So, Italy won

It was a unexpected weekend of barbeques. My upstairs neighbor, he of the nightly 9pm vacuuming and all-day whiny dog, invited me to his barbeque Saturday morning. Except to do the semi-polite New England headnod greeting at each other Monday through Friday, I've never communicated with this guy in the 15 months I've lived in the apartment below him. Cussing his ass out every night for vacuuming at 9pm (sometimes much later) from the safty of my own apartment doesn't count as communication. Unless he's a telepath. Which he must not be because:

1) He's still vacuuming at 9pm (or later) every night and

2) he would be well aware of what I really think of him and his annoying whiny dog and so

3) he'd have moved by now - or gotten a restraining order.

Instead, he invites me to his barbeque. Now his party was to be right outside my back door, so it may be he felt he had to invite me. I don't know. I also don't know why I went, but I did. Nice people, good food, it wasn't a horrible time and I left (walked a whole ten feet back into my apartment) around 8pm. At which point my sister calls:

"Come over to my house tomorrow, I'm having a barbeque."

Oy. I just left one!

(No, I'm not a huge fan of barbeque's)

Our brother Matt and his wife spent the weekend in Mahattan, leaving their two kids with our parents. They were driving back to Maine (yeah, they drove from Maine to Connecticut then to NYC) on Sunday, leaving one child behind with Grandma and Grandpa for the week and taking the other one home. My sister reasoned that it would cause less "separation anxiety" on the three year old who was staying behind if she went home with Grandma and Grandpa before her parents left for home with her baby brother.

Yeah, I don't get it either.

But any excuse my sister can grab to feed people she takes. So... more barbeque on Sunday. I was late getting there because the upstairs neighbors party, which mostly finished by 8:30 Saturday night, revived itself at 10pm and went on until 2:30am.

Thankfully we cannot yet, even in Bush's America, be prosecuted for our thoughts.

Normally, I'm not a wuss about confronting rude people. But... I steamed instead of dealing with the problem. I think it's because it sounded like it was all men and they were pretty drunk I didn't want to go out there and tell them to buzz off. I was also praying that one of our other neighbors would do something about it.

So much for the power of prayer.

In any event, I didn't get to sleep until 3am or so and didn't get up until 10am. I had laundry and catbox cleaning to do before I could leave, which I had intended on doing Saturday until I went to the barbeque.

I know, I know, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. That's only one reason why I know I'm going to Hell. Provided it exsists. Which I doubt.

But I digress: I had promised my sister I would head over to her house early to help her out but I didn't arrive until 1pm - the start time to her party. Thankfully she wasn't pissed and when I finally explained why I was late she understood.

The 'rents left my sister's house around 3 and Matt and Kelly about 45 minutes later. My sister and I hung out on her backporch chatting for a while when all hell broke loose. You see, my sister lives slighty south of what used to be the Bridgeport version of "Little Italy". In our lifetimes it's become home to people from Southeast Asia and the southern Americas, not so much Italian any more. But you'd never know it from yesterday's insanity.

First there was the 35 minute (yes, I timed it) fireworks barrage just two blocks from my sister's house. Then we watched the Parade of Morons. Everyone with a mechanized vehicle drapped an Italian flag on it (covering windshields in many cases), or sat on top of cars, holding onto gigantic Italian flags, while some edjit drove them around at top speed. This impromptu parade went up and down the two major thoroughfares of that section of Bridgeport, covering several dozen blocks and snarling traffic to no end. What a disaster. There were a great many accidents but I don't think there were any fatalities. I suppose that's a good thing, but the morons have been left behind to further pollute the gene pool.

I'm a huge, life-long, diehard Yankee fan. Even if I lived in the Bronx I wouldn't carry on like most people do when their team win. Gloat, sure. Parade around honking my horn, driving over peoples lawns, getting into fights, causing accidents and generally behaving like an asshole? No.

I don't get it.

I don't understand people. The building explosion and collapse in Manhattan today? Apparently a suicide attempt. Suicide is one of the most selfish things any person can do, in my opinion. More often than not it leaves behind people who spend the rest of their lives beating themselves up for not stopping the suicide from happening. But this guy, in Manhattan, goes all out on the selfish meter: sets off a gas leak which blows up his house and injures 15 or more people in the process of trying to kill himself, yet doesn't die. He's reported to be burned over 70% of his body, which is a hellish injury to suffer from and I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

sigh

I guess my grumpy mood can be blamed on the heat and lack of sleep and being fed up with rude people in general. I tried trolling the 'net for some cheeriness, but it didn't work. Probably shouldn't have read Robert Scheer interview at Democracy Now.

We have lots of good documentaries now out on this. Greenwald’s Uncovered, I think, is an excellent one. The other one I saw the other night, Hijacking 9/11. There are many of these things. They're right. People have a right to question how this happened. But clearly, these people hijacked the government with a very narrow ideological view. They excluded the old establishment, the Brent Scowcrofts and that group. And they went in a very dangerous direction. He went along with them, because there is no there there. There is no George W. Bush. Here is a person who is totally disinterested in the world, uneducated. I’m not saying he's stupid. I don’t think he’s stupid. He’s crafty as hell, but he projects well on television. And that's the real big problem. He is the perfect "what, me worry?" president.

Even Molly couldn't cheer me up.

I need a vacation. Badly.