Fun times at George Washington’s Mount Vernon on our 2024 road trip.

It’s that time again! Another year of blessed bliss married to the amazing Anne, another “Happy Anniversary to Us!” entry, another dinner to celebrate, and another nearly unrelated lead image. This year’s milestone is also a multiple of 5, so society says it’s worth extra skill points!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: two geeks met in 1987 in high school German class, somewhat out of sync with the ordinary folks around us. Divine timing would keep our unplanned parallel paths intertwining over the years. Everything led up to our determinedly simple wedding in 2004, by which time we best friends had already started traveling together after growing up in families and lifestyles that didn’t lend themselves to much of it. All these years later, our story continues together through ups and downs, highs and lows, chuckles and tears, aches and pains, and mountains and valleys both figurative and literal.

We’re the Goldens. It’s who we are and what we do.

As it often does, our anniversary celebration came on the heels of this year’s road trip, which left us elated and thoroughly trashed. As shown in our lead photo, we returned to Virginia and added four more Presidential gravesites to our collection (we’ve now seen thirty of ’em) among other spots of historical significance and fun. The physical damage lingers thanks to the bogus aging process, but we survived the experience and pepped up in time to celebrate our big day this past Wednesday. Longtime MCC readers may recall the annual “Happy Anniversary to Us!” entry usually doubles as an excuse to post pics of the evening — nearly always fancy food — and here the tradition continues.

The seemingly ageless Dori-Anne Gray.

This writer, thanking the Lord for every blessed minute with her.

This time we returned to an old favorite called Oakleys Bistro, a modern-American fine-dining establishment on Indianapolis’ northwest side. We met Chef Steven Oakley at Fantastic Food Fest 2017, where I had the pleasure of trying his As Seen on TV shrimp corn dog that was his finishing move in a winning episode of Beat Bobby Flay. His folks returned to the Fest the following year with Asian duck meatballs, and we last posted about them during the pandemic when restaurants at every level needed some local loving.

They’re down the street from St. Vincent’s Hospital, convenient in case we’d had ourselves too much fun.

The Bistro has been around for 22 years and was the perfect place to reminisce about old times, look forward to the years ahead, and pass ourselves off as accomplished adults in the present. Hopefully our hosts didn’t mind that we don’t drink, or that I may have secretly pretended we were at The Bear. Oakleys was surely better than The Bear. No hilariously nerve-wracking shouting matches, for starters.

In looking at our previous photos, I just realized they seated us at the exact same table as they did in 2021. The food was all-new to us, though.

It was Anne’s turn to try the shrimp corn dog, served with a mustard-seed and honey sauce.

Nashville chicken deviled eggs with dill pickle, mustard, paprika, Calabrian honey mustard, and a toasted bread cube on top.

For my main dish, beef brisket with a wild mushroom ragout, ratatouille, cheddar potato latkes, artichoke gremolata, Bleu cheese, and miso ketchup.

For Anne, the Crispy Indiana Pork Schnitzel with ramp kimchi fregola, French beans, marinated tomatoes, parsnip chips, pickled cherry fennel salad, lemon jus and cherry balsamic glaze.

I went with a savory dessert — a quasi-fondue of Tulip Tree Creamery trillium cheese with plum ginger rosemary jam, marcona almonds, and crispy lavosh for dipping.

And for the little lady, their Peach Swiss Roll — lemon ricotta cake with blueberry relish, almond mascarpone, strawberry peach relish and a scoop of peach frozen yogurt.

We enjoyed every bite, some of which might’ve frightened and confused us if we’d tried such a meal at an earlier age. New experiences are all a part of the longtime fun we’ve had together.

We capped off the night with the viewing of an artistic endeavor of sorts — an off-off-off-off-off-Broadway production called The Acolyte. It needs more workshopping and we could’ve given them copious notes if they cared to ask, but with maybe another six or twenty months of rewrites it could be the start of something big. What we saw wasn’t anywhere near grade-A yet, but maybe someday, with lots of hard work. Anne and I can relate. We had to start somewhere and make tons of mistakes along the way, too. We’ve even learned from most of them!