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In Our Humble Opinion…

Conference calls are an evil plot by The Man to suck the will to live right out of us.

I had two today. One lasted for THREE HOURS. I assure you nothing happens on a conference call that lasts that long, paperclipsexcept that the majority of the “attendees” have long since lost interest and are doing things that can not be mentioned for fear of reprisal.

The second call was only an hour and a half, but it was SO MUCH WORSE. People kept mentioning my name and thus I had to pay attention. That almost never goes well.

I’m making a noose out of paperclips.

Ava here. This post makes me laugh. Remember when it was Ava on all the conference calls and Amy making fun of her? Remember that Amy? I believe the gods are punishing you for all that laughter. He who laughs first ends up in conference call hell. Think about that the next time you find fun in someones else’s misery, Amy! I predict you’ll be invited to a CAKE conference call very, very soon . . .

Here’s what we’ve been thinking . . .

Now is not the time to make a stand. Now is the time to sit in a chair and read while drinking a margarita.

You should listen when we talk to you . . .

The Quill Sisters are convinced that there isn’t a husband on the planet that listens to a word that comes out of his wife’s mouth.  As proof, we submit for your consideration, the following:

Husbands can also not be counted on to obtain the details that are required to tell a fully complete and satisfying story.  As proof, we submit for your consideration, the following:

Husband: The neighbors on the corner are getting divorced.

Wife: Really?! What happened?

Husband: I didn’t ask.

You may find it hard to believe that this husband is still alive.  If the neighbor tells you he is getting divorced, you ask for details.  The neighbor has just told you a very personal thing (Wait ’til the wife finds out about the spreading of her personal business to the neighbors – can you say homicide?) and expects questions.  How can you NOT ask questions you buffoon?  And if you’re not going to ask for details then by all that’s holy, don’t tell us about the divorce!!!!

Everyone should just calm down

Amy gave me a book to read by Bill Bryson.  We love Bill Bryson.  You should read books by Bill Bryson.  He’s awesome.  You’ll find bill brysonout all sorts of stuff you don’t know.  Some of it will the scare the sh*t out of you.

For example:  Yellowstone National Park is actually not a park at all – you just think it is (don’t worry, so did I).  It’s really an underground supervolcano.  What’s that you ask?  A supervolcano is an enormous underground caldera which lacks a peak or potential outlet for gas, so heat and pressure build underground which increases the likelihood that “the entire surface above the underground chamber, which can be many miles wide, is blown away by a titanic explosion that can be thousands of times more powerful than that of a regular volcano”.

Whatever - these guys look quite orderly to me - Amylynn

Whatever – these guys look quite orderly to me – Amylynn

While I was reading about this, unknown to Ed, he says “Hey, did you hear about the animals that are fleeing Yellowstone National Park?”  It seems that some people are saying the animals are leaving the park.  It’s a known fact that animals are sensitive to underground shifts in the planet.  I tell Ed about what I know from Bill and inform him “The end is near.”  For some reason, he went to work anyway.  Not wanting to be out “responsibled” (actually, I just wanted to see Amy), I marched off to work as well.  I felt like the stripper in the movie Independence Day going off to my job even though there’s an alien spacecraft right over the city.  That’s some dedication right there.  I don’t think Bank of No Forks really appreciates me, but I digress . . .

Anyway, after I explain the whole situation to Amy, she says scientist are saying it isn’t true about the animals.  She tried to tell me it was the buffalos natural spring ritual of migrating and feeling frisky.  Frisky.  Because it’s spring.  Can you believe she fell for that?  The scientists she was quoting are from the government.

Me:  That’s what the government scientist want you to believe.

Gullible Amy: They want us to believe it because it’s true.

Me: What about me reading about it just as this is happening?  What are the odds?

Non-Odds Calculating Amy:  Clearly, they’re pretty good . . .

Me: They are NOT good, you just don’t want to face the truth.  That volcano is going to blow any day now.  However, I did some

You better hurry up and get over here. This is going  fast.

You better hurry up and get over here. This is going fast.

research and you’ll be relieved to know we’re beyond the ash-fall line.  There might be an issue with the sun being blotted out but we’ll worry about that if it happens.

Finally Listening Amy: You know what?  You’re right.  The end is near so we’re abandoning our current crazy diet and eating cake.

Amy might fall for lies the government tells but she certainly knows how to deal with a crisis.  If Yellowstone turns into the largest volcano eruption on earth in the last 750,000 years, she definitely won’t make us go to our stripper jobs AND we’ll eat cake.  I feel better now.

March 28

5-things12This may be our last Favorite Thing post. Amylynn is being forced to go camping again. Things could not be worse. Well, we guess they could be worse. Let’s just decide that things are bad, very bad. She keeps going on about wind and dirt. The possibility of bugs. And Bigfoot, Bigfoot’s a definite possibility.  The only thing that will make it better is if a mama bear should accidently abandon two cubs in our camp and Amylynn could keep them and raise them as their own. We discuss this possibility further below. The best we can hope for at this point is that she doesn’t kill anyone with a skillet, she gets at least two chapters written, and something blog worthy happens. Cross your crossables. Here’s skywalk cleanersstuff that made us laugh.

1. Jobs we don’t want. This picture shows the guys who get the job of cleaning the skywalk over the Grand Canyon. To be honest, we’re not sure if we’d be willing to go on top of the skywalk, much less go underneath the damn thing. 4,000 feet in the air. To clean.  That’s really high. Absolutely NOTHING beneath you until you fiskar karmago splat on the bottom of the canyon. Cripes! There’s not enough money for this job. We wonder if the mother’s of these kids knows what they’re up to.

The reason it's screaming is cause he's holding it wrong.

The reason it’s screaming is cause he’s holding it wrong.

2. The Job we do want. Katy Perry just gave her five assistants $100,000 Fiskar Karmas. If you are not familiar with this car, let us let us educate you. It’s the latest in green cars. Goes zero to sixty in 5.9 seconds. And it’s beautiful. Also, if you needed further motivation, let us remind you that Katy often wears cupcakes over her boobs. Seriously. We like this girl. She knows how to party.

3. A cautionary tale. Alright, here’s the deal. When the mama bear leaves her cubs with Amylynn for safe keeping she should NOT post it on the internet. Facebook is the end of all illegal activity. We bet there’s entire cadre of law enforcement people whose sole job it is to cruise the internet and find bozos posting that they have illegal bears. Like these two idiots in Kosovo. When we get our bears/lion cubs/wolves we will not be posting pictures on the ava crowderinternet. You’ll know it happened when you read the article in the paper about the idiots who got mauled to death by tigers.

4. Prison ice cream. We’ve decided. When we go to prison for that bogus animal charge we would like to be elected the President of Cell Block C by a confidence vote delivered in ice cream. If you watch Justified you’ll know what we mean. Ava Crowder is totally gonna run that place.frizzle-chickens

5. You know that chicken coop…? We still haven’t gotten the go ahead on the chicken coop from our jailers, ie. husbands. We’re totally doing it though. Look at these chickens. These are the chickens we want. These are some hysterical chickens. They’re called Fizzles. Seriously. We have named these three Frederica, Francine and Fiona Fizzle. They’re sisters, because of course they are.  Frederica’s the difficult one.

February 14

5-things12Happy Valentine’s Day to all the lovers out there. The best thing about this Hallmark holiday is the chocolate. And cupids, cause flying babies are cute and we do like references to cute pudgy butts. That is to say so long as the pudgy butts in question aren’t ours. No one in their right mind would get confused by that anyway. We blame the chocolate. You see how this whole holiday is subversive? Wow, this took a strange turn. We started out with genuine wishes for a nice holiday and somehow the crazy train got ahold of it and now we’re preparing our pitchforks. Our conversations often work like this in real life as well. It’s all rather confusing if you’re new to it.

David Beckham's callipygian buttocks

David Beckham’s callipygian buttocks

Never mind. Here’s some funny stuff for you.

1. Speaking of cute butts. We have a new word of the month. Callipygian. Meaning “having shapely buttocks.” If ever a word needed to be revived it’s that one. We’re going to try to work it into as many conversations in the next couple of

Hugh Jackman callipygian buttocks

Hugh Jackman callipygian buttocks

weeks as possible. We’d appreciate it if you’d do the same. Maybe it’ll trend or go viral or something. How proud we could all be if we make this happen?

2. That’s Circumcision spelled just like you think. In Sonora, Mexico the authorities have come up with a list of 61 names it is now illegal for Mexican citizens to name their babies. Circumcision is actually one of them. Can you imagine? They actually have to tell people no. Also on the list is Panties, Martian, and Facebook. If you are a young Mexican girl and you’ve been writing down Lady Di Sanchez on all your notebooks, dreaming of the day you could name your child that, you’re shit out of luck. Lady Di is also on the list right along side Rambo. We don’t know what goes on in the world. Honest to Zeus (we don’t know if that’s on the list.)

Tim Olyphant callipygian butt

Tim Olyphant callipygian butt

3. Cleary this woman’s not Mexican. Sheila Crabtree of Licking County, Ohio has just changed her name to Sex because she said Sheila was the ugliest name out there. Seriously. Sex is much, much better. She stated she wanted a name that more correctly reflected her personality. The Sisters have decided that they never need to meet Ms. Sex Crabtree. If we were to change our names to more properly reflect our personalities, we would be Curmudgeon and Complainer Bright. Our office mates suggested

We're sure he has a great butt

We’re sure he has a great butt

Sarcasm and Bitchy so we’re taking our toys and going home.

4. The Puppy Savior. Everyone on the planet has heard of Gus Kenworthy and his plan to save the puppies of Sochi. If you haven’t go here. We have a theory that it’s all an elaborate plan to get laid. Don’t misunderstand. We adore Gus for doing what he’s doing and we’d have done the same thing. Maybe all the estrogen boiling over across the world is a lovely karmic side effect. What ever. Gus deserves what ever he gets. By the way he won a silver medal for his event. Don’t ask us what it was called. Some insane crap on skis that we’re never giving our children permission to do. We also think that the puppy he’s holding here should be named Bernard.

Not interested in this butt

Not interested in this butt

5. Big Foot might be a hoax. That’s according to the people at the respectable UFO Congress in Phoenix, AZ. If you’re so hokey that the UFO people think you’re hinky, then we don’t know what to tell you. You, sir, are bad news. If you don’t know what we’re talking about, then jump here. Rick Dyer claims to have caught Big Foot using bait of ribs he purchased at Walmart and nailed to a tree.  The Sisters really want to believe in Big Foot. We really really do, but if the brave people at the UFO Congress can’t, then we don’t hold out a lot of hope.

Here it is!

DOM big

Isn’t it gorgeous! The book should go live in the next week or so….

You know I’ll keep you posted.

Clearly my time has come and gone

I’ve mentioned this before. My Honey is a musician. He knows many other musicians in town. That means, on any given weekend night, he knows several bands playing, generally in some stinky old bar. This weekend was no different.

Both of our kids spent the night away from home – one had a slumber party and the other at a friend’s house. My Honey and I went to a grown up movie – one with no animation in sight. Not that I don’t love animation, but sometimes it’s nice to have actual actors. We saw Lone Survivor. Wow – that is one heavy movie. I really just wanted to hug people after wards.

Anyway, afterwards he innocently suggests we go see our friend’s band play.

“Sure,” I say, cause we hardly ever get to go out. Still, I did say it with reservation. I was wearing an ancient pair of blue jeans that are a size or so too big, but they’re super-duper comfortable. A black 3/4 sleeve t-shirt with beading and embroidery – a very mom-like shirt. A denim jacket with Eeyore stitched on the back. My author-esqe eye glasses. And, the piece de resistance, my Birkenstocks.

so tragic

so tragic

The band in question is an 80’s cover band. It may very well be 2014 but, my friends, the ladies in the bar last night were taking the music very seriously. Clothes were TIGHT and short and low-cut, and the heels were epically high.

I totally blended right in.

All I really took away from the night was that I still know all the lyrics to the hair band songs of the 80’s and I’m very old.

It also became clear that I never need to hear another cover version of a bad Bon Jovi song ever again.

Also, Birkenstocks may be the most comfortable shoes ever, and my plantar fasciitis thanks me every day when I wear them, but they are tragically not cool.

 

What to do, what to do

I sent my contemporary romance, Cooking Up Love by Carina Press (due out in June), back to my editor today with the first round of developmental edits done.

I sent my historical, The Duke of Morewether’s Secret due out the first week in February, to my copy editor today, too.

My next book is due at the end of May, but is already plotted out.

All I have to write tonight is the back cover blurb for The Duke of Morewether and this blog post.

I don’t even know what to do with myself.

Maybe I should read a book. I have a copy of Sarah MacLean’s No Good Duke Goes Unpunished that Ava raved over.

Or I could cruise the internet – Pinterest is always a great way to waste time.

I could go to bed at a reasonable hour. Nah – that’s ridiculous.

I’ll probably do bit of all of those, except that go to bed thing. That’s not gonna happen.

Happy New Year

I was Googling pictures of Victorian New Years for our blog for today and this came up.

New year potato

What the hell is this? A potato? With eyes or are those warts? Why? Doesn’t this make you wonder what the hell was going on with the Victorians? Is this potato supposed to be scary or funny or what? Why would a potato need an umbrella? I get the hat – obviously, but an umbrella? Why is it such an ugly potato? Surely there were cuter potatoes to model this drawing after.

I am unbelievably disturbed by this picture. I believe another drink is in order.

Maybe that was the whole point.

Well, whatever. Happy New Year.

 

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