A Standing Lunch Date

Yesterday I had lunch with one of my dearest friends, Ralph. Ralph was my boss, but he's been more like a father figure to me. Maybe it was because I was straight out of college when he hired me, or the fact that for the first two years at work, I had a crying spell just about every week in his office. He would try to comfort me, chuckling a little before telling me that I had to man up to be in the chicken business. He's taken upon himself the development of my career and my personal growth. We normally have our morning banter, which is usually about what mischief my dogs got into the night before and then he'd tell me to get rid of them. Then we'd go on to have several more chitchats through out the day, and sometimes lunch together, just so he'd know what I am up to with work and I could steal some candy out of his snack drawer. Some people at work always thought there was some December-May romance going on, which bothered me a touch that they couldn't see (or didn't want to see since gossips were more fun) our genuine friendship. Since I quit my job, we've been chatting on the phone a couple of times and yesterday decide to go out to lunch together. We've agreed on a lunch date every week until I leave. I'm really not looking forward to saying goodbye to him.

One of the moving crews is sending their person to our house today to assess the weight of our junk and packaging material they will need. And my landlord is sending his yard guy over to see what they need to do to beautify the backyard (two digging dogs = dead grass). I'm really starting to get butterflies in my stomach about the move. T-14 days!