Monkling’s Blog

We spent a lot of time in San Antonio wandering around the Riverwalk, seeing a lot of scenery that looked like this:

I never got tired of the view. My legs may have gotten tired, but not the rest of me. Because I am normally a lazy slug and am not used to so much exercise, by the time 11 p.m. rolled around, I was ready for bed.

On our first night there, we were sound asleep when we were woken up by someone knocking on a door out in the hallway. I looked at the clock and saw it was midnight. We waited for the people to wake up and let their visitor in. The knocking didn’t stop.

I stared over to the other side of the bed where I knew Frank was. Since it was dark, I couldn’t actually see him so I just pretended to see him. “What the heck is that?” Frank just mumbled something. Then, as I listened to the knocking, I said, “Is that our door??”

Reluctantly, I climbed out of bed and looked through the peep hole. There was no way I was opening the door; not in a place where they feel the need to post signs like this on their storefronts:

“Who’s there?”
“Brian.”
I don’t know anyone named Brian in NY, much less in a city I have never been in so I yelled back, “You have the wrong room.”
“This is my room,” came his answer.

Okay, is this some dead person coming back from beyond the grave? Is there a zombie out there? I called out, “No, this isn’t your room.” The knocking stopped and I went back to bed. 15 minutes later, the knocking started again. This time Frank got up and told him he had the wrong room and peace returned once more.

The next morning, I slowly opened the door in between the bedroom and the living room, half thinking that Brian went down to the front desk, got a key, let himself in and we’d find him sleeping on the couch. Luckily, the room was empty. I think this is where he finally ended up:

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First off, I loved San Antonio. You will all have to suffer through stories over the next few days. I did not, however, find Jenn’s lost camera with her honeymoon photos.

The big question of the day: What is up with the people who think the rules don’t apply to them? Are they horribly arrogant or just plain stupid? Do they not hear the announcements to turn off their cell phones and electronic devices? Did they miss the part about only having 2 carry on pieces?? Or do they just think the announcements aren’t for them?

Now I’m no saint and there’s a certain level of rebel in me but there is a line. If, by breaking the rules, I am going to cause others inconvenience, like oh… taking up the entire freaking overhead rack, I won’t do it. Did I ever mention how I hate rude, stupid, inconsiderate people?

Okay, my rant is over. Tomorrow come back to hear some funny San Antonio stories.

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I hate being sticky. I hate it so much that I will not order ribs; not unless they are boneless, anyway. Tonight we went out to a BBQ place for dinner. Naturally, I did not get the ribs. Frank, however, did.

Now here’s where we carry the weirdness a bit too far. I handed him one of those little wipes and told him he had to clean his hands off because it was bothering me. Looking at his hands, I could feel it - the stickiness on my own hands.

There is just so much a wipe can do so as we were walking, Frank reminded me that I did not want to hold his hand because he would still be sticky. I forgot and accidentally went for his hand and then dropped it. He decided to be funny & made what I guess he thought was a monster sound only he ended up sounding like a pirate.

“Arggg! I’m a pirate.”
“Uh, you can’t be a pirate. You have to either be a cowboy or a Mexican,” I told him.
“Didn’t pirates go down to Mexico for booty?” he replied.
“Pervert.”
“No, not the kind of booty like the rap songs sing about.”

Yeah, that’s a pretty typical conversation for us.

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I am taking the day off from blogging today. You may as well not even come to read my blog because you won’t find anything interesting here. You especially won’t find any stories about how we went to Mass this morning and had to stifle our laughter when the priest gave the final blessing and said, “Peace be with ya’ll.”

Nope, nothing like that here today.

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Yes, it is true. As strange and unbelievable as it may seem, even I can completely mess up a recipe. It’s rare but on occasion, it does happen. Take my attempt at cooking a German dinner in honor of Oktoberfest. The sauerbraten came out perfect. How could it not when the meat was soaking in wine for 4 days? That wasn’t the cause of my troubles. It was the potato dumplings. They didn’t sound complicated. In fact, they seemed rather easy. They lulled me into a false sense of security with being very similar to gnocchi. Maybe my mistake was in thinking they were too bland. I had the great idea of adding onion to give it more flavor. It may have been the onion that caused them to self destruct:

Now I ask you - do those even remotely resemble dumplings? No, they do not. This means eventually I will need to try again because I will not be defeated by food.

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Now I don’t really intentionally easedrop on people but hey, if you’re going to talk loudly, I’m not deaf. So there we were, walking along, minding our own business when I heard these two women discussing fondue. One says to the other, “It’s just cheese, you know,” like this was a huge revelation. I figured if this was something I know, everyone should know that. It’s not like I’m a genius. Well except for knowing the Wii is good for Parkinson’s.

Hmmm…. fondue, wasn’t that big in the 80’s? I don’t think I’ve seen that in years. I’m starting to feel a little hungry. Maybe I should go out and hunt for some fondue.

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Frank was wondering if San Antonio was named after The Saint Anthony (of Padua) or if there was another St. Anthony that the town was named for. Those of you who are not Catholic or don’t have any friends who are Catholic may not know this but St. Anthony is sort of the finder of lost items. There’s this special prayer you say when you can’t find something and he helps you find it.

We found out yes, this is the same St. which naturally got me wondering. If San Antonio is named for him, does their airport have the lowest incidences of lost luggage?

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Remember back when I said I was getting Frank a Wii for his birthday because I thought it would be good for him, to help him exercise? It turns out, I’m not the only one who thought about the Wii as a form of physical therapy. There was an article earlier this month that said they are using the Wii to help stroke victims.

Just out of curiosity, I did a Google search to see if there was any mention of using it for Parkinson’s and sure enough, there was an article in USA Today mentioning Parkinson’s and the Wii.

I think they all copied me. They saw me talking about it here on my blog and they said, “Wow! That woman is a genius! Let’s do that here, too.”

What? You don’t buy that? Hey, it could have happened…

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I found out about this URL from my friend, Debbie. It’s a little quiz that asks you questions about the issues and then tells you which candidate most closely represents your views. Keeping to my policy of not discussing politics here, I won’t say what my results were although I will say it isn’t one of the major candidates, which isn’t surprising since I can’t stand any of the major ones in either party.

So, go check this link out so you know who you should be voting for.

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We are not yet at that point where a phone call at 11 p.m. means something is wrong. The kids are up late and we’re generally up late so when the phone rang last night, I considered that pretty normal - right up until the part where Theresa said, “When was my last tetanus shot?” That was followed up with, “The campus nurse is here and says I need to go to the ER.”

Darling Daughter was going up the stairs in the dorm when she tripped. The stairs have metal edges. The nice metal edge sliced into her toe so she needed stitches. Did I mention her dorm room is on the 4th floor and there is no elevator in the building? We met her in her room and walked down to the car with Theresa hopping along. Soon as we get into the stairwell, she slips. “Can we please get to the hospital without you requiring a stretcher?” I told her.

It seems there is a rule in ERs about waiting a few hours. I don’t think I was ever in one where we didn’t sit and wait. We spent the entire time talking so that Theresa wouldn’t be thinking about her toe too much. We watched the cute, young cop who kept walking by. Theresa wanted to know what was taking them so long.

“Oh, they’re making sure they send you a really ugly doctor rather than one of those cute ones so they have to wait until an ugly one is free.” As it neared 2:30, we were getting a bit slap happy. She mentioned that maybe if her toe had come completely off, they would be helping her sooner. I replied that if it came off, she could have put the toe into her Delta Gamma scrapbook.

Finally a doctor came in to stitch her toe. Now I was always under the impression they used Novocaine so you wouldn’t be in pain while they were sewing you up. If I had known the Novocaine would barely make a difference, I could have saved us a whole lot of time and sewed it up myself.

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