Do you remember all that nonsense we spouted last Friday about how Amylynn couldn’t get in for a hair appointment and her head looked horrible and people were reluctant to be seen with her in public? Well, except her husband but then he barely notices that she has hair. Did we ever tell you about the time Amylynn accidentally dyed her hair BLACK instead of the usual red and her husband never noticed. Never. Seriously. That’s another blog for another time. Anyway, Ava pled Amylynn’s case in a very dramatic fashion when she was at the salon yesterday evening and LO! an appointment spot opened right up. Thank the old gods and the new! We managed to find some other stuff of interest this week. Here you go.

1. Shogun! We’ve met our friend Pumpkin at this Japanese restaurant several times and we’ve always enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. There are many things to recommend the place – the fabulous booths that are more like snug little cubbies, the proximity to our office allowing us more time to chat because there’s no drive time, and the food. The thing that makes the three of us giggle though is the menu. The lunch fare is excellent for the most part, but don’t fall in love with anything in particular because even though you can order two items from the lunch special, they may not be the same thing. So no matter how good that sesame chicken is, you can’t have two of them unless you can convince Pumpkin to order one and you’ll order the other thing she loves and then you can pull a switch. It’s all very complicated.

2. Tiny tigers. Sigfried and Roy apparently never learn and that’s what the Sisters find commendable. It’s like we’re kindred spirits who would dearly love the opportunity to learn from our mistakes. Sadly no one will let us have a tiger so we can. We don’t know how we’re supposed to grow as individuals, but whatever. Anyway, the Sigfried and Roy foundation SARMOTI will be putting four tiny, perfect tigers on display at the Mirage in Las Vegas. It just so happens that the Sisters will be in Las Vegas in November. This seems like a recipe for something, doesn’t it? We don’t expect the tigers will be small enough to put in our pockets, but they’ll fit right into a shopping bag. The

It’s dark here so you can’t see how dirty these people are from camping

Sisters love shopping. The best part? We’re driving so we won’t even have to worry about those horrible, nosey TSA agents.

3. Boys camping. This seems to be a thing. Last week The Boy Who Lives at Ava’s House went camping and this weekend Amylynn’s Honey and The Bandit are going with the Boy Scouts. This gives the girls lots of time to do girl stuff. Sassy and Amylynn are probably going to go to a movie. We’d like to see some cute boys on screen without getting that look from our boys. Maybe we’ll do some shopping for makeup. And sit in a Starbucks for a couple of hours and goof around. And eat waffles for dinner. This is going to rock!

4. Adventures in Parking Lots. Ava made Amylynn eat at Chipotle again. Gah. It was worse than normal. The parking lot was all cordoned off for repaving – who does that on a Friday? Everybody and their mother seemed to be basically abandoning their cars in the driveway all for the opportunity to scowl down at a stupid burrito bowl. Anyway, in order to fulfill Ava’s wishes and eat at the wretched place, we had to park 67 miles away and walk. The only thing that made the whole thing tolerable was that we parked right outside a Cold Stone Creamery. You know that means ICE CREAM for dessert. We hope they’re still paving next week!

5. Lefties! Did you know Kermit the Frog is a left-handed amphibian? We didn’t either, but, as Ava will tell you, all the best people are.

Things I hate.

Tuesday after a long weekend. 36% worse than a regular Monday

Finding a gas station down the street selling gas 10 cents cheaper immediately after you fill up your tank. DAMMIT!

The car in front of you in the left turn lane that refuses to go until the arrow even though there’s not another visible car for nineteen miles.

Children who can only find their left shoe — for six different pairs of shoes.

Dogs who refuse to pee after they’ve DEMANDED  to go outside at 1:47 in the morning. What the hell do they need to do, wandering around in the yard at that hour of the night. Sweet Jesus.

Spiders.

Cats who are too uppity to tolerate Forced Cuddling Time. They have no idea how good they have it and should show some damn humility.

Completely disgusting – every single one

Finding a peppermint candy from someone’s pocket  after the clothes have gone through the dryer. Hello pink pockets.

Just laundry in general. Constant laundry. Never ending piles of dirty clothes. Gads.

Stealing a gulp of someone’s Coke only to find out way too late that it’s root beer. BLECK!!

Bosses.

Wholly inaccurate weather forecasts on the radio before work. 20% chance of rain my ass.

Errands.

Dentist appointments.

This list.

The 3-day weekend has come to an end. We have to go back to work. Just to remind you how wretched the whole thing is.

Hope you’re not laboring!

Here we are on the cusp of a long weekend. What are your plans? We plan to do lots and lots of stuff as it involves watching television or movies, reading, writing Chapter Seven, getting our toes done, shopping for make up, and probably pestering the cats. It’s going to be glorious. We’re turning off our work phones and for the next three days are willing to pretend that we are unemployed. Wanna know why? Because it’s Labor Day weekend and we shall not labor. No siree. Unless it comes to laundry. Damn laundry never stops. It’s relentless. Like the march of the tide or  something. That’s too depressing to contemplate. Let’s read funny stuff? Ready? Grab a cookie, here we go.

1. Chris the sheep. You may have seen Chris the Sheep on the internet. He’s a bit of a celebrity. He is a Merino sheep who ran away from home and has lived in the wild for the last six or seven years like a rebel. All this time he’s not been sheared. There were stories of a phantom sheep in the hills and it turns out it was real. He is one monster of a sheep with–it turns out–90+ pounds of wool covering his body. He’s hysterical looking. All you can see is a nose and four tiny hooves under all that filthy wool. We totally understand. Amylynn is damn near desperate to get her hair done and the hairdresser is all booked up until OCTOBER. Pretty soon she’ll look like Chris, only with gray roots.

2. Speaking of hair. Here’s another person who’s been on the internet a lot of late. No matter what side you’re on in this debate – we certainly hope it’s the correct one – you will have to agree that this meme is hysterical. We make a point of not discussing politics on this blog and sometimes that’s REALLY, REALLY HARD, but this is just too funny to pass up. She’s probably having an even harder time getting an appointment than either Chris or I have had.

3. Gobi Jerboa. We are constantly finding new animals we didn’t know existed but are now desperate to own. We present to you the Jerboa – specifically the one with the huge ears. He looks exactly like Despereaux, don’t you think? These adorable little dudes can be found in the Gobi desert which is in Asia. They have super long legs which enable them to hop like wee kangaroos. And dear sweet heavens, look at those ears. Precious. We must have two. We’ve named them Millicent and Quentin.

4. Tom Hardy with his dog! Hardly a day goes by that we don’t get a Tom Hardy fix. His movie Legend comes out this weekend so he brought his dog Woody to the premier because apparently he likes it when women’s ovaries cramp up. It didn’t even matter that Tom’s pregnant wife was there. They probably thought she would be some sort of leveler, like if all us girls saw his wife round with child we would calm ourselves down, but the dog completely superseded that plan. The best part was his dog totally misbehaved by chasing pigeons around on the red carpet. That’s exactly the embarrassing thing our dogs would do.

No Judgment unless you’re a 15 year old girl with your mother

Amylynn noted how great Tom looked in this particular color blue. Ava pointed out that it didn’t matter what color suit it was, Tom was in it. And then DOG.

5. Planet Fitness. That’s the gym Ava belongs to so she can exercise inside where all exercising should be done.  They charge only $19.99 a month so you can go over there to sweat instead of doing it in your garage at home. It’s also open 24 hours a day in case you’re crazy and want to exercise in the middle of the night. It’s a “no judgment zone” which means no one is supposed to make fun of Ava while she cries on the ab machine. However,

Look at that – Jared with TWO dogs. That beats Tom with a dog and a wife.

the girl who lives at her house (who made her join the place to begin with) laughs at her all the time. Ava is going to report her to the staff and have her tiny size 2 body removed from the place so she can cry in peace along with the other non-size 2 people there.

5.5 Jared Leto without his dog. No, Jared didn’t do anything this week to make the list, but it just seems fair to Ava that he be included since Tom is.  Tom is a show off – showing up with his dog, making movies with dogs, savings dogs. Is this guy a fake or what? The only satisfaction to be had from Jared this week is that he isn’t showing up any where with a pregnant wife!

The Sisters would buy every single thing in this catalogue. We’d go broke.

I was putting The Bandit to bed tonight. This generally involves some giggling and squealing. He’s very ticklish and I often can’t help myself. Tonight was no different.

He kept raising his arm over his head and I couldn’t resist sticking my index finger in there. He’s so ticklish–had the light been on–all I would have had to do would be waggle my finger in the general direction of his armpit and he’d get to chortling.

It’s all very gratifying.

So, I poke him. He giggles and squirms. Repeat.

“Stop,” he’d giggle, but then he’d put his arm back up there and, well, you can see where this was going.

“I’m concerned that you’re such a slow learner,” I said after like the seventh time this cycle repeated itself.

He got a grip on his breathing. “Gandhi said no violence!”

I looked at him with wide eyes. “Where’d you learn that?” I was expecting to hear about the latest in Social Studies lessons, thinking it was a timely subject considering the recent political climate. I like hearing evidence my kid’s charter school is doing its job.

“Duh,” he said. “Peabody and Sherman.”

I do hope it’s from the original cartoon and not the stupid movie

This weekend My Honey and I went to the old mining town of Bisbee. His band was performing along with several other bands–some of whose members I’ve known our whole lives.

I was mostly excited about staying in the Copper Queen Hotel. This is the oldest continuously operating hotel in Arizona having opened in 1902. It’s decorated in the Victorian style with velvet and shiny wood and patterned carpets. There was an elevator that Ava wouldn’t have ridden in for a million dollars. It’s funny. Sometimes I’ll take an elevator I know would totally freak her out just because, and she’s not even there.

Anyway, it’s a cool old hotel. They even gave us actual keys for the room doors. I haven’t been given an actual room key in I have no idea how long. Of course a hotel this old likes to spread the reputation that it’s haunted. The place has been featured on lots of shows and does ghost tours and everything.

When I checked us in, I asked for one of the haunted rooms. The desk lady told me they were all haunted.

“I certainly hope so,” I said.

As I did my research I learned that the third floor seems to be the epicenter of the hauntings. We were given room 307. I figured we had as good a shot as any of seeing something.

I did not bring my pickle jar/ghost trap like I did to the San Carlos. I figured it didn’t work then so, you know, whatever.

I was in our room a lot. Sometimes I even left the door to the hallway open so I could see if anything shenanigans were happening out there. I felt no spectral cold drafts, smelled no mysterious perfume, heard nary a whisper.

I confess, I am once again disappointed. Just once, why can’t the ghosts come out for someone who’s dying to believe?

You might not think of the Sisters when you think “Great Hunter” but you should from now on.  Ava was confronted by a giant-ass scorpion in her kitchen this morning.  As soon as she saw it, she screeched, and we do mean SCREECHED for Ed to come save her but one of her kitties decided he needed to play with it.  So, like any protective momma bear, she sprang into action and single-handedly killed the monster by throwing a wet-wipe over it and stumping it to death with her slippered foot.  Nothing places her furry children in jeopardy. Here’s the funny the stuff we hunted out this week – all of it furry. You’re welcome.

1. Leonine sextuplets. The Sisters can get to Columbus, OH in just under five hours. That should give us plenty of time to bundle up two of the recently born lion cousins in the Columbus Zoo and get back in time before anyone really misses us. Two lioness sisters each had cubs a week apart – twins and quads. We don’t think anyone needs six lions. What the hell are they going to do with six of them? We consider our plan to be a charity move, really. Everyone will be happier. We’ll have two lions and they’ll have a much more manageable four. We’ve talked about it and we’re pretty sure we can raise a lion cub to love us. We think the trouble is with tigers – they seem a little iffy. Two newborn lions will be a piece of cake.

2. We’re also willing to adopt. The Sisters aren’t only about kidnapping and smuggling. We’re also more than willing to adopt. Mexican officials sent eight lions, two lynxes, a puma, and a coyote to a Colorado wildlife sanctuary. This was the second set of animals they moved to the states. Apparently they were all found mistreated or abandoned. The poor coyote was actually used in witchcraft ceremonies. Abusing animals is reprehensible. They should make a detour. We’re happy to let a lynx or two spend the rest of their life in leisure–laying on the sofas, eating tuna and shrimp. That poor coyote can hang with Winnie the Wonder Mutt and The Idiot Dog Roscoe–jumping on the trampoline and barking at the workmen next door.

3. Black and white happiness. Panda twins were born at the National Zoo. The momma panda, Mei Xiang, is letting the zoo keepers switch out the babies every couple of hours so she won’t exhaust herself and reject one of them. How nice, huh? Now we just have to figure out how we can be the people to “switch” out the babies. You’ve seen those baby pandas, right? They’re tiny, will fit right into a pocket. Also, black is slimming. We don’t know how that fits into the plan exactly, but we thought we’d include it because it’s true.

4. Bill Maher nailed it. follow the link to the video from his August 21st show and fast forward to 1:24. Bill suggests there should be a new rule: Red Pandas have to finally admit they’re really just plush toys because nothing can be this cute. He is so right. Totally and unequivocally correct. They’re the cutest damn thing to walk the planet. Look at that face. Just look at it! Oh dear. This sentiment should totally explain why Ava is no longer allowed in the Brooklyn Zoo. It’s a long story.

5. One small cautionary tale. Tail? A walking safari guide was eaten by a male lion in a national park in Zimbabwe. This happens to be the same park where that asshole dentist killed Cecil the Lion. It’s possible the lion was protecting his cubs–the guide brought the walking safari group towards a pack of six lions and there were some cubs. It’s also possible the lions had a meeting and they’re not putting up with any more human bullshit. We’ll keep this in mind when we work out our plans for #1 above. Prudence isn’t often a hallmark of Sister activity, but we want a long life with our new fuzzy babies and we’d like to do it with all their limbs.

We’ll keep you posted.

The first one was so popular, I thought we’d do the second test in case there had been any doubt about the results.