Town crier

Thursday another engineer and I were waiting for our clients to arrive for a meeting when he turned to me. "You'll be hearing about your PE (professional engineering certification exam) results soon, won't you?"

"Oh, I don't think I'll hear about them until January."

"No," he mildly corrected me. "I know they always release the results right before the end of the year because I found out I passed on December 30th."

Talking about it took me back to when I found out that I passed my first certification exam. It was the day after Christmas about five years ago and I'd just gotten home from work. I hadn't been home in a few days since I'd been away for the holiday and I saw the envelope from the certification organization as I flipped through the mail. I pulled out and my stomach knotted. It was such a thin envelope--if this was anything like college admission letters, it would be a bad sign. I laid the envelope on the table for a moment, gathering my courage to rip through that envelope. Finally the suspense was too much and I pulled the letter out, skimming over the first few lines without comprehension. Pass--73!! Success!! I squealed and starting literally jumping up and down. I just couldn't contain my excitement. Without setting the letter down or even taking my eyes off it, I rushed over to the phone to start calling everyone I could think of.

Imagine my surprise when I came across the letter this time as I flipped through my Saturday mail after a late date with my boyfriend. Again the thin envelope frightened me, but this time I buoyed my confidence remembering that I would need a thicker envelope to contain a report about why I failed, but I simultaneously tried to keep my expectations reasonable. Still, as I pulled the letter out of the envelope I silently chanted, "Pass, pass, pass..." Again I skimmed incomprehensably over the first few lines until I saw it: Pass!!!

Paid in blood

"Do you know where the batteries are?" I asked the accounting clerk.

"Sure," she said. "Do you need approval to get them or anything?"

"I don't think so."

"Not even a drop of blood?" she joked.

"Well, I'll email the appropriate person to let her know I took them, just in case."

"Can you send blood over email?"

"No, but that way she can come prick me in my office."

Odds

F called me yesterday morning. "Guess what?"

"What?"

"Your grandmother and mine are next door to each other," he informed me. I laughed. "I was going to send flowers up to your grandmother's room and I discovered they were right next door to each other."

Which odds are better: that they would place our grandmothers next door to each other or that I'd get such a thoughtful boyfriend?

Still more good news: Both grandmothers have been moved out of recovery, unfortunately ending their stay as neighbors, but they both seem to be doing well.

Freaked out

This song came on, just after taking a call from my mom as she followed an ambulance to hospital with my grandmother in the back.

I know that my grandmother does everything right--eating well, walking with her dog twice day, and has barely been sick a day in her life. This situation should have a positive outcome. But I'm still waiting on pins and needles. Please think positive thoughts for my grandmother.

While you're sharing those positive thoughts, please spare some for F's grandmother and R's father who are both having surgery or preparing for surgery today.

Good news: my grandmother's appendix ruptured but it has been removed and she seems to be doing well in recovery. F's grandmother is also out of surgery and doing well so far. Ironically they'll be recovering in the same hospital for the next week.

Please keep R's father in your thoughts while he's under the knife today.

Misunderstanding

I joined F's family for a Hanukkah breakfast yesterday morning. My mom asked me about it afterward and I explained that this breakfast was their primary celebration this year, they were even foregoing gifts.

"Oh, so they celebrate Christmas?" she asked.

"No," I answered. "Hanukkah isn't a major Jewish holiday..."

"I know," she interrupted.

"And they've just gotten away from giving gifts since their kids have grown up." I finished.

"Oh. So, have you guys talked about the holidays?" she asked.

I paused. "We have." I answered. I opened my mouth to say more and discovered it was suddenly dry. "We decided, since neither of us are very..." I faltered, "that neither of us have any objections to celebrating two religions that we could celebrate at least traditions from both." I looked down. "We haven't decided which one we would raise our, um, children in, so that's still a big question hanging out there."

Now it was her turn to be silent. "I meant whether you'd talked about celebrating the holidays."

"Oh," I said, embarrassed. "We thought we'd kind of just see how this month went. I told him I might be able to wrangle him an invitation to Christmas dinner."

"Sure," she said.

Weird

Is it weird that after F and I finally had our talk about religion, the person I really wanted to talk to about it was PJ?

When I told him about our conversation, now a couple of weeks removed, PJ asked if it would be weird for him to offer his help.

And the weirdest thing was that it wasn't weird at all to discuss that topic with him.

Workin on the railroad

Plans from railroad
Originally uploaded by angineer

The as-built drawings I got from the railroad were longer than I am. And way way older too.

High praise

From my intense coworker: "You're on target."

I almost fainted dead away or danced out of his office. Almost.

Dinner bell

I know why companies choose pizza to serve during mandatory staff lunch meetings. It isn't because it is easy and cheap--it is because the pervasive scent of hot pizza will call even the most reluctant participants into the meeting.

Symbols

The instructor's shirt had the top button undone and through the open collar a thin gold chain and heavy cross shone against his dark chest hair.

Seeing this, I vividly remembered pushing the neckline of PJ's t-shirt aside with my fingers, my nails lightly scraping over his golden skin and sliding through his coarse chest hair and along his angular collarbone. I slid my index finger under the heavy gold chain that always hung around his neck, tracing over the smooth skin that the chain normally rested on, slowing when I got to the large Star of David pendant. As the pendant flopped over my finger, my stomach tightened.

I wondered whether it was a gift upon his Bar Mitzvah or graduation, but, symptomatic of our communication issues, I never asked. Just as I never asked whether our religious differences would keep us from having a future together.