Business Trip Part I

“An amateur is an artist who supports himself with outside jobs which enable him to paint. A professional is someone whose wife works to enable him to paint.” ~ Ben Shahn

 

I spent that weekend in Boston with Big C. We went to the Sam Adams Brewery and the MIT Robotics Museum. It was really interesting. We went to a few bars, watched the basketball games, and ate at some really yummy restaurants. However, by Sunday, I was tired of sleeping on his futon and I needed a real bed.

Big C could tell that I was nervous to fly to Seattle. He knows the situation with Lenin and me. I fancy Lenin. From Big C and Julie’s perspective, they both believe Lenin has an interest in me. We get along well with one another and we are constantly teasing each other. However, we’ve always been surrounded by people at work, so Seattle was going to be different. It would be the two of us trapped together for the week. It could go either really good or really bad. Needless to say, I was a little stressed.

Big C walked me to the train station and I got to the airport on my own. I checked in and turned on my work phone. Just wanting to make sure that I hadn’t missed any calls. I knew Lenin wouldn’t call until we were in Seattle. He’s very proper and respectful. He knew I was on vacation. It’s funny because the Wednesday I found out the company was sending me on the road and wanting me to cancel my flight home, he was offended for me. He said, “Bella, that’s your time.”

I informed him that it was better to fly straight from Boston to Seattle than to have to fly back home and then on to Seattle. He took that point and agreed. Besides, the way the company scheduled my flight, I was in Boston longer than I originally intended. So it didn’t bother me.

I flew from Boston to Denver with no problem. During my three hour lay over, I called Julie and talked to her. We gushed about the upcoming week and all the interesting things it could produce. I called my folks and talked to them. My mother informed me that Lenin did indeed have my company credit card, so I would be covered. I looked at my work phone from time to time, but never got any calls on it. Eventually I turned it off and got on the plane.

The flight was uneventful and I grew more nervous and excited the closer we got. I found the only way to make time move faster was to read the book I packed. I was getting really deep into it, when we touched down. I gathered up my coat, scarf and laptop bag and exited the plane. As I was walking to the luggage claim, I got my company phone out because Lenin and I were to be landing around the same time. I stopped off to use the bathroom and wouldn’t you know. The minute I stop to go pee, Lenin calls.

Rather than answer the phone in mid-pee, I let the voicemail pick it up. I walk out of the facilities and listen to the voicemail, “Bella, it’s Lenin, your chauffer/chaperone for the next five days. I just landed. Call me when you get this.”

Of course I call him back. He didn‘t even have to say hello, his first words were, “Glad to see you know how to use the phone.”

“Oh, be quiet. And just so you know, you are the chauffer of the trip. However, they sent me along to the be chaperone. The company doesn’t trust you to be left to your own devices, that’s why they sent me.” We discussed where we were at and I told him I would meet him at his luggage carousel because I had landed before him and I knew my luggage would get to me before his got to him. As I waited for my luggage, I started getting nervous again. I collected my belongings and headed down to his area. I spotted him right off. Lenin and I are the two best dressed people in the office. I don’t say that to be snooty, I say it because it is true. Lenin always wears nice button down shirts, dress pants, and dress shoes. None of the men in our office do that.

I spot Lenin in jeans, sneakers and a race shirt. I stand there and imagine his closet. It has to be composed entirely of work clothes and race shirts. He’s a major runner. I watch him as he retrieves his suitcase off the carousel and I assume he would be ready to go. However, he continued to wait. This tells you how big of a runner he is, he has a suitcase entirely of work clothes and then another suitcase of running apparel. I kept my mouth shut when he informed me of that. I had brought one set of running clothes because I was afraid of being the over-packer. Apparently I had nothing to worry about.

We leave the airport in search of a rental car. During the walk to the rental car area, we exchange the usual formalities, “How was your flight?” “How was Boston?” All that fun stuff.

I’ve never rented a car before, so I follow his lead. We looked at a bunch of different cars. He pointed out the ones he would love to be able to rent (on the company card), cars he would kill to own and then we picked a sensible choice for the trip. We load our stuff into the car, suitcases in the truck, laptop bags in the back seat and our persons in the front. He is fiddling with his GPS unit that he brought with him, while I sit in the car and activate my company credit card.

I think he knows I am nervous, but he doesn’t say anything. It had to be quite obvious because I could barely dial my phone because my hands were shaking so bad. We get in the car and drive thirty minutes to the hotel. During the drive we talk about work and this conference we are up there for. I ask multiple questions and he patiently answers all of them. Then he asks me if I have eaten. I informed him that I was fine and I didn’t think to tell him we could stop if he need to eat. I was just so nervous.

We arrive at the hotel and check in. We said we would meet in the lobby the next morning at 7 to have breakfast. We bid each other good night and I get situated in my room. I unpack my clothes, steam up the bathroom to get the wrinkles out of all of them. check my email, and crawl into bed. However, I’m so amped up being around him and thinking about the coming week that I couldn’t sleep. Midnight rolled around and I finally passed out. However, I woke up every hour on the hour because I was afraid I would sleep through my alarm clock and he would have to wait on me. Typical Bella.

I know Lenin well enough to know that he is never on time. It’s not that he is always late, occasionally he can be on time, but most of the time, he is a few minutes late. I was down in the hotel lobby at seven on the dot and Lenin was no where to be found. I wasn’t surprised, I found a magazine to occupy my mind while I waited for him. I didn’t want to be rude and start breakfast without him. About fifteen minutes later he pops up in the lobby. He was a little surprised I waited for him and I said that I was just trying to be polite.

He’s not a morning person, therefore I had figured the morning conversation would not be riveting. We found a small table, claimed it as our own and found the breakfast bar. I went for a bowl of Raisin Bran with orange juice and water. Lenin had a slice of French toast, a hardboiledegg and coffee. Breakfast was rather dull until he almost shot his egg across the room with his fork. It was impressive and it got us to loosen up.

We grabbed our work stuff, jumped into the car, set the GPS unit and headed to work. We found the place with no problem. It was out of the way and all the people at the conference had never been to this place before. I have to say that the entire conference was completely dull and boring. The first day it was in a room that was not conducive to all these people talking and being able to hear one another.

We had picnic lunches. Lunches that are already packed in a box. Basically it was a sandwich, chips, apple slices and a giant cookie. I was all about the sandwich and apple slices. I looked at Lenin during lunch, we were eating with two people from the conference, “Do you want my chips? I don’t eat them.”
“No, I’m good.”
It seemed a shame to waste them, so I tucked them into my briefcase after lunch. I wasn’t going to eat them, but I didn’t want the conference people to see me throw them away. Lenin came up to me after lunch, when we were getting ready to get back to work, “Do you want my apple slices?”
“Sure.” I knew he wasn’t going to be eating them. Not the best, but they do when you are hungry. I stuck them in my briefcase for later at the hotel. They would be fine because they were these prepackaged apple slices. Probably just drenched in preservatives.

When we finished work that day, we jumped back in the car and Lenin looked at me, “What do you want to do?”
“I’m up for anything.” Lenin, remembering it was Saint Patrick’s Day, which is a huge holiday to me, “How about we go get a green beer and have some dinner?”
“Sounds like a great plan, but do you eat dinner this early?” It was four in the evening. He and I are normally still at work at that time. He said we would find something to do before we had dinner. We stopped at the hotel to drop off our belongings and jumped back into the car. Before we went to dinner, we stopped at this lighthouse near the hotel. Being the two nerds that we are, we got our cameras our and took many pictures. I even got some great shots of some beautiful daffodils.

I lived in Seattle when I was a little kid. Therefore, I have vague memories of certain things. I have a very distinct memory of a floating bridge, but I don’t remember the name of it. At some point in time during the trip, I had mentioned the floating bridge to Lenin and being a good sport, it was the next thing we did. There were two to choose from on the GPS unit, so we went with the Evergreen Bridge. As we drove the 26 miles to the bridge, he drove me past one of the plants of the company we were up there visiting. We saw so much. He made it a point to show me where he normally stays when he goes up to Seattle and he also showed me the building that I would normally go to, if I had to go up there for work again.

Then we drove to the Evergreen Bridge. During the drive to the bridge, we listened to the radio. We commented on the different songs that came on the radio. There was one song that came on the radio and he mentioned that he really liked it. I remembered that it was sung by a woman named Natalie, but I couldn’t remember her last name. We started going through singers who are named Natalie. Then I remembered that this singer was from Russia or a country near Russia, Lenin blurts out, “I’m done with dating Eastern European women.”

This is in reference to the lady he brought to Elspeths’s wedding. Elspeth, from the office, was married in September and Annabell, Lenin and I all went to the wedding. Lenin brought this lady from Eastern Europe that he was seeing at the time. She was very nice, but we never talked about her. I was completely surprised when he blurted out that he wasn’t seeing her. Lenin isn’t one for talking about his personal life and I take my cue from him and Annabell on that. Personal is personal and professional is professional. Now, I will tell Annabell things that I don’t tell others in the office, but it is because I know she won’t say anything. I trust Lenin the same way, but I didn’t feel like we were close enough to confide personal things to each other.

I wasn’t sure what to say when Lenin blurted out that he wasn’t seeing Eastern European women anymore, so I tried to be empathetic, “Dating outside of one’s culture is very hard.”
Lenin took his eyes away from the road and looked at me, “Care to share? Or wait, is that too personal?”

He started teasing me on this trip because I don’t talk about my personal life. Lenin has never asked me questions about my personal life, so I don‘t share it. Now, if he asked me a question, I would answer it, however, he is very respectful. Therefore, his way of getting to me is asking something and then saying, “Wait. . . Is that too personal”

My response to his question was, “No, it’s not too personal. Dating outside of your own culture is hard. My ex-boyfriend was a really great guy. We got along really well, but there are a lot of cultural differences that can make dating more difficult. Also, he couldn’t tell his family about us because they would have disowned him. Therefore, we enjoyed the relationship for what it was and when it had run it’s course, we ended it. He’s a great guy, but we know we aren’t good at dating one another.”

Lenin seemed to take this as it was and the conversation turned to something else. When we arrived at Evergreen Bridge, it wasn’t the one I imagined in my head, but it was neat. Once we saw the floating bridge, we searched the GPS unit for a restaurant nearby to eat at. We had narrowed it down to one and entered it into the GPS unit.

As we are driving to the restaurant, we are talking and the GPS unit dies. Lenin tells me that his charger is in his backpack. I grab it from the backseat and hand him what he needs. He’s driving and plugging the charger into the cigarette lighter. Come to find out that the cigarette lighter doesn’t work. We pull over into a school parking lot and start looking for a second cigarette lighter. There isn’t one and Lenin thinks that perhaps tinkering with the fuse panel will fix the cigarette lighter, typical guy. Traveling with Lenin is like traveling with MacGyver.

So I watch him and he searches his side of the car for the fuse panel. I have no idea what the fuse panel is or what it looks like and he informs me that it might be on my side of the car. So I get out of the car and follow his lead. I search near the floor and under the glove box. I look to the side of the glove box near the door and find it. He comes over to my side of the car and starts prying the panel off. He gets it off and starts taking little chips our, apparently these are fuses.

It’s chilly, the wind is blowing and I’m in a skirt. A flowy skirt, nonetheless, and Lenin is squatting down near the car and I’m standing behind him. He keeps handing me fuses, “Does that one look broken.”
I’m standing there, staring at it thinking, “I’m not sure, looks intact to me. However, if I stomped on it with my heel, it might look broken.”
I hand it back to him, a little confused, “Looks fine to me, but then again, I don’t really know what I’m looking at.”
He looks at me and smiles, “If you’re cold, you can go get in the car.”
“I’m fine.” I answer as I hug my suit jacket tighter to me. I take the chilly wind for two more minutes before I fold, “Okay, it’s cold.”
I cross the car and sit in the driver’s seat. He continues to tinker with the fuse panel and then gives up. Being MacGyver, he looks at me and says it would be a good idea to check and make sure all the fuses are connected to the right place. I start the car and he tells me what to do. “Right blinker”
I click the right blinker on.
“Left blinker.”
I click the left blinker on. He runs to the back of the car, “Break lights.”
I put my foot on the break. He runs to the front of the car again, “Lights.”
Of course, I was doing great up till then. I’m scouring the steering wheel and all its components to find the lights. I start turning knobs and the windshield wipers start moving, but I can’t find the damn lights. Lenin runs back to the car, just as I find the lights. Sure enough the lights work.

I let him have the driver’s seat and I run around to the passenger’s side. I look at him and restate my idea from before we pulled over to enjoy the fuse panel experience, “Perhaps we should stop and get directions.”

He pulls out and we head to the nearest gas station. We look at the maps and he finds one for the entire state of Washington. I find one that is laminated and folds and is only of the upper northwest section of Washington. Between the two of us, we decide to get both maps. He purchases the maps and we both get bottles of water. We talk to the guy working the cash register and he tells us how to get back to our hotel.

We decided it would be better to get back to the small town we are staying at and get dinner there. So we drive back to the small town. We joke around and take the piss with one another on the drive back. No life changing conversation or anything. We talked mostly music. It was a lot of fun.

We made it back to the hotel and there was and Ivar’s restaurant next door. We order food at the outside window and he made fun of me because we are surrounded by fresh seafood and what do I order, chicken. We collected our food, bid each other a good evening and went back to our respective rooms. I ate dinner, did some emailing and passed out for the night.

More to come. Lots to tell, but this entry was extremely long.