Category Archives: Wonderful World Beautiful People

I Can’t Get Next to You

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A Wednesday night and I am home early. I opened the store this morning and in doing so, I got to leave early. Of course there was traffic entering the tunnel so that meant we sat on the bus (air conditioned) for a while before lurching into the tunnel. I think I am going to have to seriously consider taking the Path home.

Maybe take the first train that pulls into the station and if it is a train that goes to the bus terminal I’ll take it. If it’s going to the Path train, I’ll take it. Not really digging sitting on the bus and waiting and waiting and waiting.

So it was my first day back at work after 3 days off in a row. Sunday was a good day, spent a number of hours with my brothers, sister and sisters in law and their families in Saddle Brook. It was a nice barbecue with my niece and her husband and their dogs.

A nice time, with a few beers & hot dogs and hamburgers in the heat and me playing guitar. It was all rather pleasant. I saw my nephew who cleaned up his act and seems to be doing nicely, a day after he sky dived.

Annemarie drove me home in time to watch True Blood and it was good. The next day was a beach day with my niece Meghan joining Annemarie and myself. The water was a bit cold and the bug spray that I bought in 1999 turned out to be a bug attractor and I found myself in the midst of a swarm of biting flies.

They did not bother Annemarie or Meghan, just me and my bags. It was embarrassing enough that I waited for people to pass so they wouldn’t see the swarm on my legs and following me.

All it took was a quick shower to wash the bug spray away for the flies to leave me alone. Annemarie, Meghan and I made it back to Hoboken where we had a very nice pizza at Grimaldi’s on Washington Street, only an hour or so after having ice cream in Rumson NJ at Crazies.

After dinner a quick walk up & down Washington Street before Meghan dropped me off in front of my building and heading back up to Saddle Brook with Annemarie in tow. I climbed up the stairs and soon jumped in the shower washing the beach and bug spray fully off of me.

The next day, yesterday was just Annemarie and me at the beach. We left earlier than usual and were down there a little after noon. We had sandwiches and iced teas and swam a bit and before we knew it, it was after 3:00 which was the time Annemarie decided that we had to head back to Hoboken.

A nice and early Mexican dinner, then she was off. She had packing to do and wanted to visit Garfield the way she visited Hillsdale the night before. And just like that it was all over.

Like a child waiting and waiting for Christmas, it finally comes and then it’s gone too soon. Annemarie and I had been talking about her visit for a few months and now it was all over. She got on a plane early this morning as I was making my way to the cigar shack. It wasn’t easy to go back but it was air conditioned at least so that was something to take under consideration.

I really miss my sister and wish I could do more and contribute to the expense of her traveling back east. Maybe I’ll start saving now like a Christmas Club account. Makes sense since when Annemarie visits it’s like Christmas in July.


I Don’t Know Why

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OK. I was using Microsoft Word to write and three times I tried to past the word bibliothèque into the text. It caused the document to close and the whole program to shut down. Don’t know why, but here I am writing again.

I wrote about Calvin sending me email asking me to come in today since the trains were running as was NJ Transit buses. He wasn’t sure if the Bradley was going to be in and did not want to work 12 hours by himself. Oh the price of being management.

Then there was a second email about a minute later, telling me to ignore the previous email, since the Bradley was in the cigar shop after all. I ignored both messages and set about getting busy, cleaning up the apartment as much as possible.

My niece Corinne mentioned stopping this afternoon while we were both in Hillsdale. It sounded like a fun idea and I was game. I started cleaning last night but there is only so much you can do while people are trying to sleep.

Corinne caught a train from Garfield, winding up in Hoboken around 1:15. I was planning on meeting her at the station but she was on here way to the apartment when she contacted me. We hung out for a while before I had to run some errands.

A trip to the dry cleaners as well as the bibliothèque where I returned Whatever Works, the Woody Allen movie starring Larry David. I enjoyed it, Bill loved it, laughed out loud several times. I also returned The Mind’s Eye by Oliver Sacks. Recommended reading.

We walked through snowy Church Square Park and had lunch at Oneal’s Restaurant, across from the park. It was nice, burgers and a pint for each of us. We came back to the apartment after that, watching Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

Corinne had never seen it before and it may have been a bit of an eye opener. Still a good, fun movie and I’m sure she enjoyed it. She had a train to catch back to Garfield so I walked her back to the train station, on the way leading her into a deceptively deep puddle of slush and getting her Uggs and her feet wet.

I felt bad about that and let Corinne lead the way after that. We got to the station and I bought three pair of socks from a push cart vendor for $5.00, so that Corinne could at least change into dry socks on the train, an attempt to minimize her discomfort.

We parted ways at the station after I made sure she got on the right train. They’ve been changing the schedules at the last minute and they did it again, operating on a weekend schedule but not mentioning it on their website.

Good old NJ Transit. Last night they canceled the train Bill & I were going to take and we found out once we got to the station, needing to take an earlier train than planned. But it all worked out and it was good to have Corinne around, bringing her energy and color to an otherwise drab day off.

Walking back through the train station I was reminded of when I accompanied my father to work in 1977. I didn’t want to go, he probably didn’t want to take me but since he took my brothers at some point in their lives (and maybe my sister) I had to go.

I was reminded of this since it was around the same time of year, 33 years ago. Different times indeed, all those years ago.