Monkling's Blog

No good can come of it, I tell you. No good at all. It is not a good thing to love reading Dean Koontz, James Patterson, & Robin Cook. It is not good to watch shows like Bones, Criminal Minds, NCIS, CSI & Dexter. It is especially a bad thing when you have a ramped up imagination.

Why, you may wonder? Because picture this – here it is, Halloween. It’s dark out. My dog doesn’t bother barking at the doorbell anymore because he can’t hear it. Frank won’t be home for hours. And on what other night do we expect to hear the doorbell ring and open our door willingly to anyone who rings it? Yep, that would be tonight. So tell me, isn’t tonight the perfect night for a serial killer to go around?

Ding Dong.
Creeeek – You open the door. There’s someone standing there with a shopping bag and wearing a scream mask. Suddenly, they rush you…..
Scary music now comes on.

See? Didn’t I warn you that no good would come of it?

Today I stalked the elementary school across the street. As I went about my day, I kept looking out the windows, peering over to the school. I was waiting for the parade. We’ve lived here for 23 years. Every year on Halloween, the children, dressed in their costumes, march around the school. That was the one thing I liked about living across the street from a school. It was something I looked forward to. Alas, I stalked in vain. It seems they have banned the parade. It’s not like it’s too cold out. The weather was beautiful out today. It’s not as though they weren’t allowed to wear Halloween costumes today. I saw the kids at dismissal (at the 432 dismissals) and they were wearing costumes. Apparently someone stole my parade!

Now all I have left to do today is light up my “Bates Hotel” sign that’s hanging in the window and await trick or treaters. It’s 6 p.m. So far exactly 4 kids have come to the house. Is it just around here or is everyone seeing less kids going around trick or treating?

Yesterday morning, as I was driving Theresa back & forth to a local public school (she has to observe a 1st grade class that has learning disabled kids in the same class as ‘normal’ kids) I learned a few thing about driving rules in NY. It’s kind of strange because I’ve been driving in NY for 30 years now and yet, it seems I am ignorant of the rules of the road, as well as requirements for crossing guards.

Rule #1 – If you are a utility trunk, a garbage truck or a parks department truck, that means you can completely ignore one way signs. They’re not for you. They’re just for ordinary folks like me.

Rule #2 – Despite what you may think, people driving straight do not have the right of way over people making left turns. Nope. Here in NYC, apparently people making left turns can go first and cut off the drivers who are going straight.

Rule #3 – Hire crossing guards who are sight impaired and can’t see turn signals. That rule makes driving by a school kinda fun. The crossing guard will wave frantically to you, signaling that you should proceed through the intersection. Clearly she did not see the right turn signal, nor the woman standing in the middle of the street.

Now there’s where it pays to not be a rule follower. If I had blindly obeyed her and had made my right turn, the woman would be road kill. Instead I chose to roll down my window and state the obvious. “I can’t run her down,” I said, pointing to the woman.

“Oh, I didn’t see your turn signal.” Yep, don’t you want her helping your child cross the street?

I know my blog is supposed to be funny & I think most of the times it is. Once in a while, though, you know I get off the humor track. Normally I don’t like to post serious stuff. I especially like to keep away from politics. Today I’m going all out and mixing serious stuff and politics.

I am posting a link here for a video. If you’re an unwavering Democrat, you probably won’t like this. If you are Catholic, you should look at this.

Eleventh Hour

If I lose half of my regular readers for posting this, so be it. It’s not like I have that many people reading my blog in the first place.

If the police show up at my house today, it will be because my neighbors overheard me talking to Frank last night:

“I put the dead guy in the refrigerator.”

This is the dead guy I was talking about:

I’m planning a little get together on Sunday, which is All Souls’ Day. I’m having the family over for a Dia de los Muertos party and I thought this beer was appropriate. Now let’s just hope the family likes Mexican food & dead guys…

Recently I was trying to explain to a non-New Yorker the difference between the subway & the LIRR. Her thoughts were a train is a train & they’re all the same. Ah, the poor misinformed woman! Let me point out the differences:

The subway has entertainment (story to follow). The LIRR usually doesn’t. The LIRR is way more expensive (one way during rush hour can range from $6 – $21 depending on the distance while the subway is $2 regardless of time or distance). The LIRR has soft, cushy seats. The subway has hard, molded plastic seats. The subway runs trains more often. The LIRR runs fewer trains. (If it’s not rush hour, they only run once an hour from one of the local stations nearby. Miss that train by a minute or 2 & you have an hour wait for the next one.)

So – yep, big differences between the 2. I’ve also found a lot of people who live near me, where the nearest subway stop is 7 miles away, are afraid of riding the subway. They’re a bunch of wimps. I, on the other hand, having grown up in Brooklyn sorta like it. You never know what you’re going to see on the subway.

Last week, as I waited on a platform for the E train, an elderly man walked by. He had one of those signs – a wooden stick with cardboard, sort of like those, “The World Is Coming To An End” signs. I only caught part of what it said because the number 1 rule in the subway is you don’t stare at people. The part that I did catch said something like, “Everything isn’t peachy in Georgia.” (I assume he wasn’t referring to the state.) Now you just don’t see that sort of thing if you’re riding the LIRR.

Nor do you usually experience what Frank did recently. He leaves for work early and usually falls asleep during part of the train ride. He was woken up by the sound of banging and cursing. Smack in the middle of the car was a woman sitting on the floor who was demanding that someone get up and give her a seat. After listening to her for a while, the man next to Frank offered her his seat. She didn’t want his seat. She pointed to Frank. “I want his seat!”

Most of the people watching this chuckled, as did my husband, as he got up to give her his seat. The first man had already gotten up as well when he made her his offer. She then sat down, sprawled across both seats. She then continued to curse and bang so I guess she was a bit angry over something other than the lack of seats.

Now while that sort of thing can be entertaining, there really is actual entertainment at some of the stations and occasionally, in the actual train. Most of the entertainment involves musical instruments, some of which are quite unusual. Last week someone was playing something that looked like a pumpkin with a broom stuck in it. In spite of the odd appearance, it sounded really nice.

And there you have it – trains aren’t all the same after all.

Tonight we are having:

• Liebfraumilch wine
• Sauerbraten
• Potato Pancakes
• Spaetzle
• Apple Strudel

What nationality are we pretending to be and what holiday are we celebrating?

I believe in celebrating anything that sounds like fun and involves good food and drink. We also have 2 different German beers. So anyone coming over to join us? Dinner is at 6.

I’m betting Ricky never heard Lucy greet him this way when he came home from work. This is what Frank heard last night:

“Hi, Honey! Guess what – I started a fire in the kitchen and I did it on purpose. It was fun! I’ll have to do it again so you can watch.”

I was using a recipe called Bourbon Chicken. It involved pouring some bourbon into the pan with the chicken and lighting it up. I think I only did that once before, years and years ago, when I made Bananas Foster. I must have a bit of pyro in me because I really enjoyed the whole process. Unfortunately I was too busy manning the flames and making sure nothing else caught on fire so I couldn’t get a photo.

I’m off in a bit to meet up with Ms. Hummingbird and Mr. Imponderables for dinner. I’m picturing Mojitos in my future this evening. I wonder if the restaurant has any dinners that require fire…

Yes, you read it here first. I have come up with the solution to deliver us from our reliance on oil and electricity. It’s the perfect plan. Obviously if we can keep the thermostat lower in the winter and raise the air conditioner temperature in the summer, we’d save energy and money – right? So here’s the brilliant plan:

In the winter, take some sort of drug that lowers hormone levels so that you get hot flashes. (Naturally, if you are already in menopause, you already have that covered & don’t need any drugs.) If you can get those hot flashes fired up enough, you’ll barely have to turn on the heat all winter. There’s even evidence that this might work for men. Of course that article speaks about how to avoid them and that’s not what we’re talking about here but I just wanted to illustrate that my energy saving plan will even work for you guys.

For that hot weather, we need something a bit more drastic. I got this brainstorm at ‘that time of the month’ when I felt colder than normal. You’re going for anemia here. You want to drop that iron level down. Sure you might pass out and feel weak but hey, it’s a small price to pay to feel cool during the hot summer months.

If you do that for a few years, I bet you can save enough money to go on a nice, European vacation. Now would all that sweating through hot flashes and passing out from anemia be worth it?

It’s that time. The time for horror movies. The time for the girl on crutches to attempt to go through a corn maze and get yelled at by her over protective friend for trying it. (“I’ll be fine. I practiced going around in circles with the crutches on my front lawn.”)

And in keeping with the whole Halloween theme, these guys wanted to add to the overall effect:

I’m telling ya, whoever wrote “The Birds” had to be walking out of his house when these guys went flying by & scared the heck out of him. They were swarming out there.