The Lipstick Building

The epicenter of what may be the largest Ponzi scheme in history was the 17th floor of the Lipstick Building, an oval red-granite building rising 34 floors above Third Avenue in Midtown Manhattan.

--New York Times front page, 12/15/08

I didn't know they called it that when I moved to New York. I only knew that it was tall and very unusual in appearance and that it was two blocks south of my building on Third Avenue, and I needed a visual orientation object and that was it. When today's New York Times referred to it "The Lipstick Building" I knew immediately which building they meant.

In this building, Bernard Madoff perpetrated a multi-billion dollar scam that fooled some very prominent and fabulously wealthy people. Many of them were major donors to charities. Some of those charities were Jewish philanthropies, whose budgets had already been shredded by the financial crisis. Madoff himself was treasurer of the board of Yeshiva University. Talk about putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.

Some of these organizations will have to close their doors and others will be forced to make drastic cutbacks.

This morning when I passed the Lipstick Building, there was a sign on the sidewalk in front of it that said "Danger". It was making reference to the window washers up thirty stories or so, but it might well have been referring to the shenanigans taking place on the 17th floor. Danger, indeed.

I'm The Reason It Didn't Rain

The predictions began Thursday evening. By Friday evening, we were told, the rains would be heavy. Cold and heavy rain the weather people predicted. They promised us the biggest storm in recent years.
Southern California needs the rain. Maybe not rain in the form of the biggest storm in recent years because with heavy rains will come the inevitable mud slides especially in the areas ravaged recently by fire. However, a good, slow rain would be great.
As of this moment, the rains have not arrived.
I know why.
It's my fault.
Friday morning I had new windshield wipers put on my Jeep. Before Friday morning I wiped my windshield with what for all intents and purposes was two metal rods which at one time held something made of rubber.
In a radical departure from my normal hap hazard approach to getting ready for things like major storms, I bought new windshield wipers and had a guy at a service station in Pomona even put them on my Jeep. I was all set.
Except that those badly needed rains didn't come.
Tomorrow morning during rush hour, it will rain. I know this because this evening I took the new windshield wipers off of my Jeep and replaced them with the old ones. You see, there is wisdom in not quickly throwing broken, useless stuff away.
To guarantee the rains, I washed my car.
Drought be gone. I'm ready for the rains.
But just in case, I parked my Jeep outside and left all the windows rolled down.

My Lucky Day

I didn't bring in the daily paper this morning. There it was in the driveway but instead of picking it up before I left the house for my day, I ran over it.
I parked in the lot of a large chain sort of health food organic type store. When I came out with my purchases, someone had let loose their shopping cart and it had run into the side of my Jeep. I wheeled the cart to the boldly signed cart place then returned to look at my Jeep. A few more scratches had been added to its door and its story.
"I'm so lucky," I thought, "to have a car years and miles beyond its first scratch."
A car with over two hundred thousand miles to its credit is a wonder to behold and to own.
My outing continued to a popular area of town where none of the stores in which I had previously shopped existed. They were gone -- replaced by stores in whose inventories I had no interest.
"What a fine opportunity to avoid unnecessary purchases," I thought and felt good about the money I had saved.
In a bookstore, I noticed a calendar. It was an amazing calendar. You may recall my this time of year fixation with calendars. I was about to buy it when I looked at it more closely. It was for the year 2008. I put it back on the shelf and thought how incredibly lucky that I took the time to check out the year of that almost perfect calendar. Really, I've already got enough 2009 calendars and yet I was so close to buying another.
My errands run, only what I needed purchased, I returned home and again ran over the newspaper still in my driveway. Before I closed the garage door, I picked up the newspaper.
In the plastic bag with the paper was a sample box of granola. Of course, because I had twice run over it, the sample was in no shape to eat.
Again, I considered myself lucky. You see, several years ago I read a book in which a plague was spread by food samples delivered either in newspapers or through the mail. Since reading that book I have avoided all such samples. However, today as I drove into my garage I was thinking how great a bowl of granola would taste right about then.
Because I had twice run over the newspaper and its free sample thus rendering it inedible, I doubtless avoided becoming both a victim and a carrier of perhaps the deadliest plague ever.
Today was not only my lucky day, it was yours, too.

In Sync

The first steps in a relationship can be the most crucial. Ever notice when couples are freshly in love they walk in sync? When the relationship gets a little older, there are times the couples walk somewhat out of sync. As couples' relationships mature, those truly in love still walk in sync and those who are really not made for one another no longer walk in sync but are very much out of step with one another - never to walk in sync again.

The Moment

He called just as I was settling in to watch Jon Stewart on the daily show.  I leaped when my cell phone displayed his name and quickly pushed the button.  "Mom, after working twelve hours, the chef tapped me on the shoulder and said I got the job.  Six days a week from 11am to 11pm." Thoughts of the logistics of this began racing through my head.  Twelve hours?  Are they crazy?  How could he maintain a schedule like?  I realized it was one in the morning in NY and he had just gotten off at his subway stop.   He continued to speak a mile a minute revealing his excitement about the details and possibilities of his new position.  I listened attentively trying my best not to ask any questions that would take away from the moment.   It was his moment of glory and beyond anything else it erased all the doubt from yesterday.  While many are struggling to find work, a passionate young man found an open door and the job of his dreams...

For Shame

The governor of Illinois should be ashamed of himself. Did he really think he could get away with selling the Senate seat? Was he trying to sell it to Jesse Jackson, Jr.? Was Obama involved in this even though he says he wasn't? I hope not - he is supposed to get the American citizens out of this mess. When will the corruption stop? Who will be next? Only the media knows.

New Jersey Humor

Driving in New Jersey requires a willingness to be constantly taken by surprise not by other drivers, necessarily, but by the signs informing distance and exits. Go along following the exit signs to, for example, Newark Airport. Those signs will tell you which divide in the road is yours and so you take it. They will even tell you in which lane you should position yourself and so you maneuver into that lane. Those signs effectively lull you into a trust. You begin to rely on them. And then, just at the last second when they've got you positioned in the far left lane, the sign says exit immediately from the far right lane. It never fails.
Imagine my relief, then, when I arrived at the Newark Airport thinking I was then free of that particular brand of New Jersey humor.
Ha.
I got suckered.
All of the postings told me that my 4:30 PM flight left from a gate at the far end of the Continental terminal. I believed them. I got to the gate with enough time to begin reading the novel I'd been lugging around with me for two weeks. Even the display above the gate assured me that I was where I needed to be.
And then it happened. Twenty minutes before my flight was to begin boarding, the display above my gate -- my promised gate, my guaranteed gate -- changed. No longer was the flight leaving from that gate going to Los Angeles. It was going to Argentina. Curious though I am, I did not want to go to Argentina on that particular evening.
I ran to a video display and was slapped in the face by the fact that my flight was going to board and depart from a gate at the opposite end of the Continental Airlines Terminal.
If I ran on the moving walkways and knocked down the elderly, I just might make the flight. And so I did. Walkers and three pronged canes flew in my wake. Children screamed in terror. Each time I passed a video arrival and departure display I checked my gate just to make sure I did not become the brunt of yet another bit of New Jersey humor.
When I arrived at the gate out of breath and drenched in sweat I couldn't help but wonder how all of the other passengers knew to be at that gate all along.
That's New Jersey humor for you.