I also dressed down, and stole a drink from work. Two of my best friends finally met each other. They got along famously, bet­ter than any of my other friends in the past. I sup­ported one on the biggest deci­sion of his life. The other told me that I had always been her hope­ful out of the round of inter­views for my job, over a chicken sand­wich and some onion rings. I learned the four Cs of dia­mond appraisal, and saw a car­bon spec through a loupe for the first time.

I met two cats; one rolled into my lap while play­ing Double Dash with the best kids in the world. A fam­ily inspired me, and I dared to dream of some day hav­ing my own.