It has been an interesting 24 hours. We arrived in NYC at 3:30 yesterday, and parked in what was technically an illegal space until 6pm, but there were so many other cars parked there that we figured we’d be okay. We came back two hours later…and the car was gone. So we found out which impound lot it had been taken to, and how much it would cost to get it back. A then went to the opening event for her perfume festival, and I went to the opening event for the Leather Leadership Conference.

I’d been promised the other terp was on the way, but she never showed up. Two of the deaf guys never came back from “grabbing a bite real quick” but aidan_boi_x was there and I interpreted for him. Fortunately he’s more English than ASL, so my brain wasn’t quite the pile of goo it could have been.

A was waiting for me when I was done, and we walked to the impound lot about a mile away. We paid $185 for the towing - which seems like an awful lot per car - and discovered two $65 tickets on it. The pound attendant told us one would be dismissed, because they’re not supposed to write tickets for the same offense twice. The first ticket was from 4:10pm, and the second was from 5:00, so the second was written before the tow truck arrived from the first ticket. So she told us to fight that one.

We parked the car again - legally this time - and went to bed. I had a hard time falling asleep, because I was worrying about what I would do if I ended up teaching the 9:30am ASL class.

I got back to the hotel this morning - and nobody had heard from the other interpreter. Well, that’s not completely true - she had responded to my email at 1:00am and said she wasn’t due in until the morning anyway and she’d be there. Yeah, whatever. By 9:00 I was seated in the workshop room and people started arriving…but not the other interpreter. So at 9:30 I started the class and did the best I could. Toward the end, a deaf guy came in asking about interpreting services; I said I could do it when I was done with the workshop so he stuck around and helped me answer questions.

When that was done, we went to the session the deaf guy wanted to hear; the other deaf guy in attendance showed up too. It was very interesting, but it was a long 75-minute workshop. After that I got some lunch; I’d meant to bring mine but I wasn’t expecting to be there till lunchtime - or rather I was expecting it, but I was hoping against it.

On my way back in, the coordinator for the event saw me and thanked me profusely. Apparently all the evaluations from my workshop were positive - and I’ve never taught any sort of workshop before! He was very grateful, and I could tell I was saving the day by stepping in to help out even though I hadn’t been asked to. One of the people in my workshop was the coordinator for the contest the other terp holds the title for, and she was “livid” (her words) that the other terp hadn’t shown up. She asked for my card, so I think I’ll be interpreting for that contest too (in Philadelphia), plus with my super-willingness to help out, I should get future gigs from that too. Which means money, yes, but it’s also a point of pride that I stepped in, helped out, and further established myself as reliable.

As for the other terp, who knows. When the coordinator mentioned how great my evaluations were, I asked about the other terp. He said “oh, let’s not even go there…” heh! So I am interpreting another workshop 10 minutes from now, and then probably another after that. A’s perfume events run to 6 or 8:30 (depending on if she goes out for drinks), so I will just relax a bit once this is done. And then I’ll probably be back tomorrow. Fortunately I get to bill for all this extra work!