Earth Day. We love Earth. It’s our favorite planet. It’s very pretty from outside our windows and in pictures from people who go outside. Also, its the only planet we’ve visited – so far – so our frame of reference is limited. As far as we’ve been able to ascertain it’s the only planet with coffee, cake, and fuzzy, sweet animals with nap-warmed tummies. As we’re sure you could imagine, it would take an awful lot to seduce us away from those things. Besides, there’s no way of knowing if aliens would think we’re funny. We have plenty of trouble with that on our own planet. These are some things we paid attention to this week.

1. And now Ava uses this catch phrase all the time. The British National Environmental Research Council has a new polar research vessel. It’s essentially a big-ass boat to go to the top of the world and check stuff out. Remember the research ship that Leonard went on in The Big Bang Theory? It’s like that. So the Council made a contest for the people of Britain to name her. They were looking for something science-y and dignified. That was poor planning if they were leaving it up to the masses of the internet. You’ve probably all heard by now that Boaty McBoatface was the winning name by leaps and bounds. We think that’s hysterical, and apparently so do many other people. There were some other excellently silly suggestions: RRS Onion Knight, RRS I Like Big Boats & I Cannot Lie, and RRS Capt’n Birdseye Get Off My Cod. We’d like to share one more piece of brilliance with you. A while ago Greenpeace put out a poll to name a whale in hopes of promoting conservation and the winner was Mr. Splashy Pants. Bwahahahahahaa.

2. And another one. Amylynn is beside herself with excitement that hockey is coming back to our backwater town. The NHL team in Phoenix is in talks to move their minor league farm team to Tucson. The details haven’t been ironed out yet, but Amylynn insists on thinking positively. So there’s already a poll for what we should call them. Do you see where this is going? Even though it’s funny, we’re not voting for Teamy McTeamface. No, Ava, we’re not!

3. Totally Bummed. Amylynn called Ava a liar when she told her Prince had died. This has been a really shitty year for this kind of thing. David Bowie, Merle Haggard, Glenn Frye – Jeez, we weren’t prepared for Prince. Big fans of both the movie and the corresponding album, we love Purple Rain. If you recall, it wasn’t that long ago that His Royal Purpleness was a Favorite Thing because of that stupendous passport photo. He was an amazing musician. He had a hell of a personality. And he will be sorely missed. Baby, you’re a star!

4. Trolls. We can now die happy. Entirely by accident, we found Ray Dyson. We don’t remember what led us to him, but there he was on the internet. The Guinness Book of World Record’s site to be exact. Mr. Dyson is a Canadian man who collects trolls. You know, the little dolls with goofy hair. Some of the guys from his work told him he looked like a troll so he bought one. The rest is history. Or an example of a obsessive compulsive disorder. Either way, he now has 1,754 of them. No notice in the story on whether or not he has a wife, but the article did state the dolls take up two full bedrooms in his house. That probably answers the question.

5. Behold! Ava texted this bracelet to Amylynn with no context. All the information she gave was that it was Tiffany and had 1,800 diamonds in it. A massive internet search took place, but no evidence of this bracelet was discovered. Ava has a tendency to find these unicorns in magazines, never to be found again. We can’t report to you how much it costs, but if we had to hazard a guess, we’re pretty sure the ad said, call for pricing which is ridiculous because if you can afford to consider it you don’t need to worry about the freaking price.

One of my team members at work is fabulous. Really. I love him – he tells me and my assistant how much he appreciates us all the time. He says thank you and brings us Starbucks for no reason.

After almost 20 years of abuse, this is incredibly refreshing. Proper gratitude is a major white elephant in my industry.

His wife – who is also lovely – works for our company as well. She came into my office yesterday to tell me that the two of them wanted to something nice for the team.

My first instinct was to say, “Oh, that’s not necessary,” but I clamped my lips shut. Of course, it’s not necessary, but it’s also really, really nice to be appreciated for a change and I should accept that willingly.

She suggested taking all us ladies out for mani/pedis. I lit right up. I’ve not had a professional pedicure since maybe July. JULY? Seriously? I think the last time was when we were going to New York. Gads. I might have hooves down there for all I know.

My assistant and I are super excited.

With one caveat.

Now I’m going to have to shave my legs and here I was in the middle of conducting an experiment.

Did you do your taxes? Us neither. We’re going to recuse ourselves from it this year. We’ve decided no. We’re going to take the money we would have spent with the IRS and go shoe shopping. In Paris. If it’s not too late for you, and  you haven’t already sent your money to those thieving bastards, you’re welcome to come with us. We promise a week of shopping and croissants and cafes and witty repartee. What do you say? You can help us come up with the Five Things for the next week. This is what we have for now. Enjoy.

1. Neil deGrasse Tyson. The Sisters have a long history of crushes on brilliant and witty men. Often times their looks are superfluous. That’s why we always feel so fortunate when the objects of our crushes are handsome to boot. Ava thinks Neil has beautiful skin and Amylynn is in no position to argue with her because she loves his smile. He’s charming and funny and a hell of an advocate for science – something else the Sisters are fascinated with.  Behold – a favorite quote: “If you removed all the arteries, veins, & capillaries from a person’s body, and tied them end-to-end…the person will die.” — Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson)

2. Lactose tolerant. Someone in Pueblo, Colorado has a serious problem with cheese. The man who owns the Do Drop Inn there has been burgled several times for all his cheese. That’s to say, a thief has broken in three times to steal all cases of cheese in the refrigerator. It has amounted to about 50 cases of provolone, 2,000 pounds, valued somewhere between five and seven thousand dollars. Why would someone repeatedly break in and only take cheese? No word if this is the only restaurant effected by the thief. We think the whole thing is very weird.

3. That’s nuts. Speaking of weird theft rings. A couple of years ago there was a big theft ring with maple syrup in Canada. There’s that odd cheese thing on Colorado. Now we hear about California. Apparently nut thefts are big money in California. Nuts, almonds, and pistachios to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. They’re stealing them by the truckloads, whole semis full. It’s like the world’s largest chipmunks are running the show over there.

4.Jungle Book – Both sisters were eager to see the new film this weekend but only Ava got in.  She lives just outside of the city proper and less people live out there.  Hence, there are very few sold out movies to deal with. she reports that it was excellent – giving it an A+. Here’s something you need to know about Ava. She loved the original Jungle Book growing up. Her favorite character was Shere Khan, the evil tiger who wants to kill Mowgli, she felt he was only being a tiger and disliked unfairly. Unfair or not, the sister’s mother thought this meant she needed therapy. Instead of therapy, the boy who lives at Ava’s house has the middle name “Tiger” – for real. Maybe she did need that therapy after all . . .

5. Meet Scotty. Look at this fellow. Besides the fact that he is horribly named, we want him desperately. We could tuck him in our pocket and feed him with a syringe and smother him with kisses. Then we’d change his name to Oliver.

The Sisters have a yearning to travel. We want to see the world, see everywhere, touch all the things, and meet all the people. We’re nearly desperate to visit Italy. Also England/Ireland/Scotland/Wales. The whole of the British Empire really. Recently Iceland came on our radar. We know! Us – Iceland – who’d have thought? Still, once we found out they believe in little trolls we were totally in. Also, they have the highest literacy rate in the world. We can totally dig that.

Tonight I found out about something fascinating. Sweden has its own phone number. The whole country. Really. Anyone can call it and a random Swede will pick up and chat with you about anything you want.

Meatballs? Certainly.

Pickled herring and why? Probably.

Northern Lights? Absolutely.

ABBA and what they were thinking about that? More than likely and they might have the answers we’ve been looking for.

The gorgeousness of Alexander Skarsgard. Hopefully!

Vikings? Assuredly.

The whole thing was set up by the Swedish Tourist Association because they want everyone to know they have the coolest country ever. It seems most Swedes speak English and rather well, so that shouldn’t be a problem.

Here’s the thing – I’m really dying to call, but I’m totally intimidated. Isn’t that ridiculous? What if they don’t get my sense of humor? I can’t control it and, if I’m nervous – which I most assuredly will be – I’ll be joking it up. I don’t want to give Americans a bad name. We have Donald Trump for that and, I think we can all agree, he doesn’t need any help in that respect.

I’ll get with Ava and we’ll call together. Then at least I won’t be an idiot alone. We’ll report back.

If you get brave enough to call please tell us how it goes. We think the whole thing sounds amazing.

Apparently, this is an old commercial, but I don’t remember it. This dog is my spirit animal.

You know what we don’t recommend, getting the stomach flu. It’s AWFUL. Patient Zero had it at Amylynn’s house and then two and three days later Amylynn and Sassy got it. So far, Amy’s Honey hasn’t got it, but we’ve been keeping an eye on him. Ava didn’t appreciate Amylynn getting sick and staying home from work. Amy didn’t appreciate throwing up for 12 straight hours. We have a lot of give and take in our relationship. There were a few fun things we found to amuse us this week and we’re always happy to share.

1. The only reason. We have a real love/ hate relationship with Australia. We’ve never been there so we’re clearly talking out our asses, but we read an awful lot. We’ve not met an Australian person we don’t like and, no surprise, we adore kangaroos and koalas. We’d dig seeing the Great Barrier Reef but then there’s the box jelly fish. The thing that really cinches it for us is the spiders. Sweet Hades, have you seen the freaking spiders? Like something out of Lord of the Rings. But then WHOOPS! We found out about Derek. He’s a wee orphaned wombat who needs A LOT of love and attention. There’s currently an essay contest to win the right to be the Chief Wombat Cuddler and we’re certain we could win. Sadly, it’s only open to Australian residents. Derek or spiders? You know what spiders look like (picture the size of a hairy rhinoceros), here’s a video of Derek.

2. A wee bit behind, but we could catch up quickly in this. We finally got around to watching Spectre, the latest James Bond movie. We love JB and we especially love Daniel Craig as our favorite spy. We’re also pretty fond of Aston Martin’s. They’re really beautiful cars and just unusual enough to be exotic. We’d really like to own this particular one, but alas, they only made 10 and they were strictly for use on the film. We watched with horror as James drown one of them in the Tiber River in Rome. If we had a fairy godmother, we’d want it in silver just like this ’cause it looks like a bullet.

3. Because of Miss Bridgerton. The Quill Sisters patron saint of Romance had a new book out last week. We’ve both read it and it was adorable as usual. Ms. Quinn really is the queen of witty banter. Amylynn studies her pages like a text-book, hoping to glean from them some brilliant epiphany on making the whole thing easier. It isn’t working so far, but we’ll study on. Thank you, Miss Julia, for another lovely installment.

4. Audio. Traffic sucks. Cooking sucks. Laundry sucks. Washing dishes sucks. All house work sucks. You know what makes it way better. Audio books. Audible from Amazon is the preferred way the Sisters choose to hear our books. Recently, we’ve heard Gone Girl, All the Light We Cannot See, The Girl on the Train, and The Life We Bury to name but a few. It’s so awesome to use the wasted time to catch up on our literature. Our busy lives mean we never have enough time as we wish we did to read and this is a blessing. Lately, Amylynn has been re-reading (so to speak) the Harry Potter series. She’s on book 4 now and she’s loving it every bit as much as she did the first time around.

5. Brilliant. The Sisters are on a crusade. We think it should be unlawful to have a license plate on a vehicle that brands the vehicle. For example, the penalty for putting a license plate on a Volkswagen that says Bug should be caning. We know it’s a Bug. You’re an idiot. We think those people should be forced to put their cell number on the plate so we can call them and give them some life advice. Then every once in a while we find an outstanding license plate. One like this one. This motorist should get an award of some sort. And a nice cake with a card.

You hear all the time how raising boy is very different from raising girls. In the beginning days of parenthood you think, “Yeah, sure. Whatever.” But then, slowly, differences begin to assert themselves.

Perhaps your boy decides he wants to poop in the yard like the dogs.

Maybe he eats all the egg-dying pellets the Easter he’s five and you have to explain to the daycare ladies why he’s pooping rainbows.

Then perhaps you wonder why so much stuff about the boy revolves around pooping.

Whatever it is that gets you there, pretty quickly you realize that boys are DEFINITELY different than girls. Mostly – with The Bandit – this is manifested by his father and I looking at each other with puzzled expressions. I feel like his dad should be able to explain this stuff, after all, he was a boy once too.

Things like this.

Last week I went to wake up the boy for school and this is what I found. He was asleep in his bottom dresser drawer. Said drawer was still connected to the dresser. He’d lined it with pillows and, as you can see, used his Star Wars blanket to make the whole thing cozy.

His father can shed no light on what the hell was going on at 3am when this plan was conceived.

The boy simply could not explain to me why he’d done it. He just kept shrugging. “I don’t know. I just wanted to see what it was like.”

I’ll tell you what it’s like. It’s weird. I honestly feel like at some point in the future, his father and I will be watching him on some stage where he’s being lauded at the next Andy Kaufman and we’re going to be like, “Yeah, we’ve known since the dresser.”

I have a sick kid – we call these episodes pukapalooza. Daddy pulling room clean up duty while I’m doing laundry. We’ve already mopped the hall from – you guessed it. Poor little dude.

These are some things I’ve considered over the course of the day.

One must take considerable care when opening  pack of steak knives. I’ll just leave you with that info.

Vince Neil was in the audience at the Country Music Awards. Do you think he’s so hard up that he needs to take a job as a seat filler now that Motley Crue has wrapped things up?

I’m disturbed by these calls to action that use ridiculously soft language. In this particular instance some country dude was extolling us to care about Americans who are “Food Insecure”. WTF? People are freaking hungry. Say that. Say people are starving and they don’t know where their next meal is coming from or how they’re going to feed their kids. If you want people to care, then make them care with real language. “Food Insecure” is just ridiculous.

You know what else is ridiculous – the CMAs doing an in memoriam piece for Scott Weiland (Stone Temple Pilots), David Bowie, and Lemmy. Glen Frey I can sorta see, but sitting there nodding their heads to the beat of a Moterhead song while wearing sequined gowns? I’m offended on his behalf.

Here’s a life lesson I’m giving you that I can never seem to remember. Always, ALWAYS, get a beverage before you go into the bowels of Costco. Sometimes the samples are YUCKY and you’re going to need to wash that taste out of your mouth.

I hate getting my car washed. Unlike Ava who gets her car washed nearly every day. Even if it’s raining. Seriously. She bought unlimited washes and she’s taking advantage. I sorta feel like the dirt is helping to hold Dave Durango together.

Laundry never, ever ends.

Here we are at the beginning of April. Another quarter down. That much closer to the end of our books. This has been a very exciting week. The latest Julia Quinn book came out! That’s super exciting. Here’s some of the super-duper wondrous stuff that happened to us this week.

1. Here we come! Our applications to join the manned mission to Mars came through. No one could possibly be more excited and surprised than us about this development. So shocked were we that we didn’t even answer the phone when the call came in. Who would have believed NASA would accept us to be the first fluffy astronauts. Who? We fly to Houston next week to be fitted for space suits. We’re asking that Michael Kors be consulted. We’d like a nice sportswear feel. Think of all the outstanding blogs we’re going to write from space!

2. Puppy! We got a new puppy. Can you believe it? We hardly can either! Oh my, but he’s the sweetest little thing. All fuzzy and sweet. He eats a lot cause he’s on a special diet, but we’re learning how to grow everything we need. We had to travel really far to pick him up from the “breeder”, but we couldn’t be happier. Here’s to sweet little Rupert, oh how we adore thee.

3. Our dreams came true. Well after a particularly  stressful day at work, Amylynn lost it and clobbered someone with a ream of copier paper. They totally deserved it; we assure you. We’re sure you can imagine that the owner of the company didn’t really like that much, but things didn’t really get dicey until someone forgot for the 7,000 time to fill the Keurig with water. Ava lost it and chased that person down the hall with the industrial stapler. There’s only so much we can be expected to put up with. The Sisters were summarily fired and it was the best day of our lives.

4. Talk about phone calls! If we were shocked to hear from NASA on Tuesday, imagine how shocked we were to pick up the phone on Thursday to find Jared Leto and Tom Hardy were calling. We didn’t believe it was them so we made them quote movie lines from Batman and Mr. Nobody until we were convinced. Tom indulged us the whole time using a gorgeous British accent. We’d have asked Tom to quote from our favorite movie of his, Warrior, except we’re not sure if he actually said any words in that movie. We took the opportunity to inquire of Jared why he can’t be in a nice romantic comedy for a change. It was a super afternoon.

5. We’re opening a shop! Yep. With all that free time we’re opening a lovely new store! We’re calling it the CakePieIceCreamBooksJewleryShoesPet Store. There will be huge couches to sit on, several animals to pet, and treats to enjoy. We won’t open until noon and close around nine. You should start sucking up to us now as there’ll be heavy discounts for our friends.

Happy April Fools Day!

This Sisters have a friend who has a relative in prison. We’ve all been there, right?

We were talking with this friend about how his nephew was doing and we learned several definitive things – beyond the usual – reasons why we can never go to prison.

Wait – would I get my own room?

It’s not the orange jumpsuits. Or the soap situation in the shower. Or any other horrifying things you can think of from B movies.

These reasons are very serious.

#1.  Carbs. We thought we’d at least lose weight if we went to prison. Turns out no. The food is horrible and all carbs. Think white bread and potatoes. That will not do. No one looks good in an orange jumpsuit when fat.

#2. Budgeting. Here’s the problem. You beg and plead and finally get your family to put money in your commissary account. Then you find out you’re only allowed to spend so much per month. What we’re telling you is that you have to budget your meager funds. Like prison isn’t bad enough. Jeez.

#3. Camp. It seems this nephew is in a white-collar prison. He describes it as a cross between kindergarten and summer camp. That’s cinches it. We don’t camp. Especially on a budget.

By the way, this white-collar prison doesn’t have a tennis court. They have a softball league. Sigh. Our visions are shattered. It’s like everything we ever knew was a lie.