I woke up at Three AM to go to Holy Hour at Four down at my church. Then I came home, started watching cricket, The first of the The Ashes Test Match series between England and Australia. I can honestly say I don’t have a dog in this fight. Both sides are great, with superb individual talents on both sides.

Then around 7:40 I left for First Saturday Mass at the Abbey. The football players at the affiliated Catholic high school were practicing. Football season is four weeks away, whether we like it, don’t like it, or just plain don’t care.

Mass was celebrated by a priest who seemed oddly “out of it”. I think he was OK. I had never been at one of his Masses before and I suspect this was just his style. He was old, in this case, about my age.

Back home for breakfast and more cricket. Then tiredness hit and I finally went to bed.

After sleeping a bit, I woke up, brewed some coffee and am now watching some film footage of Tokyo, in 1934 on YouTube. Japan was a police state, run by a military junta. It had seized Manchuria three years earlier. The Sino-Japanese War, the Asian precursor to the Second World War, would begin in 1937. Peaceful times, I suppose. There are scenes of Japanese military close order drill with young boys in samurai costume. In all likelihood, these children would be dead within eleven years. The vignette was creepy and simultaneously poignant. Wasted lives on display.

J is coming home from work. It is ex-wife #1’s birthday. I sent her a birthday text.

I feel like I have done enough today already.