Monkling’s Blog

Today I took a little trip to our warehouse superstore to buy some groceries. These were on my list. Guess what we’re gonna make!

And now I know why limoncello isn’t cheap to buy. Do you know it’s not really a whole lot of fun zesting 25 lemons?

Now the whole mess sits for a month & a half. Those little zesty things are in there getting completely loaded. That jar holds a gallon. Once I add the simple syrup, it’ll be close to that. Let’s hope this stuff comes out good because I won’t be too happy to have wasted all that vodka and zested all those lemons for nothing.

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Let me ask you something. If a Church has a website, wouldn’t you expect to find the address of the Church somewhere on that website?? One of the things I do part time is I’m a webmaster. One of the sites I take care of is my parish website. (That particular part time job is unpaid, just for the record.) There is an actual address on ‘my’ website. Not only that. There is a map and there are directions. Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to be?

Today I had to drive to a Church in another town for the funeral Mass for Frank’s aunt. There is no address on their parish website. Google showed me an address. It was on, oh let’s say Bologna Road. Or so it claimed. I had left early because it was rush hour. Lucky thing because I arrive at Bologna Road and there is no Church.

I call Janet. She can’t find any address for the Church, either. She gives me the phone number for the parish. I call and find out the Church is on Bologna Avenue. I had given myself an hour to drive out there. It took me half an hour to get to the town the Church was in. It took me another half hour to get un-lost.

And I come back to my initial question: what kind of stupid, sadistic person makes a website with no address? Who cares what goes on in your Church if no one can even find the Church?

Tomorrow morning I have to be out the door at the crack of dawn for the second day in a row. Fine, it’s technically after dawn but I’m sorry. 8 am might as well be dawn to me. I have to take Theresa for pre-surgery testing because she is having surgery on her injured ankle. I guess that’s what they do if everything else fails & you’re still in pain after 5 months. Thankfully, the hospital has directions on their website because I don’t think I can stand 2 mornings in a row of getting lost without becoming a violent, homicidal maniac.

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It was great. The apple desserts were amazing. The non-apple desserts that the guest brought were also amazing & the amount of desserts for just 3 couples (couple #4 couldn’t make it) would have been enough for about 20 people. I had decided it would be funny to send out actual invitations and on the invitations I put: Apple Food, Apple Drinks, Apple Games, Apple Prizes. I then had a little note saying I was lying about the prizes. It turns out I was lying about lying about the prizes because there was an actual prize for the winner of Apples to Apples, thanks to Dolores.

The only bad spot was when both Frank & I were on the phone at the same time, abandoning our guests. I had to calm down Theresa who lost her wallet & everything in it including her license, ATM card, & credit card. Frank had to give his sister directions to a funeral home we needed to get to today for a wake for their aunt.

Yeah, I finally invite people over and then I leave them. I bet no one ever comes over here again. No, wait. The food was good so maybe they will come again, if only for that.

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Is it just me or does anyone else notice anything strange about this map:

Let me point out that the yellow & very light pink is water. Also note that the distance from the southern shore of Long Island to the northern shore is about 25 miles.

Now I ask you - how can all of New York City, all of Nassau County and the entire southern half of Suffolk County be in danger from high surf?? Unless there are abnormally huge tidal waves, I don’t see the high surf being too much of a danger for anyone unless you’re actually walking along the shoreline. But hey, I’m a college drop out so what do I know?

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Dazed by flares, confused by the reasoning behind the flares.

Today I was driving merrily along, heading out to the store in search of a better bottle of wine for my apple sangria. (Apparently there is a reason they say not to use oak aged wine!)

As I approached the large intersection near my local liquor store, I see dozens of pink flares. I see 2 police cars parked in the middle of the intersection. I see policemen directing traffic. What I do not see is the reason for this. My first thought was maybe the traffic light was out. Nope. It is working just fine.

Next I scanned the area for signs of an accident. There were no smashed up cars. No tow trucks or emergency vehicles. There wasn’t even a shard of glass anywhere in sight. I decided the policemen were just bored.

On my way back, everything was gone. All the flares, the policemen, the police cars - they vanished. I was amazed that they were able to pack up & leave so quickly. I then came to the conclusion that I must have seen a mirage. The flares & cops were never there in the first place.

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Today I had to go for a mammogram. Don’t worry. I am not sharing any details of that. I had planned on just saying I went for a lab test but then I figured people would be wondering what sort of test I was going for, imaginations running wild & all that. Figured it would be best to just state exactly what I was out for. Now back to my story…

The test was at a lab in a very large medical complex close to my house. There are many buildings. There are lots of little streets and parking lots. Frank knows his way around there because his neurologist is in one of those buildings but I was only there a handful of times. I thought I might have a hard time finding the building I needed but I found it right away. Little did I suspect, it wasn’t getting in that would be the problem.

After the test, I got in my car. I retraced my path, going out the same way I came in. Or so I thought. I ended up by buildings I never saw before; buildings I never even knew were in there. I wandered around the little streets and the parking lots until I finally spotted a real street. I could tell it was a real street because there was more than just 2 or 3 cars crawling along, looking lost.

Now keep in mind, I said this complex was near my house. I know the streets around here. I have lived in the same general area since 1976. Yet, as I approached the main drag, I had no idea what street it was. That meant I had no idea which way to turn. I was completely disoriented. I took a complete guess that I wanted to turn left. Then I saw the giant fountains across the street and realized where I was.

If anyone saw me at that point when I figured out where I was, they’d have slowly backed away from me because I literally laughed out loud. Only I could temporarily get lost a mile & a half away from home.

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I have been getting ready for this Saturday’s Great Apple Festival. Do you think this is overkill:

I am toying with the idea of making mini cheesecakes - caramel apple cheesecakes. I am also thinking of making apple rugelach. Since neither of those are an easy, just throw it together sort of dessert, they may not happen.

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I have no idea why but lately I was thinking I want to make some Limoncello. While this was on my mind, I was talking to a friend who I know has a recipe for the stuff so I asked her to send it along. I see lemon grating in my near future.

When I was looking at the recipe, there was a line that had to do with the simple syrup instructions. It says, exactly like this: DO NOT STIR. Now I have made simple syrup before. We were on a bit of a Mojito kick this summer and I made quite a bit of simple syrup. I always stirred it. I wonder if there could be a reason it said this. Maybe the entire batch of simple syrup would explode if you stirred it. Maybe the technique for Limoncello is different.

I decided to research this. I searched for Limoncello recipes. I didn’t see anything about not stirring. Not a word. I did, however, see all sorts of things involving what type of vodka to use in the recipe. Some called for just ordinary vodka. Some called for grain alcohol that was oh, 500 proof. (Fine. I do know it only goes up to 200.)

In NY, far as I know, the really high proof stuff is illegal. We decided to take a run to the liqueur store this afternoon to see what they had. I figured I’d go with a 50/50 mix of whatever the highest proof vodka was and the normal 80 proof one. This is what I saw:

I never saw anything beyond 151 before so I was pretty surprised to see this. Naturally I grabbed it. After we got it home, I was looking at the bottle and on the back, I saw something I had never seen before. There was a warning label. Not the usual one about drinking when you’re pregnant, etc. No. This one said something like, “Caution! Do not drink this straight out of the bottle. You must dillute it with something. Otherwise it will just light you on fire from the inside out. No human can drink this stuff straight. It may even kill you.”

Well maybe it wasn’t worded quite like that. I suspect my little Limoncello experiment is going to prove real interesting.

If I get around to making it this week, it should be ready in about a month. I will report back after I’ve made it and tested it. Maybe even post the recipe, if you’re real lucky.

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Yesterday I got a great ego boost. (This was before talking to my son.) I had an appointment to get my hair cut. I walk in and the guy who does my hair, Tom, announces, “Today’s my birthday!” Maybe you had to be there but it was just comical, the way he said it. But then he’s lamenting the fact that he’s so old - 46. Damn, he’s almost 50.

“Ah, 50 isn’t that bad,” I told him. His mouth dropped.

“You’re 50? I would have sworn you were younger than me.”

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been told I look younger than my age. I used to despise that. Up until I hit my mid 20s. Then I started enjoying it. Naturally, soon as I started liking that, I went prematurely gray. But hey, that’s okay. That’s why I pay Tom.

But that’s not the balancing, I guess, because I was able to do something about the gray. No, we have another issue that’s age related: hormones. At least I think that’s what this is. Heck, these days I just blame everything on hormones but I do have to wonder why, completely out of the blue, am I suffering killer hayfever? Worse than I ever had it. So bad that nothing will help. I’ve tried every antihistamine ever invented. I’m taking the 24 hour stuff every 12 hours. I’m still miserable.

Now the reason I suspect it may be hormone related is because, when I was pregnant, my allergies acted up horribly. Hey… now that I think about it, maybe I was just allergic to the kids. No, seriously, I think this time around it’s hormone making the allergies worse.

Okay, even if it’s not hormone related, I still say things in the universe are even now. My ego trip has been counterbalanced by the fact that I cannot breathe. I am suffocating right before your eyes. Live. Right here on my blog. Uh, oh. I feel a sneeze coming on…

DUCK!!! TAKE COVER!

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Stephen has been in Rome for what? 49 weeks now? Fine. It’s only been 2 months but hey, that should have been plenty of time for him to install that webcam I gave him for my birthday… uh, I mean his birthday. That was his gift from me. He opened it and said something like, “Is this a gift for me or for you?”

Today he finally got around to installing it. I suspect the only reason he even did it was because I told him it can record video. That and so he could see the dog. When he calls and both Frank & I are home, I put it on speaker phone so we can all talk. If Old Dog is around and hears his voice, he gets excited and starts looking for Steve. My son thought that was funny and wanted to see it for himself.

Today we both finally got Skype up & running. For the first time in 8 weeks, I got to see my son. There was a bit of a glitch, though. He could hear me perfectly fine but I couldn’t hear him. I’m quite certain he would have much preferred the situation be reversed. But it was fun. I got to see him make faces at me. He got to see his pup. Then he went off to practice playing the organ while I fiddled with the settings to try and figure out why I couldn’t hear him.

A few hours later, I finally got it working and he came back online. We got to talk a bit rather than just me talking and him IMing me. Then this boy; this child I was in labor with for over 24 hours before they finally decided to do an emergency c-section; the son I slaved and sacrificed for (where’s that violin music?) had the nerve to say to me, “I’m not sure I really need to see you every time I talk to you.”

If, down the road, he finds he is not being called to the priesthood after all and instead, gets married, I am praying that he has at least 6 kids.

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