Are you the interpreter...

Wake up wearing socks in bed.  It is freezing after returning last night from Maui.  Turn on fireplace with remote.  7:00 am which is 5:00 Hawaii time. 

Phone beeps.  Groceries delivered.  Run down stairs. Pull them inside.  Put them away.  Back upstairs.  Get ready.  Black tights. Black skirt.  Marvin Gaye t shirt – black. Black jacket. 

Have enough time to walk to work.  Black full length puffer. Hat sunglasses backpack with computer. 

Talk to Kristin on the way.

Arrive at office and say hi to Shelley.  Check out office.  A few orchids have sprouted and one is blooming.  Get water from sparkle machine.  Say hi to clients who are in the interior conference room.  Walk to main conference room with the big antique. 

Videographer is set up.  One of the defense lawyers is getting ready to sit next to the client.  I tell her this is my seat and she needs to go to the other side of the table.  The second attorney is walking into the room.  The court reporter looks at me and says…

Are you the interpreter.

It hits me like a slap.  I look at her.  Unblinking. Unsmiling.  Not as nice as I used to be.  Plaintiff attorney, I say flatly. In my own conference room.  In my own firm.  Where I am managing partner.  A lawyer for 40 years. Age 65.

Meanwhile (coincidentally) Jack Guthrie who was a 2nd chair defense lawyer in the ride the duck case sends me a note - reminiscing about when courthouse TSA thought I was his client and wouldn’t let me bring in a cel phone.

For those of us who “don’t look like lawyers”…it never ends.

Photo: L and I at the firm’s 80th Anniversary party taken by Julia Canfield