At 7:00 this morning it was 77 degrees. Let that be a heads up for anyone traveling to this metropolitan area in the next week or so. The air is filled with hummus. It’s a drag. So hot and sticky and thick, it slows down time especially downtime. I spent most of the day trying to figure out what needs to be done while I’m out for four days next week. Don’t want to leave loose ends, and I don’t want any phone calls while I hope to be at the beach with Annemarie, Earl and possibly Rex. And maybe someone else, who knows? Whatever and whoever I am planning on having a good time, regardless.

Work was quiet. The brouhaha is scheduled for tomorrow, one intern not two. A clash of director and president? I actually hope not. Also Fay Victor who I used to work with at Wanker Banker is coming in for tomorrow to check out the office and her duties since she’ll be filling in for Carla the receptionist for two weeks and a couple of days while Carla tours Ireland, Scotland and England for her graduation gift. I like Carla, she’s a real sweetheart, a good kid. She’s looking for a new job since she’s graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology and doesn’t want to be a receptionist, now matter how good she has it here. No one wants to see her go, but everyone seems to understand that she just might.

It was slow enough this afternoon that I left 45 minutes early. It’s cool since I can check my emails and voice mails from home and I have a couple of times already. No emergencies. Like I figured, no one noticed that I had left early. Tom Chin left the office around 12:30 and he would have been the one to notice that I wasn’t there. He said he had a meeting to attend in Connecticut at 4:00 so he wasn’t going to call when I left at 4:15.

I was drenched in sweat from the hummus and came home and changed my clothes. I thought that since I got home early I’d be able to run to city hall in Hoboken and get a parking pass for my sister’s rented car. I changed into shorts and sneakers and swam/walked to the parking authority located in the basement of city hall. I walked into the air conditioned hallway and sat for a second when I was called to the window. I showed my proof of residency (or redundancy) and when they asked for how long would I need this parking permit, I told them June 29 to July 7.

No good! They can’t start a permit until Friday. So I will have to go back on Friday and get this permit. I was planning on skipping out early on Friday any how, so now I will have a legitimate excuse to bounce. I am pretty psyched to see everyone again and to see Meghan and Rob get married. He was name Bergen County Coach of the Year so that’s a nice feather in his cap.

It’s Tuesday and it’s hummus out. At around 8:00 this morning it was 73 and climbing. It’s been hot hot hot. Uncomfortable for many. I played it cool as best as I could but sometimes it wasn’t enough. Not that anything happened, I rose above it all. Not much happened at all really. I took a long lunch, combined with an errand and caught a subway to Farfetched where I bought birthday cards for everyone born in July. I hung out for a little while and talked with Susan. We chatted, I told her about the play that I’m taking Bill to see on Sunday at 7:00. Susan saw it and thought it was very good, hence her recommendation. The show my brother Frank and I wanted to see, Company is closing on Sunday so we missed the boat on that. Stupid stroke.

I also ran into Virgin and picked up New Boots and Panties by Ian Dury and the Blockheads. I’ve been looking for it for a while now and finally found it at a reasonable price. Got a salad and made it back to the office. It’s fairly quiet lately. The managing director’s plan to have two interns come in has been squashed. Greg Stevens expects a brouhaha when she returns from her conference in Santa Monica on Thursday. I only have three more days of work then I am off for 9 days in a row. My mind is almost on vacation already anyway. What else is new?

Last night while riding with Julio up Route 17 to Paramus, we drove past an empty space where the Century movie theater used to be. It used to be one big theater, where I saw one of my first movies, Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows. Then in the 1970’s turned it into two. I saw Jesus Christ Superstar in my religious fervor back then, when it was playing next to Last Tango in Paris, a racy X rated film starring Marlon Brando. My brother Brian and I were kicked out with our money refunded when we attempted to see The Poseidon Adventure at an evening show. My father took Brian and I to see the Cowboys in the seventies on weeknight.

That was odd. Our father taking us away from our two hours of homework enforced discipline to go to the movies. Even if we had homework that could be finished in 10 minutes, we had to sit at the dining room table twenty feet from a television loudly playing Johnny Mann’s Stand Up and Cheer! Didn’t help our grades really. I took to writing out random pages in the encyclopedia. Brian stretched his neck trying to see what was on TV, at one point stretching it 5 inches. That’s when he threatened to kick my ass if I tried to get help. It eventually shrunk back, like a turtle’s.

I saw Boyz in The Hood when I was living with my father in 1991 against everyone’s, and I do mean everyone’s advice. I don’t know if I could say I loved the movie, but I was moved by it. The Century theater was by that point a four plex I think. I remember leaving the theater in the bright summer sun walking out into the hard mean streets of the Garden State Plaza. I have to say I was sad to see the Century torn down. It is totally flat, nothing there to say what it used to be.
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