Monkling's Blog

A month and a half ago, I started my very first batch of Limoncello. I patiently waited while those little tiny bits of lemon zest released their wonderful little lemon flavor into that very strong vodka. It was now time to separate the wheat from the chaff…. uh, I mean the zest from the liquid. The liquid had gotten considerably dark, although not quite as dark as this image would suggest:

That’s a gallon jar. It wasn’t quite filled up to the top but once I added in the simple syrup, it was. Now I had a problem. How was I going to filter out the zest from the liquid. It wasn’t like I had another gallon jar sitting around. This would require some creativity. I armed myself with supplies. These supplies included a giant punch bowl, one of those strainer things that you use to put over the sink to clean vegetables, paper coffee filters and those more permanent coffee filters. Yep, I was double filtering this stuff. This is my Limoncello straining contraption:

Call me whatever you want but don’t ever call me uncreative! There was actually a second set of filters in there so that I could strain twice as much all at the same time. It’s now back in it’s giant jar, aging to perfection before being bottled. Of course it would be nice if I could find some bottles to put it in, eh? I don’t think it would look too nice, when guests come over, pouring it out of that big thing. Especially when half of it spills on the guests as it’s poured.

A little while ago, my cell phone rang. Not too many people have the number and those that do generally call the house first so whenever it does ring when I’m home and it’s not Theresa, it’s sort of a surprise. As I usually do, I looked at the number, didn’t recognize it, and hit ‘reject.’

Then that got me to thinking. What if it was someone from some random online contest I entered, calling to say I just won a million dollars or a trip to Bermuda? Maybe it’s not such a good idea to automatically reject all unfamiliar calls.

I looked at the phone number. Hmmm…. this person also called me a week ago. I did a reverse search on the phone number and it turns out it’s listed to someone who lives in Manhattan who I don’t know; a private residence. Now wouldn’t you think if the person called me last week, got my voicemail where they can hear they’ve reached Joanne, wouldn’t that clue them in to the fact that they have a wrong number? Did they think the number maybe changed from last week to this week and if they would only try again, maybe this time it would work and they’d get to talk to whoever is is they’re looking for?

If they call again next week, maybe I should show up at their apartment and ring the bell. When they answer the door, I’ll say, “Do you know me?” They will, of course, say no. Then I will tell them, “Then stop calling my damn phone!”

This morning I saw an article in the paper about a couple who were divorcing because the husband cheated in an online virtual world. I guess that brings cheating to a whole new level.

Apparently this couple, themselves, first met online in that same virtual world, Second Life. Now maybe it’s just me but the whole thing seems a little weird and creepy right from the start. I guess on the one hand, these people had a lot in common since they were both apparently obsessed with this fake world. But uh… if that’s what you spend all of your time doing, pretending, well it just seems to me maybe they both are missing a few pieces upstairs in the first place?

I can’t imagine anyone spending hours & hours in a virtual 3-D chat room day after day, pretending to be someone else. I have a hard enough time keeping up with what I think and feel in real life. I confuse the heck out of myself as it is. Yeah, then toss me in someplace where I’m supposed to make up a second life?? I don’t think so.

You’re all alone, except for the dog. Suddenly you hear voices coming from the living room. Now even if the dog were capable of speech, he’s not in the living room. And I’m not quite sure if voices in one’s head are able to throw their voices to make it seem like they are coming from someplace else. Clearly the source of the sudden onset of voices has to be something other than the dog or insanity.

Ah, yes. I have discovered a way to freak yourself out. The more prone you are to being easily startled and/or frightened, the better this little trick works. (Luckily I don’t suffer from that so, in my case, it was just a simple, “What the heck is that??”)

Here’s what you do. (Note: this requires Tivo.) Go into a room where you have the Tivo hooked up to the TV. Turn the TV on and then hit the pause button. Walk off and completely forget you have it on. Half an hour later, the pause will suddenly disable itself and the TV will start blaring. For this to really be effective, make sure it’s tuned in to something like the news or a talk show because talking is much more realistic than sudden music.

First there was simple theft. (“Give me your lunch money!”) Then there was identity theft. (“I’m Mr. Magoo. Give me a loan.”) Apparently things have escalated. Now there is appointment theft. It’s true, I tell ya.

The phone rang. We have caller ID so I knew it was the vet’s office. “Hmmm, that’s odd,” I thought as I picked up the phone. “Nicky isn’t due for shots or anything.”

The receptionist says, “You had an appointment today at 1:30.”
“Uh, not that I know of.”
“Yeah, I have it right down here that Nicky was supposed to come in to get his rear leg checked.”
“He’s fine. He has nothing wrong with his leg. I never made any appointment.”
“I guess that explains why you missed the appointment.”

So who is impersonating me and why are they making vet appointments? What’s next on their agenda – an appointment for a colonoscopy?

Because I’m uh… you know – not nice, when we go to the nursing home to visit my mother in-law, I take a seat on the opposite side of her roommate. That’s because, what with not being a generally chatty person, I don’t like being close enough for Olga to carry on a conversation with me.

Frank, however, is way more friendly than I am, although not to the extent his sister is. She knows every person in the entire nursing home, their families, their extended families and their relatives living in other countries. She’ll leave her mom’s room, talking to everyone. Wait. That was a tangent. Where was I? Oh, yeah. So Frank will sit and talk to Olga. As long as it’s not me doing the talking, I love listening to the conversations. They are usually pretty amusing. Not that it takes much to amuse me.

Today she was talking about the chairs in the room. If anyone has even visiting a hospital, you’ve seen these chairs. I’ve been to quite a few hospitals and they’re all the same – usually blue, high backs, 2 to a room unless someone swipes one. It’s that way in the nursing home, too. The same chairs are always in the room. Except, apparently today. Olga’s conversation with Frank went something like this:

“They took my black chair and replaced it with that one. I don’t know what they did with my chair. I bought it with my own money. I don’t take any money from the government. And suddenly my black chair was gone and this one was here. I am going to close my eyes and go to sleep and maybe in the morning, my chair will be back again.”

For some odd reason, Frank misunderstood what she was saying and thought she was talking about her sweater being missing. Now how you can mistake the word ‘sweater’ with ‘chair’ even given the Spanish accent, I’m not quite sure. But listening to her go on about her chair and him taking about the gray sweater that was draped on the current chair was enough to make a person think they were maybe in an asylum rather than a nursing home.

Meantime, my mother in-law is complaining to me about how her son & her daughter are off talking to everyone. Ah, yes. Fun times. And I haven’t complained yet about how someone invited themselves over to my house for Thanksgiving. Someone who I don’t really know & who I am not thrilled with having here with my family. Long story. She’s a friend of my sister in-law’s and I was backed into a corner so it’s a done deal. But that doesn’t mean I can’t complain about it, eh?

Yesterday afternoon I was outside raking leaves. It seemed the perfect day for it. It was warm out. The leaves were wet, meaning they wouldn’t go flying off while I attempted to round them up. Best of all, apparently using that Wii Fit must be helping because my arms didn’t ache afterwards.

There I was, hard at work, when I heard beeping noises from across the street. Ah, they are taking advantage of the warm weather and having a fire drill. It apparently was Fire Drill Day because when I picked Theresa up from another local elementary school where she’d observing a class, she told me they also had a fire drill. Anyhow, so there I am, hard at work raking leaves. And there are all the kids piling out of the school.

Now I’d assume it’s a universal rule that there is no talking during a fire drill. It used to be that way when I was in school. It was that way when my kids were in school and clearly, it is still in force, judging by the teachers constantly telling the kids to be quiet as they walked out of the school across the street.

Then there was this teacher who was standing in the middle of the street. I’m not sure if he was the principal or if he just happened to not have a class at the moment. He was watching all the kids, making sure no cars came down the street, overseeing thing. He was also talking to me. We got into a discussion about raking leaves. During the entire conversation I’m thinking, “Uh, shouldn’t you be setting an example for all these kids by not talking?”

I may go postal on a postal worker and yes, this is a rant.

Darling daughter finally found a bit of time to renew her passport this afternoon. The normal processing time is supposed to be 3 weeks and we’re leaving in probably double that (too lazy to check the calendar and count). Alrighty, clearly there should be plenty of time.

We walk into the post office. It is crowded. There are a lot of problems so I should have known right then that this was a sign. But no, we wait. And we finally get up to the window. Theresa hands the guy her old passport, the application, photos, a check. He sticks everything in an envelope which he has her address and then he puts a certified mail thingie on it and we’re on our way.

Except, after we got home, I’m thinking something was wrong with that. I look at the blank application and the procedures that need to be followed for renewing a passport if the initial passport was issued for a minor. Apparently he was supposed to check her ID, sign the form and have her sign it. He didn’t even look at the freaking form.

I am furious. Livid. Raging mad. The envelope is already on it’s way to the passport office in PA. They will get it and send it back and we will have to go again to renew it. Gee, think we’ll be going to that same post office?

Do you want to know how to tell when your brain is on overload and it’s time to quit? I think I discovered this today.

I’ve been studying Italian. Previously I had planned on giving up, concluding it’s never going to happen, I will never be able to learn a word of Italian and I must be an idiot. That changed when I started realizing some things were sticking. After trying about 34,294 different methods, I finally hit upon what I need to do to actually learn it – thus the continuing ed lessons for me. It turns out I’m not stupid after all. I just learn differently.

After that revelation, I sprung for a more expensive software package and have religiously been studying it every day for an hour a pop. (Okay, so I’ve only had it for 2 days. I will keep up this pace!) It was going along great. Until I tried it again tonight. Initially I was getting a few things wrong; little things like remember the difference between ‘he’ and ‘she’ but I was surprised by how much I knew. Ah, well that all went out the window tonight.

I know I’m tired but I didn’t think I was that tired. I mean come on, the entire world knows ‘mangia’ means eat so how the heck did I get that wrong? Then I found myself clicking on the wrong answers even when I knew the right ones. Yep, it’s time to quit studying for the day.

Oh, and another thing – what is up with the whole voice recognition thing? Because I was saying ‘bambina’ perfectly fine. It’s not a hard word. It kept telling me I was wrong. I suspect it was the NY accent. Not that I have an accent. Well that’s it for the stupid microphone. If people don’t understand my Italian with the NY accent, tough luck!

In case you missed this SNL episode: