The weather's been a bit colder lately than I like it. Because of the rain & dampness, yesterday was miserable & today's pretty dreary so far too. I've been playing my guitar regularly, usually just a lot of scales & arpeggios lately. Last night I sort of figured out how to play a variation of "Liar Liar" by the Castaways. Today I got the exact sheet music on the Ultimate Guitar site. It always pays to cheat a little. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. As always there will be quite a crowd. Mary Anne & family will be coming in tomorrow because of all the traffic we shall be expecting tonight. I absolutely dread times like Black Friday. If there's any shopping to be done, I'm hoping to pass the buck with driving. I'm still reading "The Possessed". Recently I've gotten back into the habit of watching "Jeopardy". Somehow I stopped watching it for a while. I've also gotten into the habit of watching reruns of an old favorite of mine, "Cheers".

SHAKESPEARE

Thanksgiving is now only two days away. Mary Anne & family are supposed to show up either late tomorrow or Thursday. Once again, I shan't be going to Buffalo. I miss those days. Because of my insanely good long term memory, I have total recall of all sorts of obscure details from all those trips. I'm still reading "The Possessed". Surprisingly I can get through all the small print fairly easy. Dostoyevsky's books are overwhelmingly long & didactic. On Monday I watched Joseph Pearce's show about Shakespeare. It's a good refresher course on the Bard of Avon. I've been practicing the guitar too. My fingers get quite a workout each day. Uncle Frankie showed up for a while yesterday. As far as I know there's nothing going on with him lately. Yesterday I got yet another fund raising letter from St. John the Baptist. It's good to see that Wally Lace is still in charge.

JFK

The weekend went by quite well. I finished reading "Northanger Abbey" & started re_reading "The Possessed". I lectored at 10:30 Mass yesterday. On the way home from Mass I went over to Uncle Frankie's. Fran cooked a really nice meal. My parents got there a little while after I did. Gary called last night. A couple of hours later Larry & Rose called too. THe called my father to see how he is. Somehow I didn't end up getting a chance to talk to Larry & Rose but I spent around fifteen minutes on the phone with Gary. Yesterday was the forty sixth anniversary of the JFK assassination. That was the moment that set the 1960's into gear, like the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand & his wife Sofia brought on World War I. My nephew Michael's been picking my brain about philosohy yet again. He's taking an ethics class at Hofstra now. I took one at S.U.N.Y. Farmingdale a while ago. Marlene Groner taught the class I took. The weather today is cold but very nice. Yesterday was the forty sixth anniversary of JFK's assassination.

PA. DRIVERS

Yesterday I read more of "Northanger Abbey" & more of the essays & other things in that book about "The Waste Land". This morning I went to the Carmelite meeting in Wilkes_Barre. There were a half dozen of us in attendance. Besides attending to the usual details, we made preparations for upcoming events & decided to send a gift to Sr. Catherine, who is now convalescing in Cincinnati, Ohio. As I was going home on Wyoming Avenue, I was forced to bluff my way through the usual gang of Pa. idiots. A woman drove right in front of me from the southbound lane to get to the opposite side of the street to pull into a parking lot. A guy in a truck drove right into my lane from that lane, into oncoming traffic, for at least a few seconds. We say happy birthday today to Sarah in Michigan. She's cousin Leonard's granddaughter. Tomorrow I shall have to lector at 10:30 Mass. That's usually pretty easy for me.

CONSTRUCTION

I sent messages to some O.L.P.H. classmates on Facebook yesterday. So far only George has sent me an answer. He remembers me well. Uncle Frankie showed up for a while again yesterday. I'm still reading "Northanger Abbey" & "The Waste Land". Tomorrow morning I have to go to Wilkes_Barre for the Carmelite meeting. It's at 9:00 a.m. every third Saturday of the month at the Little Flower Manor on South Meade Street. Last night, fairly late, it started pouring out. I was already in bed by then but I couldn't help hearing all the violent noise. We really needed the rain. I was very surprised to see this morning that there was no construction work going on over in Pittston. Maybe they don't work on Fridays around here. I was very happy to see, in the Citizen's Voice this morning, that Oprah Winfrey will no longer be on TV starting in 2011. It can't possibly be soon enough for me.

LINDENHURST FRIENDS

Uncle Frankie came over for a while. Yesterday I mistakenly said he didn't show up on Tuesday but he did. I must have forgotten. Mark, from my high school class at St. John the Baptist in West Islip, has joined my Facebook friends list. Ordinarily this wouldn't have been terribly newsworthy but I was checking out his friends list & couldn't help noticing that he's in touch with people from our class at O.L.P.H in Lindenhurst. Until now I'd never been able to track down people who were only in my class in O.L.P.H. I went to that school during the seventh & eighth grades. Construction work every day in Pittston is still getting me crazy. It's only bad during the day. Last night I went to the meeting at O.L. Mt. Carmel on William Street. Everyone except Lynn Marie showed up. Oddly I couldn't help overhearing the church's band playing "Kashimir" from Led Zeppelin's "Physical Graffiti" album.

WEATHER

Tonight I have to go to another O.L. Mt. Carmel meeting in Pittston. Sometimes it's cancelled but so far I haven't heard anything. We haven't seen Uncle Frankie for a couple of days. He's probably really busy with something. Yesterday I read around fifty pages of "Northanger Abbey". It gets easier each time I read it. Jane Austen's always been a favorite of mine. A couple of days ago I saw another episode of Joseph Pearce's show about Shakespeare. The episode was about "King Lear" & its relevance to today's world. The weather's a bit colder today than it's been lately. There was ice on my windows this morning. I just overheard someone say that it's really nice out now. There's a never ending barrage of construction work all over the place these days. Ths Saturday I shall have to go to another Lay Carmelite meeting.

JANE AUSTEN

Autumn continues to bring us above average temperatures & much nicer weather than I'm used to for November. All this week I shall be going to Pittston for 8:00 a.m. Mass at St. John's. I still don't know anybody who shows up but by now I'm getting used to all the familiar faces. So far nothing much of note has been going on over there. I'm still practicing my guitar. Lately I've been trying to get the hang of the scales in the mixolydian mode. It only seems difficult at first but each scale inevitably follows a set pattern anyway so it's more confusing than physically difficult. I've just started re_reading Jane Austen's "Northanger Abbey". I've already read it quite a few times. I'm still reading all those other things too. Gas prices have been going down very slowly lately. At least that's a little bit of temporary good news.

ITALIAN

I made a couple of big mistakes over the weekend. I thought the ziti dinner was at O.L. Mt. Carmel. It was really at St. Anthony's In Exeter. I wasn't really determined to show up anyway. I also thought O.L. Mt. Carmel's blood drive was today. It was yesterday so I missed it. Lately I've been practicing a lot with Acoustic Guitar magazine. It provides me with quite a lot more variety than just a few Beatle & Eric Clapton books. Uncle Frankie visited for a while yesterday. I overheard him & my parents say that Mary Anne & Michael both speak Italian really well. With all my Italian connections I shall have to follow their lead & brush up on my command of the language. On my way home from Pittston this morning I noticed that part of Main Street was blocked off to traffic. It was the part that starts right at the Valero gas station. Today's cousin Luigi's birthday. There are two cousin Luigis on Facebook. They both have my last name.

NO GAME

The weather this morning has been very cold, dreary & rainy. I found out yesterday that New York's weather, & southeastern Pa's, was worse. It was raining violently. Lately I've been practicing my guitar more after quite an unfortunate lull. Last night there was another football game but my father & Uncle Frankie didn't bother to show up because it's playoff time & their favorite team didn't make it this year. Today would have been my cousin Karen's fifty third birthday. It's her first birthday since her death. Tomorrow's yet another milestone birthday for a classmate of mine. We now shall give a major doffing of the hat to Mike upon his fiftieth. We were in the same class in high school. On Monday, although I don't have an official appointment, I shall be giving blood in Pittston.