Monthly Archives: August 2006

Drive My Car

I am trying not to dread the autumn, when it gets cooler and the trips to the shore dwindle down. It’s not that it’s in the forefront of my mind, but it’s there, lurking around the corner. I can almost see the leaves being blown about in a whirlwind. But that’s not here yet. I am still grooving on yesterday’s shore leave. I spoke to Julio this morning on the way to the Path train, and he and Stine talked so there is peace on the third floor. I’m just glad that it had nothing to do with me, and I was able to attempt to draw Stine into throwing the Frisbee, or at least taking some pictures.

Juan came by last night, after Bill and I watched Deadwood. That is getting to be quite bloody and I’m not complaining. I suppose it’s as true to life as they could depict for a mining town in the South Dakota territories. After that, then Entourage, then a bit of Lucky Louie, occasionally switching channels to FX so we could catch Bill’s appearance once more. Bill getting nudged out of the way by the dreaded Dennis Leary, who makes me leery. Bill does look good on the telly, doesn’t he? I’m looking forward to seeing Bill on the big screen and I’m sure it’s going to happen one of these days.

I woke up with the alarm clock and once again Bill was nudged, this time by me, asking if he was going to work today. He kept mentioning that he needed to be up early and here it was almost 6:30 and he’s sawing wood next to me. He jumps up and runs around surprised that he over slept. His resetting of his alarm clock obviously didn’t go as planned. He was out in a flash, quite unlike my easygoing gait, unless I oversleep, then it all turns into pandemonium. It wasn’t that way this morning. I even had enough time to go back to the apartment, walking back a block and a half and climbing four flights of stairs.

One of things I have to do at work is put out a Morning Announcement about who’s out sick, where people will be, things like that. I also try to add a witty little line like, ‘If your hand was 12 inches long, it would be a foot’. Well, I think it’s witty. Today I mentioned that it was three years ago today that the Northeast was in a blackout. I was at work at Wanker Banker on the 34th floor. I had just had some champagne with some coworkers because a division just made their first sale. Then a few minutes later everything went down. I made the phone calls to the building management and then Bill and a few others further and further away from my office and found out there was a black out. I had to climb down 36 flights of stairs in dress shoes. I looked great but of course, but by the time I had gotten to the street my legs, they be like Jell-O.

I wandered around Manhattan with my then boss, now friend, Robert. He’s an interesting guy to say the least, but after a few hours I grew weary of his nervous chatter. Me, usually the one pursuing the alpha male, became the alpha male. Ha! We eventually wound up hitchhiking at the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel. Thanks to the kindness of strangers, I was given a ride through the Tunnel by a tennis pro headed towards Baltimore way. I walked through the darkened streets and it really was dark mind you.
Oddly enough, my block was spared for some reason. There was power on my block. I heard it lost power for about 10 minutes. That’s it more or less in a nutshell. Three years ago tonight, ladies and germs.

Felicia is scheduled to return to work tomorrow which makes me apprehensive. And I know I’m not the only one.

Buttons

It is Sunday and that means beach day. I wasn’t too sure about the shore though. From what Julio told me Stine doesn’t much care for it. ‘All we do is sit there’ she said via Julio. Still, I got up early and fetched the bagels and the papers and came back for the last weekend breakfast of the weekend. Bill wasn’t joining us again, he stayed up until 4:00AM trying to work on a back up for his laptop and it didn’t go too well. I got the call from Julio that the beach was a go. Bill lay in the bed all arms and legs akimbo and I gave him a nice peck on the forehead before I headed down the stairs to Julio and Stine by the open trunk of his car.

I put my beach bag in the trunk and we headed out of Hoboken towards the New Jersey Turnpike. Smooth sailing for us, thanks to my checking the traffic reports beforehand. The EZ Pass made things extra easy and we flew down. Of course there was a bump in the road, and that was a miscommunication of sorts between Julio and Stine. Someone needed to make up their mind fast as we were at a fork in the road, and they didn’t and feelings were hurt. Me, playing the role of ‘company’ bore witness to these hurt feeling which compounded the situation. All of a sudden it got cold from the back seat.

We went into the supermarket in Red Bank and bought the usual provisions. I seemed to have started a conversational relationship with the woman behind the counter who was telling me about seeing Cirque du Soliel last night in Philadelphia. I told her about entering a contest to see Cirque du Soliel in Las Vegas to see the Beatles Love show. Haven’t heard whether or not I won, but she thought I did and was super excited hear about what didn’t happen. I got my sandwich and talked to Julio and Stine separately on opposite sides of the salad bar. Julio was contrite, Stine was steaming. We headed back to the car silently and loaded the cooler.

In the car, I tried to lighten the mood by picking great songs from my iPod but it didn’t seem like any song that I played would’ve been appropriate, but still I kept trying. Let’s Stay Together by Al Green didn’t do it, My First, My Last, My Everything by Barry White fell by the wayside as well. My last attempt before driving around in circles in the parking lot across the street from the beach was a cover of Baby Can I Hold You (Sorry) by Foxy Brown, the dancehall singer, not the rap singer. What are the odds that both the Mr. and Mrs. Browns of Kingston, Jamaica and Flatbush, Brooklyn would both name their singing daughters, Foxy?

No matter. Stine kept to herself on the beach, while Julio and I tossed the Frisbee back and forth. I was able to engage her when I asked her to take some pictures and she did take some good shots. Despite Julio apologizing a few times, she was still distant to him, placing him on the couch in the doghouse. It was more of the same the whole ride back, no chat, no nothing. I’m sure they’ll work it out.

And here’s a color photo supplement for the Sunday edition.

some other pics in the photos section….to your right in the column…