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I Haven’t Time to Be a Millionaire

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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 Hadn’t Anyone Till You

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A day off again and it’s been quite nice so far. I slept in, later than I expected but figured why not? I had nowhere to go and no one to see. Actually I did have places to go and there were people to see.

Last night after writing I watched The Great Ziegfeld. I had never seen it before and it was entertaining. Big sets, William Powell, Fanny Brice and stage and dance numbers that I thought were choreographed by Busby Berkeley. Very elaborate scenes were created by Seymour Felix.

It’s the type of movie my mother probably loved. Glitz, glamor and Hollywood, or in this case, Hollywood’s version of Broadway. It was quite a long movie on Turner Classic Movies and I didn’t watch the whole thing, opting to go to bed at 1:30.

I didn’t wake up to anything on the radio since the clock radio also had the day off. I roused myself out of bed and showered, made some coffee. On my days off I do like to have eggs for breakfast and that meant I needed to go out and get some eggs. And bagels. And the paper.

On my way out I gathered up the mail I collected for Julio & Stine and dropped it off. I spoke with Julio yesterday and he complained he was sick. Alexander had gotten sick in Denmark as did his grandmother. Some type of flu. They all recovered and Julio had gone to work when I stopped by.

I sat with Stine and Alexander for a little while, while Alexander played with his Play-Doh, making ‘snakes’. His vocabulary has gotten bigger, and his English was very good. According to Stine when he was in Denmark, he spoke nothing but Danish, as he speaks to his mother in her native tongue all the time. When Alexander saw me, he switched to English. And he is still the cute lad.

After leaving Stine & Alexander I walked up to Washington Street, got the paper, some bagels and then it was off to the bibliothèque. I picked up the new LCD Soundsystem CD and returned Florence and the Machine’s last disc. Also picked up Inglorious Basterds on DVD which I had seen already and figured I might watch it again.

The other night I watched most of The Book of Eli which was incredibly lackluster. I am a sucker for apocalyptic movies and this one was made for suckers. Mila Kunis was the best thing in it. There is no one to root for in the movie, except perhaps the nuclear war that occurred before I tuned in.

I just watched Hot Tub Time Machine since I am also an occasional sucker for dumb, low brow movies and this certainly was dumb and low brow with just a few laughs thrown in. Maybe there were more than a few laughs but if they occurred, they happened when I was out of the room making dinner since I had lost interest in the movie midway through.

A quiet night, Bill doing a reading in midtown. I just had dinner and don’t plan on doing much of anything for the rest of the night. A simple plan for a simple man.