2004-10-06 - 12:31 a.m.
Is it etiquette if you are the only one who knows the rules?
I took the baby asparagus--thinner and more tender than any I have ever known--delicately between two fingers and placed half at a time in my mouth as mannerly as I knew how. I felt eyes upon me and I wanted to quietly say, "Miss Manners says I can." Was I minding my manners?
I am wallowing around the apartment checking the weather. It will be a dangerous drive if I must leave tomorrow, but I know they will understand. Outside the rain pelts upon the windowpanes and threatens hail on windshields. I have turned off the lights to enjoy the flashes of lightening.
Tonight I enjoyed dinner, a thick seared ahi steak, at one of the best restaurants in Denver. For appetizers we passed fresh, warm crab cakes, chilled oysters in the half shell, fried calamari, and shrimp cocktail around the table.
Traditionally my regional vice president takes new hires out to dinner the second night of training. This Tuesday fell on the awards night for my region. How fortunate for me to eat such a fine meal with the top 10% of our region's salesmen! Beside me sat a man from my branch who has been with the company for three months. How can a place be as intimidating as it is encouraging?
It felt as if the entire table besides me and Courtney, the other new hire, were sitting beside or talking about their spouses and the children waiting for them back home. It was difficult not to feel a little incomplete beside them.
