The other morning, Ed and I decided to run some errands together. And by run errands together, I mean have Ed drive me around to do my five errands to his one because I lied and said I had two. I just add-on the others by saying, “Hey, would you mind stopping at one more place?” 3X. Ed and Amy fall for this ploy all the time, and I love them for it. But that’s not what this story is about. This story is about murder.

Our first stop was the pool store which caused me to immediately regret my decision to let Ed drive me around. I hate the pool store and, had I known his errand was the pool store, I would have driven my own damn self around.

To avoid the pool store, I decided I would visit the 24/7 fitness center right next door. Now, before you call me a liar

I wanna be her when I grow up

(Amy) I assure you this is true. Believe it or not, and those of you who have seen me might not believe it, I actually exercise. Being a peri-menopausal woman negates all of your efforts, but I still try. I purchased a rowing machine months ago which has not lived up to its hype on House of Cards. I regret to report I look no closer to being Robin Wright’s twin than I did on the day the machine arrived.

So, instead of buying yet another piece of expensive exercise equipment, I thought I might join a gym and use all of their exercise equipment to no avail for less money. After I entered, a twenty year old boy asked me if I was lost. I assured him I was there to look the place over. He assured me I was in a GYM and not a SHOP. I convinced him to show me around or I would call his mother.

Imagine my excitement when I saw a long row of TVs over the cardio equipment! I will only run if there is a TV in front of me. I asked how to change the channels and was told I could NOT change the channels at all. I asked if this was a communist gym. I’m not certain he’d ever heard of communists. He’d certainly never heard of Ronald Reagan. I suggested he stop hanging around a gym and go to school, but I digress. The boy/man told me to just use the treadmill in front of the show I wanted to watch. The problem with this is that there are only so many treadmills in front of each screen. If you want to watch a certain show but there aren’t any spaces left you have to behave yourself and not push people to the ground. I couldn’t promise this wouldn’t happen, but I did promise to try.

At the end of the tour, I saw Ed approaching the door. Here’s what you need to know about Ed – he is in amazing shape for a fifty-year-old guy. In fact, he’s in amazing shape for a thirty-year-old guy. He comes in and the tour boy is clearly eager to ditch me and help Ed because here’s a guy who belongs in the place. Ed walks over and I say, “Hi, honey, do you want to take the tour?”

And I swear this part is true – the fitness boy looks Ed over and then looks me over and the expression on his face says, “There is no way on earth you are married to this fine specimen of a man and, if you are, he’s going to leave you.” There’s pity in that expression. Ed has no idea this has occurred because he launches into a speech about how I’m the only one in the family who still works out and he wants to get started again. I love Ed.

Someone wished me a “Merry New Year!” today. I said “Don’t you mean Happy?” Nope – he said he was feeling “Merry” still from last week and he was going with it. Good for him.

The next person I talked to I wished a “Groovy New Year” to. She said “Don’t you mean Happy?” I told her I was feeling “Groovy” and that’s the way it was going to be. I told her the story of the man I’d meant earlier and she agreed to pay it forward and would wish everyone a “Spectacular New Year”. I heard her say that to the barrista in the Starbucks we were in when I was on my way out so she was true to her word.

I told all of my co-workers the story and near the end of the day we all shouted “Joyous New Year!” to our boss and laughed like fools. He must have thought we were drunk because he sent all home earlier then he was supposed to. That brought us all great JOY. See – it works!

Thanks “Merry” guy from the morning. So, everyone have whatever type of “New Year” you’re feeling. You be you!

It’s probably a good thing for the local merchants that the Sisters have been split up this year for holiday shopping. Ava is especially hostile since she now works at a job that requires timely attendance – not that her hostility extends to Amy who is wandering the earth having a grand time and writing at will.  Not much anyway.

While Amy was upsetting the Lush employees with her reasonable gift budget, Ava was over at Costco standing on line

This is what Ava’s wallet looks like. Seriously.

at the exit so an idiot with a green marker coud look her over like a criminal, judge her purchases, and grunt at her that she could leave. Ava left more hostile than when she went in.

A little background here: Ava saves all receipts until she is certain she doesn’t neeed them. She never misplaces them or loses them. The second the cashier hands her the receipt, she folds it in half, and places it ithe receipt section of her

purse. Everytime she does it at Costco, Amy says “It’s like you’re an idiot.” Perhaps true.

Combining both our mottos!

However, it turns out Ava is not the only person annoyed by the receipt checking at Ccostco. Here is a quote from a like minded citizen –

“After checking out, I deliberately leave the receipt at the register. Sometimes the assistant to the checker will hurriedly bring it to me. I refuse it. This is an important step in the process of keeping the honor of free people everywhere.”

Now, Ava could never leave her receipt at the register, but she can certainly appreciate the honor of free people everywhere and applauds this reporter for standing up for the rest of us at Costco.

Vive la revolucion! And happy holiday shopping to all!

Dear Life of Leisure,

I miss you. I really do. I don’t know what I was thinking to get a job and let you go but I’m sorry. Please, please come back to me. Baby, come back. Here’s what I did today without you and Amy: I went to work where they made me WORK. I swear it’s true. I had to work like a . . . I don’t know what you call it . . . like a WORKER.

It’s odd. I have not had to be to any job on time in decades. By on time, I mean at a certain time, in this case 8:30AM. They expect you to be in the office by 8:30AM. Not around 8:30AM but AT 8:29AM or earlier. It’s just crazy. In fact, I really need to talk to them about such an unreasonable demand.

I Miss You

I’ve also been able to come and go as I pleased. And let me tell you, it pleased me and Amy no end to come and go as we pleased. I’m not saying (with the exception of recently) that I’m not used to doing my job at work I’m just saying I’m not used to being treated like a worker.

I feel like a captive. After you get there, you can’t leave until lunch. And lunch is a disaster! Lunch is only for an hour. ONE HOUR. Who the hell can get lunch, eat it, run errands, etc. in 60 measly minutes. Honest to Zeus, it’s barbaric. And no one is grateful that you show back up after your tiny lunch hour. Nooooooooooooo. Now get this, they EXPECT you to return after lunch and stay until closing time. It’s expected. Apparently, everyone does it.

I’m not even going to tell you what happened when I asked where the nail polish and TV were located . . . let’s just say – I don’t see this working out.

So, what was behind the orange door?

Before we get to that, we want to state again we were given permission to kitten shop. We do admit, this was a bad idea on someone’s part (Ed) and if you make bad mistakes like that in life you get what you deserve (Ed). Saying, after the fact, that you thought your wife and her sister were adults and could be trusted does not absolve you of making such a mistake. It really doesn’t.

Now, on to the orange door . . .

Pleased to meet you!

We went through the orange door and made a right as instructed. We averted our eyes from the puppies because we were not given permission to puppy shop (See, we can be trusted in some areas.) We entered the cat room and waited for someone to approach us before we started touching because that’s what happened in the other shelters. A lady whirled by and told us to look around. Totally unchaperoned! Like we could be trusted. Like adults, Ed. Just sayin’.

We started slowly, looking in every cage for kittens. As you’ll recall, we’d about given up all hope of finding one. About three quarters of the way through, we’d seen some very pretty cats but no kittens. And then, there before our eyes were two of the most adorable kittens you have ever seen! Ever. They were beautiful. We waited for someone to come back so we could touch them. The lady returned and told us to go right ahead and open any of the cages and pet all the kitties we liked. We did as we were told for the second time this year.

We scooped them right out and snuggled them. We snuggled them good. They were twelve weeks old and from the same litter. They looked like twins. We couldn’t imagine how we were going to pick one and leave the other – so, ummmmmmmm, we didn’t. We took them both. How heartless would it have been to separate them? They are twins for goodness sake, Ed.

We knew it was meant to be when they told us they were buy one get one free. (Readers of this blog know Ed loves a bargain.) Actually, Victor, one of the workers offered to throw in a third cat if we wanted. And we wanted except Ava wanted to remain married to Ed and knew she was already about to be on thin ice.

Here’s the moral to this story – if you don’t want more than you were bargaining for, don’t send the Sisters out shopping for animals. No good can come from it.

And here they are – Milo and Loki. The newest members of the Ava Bright family.

It became necessary to procure a new family member for Ava’s household. Specifically, a kitten became necessary. Necessary, as in needed. On Tuesday, the Sisters met for a delicious breakfast to fortify themselves to find said kitten. After we were thrown out of the restaurant for loitering, the search began. You might think it’s easy to find a kitten in a city the size of ours – after all, it supports three major shelters with annexes –  but it’s not.

We went to the first place thinking there’d be lots of kittens to pick from. We were handed a form to fill out. It wanted to know about our cat

As much as we’d like to have this kitty, this isn’t what we were looking for, although the adoptable ones were all about his size.

experience (lots) and what we’d do if the kitty ruined our sofa and was climbing the curtains – ummmmm, remove it from the curtain? What if it made a mess in our bed? Wash the linens? We have no idea if there were correct answers because we never got to meet any kittens. They didn’t have any. Not a single baby cat.

With high hopes, we were sent to their annex. They claimed to have several “younger” cats there but this was incorrect. They had no wee kittens at all. We did meet an extremely charming orange cat whom we would have considered even though he was too big except he was very attached to another kitty and we didn’t have the heart to break up the pair.

The next shelter had a six page long application and required two references. That’s the gods honest truth. They would not give you a cat until you were thoroughly vetted and background checked with the FBI. All we could think was that Sara Palin should have gone through such a shake down to become the VP nomination . . . anyway – they admitted they had no kittens but let us touch the older cats which made us and the cats happy.

There was one last shelter to visit. We went with almost no enthusiasm. It’s waaaaaay on the edge of town and necessitated Amy’s honey to have to pick up the kiddies from school because we wouldn’t have made it back in time (Thanks brother-in-law!). We kept asking each other how it was possible that not a single kitten was available to adopt in the WHOLE city. How?

With almost no hope, we entered the facility and were directed to enter an orange door. What no form(s) to fill out? No blood sample? How about some finger prints for the NSA? But nope, the lady manning the desk said – “Go right through that door and have a look.” We were almost afraid, this was too easy compared to all of the other places we’d been to that day. But we did as we were told (that’s rare we assure you) and went in . . .

Come back on Sunday to find out what happened on the other side of the orange portal.

Christmas came a little early to the Sisters this year. Specifically, it arrived today, November 25th, a full month ahead of the usual schedule. Sarah MacLean’s new book – Never Judge a Lady by Her Cover – hit the shelves. Ava rushed off to BnN to purchase it. For those of you following our saga, Ava had to go alone because the cruel world has separated the Sisters for the time being, but I digress. She was fully prepared for another mishap like the one Amy experienced purchasing Jennifer Ashley’s new book last month.

Feeling no remorse, Ava mowed down all of the shoppers between her and the Romance section. She searched high and she searched low and then she did it again. But NO – no new Sarah book. Why can’t BnN just put the god damn books out on the shelves so they can oh – I don’t know, sell god books so they can stay in business?!

Ava headed for the customer service counter. Ava’s children ran and hid. Cowards.

“May I help you?” Ava was asked by “Bee”. Ava hoped she could, it would be sad to die right before Thanksgiving and at such a young age. After getting the name spelled correctly, which Ava spelled twice, Bee announced the book had arrived that day and should be in the back.

“Listen, Bee, don’t come out of the back until you find it. Seriously. I can’t be responsible for my actions if you do. Better you be the star of our blog tonight instead of a number in the emergency room waiting area.”

Mere minutes later, Bee triumphantly arrived from the back stock room – book in hand. Ava cried. Bee cried. Her relief must have been immense. Ava’s was.

Anyhoo, Ava made the boy drive home so she could sit in the back of the car and read. Who says the holidays aren’t the happiest time of the year?

We had no idea the man power involved in moving out of our office after five years. We needed thirteen boxes, eighty-two trips to the car, and a nap. Unbelievably, we had a giant panda, a camel, and a hot tub. The hot tub was really a large coffee mug.

The whole experience has been sad. SAD. It’s hard to find people you like to work with and damn near inconceivable to find people you LOVE working with but that’s what we had. See – SAD.

The search is on for new employment for seven folks. Don’t you want to be a fly on the wall for that interview?

Interviewer: What would you say your best characteristic is?

Us: Togetherness!

Interviewer: Do you have transportation?

Us: Yes, there are seven of us, we take the bus!

Interviewer: Do you take direction well?

Us: Well . . . not from you but we will consider it from each other.

Interviewer: Do you have any questions for me?

Us: Yes, what time is breakfast and second breakfast? Where do we meet to puzzle? Where is the TV? And who pays for the Netflix subscription?

Here’s what happens when your sixteen year old get’s his driver’s license:

1. He does not drive the car to school in the morning, he still makes you do it by lying about having a test to study for while you drive. (Note – He

I make the boy wear a suit when he drives me around

doesn’t study and he admits he lied because he doesn’t like to drive.)

2. He starts to drive to school because he’s tired of hearing you whine about it. You play with the radio purposely picking out songs he doesn’t like because he lied about studying for a test.

3. He drives to school everyday but demands to be in charge of the radio because he’s driving and when you used to drive you were in charge of the radio because “I’m the driver.” You point out you own the car but he can’t hear you because he has Iggy Azalea on too loud.

4. The boy drives to school and his sister decides she’s riding shot gun from now on. Both insist they are in charge of the radio since they’re in front. You sit in the back seat where you paint your nails, read the paper, and text your sister.

Congratulations, your diabolic plan of obtaining a free chauffeur has come to fruition. It may have taken sixteen years and you may have to have airbags installed in the back seat but, hey, it was worth the wait!