Under the Baobab Tree

Traveling Circus

I just got back from a week-long trip that started at Dulles airport and ended at Union Station, via San Diego and New York. The entire Fire Brigade was on the move, including a few adjunct Fire Brigaders and Fire Brigaders in training. Along the way we met Michael Jackson's personal lawyer, a Ph.D in rheumatology with a penchant for European history, an aging hippie on the corporate dole, an Irish-American media mogul, a Caribbean products lawyer, two puzzle and gaming impresarios finishing up the (apparently very stressful) New York Toy Fair, an NPR freelance journalist, and a man reconsidering his decision to live on a boat in Havre de Grace, Maryland. I also tried, but failed, to buy a piece of art from a bartender in Hell's Kitchen, and tried and succeeded in convincing an array of security guards at our client's headquarters in New York that I was really Paddington Bear.

It started last week with all of our US trial lawyers descending on San Diego for the aptly named US Trial Lawyer's Retreat. I got there just in time to meet pretty much everyone in the hotel bar. It's usually safe to assume that if you're looking for one of our trial lawyers you might find him or her in the bar. To make it even better, the weather in SD was atrocious -- foggy and freezing and damp and raining. Just about all 425 of us squoze into the bar on the marina and watched the weather drizzle and the sailboat masts flail about.

I found myself talking to Michael Jackson's personal lawyer -- the man who represented him in the child molestation case -- and ultimately ended up making sure this man was properly escorted to the evening's venues. We made our way to a blues house in the Gaslamp Quarter in San Diego where the man got on stage and said all the things we told him to say, and then a barrage of trial lawyers got on stage with Blues Brothers bowlers hats and sunglasses on (I was not among them). To say these people like to ham it up is an understatement.

The next day, Saturday, two members of the Fire Brigade and two Fire Brigaders-in-training gathered in the San Diego office where we worked all day and night (literally, unfortunately) on two back-to-back presentations on two different subjects that we had to give to our client in NY on Monday. We made it back to our hotel just in time to catch the 5 a.m. shuttle to the airport. There was a high proportion of people on the flight back to New York wearing Blue Brothers bowlers hats. So much for San Diego.

We land at JFK and go straight to the NY office where we work another 7 hours or so and then hit the sack. Monday's presentation to the client went off without a hitch. Most people would think the big push for the week would be done, no? Work all weekend on the West Coast and pull an all-nighter for a 7 hour PowerPoint presentation on Monday on the East Coast and most normal people would take the next day off.

But the next day was Tuesday and I had to go to our client and interview a man who turned out to be the afore-mentioned aging hippie on the corporate dole, and then wander back across town to give two 45 minute presentations to a different wing of our client. After the interview, I put the two presentations on a jump drive, stuck it in my pocket, and walked down Broadway to the venue, which turned out to be the Hudson Theatre in Times Square. There are 150 people gathered in the theatre and I realize that I am to give my presentations from the stage, in front of the floodlights, with a stagehand and a Rockettes-size screen for the slide show behind me. I feel like some sort of motivational speaker. Most of the audience members were experienced New Orleans litigators who were out of work due to Katrina and so had been hired by our client to knock out a very large project. These people were much older than me, and probably much older than anyone on the Fire Brigade. It was amazingly fun -- completely exhilarating. Maybe I should be a televangelist or something. Then a group of 8 or so of us who had given presentations that day all went out to dinner at a Brazilian steak house in Hell's Kitchen. We are a group of 8 or so who speak every week on the phone in a regularly scheduled conference call, and we hail from firms and offices all over the country -- Dallas, Denver, Chicago, DC, New York, etc. We ate this massive carnivorous dinner and drank caipirinhas and looked around at each other and thought how amazing it was that we've gotten to know each other so well over the last year and we don't even live in each others' towns or even work for the same employer. We are also all under the age of 40. We call it our Virtual Law Firm.

So most people would think that THAT would be the end of the week -- four slideshow presentations to the client within a two day period and a rowdy Virtual Law Firm dinner at a Brazilian steak house. But the next day was Wednesday and I had to meet a partner from one of our Virtual Law Firm affiliates in Chicago at our client to interview someone. We meet in the Starbucks where one can expect to find virtually anyone you want to find who has anything to do with our client. If our client were named The Acme Company, then this is The Acme Company Starbucks. There's nothing particularly remarkable to report about this witness interview (he was the rheumatologist with a thing for European history) except that the last time I had seen the Chicago lawyer I was teamed with was in Worcester, Mass a few weeks ago, when we had gone up to interview someone at the biomedical research labs there, and the time before that was a month ago when we both flew to St. Louis to interview the man who invented the product with which we are dealing. Every time I'm with this Chicago man I have this image in my head of him starting out in Chicago at the crack of dawn and me starting out in DC at the crack of dawn, flying towards some spot somewhere in the country where we will lock ourselves in a room and talk to an absolute stranger for several hours about a subject that no-one in the country cares much about except us. I've never seen the man without one or the other of us toting luggage. And he's Irish, of course.

Had dinner that night with a friend from law school -- ate the world's largest grilled flounder (it was as big as my head), took a shine to a piece of artwork at the bar, and tried (and failed) to buy it from the bartender. Don't know what was wrong with THAT guy.

Still the week was not done. The next day, Thursday, one of the Baltimore Fire Brigade and I had two interviews at our client. We met at The Acme Company Starbucks, both of us toting luggage. By this time the weather report in NY was calling for snow, so I had gone out and purchased a new winter coat, new winter hat, new scarf, and an entirely new suit because the clothes I had started out with San Diego were insufficiently warm. Long-time readers will recall the fashionable black nylon topcoat I had to buy one frigid week in San Francisco for similar reasons -- and the layers of woolly sweaters I bought during an autumn cold snap in Chicago….same idea. So yesterday I retired the fashionable black nylon topcoat (not so fashionable anymore) and in its place is this fuzzy suedy sharmilla black thing. It is very warm. Somewhat chic and not overly expensive.

But when I wear it with my new charcoal gray hat and my security badge for the client and my scarf with wheelie and laptop in tow, I look like Paddington Bear. Also, I am not very mobile. I guess I'm like a cross between Paddington Bear and the Michelin Tire Man. I waddled around the East Side. Fortunately, my fellow Fire Brigader was most accomodating and would rush around ahead of me pushing tables and chairs and small children and garbage cans and things out of my way so that I would not hit anything and fall over. He also opened doors, got my wallet out of my purse, pushed elevator buttons, etc. Very handy.

We interviewed the Irish-American medial mogul, had lunch at an Italian place, interviewed the Caribbean products lawyer, and then waddled our way with luggage and Paddington Bear attire to the train station to try to go home. The trains we would have liked to have taken were cancelled for no apparent reason -- the 6 p.m. Acela and the 5:30 Metroliner. We didn't want to wait for the 7 p.m. Acela so we stupidly bought tickets on the 5:30 regional train. More on that later.

We have half an hour to kill so we go to the bar (duh). My Fire Brigade companion took my pink leather wallet to the bar to get drinks (not looking so very manly but he had no money so it was his own fault) and I stood in the corner trying to get my Paddington Bear torso and Michelin Tire Man luggage, etc. into the corner so that I could sit down. When I finally sat down in all my clothes I felt like Jabba the Hut. Fireman shows up with beer. We're on our way home. Life is good.

At this point the true circus nature of the trip begins. The couple sitting next to us, strung out from the NY Toy Fair, looks over brightly and strikes up an overly animated conversation with us. I smile and nod my head and look wanly out from my bear outfit at them. Fire Man says suitably social but minimally responsive things. The couple asks us if we are married. We say no, the very idea….! Perhaps they mistook our ennui and peevishness for marital bliss. We learn all about each of their children and grandchildren and what their son majored in at college and how much he makes in his first job out of school, etc. We learn that the Toy Man is basically outwitted by the Toy Woman at every turn. She thinks up the games and puzzles and he pays the staff who make them, or something like that. She is very loud, he smiles faintly and looks at us as if he's very sorry. Fortunately, we have to leave the Toy Couple to get on the train.

Which is completely full because of the cancellations so we have to stand all the way to Philly. I still am Paddington Bear/Michelin Tire Man and it becomes hard to roll my wheelie down the train aisle. We had to get to the café car to find room to stand. Unfortunately, my Fire Man is behind me, not in front of me. He cannot move all the small children and luggage and pets out of my way for me. So I have no choice but to just bash my way down the aisle. Rolling over people's toes, elbowing them, hauling my luggage, clearing the path. It was ugly. My Fire Man is behind me looking at everybody and saying "sorry, pardon us, excuse me, sorry, she has a lot of clothes on, it's not her fault, she's-crazy-I-know-don't-blame-me, etc." In retrospect, very funny. At the time, not so much. And standing in the café car once we finally got there made me feel like I was on a night train in Italy during a train strike -- totally miserable. Fire Man takes pink leather wallet to café car to buy more beer, which we then try not to spill on all the people sitting on the floor in the aisle around us.

So the last chapter of this trip is that eventually in Philly we manage to get a table in the café car. Where we instantly meet a very funny woman who freelances for NPR and the very droll man who lives on a boat in Havre de Grace. We discover this latter fact because the Fire Man and I were feuding about who's stupid idea it was to take the regional train in the first place (it turns a 3 hour trip into a 4 hour trip). I was reminding him that I had once taken an oath never to take a regional train with him again because last time I did the train broke down the moment he got off in Baltimore and it took me something like seventeen more hours to get back to DC. Also, the regional train is incredibly slow. My Fire Man's response to this was: "I like to go slow." Whatever.

I was in the process of using as evidence the fact that we had stopped in Newark, New Jersey AND Newark, Delaware, and that at this rate we would probably stop in Havre de Grace and Perryville and Aberdeen before getting to Baltimore. I was expressing sullen outrage as only the Paddington Bear/Michelin Tire Man can do. My Fire Man was patiently sipping his beer and presumably hoping I would stop talking.

At this point, the Havre de Grace boat man spoke up from across the table and confirmed that we would indeed be stopping there (after asking us if we were married -- again, the peevish ennui thing must be a dead giveaway). Which led to a suddenly very gay and jolly conversation about the Decoy Museum. I told them my joke about how every time I pass the Decoy Museum sign on I-95 in Havre de Grace I always chortle to myself, "Hah! Can't fool me! I'm going to wait for the real museum." This struck our tired little group of Acela Express refugees as extremely funny. We laughed and laughed.

The Havre de Grace man then told us an even funnier story about how the man who runs the board at the Philly Amtrak station is always falling asleep so the board gets either woefully out of date or he forgets to stop the signs when he's changing them so that the words just rifle through the screen endlessly…. Someone has to keep going up to wake the guy up. This was just too much for us -- my Fire Man starts talking about people throwing bottles at the sign to try to get it to stop, the NPR reporter and I try to say the names of all the main line destinations as fast as we can, as if we were reading the permanently rotating board. "philly-trenton-newark-metropark-issen-newyorkcity-stamford-providence-bostonbackbay" and then back again. We laughed so hard we got the hiccups.

By the time we were through Havre de Grace the train was totally out of beverages and my pink leather wallet was empty.

Havre de Grace man got off in Havre de Grace (duh), Fire Man gets off in Baltimore, and NPR reporter and I stay on all the way to DC.

Now we have two new friends.

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