Bill | johnozed

Yes having the air conditioner working at night while Bill and I sleep makes a difference. It was cool enough that we didn’t sweat. That’s about it. It wasn’t cold, it was just right. Bill was fast asleep once more as I got into bed. And soon I too was fats asleep. It’s a good thing having the AC going, but on the other hand with the windows closed I won’t be hearing my mockingbird friend singing me to sleep with its birdsongs. Tomorrow is supposed to be the highpoint of this heat wave we’re sweating through and after that it is supposed to cool down so maybe the windows will be open once more if that happens.

Today was busy once again. No feeding of the cats since Lois & Fred returned from their sojourn. Some running around Hoboken was in place. I stopped by Hoboken Daily News where my friend Andy told me that it was true, Delite Market is going full scale liquor store and maybe be expanding into the Subway sandwich shop next door. That would be distressing for Bill since he eats Subway food a lot and has been putting the guys in the shops children through school.

A few years ago, Julio’s wife Stine gave Bill and I some curtains for our four room rail road apartment. There is a door that separates the apartment leaving two compartments on each side of the door. The bedroom is on the street and for the longest time the air conditioner would do its best to cool off two rooms even though it’s a small air conditioner unit best suited for one room. So I decided to finally after all these years to get that curtain up. No it’s not an iron curtain thankfully. It’s not even a Jane Curtain.

I knew I would need a drill and I asked Julio if he had one I could borrow. I also asked him last year if I could borrow one but he seemed to blow me off. This year I asked and felt my chances would be better for some reason. I texted him and he was working but answered that he could lend me one. He seemed skeptical since he knows that I am absolutely inept at doing things like that. If there are tools involved it is usually for the best that I am not around.

I was always the gopher when helping out my father around the house growing up, my father being the king of unfinished projects. He had the regal title for a number of years when I was growing up when there was no electricity on the second floor of our Cape Cod styled house. Any electricity was supplied via extension cords snaking up the stairs to where me and my brothers Frank and Brian slept. The thought of it being a fire hazard never entered his mind. Finally after thirty years he finally got a friend to hook up the second floor.

By then both Frank and Brian married their wives and moved out of the house and I would soon be out of there a year or so later. As I was sweating and trying to figure out what to do, it became a comedy of errors. All I had was a ladder from the hallway and an estimation on where to screw in the screws. Things were dropped and nearly lost but I persevered. An hour later I was done. Of course if Julio did it, it would be done in about twenty minutes with no blood spilled. I certainly hope it cools off the room, I will find out tonight. Tomorrow promises to be an interesting day which you might read about then.

Free Man In Paris

It is hot. It has been hot the past week or so. This is nothing new. All across the US it has been hot in record temperatures. Still there are fools who do not believe in climate change and they also do not believe it is manmade. No, with all the cars and trucks on the roads, with environmental protection regulations reduced or discarded, with the rain forests being depleted, there is no way that climate change could be manmade.

Fucking idiots. In the winter when there is a record paralyzing snow storm these jackasses usually say ‘how about that global warming?’, not realizing that as they say that in 20 degree cold, on the other side of the planet forest fires and dust storms are all the rage. I mean just look at the cloud formations. Some crazy shapes or dark and violent storms appearing out of nowhere, unforeseen by meteorologists knocking out power for a million people in the Maryland/Virginia/Washington DC area.

It was in this heat that I went out this afternoon. It was the last day to feed Lois and Fred’s cat and I was more than happy to do it. For a moment I was happy to at least get out of the apartment. I did the same thing yesterday, but once on the street I noticed I did not use deodorant which left me feeling a bit overripe. No worries, I just went home after feline feeding and applied the deodorant and sweated some more in the apartment.

Bill was around, napping for a little while before getting up much earlier than expected. In a totally different move from last year’s July 4th Bill and I made plans to see the fireworks on the Hudson River. Julio and I had been texting about meeting up, and initially I thought we would go to 4th Street in Hoboken and watch there, but since Julio was uptown we headed that way. Of course there were a lot of people going in the same direction. Enough people to make meeting up a bit difficult.

But we figured it out. Julio pulled up on his bicycle while Bill and I sat on a curb smoking cigars. Rand and Lisa texted that they were at 14th Street and we were only 3 blocks away but there were a few thousand people between us so we decided to stay where we were. The fireworks were excellent. Usually it’s seen them once, why see them again, but they were impressive. Perhaps it was because they were so close and so loud.

Bill and I held hands while watching while Julio took pictures to send to Stine and Alexander in Denmark. In the back of my mind I had to be wary since two men holding hands can attract unwanted attention. In fact while Bill and I were waiting for Julio, a young gay couple walked by us holding hands. One of them was wearing a Wonder Woman t-shirt so I said ‘Hey Wonder Woman’, but he was too sullen to acknowledge and probably thought Bill and I were two Hoboken guys smoking cigars and putting him down. As if a Hoboken guy would recognize Diana Prince’s breastplate. Friggin’ newbies.

After the fireworks we decided to stay put and let everyone else go first. We stood and talked for a while, Julio telling us about his apartment with fantastic air conditioning. Julio was surprised to hear that we hadn’t installed our unit yet. I mentioned that Bill doesn’t mind since he’s Puerto Rican and Bill promptly shot that one down. That line was from a year or so ago.

I had come home from work, crazy hot outside and before I left the apartment that morning, I shut the windows since it was supposed to rain. It may have rained, it might not have, but when I came home there was Bill sitting in the dense heat in the apartment with the windows still closed. I asked him why he didn’t open the windows and he said ‘I don’t mind the heat, I’m Puerto Rican!’ So it’s been a running gag since then. But not anymore.

As we walked from the Hudson River there was a lot of traffic on the streets. Bill mentioned that the buses were not running down Washington but using the side streets instead. As we passed a bus stop there were a couple of dozen people waiting for a bus. I asked Bill if the buses were not coming their way and he said they weren’t and went to the people to tell them where they could catch the buses. As he was doing that Julio and I crossed the street. I asked a police officer if buses were running down Washington Street and the cop said they were.

Julio and I looked at each other and said ‘uh oh’. The dozens of people that Bill was talking to were walking past us to the designated stop. Bill made sure the last person who was waiting for the bus was on their way. We Bill caught up with me & Julio, we told him what the cop said. Bill said the cop was wrong and their were posters made telling people where to catch the bus. Why they didn’t read it, I don’t know. Bill was right, the cops were wrong. We soon split after that, Julio riding off on his bike and Bill and I walking home holding hands.

Bill stayed up for a while when we got back home, I stayed up and watched the directors cut of Alien. It was just as good as I remembered and didn’t notice much that was different from the previous times I had seen the movie. Maybe the scene where Tom Skerritt and Harry Dean Stanton are still alive and asking for Sigourney Weaver to kill them was different or new. Would I have stopped what I was doing to get Jones the cat? I couldn’t really say.

I woke up this morning and after some coffee and cereal, I installed the air conditioner again and waited for the cool down. Slowly the bedroom was getting cooler and after a while I turned it off and headed out to feed the cat. I wore a hat this time and while it kept the heat in my head, it also kept the sun off my face. I decided to go to the really big supermarket to get a few things and saved some money once again.

Lois had given me a big bag of socks from where she works. Apparently they are samples and they are nice to have, so I’m walking through the supermarket with the bag of socks as well as a canvas bag with a bottle of water in it. I get what I need and decide to head up to Washington Street before going home. There is a store on Washington that has a nice produce section and the celery I buy there lasts longer than celery bought in the supermarkets. Maybe it because it’s packed in ice, but it lasts about two weeks whereas the supermarket celery goes limp within a week.

I walk through the heat, a panhandler asks me to buy him a soda to which I reply I am unemployed. He grimaced and walked away. I walk into the store and go to where the celery and produce was kept on ice but all I see is some oranges. The woman behind the counter sees my consternation and asks what I am looking for. I tell her and she tells me they’re not carrying it anymore. A week or so ago they get rid of their deli counter and now this.

Perhaps they’re going into the liquor business since they do sell that as well and you know there are simply not enough places to buy liquor in Hoboken. A liquor store on almost every other block will not do. So yeah, I was disappointed and overheated and had to get out of there as fast as possible before I said the wrong thing.

Now I am back home, relaxing and not doing much else. How about you?