NEW LADY AT CARMELITE MEETING

This morning I showed up at our monthly Carmelite meeting in Wilkes_Barre. We're always complaining that we haven't been able to get any new members but today we got a really interesting surprise. Theresa showed up. She was originally in another fraternity. It should be interesting having her around because she has a degree in theology. I am now the formation director for our fraternity. There was a little confusion because something got messed up over in Middletown, N.Y. Someone appears to have misplaced some paperwork of mine. I'm officially classified as an isolate from my old N.Y. fraternity. Unfortunately, Mary Anne is still very ill. At four o'clock this afternoon my parents & Uncle Frankie are supposed to get together for supper for St. Patrick's Day. It's also the Feast of St. Joseph. Fran's not available though, because her broken gam has been getting her crazy lately. The weather so far today has been reasonably nice. Surprisingly, it was around forty degrees at 7:30. Yesterday started out a little too cold but got nicer as the day went on. Maria, who's still recuperating, called my mother last night. I have to be the lector at 5:00 p.m. Mass in a few hours. Palm Sunday is quite a grind, as I can still remember from O.L.P.H.

ST. PATRICK'S DAY BECKONS

Tomorrow is the big day, somewhat early this year. It's also the transferred Feast of St. Joseph. Today, of course, the Friday dance is an Irish jig. I shall be at the big Carmelite meeting all morning. I made quite sure I answered all the questions in that book. They always have such nice coffee, tea, juice & pastries ready for us at the meetings. Maybe tomorrow they will have green things. Last night I showed up at the novena again. Hillary Clinton showed up over in Scranton a few days ago. I absolutely dread the very idea of her in the White House. Of course, I'm most certainly not even the least bit favorably impressed by Obama or McCain either. I made sure I went over to Turkey Hill in Exeter for gas yesterday. The prices have gone up quite a whole lot. The young uns are having their Easter party in the library right now. I've been known to go to Easter parties over the years. One year I even played the Easter Bunny at my old KofC council. Lately everybody's been rambling on about N.Y.'s deposed governor Spitzer. The guy who's replaced him is black, a first for the Empire State, & blind.

NICE QUIET DAY

It's a cold day today but there's no rain, snow or anything like that. Let's just hope it stays this nice for St. Patrick's Day on Saturday. Everybody will be eating corn beef & cabbage for the big day. On Tuesday I got yet another call from one of the Red Cross ladies. She wanted me to sign up for another donation. I ended up agreeing to go to Edwardsville on the eighteenth to give blood. Believe it or not, a few days ago I found out about a guy who's given quite a few hundred apheresis donations over the course of the past two decades. I've only done that once before & it would drive me nuts having even to think of something like that ever again. Yesterday I made sure I finished the rest of "8 1/2" & read more of "The Violent Bear It Away". Last night I went to the St. Joseph's novena at the seminary too. There was another Passionist there. On Saturday morning I have another Carmelite meeting to attend. I'll have to make sure I get all my homework done. They made me the formation director & I'll be in big trouble if I renege on my new responsibility. It's fairly easy since it's virtually just one big open_book test anyway.

SNOW AGAIN

I woke up this morning to a very light snowfall. Yesterday went fairly well. I watched "Dr. Doolittle" & around half of "8 1/2". They're both sixties classics. Unfortunately, I ended up staying up until pert near midnight. I've never been a fan of late nights. As usual, I made sure I went to the St. Joseph's novena. Somehow I mistakenly got the impression that the priest was Father Jones. He told me he wasn't though. I still have no idea who he was. By now, I've been getting to be a real pro at making that trip. All my New Yorker connections must be aghast at their governor's latest antics. It's making all the news headlines lately. The ex_wife of New Jersey's governor was on TV this morning explaining what happened when he got into similar trouble recently. The Osmonds were on Oprah Winfrey yesterday. Lately they've been showing up constantly. It's as if they're as famous now as they were when I was in school. It's more than a little on the weird side watching a bunch of grey_haired grandparents singing those cute_as_a_bug's_ear teeny bopper songs. It just doesn't get any more bizarro than that.

ST. JOSEPH'S NOVENA

Last night I went back to the St. Joseph's novena at the Oblates' seminary. Fr. Joe Jones, C.P. was there. I met him once before when I tried to see, a while ago, if I should join the Passionists. My parents went shopping for a few hours yesterday. When they got home, Uncle Frankie pulled in right behind them. Yesterday I finished "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea". I started re_reading Flannery O'Connor's "The Violent Bear It Away". There's a truly ignorant couple here right now. They & their son come in quite frequently & talk out loud & make fools of themselves. Rules against cell phones & anti_social behavior in general apparently don't seem to apply to them. I suppose we should feel a bit sorry for the big mouths of the world because they're apparently more than a little on the simple minded & stupid side. I just found out yesterday that Eliot Spitzer, N.Y's governor, is in big trouble because of a prostitution scandal. Because I lived in New York until only a couple of years ago, I can't help wanting to keep track of it all. I decided to give the Wachovia Arena a call to find out about the exact details of the job fair. There were all sorts of buttons & numbers to push. They advertised things for everybody from the Harlem Globetrotters to the Blue Man Group but I couldn't find any reference to what I wanted.

WELCOME BACK, DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME

Well it's back finally & at last. I've never been able to stand all the early sunsets of the cold weather season. Yesterday, very early in the morning, my mother & Uncle Frankie went to visit Fran for the day. They got home after I made coffee. I got some nice home made cookies after Mass at O.L. Sorrows on Saturday night. St. Joseph's sold pierogies. It was my turn to lector at 5:00 Mass on Saturday. Last night we showed up for a Holy Name Society meeting at 7:30. Jerry made a major favorite of his, weinies & sauerkraut. There was junk food too. Of course there were also Scotch, beer & soda. I always pig out at those things unfortunately. Over the weekend I watched "A Man for All Seasons" & "Dr. Zhivago". I try to keep as knowledgeable as possible about the sixties classics. Mary Anne called yesterday. She just wanted to make sure she got a chance to say hello. I'm confused entirely. Although I could have absolutely sworn the Wachovia job fair was next week I just found out that the nepa job site is really supposed to have it next month. I'll have to ask on the phone about exactly what's really going on.

RAINY WEEKEND SO FAR

It started raining yesterday. Last night I tried to get to the Oblates' seminary on Rte. 315 for the second night of the novena. After I stopped for gas, I absent_mindedly went onto the road to 315 that leads to nowhere near the right place. Instead of bothering to stick with it in the miserable weather, I went home. I've really been putting a lot of books into my shelfari site over the course of the past week. I'm still reading that Jules Verne book. On my way home last night, I made sure I turned on WVIA, the classical station on my radio. That's where they play all the artsy_fartsy music & intellectual stuff. The were interviewiing Richard Dawkins, the famous English atheist. He was touting his new book, "The God Delusion". Of course, I most certainly disagree with him entirely. He seems quite determined to stick to his side of things. I've seen all those atheist on public access TV shows. They really like to spread the big word. When you think about it, they're really the only ones who bother to go public about the supposed ABSENCE of something. Madeline Murray O'Hair & her family were like that too. Many people don't believe in the existence of penguins but I've yet do see anybody devote his entire life to convincing people that penguins don't exist.

I CAN NOT HAS CHEESEBURGER

Usually, the priest warns us about it at Mass the weekend before. This year, though, I heard it from the library lady. The time change is, once again, upon us. It's my very favorite time of the year. Yesterday I saw, again, "Bandolero", the old sixties movie with Dean Martin, Raquel Welch & Jimmy Stewart. I can remember having seen it in a movie theater in my old neighborhood when I was a kid in Queens. All I remember of that time, in the Fair Theater, was that it starred Raquel Welch & Dean Martin, was a western & there was groovy music in the background. Today there's no meat because it's a Friday. The dancing still goes on quite well though. I got my new lector schedule at O.L.Sorrows this morning. Last month they plum forgot me & I ended up having to get one of the extra copies & ask Denise for help. The first night of the St. Joseph novena, at the Oblates' seminary, was last night. A Passionist priest from Scranton is there each night. I made sure I showed up. All those roly poly mountains between here & Rte. 315 get me pert near plum loco. By now I'm already quite used to them though.

SUPPOSED TO SNOW AGAIN

I overheard the library lady telling people that it's supposed to rain or snow over the weekend. Today is a reasonably nice day though my car windows were absolutely covered with ice when I first left. That always gets me quite crazy. Last night I went to 7:00 Mass at St. Anthony of Padua in Exeter. I made the mistake of walking on the grass for a few minutes. It was absolutely saturated from all the flooding. I found out recently that pretty soon there will be a job fair at the Wachovia Arena in Wilkes_Barre. I'll be there with my resumes. I've been to a few of those things so far. They're always really interesting & informative. They're most certainly much more interesting than trying to find openings at those companies through normal channels. They even like to give out a lot of souvenirs. I noticed today that it's Michelangelo's birthday. He was born in 1475. I'm quite good at collecting trivia like that. Mary Anne called yesterday. All has been going as well as usual over there in Long Beach. Nothing much distinctive seems to be happening lately over there.

WEATHER STILL VERY BAD

It rained miserably yesterday & this morning. My car, surprisingly, wasn't even the least bit flooded although there's been much flooding in the general area. I got a call yesterday from St. Joseph's. The secretary asked me to go over at noon today to pick up my Christian Prayer book. I accidentally left it in a pew yesterday. Fran called a little while ago. She most certainly isn't all that crazy about her broken gam. I told her about all the trouble I was forced to put up with because of my arm in the early nineties. I was much younger then than she is now. To this very day, I still have all sorts of weird aches & pains because of it. Last night, I finished watching "2001: A Space Odyssey". I was forced to stay up until pert near midnight, which I can't stand. I've never been a fan of staying up late, but to my chagrin that's how it turned out. Insomnia is only one of my myriad curses. The movie has all the psychedelic trappings in it that you could expect from a sixties milestone. I've been plowing quite well through that Jules Verne book too. Karen, according to Mary Ellen & Vinnie, has been doing reasonably well lately. She's still having a very hard time of things though. The cousins have been very active lately with all sorts of e mail messages. It's very nice that we can have such an interesting time keeping in touch.