Monkling's Blog

A while back, I read in the newspaper about how someone hacked into those digital road signs to change it. Instead of saying something like, “Road Work Ahead,” they had it saying something like, “Warning – Zombies Ahead.”

I’m betting there weren’t really zombies ahead but a pre-mental-pausal woman who was up half the night. Either that or one of those women, going mad with insomnia and boredom, is the one who hacked into the sign.

Ya know – they told me about the hot flashes but no one ever warned me about this part of it. I was up until after 2 a.m. on Thursday night. This is getting quite old. Really. Or is it me that’s getting quite old?

On Friday night I went out with some friends to a murder mystery dinner. It was a fund raiser for the parish school. Yes, that would be the same school that I’m now on the advisory board for, but I planned on going before that happened.

Now let me tell ya something – I love mysteries. I read them from the time I could read. Everyone knows it is never the obvious person. In retrospect, however, I should have realized that if there are 4 actors running the show and 2 get killed off, the odds are, it’s gonna be one of the ones still standing. Therefore, not going with the obvious choice meant I didn’t win, although my friend, Mr. T, did win.

Then there were the raffles. I’ve seen this before so I knew what to do. You buy the tickets and then put your tickets into the little bags representing the prize you want to win. Except when they announced the prize and then read off the number, I sat there staring at the number for a few minutes saying, “Wait. Is that my number?” and then said, “But I don’t remember going for that prize. How could I have won that?”

Okay, so I didn’t win hundreds of dollars or that really cool Broadway weekend that included a show and a hotel stay but I’m gonna be buying $25 worth of baked goods from a really good Italian bakery.

After I claimed my prize and sat back down, I was thinking, “Hmmm… did I drink too much wine and forget what prizes I was trying to win? Nah! That’s just plain silly. Plus, I did the whole ticket thing before the wine.”

All in all, it was a much better evening than the one where I got to be a horse, twice, that came in last place both times.

Tonight Frank & I went out with a friend. He was sitting right next to Frank. His name is Sparky. He’s a dragon.

We decided to be spontaneous today. It’s not often we are spontaneous, not because we don’t like to but because… well first we had young children and now we have an old dog. But tonight we said the heck with it. Let’s be daring. Off we went, out to dinner and then to see if we could get tickets for tonight’s Islander’s game. There was a conversation like this:

Me: “If we pay for parking and go in and there are no tickets for the game, will we get a refund?”

Frank: “They are in last place. I’m pretty sure that won’t be a problem.”

While we were on line to buy tickets, we were approached by an older man. He said he had season tickets but couldn’t use them; that he’d give us his $70 tickets for $35. I checked the tickets. They seemed authentic. Since we were in a risk-taking mood, we bought them off him and they did turn out to be legitimate – a bit higher up than I would have thought for $70 but center ice. Pretty good view:

I can’t remember the last time we were at a hockey game. I like hockey. Except for the fights. Tonight there were a lot of fights. The Islanders got our hopes up by playing really well in the first 2 periods but then they ended up losing in a shootout. At least it was close.

Of course the bad part is now I’m itching to do more things. (Looks down at dog lying by my feet & sighs.) Oh, well. He is 14. (And as I’m typing this, I’m thinking I sure hope Theresa doesn’t pop into my blog or I’m in deep trouble.)

I am envisioning interesting times in the future. It seems that I am now on a committee for our parish school. I cannot even begin to explain just how ironic this is in oh so many ways.

My kids did attend the school from the time they were 3 up through 5th grade for Steve & 2nd for Theresa, at which time I homeschooled them. During the 8 years my kids attended that school, I was very involved but there’s also a lot of history which I won’t go into publicly.

The president of this school committee (or board or whatever the official name for it is) is a friend of mine. It seems she brought up my name at some meeting they had and the principal and our pastor both thought it was a good idea. What they don’t know is I have never been on a committee in my entire life. I haven’t the slightest idea of what exactly I’m supposed to do.

My friend said one thing I bring to the table is I think outside the box; that I have a unique perspective on things. I laughed at that and said, “Uh… and you think that’s a good thing??”

I have no idea what I just got myself into but neither do they. Hey, what’s the worst that can happen? That they kick me off or I quit? I can deal with that. And maybe I actually will be able to contribute something. In any case, this should prove to be an interesting adventure.

My brother’s video made it to the final rounds so now he needs votes. Oddly you can vote as often as you want. So if anyone is bored and feels like clicking a big button to vote for him, click here.

Pass it around. Get everyone to vote and maybe I’ll start blogging again.

Today is St. Joseph’s Feast Day. For Italians, well he’s even bigger than St. Patrick is for the Irish. In his honor, I naturally had to cook Italian food for dinner but the big story is I made San Giuseppe pastry.

Today this is going to be a recipe blog because I’m going to share that recipe. Depending on what part of Italy you go to, they have different things for San Giuseppe pastry. There was the great debate here about what is referred to as zeppole & sfingi. Basically, though, it’s the same pastry with the only difference being the filling. So, first let’s get to the puff pastry, which can also be used to make cream puffs.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees

Melt the butter in boiling water. Add flour and salt all at once. Stir and cook until mixture forms a ball. Remove from heat and let cool slightly. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each.

Form your little puffs about 2″ in diameter, 2″ apart on greased cookie sheets. (They are going to get about double in size when they cook.)

Bake at 425 for 15 minutes, then lower the heat to 300 and cook for an additional 20 – 25 minutes. Remove from sheets, cool and fill.

I filled mine with cannoli cream because that is what Frank & Theresa like:

I had initially made the cannoli cream the authentic way. It doesn’t taste like the cannoli cream you get in the bakery, though. Thanks to my sister & Google, I found one that I modified a bit and came up with a cannoli cream that came very close:

Stir cornstarch into the milk. Add the sugar and cook until thickened. Cover with plastic wrap so it doesn’t harden on top and cool. Add the ricotta and vanilla. (The cornstarch/milk mixture was quite thick. Janet had the idea of using a hand blender to mix it well with the ricotta and that worked out rather nicely.) If you prefer your filling to be sweeter, you can always add more sugar but it’s better to start out with less. You can alway add but taking out… that would be a problem.

And there you have it – San Giuseppe Pastry.

Oops – forgot 2 things:
1) You want the filling to cool first before filling the puffs so pop it in the refrigerator.
2) Don’t fill them up too far ahead of time or they’ll get all soggy.

The pastries also freeze well.

This week is Spring Break so Theresa & I had a little mother daughter day. We went into the city to see West Side Story and then out to dinner. (Sorry, Anonymous Art Lover – no time for the Frick today.)

I like going into the city. There is always something that has me cracking up. It’s an adventure.

Theresa and I were walking along Broadway where we saw at least 3 different guys handing out Obama condoms. One guy was yelling out, “Hard times are coming!”

Then there was the guy who calls out to me, “Excuse me Ma’am, you dropped something.” As I turn to look where he’s pointing, he continues, “my heart.” I’m not quite sure what it was he was trying to sell but couldn’t he tell a) I am not a tourist and b) I’m way too old to be falling for a handsome guy with a line.

And then there are the tourists. Okay, I get it. It’s Broadway but for pete’s sake, you don’t stop in the middle of a crowded sidewalk.

We didn’t see the Naked Cowboy this time although apparently someone did. I know this because I heard her excitedly telling her friend on the phone, “I got a picture of the Naked Cowboy!”

The show was good even though they did 2 of the songs in Spanish. That was okay because we were singing along with the English words in my head. I asked Theresa if I could sing out loud but she wouldn’t let me.

To top the day off, when we arrived home, the dog did not leave any unpleasant surprises. (Now that he’s getting older, that’s not always a given anymore.)

There was much hand wringing going on here yesterday. Yes, indeed. So much so that my arthritic hands were aching me. There were even some thoughts similar to, “Woe is me.”

You see, that is what happens when your washing machine dies. Everything is sopping wet and if there is any hope of getting them into the dryer without killing that, too, then all those dripping wet clothes need to be wrung out. My sister did suggest I use my pasta maker to get out the water but I declined since the only thing that would fit in there would be a sock. Is that where they get the expression, “Put a sock in it?”

Today was spent looking out my window, waiting for the repair man to get here. It ended up costing me $200 to put in a part that cost $23. I think I’m going to have to learn how to fix it myself next time. Heck, if I can fix a refrigerator, why not a washing machine?

Alrighty, my washing machine works again. Happily I go off to do a load of laundry. After it’s done, I put all the clothes in the dryer. I push the start button. Nothing. I check to make sure the door is closed. I push it again. Still nothing. I am muttering to myself that the repair guy was annoyed with me because I wouldn’t buy his $30 hoses, his $30 ’special’ washing machine cleaner fluid and his $70 service contract and that he probably did something to my dryer.

I hang up all my clothes and then call my sister to whine. My brother in-law asks about the outlet. “It’s fine,” I tell him. It’s the same one the washing machine is plugged into. Then I remembered the disappearing Wii Fit disk and how I humored by brother by standing on a chair and ended up finding it. I go back into the basement. Even though it seems stupid, I unplug the washing machine and plug the dryer into that socket. Bingo. It works. I now have a washer and dryer that both work. I just can’t use them at the same time.

Theresa: “Couldn’t you have popped me out a week earlier?”
Me: “You were 3 weeks early as it was. Why?”
Theresa: “Formal is a week before my 21st birthday. I won’t be able to drink.” Then she thinks a bit. “Maybe they won’t proof me. Or if they do, maybe they’ll let it slide since I’ll be 21 in only 6 more days.”

Speaking of drinking, I think this is an appropriate place to get to another of Lanny’s comment about adult drinks.

On New Year’s Eve, 2 years ago that “Anonymous in a Hick Town” poster was visiting with her almost fiancée. We decided we wanted to make Chocolate Martinis but we didn’t have all the ingredients. We did find a drink called a Chocolate Monk but I decided to change it around a bit. The resulting drink was renamed.

I felt it appropriate for it to have Frangelico in it, don’t you think?

There you have it – my very own drink.

or… how we came to now have a deaf, smelling, lumpy, old dog.

A couple of years before getting Nicodemus (aka Nicky) we had another dog – Beauty. She was named for Beauty & The Beast. A more appropriate name would have been Beast. She was a pup and we got her from an animal shelter. One issue I had with her was she would pee whenever she got excited. That meant any time anyone came into the house. As annoying as that was, that wasn’t why we got rid of her. It turns out she was psychotic.

The kids were young at the time. Theresa must have been 5 & Steve 8. Beauty didn’t like Theresa. It wasn’t anything Theresa did. Both my kids were used to dogs & knew how to behave around them. Psycho Beast would just look at Theresa from across the room and growl at her. When Beauty… uh, I mean Beast, went to bite her, that was it. The dog was out of here.

2 years later, one of our writer friends got a dog – a black lab. I love labs. We had the sweetest yellow lab growing up. Whenever anyone came into the house, Sammy would go to the door to greet them – carrying a sneaker. He had to greet everyone with a gift & it was usually my brother’s sneaker. Sammy was also terrified of thunder and fireworks. During a thunderstorm, he once managed to climb into the bathtub to hide.

Pam lived in Delaware & she got her pup from a breeder in Pennsylvania. She was going on about this dog so much. Phoebe was the smartest dog ever. And adorable. Phoebe’s parents & grandparents were fine specimens and with no hip problems & her father was Amish. (The dog being Amish has nothing relevant to add to the story. I just think that it’s cool.)

Pam was a self proclaimed expert on everything including being able to tell how healthy a dog line was. Because I am an idiot and believe people, I figured she wouldn’t be saying it if it wasn’t true. (Now that does have something relevant to the story.)

I innocently asked if there were any more pups from the litter. Before you knew it, our family was heading out in a car to Delaware to meet up with Pam. Then off to Pennsylvania where we watched Phoebe run around with her siblings. And there was Nicky. He was the only one out of the litter that wasn’t pure black. He has a patch of white on his chest. He also had the longest ears I ever saw on a lab. Seriously long. As in long enough to trip over.

He has been a dream dog. Great disposition, smart. It did turn out that Pam was wrong about the hip thing, though and we had to shell out some major bucks for hip surgery when he was a pup. Other than that, Nicodemus has been a great dog.

He still views Theresa as his playmate. Now that he’s deaf, they can’t play one game that they used to, though – hide & seek. Ever since she was about 7 or 8, she’d tell him to sit & stay. She’d hide and then yell out, “Ready!” and he’d go looking for her. When he’d find her there would be a lot of tail wagging and licking. When she comes home, he still will greet her with a toy.