Tag Archives: Bill

I Heard It Through The Grapevine Creedence Clearwater Revival

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A happy St. Patrick’s Day to all. It’s a Saturday this year and the weather was most cooperative. I’ve been through St. Patrick’s Day in the cold, in the rain, but today was very agreeable. Not pleasant enough to motivate me to head into the city to see the parade. Those days are long gone. No more hoping on a NJ Transit bus with my brother Brian, or with Paul Hanley who I went to high school with for two years.

No, today was spent in Hoboken. I slept enough and woke up, made some coffee and showered. Bill came home a little after that, Kelly green tam-o-shanter and an Ireland scarf with one of my green ties. He looked so cute and so tired. Almost immediately Bill was in bed, sleep apnea mask in place and sleeping soundly, as soon as his head hits the pillow.

I did some laundry and posted a slew of Irish musicians on YouTube to my Facebook page. Boomtown Rats, Rory Gallagher, Thin Lizzy, the Undertones, the Pogues, Kate & Anna McGarrigle, stuff like that. The Kate & Anna McGarrigle was also for my sister who had gone to Mendocino last weekend.

I also posted John & Yoko singing the Luck of the Irish on the Mike Douglas Show and Macca’s Give Ireland Back to the Irish. I don’t think George or Ringo had any Irish/Ireland themed songs. And I threw in Public Image Limited, Rise. The line May the Road Rise with You is the chorus lifted from an old Irish blessing which we have here hanging on the wall of our apartment.

Bill slept and after the laundry died I was out and about. A trip to the dry cleaners and then the bibliothèque where I picked up a book of Kurt Vonnegut from American Classics. I never read Kurt Vonnegut before but I had seen him enough times when I used to drive for HBJ and he was living on 48th Street.

And he was also one of the speakers at the Evening of American Satire that Bill and I attended in 2005 at the Society for Ethical Culture. He is the reason I eschew semi-colons. And it was soon after that evening that I decided to start this hear blog. So perhaps blame could be laid at the feet of Kurt Vonnegut. Or Art Buchwald, Barry Crimmins, Paul Krassner or the more than likely culprit from that satirical rogues gallery, Lewis Lapham.

While walking around Hoboken I did run into my friend Lois who was returning from the veterinarian with her cat. She looked great with her new pair of glasses which are similar to mine. She has some socks for me from a job she worked on and we made plans to meet up for a pint at Maxwells later on.

She mentioned that Maxwells was hosting a Shamrock & Roll karaoke in the back room, which is free and seemed most interested in going to that. That wasn’t in my plans but after a pint or two who knows?






♫ when Puerto Rican eyes are smiling ♪


07 Nothing Happened Today

I Heard It Through The Grapevine Gladys Knight and The Pips

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Oh what a long strange day it’s been. It started out earlier than usual, with Bill kissing me goodbye in the morning around 6:30. He’s so sweet and gentle and I am just a wolf in bed. An hour later I got out of bed and got myself together. Not enough milk for cereal so it was just coffee and I was out the door.

I do not like the crowds at all and when it is so early in the morning I like them even less. One good thing is the fact that there are a lot more buses and the bus lane is open so I was at the bus terminal in no time at all. It did give me enough time to get an egg sandwich which was not as good as it is on weekends.

Each time I go in there they seem to be trying out a new short order cook. I can’t complain though since the egg sandwich was 25 cents cheaper than it usually is.

I got to the cigar shack which was dark and that meant that Zack wasn’t in yet. I started work almost immediately on getting the cigars back on the shelves now that the painters are done with their work. They did a good job though. Zack did make it in and the two of us were able to get most of the cigars back on the shelves, leaving the rest for myself, Thomas and Bradley to restock the shelves.

And Thomas and Bradley did come in, leaving Bradley to tell me that he wanted Thomas and me to do the rest of the work. We got it done, thanks to some regular customers. I had to run an errand at lunch time which coincided with an errand that needed to be done for the cigar shack.

Some keys needed to be made, and there seemed to be only one locksmith in Manhattan who would be able to do the job. Very special keys that are made in Germany. So I was able to do that, get my own errand done and I came back from lunch about 20 minutes later than usual, but it was excusable since it was cigar shack business.

I came back from lunch, Thomas was then headed to his lunch while Zack and Bradley were sequestered in the office having a very long meeting. The meeting it turned out was about a whole new bunch of rules which was sent out a short time before I was leaving and I was too busy giving Jerry Vale my sales since I achieved my own personal goal.

And I will not read the rules until Monday since I am off both Saturday and Sunday. No I do not do work related things on my time. You’re gonna have to pay me to do such things.

I asked Zack if I could leave at 7:00 instead of 7:30 and when he asked why, all I could say was my body clock is screwed up. It wasn’t good enough of an excuse so I stayed for a very long half hour, giving more sales to Jerry Vale. And right before I left there was Thomas getting a very serious call which made the atmosphere even more bleak than it was earlier.

He needs me to switch a day in April so he could attend some family thing. The catch was I would have to work a five day shift which is killer and no one wants to work a five day shift. I’m sure if I was able to sit in an office most of the day it would be no problem, but I am on my feet for 9 hours a day, so that would make it 45 hours of standing around selling cigars and whatnot.

Still, it is over, I am home and surprised I was able to write this much. Time to chill. Bill is driving to Atlantic City tonight and tomorrow, but at least I will be able to see him tomorrow morning at my leisure and not so wolf like.





01 Feeling Good