2004-05-25 - 11:53 p.m.

Okay, I'll ge the bad news out of the way first:

Holy Trinity German Catholic Church is among the churches being closed as part of the "reconfiguration" process going on in the Archdiocese of Boston. I call it Archbishop Shawn "Wussy" O'Malley lummoxing things up for us Catholics. Mind you, I still love Christ and I still love the culture of the Catholic faith, but I canNOT stand the bureaucratic foo-fa-raw that has crept into the Church, like spyware infecting a computer system. Part of me wants to pull back just so I don't have to hear about any more church closings or other bureaucratic garbage. I think Christ agrees with me that this faith He gave to us was not supposed to become just another bundle of offices and paperwork like everything else in this modern age, so I honestly hope and pray He comes back for the final house-cleaning very, very soon. It just seems that whatever I love dearly winds up being snatched away from me, no matter what it is. It's like losing a home or being deported. Well, I refuse to go down without a fight. I'll find a way to get to Boston on Sunday and if they wanna close it, well, they'll have to get past the Matrix Refugee, the crazy, black trench-coated girl with the fists of steel in the velvet gloves, only this time the gloves come off!!!

Okay, anger out...

Needless to say, the party went *GREAT*. A few people didn't make it, but my dad's buddy Joe Bassett (who reminds me wierdly of Jerry Orbach, late of "Law & Order") and his wife Lona were there: she's into antiques, so she was poking around the dining room, examining it. The gas fireplace wasn't lit when we got there (they'd shut it off for the season), but it was such a cold, raw night that we asked one of the waiters if we could light it. So a couple minutes later, another waiter came and lit the gas for us: in his words, "And the bartender said, 'Let there be fire!'"

The piece-de-resistance came after the party: we're stepping out into the parking lot behind the Inn, and we're looking for the big silver Lincoln Towncar we drove in (which Dad's buddy Joe Alpino loaned him for the night: next best thing to a limousine!). But all we can see in the lot is this little white Mustang convertible that hadn't been there before... Then these headlights shine into the lot as the Lincoln pulls up. And then we can see there's a big white bow on the roof of the car, and there's "Happy Anniversary!" banners all over it. Norman's got the Lincoln, which he was driving back to town: he'd driven the convertible to the Inn and my dad had ducked out to decorate it during the party. Too bad it was such a cool night, we could have put the top down and had a really nice drive home. But, summer is just around the corner, so there'll be plenty of convertible-driving nights to come!

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