NICE DAY SO FAR

Lately things have been going fairly well for me so far. The weather isn't all that horrible. Christmas is coming very soon. I only have to send out two cards by mail because all the rest go out on the internet. Today I lectored for Fr. Walsh at 11:00a.m. Mass at O.L.Sorrows. Surprisingly everybody sat in the pews. Nobody went for the folding chairs in the other section of church. Somehow, on the lectors' schedule, it said I was suppose to show up at 10:00 a.m. but Howard set me straight. I've always been in the habit of showing up insanely annoyingly early for things anyway. Another entirely inexplicable thing was that when I went to the Unimart on Wyoming Avenue to get a paper I asked the guy behind the counter why there was no Dispatch & he ended up having to remind me that it's only Saturday. I plum forgot, for just a moment, what day it was. I traded in my Times Leader for a Citizens' Voice & left. Happy birthday, Tina. Maria called my mother last night. All has been going quite well with them these days. >

DON'T TREAD ON ME

I got tire troubles. This morning I went to a tire place on Wyoming Ave. slightly south of Sabatini's. They kept me stranded over there for over two hours only to tell me that nothing could be done except to get a new tire. Hey, at least they didn't charge me. A few guys were there who were into hunting. One guy says his dog is afraid of the sound of gunshots & he has to give it sedatives every year for the Fourth of July. The other guy commented about how weird it is that dog drugs are about the same as people drugs but for dogs they cost a hell of a whole lot less.
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CLICK HERE! It's Friday so we have to do the Friday dance. Yesterday I read a lot more of "War & Peace" & some more of the Chaucer biography. It pays to keep the mind busy. It's Pearl Harbor Day. All the World War II veterans will be remembering this one. Lately I've been drinking coffee_one of my very biggest addictions_late in the day. I never sleep at night anyway, unfortunately, so it's not all that big of a deal. >

SNOW NEVER ENDS

This morning was especially messy with snow & ice. Yesterday it snowed quite a whole lot. I ended up having to spend a while chipping ice away from my car & getting the tire filled up because it ran plum out of air again. Fr. Walsh made me lector again, this time at St. Joseph's. Yesterday my father finally found a seriously tiny little screwdriver to get my frame tightened around the left lens in my glasses again. The same stupid things keep happening to me. This morning when I tried to get the paper from the machine on Sixth Street, by St. Joseph's, it was so cold the machine wouldn't even work. Tomorrow's Pearl Harbor Day. Saturday's the anniversary of Beatle John's murder in 1980 & November 29 was the sixth anniversary of Beatle George's death in 2001. Saturday's also Tina's birthday. She's cousin Gary's daughter. We still haven't seen hide nor hair of Uncle Frankie because of the weather. The weather's too bad for him to take any chances.

CHRISTMAS FAST APPROACHES

This morning, at 9:00 a.m. Mass at O.L. Sorrows, Fr. Walsh decided he wanted me to be the lector. It started out yesterday at St. Joseph's when he asked Rocco to do the lectoring. For the first time in over a year, since he first showed up, he wants to get us started at lectoring at weekday morning Masses. The weather is just as cold as ever this morning but the snow flurries are very slight. For that I am most certainly deliriously happy. Yesterday I read more "War & Peace". At this rate I should be finished fairly soon. Mary Anne sent an e mail asking if I liked "The Professor & The Madman". It was very interesting. It might be just a practical joke by a fan of hers but somebody claiming to be the famous Alicia Keys has just joined Newblog. I've never been a fan of hers, but I know she's really famous. She wanted to know if any of the members live in New York. She's a little late for that one in my case. According to one of my favorite news blogs, either Mike Huckabee or Ron Paul would be a good president,abortion_wise. I've been trying to keep up with these kinds of things lately.

YET EVEN MORE SNOW

This morning it started snowing again. At first, I was a little afraid it would turn out worse than it's been so far. A guy(from the Holy Name Society) I ran into outside St. Joseph's right after Mass said the wind was up to 40 m.p.h. He also said other towns in our area haven't been getting as much. When I opened the door a while before Mass_technically, it flew open because of the wind_there was snow flying all over the place. I read a lot more of "War & Peace" yesterday & some of that Chaucer biography, which seems to have been written, unfortunately, from a very ardently left_wing point of view. The author parroted all the trendy liberal cliches about Western Culture, Christianity, etc. I got a few reactions to my question about our latest reunion. As it turns out, I'm not the only one who didn't get to make it. John, who was there, said it went really well. I'm happy to see it was an enjoyable time but I agree with Mark. It was a weird idea to have a reunion in December. I suppose school must have been closed today because kids are in the library. Whenever they have a day free they come over here. >

COLD, SNOWY WEEKEND

Saturday night, I was a lector at 5:00 p.m. Mass. I hope all my high school friends had a great time at the big reunion. I usually manage to make it to all those things but this time there were circumstances beyond my control. Saturday night there was a big storm so I ended up having to spend around fifteen minutes on Sunday morning with the snow blower. Last night there was an ice storm but this morning wasn't so bad. Nothing seemed to have stuck. I finished "The Professor & The Madman" & am still plowing my way through "War & Peace". Of course, in keeping with my two_at_a_time rule, I've started a biography of Geoffrey Chaucer. I seem to be reading about a lot of famous authors lately. We are now in cold/flu season & I don't happen to have one. Usually I manage to get at least something but this time I'm one of the few who've managed to beat it. Christmas cards, slowly but surely, are starting to trickle in a few at a time. It's very good to see that Uncle Frankie's been back on his feet again. Over the weekend Fran made sure she showed up with doughnuts. On top of that my father even made a cake. It's starting out to be the usual typically fat December. I can't handle all the junk food but the closer Christmas gets, the more fattening everything inevitably gets. The librarian is rambling on with one of the patrons about current events. Of course, nobody(ahem, except for a certain cousin of mine) likes W. but that leaves us stuck with the Democrats.

NEW MONTH

Hello & welcome to December. Advent starts tomorrow & there are only twenty four days left until Christmas. I still miss Christmas in N.Y. but O_bla_di O_bla_da life goes on bra/la la how the life goes on. The weather, so far this morning, has been bitter cold but at least there's no ice or fog. Tonight's the night of my high school class's thirtieth reunion. I can't go because of confusion about my jury duty. I should most certainly hope all my old buds have quite a jolly good time. I always managed to make it to all the other ones but this one got a little out of hand because of that one technical detail. I was always such an interesting teen ager. Of all the people in my class the ones I got to know have always claimed I was always entirely too much of a cut_up & the ones I didn't know have always claimed I was pathologically quiet, shy & intorverted. I'm still hoping that means I'm somewhere in the middle. Yesterday, I finished "The Professor & the Madman". I'm still reading "War & Peace" though. I suppose I shall continue my usual practice of starting another one right away. Tonight I shall be at O.L. Sorrows to lector at 5:00 p.m. Mass. Next week I have to lector again. Uncle Frankie's back up on his feet but he's very much slowed down lately & hasn't been coming over or calling anywhere near as much as he usually does.

JURY DUTY AWAITS

Tomorrow I have to be ready for jury duty on an entirely just_in_case basis. That means I can't possibly go to my high school reunion. My father went to the V.A. hospital this morning to find out why he's having such a problem with congestion. His appointment only lasted a fairly short time. I'm supposed to lector at 5:00 p.m. Mass tomorrow with Linnae. I suppose if I have to be available for jury duty, I shall have to ask Rocco to cover for me. I've never really gotten jury duty, & I'm most certainly not looking forward to it. This morning was unusually cold at about 28 degrees. There was only a little bit of ice on my windows & it wasn't foggy. It gets me crazy when there's too much fog & ice. I made sure I spent part of yesterday reading those books. "War & Peace", especially, can get me crazy. The other one's nowhere near as nerve-wracking, though it gets pretty weird in certain spots. From now on, I'll be doing quite a whole lot of grumbling about people who insist on saying "happy holidays" instead of "merry Christmas". When I say insist, I mean exactly that. They presume to take it for granted that they have the right to make it unavoidably mandatory for all of us to stoop to the likes of this. It's on all the commercials these days & happens constantly with people in general. I can't stand the constant Christmas carols that started at the beginning of this month either, trivializing the whole thing. The Gap(including Old Navy & Banana Republic)have jumped back onto the anti_Christian bandwagon this year. They take every possible advantage of Christmas as a money_making gimmick, but never dare to pronounce the word. Advent starts this Sunday, December 2. >

SNOWED

As my parents spend another morning furiously plowing their way through Christmas decorations, they make a mess of everything. All the accumulated wreaths, ornaments etc. of five decades worth of Christmases past gets them quite confused and annoyed. There are trains, boxes, wrapping paper and lots of other things strewn around. Meanwhile the weather gets progressively colder & colder. Today's a relatively nice day so far but it most certainly didn't start out that way. This morning it even snowed a little. It was nothing much, though, just enough to be aggravating. Uncle Frankie's still very sick. He always seems to come down with something these days. Each time he recuperates from something, he immediately gets something else to replace it with. Last night, at around 8:00 I went to bed with an extremely annoying headache which I couldn't get rid of until around 12:30 a.m. Lately, I've been experimenting with all sorts of things on the internet to make my blogs as interesting as possible. If I don't get the hang of all this sooner or later, it most certainly won't be my fault. I read a couple of dozen more pages more of "War & Peace" yesterday. It continues to be quite an ominous, formidable task for me. A couple of times, lately, the left lens of my glasses has fallen out of its frame. That really grates on my nerves. I know there's no risk of its breaking but it's still quite annoying because it adds to the already never_ending list of things that conspire to drive me nuts.

PERT NEAR DECEMBER

December is getting dangerously close. The year will very soon be over. The weather's been very nice for the past couple of days but I just know that sooner or later it will once again flip out on us. It's hard to believe that, by now, I've been living in Pa. for so long. I now know that cousin Java, & maybe his wife Nunziata read this blog. He complained about a comment I didn't make anyplace else. I'm still reading Simon Winchester's "The Professor & the Madman". Besides that, I'm also still reading "War & Peace", which is substantially more intense. They're both based on true stories & filled with real historical figures. My parents are taking down Thanksgiving decorations & putting up Christmas decorations. I heard my mother & Fran make plans on the phone for the cookies they intend to bake over the weekend. Yesterday, because Uncle Frankie has to stay in the hospital for a while, they ended up having to go crazy all day with Fran's dog. It's only a little thing but it can still be quite obnoxious & annoying. It's not loud or smelly, just hyperactive. I've never liked animals so I can never get enthused about things like this. I've been trying, for the past few days, to get my playlists organized as well as possible. I decided it might not be such a particularly bright idea to put something by the Sex Pistols too close to Peer Gynt Suite No. 1.