Monkling’s Blog

No, I am not a pickpocket, nor did I have my pockets picked. This is about the Great Syrup Mystery. It is a mystery I have no idea how to solve. I attempted to solve it this morning but my efforts were in vain.

Here is the problem. No matter how careful I am, any time I eat breakfast out and order pancakes, my hands will magically feel sticky. This seems to be a phenomenon not merely occurring to me because Frank confirmed that this does happen to him, too.

This is why it’s a mystery. I don’t eat with my hands. I don’t drip syrup all over the utensils when I pour it on the pancakes. My aim isn’t that bad. I have absolutely no idea how the syrup manages to travel upwards, onto the fork and then cling to my hand. I think it has some weird anti-gravity abilities. That is the only explanation. How else do you explain syrup on the fork handle? There is absolutely no logical explanation to this. None.

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That’s us. Nothing at blackjack, roulette, video poker. Complete losers. To make up for it, we had Cuban food for dinner and now we’re heading off to see Dark Knight.

I was hoping for a huge jackpot so I could have the world’s best blog contest. We still have a chance tomorrow before heading home so come on, gang. Send some good karma.

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Last night we were watching the 100 m sprint. I said to Frank & Theresa, “That’s what I want to do. I don’t want to do any marathon. Those are too slow. I want to run really fast like that.” We watched the Jamaican who won the gold celebrate his achievement.

“I can run like that.”

“No, you need long legs,” Frank said. We all have abnormally short legs.

“Nah. All I need are those gold Pumas like he has,” I tell Frank. I then get up off the couch. My intent is to run as fast as I can from the living room into the dining room, just to show them how fast I can run. A thought shoots through my head that this might not be the wisest thing to do, considering my slowly healing foot ligament but I toss the thought aside.

As I put my foot down on the floor, it slips out from under me and I land on the floor. Hard. Damn, I knew it was a bad idea cleaning today! I think I was rolling on the floor, laughing hysterically for about 5 minutes before I could calm myself enough to get up and sit back on the couch. Theresa & Frank are asking me if I’m okay. Did I hurt anything. I start laughing again & lift up my left arm. “My wrist.”

Don’t worry. It’s fine. But I am rather disappointed that it seems I won’t ever be a sprinter.

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A King penguin was knighted in Norway. Seriously. You can read the story here.

Completely off the topic of penguins and knighthood, this past Friday was a Holy Day, the Assumption. In Italy it’s a holiday, meaning there were no Italian classes for the seminarians. I’m not sure if they all decided to do something for the 3 day weekend but my son did. Not that he shared this information with me. No, why should he tell his mother he is off in Florence? He did, however, tell his sister.

Being the pain in the ass I am, I then sent him an email saying something like, “Sure, go off without telling me.” He emailed me back with the phone number so we were able to talk to him today.

“So how do you like Florence?”
“It’s nice. I went to Pisa today. I wasn’t too impressed with it.”
“I hope you took lots of photos.”
“Yes.”
“Did you see the Tower?”
“Yes, but I didn’t go in it. They wanted 15 Euros.”
“Did you see David?”
“No. He’s in some school but there’s no lack of naked statues on the streets of Florence.”

I guess in a way, it’s good he’ll be there for 5 years because there’s no way we would get to see everything I’d like to see in just 1 visit.

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I’ve been watching a bit of it and then Katie posted on her blog about the Olympics & it got me to thinking. It’s not a new thought. I probably think about this every time the Olympics rolls around. If I were to pretend I was in some sort of great physical shape and if I was 30 years younger, what sport would I want to compete in at the Olympics?

It would have to be something fast. I have narrowed it down to running or speed skating. I think I’d lean more towards running because I don’t like those outfits the skaters have to wear.

Okay, I thought we had a break in the thunder & lightening but apparently not so I’m afraid you all will be deprived of a long post. Ever since my dad’s computer got fried in a lightening storm, I shut mine down at the first rumbles.

If anyone is obsessive about keeping up with the latest medal rankings, schedule, and all the rest - this site has everything. And it certainly should, considering it’s in China.

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So I’m sitting here, staring at the blank page, mumbling, “I have no idea what to write about.” Darling Daughter said I should write about our stupid, senile dog. (My words, not hers. She’s mad at me for writing that.)

We had some really severe thunderstorms. It was pouring buckets outside. Naturally that is when senile old dog decides he has to go out. Usually he doesn’t like going out when it’s raining. I guess he forgot he didn’t like the rain, what with having Dogzheimer’s & all. (Oh, you didn’t know there’s a canine version of Alzheimer’s?)

The routine is when he is outside and is ready to come in, he barks. You can tell the difference between that bark and when he is barking at a person or an squirrel. After a while, I heard the bark. This was his, “I want to come in now” bark.

He is not allowed in the front, due to our attempt to grow a lawn. Granted the venture isn’t working out too well but still, he’s not allowed in the front.

When I heard him barking, I opened the side door. No dog. I looked out the front to see if he somehow managed to get to the lawn. No dog. I looked out the back window. Not a black, furry, wet, old mutt in sight.

Meantime, it’s still pouring out. By this time, I’m just a tiny bit annoyed & wondering where the heck he is. I’m yelling out the side door for him. Hollering out the back window. There isn’t a dog anywhere. Then I spot him near the front on the opposite side of the house from where the side door is. He is trying to figure out how to get to the front, only he can’t because it’s barricaded with a couple of those big, white plastic chairs. Apparently he has completely forgotten that all he needs to do is turn around and go towards the back of the house.

I’m trying to figure out how to get dumb, senile dog in the house without getting soaked. I lean out a window that’s behind him, yell at him and point towards the back. He finally remembers how to get around to the door.

Meantime Theresa hears me yelling at her poor baby and comes downstairs just as the soaking wet dog comes in. I’m still furious with him so she comforts him while she dries him off, telling him how mean I am & not to pay any attention to me.

Did I mention this will be the last dog I ever own?

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Today Theresa and I went out to the bookstore. Normally I’m not a big fan of shopping but I do love bookstores. Today I was on a mission. I wanted Italian flash cards. This required going to a few different stores before I found them. At first, I only saw French ones. “What? How can they only have them in French? That’s discrimination!” Then I got the brilliant idea to look on the other side of the bookshelf.

Once we got home, I went through the cards & started pulling cards out & taping them everywhere. When Theresa walked into the kitchen, she said something like, “Gee, why don’t you just hit me in the face with flashcards?”

Frank, however, is another story. He just got home from work & is in the kitchen eating dinner. So far, no word about the flashcards. I’m guessing he didn’t notice them. Here, let’s see… “Honey, did you notice anything in the kitchen?”

Pause. Long pause. “Cake?”

I just walked in there. “Huh?” He pointed to an empty silicone bundt thingie. “No, that’s not a cake.” He then got annoyed with me so I came back here to type some more. I guess it could look like a cake.

A few minutes passed and he came in here. “Do you mean the notes?”
“Yes.”
“But they’ve been up for the past couple of days.”
“No, I had exactly 3 post-it notes with words. These are flash cards. There are way more of them.”

Everywhere you look, there are flash cards:

I plan on labeling everything in the house. Of course labeling the food gets tricky. If I use up a flashcard for the container of milk what happens when we use it? If I write on an apple with marker, can it still be eaten? How about eggs? Do you think the dog will let me put a sticker on him? And yes, I really did write the word ‘le forbici’ on my scissors.

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I found out that’s not true. You cannot die from chocolate. Yes there is a story in this (nod to Glorimom, who does not read my blog).

Last night I didn’t blog. You may have noticed. The reason is I was busy trying to find chocolate without having to go out. I have PMS and I needed chocolate. Badly. I looked in all the cabinets. Nothing. Nor in the pantry, down in the basement where we keep whatever we cannot fit up here (like the giant boxes from BJ’s Wholesale). Nothing in the basement refrigerator, nothing in the regular one.

Now maybe if this urge had taken over at a decent hour, I may have gone out to the store but I didn’t feel like dragging my butt out to the store at 9 p.m. Then, way in the back of the pantry, I found a little box of brownie mix. I looked at the box. It looked like it had seen better days. The box said, “Best if used by Jan. 1987.” Okay, maybe not that far back but let’s just say it was pretty old.

“Do you think I’ll die if I make this and eat it? Will I get poisoned?” I asked whoever might have been listening to me. Frank & Theresa were watching TV. I’m not quite sure if they didn’t hear me or if they were just ignoring me. Since I come out with some strange questions, I think my family just ignores me half the time.

I made the brownies. Theresa tasted a bit when they came out. “Why do they taste like there’s cornmeal in them?”

“I have no idea.” I tried a piece. “Nah, that doesn’t taste like cornmeal. I’m not sure what it does tastes like but it does have a chocolate taste to it and that’s good enough for me.”

There are no more brownies and I lived to tell the tale.

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I had a real conversation with someone who doesn’t speak a word of English. He asked me a question, I understood it and responded and then he said some more stuff that I understood. I am beyond excited. Hey, I have always said I am quite easy to please.

Late this afternoon, Frank called Steve. I always make him call, ever since the incident. Steve wasn’t in his room at the time & then Frank went out to the nursing home.

About an hour later, Steve called. “I only have 4 minutes on the card so you have to call me back.”
“But Dad isn’t here!” You can’t call his room directly. You have to ask for him.
“It’s okay. The guy answering the phone is very nice. You can do it.”

I decided to be brave and so I called the hotel. The man answered and said, “Good evening.” (In Italian, of course, which I understand perfectly well since it’s not all that complicated.

I rattled off my standard sentence, asking to speak to Steve. The man said something that had a number in it so I guessed he was asking about the room number. Again, not a problem because I can count all the way up to 30. Next he asked if I was Steve’s mother. Now naturally I didn’t get anything of what he was saying other than the word ‘mother’ so I was basically guessing that’s what he was asking me. I said, “Yes.” Yep, I know how to say that in Italian, too. Aren’t you all impressed? Of course if he was asking me something else with the word ‘mother’ in it, I was in trouble.

He then started telling me what a nice boy my son is. I think I recall the word ‘bravissimo’ & a bunch of other stuff that I know are good words. Once again, I had my one word ready because I do know how to say ‘thank you’ in Italian. I am just zipping along in learning Italian.

You wouldn’t think someone would be so thrilled to accomplish so little, eh?

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10 is my cut-off time. I am so tired but I absolutely refuse to go to bed now. It’s only 9. I wonder if sitting around most of the day doing nothing tires a person out. Apparently all that walking around on Wednesday & Thursday weren’t too good for my foot so I spent most of today on my butt.

Ah, but I didn’t waste the entire day. Nope. I went on Google Maps and made a map of Rome. Y’all can click on that link & see where Steve is going to live, where a few famous sites are & all sorts of stuff like that. It’s a work in progress so naturally I’ll need to spend a few more hours on it, adding links & when we go to visit Steve in January, I’ll put some photos up, too.

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