CARMELITE MEETING

This morning, I went to the Carmelite meeting in Wilkes_Barre. Unfortunately, Sister Catherine wasn't available although she was in the general area. It's been a nice day so far although the very early morning was a bit colder than I like it, with ice on all my windows. There was no traffic worth bothering to complain about. Everything went well at the meeting & we talked about everything we have to cover. Unfortunately Fr. Brocard & Rosemary's husband both died a while ago. I first met Fr. Brocard in the middle of the nineties in Middletown, N.Y. when I spent a week over there & in Tappan. We should be having elections next month. They want me to get a turn as either formation director or treasurer. Either way, I shall most certainly need quite a whole lot of help & training. I've never held any position with them so far. Let's give a veritable standing ovation to Mike Huckabee for telling off those characters who complain about the Confederate flage. I'm most certainly no rebel or good old boy, but these desperate attempts by the liberals to run our lives have absolutely got to stop or we'll for sure be living in a left wing police state.

SNOW LAST NIGHT

Last night there was a bit of a snowstorm. I parked my car in the driveway so I could count on no trouble getting out today. It wasn't even the least bit bad, just snow all over my car. When I went to the gas station on Shoemaker Ave. I got ten dollars worth of gas. The woman accidentally gave me $10.33 worth. Prices have gone surprisingly down lately. Instead of just the Citizen's Voice I got the N.Y. Times too. That's one of the papers we conservatives enjoy scoffing at. I asked for the first pump & when I got to it another guy, with a big gas_guzzler, had already beaten me to it. Today a guy at the library asked me for help so he could save some pictures he found on the internet. I sent him to one of my very favorite sites for that kind of thing. Last night I read some more of that Jane Austen book. It's going very fast. Today's the big day for the Friday dance. Lately, besides junk food, I've also been going on quite a cracker binge. Usually I end up eating them with butter, cheese or peanut butter. I don't suppose it's all that good of a habit unfortunately. Eddie, to my undying chagrin, sent me an e mail reminding me of both the year I got out of high school & the year I turned thirty. Tomorrow morning is my monthly Carmelite meeting.

NICE DAY SO FAR

Uncle Frankie came over yesterday & spent a few hours rambling on with my parents about the olden days. Of course, we got quite a load of all the never_ending hardships of yore. Those accounts of generations gone by always seem to have a lot of extra painful maudlin details added with each successive re_telling. I can tell the average story of that ilk in as few words as possible: Everything was harder, people were more decent, etc. The weather's still cold but at least it's not snowing lately. Saturday I have to go to another Carmelite meeting. I just found out, on xanga, that the FDA has decided that cloned meat is safe for consumers to eat. That's pretty weird but I should suppose it's not all that gross compared to the mad scientists who literally want to clone people. I just got an e mail from Mary from my school days. We knew each other from the seventh grade through high school. She's just one example of the kinds of characters who can wander back into people's lives because of the internet. I heard on TV last week that the internet only even exists because of the hippie era of the sixties. That makes sense because few things were more important back then than the kind of rampant, insane self_expression that can now be done with the internet. I just wish everybody would wise up & get a spell_check.

COLD DAY

There were flurries this morning but all worked out well. Yesterday I finished quite a bit more of that Jane Austen book. Mary Anne & Aunt Lauren called yesterday. Uncle Frankie showed up for a while with his very favorite pasta recipe. I just found out that January 4 was national spaghetti day. That's very nice but of all the pastas I know of, spaghetti's always struck me as among the most unbearably boring. Lasagne, though, has always been absolutely my very favorite food of all time. I've been noticing on my official trusty birthday list that we have quite a few this month. Happy day to all who qualify. Unfortunately, I've never really been all that good at sending cards. It's just a bad habit I have of forgetting things like that.

SNOWING

Last night it snowed. It didn't amount to much but the ice on my car was so bad it took me an extra few minutes to pry my door open this morning. The paper machine at outside St. Joseph's wouldn't open either. It started snowing again sometime between 8:00 & 9:00. I noticed it when I got out of Mass. I finished "War & Peace" & started the substantially shorter "Northanger Abbey" last night. Jane Austen's always been quite a favorite of mine. National Popcorn Day, in honor of the Super Bowl, is celebrated some time during the second half of this month. The only catch is that no one has any idea of exactly when it is. As always, I eat entirely too much junk food. Yesterday I ate a whole bunch of M&M's. They taste really good but my weight will get out of control if I don't wise up. Coffee's yet another destructive addiction of mine. I'm sure each of these things most probably has it's annual national day too. I watched another one of those crime stories on A&E yesterday. They're really morbid & warped. Lately I've been finding them really interesting.

HOLY NAME SOCIETY MEETING

Last night was the latest of our monthly HNS meetings. Fr. Walsh didn't show up because of his niece's wedding in Hershey. Rocco wasn't there either. Most of our regulars were there, including Jerry who made the chili. There were hooch & junk food too. It was time for the official changing of the guard. Believe it or not, I'm now down to my last thirty pages of "War & Peace". I'll not be reading it again for quite a while. I just saw the most surprising thing when I first got here a while ago. Two of the regulars got here the same time I did. They seem to be in the habit of doing some of their work on the computers. One of them was wearing_ugh!_a short sleeved shirt & tie!. Neither of them had a coat on. They were both dressed for spring. It's bitter cold with sleet outside. Cold weather has always gotten me crazy. They promised us snow last night but it amounted to nothing. Today it may accumulate. I'm not looking forward to it, but I know I'll have to get a haircut pretty soon at Rose's on Eighth Street. Another dreaded yet inevitable chore is my inspection. That's due this month too. Over the past week, I watched a lot of shows about the sixties & haunted houses. Of cours, I've always been really interested in things like that.

QUIET WEEKEND

Yesterday, after all the lousy weather we started out with, turned out to be quite nice for most of the day. Nothing much has been happening lately, which is always a very good deal. Mary Anne called last night. I didn't answer the phone until the fourth ring, so the answering machine went on. Bridget has been feeling quite a bit better lately. She even went to a slumber party. I read more of "War & Peace". I'm really getting down to the very end. Uncle Frankie came over last night. There are no high school football games this time of the year. On Xanga, somebody asked, as today's featured question, if it's possible to love an animal as much as a family member. Ever since I was only a kid, I've always found it rather odd that many people claim it's entirely healthy to have that much love for a mere animal. I've never even liked animals the least bit anyway but even I can understand if somebody else does. It gets me more than a smidge on the shocked side, though, when somebody goes pathologically crazy over them. The occasional grappling with all sorts of eccentricities, neuroses, etc. is one thing but that's just plain weird to treat an animal as an equal.

BITTER MISERABLE DAY

So far, today has been icy cold & rainy. I'm always insanely cold anyway. Days like this get me crazy. Yesterday was much nicer. I just found out about a new law that, although it won't affect me, is still bad. All Americans born after Dec. 1, 1964 are now required by law, thanks to the geniuses at Homeland Security, to get more secure driver's licenses. It's supposedly an attempt to protect us against terrorism. Are people's civil rights now at stake even more than they usually are in this country anyway? I never agree with the A.C.L.U. about anything but this sounds like a mighty intense invasion of privacy. I only have a little while to go yet of that Tolstoy book. I've never really had the patience to be able to put up with any one book for so long. It's quite odd for me to have to remember that people have been known to RE.READ the thing! The weekend is most probably going to be, as far as I know, quite a nice, typical one. Nothing eventful, to the best of my knowledge, should be going on. I'm a fairly sedentary kind of fellow so that suits me just fine. Before the end of the month, I shall have to get my car inspected over at Jiffy Lube.

GAVE BLOOD

Yesterday I went over to Plains to give blood. I was originally scheduled to give a double red donation but the lady who was in charge insisted that my iron count was too low so I was only allowed to give a normal donation. Maybe it's because I only ate pizza, with no meat, on Tuesday. Maybe my iron shortage accounts for the fact that I'm always so much colder than everybody else. I usually associate iron problems with womenfolk. After I gave blood, I ate pepperoni pizza, cookies & cupcakes with a cup of coffee. I got a t.shirt but accidentally left it there. There were also the inevitable contest entry & coupons for a Wendy's shake & Egg McMuffin. The place were very crowded but the only familiar face was Rocco, who was one of the volunteers. The place was right by the ice cream place Vinnie, Anthony & I went to last July. Later I went to the rectory of my church & explained to Denise, the secretary, that she appeared to have left me off the lector schedule. There was no telephone number for the others to get in touch with me. All worked out quite well. I even read some more of "War & Peace" last night.

YET ANOTHER BLOOD DRIVE

For the past couple of days, the weather has been unseasonably warm. Early this morning it was pushing its way up toward sixty degrees, rainy but in a nice way. Last night I got a call from a woman who wanted me to give a double red cell donation today. My appointment is at 2:00 p.m at the Waterfront Banquet Facility in Plains. I've never been there before. This morning, when I went to 9:00 Mass at O.L.Sorrows, I noticed that Denise never left me my new lector schedule. She very conscientiously left a schedule for everybody else, but mine wasn't there. I told Fr. Walsh about it, so he gave me one of the extras & recommended that I ask her about it later today. Rocco isn't available in the morning anymore because of his volunteer work with Meals on Wheels so I lector every day. Yesterday I ate around a half dozen slices of pizza for supper. Between that & all Uncle Frankie's & Fran's candy, I'll have to spend 2008 in a pair of pants with a sixty inch waistline. Too much food, enjoyable though it may be, gets me stark raging nuts after a while.