Around the World in 7 Days or So It Feels

 

 

Don’t you hate when you get so behind on blogging that you don’t know where to start?

 

 

 

 

 I've been out on Long Island most days for a new work assignment. We've been coming up most weekends, so I go from one car to the other and one highway to another. 

 

 

My new are at work has me conducting deposition that last for hours each day.  When I get home, I try to write the report from that day so it is fresh in my mind and I don’t have to overly refer to my four hours of notes.  There's not much time for much else besides prepping for the next one, conducting it, and then writing it up. It's not unlike law school where you are in class all day and then rush home to do the reading and writing for the next day. And then doing it all over again until the weekend comes and then you try to catch up on all you didn't get done despite the long hours put it into.  How long I can keep this up is anybody’s guess.

 

 

 

This week, I went to Buffalo with a colleague to do some depositions up there. We didn’t see much of anything but downtown Buffalo, and there’s not much to see, but our Buffalo colleagues took us to a great  microbrewery and we ate Buffalo wings and drank Blueberry Blonde beer. 

I walked to the office each day with a Starbucks in hand and admired the very old buildings in between the empty storefronts and run down, empty mall areas. 

I really loved walking to and from work. I wish I worked in the city and could walk to work here. Of course, it is spring and even up there, it is warm and sunny. I suppose in winter it would be harsh, but just walking a lot made me feel more grounded and less harried than I do here where I am driving 70 miles roundtrip most days for this new assignment,

 

 

This is the atrium of the Ellicot Building where the court reporter is located. Isn’t it magnificent? The building was built about 125 years ago and is floor after floor of marble and oak, with operable  transoms, engraved door knobs, marble-lined restrooms, elegant elevators, and an amazing mosaic tiled first floor

 

 

 

 

The court reporter companies in the Bronx are in the basement of a building across from Yankee Stadium. The bathrooms are not marble and the stall doors don't stay shut unless you hold the bottom. The elevator does not have a free-standing marble podium surrounded by brass for the call buttons.  There’s a story that a rat fell out of a ceiling during a depo. I can’t confirm that story,  but I was there when water damage caused a ceiling to fall in on the table in a room  I was about to enter with a witness. 

 

 

We ain’t no sissies in my office. (Not that my Buffalo colleagues are, either. They have a huge workload!)  But seeing how things are done in less gritty urban setting was a pleasant change. The actual depo room was nothing more than a standard conference room, but the corridor doors were quarter sawn oak and had antique frosted glass on top.

 Downtown Buffalo has been hit hard by the recession.Very few business are open. The main industries appear to be lawyering (a fancy new federal court is there) and parking garages.  It is pretty sad to see all the shuttered storefronts and the dilipadiated tram that runs from one end of the business district to the other. We took it the first day but realized walking was much more pleasant. What probably was considered a stroke of genuis in urban planning 30 years ago has somehow now had the reverse effect of having pedestrians desert Main Street and stores are closed and rundown.

 

 

 

However, every few blocks there is a remnant of turn-of-the-century architecture. Some of the old buildings are breathtakingly beautiful and feature levels of craftsmanship that do not exist anymore.

 

 

This building is covered with terra cotta frieze and pillars.

 

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My colleague took a later afternoon ride to Niagara Falls but I had to catch up on some things and didn’t go. 29 years ago, I was in Buffalo for a press conference with the Attorney General’s Office for a case we were working on when I first found out I was pregnant with The Bride.  My boss and I drove to the falls but it was the coldest day in Buffalo’s history and the mist from the falls was a frozen cloud that obscured both sides. All we could do is listen to the rushing water and imagine the spectacle. I’m sure we’ll get sent up there again, so I’ll have another opportunity to see it. This time I’ll bring my passport since I understand that the best view is from the Canadian side.

 

 

 

 

 

The ride up and back was long but went through some pretty scenery. One stretch of road was as picturesque as it gets for western New York. Valley and hill rolling with huge tracts of  planted acres and dairy farms. My colleague was a good sport about slowing down so I could take  pics.

 

 

 

 

We are all converging on The Cottage this weekend to celebrate The Bride and Groom’s first wedding anniversary. I know, can you imagine? Where did that year go? So much change, so much good, and so much heartbreak. We are going to  grill and hang out with our kids and their significant others. I am sure there will be a campfire and I will be sitting under a blanket and remembering how The Empress was annoyed that we kept lighting camp fires last year becaue she hated to smell of smoke. I would find her in the lving room reading on her Ipad. She would come out if promised coffee and cake, and the girls would wrap her in a big blanket, where she sat until she stood up and said to my older sister, "Time to go home!" And home they went. 

 

She is always with us.

 

I will post more this weekend. We’ve been up and back more times in 2013 than ever beforeand I have lots of adventures to share with you.  The week after next Mr Pom and I will be there for a whole  week and I cannot wait!

 

 

Everyone be safe on your travels, have fun and kick back!  Dance between the raindrops.