HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SAM

The weather keeps getting progressively hotter & hotter. As much as I've always enjoyed the heat it can get overwhelming at times. Uncle Frankie came over for a while yesterday. After a while he left to go visit Fran. Mary Anne called last night. After 7:30 Mass this morning I went to the Valero gas station to make sure I got some extra gas. It's about the lowest price in the area these days, a dime lower than most places. I finished my book about Pope Benedict XV yesterday & started "Isabella of Spain by William Thomas Walsh. She's always been one of my very favorite historical figures, a true great among all the significant characters in the history of western culture. As usual, when I went to Mass this morning, at O.L.Mt. Carmel in Pittston, I found a copy of the newspaper, the Wanderer, so I made quite sure I grabbed it. Yesterday I played a little of "Do You Want to Know A Secret?" & a few other Beatle oldies again. I've also remained quite faithful to my promise about the exercise chair lately. I just noticed that Mike Myers & Mini Me have done a remake of Steve Miller's "The Joker". It's on Myspace. I don't have to lector until next weekend. Nobody's called up to ask me to cover any Masses. That's a bit of a surprise.

WARM WEATHER

The weather has been awfully warm lately. My only problem is trying to get to sleep at night. I always need a fan. Other than that I really enjoy it. Uncle Frankie showed up last night & Fran called too. Tomorrow is my nephew Sam's fifteenth birthday. As a conscientious uncle I know it's my responsibility to know about stuff like this. A couple of weekends ago we all went to New York for the birthdays. My parents are going back again next weekend. My father went to the V.A. this morning for some kind of an appointment. I can't believe I plum forgot to mention that it was the fortieth anniversary of RFK's assassination. That's most certainly not exactly the kind of thing anybody could possibly have expected me to overlook. I've always been quite interested in the 1960's. A few months ago I read a really good biography of RFK. Last night I took yet another crack at the exercise chair. I'm hoping I can keep at it as conscientiously as possible from now on. I'm really not all that fat, just flabby. Unfortunately, exercise has never really interested me. Neither has my tendency to be flabby.

MILESTONE ANNIVERSARY

Yesterday Mary Anne's & Steve's anniversary, as far as I know, went well. My parents called to wish them well. My mother's back's been hurting lately so she called Fran, a backache veteran, for advice. So far, she's ended up taking those little orange pills with pretty good results. My father & Uncle Frankie went to yet another game last night. It rained so they may not have enjoyed it as much as they could have. My latest Columbia came yesterday. The Knights of Columbus are always actively sticking their noses into things. They're even trying to get Fr. McGivney canonized. He's been officially declared venerable & the next step's beatification. Everybody's all agog lately about the election. I just hope whoever gets in ends the war & drops the gas prices. I tried using my excercise chair yesterday. I'm going to start trying to get a few minutes use out of it each day from now on. I'm always so lazy about it. I also picked up my guitar for the first time in quite a while. Usually I don't bother with it since I have a hard time keeping it in tune. I played "Do You Want to Know A Secret?", always a Lennon/McCartney favorite of mine. The only catch is that I haven't been able to get it out of my head for the past quite a while, ever since the last time I visited Mary Anne & started playing it over there. My cough has yet to stop driving me crazy.

OBAMA VS. MCCAIN

Barack Obama clinched the Democratic Party's nomination for the presidency. According to CNN's site, Joseph Biden, Hillary Clinton, Ed Rendell & Michael Bloomberg are among his potential running mates. Happy twentieth anniversary to Mary Anne & Steve. It was twenty years ago today. I was one of the ushers & ended up even having to be a lector too, which must have been what provoked me, later on, into becoming America's lector. My father & Uncle Frankie went to the game last night. They made a mistake though. As it turned out, they found out when they got there that their tickets weren't really supposed to be good until tonight. About a half hour before he showed up, Uncle Frankie called. There was a problem with the fire alarm or something in his basement. Like all alarms of that kind, when the battery pert near dies out, it starts making an extremely seriously annoying beeping noise so he complained to us about it. Yesterday I started reading a biography of Pope Benedict XV. I have two of them & this is the more recent one. Once again yesterday I watched "I Love Lucy". I've already seen each episode about a billion times over by now but until they bring back "The Honeymooners" on a regular basis, it's my only hope.

WENT FOR GAS

Late yesterday afternoon, I went to the Turkey Hill gas station in Exeter for gas. My parents spent all day shopping. Gas prices are getting entirely out of control. I just noticed, on the Washington Post & Seattle Post sites, that Hillary Clinton has won in Puerto Rico but Obama has won in Iowa. Unfortunately, even Big Willie wants her to give in. It's not that I'm even the least bit impressed by her or Obama. It's just that she's the substantially lesser of two evils. Vinnie sent me an e mail. Fortunately he intends to show up in Hilldale for the Fourth of July. We shall have to make sure we get a chance to go for ice cream again. I hope we get to take Anthony with us again. Maybe this time I shall be able to take them to Jitty Joe's. The weather's especially nice today. I think it may have rained a bit last night. Mary Anne called last night with all the latest New York gossip. Bridget's big weekend is coming up in less than two weeks. She's really looking forward to it. This morning right before I left I couldn't find my glasses. At the last minute, fortunately, I went over to the refrigerator & they were on top of it. That gets extremely annoying for me when I lose track of something & have no idea where I could possibly have put it. I lose things like that very often unfortunately. It's scary if I'm on a deadline & annoying if I'm not.

WARM DAY

Yesterday was the first day of June. My weekend was as uneventful as I'd expected it to be. At 5:00 Mass on Saturday Frank got me to help with ushering. Chet got me to help with ushering at the 4:30 Latin Mass yesterday too. Uncle Frankie showed up for a while each day. Dave came over to help with the yard. Mary Anne called. All's been going well over there these days. My mother called Fran yesterday. Fran got a very violent headache on Saturday. Unfortunately, I know only too well by now exactly how she must have felt. At least she took some medication in time for it all to go away fairly soon. It rained sporadically on Saturday including both morning & evening thunderstorms. That must have been why Fr. Walsh ended Mass so soon. Usually I end up not getting home until after six o'clock. Today's very nice & warm though. As always I've been reading & watching very little TV except my usual stuff. I found an ad in the paper yesterday. The Red Cross over in the Hanover Industrial Park is looking for phlebotomists. I shall have to check into it. Within about a month, all the kinfolk will be showing up over at Hilldale. Until recently it all seemed so far away. It seems even weirder than ever for me now that it's only two miles away instead of two states away. Of course, I'm fully expecting it to turn out to be its inevitable mixed bag of nuts. This morning, as I was sitting in my car in the parking lot at O.L.Sorrows a bee got in through the window. I can't stand those disgusting things. That's just one of the minor disadvantages of nice warm weather.