The Ring and I...

Wow I am totally slacking in posts. I haven’t picked up any stamp related material for months, totally lacking motivation and inspiration. Sadly not lacking greediness though, I ordered a new stamp set, hopefully that will get me going. I do have some cooking adventures to share, but been lazy in taking pictures. For now I will share the story of the ring.

Bit of background first. All engineers in Canada have the option of getting the IRON RING. I believe some sort of ceremony started later in some US colleges but not positive, but this is a Canadian thing.

The ring is great in that I’ve met people and had random conversations at airports, coffee shops, once at when a cop pulled me over (don’t ask) because they recognized the ring.

The ring worn on the small finger of your working hand as a constant reminder of the responsibility, obligation – moral, ethical and professional commitment – you undertake as an engineer (the whole cop situation may not have been the proudest moment of my ring!) We get the ring in a very cool ceremony, details of which I can’t share. Lets just say the ceremony itself is called “The Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer.” Enough said right?

If you get a brand new ring, usually there is some sort of rough edges left behind…symbolic of the new graduate, which over time it smooths out. In my case it took a couple of months (maybe an year?) and during this time I had scratches/blood on my fourth finger regularly. But moving on…

My trouble started a couple of years ago when I found the ring to be a bit loose. But it was my original ring, it had finally smoothed itself out and I was hanging on to it. Then a couple of months ago I kept on loosing it…mostly when I get up in the morning it would be somewhere in my blankets (my mother will be happy to know this forced me to make my bed!) but once I started dropping it at work I knew I needed a new one. Except I now live in the US. I was forced to wear it on a necklace until I headed home a couple of weeks ago.

A must on my agenda was to get a new ring. The night before I found out that my ring would fit my little brother (who should be getting his ring sometime next semester if everything goes according to plan) and yay it does. So my plan was to get a new ring, give this one to my brother when the time comes…now I admit I was going to lie and say I lost my original ring. Lie, bad yes I know, but this was MY ring! Since I could, I wanted keep it in the family. At least this way I get to see it once in a while, talk about our good times.

I had to meet with the dean of engineering to get the ring. No problem.…except he drew out the drawer of rings before I said anything. Now I am not the greatest liar in the world but jeez it just felt so wrong to lie with all those rings staring at me! Interity, morality, ethics indeed. So I blurted out my story, he understood and I started trying on rings to find the size.

Keep in mind this was a hot day in Ottawa and I’ve walked around downtown and was a bit sweaty when I got to the office. I settled on two sizes. The small one was tight…all I could think was over time it was going to cut off my blood supply and I’d just watch my finger fall off. I don’t know why I didn’t think “oh maybe this is okay since I can get it on/off without too much of a struggle.” By this time my finger was red, feeling a bit numb so I went with the bigger size.

Got home and realized I picked up the EXACT same size of ring as I’ve had before. EXACT SAME SIZE! Iron ring karma for the intended lie? Or just stupidity? I think it’s a fine line.

My first morning back in California, I woke up and had to dig through my blankets to find the ring.

Sigh.

On my mom's positive side, my bed is made…