Monthly Archives: January 2011

I Haven’t Time to Be a Millionaire

A day off which happened to coincide with many others (but not all) having off for Martin Luther King’s birthday, or the recognition of it as a Federal holiday. And it was a good day. I went to bed earlier than usual last night after watching the Golden Globes with Bill on TV.

We both enjoyed the telecast, thought Ricky Gervais was pretty funny with his accurate putdowns on Hollywood and the star system. I watched the second episode of Shameless last night after Bill had gone to bed. But there was so much going on in the episode I couldn’t keep up and went to bed halfway through, around 12:30.

I slept fairly well, Bill get up this morning around 5:00. He was off to Philadelphia on his day off to meet some people in a casting agency and was on a Greyhound bus around 6:30. I was up and about at my usual time, 8-ish and set about starting my day. Shower, coffee before heading out to the grocery store.

I walked by Mr. L’s barber shop on my way to the supermarket. Tony my barber was cutting someone’s hair so I would have to wait until later to get my hair cut. Came home and had a nice breakfast and started my laundry.

Plenty of clothes to wash so I was busy. After the washing was done I headed out once again and walked to the barber shop where Tony was available. He was sitting watching an old movie on Turner Classic Movies with another bloke who turned out to be Joe Pantoliano.

I didn’t let on that I knew who he was and let him watch the movie undisturbed while Tony set about cutting my hair. Soon other customers came in and Joe Pantoliano made his way out without anyone paying him much notice. He was bundled up somewhat and also wearing sunglasses.

Another customer and I started talking about the current situation. He used to work at JP Morgan Chase and now he’s an engineer for the MTA. I explained that I was an office manager for an investment bank which went belly up and now I sell cigars and expensive pens.

I think he was looking for sympathy to which I replied that he was making more money than I am, mentioning that I took a 20 thousand dollar pay cut where he is still making a lot more money than I am. He does have a Master’s degree which he pointed out. He was trying to blame the economic climate on government being out of control, and I agreed that it was out of control and has been for the past 10 years.

He wasn’t expecting to hear that, nor was my mentioning that invading Iraq which cost billions of dollars helped put us where we are now. And also the deregulation of the banks which the right wing (who I did not mention by name) had been working on since the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I ended it with that and came home looking rather snappy with my hair nicely trimmed.

Hadn’t gotten a haircut since November I think and it was getting to be unmanageable. Came home and ran into Stine who told me she was making her excellent meat sauce and would make me a package when she was done.

When she was done and Julio came home, she invited me to have dinner with them. Alexander was wonderful as usual, sometimes putting on a show for me, fake laughter and all that. He does love being the center of attention and does not hesitate to scream my name to get my attention.

A wonderful spaghetti dinner with Stine, Julio and Alexander, some wine and some grapes for dessert. Alexander was getting sleepy when I made my way back upstairs, soon after Bill had come home. Now it’s now and here I am, a container of meat sauce in the fridge and me trying not to think about going to work tomorrow.

Bill and I are watching Shameless and William H Macy reminds me of someone.


I Have Dreamed

Bill and I just listened to The Hallelujah Chorus by the Roches. We sang our own version of it a few minutes ago. It was quite funny and ended with the both of us laughing quite a bit. Bill surprised me tonight, getting on the same bus that I was on at the bus terminal.

It was great to see him, the perfect end to a hum drum day. And the hum drum day started with the usual feeling of dread. Not wanting to go, but keeping in mind that it isn’t so bad, I would not have to deal with Calvin for four days.

He was off today and tomorrow, I’m off on Monday and Calvin is off on Tuesday. He’s going to see Prince, after the glowing review I gave last month after seeing Prince at Madison Square Garden with RoDa.

One of the things Calvin mentioned yesterday was that the staff spends too much time on the internet. So today I did not go online at the cigar shop. Neither did the Bradley or Sean. We were pretty good about that. It was a long day.

Yesterday we basically cleaned the shop, making sure everything had a price on it, as well as cleaning all glass surfaces. We do that a lot, cleaning the shop so that the cleaning woman has an easy time of it when she comes in for her 90 minutes of cleaning, Monday through Friday.

I did a lot of pacing on the floor, really. I should have been wearing a pedometer to see how many miles I accrue each day. And once again, former employee Don came into the cigar shop. He was in yesterday and left his scarf behind. Perhaps it was a Freudian thing, intentionally leaving it behind for a return visit, a ‘round two’ as it is sometimes called by former staffers. The present staff doesn’t talk like that.

And it was also the second day I had fore gone the free cigar from the owners of the cigar shop. It’s one of the perks of working there but it really doesn’t float my boat anymore. The whole experience of working at the cigar shop leaves a bad taste in my mouth and it isn’t from smoking cigars.

The cigars I enjoy are looked down upon by cigar snobs as being cardboard, despite the fact that this ‘cardboard’ pays the bills since more ‘cardboard’ cigars are sold than the top shelf cigars generally approved and given high ratings by the horrid Cigar Aficionado magazine. Lately it’s been such a drag dealing with Calvin and Marcus that I would rather just forget the whole thing.

Today since I was off the internet at the cigar shop, I went to an internet café and checked my emails, some job offers, and some red herrings. It wasn’t as expensive as I thought it would be. $2.00 for 10 minutes and I was done with what I wanted to do and went back to work for more pacing and cleaning glass surfaces.

Now I’m home, one more day of work then a day off, which of course can’t get here fast enough and will likely be over before I know it.

Not writing Sunday!