Something is very wrong here. I spent today cleaning. Not just the usual cleaning. Oh, no. Today I was straightening out stuff in the basement and everything. Why, you may ask? Because tomorrow I am having a complete stranger in my house. This stranger will be in my basement, in my den/office, in my bedroom. Therefore, I couldn’t allow this stranger to see what a slob I really am.
Tomorrow we’re going fiber optics. This requires a person in my house. Now, while I like the idea of having a better TV picture & faster Internet, I do not like the idea of someone being in my house all day. That’s not the point, though. The point really is – why the heck is my house cleaner for someone I will never, ever see again than it would be if I was having the family over? That is just wrong.
I am also not happy that I will not have Internet access for who knows how long, nor a phone. Well that’s not entirely true. I do have my cell phone. And I can probably hijack my neighbor’s wireless signal. Well that’s assuming they have their router turned on and that they still aren’t smart enough to encrypt it.
But I keep coming back to the fact that my bedroom is neater than it has been in months. Maybe I need to invite strangers into my house every now & then so it will motivate me to clean a bit better?
Now I realize one day (hopefully) I will be old, too. Meantime, I have just under 30 or so years before I get to the magical age of 80. I can’t wait that long. I need to know now. I have a burning question that I must know the answer to:
Why do old people randomly stop in their tracks for no apparent reason??
Like you’re oh, say, grocery shopping. There’s an old person in front of you as you’re moving on to the next aisle. Suddenly without any warning, without any signals or brake lights, the person just stops. And when they stop, it is always right in the middle of the aisle, completely blocking access to said aisle. Usually it’s an extremely important aisle that you must go down because it has things like coffee and chocolate and cookies.
Then you try to get the old person’s attention. You wave. Old Person doesn’t see you. You say, “Excuse me.” Old Person doesn’t hear you. You yell, “EXCUSE ME!”
Slowly they look up. They look at you like you have 20 heads with snakes coming out of them. Then they slowly move an inch, thinking they are now out of the way. Finally they realize that maybe a little Yorkie pushing a teeny tiny shopping cart might be able to pass them but no other object is going to get by. Finally they get out of the way.
I need to know what compels them to suddenly stop. I want to know if this is going to happen to me when I’m 80. Is it something that’s contagious? Is it a requirement into the secret club of old people?
In keeping with the ongoing theme of the past couple of days:
I was sitting at my desk, snacking on this cereal called Mighty Bites. They look like little men & I used them in one of my contests back in 2007.
“Honey, if you step on something crunchy, don’t be alarmed. It’s just a little man. I accidentally dropped one. Either that or he made a run for it.”
Pause.
“If it’s not a little man, then it’s a little body part.”
And on a complete tangent, what the heck is the deal with it snowing all freaking weekend?? I’m getting just a little bit sick of this snow garbage; sick of having to clear off the car every time I have to go out someplace. Okay, fine. I only went out once the entire weekend and Frank cleaned off the car but hey, I could have needed to go out.
If you heard the following conversation would you…
a) Call the closest psychiatric ward?
b) Check that the person wasn’t running a fever?
c) Not say anything but look at the person, wondering whether or not they were bordering on the edge of sanity?
d) Just go about eating dinner like everything was perfectly normal?
Now keep in mind, this is not made up. This is a real, actual, one-sided conversation:
“No! Don’t you dare drip over to that roll. The gravy must remain only on the turkey. It’s okay if it makes its way over to the stuffing but no gravy on the roll.” Pause. “Wait. I will save you from the evil gravy. Here, sit on my napkin where you will stay nice and dry.”
If you picked “d” then you must be a member of my family or someone who has known me for a long, long time.
Last night Frank & I were watching TV where the conversation had turned to something about someone’s wife must be cheating & she’s a slut and has a secret bank account where she’s stashed thousands of dollars. (This may seem like a complete tangent but stay with me. It’s not.)
I turned to Frank and said, “I’m not a slut. I’m not having an affair with anyone. I don’t have a secret bank account. I’m sorry that I’m so boring.”
Pause.
“No, wait. I’m not boring. I keep you entertained all the time with my lively, interesting conversational skills.” (Did you catch how that’s not a tangent because it goes back to the wacky things that just spew out of my mouth?)
I must let everyone know. This is something so big that it must be shared, not simply yelled downstairs from my bedroom to Frank, although that’s exactly what I did.
“You would be so proud of me!”
Silence. I think everyone in this house is used to ignoring me. I went on.
“There was a spider. I didn’t make you come running upstairs to slay it. I did it all by myself!’
Then I ran down the stairs. Apparently Frank didn’t realize the gravity of the situation. I got right in his face.
“I killed it. All by myself. I squashed the evil spider.”
Finally something. Frank laughed & praised my slaying skills.
Yes, I know I named my daughter after St. Theresa and she didn’t kill the spiders but I’m no saint. I am an evil bug killer and I bet only my house has conversations like this.
At 8:30 this morning, the phone rang. A quick look at the caller ID gave me no information at all. It said, ‘out of area.’ Normally when I see that, I don’t bother picking it up & I just let it go over to voicemail. 90% of the time, ‘out of area’ means it’s someone trying to sell me something I don’t want. This time, though, I was curious. No one calls at 8:30 on a Saturday morning. Not with any good news, anyway. I picked up the phone.
“Can I speak to Stephen?”
“Who is this?”
“Delilah.” That’s not the name she gave but I don’t remember what it was. I do know there was no last name, nor a company name. Just the first name. That’s when the conversation became fun. (Hey, I’ve said it millions of times before – I am easily amused.)
I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to go with, “He doesn’t live here.” or “He’s away at school.” I went with the school one.
“When would be a good time to find him at home?”
“Oh, in about a year and a half.”
“Do you have a number he can be reached at?”
“Sure do but it’s in Rome.” It seems she didn’t want to make an international phone call so that was the end of the conversation. I’m betting she didn’t expect that one.
Hmmm…. Now if it were hot, we could go with the one about frying an egg on the sidewalk. I’m not sure there’s one for when it’s -456 degrees out. Maybe I should just make one up. Like:
It’s so cold out, I’m spitting out hail. Nah. For one thing, I think it’s disgusting to spit.
It’s so cold out…. Okay, I have nothing. There just isn’t anything funny about it being this cold. As a matter of fact, when I had the door opened for 10 seconds to let the dog out, I think I got frostbite. Where the heck is global warming when you need it?
There was a story in the news today about a 10 year old boy emulating a scene from A Christmas Story and getting his tongue frozen to a pole.
All I know is I’m glad I have a week’s worth of groceries in here and there is no reason in the world for me to set foot outside until the weather decides to be reasonable and get above freezing.
Yes, that’s right – this is post #700. I feel it deserves special note since I’ve been slacking off lately, what with being a slacker & all.
Meantime, carrying on the theme of Italian Hot Chocolate, I was sort of disappointed today. This morning I decided to open up that first packet of Ciobar. The reason for my disappointment was because, although I was able to understand the Italian instructions, I found out that 125 ml is only a bit over 4 ounces. That’s not a nice big mug full of cocoa!
My second mistake was due to pure laziness. I didn’t want to dirty a saucepan. I decided what the heck. Let’s just empty the packet into a mug, add a bit of milk and nuke it. Now in order to get this cocoa to the proper consistency, it needs to be cooked long enough. That’s easy to do in a saucepan but not quite as simple if you’re using a microwave. I ran into a little trouble. Hey, how was I supposed to know that 15 measly seconds would be the difference between all of it remaining in the mug and half of it being spewed all over the floor of the microwave??
I’ll tell you this – I did manage to scrape up as much as I could off that glass plate. The nice thick consistency did help with the scraping. And it didn’t taste half bad even though I can’t remember when the last time was that I actually cleaned that glass plate on the bottom of the microwave. But all that heat certainly would have killed any germs, right?
I’m still torn, though, about whether it tastes more like cocoa or chocolate. This will require more taste tests.
Oh, and if you go look back on yesterday’s post, Virginia was nice enough to leave a recipe in the comments and I added another one. I say we all have a huge hot chocolate cook off and see which one we like better. Feel free to mess with either or both recipes. Maybe even add in some Nutella…
The first time we went to Italy was Feb. 2000. We went with a group of high school boys, saw all the sights and had a lot of fun. One thing we discovered there was hot chocolate. Now let me tell ya something – Italian hot chocolate is like nothing you’ve ever tasted here in the states. It is not just chocolate milk that’s been heated or a packet of powder mixed with hot water like you’re making instant coffee or something equally horrid.
Nope. Italians know their food and their drinks and even hot chocolate is different there. Italian hot chocolate is like drinking a cup of melted chocolate. It was the richest, most delicious thing I ever tasted in my life. Ever since that time, 9 years ago, I have searched American stores and online for the stuff but I searched in vain.
Then it happened. We found it in Rome, a little envelope of heaven:
That was basically the only souvenir we brought home. The problem is, we didn’t bring home nearly enough of it. Luckily, I now have a son who lives in Rome and who knows where the nearest post office is. Of course this is the same person who has yet to buy a single Italian postage stamp…
When we were visiting Stephen in Rome, we somehow got onto a conversation about TV shows. He loves House. I said I had watched it once but that House was so damn obnoxious, I couldn’t stand him so I don’t watch the show. My boy insisted it was a good show & went on about how House is like Sherlock Holmes & Wilson is Watson. Okay, fine, I’ll check it out again. So now my son is forcing me to watch House reruns.
I have them recorded. I love recording shows because I can zip through the commercials. Tonight I was watching an episode and fast forwarding through commercials when suddenly I stopped. I saw someone familiar; someone I’m related to. Sure it’s black and white & it was going fast so maybe I was wrong. Nope. That was my little brother on national TV. (My brother is the one with the hat.)
It also seems some people found the stereotyping of Italians in the commercial as offensive. I say those people need to get a life. I thought the video was funny.
