One Darling, One Journey, One Dog...

[captainsblog]

I'm working from home this morning, just to keep an eye on a situation which I'll get to here.  It caps a stretch of work that kept me intensely busy the two previous days.

Tuesday brought two hearings, both downtown a good four hours apart. To fill the time, earlier in the week, I called a client who had a trial scheduled for yesterday, to set up a time to go over her testimony and documents.  My name must have displayed on her phone, because she answered it Hello, Darling. Spoiler alert: I do not apply the same term to her (or anyone not named Eleanor or RuPaul).  But we set a time to meet in between my meetings downtown late Tuesday morning. I also made plans to hand-deliver the complaint form that Eleanor had been working on, against one of her former doctors, to the Office of Professional Discipline of such degreed individuals.

Hearing One went fine, but client was nervous, I could tell.

Watch on YouTube

So I offered to drive her to the hearing, which of course then meant driving back after it was done. I brought her file into my office, answered a few of All The Things which had accumulated in my brief absence, and headed back downtown to meet HD (this is now her forever name, to match Love You Bye, my pet name for another client- a guy, this time- whose name on a voicemail transcript got autocorrected to that). After meeting her, I had a good half hour to make the delivery of the complaint form. I had the address on Main Street, but didn't realize until I got there which building it's in:



Here's what the Historical Society had to say about it in 1975:



What that doesn't tell you, but I knew, is that the building is the flagship property of local attorney-developer- general crazypants curmudgeon named Carl Paladino.  He rails daily against state government- and, yes, rents space in his crib to state agencies.  I never went in, though, because when I checked the file for the exact address inside the building? No file.  Yup, back when I did the switch earlier, Eleanor's stuff got stuck in with Nervous Client's file.  But no harm- I'd be back the next day.

----

And was.  The trial, before a City Court judge, was scheduled to begin at 9:30.  The judge got in sometime around 10.  No opponent, or attorney for one.  The rule is, you need to give people an hour to cover various contingencies, but 10:30 came and went because they hadn't assigned a court reporter to the judge's courtroom. A court reporter who does not take down formal testimony-



-but who apparently is the only civil servant allowed to press the "on" button on the official record-recording recorder.  Before that, moments past 10:45, the defendant and his lawyer rolled in. One snarky comment got made from the bench, but at least officially, no harm came to them, or benefit to us, as a result of their delaying the whole thing for over an  hour.  Fortunately, it gave us incentive to speed things up: we agreed on exhibits, waived some procedural BS, and were out in under two hours from when the "on" button got pushed.

That complete, I returned to Chez Crazy Carl to deliver the form- this time having triple-checked I had it.  The lobby is ornate and well maintained, but the top floors of this grand old building are something out of a 50s movie.  The floor with this office seemed virtually deserted- one dark and handle-less door after another- except for one broker's office and, finally, this:



I waited several minutes for life forms to stir in there, but finally made the drop. No way to time-stamp my copy, but I have this picture of the door, so I must've been there.

Then back for an afternoon in the office, where more fun awaited. There was an email, from the son of the client from my previous foray into As The Wheels of Justice Turn, who finally got back to me about the case I advised him of having lost two weeks before.  I expected him to be displeased, and he was. In volume.  My recommendations and observations got replied to, point by point, with bolding and underlining and ALL CAPS sprinkled throughout.  He accused me of blaming the victim, of not preparing sufficiently, and probably of kicking my dog (I stopped reading after awhile). I spent most of the evening working through as measured and complete response as I could muster, left it to sleep on, and then, it seemed, did go and kick the dog.  Eleanor said Ebony seemed unwell and wobbly and we should really get her to the vet.  I hadn't seen what she saw, thought it was just a sign of age, and we resolved to check it again in the morning.

----

By morning, there was no question: the dog was off.  When I went out to feed them, she was splayed on the dining room floor and could barely move. Called the vet as soon as they opened and got her in at 9, expecting the worst since this dog’s going on 16. The dognosis, though, was a better one than expected and one that's very common in older dogs: vestibular disease, basically dog vertigo. Not the worst the doc has seen, and signs suggested it’s mild. No meds for it, give it a week or two.  She seemed spryer on the way home, ate some, and still needs some help with sofas and stairs but we think she's got more in the tank than we feared. 

Thus, the working from home this morning- just to keep an ear if not eye on her, and I will head to the office soon, to one quick meeting downtown with no other errands to run down there, and will email my reply to Unhappy Client right before I leave for the day.  I "won" a ticket (processing fees extra) to Infinity War for Saturday- and speaking of winning, the complete results of last weekend's Marvel trivia finally got posted:

Scores
 I survived a Hydra Prison Camp and all I got was this metal arm (The New Marvel Movie) 98
We're Using Our Made-Up Names 96*
2 Stones Short of a Gauntlet 91
Dead Pool-ests Society 91
Suicide Squad 89
SatansLittleHelpers 85
The Sokovia Accords 83
12% of a Team 83
Hydra: Some Very Fine People 74
Loki's Lackeys 67
Everybody Wants My Loki Charms 66
The After Credits 60
Justice for Trevor Slattery 57
OJ Simpson: The First Avenger 48

*That was our team. I didn't even recognize the reference, which is from the new film and must've been in one of the trailers.

----

Bye, Darlings:)