LAST WEEKEND BEFORE BIRTHDAY

Well, it's my very last ever weekend as a forty eight year old. Great Caesar's ghost, where could all that time possibly have gone? Miz Kitti must not be all that thrilled either because she's only a year & a day younger than I. Uncle Frankie & Fran are supposed to show up sometime tomorrow for a party. Today I have to lector at 5:00 Mass. I'm still, slowly but surely, plowing my way through "King Lear". I've read all these Shakespeare plays before but most certainly not recently or intensely enough for them to have sunk in that well. I've also been quite consistently practicing my guitar. Lately, since I took that gigantic computer off my desk, I have a lot more room to be able to put other things on it. Now it's much easier for me to be able to keep track of unavoidably necessary things like my license, keys & glasses. Gas prices, to my chagrin, have been going up yet again. This morning I noticed I fifteen cent price hike compared to yesterday. The OPEC low.lives are at it again.

FRIDAY AGAIN

Friday is upon us so it's time for our legendary weekly dance. The weather's very dreary & it's going to rain for quite a while. I've finished reading "Macbeth" & just started "King Lear". Uncle Frankie called up yesterday & came over this morning. Because of the miserable weather, he & my father most certainly have no intention of bothering to show up at tonight's big game. Recently my cousin Vinnie hepped me to the show, "Burn Notice". He got me to watch it last night. The only familiar member of the cast was Sharon (Cagney & Lacey) Gless. It was a good show, worth watching again. The only catch was that he never bothered to warn me in advance that it's on at 10:00 p.m.! Anne called my mother yesterday & they talked for quite a while. Today a woman at the library was completely befuddled about how to start a new e mail account so I ended up having to show her how. It's extremely easy but some people still go crazy over it. As always I continuously play my guitar. Soon I shall be ready to get away with letting people listen.

BIG ANNIVERSARY

Seven years ago today, Moslem terrorists attacked the World Trade Center, the Pentagon & Flight 92. That's why we're now stranded over in a Middle Eastern war. I first found out about it at 9:00 a.m. Mass that morning when Fr. Ed Seagriff mentioned it. Everyone was shocked & there were constant, non stop news coverage, prayer vigils, fear & controversy. O.L.P.H. got a never ending overload of funerals. When I tried to go to my first Lay Carmelite meeting that night at St. William the Abbot in Seaford, it was cancelled. Everybody was affected. Lately things have been very quiet as autumn slowly rears its cold dreary head. The nights get darker, sooner. My parents went shopping yet again last night for a few hours. This morning I helped them with curtains & furniture. Yesterday I played my guitar & read most of "Macbeth". It was just a typical day. Uncle Frankie hasn't shown up lately. I got gas, this morning, at the Sunoco over in Pittston. I couldn't help noticing that the price was unusually low, & that it was even less expensive at the Turkey Hill in Exeter.

BETTER WEATHER

We have to send very many birthday Kudos to KrissyKrissyKrissy. It's not raining anymore but it's significantly cooler today than it's been lately. When I went to Mass at St. John's in Pittston this morning, there was no lector available so I ended up filling in. I just found out that there are companies that are making dolls, kind of like Barbie & G.I. Joe_ish, of Obama & Phelan. Most probably they'll be collector's items someday. Right now, though, they're just part of a stupid boring gimmick. I heard on the radio a few days ago that the original Cabbage Patch dolls are now worth well over $20,000. This morning I cleaned out my bedroom. A lot of dust bunnies, among other things, have accumulated over the course of the past few years. I got rid of my computer because I've never been able to figure out how to get it to work anyway. Mary Anne called last night. All is going quite typically with them lately. Of course, I'm still playing those sixties oldies on my guitar.

POURING OUT!

I got up this morning to the sound of constant, non stop thunder & lightning. It wasn't raining so much when I first left but on the way home there was an absolute nightmare of a storm. Exeter Avenue in West Pittston, among other places, was flooded. I heard that on the radio. Yesterday I got a really nice letter from Grace, Daren's mother. The third anniversary of Daren's death was on Saturday. Her mother sent me a few really nice pictures of Daren with the letter. My parents went shopping for a few hours last night. How anybody could possibly spend a few hours at a time in a bunch of stores so frequently is entirely beyond me. Maybe it goes with being old. I've been playing my guitar regularly lately. I'm still learning exactly how to play songs like "Please Please Me" & "A Hard Day's Night". As always nothing worth bothering is on TV these days. I have a few favorites & none of them exactly qualifies as even the least bit typical of current stuff. My birthday gets closer & closer by the second. Miz Kitti & I most certainly weren't exactly born yesterday.

NICE WEEKEND

The weekend was very quiet. I lectored at 5:00 Mass on Saturday, replacing the girl who was supposed to be there. Mary ended up covering for the girl's mother. It was raining that entire afternoon. There was a visiting priest, Fr. Urban, because Fr. Walsh has been unavailable for the past few weeks. I made sure I went to the rectory yesterday to hand in my form so I can work at the Harvest Festival in a couple of weeks. I donated a few baskets too. It was a really nice time last year. I go to St. John the Evangelist in Pittston every morning. This morning was unbelievably foggy & there are a lot of steep roads between here & there. As always I've been practicing my guitar quite conscientiously. By now I can do quite some mighty nice versions of "A Hard Day's Night" & "Please Please Me" among others. Yesterday I watched "Return of the Living Deade", from 1985. It starred Linnea Quigley & James Karen, who was born in Wilkes Barre. His face is much more familiar than his name. He's been on lots of commercials. As far as I'm concerned the movie absolutely stunk. Lately I've been eating entirely too much Swiss cheese for my own good. A minute ago I tried to join a new site & had trouble answering the captcha question because I plum forgot, for a second, that Jane(they claimed), not Charlotte Bronte wrote "Wuthering Heights". Ha! Ha! I just looked it up & it turns out that it was really Emily. That's awfully odd considering that I must have read it at least a dozen times by now.