Monday again. Back to work. Last night was the running around Bergen County so that Anne, Rex and Earl could say their good byes and then home to rest. Anne came upstairs for a few minutes to try and print out boarding passes, then she went downstairs again. Bill went to bed and I finished the blog, watched some Scrubs and then fell asleep around midnight. Woke up this morning feeling ok. I knew I had to be back in the routine and out of the apartment by 7:00 to catch the bus and get to the office on time.

I had to stop by Julio and Stine’s apartment and give Anne a key to my apartment so Earl could sit and watch TV while the building inspector and the landlord came in to see if the carbon monoxide detector was installed and the bathroom ceiling painted. According to Earl it only took about a minute. I was able to burn a copy of Bob Marley and the Wailers Kaya for Earl before I left the apartment. Earl is getting into reggae so over the past week I also burned more Bob Marley and some Burning Spear. I also gave him a VHS of Bob Marley and the Wailers and the bootleg copy of 300. What can I say? I love making the kid happy by giving him things that I enjoy or enjoyed.

So I saw Annemarie and Earl for about a minute this morning. Sad to see them go, but they had to get back to their lives over in California. I walked to work playing Kaya on the iPod. No one was in the office yet and I had to change my shirt since I was drenched from walking across town in 80 degree heat. People started coming in, asking me how my vacation was, how was the wedding and of course, how was my brother Frank. Positive reports on all fronts I was happy to say. Then it was back to the routine of the day which I’m still trying to figure out.

I did make a point to see Billie who is up from DC and in management training for Chop’T a fast food salad joint. He was happy to see me and I was being watched by a uni brow behind the counter who was either into me or repulsed by the affection between Billie and myself. I’ll take the former. I didn’t want to take up too much of his time or get him in trouble so it was a brief visit. I did go back and get a $9.00 salad for lunch though. I’ll probably do it again, but only because Billie is in town.

We made plans for Billie, Bill and myself to go have drinks on Wednesday, Bill wanted to go bowling like we did the last night we had spent in DC last year, but when I mentioned it to Billie he didn’t want to do that. So I’m thinking of a trip to Oscar Wilde’s on 58th street, across the street from the Townhouse Bar, but who knows really if we’ll pull it off?

I got out of work and walked across town, smoking a Padron in the dense heat. Got to the bus terminal and there were long, snaking lines for all the Hoboken buses. After about 20 minutes I was on a very crowded bus, sitting on a ramp heading out towards the Lincoln tunnel. I got a phone call from Annemarie who was calling from O’Hare airport in Chicago. They were delayed by storms which meant they might miss the connection in Las Vegas which meant they might miss that connecting flight to San Francisco. They might not get to Arcata until tomorrow which sucks.

I really miss them.