Things are warming up here in the desert. That means everything is blooming. That also means that all of our allergy symptoms are out of control. Amylynn’s sinus infection is no big deal so long as she doesn’t move her head, or her eyes, or think too much. Ava on the other hand has a terrible pollen induced cough that’s keeping her up at nights and is making plans to turn into pneumonia.  I’m sure you can imagine, this means there is whining. Normally we don’t whine much. We’re very reasonable, centered people. That’s what everyone says. We’re pretty sure no irony was intended. Here are other silly things this week.

1. Bomb-sniffing cat? There was a letter to the editor in the Picayune were an outraged citizen takes another contributor to task over a letter published earlier in the week. Apparently, Person #1 makes the statement that cats are the best pets. The assertion goes that dogs are “goofy and dopey and surprisingly gullible” compared to cats. Well, Person #2 insists that draws the line in the sand. She asks, “When is the last time you saw a bomb-sniffing cat, a service cat, or a police cat?” We suspect things will get nastier from here. The dog gang and the cat gang are meeting with pistols at dawn to hammer this out. We personally love dogs AND cats so we–for the first time in the history of EVER–have no opinion.

2. Excellent obits. There was the best obit in the Picayune this week. Ken was described as going “to the great big tennis court in the sky.” The picture included with the text is with his dog. A mighty cute dog. With one black ear. We’ve decided that we’re totally doing this for our obits. We’re going to have pictures taken with our tiger

CARL!

(as soon as we get it). It’s a two-fold plan really. Certainly having a picture taken with a tiger will be the reason that we’re dead in the first place.

3. Jaguar country. There’s a very elusive bachelor in our area. Every time they snap a new picture of him we all squeal down here. He’s just gorgeous. We name him each time, but we can never remember what we named him last time. This time we’re liking Carl. We’re waiting for our new shipment of Purina Animal Chow to arrive from Amazon. Then we’re heading into the mountains to do some luring of Carl.  Here kitty, kitty.

4. Fermented fruit. Two of our favorite topics collided today. Diets and animals. Getting drunk is a distant third and you’ll see how we got there in a minute. Ava and The World’s Greatest Receptionist found a new diet that was heavy on eating fermented fruit. Amylynn was in until she discovered that fermented fruit wasn’t referring to wine but to sauerkraut. Amy’s not eating that. Nope. So in the course of Googling fermented fruit we discovered the elephants in Singita Kruger National Park in Africa are all drunk on the fermented fruit that falls from the trees. Then we saw the similarity between drunk elephants and the fact that we can’t find a diet that works and now we want to be drunk too. On the REAL fermented fruit.

5. And now we need a Zonky. Look at this little dude. A cross between a dwarf albino donkey and a lovely lady zebra. Look at how adorable he is.  We hope no one’s mean to him in school because he’s different. If he does, he can come live with us. We’re different over here, too. We tease a lot, but we do it with love. And we love striped legs. And cute little manes. And big donkey ears. We’re naming him Saul. We hope he eats Purina Animal Chow.

Because Ava is no longer allowed to say the word “Chipotle” under threat of bodily harm – it was decided by a two-thirds vote to have a rotisserie chicken for lunch. Ava being Ava, and not caring for being out voted, demanded she get to pick the side dish. “Go ahead,” one of the chicken voters said. Amy knew this for the trouble it was about to become.

And sure enough, Ava insisted the side dish be McDonald’s apple pies. Other than some people thinking apple pie is not a REAL side dish, what the heck could go wrong? Go to the drive-thru, place order, pay, go to next window for food, leave. Fast and easy.

Amy to Unseen McDonald’s Worker: Do you still have apple pies on the dollar menu?

16-year-old Unseen McDonald’s boy: No, ma’am.

Amy: You don’t have apple pies anymore????!!!!

Boy: We do. They are 59 cents each.

(Note to McDonalds – Honest to the gods, if you need the extra 9 cents you should just say so. No need to disrupt the natural order of things on the Dollar Menu.)

Amy: Great. We’ll have seven.

Boy: Seven?

Amy: Yes – seven. S-E-V-E-N.

Boy: We don’t have seven.

Amy: McDonalds doesn’t have seven apple pies?

Boy: We have four made.

Amy: (Say this in Amy’s sarcastic voice) Can you make three more?

Boy: We can but it will take 12 minutes.

Amy: (Deep sigh) Fine. Why didn’t you just say so?

Boy: How about if we just make seven fresh ones?

Amy: AAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH

After wrapping up the order, we were told to go wait in the parking lot and “someone” would bring them to us. We pictured them drawing straws in the kitchen to see who would have to go outside. Sixteen and half minutes later, a boy brought them over in a bag he had managed to rip in the twenty steps he had to take to the car. We were just happy to be on our way but not before Ava suggested that we never had to sit around in the parking lot waiting for anything at Chipotle.

Amy: DEEP SIGH

Things we didn’t do, yesterday, in celebration of Earth Day.

1. Go outside. We find outside to be a let down. It always looks lovely in pictures and on television. Often it even looks pleasant enough through the window. Sadly, when we do venture outside it often turns out to be hot. Or cold.  Or windy. Or very dry. Or too humid. Or, how do we say it?  Outside.

2. Ride a bicycle to work. You have got to be kidding. You’re kidding, right? Right? Did you think for even one second this was going to happen? You’re even more delusional than we were when we built that panda pen in the back yard.

3. Set up a compost. You understand that happens outside right? See #1.  Also, do you understand that compost is rotting garbage?  Ewwwwwww.

4. Hug a tree. Outside again. Do you see a theme here?

Things we did do in celebration of Earth Day.

1. We skipped the shower. We took the opportunity to sleep an extra ten minutes. It was probably all a wash though because then we had an extra (or three) cups of coffee instead.

2. We paid for stuff online. We love the internet and we’re especially fond of Amazon. If you buy from Amazon you never have to go outside again.  Like ever.

3. Hugged the wildlife. Well the wildlife that we managed to lure into the house.  We used all purpose “Animal Chow” from Purina.  Amazon delivered it right to the door.

4. Break the plastic water bottle habit. We’re totally in on this. We’re now only drinking our margaritas in the office coffee mugs that we’re no longer washing.

You’re welcome planet. We think you’re AWESOME! Stay green.

The Sisters each have one girl child and one boy child.  You’d think that being girls themselves, they’d understand the daughters easier than the sons.  Turns out that’s not always true.  Every morning, when we drop the kids at school we are witness to the oddest ritual we have ever seen.  Now mind you – although it was decades ago – we were once pre-teen girls.  Which should qualify us to have some serious insight into the minds of said people.  Nope.  Not even close.

Here’s what happens: The girl child jumps out of the car, rushes to her peeps, arms flailing, legs running, all while squealing loudly.  They then fall into each other’s arms for a group hug.

***Amylynn here – my girl child has a mild variation on this technique once all the girls merge into the hug, then they move en masse away from the car and up to the sidewalk. It’s like a squealing mass of arms and legs. Weird.

A HUG.  Every single blessed day.  It’s like they haven’t seen each other for years instead of seventeen hours.  There’s joy, laughter, and more squealing.  You might think that’s heartwarming until you actually see it for yourself.  Then you know it’s odd.

ODD.

Who taught them this?  Where did it come from?  Is it communism?  We think too many germs are involved – stay back, save yourselves!  We should have just had boys.

We went to the county fair this weekend. I love the fair. Not because of the rides. I’m actually very afraid of fair rides. I’ll happily ride roller

Hi! I’m a piggy named Myrtle

coasters at a Disney park or Great America or just about any actual park. Not at the fair. Those rides, plus the people who traditionally operate carnival rides. scare me. They take all those down every ten days! That crap’s scary. I’m very happy to be the official holder of crap while everyone else puts their lives a risk.

This was the goat. That is not my hands reaching for him. That was a kid I had to knock down.

Also, Ferris wheels are scary! Scary! SCARY! You could have a Ferris wheel built by the best engineers and mechanics on the planet. You could have it inspected by the biggest hard-ass inspector ever born. You could have it blessed by the Pope, a rabbi, and the high priestess of The Flying Spaghetti Monster. I’m still not getting on it. I can’t tell you exactly what my problem is, but I can’t tell you what it is with spiders either. They both just scare the bejesus out of me.

But you know what’s good at the fair? ANIMALS!!!

Why yes, I do have fabulous hair. Thank you.

I could spend hours in the petting zoo alone. In fact, I was expressly forbidden from putting a baby goat in my purse. And the wee tiny pigs were adorable.

I love a nice boy finger

The llama had a bit of an attitude, but he was very stylish about it. My favorite though, was a baby donkey. We named him Edgar and he liked to nibble your fingers very gently.

Also, not in the petting zoo, there was an Egyptian Sphinx. You know it as that weird hairless cat. This is the kind Ava wanted to get for her daughter when she wanted a cat. Ava liked it ’cause it wouldn’t shed. I told her very sternly to quit f***ing around and get her daughter a cat with hair. Thus Ricki the finest Abyssinian came to live at their home and provide us with entertainment. When I saw the hairless cat yesterday, I had to touch it. Wouldn’t you? Turns out she felt like a little bald man. And she was very warm. And quite tolerant all things considered.

We always go to the 4H barns, too, to see all the piggys and goats and bunnies. Some woman was trying to sell me bunnies. Me of all people.

Bald is beautiful.

Can you imagine? Some people just see a sucker coming, huh? Well, I didn’t buy a bunny, but not because I didn’t want to. I wanted to, believe me. I think a bunny would be lovely to cuddle with. Instead, I was busy “helping” all the 4H kids rename their animals.

“Hi,” said a boy carrying the world’s biggest guinea pig. “You wanna pet him?”

“Obviously! I wanna pet every animal.” I tickled the monster under the chin. “What did you name him?”

The boy looked thoughtful. “I’m thinking Zeus.”

I squinched up my nose. “That’s not a good name. How about Herbert?”

“Uh, okay,” he said and looked over his shoulder for, I’m guessing, support from a sane person.

As soon as that boy walked away, a little girl asked me if I wanted to pet her guinea pig. Clearly, she’d not witnessed how badly that went for the last kid. This animal was smaller and a lot less bulky all around. It was also a pretty bronze color.

“Sure!” I said with excitement. I petted the thing, then asked, “What did you name it?”

“Cinnamon,” she said with a confident smile, “because of her color.”

I shook my head. “I think Susie would be better.”

“Uhhhhhhhhh.” She looked at me with raised eyebrows.

My kids grabbed my arm. “Come on, Mom, you’re scaring people.”

It’s very overcast here today. That makes us sleepy and lazy.  And it rained.  It hardly ever does that here.  So we ran (okay, we walked slowly) outside to collect some drops for our glass/water experiment.  By the time we got out there, it had stopped.  Oh well, we walked slowly back inside to guffaw over the following;

1. It’s very handy if you also want chips. Someone came up with the idea to put pot in vending machines. At first pass, this seems like a bad thought.  After we let it sink in and moved over all the things that could go wrong – we rather like the idea.  We like it as much as we like the vending machines that make fresh bread and cupcakes.  Our liking of it has nothing to do with the fact that we’re considering buying vending machines . . . right next to the pot machines.

2. Our dogs would not be good at this. Initially, we enjoyed the story about the dog in New Jersey being summoned for jury duty, but when we looked for more info we just got

He looks very trustworthy

confused. How in the hell did the dog’s name even get into the County Judiciary coordinator’s computer system to be added to the pool? Everyone in authority seems to be explaining it came from his dog license. Or possibly the newspapers didn’t get the facts right. You know, that’s a pet peeve of the Sisters. They always leave us with more questions than answers. Regardless of what the real details are, we thought having dogs on juries might not be a horrible plan. Everyone says that dogs have good instincts when it comes to people. Maybe other dogs but ours. Winnie the Wonder Mutt and Rocket O’Reilly think absolutely

We’d consider going this way instead. Is this legit?

everyone is fabulous, thus all criminals are innocent. Roscoe says, “fry ’em!” So maybe not such a good idea.

3.  No chickens. Our state lawmakers have decided that chickens on single family property are still a no-go. This is very bad for the Sister’s plans. We have our coop all selected and everything. We want a chicken or seven.  This legal approval was going to be the piece de resistance of our

So where do you pile the good cards?

argument for yard poultry with our husbands.  Who are they to tell us no when the state says YES!  Vote Yes for Chickens 2014.

4. No, we’re not counting cards. An Atlantic City casino is suing a gambler for 9.6 million dollars because they say he was cheating by sorting and arranging the cards into “good” piles during baccarat. We’re going to be the first to admit that we don’t understand baccarat. That seems like a very complicated game that rich people play in Monte Carlo. It’s true that we’re a little iffy about a lot of the games in casinos. Honestly,

Now this one we get

we’re not even 100% clear on the rules of Go Fish, so baccarat is a lost cause, but we’re pretty sure that the rules on ANY card game don’t allow you sort the “good” cards into piles. If that was the case, gambling would be a hell of a lot easier than it is. We like the cards with queens and diamonds on them. How much does that win us?

5. LAFNRVN. Lots of pet peeves here today.  We pulled up behind a car sporting the following license plate LAFNRVN.  We kicked around quite a few ideas of what it meant.  Laugh ‘N’ Run.  We decided the V was a stand in for a U.  Folks get real creative when the plate they want is taken.  La Fun RV’n.  Maybe they were French.  We had a co-worker with us.  She only puts up with the Sisters for so long before she calls us idiots and takes action.  Rolling down the window, she verifies with the car owner that it means Laughing Raven.  We liked the RV plate better.

The Sisters fixate on the darndest things.  Last week it was killer underground volcanoes and this week it’s glass.  And water.  It fascinates the Sisters no end that glass is liquid.  Except it’s not.  No one looking at or touching glass thinks it’s liquid.  It’s hard and does not fall into a puddle in the window frame.  However, after centuries, the glass at the bottom of the window is fatter than the glass at the top of the window.  Ed insists this is correct having worked on 200+-year-old homes.

The Sisters:  Did you measure it or eye-ball it?

Ed: I’m not having this discussion with the two of you.  The last time we discussed scientific facts I was afraid to go to sleep that night thinking you’d found a way to obtain activated plutonium.  (Dear FBI – we have not.)

The Sisters:  Fine.  We have questions about water but we’re not going to ask you, Ed!  We’re going to ask Amy’s husband.  (That’ll teach him . . . )

It turns out that Amy’s husband doesn’t take our calls anymore.  We got this text: Just talked to Ed.  No opinion on water or liquid glass for that matter.

Here’s what we really want to know:  Forgetting evaporation – If you put water in a glass and wait 500 years are you left with a pool of water?  Or a really short squaty glass with water in it?  We need to know.

So I saw this and I thought it looked exactly like Ava and I. Imagine if either of us was the raccoon and that kitten was virtually any baby animal.

All we want to do it touch it, touch it, touch it. And kiss it. And maybe give its ear a little nibble. Honestly, we can’t help ourselves.

On that note, I thought you’d all enjoy a new picture of the best dressed kitty in THE ENTIRE WORLD. I finally took off the green bow he’d been wearing since Valentine’s Day. It was getting a bit threadbare, but I waited until I found the perfect collar for him. Does my most handsome boy look good in a checked bow tie or what?

The Sisters really, really loved Frozen. We love that the sisters save each other and the boys were really only helpful on the fringe. Yea, girl power.

We also really, really love Breaking Bad.

How could we not really love this?