Thursday. Brouhahas kept to a minimum. Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right. It all went easily. The director’s son, Allen is a quiet type. That might be because it’s his first day. I walked him around the Turtle Bay neighborhood, showing where to go for this and that. I don’t think he was paying attention. Not my problem if Allen winds up in Spanish Harlem. As we were walking back to the office, he said he had to run to the bank for his mother, the director. I said go ahead, not thinking that he’d be back in ninety minutes. I did put him to work putting away supplies. That oughta show him a thing or two.

Fay Victor came in for a couple of hours. She sat with Carla for the time she was there. It was good to see her. She’ll be in tomorrow all day. I plan on being out by 1:00PM, that is if the Time Warner cable guy comes in to fix Greg Stevens cable. Every week it’s something else, yet every week it’s an opportunity to prove my worth to the company. It’s a good thing that Greg is such a nice guy. Anything he asks for, I deliver. Fay said hello to Greg and it was almost like a meeting of two old friends, but then I wasn’t there, so I really couldn’t say.

Last night I hung out with Julio for a little while. He was cleaning cleaning cleaning the apartment. Not for me, not for Annemarie, but for him. He wouldn’t be able to leave the apartment in the mess that it was which, when compared to the apartment that Bill and I live in, it’s like Julio and Stine are the Boy and Girl in the Plastic Bubble. It’s very Scandinavian, their apartment. Our apartment is very, for lack of a better comparison, very Nagasaki. Collier Brothers? Good comparisons are so hard to come by these days.

We hung out and Julio told me his woes with the West New York Code board, a part of the apparatus of the city planning. He’s been running around, dealing with building inspectors and other West New York officials. So he was relatively stressed about the whole thing. We sat and drank a couple of Stella Artois. Today is his birthday so that gave us a legitimate reason to have the beers, like we needed a legitimate reason anyway.

After that I came home and chilled out. Due to a tremendous thunderstorm with some intense lightning I turned off the computer. I sat and read with the TV on, every couple of minutes I’d get up to look up something on the computer, only to remember that I had shut it off. I was surprised, but not really, at how much time I spend on the computer. Free time, my time, not time at work. I be addicted. Now it’s starting to rain, things have cooled down somewhat and in the distance, lightning is flashing across the horizon.

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.