MANY SPECIAL OCCASIONS

Yesterday I went on one of my typical jaunts to the Barnes & Noble by the Wyoming Valley Mall. While I was walking around KrissyKrissyKrissy came over to me & said hello. She & Ed were in town visiting his parents. They recently went to Jason's wedding. Jennifer's birthday is today so we shall all say happy birthday to her. Sam's birthday went well yesterday. My parents made sure they called to wish him a happy birthday. He wasn't home but later he called back. Mary Anne's & Steve's twenty second wedding anniversary was June 4. Amazingly I can still remember their big day as if it were only yesterday. Finally & at last, Brianne gave birth recently to her little daughter, Nina Genesee. This kid really took her time. Brianne & Matt are quite happy. So far I haven't done much walking in spite of the conveniently warm weather. Yesterday, though, I made sure I walked for a few minutes outside. I truly should try to get back into the habit from now on. I've been doing a lot of reading these days. I've been reading the autobiograpy of Bl. John XXIII & poems by Emily Dickinson, William Butler Yeats & John Milton, among other things.

ST. TERESA OF AVILA

The weather is getting progressively colder each day. I even heard someone say over at St. John's this morning that it's supposed to start snowing sometime later today. It's Msgr. Bendick's sixty_eighth birthday over there too. Eddy & KrissyKrissyKrissy, around an hour south of here, say that it's already started to snow over there, & that it's sticking to the ground. Today is the Feast of St. Teresa of Avila, the famous fifteenth century Spanish Carmelite mystic. She & St. John of the Cross co_founded the Discalced Carmelites. This Saturday morning I shall have to go to Wilkes_Barre for another Carmelite meeting. It's on South Meade Street at 9:00 a.m. every third Saturday of the month. A new woman joined us last month. I hope she shows up again. To my chagrin I'm still pigging out lately on entirely too much Halloween candy.

THREE PREGNANCIES

The weather's been awfully nice lately but autumn still encroaches upon us. That's a combination of good news & bad for me. Uncle Frankie showed up for a while yesterday. Unfortunately the phone rang off the hook all yesterday & last night. Aunt Lauren & Mary Anne, among others, both called. Tomorrow will be my fiftieth birthday. So far I still don't feel anywhere near that old. It's such an ominously large number. I really don't have any plans for the big day. Besides me & KrissyKrissyKrissy, birthday kudos this month for kin also go out to: Tyler, Shannon, George III, my father, Eddie & Jessica. Today's the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, the patronal feast day of my parish. Shannon's also pregnant, making three new babies. She's the Ronald's daughter in law. I suppose I shall have to get a haircut eventually. I watched that show about Shakespeare on EWTN yesterday. Joseph Pearce is the host.

RAINY LATELY

Last night & very early this morning we most certainly got quite a for really & for truly doozy of a rainstorm. We need lots of rain though so it's good news. This morning I cut the grass after it dried up. I found an old pair of sneakers in my trunk at the Carmelite meeting on Saturday. I made sure I put them on just because of the grass. KrissyKrissyKrissy's off once again to New York today. My big lector meeting is coming up this Saturday morning at St. Joseph's. So far I don't know of anyone else who's agreed to show up. It's supposed to last from 9:00 a.m. until noon. I used to lector absolutely constantly at O.L.P.H. Now I can do the same thing around here. Oddly, I most certainly don't seem to have any kind of anxiety or anything about that kind of public speaking. I should assume that very many people would be all sorts of stark raging terrified of it. It's especially surprising that I can handle it so well because I've always had more than a smidge of a shy streak.

Trip to the Book Store

Yesterday, KrissyKrissyKrissy decided she wanted another book by some favorite author of hers. Not having had any idea of how to track down a book store around here, she asked me for directions to one. I took her to that really famous store over in Wilkes_Barre. It was a very nice, very short trip. Having always been quite a compulsive bookworm over the course of my lifetime, I know how to get to places like that. I just wish we had more book stores over here. There's only one Catholic book store anybody knows of around here & it's on Rte 11 in Scranton. The traffic congestion & parking absolutely stink beyond belief in Wilkes Barre. Especially because of the snow these days, it's really bad. We couldn't help noticing all the (ahem)local color, shall we say? That area must have more oddballs per square inch than nine out of ten places in this country. At the very least, they're most certainly extremely eccentric looking. Last night it snowed a little & today the streets & sidewalks were, at least for a while, all icy.