Deborah Lipp

Fast work on some challenging questions.

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I actually said this: “The next time I need bandages I’m buying Johnson & Johnson Band-Aids.”

I bet 3M Corporation is wishing they didn’t mess with me about now!

This has been Today in “impotent rage.”

Okay, so someone on a Wicca board said (I paraphrase): ‘Someone, I think one of Deb Lipp’s downlines,* said something snarky about…’ And I responded by saying ‘All of my downline are snark. It’s a requirement of initiation.’

Ha I’m funny.

Anyway, so there I was in Evn‘s comment section, being all braggy about how cool Basket of Kisses is, and Yvonne says “Snark line rulez.”

Snark line. Took me a minute. That’s what we’re called now. Huh.

*Note for my non-Wiccan readers: In traditional Wicca, your downline are people who are descended from you in an initiatory line, e.g. the initiates of my initiates.

So, I’m as transfixed as everyone by the amazing survival of 155 passengers and crew from US Air flight 1549. Other than “wow” a couple of thoughts occur to me.

First of all, it’s local news. And I guess everyone, once or twice, has had that experience of hearing a local story on the local news and then hearing it again on the national news. I wasn’t surprised to see the story on CNN, because you’ll see the most picayune nonsense on CNN; truly, if a truck crashes in Atlanta, you’ll see it on CNN. Why? Because they like crashes, and they have to fill 24 hours of news reporting somehow. But I was stunned to realize that it was the lead story on BBC World Service this morning. It made me stop, metaphorically, in my tracks (literally, I kept driving, because literally stopping would have been bad at that moment). Like, Wow, everyone’s talking about this. This isn’t just something that happened in New York. It happened everywhere.

I don’t want to compare it to 9/11, but as I type those sentences, that comparison arises in my mind. It has nothing to do with New York and everything to do with shared experience. Seven years ago, shared tragedy and rage. This week, shared hope and delight.

Because that’s the second thing that came up for me. I work in a fairly spacious cube farm; the cubes are roomy and we’re not in each other’s laps. Nonetheless, I can hear a lot of what is said in the cube I’m back-to-back with. When my back-to-back co-worker heard about the crash, on the phone, around 4 o’clock, I heard, and first I heard plane crash and then I heard everyone survived. And I noticed that in my mind, in my shoulders, I was ready. It was what? A millisecond? But I was ready for death and tragedy. I was ready to be numbed to it. How else was I going to feel? Heartbroken? No, there is too much, and more every day, and I was ready to be numb.

And then I wasn’t. Then it was a story of survival, of a miracle, of something to remember forever and tell your grandchildren: I survived a plane crash! A plane crash! Life vests and the evening news and yes I prayed and yes I thought I was dead and I thought of my family and imagined them going on without me and THEN IT DIDN’T HAPPEN. Yes.

And in feeling the joy of it, and watching the evening news and feeling it again, and looking at those faces and saying to myself, That is the face of someone who lived, I suddenly woke up to how full of tragedy we all are, how we are choking on it, and how different it feels to have a miracle.

Reverse wedding showers, for people who marry (or remarry) in their 40s or later.

One of my co-workers is trying to figure out what she and her fiance are going to do with two complete homes. They are not the only ones.

When my mother remarried I scored a microwave and a wok. I know Roberta got cool stuff as well.

So here’s how it works: You throw the shower, take your duplicates and tie ribbons around them, get everyone drunk, and no one leaves without taking something.

It’s a winner!

Short work again!

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Yesterday I got Arthur up early (for Arthur) and we saw the chiropractor, and then we drove to Westchester to see the psychiatrist, and then we went to the mall because the Post Office at the mall has good hours, and then we ate lunch and I got yelled at by a mean inappropriate person, and then we shopped a little in the mall and then we went to the supermarket.

At the supermarket checkout, I noticed my back was achy, and I thought a moment, and turned to Arthur and said “Was the chiropractor this morning?

He wasn’t sure either.

If you’ve been hanging around this blog long enough, you know Tom, who guest-posts here when I’m out of town. Tom and I have known each other for ten years. Ten. Years. And until yesterday, we had never met face-to-face. Tom and I are two of a group of about a dozen that met on the very first IMDb message boards (which were obscurely linked to and therefore self-selecting for persistent, smart people who read instructions with unusual skill) and are still friends. Tom was one of the last three I hadn’t met in person, and one of the remaining two is in Australia.

So about a month ago, Tom let the gang know he’d be in town for the holidays, and honestly? I never thought that would happen. I thought we’d meet when I visited the Left Coast. I mean Tom? In New York? Get real! But he came and he brought Jody and I’m not sure who I like better.

It was great. I met Denice (from the IMDb gang) and her husband Rich in New Jersey and we drove into the city together. Great weather, bad traffic. We drank at The Dead Poet (which has OMGZ! BEER!) and ate at Cafe con Leche (OMGZ! PAELLA!) and I think I persuaded Tom to write an interesting series which I won’t tell you about in case he doesn’t do it.

So. I guess this isn’t a great story. It made me very happy but it lacks colorful anecdotes. Just, y’know, stare at the picture of paella. (OMGZ!)

Whoosh, that was fast!
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Be non-trivial.