every girl needs her dad, or maybe just I do.

If ever I missed my dad, today is one of those days.  Actually, it’s one of those weeks.  I need the fatherly wisdom that only my dad can bestow.  My dad who studied engineering ‘cause they don’t teach you what a ductile girder is in Legal Ethics text books.

I’m constantly fascinated in my legal arena.  On my toes.  This week it’s culminated in a constant frustration at my complete and total ignorance.  Who knew “ability to read CAD drawings” was invisibly written into my job criteria.  I didn’t and I’m kicking myself for not reading invisibly written items.  As I spend yet another day pouring over drawings and plans for a Seattle residential high rise, I can feel the urge to drool, pick my nose and feign mental retardation.  I think the different drawings – with unsubstantiated revisions – are causing brain warts, and I don’t think the weekend will come fast enough to prevent them from exploding and releasing cancerous spores into the grey matter occupying the space between my ears.  Perhaps the cancer has already been released, I just spent a full minute looking at the screen, trying to figure out how to spell ‘occupy,’ then remembering it doesn’t start with an ‘a,’ in fact, there isn’t an ‘a’ in the entire word. 

Blink.  Blink.  Oh yea.  I needed my dad right at that moment.

I know he’s about to head home, lay on the couch and watch the History channel while eating either chocolate ice cream out of the gallon carton or cheese right from the 2-lb. block that he will take from the fridge to the living room.  With roasted garlic Triscuits.  Sigh.  I miss my dad. 

I could really use and interpreter or an Architect-to-English dictionary, so I can look up words and items for translation into lay/half-retarded/“I study laws and statutes and civil rules” – person terms.  And the damn drawings are about the same height as me when I roll them up and stand them on the floor next to my 4” heel elevated body.  In fact, my little 11 year old sister could double for these drawings, they are the same height, weight and I don’t understand either of them.  I hoist, unravel and try to decipher the hieroglyphics, trying to CRACK THE CASE, but my eyes just cross and I end up rolling, hoisting and grabbing another pre-teen sized log from the shelf.  If my dad was here he’d help me by lifting the other end, he’d never just carry the whole drawing ‘cause he knows that part of my self-worth is dependent on my physical strength.  The other part is reliant on intelligence, but this week has shown that I may be failing miserably and therefore should take up professional bodybuilding or become a lumberjack and capitalize on my biceps.  My dad would support me if I decided on either.  Or both.

Ultimately, my pride will prevent me from calling my dad and asking what ‘post-tensioning’ is and if he knew what kind of waterproofing applications would most likely be utilized to create a watertight seal on concrete balconies on floors 4 through thirty nine where the concrete deck coating meeting the metal deck railing that has been bolted four times at each corner of a steel plate into an ‘embed’ (and what’s that too?) that’s been sunk into the concrete deck.  No.  I’ll go home exhausted, mentally drained, refuse to cook dinner because it requires standing, sleep, wake up and try to CRACK THE CASE again tomorrow.  I hope the infectious spores don’t turn my brain matter into goo first.  And if that happens, I hope the Man will still like me when I drool.