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Hurrying and Worrying: being an account of Fox's weekend
note: it is monday night, 10:40 paris time; i've been off the clock for half an hour and am using the time to do this update and write my postcards. i have no idea if i'll have any more free time this week. i wasn't expecting to have this, even. most of the below was actually written while sitting in the waiting area at the airport.
So, as you all know, at 3:30 Thursday afternoon, the attorneys called and said "Come to Paris we need you OMG." Flattering, I suppose, in its way. Huge numbers of ancillary employees were mobilized to get me equipped in time to catch this plane. I told petty cash I needed Euros, and hang the normal 24-hour advance notice they require. I told IT I needed a laptop with an 18-gig complement of Stuff loaded on it, and screw the fact that the internal hard drive is only 10G. Essentially, every previous concept anyone had of even speedy turnaround -- shot to hell. It has now been 53 hours since the phone rang, and I'm chillin' at the gate with a half hour to go before boarding.
In between, there was Friday. Friday at work was hellish madness, with the above-mentioned total disregard for normal operating speed and the ever-present knowledge that, at the moment, I am the senior legal assistant on this case. (And I don't actually work there.) There's a girl who's been at the firm about nine months, but who hasn't been working on all aspects of it -- so really I've been back six weeks and I know more than anyone else. (Being a legal assistant is like being a waitress, in a way -- have to bring the people -- attorneys, in this case -- what they want, and promptly, and if that's really not at all possible you've got to be able to tell them in terms they'll understand why not. On this case, we've got a couple of associates who fancy themselves cooks, which is driving the kitchen -- that'd be tech support -- out of their minds, to say nothing of putting a lot of strain on the metaphor.)
The reason I know more than anyone else is that Friday was the last day of a girl who'd been there about two years, and could probably have kept things going fairly smoothly. After work -- supposed to be 6:00, we didn't get there until like 7 -- we went and drank like little fishes to celebrate her freedom, which was fun. And I wound up in bed with JAS again, the same co-worker (who left the firm about four months ago, not that it matters) from the drunken Christmas party of '01. Which was fun, sure, but also strange, in ways I'm not sure I can figure out or articulate (but having to do with the fact that I always feel happier with my body the day after I get laid -- not at all surprisingly -- even if the sex wasn't fantastic (not lousy, i'm saying, just nothing to get excited about) or something I'd have gone looking for on my own; and also with the weird sense I had that even a shower and a day later, I had it in my head that I could still smell him on my skin, which is just weird), and which brings us to
Saturday.
I kicked my visitor out in time to get some actual sleep before my mother called at 7:30 (having asked, presciently, if I'd be at home at such an hour on a Saturday morning -- !!!). Spoke to her, incoherently, and went back to sleep, woke up and showered and headed down to the office to finish getting things ready for the trip -- I'm running maybe an hour late at this point, as it's about 11:00 am and I'd planned to be at work around 10:30. But I've got my own packing started, so I figure I'm making okay time. Roll down the car windows to let the hot air out while the AC gets going; roll them back up on the way out the driveway, and the passenger side window glass falls down inside the door.
I am not making this up.
So, slight change of plans. I pull into the garage at the bottom of the hill, explain my troubles, listen to them tell me this can't be fixed in mere minutes, and call![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cmshaw with a distress signal.
I. Sing. The praises. Ofcmshaw. I genuflect before this woman. I bring her burnt offerings. When I was sick, she brought me medicine; when I was hungry, she reminded me that I hadn't eaten all day; and when I was stranded with a car I couldn't leave parked on a city street and I had to get this work taken care of right now I'm not kidding, she dropped everything and came and got me, drove me to my office, hung out with me while I dealt with work madness for four hours, solved the problem of the random-ass looping page break in a Word attachment that made a 71-page document think it was 4,000 pages long, helped me carry heavy things, and drove me home again via the CVS so I could buy toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, shower gel, and moisturizer, all of which I've run out of in the past few days. And she did this in return for a small root beer from Wendy's. Quelle amie. How we adore her.
The rest of Saturday was less stressful. Paid the bills, picked up the car, finished the packing, called the cab to bring me to the airport, where the check-in at Air France was GROTESQUE. And this was when I really realized the true beauty and wonder of the two words that have kept me, over the past couple of days, from descending into gibbering madness at the horror of an 8-hour transatlantic flight, the two loveliest words in the English language:
business class.
"Espace affaires," en français. Oh, the serenity of it. I cannot tell you. I went to the short check-in line up front. I checked my large bags and received an invitation to the lounge next to the gate. I went calmly through security and reached the gate, as we've seen, with a good half-hour to spare. I boarded the plane carrying two bags (my own carry-on, containing my stuff and also a binder that wouldn't fit anywhere else, and a laptop case), in clear defiance of the une seule bagage rule. Up here in éspace affaires, life is pretty sweet.
The seats aren't huge, but they're certainly bigger and comfier -- I've got this cushy-headrest thing happening -- than coach, and we've each been issued a pillow (covered in fabric, rather than that strange fiber tear-away stuff) and a tapestry throw blanket. There are overhead lights, but each seat has a snakelight-type pin spot for not keeping the seatmate awake when it's dark. Nobody's come to offer me a drink yet, but I'm sure they will any second. But the real show-stopper here must be the leg room. If I sit back in this seat and hold my legs out straight, my feet don't touch the seat in front of me. Granted I don't have long legs, but dudes.
How much better can it be up in first class? Six more horizontal inches and leather upholstery instead of fabric? The difference can't be as big as between coach and this. Unless they've got a floor show up there or something, or other perks of whose glory I can't even conceive.
A very nice Older Frenchman came over just as I was taking my seat and asked me -- in French, but after asking if I spoke it, so okay -- if I minded trading my aisle seat in the back of the section for his window seat two rows ahead, so he could sit next to his wife. Windows are always my preference, and the further forward, the better. What, was I going to argue?
Hot towels have just been around, and they keep asking everyone to take their seats (actually, they say "reclamer votre siège et vous asseoir", and then translate it literally -- "find your seat and sit down" -- every time). Must be about to push back? There's a very tiny baby in the bulkhead row, whose father is trying to rock her to sleep. (Update: they're having trouble determining the number of passengers on board. This puzzles me. Can the French not count? Do their computers not go Ding each time a boarding pass goes through the scanner?)
Have emery boards, and had intended to spend part of flight filing nails. Now suspect that this would be incredibly tacky.
I now notice that in addition to the in-flight magazine you'd expect to find in any plane -- this one is called Magazine Air France -- there's another publication called Air France Madame. Swear to god, there's a bilingual in-flight fashion magazine.
So thirsty. (update, lest you fret: about five minutes after i wrote that particular line, a flight attendant came around with a tray offering us champagne or orange juice. i had juice, being thirsty; i should have had both, and made a mimosa.)
The safety video is narrated by a Canadian, it sounds like, for the English part. And each time they talk about taking care of yourself before assisting others -- oxygen masks, life vests -- they've got a couple both helping the little girl between them.
That's all I've got from the flight, and in fact, until today. It wasn't long before I lay back and went to sleep, and I slept until about an hour before landing -- which was all the sleep I was going to get. Landed, reclaimed my luggage, waited forever for the shuttle to bring me to the hotel, checked in, and about twenty minutes later ran into two of my attorneys in the hallway. I was zipping around for the rest of the afternoon, finding stuff and arranging things and being exhausted. My mother had come in on the train to visit me (from The Hague), and in the evening she and I went into the city and had crepes for dinner, very nice, walked around a bit, bought postcards, nothing big but at least I got out of the building. Hasn't happened since. :-) Came back here, and I was working again from 9 to 11, and then up early this morning so we could have breakfast together before she hopped the train back and I got to work -- at 7:15. And you saw what time I knocked off.
Ah, billable hours.
Another early morning tomorrow, so I shall go write those postcards now while I'm still conscious. Love you all, and see you soon --
So, as you all know, at 3:30 Thursday afternoon, the attorneys called and said "Come to Paris we need you OMG." Flattering, I suppose, in its way. Huge numbers of ancillary employees were mobilized to get me equipped in time to catch this plane. I told petty cash I needed Euros, and hang the normal 24-hour advance notice they require. I told IT I needed a laptop with an 18-gig complement of Stuff loaded on it, and screw the fact that the internal hard drive is only 10G. Essentially, every previous concept anyone had of even speedy turnaround -- shot to hell. It has now been 53 hours since the phone rang, and I'm chillin' at the gate with a half hour to go before boarding.
In between, there was Friday. Friday at work was hellish madness, with the above-mentioned total disregard for normal operating speed and the ever-present knowledge that, at the moment, I am the senior legal assistant on this case. (And I don't actually work there.) There's a girl who's been at the firm about nine months, but who hasn't been working on all aspects of it -- so really I've been back six weeks and I know more than anyone else. (Being a legal assistant is like being a waitress, in a way -- have to bring the people -- attorneys, in this case -- what they want, and promptly, and if that's really not at all possible you've got to be able to tell them in terms they'll understand why not. On this case, we've got a couple of associates who fancy themselves cooks, which is driving the kitchen -- that'd be tech support -- out of their minds, to say nothing of putting a lot of strain on the metaphor.)
The reason I know more than anyone else is that Friday was the last day of a girl who'd been there about two years, and could probably have kept things going fairly smoothly. After work -- supposed to be 6:00, we didn't get there until like 7 -- we went and drank like little fishes to celebrate her freedom, which was fun. And I wound up in bed with JAS again, the same co-worker (who left the firm about four months ago, not that it matters) from the drunken Christmas party of '01. Which was fun, sure, but also strange, in ways I'm not sure I can figure out or articulate (but having to do with the fact that I always feel happier with my body the day after I get laid -- not at all surprisingly -- even if the sex wasn't fantastic (not lousy, i'm saying, just nothing to get excited about) or something I'd have gone looking for on my own; and also with the weird sense I had that even a shower and a day later, I had it in my head that I could still smell him on my skin, which is just weird), and which brings us to
Saturday.
I kicked my visitor out in time to get some actual sleep before my mother called at 7:30 (having asked, presciently, if I'd be at home at such an hour on a Saturday morning -- !!!). Spoke to her, incoherently, and went back to sleep, woke up and showered and headed down to the office to finish getting things ready for the trip -- I'm running maybe an hour late at this point, as it's about 11:00 am and I'd planned to be at work around 10:30. But I've got my own packing started, so I figure I'm making okay time. Roll down the car windows to let the hot air out while the AC gets going; roll them back up on the way out the driveway, and the passenger side window glass falls down inside the door.
I am not making this up.
So, slight change of plans. I pull into the garage at the bottom of the hill, explain my troubles, listen to them tell me this can't be fixed in mere minutes, and call
cmshaw with a distress signal.I. Sing. The praises. Of
cmshaw. I genuflect before this woman. I bring her burnt offerings. When I was sick, she brought me medicine; when I was hungry, she reminded me that I hadn't eaten all day; and when I was stranded with a car I couldn't leave parked on a city street and I had to get this work taken care of right now I'm not kidding, she dropped everything and came and got me, drove me to my office, hung out with me while I dealt with work madness for four hours, solved the problem of the random-ass looping page break in a Word attachment that made a 71-page document think it was 4,000 pages long, helped me carry heavy things, and drove me home again via the CVS so I could buy toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, shower gel, and moisturizer, all of which I've run out of in the past few days. And she did this in return for a small root beer from Wendy's. Quelle amie. How we adore her.The rest of Saturday was less stressful. Paid the bills, picked up the car, finished the packing, called the cab to bring me to the airport, where the check-in at Air France was GROTESQUE. And this was when I really realized the true beauty and wonder of the two words that have kept me, over the past couple of days, from descending into gibbering madness at the horror of an 8-hour transatlantic flight, the two loveliest words in the English language:
business class.
"Espace affaires," en français. Oh, the serenity of it. I cannot tell you. I went to the short check-in line up front. I checked my large bags and received an invitation to the lounge next to the gate. I went calmly through security and reached the gate, as we've seen, with a good half-hour to spare. I boarded the plane carrying two bags (my own carry-on, containing my stuff and also a binder that wouldn't fit anywhere else, and a laptop case), in clear defiance of the une seule bagage rule. Up here in éspace affaires, life is pretty sweet.
The seats aren't huge, but they're certainly bigger and comfier -- I've got this cushy-headrest thing happening -- than coach, and we've each been issued a pillow (covered in fabric, rather than that strange fiber tear-away stuff) and a tapestry throw blanket. There are overhead lights, but each seat has a snakelight-type pin spot for not keeping the seatmate awake when it's dark. Nobody's come to offer me a drink yet, but I'm sure they will any second. But the real show-stopper here must be the leg room. If I sit back in this seat and hold my legs out straight, my feet don't touch the seat in front of me. Granted I don't have long legs, but dudes.
How much better can it be up in first class? Six more horizontal inches and leather upholstery instead of fabric? The difference can't be as big as between coach and this. Unless they've got a floor show up there or something, or other perks of whose glory I can't even conceive.
A very nice Older Frenchman came over just as I was taking my seat and asked me -- in French, but after asking if I spoke it, so okay -- if I minded trading my aisle seat in the back of the section for his window seat two rows ahead, so he could sit next to his wife. Windows are always my preference, and the further forward, the better. What, was I going to argue?
Hot towels have just been around, and they keep asking everyone to take their seats (actually, they say "reclamer votre siège et vous asseoir", and then translate it literally -- "find your seat and sit down" -- every time). Must be about to push back? There's a very tiny baby in the bulkhead row, whose father is trying to rock her to sleep. (Update: they're having trouble determining the number of passengers on board. This puzzles me. Can the French not count? Do their computers not go Ding each time a boarding pass goes through the scanner?)
Have emery boards, and had intended to spend part of flight filing nails. Now suspect that this would be incredibly tacky.
I now notice that in addition to the in-flight magazine you'd expect to find in any plane -- this one is called Magazine Air France -- there's another publication called Air France Madame. Swear to god, there's a bilingual in-flight fashion magazine.
So thirsty. (update, lest you fret: about five minutes after i wrote that particular line, a flight attendant came around with a tray offering us champagne or orange juice. i had juice, being thirsty; i should have had both, and made a mimosa.)
The safety video is narrated by a Canadian, it sounds like, for the English part. And each time they talk about taking care of yourself before assisting others -- oxygen masks, life vests -- they've got a couple both helping the little girl between them.
That's all I've got from the flight, and in fact, until today. It wasn't long before I lay back and went to sleep, and I slept until about an hour before landing -- which was all the sleep I was going to get. Landed, reclaimed my luggage, waited forever for the shuttle to bring me to the hotel, checked in, and about twenty minutes later ran into two of my attorneys in the hallway. I was zipping around for the rest of the afternoon, finding stuff and arranging things and being exhausted. My mother had come in on the train to visit me (from The Hague), and in the evening she and I went into the city and had crepes for dinner, very nice, walked around a bit, bought postcards, nothing big but at least I got out of the building. Hasn't happened since. :-) Came back here, and I was working again from 9 to 11, and then up early this morning so we could have breakfast together before she hopped the train back and I got to work -- at 7:15. And you saw what time I knocked off.
Ah, billable hours.
Another early morning tomorrow, so I shall go write those postcards now while I'm still conscious. Love you all, and see you soon --
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