t want to make themselves sick. The location was really great for activities. It had two pool tables, a ping-pong table, and a large poker table. I think the kids spent a little time doing just about everything.

I mean, we know they had a good time. My gosh, they didn’t want to leave. We couldn’t really tell them they needed to wrap things up, could we? I guess when you’re young, you just don’t pick up on all the hints. At first, we started cleaning up, and an hour later we started putting the chairs and tables away. Before long, it was just Yvette and me there with the kids. She could tell I was getting a bit anxious. I don’t stay in one place comfortably for very long.

Seeing they weren’t leaving anytime soon, I decided to go across the street and grab myself a beer, a shot of Jameson, and a side salad. It was rather relaxing after the party and gave me a much-needed moment to wind down. I ran into a fellow I used to see at the bars all the time before I married my first wife. We chatted a little, mostly just pleasantries. Charles was always a very weird dude — socially awkward, but a nice guy.

I walked back across the street to see the kids still going at it, playing a game of poker. I needed to get back to my mom’s to clean up and grab some of my stuff, so I helped Yvette with the trash and told her to try to get them out by nine because the restaurant across the street would be closing. Once they closed, nothing else would be open on the street. Downtown on an empty night can get a little frightening.

What a day. The party was obviously a hit if they didn’t want to leave after seven hours. I couldn’t believe they all stayed that long. I think everything turned out great. Maybe we outdid ourselves a little. We had so many leftover chicken tenders — well over fifty of them. So back to my question: can you ever have too many? I would consider that too many, but tell me if I’m wrong.

The work week started off humid and gross. I was in a fine Monday mood, but I could have done without the thick, sticky air. It felt like Houston outside, and I hate Houston. We had a Staff Senate meeting that afternoon. It was the usual bullshit and should have been over early, but some blabbermouth had to get his two cents in at the last minute. This guy is truly full of hot air, and lucky for all of us on the senate, his term is almost up.

Tuesday was my friend Elicia’s final day after twenty-seven years. One of the best people I’ve met on campus. It was bittersweet. For one, I was very happy for her to get the hell out, but I was also very sad for the campus, for very selfish reasons. She was the backbone of a department, and without her wealth of knowledge, I truly feared we were all in for a total shit show. It was inevitable. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. Elicia was my go-to if I had a question. I had collaborated with her in various ways for the entirety of my time at the university.

The retirement party was something I had to attend. I hate those things. I just feel awkward and out of place. I stood there like a bump on a log before finally working up the courage to give her a hug and say goodbye. I’m comfortable as hell around Elicia — just not around everyone else in the room. Maybe it was the time at which I arrived, but there were not a lot of people there whom I particularly liked being around.

God, she will be missed. When I first started working on campus nearly fifteen years ago, she was always so patient with me. I know she had to think I was a moron at times. I’m sure I was. Over the years, we got to know each other, and for a period of time she actually worked in my office as the property manager. She was a great person to have around, always able to lift one’s spirits. Of course, she was offered a better position and left us for the opposite end of campus, but that wasn’t the end of our working relationship. Before her office became the lifeless, humorless void that it is now, I would spend a great deal of time talking with Elicia. We had many great conversations over the years.

Unfortunately, she had a lot of bullshit to deal with under new leadership, and the workload became suffocating. I suppose all good things come to an end. I really wonder how many people know how much she did for the university. I don’t think she ever received all the recognition she deserved, and that is just sad. She will be missed, and some people don’t even know it yet.

Aside from Monday, the rest of the week was very unseasonable. We had cooler-than-average temperatures, cloudy skies, and scattered thunderstorms. Each evening there was thunder and lightning. We even had a few pretty scary hail reports around our area, thankfully missing us. It is that time of year for storms. Six years ago was when tennis ball-sized hail came raining down from the sky. Oh, what a year that was. Not only did we have the COVID pandemic, but most of our roofs were also destroyed by hailstones. I was happy with the weather — just please, no more hail. We’d already had enough of that for one lifetime.

That’s about it for the week. happy Friday!!!