My Knives #22 Kiritsuke - a Christmas miracle (almost)

A not-at-all discrete "Psssst" broke the harmony of the perfect classroom. Almost everyone's head turned in my direction and the professor gave me an one-eyebrow-lift-above-the-glasses look. I've managed to get the attention of all but the book girl.
"Pssssssstttt" another one - this produced 30 something offended looks (like I give a shit about them) and finally she pulled the eyes of the book and gave me a what's-your-problem look.

"Wachya reading" - I lip-mounted.
She rolled her eyes and turned the cover toward me - Rober Jordan Wheel of Time.

Yey, a friend!

"Coffe?" - not as quietly as I intended.

She just gave me a nod and went back to her book.
...

And that's how our almost 20 years of friendship started.
She was some 4 years younger and couldn't have had a different background if orchestrated.
While I come from a poor family where a high school diploma was considered higher education, her's was a family of medical doctors. My childhood was spent in a basement without running water, hers was in a down-town (and I do mean down-down-town) high sealings and floor-heating residence with a view.
When she was learning Latin and Greek, I was learning how to scam local deadbeats for a drink or a cigarette.

Me studying archaeology was how-the-hell-did-he-get-in-the-college, her studying the same was a big disappointment to her folks with almost daily why-can't-you-be-like-your-brother-and-study-medicine.

And guess what we, clicked in a second - an instant friendship. No, slowly getting to know each other, no weird moments, nothing physical - just two people who felt natural to spend time together.

After some thousand coffees, hundreds of books, a lot of digs (that's when you dig up dead people and their stuff from the earth), life finally caught up.
I got a job, then a different one, and not in any way related to archaeology, she actually got a job at the [AMZ]http://www.amz.hr/home.aspx and spend much of the time in the field. So, eventually we lost our daily routine, then a monthly, and finally ended seeing each other once every two or so years.

It's not a sad story or anything like that - we are still good friends and every time we get together we just jump into our friendship as if we haven't spend any time apart at all.

Somewhere in our last biennial hiatus, I started making knives and, of course, she was thrilled about it. "We should get together, have a coffee and catch up on things." But she was on one dig or another, and I was Spain, or France or.. Always something.

We finally got together last month, when she visited me in my workshop with her daughter, I made some coffee and we had a blast.
And, she wanted me to make her two knives: one for herself and one as a gift for her brother in law.
I probably wasn't paying attention, and got the gift part wrong. I was sure it was for a Christmas gift.

Then, last week she called to ask if the knife is ready - it was Wen.
Apparently, she needed the knife on Saturday when it's his birthday.

Naturally, I haven't even started the build thinking I have three weeks.
I was planning to take two days off and work on one of the orders but not hers.

So what can you do, I told her - OK I'll call you on Friday and let you know how we stand.

In my mind I was thinking - Fucking hell you doing Doc? There's no way I can make a knife in two days!

So that's exactly what I did - I build her in two (well, two and a half) days.

The build