Manicure! Manicure!

Call me sentimental but as I look ahead to my final week of work with my long-term employer, I can't help but search for any marks I made during my time with them. Or don't call me sentimental (I'm really not) but think of this as a microcosm of any of life's departures: we all want to know, what have we really left behind?

As for me, I've definitely broken some equipment in my day, so that's something. I've left a keyboard full of falafel crumbs. Innumerable pencils out on the prairies. Probably long red hairs clogging up most of the drains in the building.

A few sayings come to mind ('goat and cabbage,' 'bundle the sheep,' 'the Griffiths Hair Scale') - I hope those stick around. My opinion that Astragalus bisulcatus smells like hamster pee seems to have taken root. Countless photos of me at corporate events, reliably accessorized with a wine glass. Or bottle.

The savvy field technique of freezing a wet facecloth to stick in your lunch bag to keep your food cool until lunch then clean off the layers of grime at the end of the day.

Teaching wetlands folks the plant called pussytoes purely to ensure that there would always be pussy in their reports, since I know *some* people happen to find this objectionable.

Several dozen forks.

Even more reports.

And a ton of amazing friends.

This is where the mascara could really start to flow but, fortunately, it has been scientifically proven that there is life after consulting so you don't even need to believe in an official Afterlife to know that I've hardly effected much of a departure at all in the scheme of things. So call me sometime. Let's hang out.

Gonna throw away my title

and toss it in the trash.

~Paul Simon~