GO TO MEETING

This morning, at 9:00, was our Carmelite meeting. It went well. Dana & his three young uns showed up. Anne & Mary Elizabeth were both there. So was one of the other women. It was in a different room today because our usual place is being painted. I made sure I asked Anne for directions to the Guild in Scranton. On November 3, there will be a religious articles sale on the grounds of the Little Flower Manor. They're always trying to keep active with things like that. Jim, from Middletown, N.Y., will be there to help. I think I may have passed Uncle Frankie on the way home on Eighth Street today. I passed a really familiar looking white SUV & the driver beeped at me. The game last night was cancelled because of an extremely violent thunderstorm. My father & Uncle Frankie were forced to come back home. It was postponed until today. Tomorrow at 10:a.m. I have to lector again at Mass. By now, people over there must really be getting used to me. I went for gas & the Citizen's Voice this morning at Turkey Hill in Exeter. Gas has gone up quite a lot. There's good news though. Recently I read in the Citizen's Voice that policemen around here are cracking down on distracted driving. That applies to anyone who drives either while texting, talking on phone, with hands off the wheel or otherwise not giving it his undivided attention. Joe Torre was on TV all day yesterday explaining his troubles with that team from the Bronx. His sister, Sister Marguerite, was my cousins' teacher when they were kids in Ozone Park. That's one of the few things I know about sports. Believe it or not, I once worked, behind the scenes, at Joe Pepitone's daughter's wedding Mass. On top of that, I once met, in the nineties, a Brother who was Bon Jovi's teacher in high school.

SLOW FRIDAY

It's time to say Happy Friday cha cha cha. According to the weather report on the radio this morning there should be thunderstorms later on today. I'll bet that will make for a really annoying football game tonight. Knowing Uncle Frankie's circumstances, I should be quite shocked if he gets to make it. I read over forty more pages of that Emily Dickinson book yesterday. The more than 700 pages should go by pretty fast at this rate. When I asked Fr. Walsh, this morning, how his father has been doing lately (he got chest pains over the weekend) he said there was no really bad news & that he'd just need lots of rest & medical attention. At least a couple of times over the course of my average week, I see Nirvana at the Unimart in Wyoming. Not surprisingly, he wasn't there today. I have no idea of exactly what his schedule is. Over the course of the past few years I've been getting all sorts of aches & pains. I'm over forty so I guess it's inevitable but it's still very annoying. Today the pain in my back, neck & shoulders really seems to be getting quite aggravating. Lately, the only TV show I've been really bothering to watch on a regular basis is "Who Wants to Be A Millionaire". Yesterday a woman who came into the library with her husband was checking out their official website. All the other current shows, besides "Jeopardy" & a very few other exceptions, bore the hell out of me. Tomorrow I have to go back over to Wilkes_Barre for a Carmelite meeting. They're always very interesting. I have to show up early in the morning but unfortunately I've always been quite an early bird anyway.

STILL COOL

The weather was especially cool when I went out this morning. My nephew called my parents last night to make sure he got a chance to thank them for a package they sent him. Uncle Frankie came over yesterday after his trip to the V.A. hospital. He seems to be doing so far so well. My mother will be going to the hairdresser at noon today. I got an extremely seriously annoying headache last night. Around 1:00 a.m. I made sure I got up & took a pill for it. It went away after only a little while. It was my first in quite a while. Maybe I got it because I read more yesterday than I usually do. I read over forty pages of the Emily Dickinson book, and a few other things. It occurred to me somewhere over the course of yesterday that "The Jazz Singer" was a logical precursor_& the Jewish version of_"St. Louis Blues", about W.C. Handy except I have no idea whether the earlier one was a bout a real figure, pure fiction or what. I just found out that Cathleen got a job at Pier 1. During the Christmas rush, that's really going to hurt. Sales jobs around Christmas alays go plum loco.

MOONA JOONA SPRINGA

Last night I watched Al Jolson's "The Jazz Singer". That's the movie that inspired the "I Love to Singa" cartoon owl. It's a silent movie with talkie parts for the music. I ended up having to stay up until past 9:30 to see it but it was worth the obscenely late bedtime. I've been getting quite good lately at tracking down all the old classic movies. Neil Diamond made a remake of it in 1980. I'm still reading the Emily Dickinson book. It's very long but she's such a cut_up I don't even get impatient with it. The weather's still very odd with cool & even cold mornings followed by nice warm days. My next Carmelite meeting is coming up for Saturday morning. As always, it's at the Little Flower Manor in Wilkes_Barre. It's at 200 South Meade Street & we're always looking for new people. I'm hoping that this month, we shall at least be able to get around to our next lesson. Yesterday I got the latest newsletter from St. John the Baptist Diocesan High School in West Islip, N.Y. They're winding up the celebration of their fortieth anniversary with a big homecoming game on the 21st of this month. I've been to many homecomings of theirs & they're always a really nice time.

NICE DAY SO FAR

This morning has been nicer than most recent mornings. Lately it's been awfully bitter cold each morning but nicer during most of the day. This morning was genuinely nice though. I'm still reading that book about Emily Dickinson. It's still extremely interesting. I'll have to read more of her poetry from now on too. Yesterday I made sure I went back to the St. Therese novena. By now, I'm really getting used to the trip & it doesn't feel so weird anymore. Surprisingly, Uncle Frankie showed up last night & stuck around for a few hours. That's a really big trip for him lately. The computers here weren't working when I first showed up today but they're working fairly well now. Not only Halloween & Thanksgiving are coming up in the immediate future. Even Christmas is right around the corner. I should most certainly hope everything works out really well this year. The crowds & traffic get me crazy & they're on their way. I dread going shopping at times like this. It get stuck with the aggravation every year though & it inevitably works out really well.

NICE WEEKEND

The weekend was cold but nice. Uncle Frankie came over for supper yesterday. Lately that's his idea of an active day. Last night was my first Holy Name Society meeting since last spring. All went well. Everybody's really looking forward to the ziti dinner. Father Walsh's father got sick so they couldn't make it. It turned out to be not so serious though. Again, I didn't win the 50_50. I've won once in a while but not last night. After it was over we pigged out on weinies, sauerkraut & junk food. That stuff is just plain dangerous. We drank beer & wine too. Those organizations always have lethal foodstuffs. I'm pretty active at this parish but not as much as I used to be at O.L.P.H. I'm still reading that book about Emily Dickinson. I've already started Volume Two. It's really interesting so I can read a few dozen pages each day. The weather's getting colder each day lately so I get to wear all my nice heavy sweaters. They're pretty interesting, looks_wise. I just wish it weren't cold enough to need them. Yesterday there was a big article in the Times Leader about the fortieth anniversary of S.E. Hinton's novel, The Outsiders. I can remember having been required to read it in the ninth grade, as well as Steinbeck's The Pearl, & The Skating Rink.