BACK IN THE NEW YORK GROOVE

We're back in Long Beach now. The foliage in New Jersey & New York is doing quite an especially nice job of turning colors for autumn. The trip only took around three hours with virtually no traffic worth mentioning. It's a cold day but I felt very warm in the car. It's always struck me as so awfully odd coming to New York as an outsider. Tomorrow, at about two o'clock, we shall be visiting Aunt Norma & the Massapequa kinfolk. I called them up & when Eddie answered the phone, he recognized my voice right away without any help. Michael's at Hofstra now. Bridget & Sam are here at the house. Today we've been eating cold cuts, pizza & junk food. Bridget has lots of Halloween candy left over. I even drank Dr. Brown's celery soda, an all_time favorite of mine. According to Mary Anne & Steve, it's very popular among the Jews. They're both going to Italy tomorrow night. Maybe, while we're here, I shall even get a chance to go on over to Lindenhurst & surprise all my old homeys. The Ronald & Mark are still rambling on about that e mail that Jo Ann got them started on. My cousins & friends have all sorts of conflicting controversial ideas. My jury duty has been deferred until December. All it took was one letter & one phone call. I shall still have to show up sooner or later anyway unfortunately.

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FIRST SNOWFALL_ISH OF SEASON

This morning it snowed. There wasn't enough of it, though, to work up a good_sized puddle. The foliage has been becoming quite consonant with autumn lately. All the browns & oranges are most certainly quite an impressive site. The latest buzz among my cousins is about a movie, "The Golden Compass", coming out in December. My old pal, Jo Anne, sent me an e mail about it a while ago. It's written by an avowed atheist & stars Nicole Kidman. It's entirely anti_Christianity so I reckon that must make it entirely pro_liberal. Leave it to Cousins Mark & the Ronald to duke it out over the likes of this one. We're an exceptionally controversial bunch & have always enjoyed a good row over the big questions that have always entirely befuddled mankind. Lately I've been finding out about all the plans my connections have. Unfortunately, Cathleen said that gas in Ca. is now $3.33.9 per gallon. That's even $.18 per gallon more than we're stuck having to pay around here. A very happy Friday is officially wished to one & all, of course. Tomorrow we shall be on Long Island, in Long Beach, hanging around with Michael, Sam & Bridget. I got a deferral from my jury duty. In December, though, they want me back.

GROSSOUT WEATHER

Yesterday was a pretty much cold, wintery day. Starting at aroud 1:00 a.m. it's been raining constantly, a very bitter icy cold rain. Yesterday I watched a show on A&E(I think)about John Lennon & Yoko Ono. It was all about how the Nixon White House was out to get the Walrus because of his anti_Vietnam peacenik activities. Ironically, according to Alan Dershowitz, the Lennons' lawyer, if Nixon had won & the Walrus had been deported to England, he (Lennon) would still have been among the living today. Mark David Chapman could never possibly have gotten to him. I've already seen, heard & read the story millions of times over by now, of course, but it never gets boring. Over the course of the last few days, the comic strip "Zitz", in the "Times Leader" has had Jeremy(whose never_seen brother is named Chad. Ha! Get it?) asking his father Walt, about the Beatles' song "I am the Walrus". Beatle references will be around forever, never to become obsolete. They're just stuck in people's imaginations, pop culture, etc. Uncle Frankie has a cold. That explains why we haven't seen him lately. Usually, when he's feeling well, he shows up quite a whole lot. Saturday morning, I shall have to show up at my next Carmelite meeting over in Wilkes_Barre. The attendance hasn't been very good lately. Somehow, people always seem to have some excuse not to be able to make it.

CALL FROM KRISSYKRISSYKRISSY

Yesterday was oddly warm for most of the day. Today, so far, has been very cold but there was dew on the windows instead of ice, so I'm happy. My toothbrush needed new AA batteries but that's all taken care of. My father & I went over to the St. Vincent de Paul society on Jackson Ave. in Wilkes_Barre to give them a turkey for Thanksgiving. Right after that I went into the shopping center in Plains for Tastykakes & a half_gallon of 2% milk. The crowded line was an absolute nightmare. As it turns out, there was even a blast from the fairly recent past. KrissyKrissyKrissy called. All is going well so far for her, Ed & Eddie over in Jim Thorpe. She's pregnant so they'll have a lot of work to do from now on. Gael, from California, has turned out to be quite the regular bard of her world. She sent me some poems she's written. I shall have to check them out & maybe even include them on my blogs. Yesterday I got my latest issues of The Marian Helper & Latin Mass Magazine. I've always really enjoyed keeping up with them.

UGH! BROKE MY ARM!

Today marks the sixteenth anniversary of the day I broke my left arm. Being a lefty, it really stunk. It happened at St. John's High School when I was delivering bubble gum remover to Sister Noella, who was then still an assistant principal. I was working at Citicorp Retail Services in Melville, N.Y. Sal, Carole were my supervisors. I ended up having to tell Carole, on the phone, about what happened. I'm sure Miz Kitti, Doreen, Kimbley & all the rest were quite taken aback too. I spent the night in Good Samaritan Hospital's emergency room, stupefied on medication. Last night, Michael, from New Jersey called to thank my parents for his new grandson's gift. Yesterday the weather turned bad late in the day. There was an icy cold rain all night. This morning started out miserable too. I've been reading "War & Peace" at quite a pretty fast rate so far. I can't read it too fast, though, because of its being so deep. Gas prices are getting entirely out of hand. The Citgo in my neighborhood, on Wyoming Avenue, now charges $3.15.9 a gallon. Eddie, from O.L.P.H., says that the new pastor has made at least one change in the Mass schedule. There's no 1:00 p.m. Mass now on Sundays. That's really hard to believe, but things happen. He was even forced to drop some lectors. I've been trying to catch "I Love Lucy" on TV every day now. It's better than the new stuff.

LIBRARY OPEN

I thought it would be closed today, in observance of Veterans' Day, but it's open. Uncle Frankie asked me yesterday, on the phone, if it would be open because he has to bring something back for Fran. I left him a message on the phone, this morning, saying he could come over. Saturday night, at 5:00 Mass, I lectored with Linnae. Rocco showed up but we didn't need him. Somehow he got the impression that he was supposed to cover for Mary. Last night was the Holy Name Society meeting. All went quite well. Fr. Walsh showed up. There was the usual rundown of all the circumstances we generally have to deal with. We drank beer & there were meatballs & chicken to eat. It only lasted a little over an hour, which is what I've always really liked about these meetings. According to the guys who were there, people at our parish most certainly don't seem all that supportive of our fund_raisers. O.L.P.H., though, is way over at the opposite extreme. The weather gets progressively colder & colder each day. The early sunset each evening makes things even gloomier. Oddly, I somehow don't seem to have all that much of a problem with reading very many pages of "War & Peace" each day. It's very tough, but it seems to be going fairly fast.