Category Archives: the day after yesterday

I Heard It Through The Grapevine Marvin Gaye

Home again. Another long day. Not all of them are long days, but this one started early. I had to be in the cigar shack by 10:30, a whole hour earlier than usual. I know, right? I was on time as usual. It was me and Zack for the first hour.

We were putting things back on the shelves that were removed last night so some painters could do some work in the walk in humidor. Things were slow most of the day, so far march has not proven to be as successful sales wise as it was in February. The cigar shack isn’t doing so bad but the numbers in February were much more impressive. Still we are meeting our quotas.

Thomas came in at 11:30 as expected and was not hung over like he was the day before. He was pretty funny sometimes on purpose, sometimes not. We were having a discussion on hate crimes and freedom of speech and I wasn’t quite in the mood for it, but Thomas being 25 years old and full of vim and vigor was in the mood.

While a person does have the right to yell fire in a crowded movie theater, that doesn’t mean that they should. Oh it was such a stupid discussion, but I had to laugh when Thomas mentioned that he was called a honky. I’m 25 years older than him and have lived through the times when honky was actually thrown about and never once was I called a honky.

In fact the only times I heard that word was on television, in the 1970’s and it was on Good Times. I don’t think Thomas grew up in some projects in Chicago in the 1970’s. Connecticut in the 1990’s is not the same thing as far as I know.

Thomas did great on sales today but Zack took the largest sales of all. I struggled in third place since no one I dealt with was looking for a humidor. Still, selling $2000 worth of cigars is not such a bad thing and breaking $2000 dollars satisfied my personal goal. Since I stayed later last night, Thomas stayed late tonight.

We took the cigars off the shelves again so the painters could finish their job tonight. I left at 8:30 tonight, leaving Jimmy Seltzer in the man cave with Jerry Vale who once again is doing the overnight shift. I walked down to the bus terminal like I used to, saved a couple of dollars and time which would have been spent waiting on the subway platform.

I figure once the weather gets warmer I will get back to doing that. Not breaking any records like I did last year, though it did take less than 19 minutes to get from point A to point B. I missed Bill at the bus terminal by a few minutes. He texted me from the bus he was on when I was a block away. Still it wasn’t so bad.

Now I am home. Picked out my suit for tomorrow as well as a green and black tie and my shamrock cufflinks. I won’t be working this weekend which is cool with me, and I won’t be heading into Manhattan for St. Patrick’s day, so I figure I will do my green Irish thing tomorrow.

Opening the store tomorrow and leaving earlier, a nice start to the weekend.



03 Move on

I Gotta Get to You

Well after having the past Saturday and Sunday off, it was back to work for me on Monday and now a day later I am off of work again. I’m not complaining. I am looking down the road of a four day stretch at the cigar shack and that shouldn’t be so bad. Still I have my reservations since whenever I think I have a grip on things at work, something goes awry and I realize my grip is not so firm after all.

Today has been an alright day, Bill was up and out at the craziest time of 4:30AM. He was driving a bunch of people from a non-profit theater group up to Albany NY for a rally regarding arts funding. Last night we exchanged Valentine’s gifts, I gave Bill a gift certificate for the Dramatist’s Book Shop and a card with cars on it that light up and flash underneath the statement, You Drive Me Crazy.

He gave me a heart shaped box of chocolates from Godiva. When I opened the box I found all the chocolates melted and fused together. I was surprised and Bill was greatly disappointed. I wasn’t upset but Bill certainly was and will return the heart shaped box with misshapen chocolates tomorrow.

He went to bed soon after that since he had to get up so early in the morning. I stayed up and watched nothing in particular since there was nothing on anyhow. I slept quite soundly and was awoken briefly by Bill kissing me goodbye and wishing me a happy Valentine’s Day and I mumbled in return for Bill to be careful.

I wanted to sleep later than I did and I guess a half an hour of extra sleep was good enough for my body. I was up and out at the supermarket, thanks to Bill making another pot of coffee before he left. I did not need too much just some milk and rolls.

I had a tentative plan to attempt once again a visit to the Doug Wheeler installation with RoDa but I had too much to do today and that would have done me in. I texted RoDa about it and he was OK with it. I also suggested that he should go alone and that perhaps that might improve his chances. Since I had seen it in January the installation would not have the same effect.

I think he thought it was a good idea though I am not sure if he had gotten it together to go. I had laundry to do and I also wanted to head into the city. I decided to go once again to get some under garments as well a water filter for the pitcher that Bill and I have in the fridge. Last week I blanked on the type of pitcher we have but this time I was quite sure what kind it was.

So I got the under garments and the filters and since it was a nice afternoon, I walked up the avenue to the bus terminal, enjoying a cigar. I would not have been able to squeeze in the visit to the art gallery and do all these things.

Now I am home again, did not watch much TV, instead watched quite a few Al Green videos on YouTube and posted most of them on Facebook. I also posted some Otis Redding, Elvis Costello and ABC with their song Valentine’s Day.

It was a productive day somewhat and now I sit waiting for Bill to come home. He’s made it back to Wally World so it should only be a short time.

Happy Valentine’s day y’all.




11 – Love Letters Ketty Lester