The phone rang just minutes after I got home from my daylong meeting.

The wife. "Did I tell you we're going out to dinner? I'll be there in just a few minutes to pick you up."

Ooookay. I skipped lunch, so dinner out sounds good to me.

And it was a good dinner. Good companionship, good food, a diverse and tasty buffet, constantly if slowly refilled.

And it was all free.

For a select, invite-only clientele. Who included the wife, her friend Tina, and our eldest son.

And guests. Like me.

A farewell dinner and customer appreciation celebration for the favored restaurant. The final repast before they lock their doors for good tonight. The owner circulating slowly amongst the tables, accepting our sadness and expressing his hope for better things in the future.

Our large table was catty-corner from another, equally large, and before the wife could get her coat off, a pretty young gal from that table was tugging on her sleeve.

And waved her left hand forward, flashing the ring with the shiny stone. Her excitement contagious to the entire room, even though he proposed way back on Monday.

Later the mother came over alone, and she and the wife had a short, serious discussion about the young man, and his apparent good standing compared to the young woman's previous male companion.

Later, when we were enjoying rich chocolate cake, the future groom was drug over for introductions. With the classic deer-in-the-headlights look on his face.

Who knew getting a "yes" from the girl of your dreams would also bring so many new faces and names into your life?

The funny part about it all?

I have no clue who these people are. And the wife cannot tell me.

Really.

Weird, huh?

And, for the record, I have begun consuming the last ever raspberry pie from Frontier Pies.

The wife claimed she was going to have a slice, but I made no promises that I'd wait for her to eat one.

Oh, and Hil, there's no trick to getting pronghorn to spread out. They seem to want to do that all by themselves...