WEEKEND

The weekend has arrived. The sky is one huge cloud. Nothing is going on this weekend. Yesterday my parents went shopping for a while, which is most certainly quite typical for them. They got a bunch of things for the upcoming birthdays. Last night my father & Uncle Frankie went to their usual football game. Rose, from across the street, came over to give my mother a custard pie. A guy who's a regular at the library told me this morning that the last time he went over to the Midway Shopping Center, where they give away free newspapers (Citizen's Voice, Times Leader etc.), there was a guy there who was taking large piles of them to sell on his own. The weird thing was that the guy was obviously well off & didn't have to be bothered with doing that. He was just cheap & selfish. My mother made sure she got together a couple of baskets for St. Joseph's Family Feast on Sept. 21. I'm supposed to take them over either tonight or tomorrow. Fran called yesterday just to make sure she kept in touch. Nothing much has been new with her lately. Unfortunately today is the third anniversary of Daren's death. She was such a good person & will be missed.

HAPPY FRIDAY

My father & Uncle Frankie went out for a while yesterday. When they got back they had chicken, soda & French fries with them. I practiced my guitar yesterday, more scales than anything else. It's annoying because I never have been able to tune it well. I really like to practice for at least a half hour to an hour each day. As usual there wasn't anything on TV yesterday except "I Love Lucy" & some stuff on the Catholic channel. Most of the coverage these days goes to Sarah Palin & all her travails, both good & bad. There's no point in bothering to keep track of all the gossip about the politicians & their families. I found another case for my glasses. That's always quite a nice thing. It's time for the very first Friday dance of September, of course. I need gas pretty desperately so it's good that the price of gas has been going down lately. The lowest prices in this area are at the stations in Exeter & one in Pittston. Fortunately & amazingly, I haven't gotten a headache in quite a while. Usually they come fairly frequently.

QUIET DAY

September plods forward. Alas, it's the month of my birthday. Miz Kitti's is the very day after mine. The weather is still about the same for now. It's cold in the morning & nice all day. Uncle Frankie came over for a while yesterday. The conversation's all to predictable these days. Lately everybody's been rambling on absolutely constantly about this Sarah Palin character. All the incessant babbling gets annoying after only a very short time. Obama's entirely too far to the left but McCain's a W. clone. Palin's the only one whose cultural views are acceptable. The rest all want a pro abortion, homosexuality, etc. platform. Yesterday I watched yet another old movie, "The Food of the Gods". It starred Ida Lupino & Marjoe Gortner. In the 1970's & 1980's Marjoe Gortner was an actor on all sorts of TV shows & movies. He was also a Bible thumping, holy rolling preacher. It's going to take me a while to get around to seeing all those movies I won at St. John's bazaar. I practiced my guitar just as conscientiously as ever. Scales are still boring but unavoidably necessary.

WEEK HALF OVER

This past week has been entirely uneventful so far. The cousins are still rambling on about Jennifer's baby & our anticipated white water rafting trip next year. Yesterday I watched the movie, "The Vault of Horror", which was quite a bit like its prequel "Tales From the Crypt" & even included a reference to it. Terry Thomas was the only familiar name & face from the entire cast. He was a big name in 1960's sitcoms & a dead ringer for Bernard Fox. Fr. Walsh is unavailable for Mass all this week so I've been going to Mass at St. John the Evangelist in Pittston. That's where I was baptized. It's right by the Pittston Library & Domino's Pizza. Yesterday I practiced a bunch of scales on my guitar. It pays to keep up with that kind of thing. Unfortunately yesterday I also pigged out on many Pop Tarts & other kinds of junk food which I can seriously do without. Yet another big highlight of yesterday was when my father went over to watch Gino work on Uncle Frankie's house.

LABOR DAY

The long Labor Day weekend went quite well. Nothing much happened over the course of the weekend. My parents & I, in separate cars, went to 10:30 Mass at the Oblates' Seminary yesterday. It was long & crowded. They ran into Uncle Frankie over there & the three of them, after Mass, went to the Avenue Diner to get something to eat. While they were gone, Fran called & said she wanted to make sure she got a chance to see them before she went back to work. After a while, she & Uncle Frankie came over for a visit for a while. She got them candy. Of course, on Sunday morning my car battery died but I got it all straightened out. I couldn't help noticing, with great surprise, that there was no traffic yesterday. For Labor Day that was quite a change of pace. I've always equated days like that with major traffic congestion. When I went to Turkey Hill in Exeter, this morning, to get the Citizen's Voice, it hadn't been delivered yet. I didn't bother to go to another store for it because by now I know that when any one store doesn't get it, none of the others will either. I ended up getting the "Times Leader". According to the latest e mail binge from the cousins, Jennifer is pregnant & everybody's gleefully taking Larry up on his suggestion to go white water rafting next July. Today isn't anybody's birthday but KrissyKrissyKrissy's is on the tenth. Lately the weather has been very cold in the morning followed by an especially nice warm day to show for it.