Tuesday. Not so bad especially after having yesterday off. A four day work week lay ahead, meaning tomorrow is hump day and Friday will be here soon enough. And on the weekend I plan on cleaning the bath tub which is looking rather icky. Sorry to use such a technical term but it’s the only thing that comes to mind. It was an ok day. My brother Frank called me up and we were having a good phone call but he seemed bothered by my suggestion that he call Annemarie to wish her husband Rex well since he’s in San Francisco about to undergo another heart procedure. It is an interesting procedure involving magnets.
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Everybody is stressed! Good luck to Rex! Be strong!

He did call back and apologized on my voice mail. He has issues that I don’t care to get into right now. Big mistake to try to get people involved in each others lives, despite being related by blood. I doubt if I’ll ever do that again. I’ve learned my lesson. No more, phone calls like I used to get from him not so long ago in the past. The stress is not worth it. I’ll call, I’ll lend support and let everyone else find out on their own. It’s can all be such bullshit for all concerned, myself included. La familia.

Right now I’m watching the Gilmore Girls which is sort of back to the standards of previous seasons, i.e., very funny, and snappy dialogue. In a little while I’m going out to pick up Bill’s laundry which he won’t be back in time to get. I don’t mind, he’d do it for me, if I didn’t do my laundry here at home on weekends. I’m all dressed to go, got my sneakers on and I’m ready to go. Today the temperature reached the 40’s which was impressive, considering that yesterday it was 12 degrees out. Felt like spring, a bit. Now it’s off to the laundromat.

And now I’m back. Totally uneventful for me, but on the way back I saw some guy on a bicycle who wasn’t doing too well. I think he was a delivery guy and as I walked down Park Avenue, he ditched the bike and was limping down the street with whatever he was delivering in a bag. I felt bad for him as he shuffled past me while I climbed the steps. He stopped in front of my building and I thought maybe the delivery was for one of my neighbors.

No, he merely picked up a big chunk of snow, maybe one of the last clean pieces of snow, and rubbed it onto his scalp, shuffling off further down the street looking for more clean pieces of snow for his head. Strange.

Lately at work I’ve been doing the data entry thing, and a name will trigger something in my memory banks. Today it was the Cilientos who lived on Trudy Drive. They had a lot of kids but I could only remember the names of Annie, and her sister Rose Mary (or was it Mary Rose?). I don’t know why these things pop into my head when I’m doing the most mundane tasks. I can picture the two of them in their St. Francis de Sales school uniforms. They also had a brother Emil, who owned the Humane Animal Shelter.

Why do I remember this stuff?

cut and paste from left to right now…

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/01/21/CMGO9MRLUS1.DTL

Don’t you just love federal holidays? I know I do, at least when I have the day off. Today was a federal holiday and I had the day off. Quite nice. Didn’t do any of the chores I had in the back of my mind, so I’ll concentrate on doing those this weekend. It was brutally cold this morning when Julio called asking me where his bagels were. He and Stine also had the day off, and in the background Stine suggested that he go and get the bagels. He reluctantly agreed and I gave him my order, plus the News and the Post. I read the Times online.

Bill had to work though. He wished he had the day off but really couldn’t afford to take the day off. That sucked but secretly I was looking forward to yet another day of lounging around the apartment. If he was here he could’ve been as quiet as a door mouse, perhaps playing his keyboards with his headphones on. I chatted online with a few friends, people I hadn’t spoken to in a long time. I was generally well received, some guys quite happy to see me. Unless those were bananas in their respective pockets.

I did have to go out and run a few errands around Hoboken. Like I said it was cold. It was actually 13 degrees with strong winds that cut right through you. Needless to say, I didn’t spend too much time outside. Caught up on a lot of things I recorded on DVR and also kept working on the iTunes/iPod thing. When I went out I did take the iPod and it worked nicely, but I did have it under wraps, buried on my person under several layers of clothing. It worked fine, listening to Neon Bible by the Arcade Fire.

Juan drove by last night as he was returning to school. He stopped by to pick up the cd’s I burned for him and I made a care package of some Pop Tarts and some homemade cookies that I made. Not from scratch, just the kind you unwrap from the supermarket, slice up and put in an oven for 15 minutes at 350 degrees. I made some on Saturday night which Bill and Juan really liked. Bill liked them more I suppose since he kept asking me for more cookies, so I made another batch. He didn’t know I could bake.

Now the sun has gone down. I made an last errand to pick up some shoes that were cruddy after the snow and slush last week and also picked up my shirts at Center Cleaners on the corner. Lot’s of cute Hispanic boys working at the shoemakers. Makes me wonder what exactly goes on there. Maybe I’ve been watching too many videos on the computer. Sort of like reading something really funny in the New Yorker, then you turn the page and the next article is tragic and you still keep expecting to laugh some more.

Yeah just like that.