{"id":155,"date":"2010-09-02T19:32:00","date_gmt":"2010-09-02T19:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/originalorknot.com\/?p=155"},"modified":"2014-06-03T17:35:13","modified_gmt":"2014-06-03T17:35:13","slug":"connections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/originalorknot.com\/?p=155","title":{"rendered":"Connections"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m reaching the deadline on a big project today, but I thought I&#8217;d jot this down before I forget it.<\/p>\n<p>An old friend, Lisa Bailey, did something <i>really<\/i> nice for me last week. (Really, <b><i>really<\/i><\/b> nice. I mean, <i style=\"color: #cc0000;\"><b>WAY<\/b><\/i> above and  beyond). Besides feeling incredibly, eternally grateful, just thinking about her, emailing and talking to her many times over a few days reminded me of something else. I actually think of Lisa every time I drink champagne.<\/p>\n<p>We had this experience in Germany some years back. (I won&#8217;t mention just how long ago it was, but you&#8217;ll have an idea when I say it was <i>West<\/i> Germany at the time.) Lisa and I were both in a dance group that was doing a little tour of the country, and in Munich all the members of the group had the chance to stay in the homes of members of a similar group there. Lisa and I stayed with Karl. We had a fine time, and the night we were leaving on the overnight train to Frankfurt, Karl opened a bottle of champagne to toast to our visit.<\/p>\n<p>This brings me to the reason for the Lisa\u2013champagne connection. She doesn&#8217;t drink anything carbonated. Not soda, not sparkling wine, nothing. She doesn&#8217;t like it. Of course, she was much too polite to refuse a glass, under the circumstances, but was kind of in a dilemma because she really didn&#8217;t want to drink it. I knew all of this, so I waited until Karl&#8217;s back was turned and quietly emptied Lisa&#8217;s glass into mine. As I remember (and it <i>is<\/i> a little fuzzy), I did that a few times. I whispered to her (at least I <i>hope<\/i> I whispered), &#8220;You better make sure I get on that train tonight!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>She did, apparently, and we made it back. Years have passed, and yet every time I raise a glass of champagne, I think of her.<\/p>\n<p>Isn&#8217;t that funny? People leave these indelible marks on our lives, sometimes significant but also sometimes kind of goofy. Presumably, <i>we<\/i> leave those same marks, too, without even knowing it. Maybe that&#8217;s just as well, maybe it&#8217;s a shame. Would it be good to know exactly <b>how<\/b> and <b>why<\/b> people remember us?<\/p>\n<p>In any case, there you go, Lisa. You&#8217;re with me forever, or at least as long as I drink champagne.<\/p>\n<p>Next time I&#8217;ll talk about Ruth, green food and crumbs on the keyboard!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m reaching the deadline on a big project today, but I thought I&#8217;d jot this down before I forget it. An old friend, Lisa Bailey, did something really nice for me last week. (Really, really nice. I mean, WAY above and beyond). Besides feeling incredibly, eternally grateful, just thinking about her, emailing and talking to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/originalorknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/originalorknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/originalorknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/originalorknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/originalorknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/originalorknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/originalorknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/originalorknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/originalorknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}