NICE WEEKEND SO FAR

This morning the librarian showed up around fifteen minutes late. While I was hanging around outside, a woman pointed out to me that the leaves have been turning colors & falling already, portending quite an early autumn. Monday is Labor Day. There's always an absolutely bottomless pit of traffic every year on that day. I've never really been able to handle all that kind of aggravation but we're all stuck with it unfortunately. I don't have any big plans for this year, which is absolutely fine by me. So far I haven't gotten any unfortunate problems from eating Uncle Frankie's Mexican spicy nuts but most probably that's because I make sure I only eat extremely few each time. Last night he & my father went to the very first big game of the new year. Last night I watched another movie from the "The Fly" series & "Tales From the Crypt". They were among the movies I won at St. John the Evangelist's bazaar a while ago. Yesterday I spent a while playing "A Hard Day's Night" on my guitar. That's one of the really easy ones.

HAPPY HAPPY JOY JOY FRIDAY

Everyone gets his official happy Friday today, with at least a dance or two to show for it. I've always suspected that my next door neighbor is plum loco but today I got more than a little bit of proof. Not only was he mowing his lawn at 7:30 a.m. but it was raining out on top of that. I just noticed that John McCain has picked Alaska's Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate. I just got a reminder that Monday is Labor Day, the official beginning of the bad part of the year. From September on, we start getting the beginnings, slowly but surely, of the bitter cold miserable weather, & early sunsets around here. It may not literally happen right away but it's an undeniable symbolic beginning. Of course, I won't be able to come over here on Monday because most public places are always closed on big holidays. My father & Uncle Frankie are supposed to go to a big game tonight. They've always gotten a kick out of those kinds of things. I don't have anything specific planned all weekend but who knows what might turn up?

GOOD DAY SO FAR

There's nothing going on so far today. The weather's been very nice. I was forced to miss 9:00 Mass because of some unavoidably necessary personal affairs. All went quite well. Last night I watched "Bookmark", Thomas Woods's show on how the Catholic Church built western civilization, & Fr. Mitchell Pacwa's live show. They were all on EWTN. Earlier in the day I watched the inevitable "I Love Lucy". I've been trying to figure out the latitude & longitude for my town on Deviantart. I haven't bothered, very much anyway, with those kinds of things ever since I was only a kid in grammar school. Some sites dredge up absolutely some of the very oddest of details. I practiced my guitar yesterday. On top of everything else, as I was looking around through a pile of stuff of mine, I even managed to track down yet another pick. They've always been extremely easy to lose track of unfortunately. Yesterday I ate chicken tenders & French fries. Recently there was a movement among members of the liberal totalitarian thought police, for some insane reason, to change the name of these potato thingies to freedom fries. Uncle Frankie showed up recently with a bag of extremely seriously spicy nuts but I'd be more than a little afraid to dare to mess with them, except for only very few at a time.

GUITAR PLAYING

I practiced my guitar again yesterday. I've decided to keep right on constantly pushing as hard as possible to learn to play at least a few songs really well. Uncle Frankie showed up for a while yesterday. There's nothing going on with him lately, which is about typical. He & my father are supposed to go to a big game on Friday. Of course, as always there's nothing on TV these days. I watched "I Love Lucy" yesterday & a little bit of "Jeopardy" last night. That's about all I can handle is old stuff & certain game shows. At least the weather's most certainly been holding up quite well lately. My father's car has no air conditioning now either. My air conditioning hasn't worked for quite a while by now anyway so I know quite well just exactly how rotten a feeling it is in the summer. It's entirely too hot on hot days & entirely too cold on cool days. It's not only broken. It's broken in an unspeakably evil annoying way.

UNCLE FRANKIE HOME

Sometime yesterday, Uncle Frankie arrived home after his visit to Fran. He, of course, got us all candy. He got taffy for my parents & Reese's peanut butter cups & Kit Kats for me. He stuck around for a few hours once he got back & told my parents all about whatever he & Fran did over the course of his visit. I practiced my guitar as usual yesterday. Lately I've really been getting the hang of "Two Of Us". I heard from Barbara from the Carmelites yesterday too. She called about a book that Judy is going to make us start reading from now on. She wanted to know if I had a copy of it & whether I'd like to buy one or to borrow they one they already have in their supply of books anyway. I decided to go for the one that's already there anyway. Nothing interesting was on TV yesterday. Besides "I Love Lucy" I didn't even bother with anything else. Only very rarely does anything worth bothering with come on. Lately I've been losing track of my eyeglasses entirely too frequently for my taste, so I've simply got to wise up & figure out a way to put them inevitably where I can find them very easily.

FESTIVAL OVER

It all went well at the latest Tomato Festival. Unlike the churches' feasts, though, I didn't end up winning a basket this time around. Everybody says Sizzle Pie has the only decent pizza here but I enjoyed the pizza I got from the other places that showed up. On Saturday I got a set of guitar strings from the music store on Main Street. They had a stand set up outside their store. There was good music there all throughout the festival. On Saturday they didn't have a band but they played a lot of Beatle music. Yesterday there was a German_style oom_pah band & a guy was playing an acoustic guitar by the beer stand, where I ended up getting a Yuengling. The sun was very hot all through the festival. On top of that I didn't know a single one of the people who showed up, which is pretty much about typical for me around here anyway. My nephew Michael's birthday was on Saturday too so we made sure we gave him a call. I hope he doesn't miss his teens too much. I lectored yesterday at 10:00 Mass. All went well. Early this morning there was a bit of a rainstorm & the last time I looked outside it was still awfully seriously cloudy. On Saturday night I watched a few old Laurel & Hardy shorts on TCM. Oliver Hardy is my fellow New Yorker. He's from Harlem.