New Haven Independent

Lisa’s Shift Ends

by Tess Wheelwright | April 17, 2006 1:37 PM | Permalink

The owner of the 2005 Mitsubishi abandoned at the scene of the flaming crash at Ella Grasso Blvd and Route 34 that killed 25-year-old Lisa Tribanas at 2:35 a.m. Easter morning was found with a leg injury in his home Sunday and questioned but not yet arrested, police said. A resident of Danbury, Lisa was the jewel bartender at Zinc and Chow restaurants on New Haven’s Chapel Street and could fill stools on even a rainy Tuesday night with her bright, buoyant magnetism and genuine enjoyment of people. Lisa’s poise and steady kindness might be explained by the Vipassana meditation she practiced by morning; she talked about starting an organic farm and restaurant one day. At the end of our long shifts together at Chow, I had the fun of watching the same martini-shaking Lisa who could defuse strangers’ arguments with a wink and find words to make even the stiffest, the loneliest smile turn into a kid again, launching her bulky trash bag toward the top of the overloaded dumpster and leaping for a mid-air high-five. She will be badly missed. T.W.

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