Monkling's Blog

Definitely not a relative, despite my Italian heritage. As a matter of fact, if I never, ever paint another ceiling again for the rest of my life, it’ll sound like paradise.

This is what my day consisted of. Buy paint. Cover the entire floor (because if paint gets on those wood floors after I almost died of fumes getting them to look like that, someone will die). Put tape on the molding. Climb up the ladder. Paint the edge where the roller can’t reach. Climb down the ladder. Move the ladder. Repeat 34,280 times.

By the way, in case anyone was wondering whether or not it’s fun to paint a white ceiling with white paint when it’s past dusk and the lights aren’t bright enough and you can’t tell what you painted and what you didn’t – no. It is not fun.

I’m guessing most people, on laundry day, do not walk around with their laundry basket yelling, “Throw out your dead!”

What? You mean the Black Death hasn’t made a comeback? Hey, I figure if the clothes smell like someone may have died in them, that’s good enough for me.

Today is a birthday around here:

He was not terribly cooperative when Theresa tried putting his birthday hat on him to take a picture. I figure if he’s in his 90s, then heck, he’s entitled to lie down while having his picture taken.

Have I lost all my readers? Is anyone still out there? Is this thing turned on?

I wish I could say I’ve been gone because I lead such an exciting life and I’ve been too busy. Or that I’ve been away. I’m not even sure what I did all week. The truth is, I completely forgot to blog. Didn’t even think of it. How does a person go from blogging almost every day to this? What has happened to corrupt me so?

And on a completely random topic, what is the deal with Maryland having a song with the tune of “O Christmas Tree?” Couldn’t they come up with an original tune all their own? (Yes, we have the TV on with the Preakness.)

More randomness: Yesterday I finally got over to Jersey City to see where Frank now works. After working in downtown Manhattan on Wall Street & at the World Trade Center for nearly 30 years, they decided to move him to Jersey. The good part about him being in Jersey:

That building on the left, sort of beneath the seagull is the Empire State building.

The bad part – everything other than the view. Longer commute time (because the 1 3/4 hours he already had each way wasn’t quite long enough), the rows of desks rather than cubicles… I could go on but I won’t. After all, I’m not the one who has to work there.

That is my dream – that I can plant stuff and not need to build the Berlin Wall to protect my garden. These are my babies:

Most of them I started from seed. (Well, all except the basil, which didn’t quite make it.) Like any mother, I am protective of my babies. Therefore, I was not pleased when Bigfoot trampled some of my babies.

I bought a pretty little wrought iron fence. It’s low enough to step over comfortably but the same height as the barricades I have in the house to bar Bigfoot from certain rooms. The dog does, after all, have bad hips and he won’t bother trying to step over a 6″ high barrier.

It seems, though, that my garden has some particular attraction in it that will cause him to struggle over my pretty little fence. I then had 2 choices: either get a shotgun and shoot him or concoct something that will completely imped his progress across my little fence. This is the result:

I knew it was wise, hanging on to those old Boogie Boards & old shelving. If he somehow manages to get over that, I obviously will have no choice but to buy that shotgun.

In spite of the fact that I am horrible at writing short notes and even worse at thinking up titles, I have decided the government should hire me to name streets. It is plain to see that whoever is doing this job hasn’t been very good at it. If they were good at it, would there be 23,458,000 streets named “Main?” I think not.

What brought about this revelation to me? Well we were driving home from Mohegan Sun (that’s where the Keith Urban concert was last night) and we’re going along the highway in Connecticut. (I’m not sure if it was I-95 at that point but honestly, that little fact just isn’t important to my story.)

I was tired because we were out late last night & then I woke up just about every hour during the night at the hotel and then we hit every single traffic jam in existence. Therefore, I was just staring out into space as my darling husband drove along. Then a sign caught my eye. Now mind you, we see the same exit signs every single time we drive up that way. Maybe I was in a dazed, sleep deprived stupor or something but it struck me: if the name of that street is Four Mile River Road, is it 4 miles long?

Well hey, seems a perfectly logical question to me. And the answer to that is no, it is not 4 miles long. It is a mere 2 1/2. Shouldn’t the street be named Two and a Half Mile River Road Drive? Isn’t that false advertising.

I was ready to give them a way out of it. I thought perhaps the actual river is 4 miles long, not the street. There is, after all, a river that runs along the road. But no, the river was even shorter than the street. It barely made it to 2 miles.

I want to know who named that street and why it fell short.

Last night, the meeting went from 6 pm – 8 pm. The news truck was out front by 5, in time for the 5 o’clock news. They were interviewing people, they were taping live. I get that.

What I don’t get is why they were still out there, broadcasting live for the 10 o’clock news. By 10, no one was around. The meeting had been over for 2 hours. What is the point of being live if there’s nothing going on? I guess it was a slow news night?

I knew they’d be doing that because the truck was still outside. As it crept close to 10, we took a peek out the window. Sure enough, they had that poor woman standing there in the cold drizzle, lights shining on her, just so she could do the news spot on location. It was just weird to me that they made the crew hang out here doing nothing for 2 hours just to have a live broadcast.

One interesting thing – they said people who attended the meeting afterwards said it was a waste of time. Gee, did I call that one?

Well we’re off now to drive up to Connecticut. We have a Keith Urban concert tonight.

It’s kind of interesting looking out your window and seeing a news truck, camera people & a reporter doing a live broadcast and watching the broadcast on TV at the same time.

I also had no idea just how noisy news trucks can be. There’s this loud, humming sound coming from across the street. Sounds like a generator.

2 weeks ago there was a gas leak and a house on the block behind me blew up. The explosion was so powerful, everyone on my block, including myself, thought it was in our own house. That’s how badly our homes shook & how loud the blast was.

Now they’re having some sort of community meeting in the school across the street with a bunch of politicians and the local utility company. I guess I should be there. That is, if I wanted to sit for 2 hours and listen to a bunch of garbage.

Frankly, they can tell us all they want about what they’re doing to make sure this never happens again and that I’m safe and my house isn’t going to blow up but I won’t believe a word of it. And I’m pretty sure it’s little comfort to the husband & 3 kids who lost their wife/mother in the explosion.

I’ve got exactly 10 minutes before it is no longer Cinco de Mayo. Then I will have broken my posting streak. Of course I know how to hack into my own database so even if I post this after midnight, I can still make it show up as having been posted on Tuesday. But that would be cheating, wouldn’t it? And I can’t cheat. Heavens, no!

I thought of something really funny that I wanted to post but then it vanished – poof, into the black hole that is my brain. It’s really a shame, too. Y’all would have been so entertained. Now all you can do is try to imagine just how funny this post could have been if only my brain didn’t have more holes than a hunk of Swiss cheese.

Hmmm…. only a bit over a hundred words. This barely qualifies as a real post. Does that mean it’s a fake post? An illusion? Ah, yes. You have come to read my blog and you think there is actually something written here. In reality, it is blank; as blank as the look on my face when my husband and offspring talk about math.

And since this blog post is merely a figment of your imagination, it’s time for me to depart and leave you wanting more…

This is seriously messed up. Yes, it is 6 a.m. and I am awake. I have no idea why. No one woke me up. I did not have to be up. Normally I don’t drag myself out of bed earlier than 7. And yet, here I am. I simply woke up and couldn’t fall back asleep again. My darling husband was a bit surprised to see me walking down the stairs at 5:45, let me tell ya. I am just going to write this off as yet another fun part of mentalpause. And if I have to wake up wide awake at a pre-dawn time, I much prefer this to oh, say 3 a.m.

And if I have to be awake before the sun comes up, you all are darn well going to know about it!