AWFULLY WEIRD WEATHER

Over the course of the past few months, we've gotten very short, very violent rainstorms, usually at the rate of at least one a day. Only one was very destructive though. Today's Uncle Frankie's birthday. He came over for a while yesterday. I got gas this morning at the Unimart in Exeter. Gas has been substantially less expensive lately than it's been in quite a while. The Olympics are all over the place these days. Unlike most people I just plain don't happen to like sports. Not liking sports is assumed to be the equivalent of not having a sex drive. It's just taken for granted, somehow, that everybody likes sports. Unfortunately, because of all the partying over the weekend, there's an absolutely insane amount of junk food left over. I even won popcorn & licorice with all those videos. My will power goes down as the junk food supply goes up. Each day, I play my guitar & it seems to get quite a bit easier each time. I always seem to lose track of my picks though. That went on back in the really old days too.

BUSY WEEKEND

It was quite a hectic weekend with all the birthdays. Surprisingly, I got a call from St. John the Evangelist Church yesterday. It's all so weird that I keep winning things lately at church functions. I won yet another basket at their feast. It was a bunch of horror movies. While I was in the rectory I met the two monsignori. Mary Anne borrowed one of the movies. Fran has always especially like those kinds of movies ever since we were only kids. Mary Anne & I took the kids on Saturday to the mall. We went to a bunch of head shops so they could get some clothes. In one of them there was constant, non_stop Beatle music playing. She said the kids these days really like retro stuff. I ended up having to go to F.Y.E. in the mall to get another DVD case because I didn't have any room left over in any of mine. Uncle Frankie & Fran were cleaning out their attic & they gave me Aunt Mary Theresa's old Passionist prayer book & my grandmother's old missal from the Latin Mass. It's dated September 26, 1961, which is only ten days after my second birthday. Typically, there was an extremely violent storm yesterday but it only lasted an extremely short time.

08_08_08

Today is the eighth day of the eighth month of the eighth year. Oddly, people have always gotten quite a hoot out of those kinds of things. Yesterday it was raining all day & all of the night. At least during the day the rain was just a very nice mild shower. After a reasonably uneventful spell, this weekend we shall be having the big combined birthday bash. Fran, Mary Anne & Uncle Frankie all have birthdays. There are others this month to but not right away. The cousins continue to ramble on about their latest obsessive controversy, nuclear power. Yesterday I made sure I want back to Barnes & Noble again. Until I get around to going way up to Borders, it's one of my favorite places around here. Uncle Frankie came over yesterday. He reminded me about the Bazaar over at St. John the Evangelist Church in Pittston so I made sure I showed up for a while. That's the church I was baptized in. It was a really nice time. I got a slice of pizza with garlic salt on it & a Pepsi. I took the pizza fritta home. I also made sure I took some chances on the baskets again. Lately I seem to be on a winning streak with them. So far I've won something at both the last two church feasts I showed up at. Last night I even won $10 at the money wheel. The guy who was in charge pert near forgot to pay me. At least the weather didn't make too much of a noticeable difference in the feast. One thing I've never been able to help noticing is that churches around here are plum flea market crazy for some insane reason. They always have them & this time was no exception.

QUIET DAY SO FAR

I've been checking out some directions on msn & mapquest. Amazingly, I've never set foot into Scranton alone. Some one of these days I'm going to have to go on some kind of a trip over there anyway so I might just as well get started on it as soon as possible. Uncle Frankie came over for a while yesterday. There's nothing much going on with him lately. He was talking, for a little while, about the churches' annual feasts around here. Other than that I really didn't have any connection to anything he said. Mary Anne's supposed to show up over the weekend for her birthday. A few days ago was Fran's birthday so they're supposed to have a party for both of them. Fran recently sent me an e mail about it. Alas we're all getting older by the second. I played my guitar & read a little of my book about St. John of the Cross yesterday. Sanjuanist theology is more than a little bit on the heavy side but I'm quite used to it by now.

STORM & BLACKOUT

Saturday there was quite a bit of trouble around here because of a violent storm early in the day. We have a lot of them these days anyway but this time a transformer got hit by lightning leaving us in the dark until late afternoon. Life is awfully boring & annoying without electricity. It was impossible even to make a pot of coffee. Anything even the least bit electric was entirely messed up. Fortunately yesterday was nice enough to be able to go to KrissyKrissyKrissy's for Natalie's christening. I pigged out of course. Every time I get too close to junk food, I lose all self control. There was legitimate food too. My parents, Aunt Helen & I went together. I was quite happy to be able to see Larry, Gary & their families. It's a nice way to keep track of all that's been going on over in New York lately. There was too much traffic on the way, though, because the annual race was on that day. The church, St. Joseph's, was exactly what a church is supposed to be like as far as I'm concerned. Modern style churches make me cringe. Ed's car got sideswiped in a hit & run when he wasn't around but someone reported it & a policeman arrived as soon as we got outside. Happy twenty fifth wedding anniversary to Aunt Lauren & Uncle Jim (May), & Gary & Maria, this month. On Saturday I lectored at 5:00 Mass & all seemed to have gone well.

HAPPY FRIDAY, WELCOME AUGUST

Today we face the very first Friday, the very first day, in August. Sunday is the big day for KrissyKrissyKrissy's family. Here daughter, Natalie, gets baptized that day. It should be a splendid time for one & all. Tomorrow I have to lector at 5:00 for Mary. She called last week. I played my guitar yesterday. Unfortunately I never seem to practice for a very long period of time but it all sinks in anyway. Somehow I seemed to have completely forgotten to mention yesterday that besides Jamie(today) & Fran(tomorrow), tomorrow is also cousin Elaine's birthday. It was most certainly nothing personal. Recently a gunman went bananas in a U.U. church in Tennessee. Yesterday there was some other fruitcake on a bus in Canada who murdered one of the passengers. Yesterday I ate hamburgers & salad for supper. Later on I ate some pop tarts & an ice cream sicle. Oh, how interesting & enjoyable it is to be able to live around here! On the news yesterday, there was something really interesting about a new kind of brain surgery. Unbelievably, throughout the entire five_ish hour procedure, the patient/guest of honor is awake, though heavily sedated. They showed a patient who was reading a book during his operation. I can honestly say, without fear of contradiction, I'd inevitably end up going stark raging bananas under those circumstances!

LAST DAY OF JULY

Aunt Lauren called my mother yesterday. So did Uncle Frankie & Fran. I've never been able to stand the phone but it simply won't go away. I read some more of "Troilus & Cressida" yesterday. It's really hard to figure out, especially since I haven't officially studied Shakespeare in quite a while. I played some more Beatle songs yesterday too. The weather's really nice once again today although most people would complain that it's too hot. I went to Barnes & Noble yesterday. Unfortunately I've yet to go to Borders in Scranton. It's the best of the whole bunch of them. While roaming around the store, I ran into Jean who's quite the regular at the churches around here. She spends a lot of time at book stores too. There's a new book out, by Peter Kreeft, about Shakespeare, but I couldn't find it. It wasn't in the Shakespeare section or the new non-fiction, literature, whatever section either. For supper I ate a couple of Arby's roast beef sandwiches & onion rings. Happy birthday to Jamie, tomorrow, & Fran, Saturday. Alas, we're all getting older by the second. Last year Gino & I spent Fran's birthday at a Meat Loaf concert. Those were the days.

CALIFORNIA EARTHQUAKE

We all found out about the California earthquake yesterday. I just got an email from Cathleen about it. She & her family are all safe from any major damage. She was more than a little taken aback, though, by all the aggravation. It entirely messed up her lunch break. They're really old friends of mine so I'm quite happy to see that all's worked out. On the bright side, though, Fran got a really good job over in Reading. It's only forty minutes from home. There was really good news this morning on TV about a new treatment for Alzheimer's disease. There's a medication out that seems to help quite a bit for mild to moderate cases. They're hoping really to be able to get things rolling no later than next year. I've been reading more of "Troilus & Cressida". Much debate goes on about the famous Bard's Catholicism. I just noticed that much circumstantial evidence suggest that he was a Catholic. His parents were recusant Catholics. The problem is in the lack of any official proof. Of course, Queen Elizabeth I would have opened a major can of whoop_ass on him if he had admitted it. Last night I opened a new box of Special K with strawberries in it. As soon as I opened the top of the box, the bottom flew opened too. There was a hole in the bottom of the bag so I ended up with cereal all over the table. Fortunately I managed to clean up all the mess. To my chagrin, things like that are always happening to me.

SHAKESPEARE

The weather's been very nice lately. Some people dread the heat but I truly enjoy it. Yesterday I started reading Shakespeare's "Troilus & Cressida" again. I got the idea a couple of days ago when I watched a segment of a news program that discussed the question of whether the Bard of Avon was Catholic. He was most certainly quite an expert on human nature but unfortunately practically nothing of very much significance is really known of him. Of course, I also made quite sure I practiced my guitar. It gets easier each day, especially the early songs. They've always been my very favorites anyway. Uncle Frankie showed up yesterday. As always, he didn't seem to have anything distinctive going on. I ate quite a whole lot of chicken tenders yesterday. It's always been one of my very favorite kinds of chicken. It's most probably disgustingly fattening but once in a while can't hurt. It's hard to believe that July is on the verge of ending. Yesterday, in the mail, I got yet another free copy of Patrick Madrid's Envoy Magazine. I used to subscribe to it & let my subsciption lapse. They're trying to woo me back. I've always really enjoyed it so I most certainly should start getting it again.

NICE WEEKEND

Saturday & yesterday went by uneventfully. On the entirely irrelevant side, Saturday was Mick Jagger's birthday. Today is Lee & Farrah Fawcett Majors' thirty fifth anniversary. It always pays to keep track of thins like that in case anyone ever wants to know. I recognize the names from the past but none from today's famous crowd. My lectoring went reasonably well on Saturday except that I made one little mistake but that always happens. I practiced my guitar & read some more of those Carmelite books over the weekend. Last night I watched an episode of the show about G.K. Chesterton. It was an interesting comparison about Christianity(western culture) & Buddhism, which represents the east that those liberals have always been so smitten with. KrissyKrissyKrissy sent out an e mail with the directions for Natalie's christening on it. It's next weekend over in Jim Thorpe. I got the directions printed out. It should be a really interesting time. I never get a chance to see the New Yorkers of the bunch lately. Amazingly, gas prices are still going down for some odd reason. It rained Friday night & for a little while on Saturday. Most of the time, though, the weekend's weather was really nice if a smidge too hot for most people.