Sooooooooooo – Carly Cadillac decided to take a moment for herself right at one of the busiest intersections in our town. For no reason that I’ve found out yet, she turned on her dashboard warning lights and turned off the radio. This was alarming as I need the radio.

Is that a blue Cadillac in the front of that mess?

Since the traffic light was red, I put her in park and turned the engine off and turned it back on hoping that she would reset herself – she’s got all those computer modules you know. Nope. But she did refuse to shift out of park or allow anything but the engine to be on. This meant no windows and no door locks. I thought for a minute that I’d have to do that Dukes of Hazard move where I’d have to crawl out the window except I couldn’t open the windows either. There might have been panic until I remembered that little lock thingy on the door (the one that stubbornly refuses to allow a coat hanger to unlock it if a person MIGHT have accidentally left their keys in the trunk) and I pulled it up with my actual fingers.

I put the hazards on so I wouldn’t die–with no radio.

After I called emergency roadside assistance, a variety of folks offered to both help me and to kill me (it was rush hour). Finally, two police cars arrived. As they got out of the car I did too. The first car had a policewoman and the second car had a policeman. I clearly heard him say, “She ran out of gas.”

After establishing that I did not, in fact, run out of gas, the kind officer tried to get the car in neutral to at least move it out of the middle lane but to no avail. Carly can be very stubborn. Soon, my husband pulled up (I called him after the tow truck but before Amylynn) and also tried to get Carly out of neutral. Nope. The officer was pleased by this and told Ed he was glad he hadn’t been able to do it either because if he had the officer would have to give back his “Man” card.

The police lady and I just stood there deciding that no one had anything to be pleased about since we were all still in the middle of the road.

However, I did learn that she had miniature goats. She was super nice and if I had to stand in the desert heat waiting for a tow truck it would be with her. After all, she didn’t immediately assume I’d run out gas like an idiot.

Of all the people who were not happy to see me today, I will say the Cadillac people were the least happy. Imagine their faces when Carly came back (for the seventy-fifth time this year) and strapped to a tow truck.

In retaliation, they gave me the cheapest loaner car they had. Like I can’t break that Cadillac either.

Amylynn writes for Carina, who is a division of Harlequin. This “reading” from Bill is really very funny. Our one huge complaint is Bill massacring of the pronunciation of Harlequin.

NOTE – It’s pronounced “Har-le-quin” just like it’s freaking spelled. Not “Har-le-KIN”. Jesus. What the hell is wrong with you?

Otherwise this is hysterically funny.

Today is Timothy Olyphant’s birthday. We love him in Justified on FX. He is one of the few guys the Sisters would consider suspending our absolute rule of never dating/marrying a man with a smaller jean size than our own. No woman is every going to be happier with a smaller man. Fact.

Besides, who wants to feel fat next to all those skinny jeans in the laundry?

Anyway…

Happy Birthday, Tim! We hopes it’s wonderful! We’d really appreciate it if you’d open the box the MINUTE the UPS guy delivers it. We had to buy a smaller crate than we’d originally thought due to cost constraints. Do you have any idea how much it costs to ship two middle aged women? It’s not cheap.

We’re beginning to wonder if this is something specific to our neck of the woods or if this is happening everywhere.

The Sisters have long contended that Walgreens is trying to take over the world, but now we’re worried about sneaky mattress companies. Either

We don’t recommend picking one up on the side of the road to save money

they’re in cahoots with Walgreens or they’re in direct competition. Every single place in town where there is an empty twelve by twelve piece of land,  a building is going up. Before they always turned into a Walgreens, but now they’re all selling mattresses.

So now we need to know, just exactly how many people are buying mattresses? We don’t presume to speak for you but we hate the idea of buying  one. That’s a thousand dollars! We don’t care how badly we need a new mattress, there are better things to spend that money on. So if more people think like we do than not, how in the hell can these stores remain open. Who is supporting them? How can they afford to pay the surly people who work there? No one is ever in there buying anything.

Sassy turned eleven over the weekend. I have no idea how this happened. I blame her father.

The kid had a party with about a thousand of her little friends. She and her daddy planned most of the party – the swimming, the piñata, the lunch. I was in charge of the cake.

Of course I was.

I convinced Sassy to let me order the cake – sight unseen – from my favorite bakery. She’s had the cake before so it wasn’t like I was asking her to go forward on total faith. Although, honestly, if you can’t trust me of all people to buy a yummy cake, I don’t know what to tell you. You clearly have no faith in anything.

I ordered the cake from the wholesale bakery Ava and I tracked down when the purveyor of our favorite cake burned down. It turned out they weren’t the original baker of the cake and thus our greatest discovery was made. White cake, white frosting, white sprinkles. A square of heaven.

On Saturday, I got up early and got dressed. “I’m off to pick up the cake,” I told my husband. “It’s across town and they’re only open for a couple of hours on Saturdays.”

“Where the hell did you get this cake from?” Surely he was wondering why I wasn’t going to the grocery store around the corner.

I shrugged.

“Amy,” he said with the shake of his head, “it’s just a cake.”

I know my mouth hung open like my jaw was unhinged. Just cake? JUST CAKE? It’s like he’d never met me.

Just cake?

Why don’t men even bother to understand women? This stuff is so easy.

Just cake? Jesus.

We had to go to the Hobby Lobby today. First, we’d like to mention that no one was harmed, although it was touch and go there for a while. Amylynn and The World’s Greatest Receptionist got HANGRY and Ava wouldn’t let us leave because she has to touch every single thing in the store. (True – I do need to touch everything in there.)  She will try to claim that this is somehow Amylynn’s fault but it isn’t (False – we were there for Amy’s table décor for AZ Dreamin’). Ava was doing this on purpose and Amy and WGR were innocent bystanders. It got so bad that Amy had to go get a cart because her purse got so heavy her arm was going to fall out of it’s socket (False – Amy’s arm was going to fall out of its socket not due to time but because she keeps EVERYTHING she owns in there except her husband and children.). Pretty soon they’re not going to let us back in that store (False – they will always let Ava in the Hobby Lobby, she has their platinum card.). It wasn’t anyone’s fault but Ava’s. Fortunately, these things are funny anyway.

1. This is the exact reason the Universe won’t allow us to be rich. Dracula’s castle is for sale. It’s in Romania, obviously. The listing price is somewhere in the neighborhood of 47M pounds. Construction began in 1377, so it’s really old. We think that alone will allow us to negotiate a lower price. The other thing in our negotiating favor is the fact that, though there are 57 bedrooms, there is not one single bathroom. Not a one. And get this. They don’t even advertise that the place is haunted. We think that would make it more valuable, right?  We would have already bought this if we had the money and that’s why the gods don’t allow us anymore than $58.00 at anyone time.

2. Tainted cheese. A mozzarella factory in Rome has been shut down by the police and they arrested thirteen people after discovering the prized local buffalo milk was being cut with cheaper cow milk. Our whole world is blown. We’re not sure how we’ll ever go on.

We’re not sure we’re brave enough to milk her – that could be the problem all along

What are we supposed to do with this information? If you can’t trust your cheese, what the hell can you trust? Seriously. How long did this go on? Are those Italians so uncultured as to not recognize when their mozzarella is impure? We can’t believe it.  And who knew that buffalo’s give milk?

3. Maybe they keep them in the chickens. A guy in Pennsylvania was arrested for breaking into his neighbors house. He claimed that the only reason he was in there was because he needed some eggs for breakfast. Oddly he was looking for these eggs in the dressers and cabinet doors all over the house. Why don’t the people in Pennsylvania keep their eggs in the refrigerators like normal people? Is this a thing in Pennsylvania? All Pennsylvania or just Middletown? Bizarre. Wait a minute. Maybe we didn’t understand the point of this story.

4. Everyone needs a hobby. We’ve been trying to figure out how to fill our days at Bank of No Forks and we have recently been inspired by a 34-year-old hairdresser from Virginia. She is now among the world most elite counterfeiters. She discovered that she could erase the ink from five dollar bills by soaking them in “Purple Power” degreaser and rubbing them with toothbrushes. She dried the blank, water-marked bills with a hairdryer, then ran them through an HP printer and TADAA! Now she had fifty and one hundred dollar bills. Did you know Amazon will deliver a five gallon bucket of that degreaser for $58.00. We’re just sayin’.

5. This isn’t funny. But it sorta is. Remember Clay Aiken? He won American Idol. He was running for a political office in North Carolina. Apparently, he was in the lead. The other guy, Keith Crisco, didn’t do so well in the election. Aiken was beating him soundly before the vote. That’s sort of embarrassing for a politician, don’t you think? Not that we mean anything disparaging about Mr. Aiken, we don’t know anything about his politics, but it would be a bit embarrassing to lose to a former American Idol. Mr. Crisco did the only thing he could under the circumstances. He died. Seriously. That’s awful for Mr. Crisco’s family, and we’re very sorry. But at least he didn’t officially lose if he’s dead.

Unbelievably, the Target Board of Directors did not accept our request for employment.  That’s going to be their loss . . . maybe we’ll just go fix Sears instead.  That will serve them right.  Right?  If nothing else, we’ll get to straighten out those Kardashian sisters.

The Quill Sisters don’t dwell or carry a grudge (Okay, we do dwell and we do carry grudges, we carry them in Amylynn’s purse where everything in the world is kept) so we’re moving on to other employment opportunities.  Ava thought it might be best if they inquired at Chipotle.  After all, we’re there so often, some of the folks there think we work there anyway.

Us working with food – Blahahhaaaaaaaa

Here’s the deal: employees get a free meal after every shift!!!  OMG – the money that will be saved!!.  And, more happiness!  When you aren’t working, you get 50% off anything you buy!  Plus, those funny black t-shirts are very slimming.

Now we just need to work out the hours.  No, we cant be there by 9:00AM.  We’re planning on sleeping in after our years at BofNF.  We can be there by 11ish.  No one should be eating lunch before that anyway.  We can stay until 2:00PM, at which point we’ll clock out so we can eat our free lunch.  But don’t despair.  We’ll be back by 6 for our half price dinner.

I’ve been very excited about the release of my first contemporary romance, COOKING UP LOVE, coming out June 2 with Carina Press. Ava and I really love this book, and I’ll tell you, beyond a shadow of a doubt, it’s the best thing I’ve written. It’s funny and sexy and touching.

I have officially tooted my own horn. Ava’s always yelling (yes, yelling) at me that I don’t toot my horn enough.

Anyway, part of the process of a book release is, of course, the agonizing process of getting reviews. You send it out there and just hope people get what you were trying to do with your book. It’s scary stuff, indeed.

That’s why I nearly lost my mind when my first review for this book came out last night. It’s a five star review on The Romance Reviews.com. I found it late while the entire world was asleep except me.

It was agony. My mom was asleep – she never sleeps. My Honey was asleep. Ava was asleep. Most of Facebook was asleep (thank you Kilian and Debby for being awake!). Jojo Kitty loves me but he was fairly unimpressed when I read it to him aloud. Winnie the Wonder Mutt was excited, but she’s excited about everything. She’s a piss poor barometer.

According to my favorite reviewer, this book is:

COOKING UP LOVE is a fun and sexy take on the typical romantic comedy genre.

COOKING UP LOVE was a surprising gem in the sea of standard issue rom-coms! Ms. Bright’s sarcastic sense of humor totally enamored me to both Mark and Holly, and I really felt a vested interest in the two of them succeeding as a couple. Funny, romantic and downright sexy, COOKING UP LOVE features some LOL worthy sentences sprinkled throughout that I could instantly picture myself saying to my BFF’s, adding to my enjoyment of the book.

Ms. Bright gave us just the right mixture of fun and frisky

This couple is just so realistic and endearing that you just want to hug them both!

Go read the whole review here. The book is available for presale then you can see for yourself.

Here are some things I’d like to note–some random thoughts. I have these a lot.

The daughter and sister of plumbers should not have this many plumbing problems in her house. Nothing can finish off a day like turning on the disposal in the kitchen and have water pour out from the cabinets.

My eleven-year-old daughter no longer believes in the Tooth Fairy. That has not stopped her from blackmailing us when she lost a tooth this week. Right this minute she’s in the family room wiggling all the rest of the baby teeth to loosen them up. Apparently. this is her plan to make

The bean of death

money for our summer vacation.

I really love jelly beans, however, I DO NOT like the black licorice ones. I do, however, like the grape ones. I do not like that the grape ones and the licorice ones are so similar in color. You often can’t tell them apart no matter if you put your bifocals on and stare at them under a microscope and high-powered spot lights. This is not a time you want to be cavalier. If you say, “Eh, fuck it” and put an unidentified black licorice jelly bean in your mouth, you can ruin your whole day. Hey, Jelly Belly people – can you do something about this? I suggest you remove all the black ones. NO ONE LIKES THOSE. Thank you.

I think nine-year-old boys are difficult. When I was filling out the admission forms for summer camp today, there was a question on whether my child was easily managed. I suggested they keep and old priest and a young priest on call in case they need to do an exorcism. I try to be helpful.

I miss Charles Grodin. He’s not dead, thank Zeus, but I wish he was in more stuff.

Alright, that’s enough of my non sequitors for tonight.

Ava and I have been rewatching Game of Thrones at Bank of No Forks for the last couple of weeks. Some of the girls have never seen it. and Ava and I are more than happy to watch it over from the beginning even while we remain up to date with the recent episodes.

We’ve both read the first book and I was about half way through the second before I set it aside. I wish I had time to read them all. I love the books but I don’t get to read as much as I wish I could anymore.

Game of Thrones has so many freaking characters and plots that this is actually helping me keep  some of the more convoluted stuff straight.

I also love remembering how much I love some of the lesser known characters like Shae (even though we’re struggling with her at the moment) and Brienne of Tarth, and, believe it or not, the Hound.

We want to make it known that we’re on team Daenerys. Honestly – she’s the mother of dragons. SHE HAS DRAGONS! Duh.

If that should fail, we’re migrating to Bran Stark. He can sorta morph into a dire wolf. He’s a warg and we like the looks of that.

Are you a Thrones watcher? Who is your favorite character? Who are you rooting for?

For more fabulous infographics follow the jump to TheChive.com