I got to take part in one of the world’s most frustrating experiences yesterday. I got to call the Help Desk. Or the UnHelp Desk. Just like every where else, this has mostly been outsourced to India so I wasn’t the least bit surprised when the guy answered the phone with a thick accent. I was however surprised when he identified himself as John.

Riiiiiight.

Our phones go through our computers. It’s a giant pain in the ass.  I explained to them that my desk phone isn’t ringing. I can talk on it as evidenced by the fact that we were indeed speaking on it at that very moment. However, when someone called in there was no auditory signal to alert me that was occurring. I assured him my ringer was turned on and that I heard other noises coming from the magic box.

John: OK, can I have your call back number?

Me: I don’t have a direct line. You have to call the main customer service number, put in your account number and you’ll end up at my desk.

John: What’s the account number?

At this point I’m not sure if “John” has any idea where I work. I explained that one of the 70 gazillion customers would have to put in THEIR account number. Just any random number wouldn’t work.

Me: I want to remind you that the reason I’m contacting your department is that my phone doesn’t ring.

John: Hmmmm.

“John” proceeded to make techie noises and repeatedly asked me to hold. I gave answers that were sarcastic at best. Truth be told, they probably leaned more towards caustic. I agreed to hold.

Eventually when he returned, he informed me he was going to give me a ticket number and a specialist would call me back.

John: Can I have your phone number?

Me: (making a Herculean effort to control myself) John, do you remember the reason that I’m calling? My phone doesn’t ring.

John: Uh huh.

Me: Alright, I’m going to need you to read me what you have written down for my problem because I don’t feel like you have any idea what our conversation has been about.

I took down my ticket number. It’s been two days and I’ve heard nothing. Isn’t that shocking? Soooooo, if you’re calling me at work that’s why I never answer.

That and Dexter is on. I’ll be checking my messages during an intermission.

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!

So, I bet you’re wondering, how our diets are going?

Let me give you a brief rundown in the form of a conversation that happened on Monday.

In case you’re not from where we live, it was a rainy morning. Really rainy. We had record rainfall and the governor declared us in a state of emergency.

The morning diet fiasco started with texts.

Amy: I’m gonna be late. I’m going home to let the dogs back in.

Ava: And to pick up donuts.

Amy: Seriously?

Ava: Isn’t today the day for those croissant donuts?

Amy: You understand that it’s fucking pouring, right? Broadway and Swan could only be described as torrential.

Ava: It’s not raining here. Come in and we’ll go somewhere.

Approximately three minutes later I arrived at work and it was indeed raining there. The World’s Greatest Receptionist and I arrived at the same time and parked next to each other in our assigned covered spots. The rain was so intense we could barely see the front of our building maybe fifty yards away. We sat in our cars and chatted for twenty minutes before we were brave enough to go in. Needless to say we did not go out to get donuts. This fact was much lamented for many, many hours. (On the bright side, we thought there was a real possibility that we’d have to build an ark. The first animal we’re getting is a panda.)

The rain continued unabated. By 1:00 we were starving. STARVING. The closest place was Smashburger.

Ava: Do you think it would be wrong of us to get milk shakes with our burgers?

Amy: No!

Ava: Really? (she sounded very hopeful)

Amy: You didn’t have donuts did you?

Ava: That’s the kind of logic that makes us sisters.

I had a Butterfinger milkshake and she had Nutter Butter. TWGR had strawberry, which was a mistake as far as we were concerned.

Anyway. That’s how the diet is going.

I just got the new cover for my December 15th release of Finish What We Started from Carina Press.

It’s available for pre-order now. You should go get yourself a copy. If you liked Mark and Holly, then you’ll love following up with his brother Lee.

Five years ago, Lee Bennett’s whirlwind romance with Candace Claesson ended as abruptly as it had begun, and just when he needed her the most. Since then, Lee’s built a successful construction company and a satisfying, if solitary, life. When he’s hired to build Candace’s new veterinary clinic, Lee finds her as irresistible as ever—but he’s never forgiven her and he’s sure as hell not letting her break his heart again.

For years, Candace has wrestled with regret and guilt over leaving Lee. At the time, nothing was going to stop her from achieving her dreams of studying in Scotland and becoming a vet—not even young love. They’d been inseparable for six months, but anything that intense couldn’t last. Or so she thought.

Reunited in their hometown, neither Lee nor Candace can resist picking up where they left off. But with so much from the past standing between them, how they can rebuild what they started so long ago?

These are so cute–and true. At least where our cats are concerned.

We watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s today at Bank of No Forks. The Sisters adore that movie. Holly Golightly was so charming. And lovely. In fact, we need several of her dresses, hats, and especially that pearl necklace she’s wearing in the opening sequence. Also, we appreciate the fact that she always collected $50 from her dates to take with her to the powder room. That’s genius and we wish we’d thought of it back when we were single and dating. If you haven’t seen that movie in a while, you should revisit it. You’ll be happily humming (or singing if your Amylynn) the

Kenneth Lacovara with the right tibia of dreadnoughtus schrani Kenneth Lacovara Photograph: Kenneth Lacovara

lyrics to Moon River all day because that song is beautiful. And Holly has a cat named Cat who looks like Jojo Kitty. Fabulous. Here are some other charming things this week.

1. Things that are fatter than us. Researchers have been in the news lately because of a new dinosaur skeleton. It’s called Dreadnoughtus Schrani – meaning “fearing nothing”. Awesome name, right? It’s the biggest animal they’ve ever found where they can actually determine it’s weight. They’re saying 60 tons. That’s 120,000 pounds. We did the math for you so you wouldn’t have to. That’s how we are. All about the math. We’ll also share a dessert with you, cause we’re super nice that way. Back to the dinosaur and it’s massiveness. It was bigger than a 747 jumbo jet. Seriously. We would not be willing to share a dessert with this guy, cause we suspect he’d be a hog. Also, the poop. We don’t mean to be gauche, but when you talk about an animal bigger than a passenger jet, you need to be concerned about the poop. It would be the size of a freakin’ condo. Just sayin’.

2. Joan Rivers. This lady was funny. Often you cringed at her zingers, but you also had to admit they were funny and you were probably thinking them yourself but were too polite to say it out loud (Yes, there are things we’re too polite to say out loud so just stop it right now). Like this one: “I’ve never seen a 6-month-old so desperately in need of a waxing” about Kanye West and Kim Kardashian’s kid. OK that’s an awful thing to say, and totally hysterical. We don’t know how the red carpet will ever be the same without her or Fashion Police, that can’t go on without her.

3. Lunch with friends. We love to meet with friends and gab and gab and gab. We met with a writer friend of ours today, Pumpkin, who we just never see enough of, and had a jolly good time. We didn’t even drive the waitress too crazy –probably because our attention was focused on Pumpkin and not on torturing the help. We debated ordering dessert to share and ultimately decided it was the way to go since otherwise we’d just get back to the office and regret it. So pecan blondies for everyone. Just let us know if you want to meet for lunch. We know where all the best places are.

4. Abso-freaking-lutely ridiculous titles. The Bank of No Forks is famous for its corporate-speak. It’s all gobbledygook and bullshit designed to make you feel connected. Mostly it makes us feel annoyed. Our boss’s boss’s boss just recently moved to a different department and got himself a whole new job title. The acronym is MRA (we’re also super big on acronyms). What is an MRA? you ask. That’s what we wanted to know. We’d seen it before and never figured it out. It means–we shit you not–Matters Requiring Attention. Yes, that’s a real job title for a real person. We can’t make up crap this stupid. It takes a corporation to do it.  We’re ordering business cards.

5. 16 Year Old Driving Boys. The boy who lives at Ava’s house is still (STILL) learning how to drive.  All of you know Ava hates to drive.  Hates it.  She’s not good at it and pays no attention whatsoever while doing it.  It’s really just best if she doesn’t do it at all.  Generally, she’ll let anyone drive her around, anyone.  Even strangers.  But even she has to give pause every morning when she has to decide if she’s going to let the boy drive to school.  It’s not that he’s unsafe or especially bad at it, but he’s not good at it.  Amy taught him how to parallel park so there’s that in the plus column.  Ava can’t parallel park so ultimately she just let’s him drive and hopes for the best.  So, if you’re in the desert and you see a car driving backwards, repeatedly parallel parking down the street – save yourself and stay out-of-the-way.

You’ve all heard this rant before. This is not a new argument. Still, I’m gonna have to do it. I hadn’t really had this problem until recently. Sassy is in the 6th grade and sometimes she asks me for assistance with her math homework.

I couldn’t be worse prepared.

The real issue is the way math is taught today. I have no idea what these bullshit methods are, but I have a hell of a time figuring them out.

You know what the real problem is? They make the kids show their work. This has been the case since the ancient Greeks figured out math. I’m certain Pythagoras assigned homework on marble slabs.

“Yes, I see you got the answer but where is your work?”

Now the teachers have all these wacky solutions to figuring math that is way more fucking complicated than

12

x12

144

Now they make them do all kinds of funky shit that I can’t figure out when the old way is so damn easy.

This seriously makes me feel like a moron. I read the instructions. I try to follow the examples. This is what I get.

Please tell me I’m not the only one.

I saw this when a friend of ours posted it. This kills me. Clearly he doesn’t like celery. Ava would wholeheartedly agree. She will not eat celery either.

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 King of all Blues

My Honey bought us tickets to see Peter Frampton’s Guitar Circus for my birthday. The main reason I wanted to go was because BB King and Buddy Guy were on the bill. Also, Robert Randolph whom we’d never seen before. We love blues. Love love love. One of our best dates was seeing Buddy Guy in a bar early in our relationship. I even pushed my way to the front of the stage and got his autograph for My Honey. It was a really outstanding show.

One of my few regrets in life–of which there haven’t been many–was that we had the opportunity to see John Lee Hooker in Los Angeles and didn’t take it. All we’d have had to do was stay one more night. One more night. We didn’t do it and the man died within the year. Major opportunity lost.

ANYWAY–back to the concert. Ava and Ed were coming with us, but Ed got sick so The Girl Who Lives At Their House came instead.

First, let me just say, it was hotter than HELL in the outdoor amphitheater. It was still 92 degrees before we packed ourselves in with the hundreds of other bodies. It was all good, though, when Buddy Guy came out. He was awesome as always. He worked his way through the crowd, playing his guitar up and down the aisles. As Ava said, he labored

The 4th song

for labor day. We also decided he seemed like a great deal of fun to party with. See below the plan for BB King and insert Mr. Guy as a substitution.

We adore BB King. Just let that be clear. We’ve seen him five or six times, but sadly this will be our last. He’ll be 89 years old this month and that’s a hell of a thing. Sadly, though, he seems so diminished and I’d rather remember him from his earlier shows than this one. Still, Ava and I would have been happy to kidnap him. TGWLAHH was appalled that we’d even suggest such a thing. We told her that the first time you get arrested it really should be with your mother and her sister. Once Mr. King realized we were just taking him out for pancakes and fun conversation, we’re certain he’d enjoy himself. He seems like a fun guy.

The 5th Song – because really

The bulk of the crowd seemed to be in attendance for Peter Frampton. He has a bit of a reputation for being an ass when people take pictures at his show. A disembodied voice announced before he came on that pictures would only be allowed during the first three songs. Well, you’ve probably known us well enough to know that we don’t like being bossed around AND we’re not good with following asinine instructions. We waited patiently through songs one, two, and three and then took 75 pictures during song number four – cause F you, ya know what I mean?

Then Pete declares we are his friends and family. Apparently at family dinners his friends and family can only take pictures with him until the potatoes are served.

Nevertheless, the blues was good. The people watching was MOST EXCELLENT. Our company was the best. We had a good time eating $38 dollars worth of dessert at the buffet and we didn’t die from the heat.