The Sisters want to apologize for yesterday’s blog.

How cute is he?! His name is Rolf.

Just under 50% of our readership voiced their displeasure at its AP like quality of leaving the most important facts out.  Those facts being about the world’s smallest penguins. The vitriol over no photo of the penguins accompanying the story could be heard all the way to New Zealand.

Here are the facts: The world’s smallest penguins are called Little Blue Penguins. And for those boring among you, the Latin name is eudyptula mior. They are also called Fairy Penguins. And, OMG, we love, love, LOVE that!!!  The penguin’s are about 13 to 16 inches tall and weigh just over 2 lbs. They are native to New Zealand and Australia.

Here’s the picture we robbed you of yesterday.

Amylynn here ~ and yet you still can’t see how adorable these wee penguins are. Their feathers are actually azure. Seriously. And look at how tiny they are. They’d fit right into your pocket. We also think it’s amusing that these penguins do mate for life, but a divorce is not unheard of. That fact gave us a chuckle.

Amy left for camping this morning. She left late because it was raining here in the desert. A somewhat rare occurrence I assure you. But, since Amy was going to sleep in the woods, the sky opened up as if today was day-one of a forty day deluge. It seems apparent she has angered the gods.

Marshmallow on a Stick

Ava sent the following text to Amy’s Honey:

Dear Amy’s Husband,

Amy is too delicate to camp in these conditions. More importantly to you, she’ll whine. A lot. It would be best to drop her at the office on your way out and I’ll see that she gets home later.

Sincerely and just looking out for you,

Ava

Unbelievably, this did not result in Amy being excused from camping. Ava cannot understand this. If anyone offered to take Amy off of her hands when whining was a forgone conclusion she would let them.

Here’s a text from Amy mere hours into convening with nature:

“I already hurt my toe and pinched a finger.”

Nothing about Amylynn Bright says camping. Nothing.

Dear Jared Leto,

I made my sister and friends watch another of your movies today. It was “Requiem of a Dream”. As you’ll recall, they cut your arm off. I guess

Just like this only with a puppy

that’s better than dying like in Alexander. Any who, there was a “small” (read “large”) revolt and watching more Jared Leto movies has been taken off the table.

I know what you’re thinking. “Those bitches! What do they know? I have an Oscar! And have you seen my hair?”

All true and I said as much in your defense.

Is this your dog? Both of you can get paid. Is that your mom in the background? Bring her too!

I know you’re out there rockin’ but eventually you’ll want to be in another movie. Here’s what I suggest: go with a movie where you’ll look good (read “HOT”), more lines than in Alexander, you don’t die or lose body parts, and a puppy is involved. The puppy idea comes from that new Tom Hardy movie that’s out. You’ll have to admit that even though Tom doesn’t have an Oscar like you, he can act so you can’t really tell me a movie in which you look good, speak, don’t die, and carry a puppy would insult your artistic integrity. If it does, use the pay check to make yourself feel better.

If you need me to review scripts for you, just let me know. I’d be happy to find your next project.

With much fondness and high hopes to get you back in our movie rotation,

Ava Bright

We’ve mentioned before that Amy and Ava are very, very different when it comes to the rigors of keeping up appearances.  Ava doesn’t consider pain or money when it comes to beauty self-torture and the World’s Greatest Receptionist agrees. (Amylynn here. She’s not exaggerating. I’m NOT willing to go through pain. I won’t even tweeze my eyebrows. Fortunately, my eyebrows are very tame.)

Today we went on a road trip for a treatment to make TWGR have a glowy face for a wedding she’s attending shortly.  Amy declined to go with us, but her refusal to go was ignored and she was forced into the car. (Me again. Yes, absolutely forced.)

At the appointment, treatment options were discussed.  One of them is known as the “vampire” facial.  That got Ava and TWGR all excited.  We like vampires.  As soon as blood and vampires were mentioned, Ava immediately looked at Amy’s face for the reaction she knew would be there.  Yup. There was that Amy horrified look.  Amy has that look anytime some potentially interesting beauty process is mentioned. (Guess who. These “beauty processes” like laser resurfacing, blood palette replacement, liposuction, injections, and chemical peel. No thank you. Ironically, I have 7 tattoos. I cannot explain that.)

No matter how horrified Amy is over this stuff – Ava and TWGR are in!!!  And vampires live forever.  Double bonus!

The Sisters try to mind their own business (no, really) when it comes to world news but after what’s been going on the last few days we can no longer stay silent.  Yep, we’re weighing in on the Hello Kitty controversy.  Full disclosure here – Ava has Hello Kitty car mats, a Hello Kitty steering wheel cover, her phone screen saver is Hello Kitty, and a Hello Kitty rear view mirror dangle.  So, she knows her some Hello Kitty.

Look at those CAT ears, will ya?

No matter what you hear, and you’ll hear a lot – HELLO KITTY IS A CAT.

Just how dumb does Sanrio think we are?  She’s a cat.  She has cat ears and a cat nose.  Pointing out that she doesn’t walk on all fours means nothing.  NOTHING.  Mickey Mouse doesn’t walk on all fours either and he’s a mouse.  Mickey MOUSE.  Hello KITTY.  Get it?  One’s a MOUSE and the other is a KITTY.

Ava got so excited over this nonsense she had to stare at Amy’s calm down tattoo for five minutes.  But now that you know the truth, we feel much calmer.

And a CAT tail. Look, she’s reading “Cooking Up Love”!

The Sisters and the World’s Greatest Receptionist had PEI WEI for lunch today.  This occurred after the usual whining from Amylynn about Chipotle.  It occurred as we drove past the restaurant and Amy cutoff the driver next to us and made an illegal left to get there.  Here’s what she said “We’re having Pei Wei instead of Chipotle and I don’t want to hear a word about it or you can just walk back to the office.”  No one walked back but it was touchy there for a few minutes.  After we ate, it was fortune cookie time!

Amy’s fortune cookie said “Listen these next few days to your friends to get answers you seek.”

Ava’s fortune

That ought to be interesting because Amy doesn’t listen to anyone.  Aside from that being one pushy fortune cookie with the demanding “Listen” and all, Ava and TWGR decided to randomly give her answers on all sorts of things without any questions being asked, you know, just trying to be helpful and all.

Amy didn’t seem to appreciate knowing the following: respect your elders (Ava being the elder), never question the receptionist (TWGR being the receptionist), the boss is always right even when she’s not (Ava being the boss), etc.

Note from Amylynn: It was only really annoying when they started shouting random numbers at me. Honest to Zeus, these people don’t have enough work to do.

We actually can’t wait to go to work tomorrow to provide Amy with more answers.

Note from Amylynn again: Yay! (note sarcastic tone)

Sooooo, the Sisters had to go to the vehicle inspection station today for emissions testing.  Well, we didn’t need to be tested, but Carly did.  We don’t emit because we’re ladies.  Anyway, you pull up and get in line behind some other cars that we assume were there for the same purpose as us.  We thought everything was going smoothly.  Cars were pulling in and pulling out at a fairly steady clip.  No one seemed upset or unhappy.  When it was our turn, we pulled in.

We were told to get out of the car and to go stand on a large smiley face.  We swear this is true.  Ava and Amy looked down and thought WTF?!  Seriously, why was there a giant grin painted on the floor of an official government facility and why were we being asked to stand on it?!  Ava immediately sent Amy back to the car for her camera phone.  The worker thought we were nuts.  We’re used to that so it doesn’t bother us.

Ava was about to harass the worker about it when she noticed he was wearing a smiley face wrist band.  We swear this is true.  The wrist band had little smiling yellow dots all the way around it.  In fact, all of the workers had them on and all of the other folks were standing on smiley faces on the floor just like the Sisters.

In the end, Ava and Amy decided to ignore this situation.  Nothing good can come from being the only people asking questions about a 70s psychedelic icon when you need to pass to get your vehicle registered.  Go Smiley Face!!!!  We’re growing up!

I have never been the sort of person who becomes ‘fanlike” in the presence of a famous person.  In my youth, I knew quite a few rock stars, not in the biblical sense, and found them to be very ordinary and often annoying and not worth bothering over.  When I lived in LA and met a few movie stars, I felt the exact same way.

Ava and the incomparable Sarah MacLean

Imagine my shock when I discovered I’d swallowed FANGIRL!  This came to me late in life and happened during my first RWA conference two years ago.  I met several of my favorite authors and squealed at them and spoke incoherently.  There may have also been drooling and babbling.  It’s all a blur.  This year was no different.

Anyway, I have not added a new “favorite” author to my list in at least ten years.  That is until last year.  Last year I found Sarah MacLean at Margaret Mitchell’s house.  Fitting don’t you think?  I’d never read anything by her before and she was adorable!  I vowed right then and there to read one of her books the second I returned home.  And I did.  Then I insisted Amy take me to the book store to buy everything she’d ever written.

This year, I ended up meeting Sarah in the Starbucks at the hotel.  I squealed.  I babbled.  I insisted she write faster even though she has a seven month old baby.  I attended her master class on conflict.  It was amazing and helped Amy and me improve our writing.  At the end, I asked a question and was given a deck of cards with Sarah’s latest cover on it.

Amy actually thought we were going to play with them!  I think she’s lost her mind.  I have given Amy clear instructions on what these cards are for – she is to throw them on my funeral pyre.  One at a time while she is weeping.

It was nice to meet you Sarah!

With the Ava Bright children being out of town, Ava and Ed decided to go out on Saturday night.  The whole evening started with wanting to go downtown for dinner, have a few drinks, and go play pinball.  This idea was derailed when Ed’s friend texted to see if we wanted to meet up at a restaurant miles from downtown because the friend’s date had a Groupon.  Those of you who know Ed, know that he likes nothing better than saving money – so he agreed.  Ava agreed to agree because she was trying not to be a pain in the *ss.

The restaurant turned out to be a brew pub in a strip mall.  The menu featured bar food.  While Ava doesn’t mind bar food, she does mind the one item on the menu she really, really wanted to be unavailable.  The item was handmade pretzels with beer cheese sauce.  Now you understand her ire.  Note to brew pub: Make sure you have ALL of the food on your menu on SATURDAY night or just go ahead and close down.

Salted Caramel Shake with Bourbon and Bacon

Let me mention that Ed’s friend is an engineer with a PhD.  His date’s degree is in Chinese culture and she has a PhD, as well.  (More on China tomorrow. Make sure you come back here.)  After driving downtown, where you’ll recall we wanted to go in the first place, next on the evening’s agenda was to walk in the 100 degree heat to a restaurant to get take-out bacon because – and I quote “They have the best bacon.” From there, we headed to another restaurant (still 100 degrees out) because they make there own salted caramel ice cream and have super special bourbon.  Super special bourbon is $14.00 a shot.  We then took over half the bar and mixed the bourbon, ice cream, and bacon into shakes.  I swear to god this is true.

After “dessert”, the boy PhD decided we needed to walk in the STILL 100 degree heat to a bar because it’s the oldest bar in our city.  I thought Ed was going to cry but he straightened his spine and agreed to agree because he didn’t want to an old man.  The first thing you notice is the people in the oldest bar in our city are the oldest people in the city as well.  The place was a pit but we drank a pitcher of Coor’s original and played shuffle board.  Ed kept knocking my pucks off the playing field until I loudly announced “Are you trying to shuffle your way out of having sex with me tonight?”  After that I started to win.

Buffet Bar Shuffle Board

The whole evening wound up when Ed said he was going home and if the PhD’s wanted a ride instead of walking all the way back to their apartment in the 100 degree heat they’d better come along.

The shuffle board joke was only for a laugh but the joke ended up on me.  Fifty year old Ed passed out from heat exhaustion as soon as we got home.

I’ve decided I’m going to live to be 103.  Why 103, you ask?  Because a fortune teller told me that’s when I’d die and I’m going with it.  If you do the math and you know I’m almost 50, I have 53 years left.  I have more time left than I’ve been alive.  This is very comforting. Here’s some of the stuff I’m going to do/continue to do now that I’m not worried about who is going to pick out my nursing home anytime soon since I’ll be around for a while yet:

This is Rudy Bright. That will be his name when he lives with me and Amy.

I’m going to continue to drive Amy crazy with my OCD issues.  Can you just imagine how bad that’s going to be with old people ailments thrown into the mix? Just wait until I need a new white purse!  Or a nice shoe I made up entirely in my head? Sorry Amy.

I’m going to continue to do things that require the girl that lives at my house to say “Can you NOT be you?”  I have no idea what’s she talking about but she says it a lot so I’ll just keep being me so she can keep being a teenager with “mom embarrassment feelings”. I feel certain I can still get her to say it when she’s 30.  I’m certainly going to try.

I’m going to “liberate” a red panda from a zoo.  I’m really going to do it.  And I won’t botch the job like I did when I was 17 and thrown out of the Bronx Zoo and told to never return.  Ever.

I’m going to be the person who finally cracks the code of why Americans have gotten so fat over the past 20 years or so. It absolutely will be me because I’m not giving up until I have the puzzle solved.  This diet odyssey won’t kill Amy and she should stop complaining to anyone who will listen about it.  Jeeez, Amy.  You’re a hardy little thing.  Hang in there since you have to make it to at least 99 so you can out live me.