The Pirate - Tom Lether

7:30 am Get up. Take out Nala. It’s cool outside. Mountain air.

8:00 Eat raspberries. Clean up and pack.

8:45 Cristina, Sol and Liam come from little cabin to big one to say bye. And take away a bike.

8:50 Dance while Liam bangs on piano to the Latin drum beat. They finish. Say goodbye.

9:00 Firm meeting - give covid protocol update.

9:25 Leave firm meeting.

9:30 Zoom mediation with Keith Kubic.

2:30 End mediation. Pack car. Decide to go I-90 due to road construction on US2. Windy roads.

5:30 Back home. Nala hops out. Marvel at her strong constitution.

5:50 Uber delivers Veggie Grill dinner. Decide I may finally be tired of savory kale caesar w/faux chix.

6:30 Go thru email and teams. Water plants. Dead head them. Roll out garbage. Other errands

7:30 Hose off Nala and give quick shampoo and rinse. This will keep her nice and cool.

7:35 It’s still 84. Run up the hill.

8:00 Have crested QA. Run along Highland. Past the old mansions. Kerry Park.

8:05 Cross QA Avenue. Run the loop.

8:10 And there he is. With Maui the green parrot on his shoulder.

Tom beams at me. We exchange covid stories. You good - ya. You good - ya. We agree whenever this ends to have lunch. And wave goodbye.

Lether is an insurance defense lawyer. He knows a lot about the field of bad faith law. My favorite case against him was that of Ethel Adams. I went to the media on that case, and as a result our state Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler told Farmers that if it didn’t pay the claim, he would revoke their privilege to do business in the state. So they caved. That led to the legislature passing an insurance law preventing insurance companies from denying UIM benefits to victims of road rage - so long as the victim was not the intended target.

After Farmers paid the claim, we sued them for bad faith. Lether and I had a great time fighting. We laughed while we went after each other before ultimately settling. I used to call him Pirate. Even before he told me that he had a boat and a green parrot.

Photo: Tom and Maui the parrot from today’s run