Monkling’s Blog

You know how when you’re a kid and it’s winter and you step on part of the sidewalk that is icy, you’d deliberately slide on it? (I am using the word kid as an example because yes, I would still do that sort of thing.)

Last night we were out walking the dog. As we’re winding our way back towards the house, I feel my feet slip out from under me as though I just stepped on a sheet of ice. Now considering it was 75 degrees out last night, obviously that isn’t what happened. I managed to keep my balance and not fall on my ass as I walked along wondering what just happened. My sneakers were slippery. I could slide along the street and naturally I demonstrated this for Frank.

“I think a car must have been leaking oil,” I told him as I slide along for a few steps.

“I was wondering what that was.” He had stepped in it, too. I stopped to examine the bottom of my sneakers, just to make sure whatever we had stepped in wasn’t something really gross. Nope, nothing noticeable on there. I turned around to check the street where we had just passed. Nothing to be seen there, either.

Since my sneakers were still slippery, I did a few more little sliding steps, partly because I’m an overgrown kid and partly to rub off whatever remained of what I hope was just motor oil. A group of kids carrying skateboards passed by us. They had to think I was a bit nuts but luckily it was dark so I couldn’t see their expressions and hopefully they would never recognize me in the daytime.

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But wait. Before we get to that, I want to say that Frank picked the winner. I had no part in it. I wrote down all the GPS potential names without telling him who picked what.

The winner is… (long, dramatic pause) Gladys.

Now personally I don’t think it’s quite fair for my sister to win because ya’ll can think I was sending psychic messages to Frank to pick her so here’s what we’re gonna do. She is the official winner and she gets not 1 but 2 bars of famous Monkling homemade soap. But I am going to give out consolation prizes. Everyone who entered gets a bar of soap (if they want it). Even Peggy.

So - send me your mailing info (there’s a link in the sidebar to email me). Tell me which soap you want. I am listing what’s in it so that if you’re allergic to something, you can avoid picking one that’s gonna send you to the ER.

1. Oatmeal Soap

• Palm Oil
• Coconut Oil
• Shea Butter
• Cocoa Butter
• Aloe Extract
• Safflower Oil
• Olive Oil
• Oatmeal

2. Chocolate Coconut Soap

• Palm Oil
• Coconut Oil
• Grapeseed Oil
• Shea Butter
• Cocoa Butter
• Castor Oil
• Almond Butter

For those of you who read this blog and didn’t play - well that’ll teach you to ignore my contests! Maybe next time you better consider joining in.

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Remember the Name My GPS Contest? Well the deadline is tonight. Then Frank and I will vote on the winner. Let me make sure I have the entries thus far:

Ann Marie - Laura
Jer - Mom
Kim - you never picked a name
Katy - you didn’t either
Janet - you’re gonna have to pick either Gladys or Blanche
Nancie - Tripsy 2 (Too)

We’re going out to dinner later and will be having wine so who knows what will strike us as funny so get working. I want to see more entries before the deadline!

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5. I love Italian food. You’d thing with being Italian & all, I’d be sick of it but nope - it’s #1 on my list. I do, however, like a pretty wide variety of other ethnic foods like Thai, Greek, Mexican… damn, now I’m getting hungry!

6. I’m obsessive. Not obsessive compulsive. I don’t need to have everything in it’s proper place, I don’t follow a routine, I have no Monk-like qualities (Monk as in the show, not as in a religious order). But give me a project to do like, oh say scanning stuff and putting together a booklet for the parish. It will have to be perfect. I will mess around with it in my graphic software and in Publisher until it’s as good as I can get it.

7. Things that are illogical confuse & annoy the heck out of me. I think very logically and I have a difficult time realizing that people are not logical. For example, I can’t figure out why a person would park, blocking my driveway when there is a perfectly good, legal parking spot 2 doors down.

8. I am very literal - both in what I say and in what others tell me. If someone says, “Come to Florida and visit me,” I think they actually mean it. If I say to someone, “I’ll come over now,” that’s what I mean. A few weeks ago, I had to walk up to the parish office to talk to the DRE and when I got there, she said, “When you said you were coming over now, I didn’t think you meant right now.” It was pretty funny.

Now that’s not to say I always mean every single thing I say. There are times when I am angry or stressed and things will come out of my mouth that I don’t actually mean but hey, I am human. Yeah, I know that’s shocking.

There you have it - everything there is to know about me.

I cannot tag 8 other people because the only other people’s blogs that I read have already been tagged except for Jer and Nancie. And they’re way too busy for this sort of stuff. Unless they’re not, in which case they can consider themselves tagged.

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I was tagged by Katy and I’m supposed to write 8 things about myself. Since I had to come up with a list of 10 things back in May when Kim tagged me, this isn’t as easy as you’d think. So what I’m gonna do is post 4 things for now and I’ll be back later with the other 4.

1. I hate being lied to. Now I know everyone hates being lied to but most people are capable of brushing it off. I’m not. Not only that, but don’t think you’re going to get away with lying and that I won’t eventually find out. I will. I always do. The slightest, tiny, little inconsistency will go off in my head as loud as a smoke detector. This also makes it incredibly hard to surprise me. The only time they almost pulled off surprising me was at my bridal shower. I was fooled up until we pulled up to the house & I saw a car that I knew shouldn’t be there.

2. If someone attempts to intimidate me, it will not have the desired effect. One time when the kids were little, I was driving along on a single lane street when someone started tailgating me. I think tailgating is incredibly dangerous and despise it. I had been driving about 10 mph over the speed limit but suddenly felt this powerful urge to obey the law. The guy behind me was not happy. We came to a light where there was a left turn lane. This big guy gets out of his car and comes walking over to me with this mean look on his face. I shot him a disgusted look back that basically said, “Uh, and just what are you going do do, dumb ass?” He laughed and got back in his car.

3. I never liked my first name and I was annoyed that my parents didn’t give me a middle name. I also hate when people don’t spell my name right, especially people who are supposed to be friends. I always felt if they’re friends, they should at least pay enough attention to know how to spell my name.

Frank doesn’t like his actual name, either: Francis. He always used to get in fights in elementary school when the boys made fun of him. He said if they had to go with naming him after St. Francis, he wished his parents had picked the Italian version, Francesco, instead.

4. I cannot draw. Not at all. I have no idea where Theresa developed the capability to create something like this because it sure wasn’t from her parents:

Because of the lack of any artistic ability, I am forced to find other outlets for my creativity - thus the soap making and other assorted projects.

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Is that anything like “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn?” Obviously I had no idea what to write about today. Thus the truly rambling post about our San Antonio trip. But a few minutes ago, I wandered into the dining room to check on my soap. There’s a cooling rack (why do I want to say “cookie rack?”) with the bars all neatly lined up so they can dry properly. Then I got distracted from the soap. It looked like someone was shining a huge pink spotlight on the house. I grabbed my camera and ran outside to test out that sunset setting, which I’ve never used before.

And you probably figured we city folk don’t get to see stuff like this. Don’t ya’ll think those wires overhead give it a nice rustic look?

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A few months back, I decided that since I’m going to hit half a century this November, one of the things I want to do to celebrate is take a trip someplace. I wanted to go someplace I’ve never been to before, that isn’t horribly hot or bitterly cold. I came up with San Antonio. When I shared this with family & friends, the response was always, “Why?’

Now this wasn’t a “why” as in, “Oh, that sounds like a fun trip but what made you pick San Antonio.” No, it was, “Why on earth would you want to go there? What’s in San Antonio besides the Alamo.”

This comes from a family that went on vacation in Cape Cod every single summer for something like 25+ years. How could we abandon tradition? How would we survive a vacation that doesn’t include getting stung by jellyfish, peering across the bay at the Kennedy compound, seeing shows at the Melody Tent, and getting lost in traffic circles?

I then am forced to rattle off a list of all the things there are to do in San Antonio and how everyone I know who has ever gone there has loved it. It seems like most people are creatures of habit and like going to familiar places. I, on the other hand, like living on the wild side. Yeah, I’m gonna go someplace that is so far, we can’t even get a direct flight from NY. How’s that for living it up?

Yesterday, however, I got a huge shock. As I was driving Dave to the LIRR, I told him about the San Antonio plans. He did not respond with the usual “why?” Instead, he said it’s a fun place and that he’ll give us the names of some good Mexican restaurants. What was this? Someone wasn’t questioning my choice??

So, who has some vacation time coming up next month & feels like taking a little trip to Texas?

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Where was I all day when I should have been here posting something? I was off playing games. I forget how many we played - maybe 11. Don’t ask me which games we played because one blurs into another & I can’t remember names.

Why was I playing games? Because Gloria writes game reviews. Now in order to do that, she has to actually look at the games and see how they are played. Playing games all by yourself isn’t much fun so she bribed me & Dave to go there and help her by offering to feed us. Yes, Dave & I will work for food.

You might think playing is fun but not when you play with Gloria. Nope, you have to pay attention while the rules are read or you get yelled at. Back before Neala moved off to New Mexico and used to play with us, I’d get her in trouble by making wise cracks. Naturally, she’d laugh and then we’d get the stern warning, “Hey! This is serious business!”

Heh, now Gloria’s gonna see I was talking about her on my blog and I’ll get an email telling me I did too have fun playing those games and I better not tell the world that I didn’t. But I can’t admit to liking games or then she won’t feel the need to offer bribes anymore. And we won’t tell her that this:

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Frank took today off and naturally we have many very exciting plans for the day. To start the day off, Frank went to the dentist while I drove over to Theresa’s college to drop some stuff off to her. “Stuff” included her rather expensive cell phone which had been lost since Thursday night but which we finally got back last night (after the person who found it called us), all 4 high school yearbooks (because the college friends want to see high school photos of her & her friends) and a very large bucket of pennies (the different buildings are having a contest to see who can collect the most, all of which is going to charity).

Then I dragged Frank to this organic supermarket that’s about 15 minutes away. We had never been there before and were very excited to see some of the things they sold there included Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale. Who knew beer was organic! That must mean it’s healthy for you, right?

After a brief stop at home so I can attend the very important business of posting on my blog, we are running back out. MIL is back in the nursing home. That unfortunately means there won’t be any photos of the Roy Rogers baby covered wagon. I know ya’ll were looking forward to that so I apologize. You’ll just have to use your imaginations to picture it.

Next stop after the nursing home will be Empire City at Yonker’s Raceway. I am wearing my lucky shirt. It’s the shirt I took with me to the hospital when I was having surgery several years ago and the reason it’s lucky is because the lump they removed was benign. Of course that doesn’t mean it’ll always be lucky but hey, might as well test the theory. If I don’t return, it’ll mean we won a big jackpot and we hopped a plane to some exotic island.

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Well not really. More like vote for the ball. It seems there’s this rich designer guy, Marc Ecko, who bought the baseball that Barry Bonds hit to break the home run record. Now that he has the ball, he wants your vote. There’s a website set up where you can vote on what happens to the ball:

A) Bestow it.
Give the ball to Cooperstown.

B) Brand it.
Burn an asterisk into the ball and then send it to Cooperstown.

C) Banish it.
Blast it off into outer space.

Voting ends September 25th so get those votes in!

I just thought this was so funny and so cool. (I chose “B.” ) Okay, now off to check on how the Yankee game is going…

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