Tag Archives: Valentine’s Day

Be Stiff

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Yes it’s a Friday again. Nothing special on this end. Would have been the end of my first work if I stayed at the place I wasn’t too comfortable in. I know I did the smart thing though. Feeling better today than I would have if I stayed, despite what someone in Bala Cynwyd thinks.

Some people call him ‘Maurice’, cause it speaks for the pompatus of the working stiffs. But it wasn’t the Maurice that I knew and loved though. I did hear from him, I guess he’s still happily married in Portland.

Facebook suggested getting in touch with him a week or so ago, and since I do just about everything that Facebook suggests I sent him a message. He replied in kind, with his phone number so I might just call him up and check in this weekend.

Today was spent doing laundry, cleaning up and buying groceries. Big snowstorm expected. Bill was supposed to drive to Atlantic City tonight but all trips were canceled since down in South Jersey they’re expecting about a foot of snow. He was disappointed in this, but I was glad I didn’t have to spend the night worrying.

A while back at the old job, the real one that I enjoyed working at, I received a gift certificate for a restaurant group in Manhattan. Nice pricey gift card too. I called to check to see if it was still valid and was told that they didn’t expire.

So since next weekend is Valentine’s Day I thought taking Bill out for a nice dinner would be cool. Get dressed up, have some good food and just enjoy a night out. I asked Bill if he would be available but since he’s not driving this weekend, he’s looking forward to driving a bus next weekend, leaving me to play the role of Alice Kramden in Hoboken.

Valentine’s day has been a varying thing each year. The first couple of years it was all good, but then there was a year that Bill was complaining about all the hype and the crass commercialism of Valentine’s day.

The next year he was in the swing of it and has been for the past few years. Last year Bill won a contest at his company cafeteria and had a very nice lunch for us. It’s not your average cafeteria, and we had poached salmon and some nice wine, followed by a nice dessert.

He also gave me a Cuisinart coffee maker last year too which I use every day. He doesn’t use it since he doesn’t drink coffee. Let’s face it, I’m a bus widower. Still it could be worse.

Tickets for The Specials in April went on sale for Terminal 5 today. Cheap too, $30.00 but not in this weeks budget. I could scrimp and save next week if they’re still on sale. Even though Jerry Dammers isn’t in the band these days, (he was the founder you know) the original band is still intact.

I just hope there is a ticket available on Wednesday. Other than that, just looking forward to the big snow, or any snow. I’ll go out and take pictures if and when I can. Other than that, I do have some DVD’s from the library (there I go suckling at the teat of the government, thanks Mo).

I have the Led Zeppelin collection that came out a few years ago, 2 disc set mastered by Jimmy Page, Zack & Miri Make a Porno- which looks very silly, directed by Kevin Smith, My Dinner with Andre- which I had never seen, directed by Louis Malle. That’s a 2 disc set as well, and in the player is Up, the Pixar flick that came out last year and is supposed to be very good.

It’s in the DVD player so I can surprise Bill later and just turn on the machine and it should start playing. Thanks BCCLS!

And just so you don’t think I only take DVD’s out from the library, I have a biography of Robert Mapplethorpe ready to be read.

Lisa Says

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A pleasant enough Saturday for me, and I’ve been busy. First off I woke up at 7:30 and said to myself, whoa- too early! So I went back to bed after relieving myself. Woke up again around 9:00. Bill is coming over tonight so I made the bed and puttered around the apartment, trying to clean up before coffee.

Not a good idea.

I made a pot of java and took a shower. It’s a weekend so no shaving, no hair gel. Mr. Natural, that’s me. I had 2 phone messages, both from Julio. He was out getting bagels this morning and was calling to ask if I wanted any. I called him back and he got me 2 bagels.

I think when I called he was on his way back from the bagel store so he turned around and got me mine. Soon he was knocking on my door with a bag containing 2 poppy seed bagels. No newspapers though, but that was alright. We chatted for a few minutes.

He had gotten Stine flowers among other things, and also got some more flowers as a gift from Alexander to his mum. He went back downstairs and I made a nice breakfast, re-reading an old Mojo instead of a newspaper.

I went to the library to pick up a book I ordered which wasn’t the book I had thought it was. I was looking for a book of Pete Frame’s Rock Family Trees. He used to make family trees about bands that were reprinted in Trouser Press magazine ages ago.

I saw the book online for sale but it was way out of my price range. The book I had was from the 1970’s and in very bad shape. I carried it with me from the library to the supermarket and when I got home I saw another book I had ordered from the library came in.

I eventually went back and returned the book I picked up a few hours before, got the new book as well as 2 Woody Allen movies, Sleeper & Love and Death, and an Almodovar movie, All About My Mother. Bill mentioned he wanted to watch some movies tonight so I figured those 3 would be good.

At least better than the 2 I have from Netflix. One of those is a 1973 film of Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming and the other is Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man, neither of which could be described as a lighthearted romantic comedy.

I decided to head out to Washington Street in the afternoon. I walked over to Tunes where I looked for a Snoop Dogg CD single of Sensual Seduction. I had a download of the instrumental version but lost it somehow. So I’ve been searching for that lately.

I accidentally bought a 12” single from Amazon, and I say accidentally since I don’t have a turntable anymore so that’s no good. They didn’t have it in Tunes but I did buy 2 Cd’s by Bowie, Let’s Dance and All Saints.

All Saints is a collection of the Dame’s instrumentals from 1977 to 1999. Also bought VU by the Velvet Underground. All used Cd’s and relatively cheap.

I walked to CVS to see if they had ironing boards. The reason I did that was when I bought the Carbon Monoxide (CO) detector at a hardware store, a few days later I went and found the same CO detector at CVS about 15 dollars cheaper.

But no, they didn’t have ironing boards so I went to the hardware store and bought one. I have decided to start to iron my shirts.

You see, after I wear a short that’s been cleaned and pressed from the dry cleaners, if I wear it once it gets pretty wrinkled, but the shirt is still okay. So instead of constantly sending shirts out to be pressed, I can at least iron them after wearing it once and it still looks ok, wearable.

I ambled down Washington Street with the ironing board under my arm, looking almost like I was waiting to catch a wave. Spoke to Annemarie and then started ironing shirts, always remembering not to leave the iron down on the shirt lest I get a scorched imprint of the iron, like they used to do on sitcoms.

I think I did alright but I’m sure there is a ‘proper’ way to iron cotton shirts. There’s probably a video on YouTube. That’s how I learned how to sew a button, via YouTube videos.

A few minutes later, I decided to check online for the instrumental version of Sensual Seduction since it’s all in the timing and right now I am downloading it. Fingers crossed, I hope it goes well.

It went well.

snoop-dogg-sensual-seduction-instrumental