Monthly Archives: November 2010

I Am Kurious, Oranj

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It’s Thanksgiving evening now. Bill and I got home about an hour ago, after having a nice dinner at Oscar’s Brasserie with Hyman Gross. Hyman and his companion June used to have Thanksgiving dinner at Oscar’s every year, then last year, June up and died around this time.

He had mentioned how blue he was feeling the past couple of weeks, not looking forward to a solitary Thanksgiving dinner. So Bill and I decided to stay local. Not just for Hyman, but also because I didn’t want to have to spend 5 hours in a car or a train going to Bill’s cousin’s house. It would have been about 2.5 hours in each direction.

Last night as I was home, as I was writing I kept thinking that I had to work today and had to keep reminding myself that I had off. It was somewhat disconcerting and it wore me down.

A very brief phone call with my brother Frank also happened last night, discussing Janet Wygal’s side projects from 25 years ago and almost veering into a discussion about what is going on in my life, when Patti Lupone, Michael Cerveris and George Hearn starting singing a song from Sweeney Todd on the Stephen Sondheim 75th birthday celebration on PBS, cutting Frank’s interest in my life of turmoil short.

I was all set to go to bed around 1:00 last night, Juan was a no show. Bill phoned as he was about to leave Washington DC and head back to the tri-state area. He felt like closing his eyes for a few minutes so I offered to stay up until 1:30 and give him a call so that he wouldn’t oversleep. And that’s what I did.

I threw in Iron Man 2 from Netflix and started to get into it, pretty amped up and called Bill at 1:30. He had just woken up a minute before I called. I watched a little bit more of Iron Man 2 before I went to bed for some tossing and turning. I don’t fall asleep easily when Bill isn’t around.

When I woke up around 10:00 this morning, there was Bill sound asleep in bed, sleep apnea mask on. I puttered around, showered and made breakfast for myself, thankful that Bill made an extra special effort to get some bagels from H&H while he was in the city this morning.

I woke Bill up around 12:30 so we could start to get ready to head into the city. I was determined not to be late, so as to prove to Hyman that Bill had indeed made it back on time. We got to the Waldorf Astoria before Hyman and were seated when he came in. I found him and directed him to our table.

Hyman didn’t have much to say to me, possibly because I told him I did want to hear his negativity and when he did speak to me, I was probably best described as cheeky. It wasn’t bad, we all got our salads at the same time, but went for the entrees without Hyman who went on his own. He also purloined one or two cloth napkins which he put into his bag.

We headed out after Bill and I decided to split the bill and treat Hyman. A walk through the lobby to get a cab on the Park Avenue side, Hyman opting not to ride back to Hoboken with us. He went his way and we went ours, running into Denise Foster in the queue for the bus. Denise used to cook fabulous holiday dinners before she started witnessing for Jehovah.

Now Bill naps, I write and Juan is making his way down to Hoboken to hang out for a bit. Work tomorrow, going in later. The 12:30 to 10:30 shift starts tomorrow and that is what my holiday schedule looks like. This is why I desperately wanted to be out of the retail world before the season. Too late for that now.

John Ozed, Hyman Gross and Bill Vila


Denise Foster


Bill Vila


the John Ozed guy

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I Love The Flower Girl

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So tired. Been a long day. Close to 10 hours on my feet. Now, Bill is in Washington DC, supposed to be dead heading back to Manhattan, estimated time of arrival 6:30 tomorrow morning. I wish he were here, but he isn’t so I am enjoying a little time to myself.

Juan is around somewhere, he could be making the trek up from Trenton back t Union City. He said he might stop by if it isn’t too late. But what is too late? Now is too late. Still I would welcome him here, no matter what.

I heard from the former president of my former job this morning. He asked for the info, a copy of my resume so he could tailor a letter to mail to my prospective employers. He’s using snail mail, not email since he’s not that computer savvy. I have no idea what he is writing.

Perhaps he’s writing that I am the absolute worst and the company would be smart to change their address lest they receive contact from me again. But I doubt it. Harpy made an appearance at the cigar shop today and that was nice, it was good to see him. Not much time spent, he was off doing things and I was off standing on my feet for the first of many hours.

Marcus split the scene soon enough, leaving Bradley and myself. And lately Bradley has been pretty funny. Funny ha ha, not funny strange though he is a bit strange in a funny way as well. It certainly was a busy day, lot’s of people, the majority were men, buying cigars for a long weekend.

I remember those long weekends. And quite a number of those guys sat in the backroom, and drank and smoke the afternoon away since they were off of work early. It got so crowded that we had to turn people away from the boisterous, smoky scene.

Sean came in and worked but mainly talked on his phone, out of the view of the cameras. If we wanted him to do something, like his job, we had to ask him. Large packages came in, quite unexpectedly as well as cigars ordered earlier in the week.

I put a box on the side and called a customer who asked me to call him when the cigars he liked came in. Got his voice mail and after a few hours figured he wasn’t coming in so I put them back in stock. The time did not fly by, it was quite a long day.

Eventually I left the store, closing the register and ignoring a $0.40 discrepancy in the receipts. I was too tired to figure it out and it would have taken some time. I just wanted to go home. I’m sure that will come up in a week or two.

I made it to the bus terminal, listening to Mezzanine by Massive Attack. At the gate was Hyman Gross and we chatted while we waited and as we rode on the bus to Hoboken. He expressed doubt that Bill would make it back in time for dinner and I took exception to that, and told him so.

Until then, I had no doubt that Bill would make it and if it wasn’t for Hyman’s negative attitude I would have had 100% positivity that Bill would be there. I suppose if you make it to 80 something years old, you can be as grouchy and curmudgeonly as you’d like.

I did speak with Bill a few minutes ago, and he said he should be back here, in the NYC area on time. Hyman might have picked up on my discomfort and changed the subject to Marcel Proust, Thomas Mann and James Joyce. He recommended that I read The Dead by Joyce, it’s supposed to be quite beautiful.

So I just requested the DVD from the bibliothèque as well as Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Will I have the time to watch the DVD or read the book? Will you have the time to read this?

What are you looking at?


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