FOURTH OF JULY

This past weekend Sam, the younger of my nephews, had quite an exceptionally nice & busy time.  He went to his Senior prom & his graduation from Long Beach High School, on Long Island.  He's eighteen years old as of earlier this month.  It's a month of major milestones for him.   Following in his brother Michael's footsteps he intends to attend Hofstra University in September.  He recently got his driver's license too.   Michael is also quite busy too with his girlfriend Erin, job & new life.   Bridget, their sister, the youngest of all, has just finished her time at summer camp.   Mary Anne came in on the bus a couple of days ago to help with all the necessary cooking for the Fourth of July.  Very soon we shall have to face the inevitable crowd in Hilldale.   Unfortunately I missed the big final farewell reunion at St. Gabriel's in East Elmhurst, & shall also be forced to miss the big reunion at St. John the Baptist in West Islip.  It's on July 1.   My parents still constantly pester me to water the plants & flowers for them each day.  There's so much rain lately though that many days it's entirely unnecessary.  Last night at around 10:30, there was an absolutely overwhelming electrical storm.  My cell phone works really well.  My parents now have the one I started out using because they don't want to be bothered with all the extra things.  I was forced to spend an absolutely insane amount of time on the phone with the Tracfone people to get theirs re~activated but other than that all goes quite well.