Monkling's Blog

I’m not sure if that’s a real word but if it’s not, it should be.

This afternoon Theresa and I went into the city to meet up with friends, herein referred to as The Tourists. We were pretty much just tagging along with whatever plans they had. Today the plan was to go on the Staten Island ferry. You see – the ferry is free and passes by the Statue of Liberty.

Did I mention going into the Statue of Liberty in the summer is like going into one of the circles of hell? Seriously, that is how hot it is. Also, thanks to our friendly neighborhood terrorists, security there is tighter than at the White House. If The Tourists had planned on going there, we would not have joined them.

We traveled downtown by train, planning to meet up with The Tourists. They had spent the morning shopping. (2 of The Tourists are teenage girls.) Theresa had not yet had lunch so we grabbed something for her and then looked for a shady spot to sit in while we waited for The Tourists. This is where we ended up:

This is the cemetery behind St. Paul’s chapel. That pale blue in the background, beyond the fence, is the World Trade Center. When Frank worked there, they used to walk across to eat lunch in the cemetery. After 9/11, the fence was covered with things people left – cards, banners, stuffed animals. Every inch was covered. The cemetery is 200 years old & there are famous historic people buried there. Just don’t ask me who. As I said the The Tourists when they asked me what a building was, “I have no idea. I’m not a damn tour guide!”

Hey. Just because I live here – does that mean I should know everything about the city??

I broke a record. 2 things in 3 days that I never witnessed before!

Tonight I went into the city to meet up with Frank and our friends who are visiting NY. We went out to dinner and then to see Lion King.

After the show, Frank & I took the LIRR home. Well, not home but to a stop where I had parked the car. We got in our car and were driving home. A car was in front of us, being very mindful of the speed limit, which was just slightly irritating since I was dying of thirst and quite anxious to get home quickly.

The car in back of us had music blasting. That was nothing new. We’re used to that. Teenagers with the bass turned up (or is it down?) so much that you can feel the vibrations from a mile away.

This was different. It wasn’t teenagers. It wasn’t rap, cursing at every other word. No. It was Frank Sinatra. I found that quite entertaining. I don’t think I ever heard that blaring from another car before.

I never would have thought I could be quite this obsessive. But let’s back up a second. Next Wednesday, August 5th, will be our 25th wedding anniversary. I decided that the way I want to celebrate this is by having a party. I want to be with all my family & friends, eating good food and just having fun.

The party is this coming Saturday. It’s in this local catering hall that’s owned by a really good Italian restaurant. Nothing over the top. The only reason we went with this place rather than just a restaurant is I wanted to be able to invite a lot of people and you’re just not going to cram 50 people into my favorite restaurant.

Anyhow, because it’s not in a restaurant and in a catering hall instead, we get to do the whole table seating thing. I could have skipped it except that there are some people who just need to sit together. Then there are people who don’t know anyone so I have to make sure they’re with people who I know are friendly. Thus, we did decide to go with the whole seating arrangements thing.

This is where the obsessing has come in. Not with my friends but with my family. I keep wondering – will my 2 young cousins be annoyed that they are with their parents & not at the table with the older cousins? Will my aunt & uncle be insulted if I put them at a table a bit further down from mine? Is table position important, like it is at a wedding?
Who would think I could make something simple like this seem so complicated?

Did I mention that I keep having nightmares that the DJ doesn’t show up, that everyone is bored, that half the people don’t show up?

This afternoon a friend of mine, along with her family, arrived in NY. Theresa & I went into the city to meet them for dinner. We live way out in eastern Queens so, rather than taking a bus and then the subway, we took the LIRR (Long Island Railroad) in. Then took the subway for 1 stop up into Times Square.

It was during the subway part of our trip that I saw something I have never seen before. Now, mind you, I’m 51 & I’ve taken the subway thousands of times. I used to work in the city and took it every day for years. And yet, I never, ever saw what I witnessed today.

Now you’re probably picturing I saw something horrible because y’all have probably heard horror stories about the NYC subway and how scary it is. (Not really, though. They exaggerate.) It wasn’t anything like that. What we saw was someone trying to get on without paying. Now don’t get me wrong. I’ve seen people jump the turnstiles. Usually younger people do that. Teenagers, athletic sorts who hop it like they’re jumping hurdles. But this was a middle age woman. And she didn’t hop it. She crawled under it. Theresa and I just looked at each other, mouths opened in shock. Then we spent the next few minutes laughing but trying not to let her see we were laughing.

That’s why I like riding the subway. There’s always something entertaining to see.

We’ve been through a few things with our 14 year old lab. When he was a pup, he had that hip dysplasia thing. (Don’t even ask how much it cost to have that operated on.) Now that he’s old, lumpy & senile, that hip isn’t doing so well.

The thing I find annoying is going back & forth. He’s bad. We might have to put him down. Nope. The treatments works. Wait. They didn’t. Oh, now they did.

If he’s bad enough, if he’s in pain, I won’t hesitate to do what needs to be done. The thing is, he keeps bouncing back and forth. And, of course, each bounce cost money.

Darling Daughter knows the time is coming soon but she isn’t ready. I do uh… well sort of say stuff that isn’t exactly helpful. Like how, if he does have to be put down, I hope it’s soon because then my house will be clean next week for when I’m expecting company. Then there was my complaining tonight when I walked into the kitchen barefoot and stepped into a river. I may have mentioned how I sure won’t be missing that. And let’s not even get into how, the house is covered with dog fur about 5 minutes after I clean it all.

I was in the kitchen later tonight when I heard talking and laughing. It wasn’t just normal laughing. No, this was laughter that comes from plotting an evil plan. Which is exactly what she was doing and then sharing with Frank.

“Mom, I figured out a way for Nicky to annoy you from beyond the grave. We’re going to get him cremated. Then, right after you clean, I’m going to sprinkle handfuls of his ashes around.”

There was a pause. Apparently she got another idea. “You have baggies in the house, right?” It seems she thinks she is going to start collecting his fur and distribute that around, as well.

I will tell ya, if the stupid dog has another accident in the car, he better start saying his prayers because he’s gonna be meeting his Maker. I’m still waiting for my car mechanic to let me know that the replacement seat buckle has come in. Yes, it was so bad that there was no cleaning it. I cut the damn thing out.

When you hit 50, you start getting nagged. “You know, now that you’re 50 you really should …”

Now normally I don’t do what I’m told. The second someone tells me I should do something, it makes me not want to do whatever it is. The thing is, as far as my health goes, I do like to make sure I keep on top of things. I figure right now I’m the healthiest one in the family & I need to keep things that way. I just don’t have time to be sick. Thus, I found myself a couple of weeks ago in the office of a GI doc arranging for a colonoscopy.

Don’t worry. I will not go into any of the gory details. I will tell ya, when they say the prep is worse than the test, they aren’t kidding. Also, although I sort of knew what to expect, I really had no idea. Luckily I knew enough to not make any plans for Sunday.

Also, here’s a tip for anyone who may one day need to have this done. The first tip is Butt Paste. Seriously. Granted some of the other ointments may also work but they smell. Second tip – some sort of nice, soft, gentle (flushable!) wipe. Seriously, you want these things.

Now on to my one complaint about the test (aside from the whole prep thing). If you were an anesthesiologist, wouldn’t you think that, considering what the person just went through the previous day, there is a damn good chance there will be some degree of dehydration?? And I do know my veins. If I’m telling ya the left side isn’t good, then, damn it, I mean it. But no. He had to try sticking something in my left arm first.

Gee, big surprise when that didn’t work out too well. He then went with my left hand. I sat with an ice pack on it for a couple of hours after I got home. Most of the back of that hand is nicely colored – if you like red & purple.

And so, they found absolutely nothing. I am fine. Which, in my opinion, means I don’t have to do this again until I’m 60. Maybe next time when I tell them my left veins aren’t good, they’ll listen to me.

This afternoon we had a little trip down memory lane, a flashback to when we were first married.

For the first 9 months of our marriage, we lived in a 1 bedroom apartment 20 minutes west of where we live now. It was an area of Queens that was way more congested – more traffic, more people, close to zero parking spaces. It did have the advantage of being walking distance to the subway, though, and a much shorter commute for Frank & myself. (We both worked in the city back in those days.)

For that short time, our parish was St. Mary’s. It was about 5 or so blocks away from the apartment. We’d usually walk since driving meant spending an additional hour once we got back from Mass circling for a parking space. We liked it there and were happy with our little apartment and our Church until we realized, fairly early on, that we’d be needing a second bedroom.

We moved into our current home a month before Stephen was born and haven’t been back at St. Mary’s since. Until today.

One of the seminarians had his candidacy today at that Church. (Steve had his last year. You were all forced to read every detail about it here and here and all the surrounding days.) We’ve known this seminarian, Chris, since high school and he will be heading to Rome next month.

Y’all know how much I love seeing my boys so of course we had to attend the Mass. I don’t know why I feel like a proud mother when I see all the seminarians (& some of the younger priests) processing in but I just do. I can’t help myself, even if I barely know some of them. But this post isn’t about my boys. It’s about me because this is my blog.

We walked into the Church for the first time in 24 years. I turned to Frank & Theresa. “The last time I was here, I was pregnant with Stephen!” I looked around at the Church. The outside, the surrounding neighborhood – they all looked familiar but the Church itself didn’t. I do remember it being a very beautiful Church but the details were all forgotten. I suppose having only been a parishioner for 9 months and then not setting foot there for so long had it’s toll on my brain & my memory.

After Mass, we stepped outside. Excitedly I pointed across the street at the cake outlet factory. “We used to stop in there every Sunday after Mass!” I rambled on about the cake, about Guido (our landlord’s name -which, by the way, I had to stifle a laugh when he was first introduced, all sorts of things from our past. Theresa was bored but pretended to pay attention.

I have decided that my next trip should be to Brooklyn, to the place I grew up. I’m pretty sure after 30 years, there probably won’t be much that’ll be familiar but I now have this urge to drag Theresa around and show her my roots. And I don’t mean the ones on my head.

The topic has come up twice today. The first time, when I was IMing Stephen online. He’s spending 3 weeks working at a parish in England. Tangent – he said he wanted to be around people who speak English, for a change. When I was telling this to a mother of a priest at dinner a couple of weeks ago, she said good luck with that. She’s from Ireland and said Brits can be hard to understand.

Anyhow, Steve was complaining that he can’t borrow the rector’s car because it’s manual. That was also an issue when he was traveling in Italy with a couple of the other men. All the rental cars are sticks.

Then tonight my cousin’s son posted on Facebook asking who wants to learn how to drive a stick with him. He wants to buy a car. I’m guessing the manuals are more affordable than automatics.

I know how to drive a stick. Not only that, I like driving a stick. I think it’s fun. I was forced to learn how to drive it. My friends and I had plans to drive up to Cornell University to visit a friend, back in our college days. My father wouldn’t let me take the good car. I had to take his car, which was, of course, a manual transmission. I learned it in 2 days. Sort of.

Once we were up in Ithaca, I realized I didn’t quite master it. There are hills in Ithaca. Lots of hills. For those of you who have never driven a stick, the idea is you have one foot on the gas and the other on the clutch. You push in the clutch and shift. Then, as you depress the gas pedal, you release the clutch. The trouble is, if you are going uphill, you have to release your foot from the brake in order to put it on the gas. You then start rolling downhill. You have to make the transition really fast. Otherwise, you will end up in the front seat of the guy in back of you.

Ah, memories. I wonder if I remember how to drive a stick. I’m guessing it’s kind of like riding a bike. On the other hand, I can’t remember the last time I rode a bike, either.

Yes, I know it’s very sad but I’ve never been on a road trip. It’s not that we haven’t driven long distances to go on vacation but in those cases, the final destination was all that mattered. The journey there was strictly about making good time, making only quick pit stops along the way.

This year Frank & I are going to do a true road trip or, at least, what I think I road trip is all about. One thing we have always wanted to do is drive cross country. That isn’t going to happen until he retires but we can do a ‘cross one-third of the country’ road trip.

This fall we are doing a mini road trip. We will make it as far as… well I guess western Kentucky would be the start of the mid west, wouldn’t it be? We’re going to stop along the way & take our time with the driving. We’re going to do some visits with friends along the way & then there’s the sightseeing side trips.

I am having a great deal of fun planning it all out, marking things on my map, figuring out what we’ll see along the way. The trouble is, I keep seeing other possible side trips but they’re all too out of our way for a one week trip. I’ll have to save them for next time when we can take… oh, a month or 2 off.

So – has anyone ever been to or know anything about German Village in Columbus, Ohio? If German Village lives up to it’s billing, it sounds really cool & I’m looking forward to that.

This should be interesting. I’m thinking I will end up having a lot of blog stories when we get back.

Yesterday Frank & I were out at a party with a group of friends. Theresa went out to my brother’s house to go to the movies with her cousins.

Paul: “What’s your mom doing?”
Theresa: “She’s at a party.”
Paul: “No she’s not. She doesn’t go out to parties.”
Theresa: “It’s with people from Church.”
Paul: “Oh! Okay, now that makes sense!”

Is he trying to imply that I am not the partying sort? Or that I don’t hang out with fun people? Let me tell ya something, my Church friends are a heck of a lot of fun. I also found out that Archbishops from Australia have a real good sense of humor.