Ciao Spider Woman

Farewell to Jessica.

Although we did not work in the same department, we worked at the same facility. And what, in the words of Prince, a strange relationship we tend to have with people that we work/live with for huge chunks of time. Okay, not Prince-strange but strange; if you're lucky, an enjoyable camaraderie is sometimes forged.

Jessica was my rock climbing liaison. That's her getting ready to belay for me yesterday as I pondered how to best approach the wall.

Jessica also kept me in check. I was preparing to belay for her and taking up slack in the rope but I took my hand off the brake line. When she admonished me for the brake line snafu, I told her that I wasn't officially belaying but she said something about best practices etc. etc. She also reminded me, ever so gently, about the feed line for the climber on the ATC guide, safety checks and accurate commands, including the lower me one. There's nothing like being stuck 30 feet up because you forgot to say lower me and please doesn't really move your belayer.

In addition to rock climbing, I also went swimming with Jessica and was in danger of turning into a spectator because she is such an excellent swimmer and I enjoyed watching her rock the butterfly and front crawl. I thought that I had been swimming up until that point but felt like I was just playing in the water once I saw Jessica.

Last year at this time, I signed up for my first swimming class. So, I'm going to cut myself some slack and give myself credit for showing up for those swimming classes. I'll go ahead and throw out extra credit for my attendance at class one.

In addition to being a good workout, swimming has been a phenomenal way for me to attend to other parts of my well-being.

A few months ago, I had a dream that I had fallen into some water with a folder containing, I assume, work-related documents. As I was in the water, I realized that I could swim and that I was going to be all right.

In addition to rock climbing and swimming, I also bowled with Jessica and played dominoes.

I'm going to miss several things about her but I'm definitely going to miss the sportsmanship.