Monkling’s Blog

I bet that caught your attention, eh? I was talking about my plants. So far, they have survived the hardening off process without dying on me. Of course I haven’t yet put them into the ground so we’ll see what happens after that.

I haven’t gotten to my blog until now because I have been doing manual labor. There are now 2 - 3′ x 3′ raised vegetable beds all ready for planting:

Yeah, sure they look good now, after I spent hours clearing those areas. You wouldn’t think grass and weeds would be so difficult to cut through. My hands are sore, my back is sore and I’m ready for bed. It seems I am not used to manual labor. And it’s not over yet. Who would think that 2 50 lb bags of dirt wouldn’t be enough?? I will need at least 6 more bags and it’s supposed to rain tomorrow and Friday. Guess who will be going out to the store in a few minutes.

Oh, and here’s a handy little tip for you gardeners - don’t wear a clean pair of jeans when you’re out there. I was careful. I didn’t get a single drop of dirt on myself as I dug up those beds. It wasn’t until I lifted one of those bags of dirt; the bags that had been sitting out there in the rain for 40 days and 40 nights. It was quite a shock to me to discover the bags were muddy. And now so are my jeans.

Share This

I love power tools. I’m pretty sure I use them more than Frank, although with the hours he works, he doesn’t have much time to do fun stuff like play with power tools. Now based on this love I have for them, you’d think I would have went straight for them this morning but no, I didn’t.

Today’s project is to put together a raised vegetable garden. I had these composite lumber boards:

I thought hammering a starter hole for a screw into plastic would be pretty easy. It wasn’t. My first attempt with a small hammer got nowhere. My second attempt with a normal sized hammer still went nowhere. The real reason I hadn’t gone straight for the drill is it meant I had to first find the drill. You’d think a drill wouldn’t be too hard to find. It’s not like it’s small. Ah, but if your basement had as much junk in it as mine, you’d understand.

I did find the drill and I even found the drill bits. It’s amazing how easy something is if you have the right tools. Once I had my drill and my little power screwdriver, I had that thing slapped together in no time. Now if only I’d get around to preparing the beds and transplanting everything.

Share This

If you know me at all, you will know I absolutely hate buying clothes. I hate looking through racks while fighting off salespeople. “No, I told you about 50 times now that I don’t need any help. If I do, I’ll let you know. And don’t even think you’re gonna follow me into the dressing room.”

I hate trying things on. It’s annoying to put things on, zip & button up, look in the mirror, move on to the next item. As a matter of fact, I hate everything about the entire idea of buying clothes.

The problem with disliking the whole clothes shopping experience is that I avoid it as much as possible. I do it only when I have to. Having to means I will wear an item of clothing until it is begging to be thrown out because it is so worn. As my son told me today, “Yeah, you go for the Hobo look.”

Inevitably what will happen is that everything will go at once. This means that every 8 years or so I will need to virtually replace every single item in my dresser and closet. We have hit the 8 year mark.

I have found a solution, however. Internet shopping. I’m telling ya, it’s like Christmas this week. Every day another package arrives in the mail. Of course there are a couple of drawbacks to not actually trying stuff on until after you buy them. For instance, as I rushed through one particular order, thrilled to discover they have pants in petite, I failed to look at just how they define petite. Uh, I’m sorry but there is no way in hell that a 29″ inseam is petite! What is this? Land of the Giants?

Also, it seems you cannot really tell how something looks unless you actually look at yourself in a mirror. When I tried on one pair of pants, sure they felt okay but looking down at myself, I didn’t like how they looked. Then I decided to act like a normal person and looked at a mirror. I then discovered that the pants looked pretty good. I was shocked! Who’d think a mirror could be so helpful?

Share This

But wait. Let me go off on a tangent before my rant. Today we were driving to the nursing home & I saw a sign. You know me. I wonder strange things. So the sign says, “Bridge - 10 tons.” Now what sort of sign is that? What are they trying to say? That the bridge weighs 10 tons? Like someone’s going to try to pick up the bridge? (Yeah, yeah, I know what it really means but you have to admit - that is worded so poorly.)

Now on to my rant. I’ve had an eBay account for years. I’ve bought things. I’ve sold stuff. I have a 100% positive rating. Then I lost my little security device for Paypal & eBay. This seems to be an issue because with the replacement I got and I can no longer log on to eBay. If I cannot log onto eBay, I cannot buy the wireless B usb adapter I need and I can’t seem to buy it in a store because it’s outdated. I need a freaking B one, damn it! Not G or N or whatever other letter of the alphabet they’re up to now because none of those will work with the Tivo. It has to be B.

It also seems every single employee of eBay is an idiot. I explained the problem to their live person. I was told it’s not their issue, it’s Paypal’s issue. Uh, no it’s not. It’s your website that’s telling me it’s an internal error, moron. Then I tried email. First I was told it was fixed. No, it’s not. Then I was told do this to get a new password. I don’t need a new password. The password works. Read the damn email I sent you.

End of rant.

Share This

To amuse myself, I like seeing what search terms brought people to my blog. Most of them are mundane things like the ever famous “Muffin Man” theme. Today, there were 9 hits so far from people searching for Frank’s wives. My blog turns up in that search because of my story of Frank being a polygamist.

What I want to know is what prompted all these people from all across the US and Canada to search for that in the first place. I’m thinking their “Frank” is Frank Sinatra but still - there isn’t anything in the news about him that I could find. So this is a mystery. Why are people choosing today to search out Frank’s wives? Is it his birthday today or something?

* * Update * *
Since someone was kind enough to explain to me why everyone is searching for Frank’s wives, I decided to return the favor and put the crossword puzzle answer here: Mia.

As a bonus, here are a couple of crossword puzzle links:
NY Times Crossword Puzzle Info (this site has a Clue and Answer Finder)
Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle

Share This

I bet y’all thought I was going to talk about shoes again, didn’t ya? Well you are saved from any further discussion concerning wedding attire. For now. No, we are talking flats as in a flat tire.

I have a question. If you were driving down the street and got a flat, would you attempt to change the flat while the motor is running?? With gas prices the way they are, who does that? And while we’re making fun of this particular person (who, by the way, is a complete stranger to me), I suppose I should have felt sorry for him because clearly he had no clue how to change a tire. I didn’t see any evidence of a jack anywhere in sight.

I think I need to add a new category called, “People Are Weird.”

Share This

Thanks to Dave, I found this out:

Created by OnePlusYou

If anyone does not see an image there, let me know so I can fix it.

Share This

This morning I needed to run out to the store. This particular store is south west of my house. So which direction do I turn as I pull out of my block? East. No clue why. I then had to go all the way around the block. Can you imagine going so far out of my way because of a wrong turn because yep, the blocks here are so far apart. (Not!)

My brain must have then switched over from where it thought I was going initially (obviously someplace east like maybe a vineyard on the north fork of Long Island?). Now it thought I was going west but further than I planned. I realized this as I went sailing past the street I was supposed to turn on.

I’m not quite sure where my brain wanted me to go. I’m also not sure how on earth you miss not one turn but 2 within half a minute of each other. I plan to blame it on mental-pause.

Share This

Two weeks from tomorrow, I will be all packed up and ready to hop a plane to Kentucky. Naturally, I waited until the last minute to find a dress for the wedding. In spite of Dave’s wonderful suggestion, this is not what I will be wearing:

Many people had to be consulted about this whole dress thing (be glad if you weren’t one of them) and it was made a bit more complicated by the fact that whatever I buy had to travel well. I also did not want people looking at me and say, “Oh, look! I guess they have rednecks in NY, too!”

I spent a good deal of yesterday emailing photos and talking to my sister and the bride to be on the phone (herein to be known as TB2B). Theresa was also supposed to take part in aiding me but she was busy with sorority stuff. By late last night, I had narrowed down the selection to about 4 choices. So much for that. This morning there was an email from Theresa.

“All those dresses are way too plain and not at all wedding-like.” As I was reading that email and thinking that she is probably right, I got an email from Janet with a couple of dresses she had found online. I chose the one I liked best out of her picks and sent off an email to TB2B. Maybe an hour later, when I was on the phone with TB2B, Theresa walked in. I told her to look at my computer to see the newest dress. Theresa approved.

“Wahoooo!! Consensus!” Yes, I actually did yell that into the phone.

This is what was ordered this morning:

Now, of course, the next big hurdle is to get shoes. Did I mention I plan on only having carry on? Yeah, so we can’t throw in 23,423 pairs of shoes. Not that I even own more than 2 pairs, neither of which will do for the wedding. Then there is the problem of my fat feet. The big question is do I buy shoes that look good and look fancy but that will be off my feet after 5 minutes or do I go with flats? Do people wear flats to weddings? Aren’t you glad I am including you all in the decision making? Should I post lots of photos of shoes and have everyone vote?

Share This

Remember a couple of weeks ago when I went into the city to escape the varnish fumes & said I went to the South Street Seaport where I was entertained by Rubber Man? This morning when I was sipping my coffee and flipping through the newspaper, guess who’s picture I saw in there. Yep, Rubber Man. (Clearly I have not yet had enough coffee since I accidentally typed that I was “sitting coffee” instead of “sipping.”)

There’s an article about performers auditioning for spots down at the Seaport. It seems it’s a pretty good gig. Too bad I don’t have any secret talents other than occasionally amusing people on my blog.

Share This