CARMELITE SALE

Today's the big sale the Carmelites from Middletown, N.Y. are having at the Little Flwer Manor in Wilkes_Barre. It starts at 11:30. Unfortunately, I didn't know it started that late. I got there at around 8:15 & found out from the receptionist at the desk. My parents are leaving later to go to Dotty's party. It starts early in the afternoon. My father & Uncle Frankie went to the big game last night. Their team won. The only catch was that my father fell & got sort of hurt but not drastically. I just found out from the Seattle Times that the grand jury returned an indictment in a grey whale killing. In a country where people consider abortion & euthanasia to be rights, we're going crazy over a bunch of whales?! Yesterday I watched Reba McEntire's TV show. Kelly Clarkson played a really pretty, bubbly lunatic who always bounces of the walls. In other words, Kelly Clarkson played Kelly Clarkson. I don't usually watch currently famous TV shows, but that's one of the ones I can handle. All the characters have insanely odd first names: Brock, Van, Reba & Cheyenne aren't really names in any legitimate sense of the concept. They're like those soap opera names that have, unfortunately, become so popular lately. Happy birthday to Steve in far_away California. I haven't gotten a chance to see him since we were kids, but it still nice to keep in touch. Alas, we must bid a totally fond ttfn to daylight savings time starting tomorrow.

NICE BUT COLD

Today, so far, has been rather a nice day, fog free, but a little cold. There was ice on my windows but I could handle it. Tomorrow is Steve's birthday. That's Cathleen's brother, not my brother_in_law. The birthday boy Steve lives in California. Tomorrow will be a very busy day for one & all. Dotty's party starts early in the afternoon. She lives in Lindenhurst but it will be in Pa. The Carmelite fund raiser will be going on most probably from early in the morning. I always seem to have a pretty good time at those things. I have to stop & get gas between now & then. I'm not looking forward to the insanely high prices. Gas around here these days is close to three dollars a gallon just for regular. In New York, by now, things must be absolutely obscene. To cheer up for a while, though, we can always do a right hearty Friday dance. Cathleen & I, in honor of Steve's birthday, are now rambling on about death, time, etc. Aren't those quite the thrilling subjects to tackle? I'm still reading those books quite voraciously. I think I get many of my headaches from reading too much though. My eating habits aren't all that much to brag about either, to my chagrin. I think I'd better wise up & start eating at least something in the morning to avoid all the aggravation.

NEW MONTH

Well, I can see that it's getting closer toward the really dreary part of the year. Autumn is finally kicking in on our local leaves with all those groovy colors slowly making their inevitable appearance. For some reason, there were hardly any Trick_or_Treaters yesterday, which, alas, leaves a bit of candy for me to continue pigging out on. When I was a kid, Halloween was all hyperactive & sloppy. On Saturday morning, the third, the Carmelites will be having a religious goods sale on the grounds of the Little Flower Manor. That's the day my parents are supposed to show up at the surprise eighty fifth birthday party Dotty's granddaughter Kelly is planning for her. Dotty's one of our Lindenhurst connections. Everybody's time will be spoken for this weekend. I woke up with a headache in the middle of the night again. It must be because of all the candy & reading. That Marcel Proust is enough to get anybody worked up. As always I took a headache pill & it went away fast. Uncle Frankie, of course, made sure he showed up for a while yesterday.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Michael & Terry's daughter, Tara, delivered Tyler David, weighing in at a whopping nine lbs., one oz. yesterday at exactly 8:00 p.m. The kid has no hair but he's very healthy. Congratulations to our very young New Jersey grandparents. We wish a very happy birthday to Jim in California, & Earl in (maybe?) Puerto Rico. I haven't gotten a chance to see Earl since we were kids in our early teens. Up until around my twelfth birthday I lived in Queens. He was a really good friend of mine over there. Upon moving to Lindenhurst, I met Jim, whose sister, Cathleen, started the now legendary Friday dance. Last night, Aunt Lauren & Doug came over with the three kids. Michelle was working. Benjamin, the youngest of the brood, was dressed in his fireman's suit for Halloween. Of course, Uncle Frankie showed up yesterday, fully equipped with a seriously fattening Russian candy bar. As usual, this morning was ultra hyper foggy & bitter icy cold, only to get much better later in the day. The mountains, unlike our valley, have very nice autumn foliage, will all the colors associated with the fall season. I'm still reading that book about Marcel Proust. I have two novels of his, but unfortunately, I haven't gotten around to reading either of them entirely. I tried reading "Remembrance of Things Past" quite a while ago & somehow got only halfway through it & never finished the rest. It's now known more commonly ast "In Search of Lost Time." I have a copy of "Jean Santeuil" too but I've never read it either.

ICY TWICY

This morning, like yesterday, was a block of ice mixed with fog galore. The autumn effect has yet to kick in with the foliage, though. Here it is insanely well into the season & we still have green summery leaves, trees, etc. instead of all the distinctive fall colors. I got kicked out of here yesterday because Pittston's library's closed these days & it gets really crowded in here. The librarian's still out sick so they still have to close early every day. Lately I've been really plowing through that book about Proust. He was into some awfully seriously tacky kinds of stuff. A couple of nights ago, I watched "Fear Strikes Out", the old movie, starring Karl Malden & Anthony Perkins, about the Red Sox' Jimmy Piersall. The Great Pumpkin is on his way & tomorrow is his big day. All the decorations are out, interesting & otherwise. Tomorrow is Jimmy & Earl's birthday. I knew them when we were kids in the really old days. My memory for extremely seriously odd, obscure facts & figures like that is absolutely to boggle the mind. Tequila Shot, KrissyKrissyKrissy's sister, sent me an email yesterday on Myspace asking for some information about an extremely seriously old John Lennon song. I should most certainly be counted on to know, now, shouldn't I? Yesterday I went to the weekly St. Therese novena in Wilkes_Barre. The traffic, as always, was an absolute nightmare of stop & go congestion. At least one of our Carmelites should be able to make it on a regular basis. Unfortunately, one of my eyeglass lenses keeps popping out of my frame on a regular basis these days. I'm getting more than a smidge sick & tired of it by now. I got my Council 794 Tidings yesterday. Congratulations to our Worthy Grand Knight Gene & his wife Rita on their silver wedding anniversary & Joe & Karen on a whopping thirtieth. The scary thing is that all these characters are around my age.

ICE ICE BABY

Today's been an unusually cold day so far. I was forced to spend a few extra minutes this morning warming up my car & scraping ice from the windows. I finally finished the Emily Dickinson book & have moved on to one about Marcel Proust, who was a few decades younger than she. He was, of course, yet another literary oddball. Like Dickinson_she was at least a very definite maybe about this_he was a homosexual. Also like her, he was more than a little on the religiously lopsided side. It appears that all creative characters have all sorts of obnoxious setbacks to have to contend with. Uncle Frankie came over for a while each day of the weekend. It's good to see that he's not always stranded at home anymore with his medical problems. Today, though, the librarian's home sick. The St. Jude novena is over. One day, Fr. Polmounter showed up. That was good. He used to be their pastor.

RAINING MOOCHO

Last night it was extremely bitter cold & pouring out. Today it's warm & pouring out. A lot of the Carmelites are going to Middletown, N.Y. this morning for a day of recollection. Somehow I didn't end up going. I went to the St. Jude novena last night in spite of the miserable weather. The pews were jam packed. That area's still a little tricky for me to have to drive through, even under the very best of circumstances. I finally finished the Emily Dickinson book. Now I can finally move on to something else. The author claims that Dickinson & Walt Whitman were the nineteenth century's greatest poets. Whitman's always struck me as a boorish, self_obsessed narcissist feeb. "When Lilacs Last in the Door_yard Bloom'd" is really good, though, especially for Lincoln fans. "Leaves of Grass" bored the hell out of me. Robert Browning is about my favorite of the poets of that era. His characters & imagery have always struck me as quite impressive. A few years ago I even read Maisie Ward's biography of him. I have all sorts of collections, anthologies, etc. of poetry. Hey, the Beatles mooched literary references from Shakespeare & Thomas Dekker to Lewis Carroll & Edward Lear. I don't bother to watch current TV shows but I found out that "The Office", which is set in Scranton, is having a convention over there pretty soon. That should give our area at least a certain amount of much_needed hep. I suppose it will have to be cancelled because of the miserable weather, but the big football game is supposed to be today.

BLOCK OF ICE

It's been exceptionally cold so far this morning. Last night I went to the St. Jude novena once again. Msgr. Joseph Quinn was in charge. The predictably large crowd showed up. I'm getting extremely close to the end of that Emily Dickinson book. Yesterday I read so much, though, that I woke up very early today with a headache. Fortunately, a pill took care of that. Uncle Frankie came over for a while yesterday. All has been working out well so far for him & Fran. He went out & got pizza yesterday. Today we shall all have to do a right groovy Friday dance for Cathleen. It's all because of her that we even have our Friday dance. I was just reading, on the Conservative Voice's website, that Reed R. Heustis, Jr., a columnist of theirs, intensely dislikes the Beatles, qualifying him, perhaps, as the only person who has ever been able to make that claim. He cites, in particular, John Lennon's anti_Christian viewpoints. While I most certainly agree entirely with his reminder that God, by definition, absolutely has to come first, & that Christianity has no possible rival for its truth claims, I 've always succumbed to the Beatles' on an entirely show business level. Hey, talent is talent. Today the library people will be throwing a Halloween party for all the little tykes who want to come. It should be lots of fun. I should most certainly hope for everybody's sake the big game works out tonight. It should be unbearably cold though.

ODDLY SWELL WEATHER LATELY

Tomorrow is Cathleen's birthday. Her brother Jim's is on Halloween & her other brother Steve's is November 3. Her brother Brian's was October 2. Their sister Gael is the only one with a distinctive birthday. Hers is March 30th. Uncle Frankie came over for a while yesterday. He seems to be recuperating fairly well so far. I made sure I went over to the St. Jude novena last night. Fr. Richard Loch was there. As always it went quite well. The weather stunk all day and all night but this morning it's back to unseasonably nice. Cindi, from Newblog, has just told me that it's Pablo Picasso's birthday. I've never liked him. His art was part of the modernist side of things. Beatle Paul McCartney, in 1973, sang about him on the "Band On the Run" album. His full name was: Pablo Diego Jose' Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Maria de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santissima Trinidad Clito Ruiz y Picasso. I read forty pages of that Emily Dickinson book yesterday. Soon I shall have finished it. Then I can move onto something else. I'm reading other things, a little at a time, now anyway. Unfortunately, I just found out that Fr. Mark Garrow, MIC, died on October 19. He was the Marians' former Superior General. I met him at least once in the nineties, at their scholasticate in Washington, D.C. when I wanted to see if I should join them.

MAJOR RAINSTORM

Yesterday was rainy all day even into the night. As of the last time I went out today, it was icy cold, foggy & pouring, a generally miserable day. Of course, we need the rain & cold is much more consistent with weather for this time of year anyway. All has been going fairly well for me so far. Last night I went back to the St. Jude novena. Msgr. Joseph Kelly was in charge. It was the pastor's birthday. Fr. Walsh showed up this morning for Mass, so I suppose he's been feeling better lately. I've still been reading that Emily Dickinson book. Large as it is, I now have fewer than one hundred pages left. Yesterday, I made sure I watched some of those news reports on the California fires. There were bulletins all day. Things like that really get lots of coverage around the entire country. Even the governor was forced to get something done about it. Halloween is coming up very soon. We can count on all sorts of annoying circumstances with traffic, young uns, etc. I haven't bothered to don a costume or go trick or treating in very many years. In my days as a yound hep cat I could be quite the Halloween party animal but now it just doesn't seem to interest me as much. Jerry from Lindenhurst just sent me my latest Holy Name Society newsletter. Of course, I see they've already started their annual turkey raffle. I always used to be quite active with that kind of thing.