If you were wondering about what you should get us for Christmas, here is a lovely suggestion.

You can’t go wrong with color or size.

There was a news story in the Picayune this weekend that gave me pause.

First off, did you people know that there is a Cleveland in Tennessee? There is. Did you know that you’re allowed to have zebras in Cleveland, Tennessee? We didn’t either. This seems like the place to live, right? If they’ll let you have a zebra then I’m fairly certain you wouldn’t even have to sneak in a hedgehog or a wee leopard. Probably no one would even notice.

The reason I know about this zebra business is because there was the afore-mentioned news story. Apparently a zebra escaped

Zeek looks a bit rambunctious, doesn’t he?

from his farm by jumping a high fence and has been running free for the last three weeks or so. Several people have called from their homes and businesses to report seeing the animal.

Can you imagine that? You’re looking out your kitchen window, maybe having your first cup of coffee; Perhaps you’re not really alert. And there in the street is a zebra, plain as day. Something similar happened to me with a peacock.

Or you’re getting your hair done. Or at a therapy session. Or standing in line at the bank.

Either way, you know the first call to the police department didn’t go well.

By the way, the zebra’s name is Zeek, which is a great name for a zebra even if his owners don’t know how to spell. In fact, that’s an excellent excuse for us to pop on over to Tennessee and wrangle a zebra. We can ride him home.

It’s Friday the 13th. We’re not afraid. We don’t believe in that superstitious nonsense. We personally LOVE black cats, and we don’t want anything to do with ladders. Still there are legions of people running around all freaked out today. We just shrug. What are we going to do about it anyway? Then the more zen we try to be, that’s when the freakouts start to creep in. Are we being naive? Should we be worried? Oh dear God, maybe everyone knows something we don’t know. Now we’re all upset. Basket cases, even. This whole thing has turned on a dime and now we’re afraid to move. Great. Neuroses are no fun. Well, there was this stuff to amuse us.

1. -135.8 degrees. Did you see this? Antarctica recorded the lowest temperature on Earth at -135.8 degrees since record keeping began. We’re sure during the last ice age there were colder temperatures but we weren’t alive to hear about it so it’s almost like it never happened. We’d like to go on record as stating unequivocably that -135.8 is way too cold and we disapprove. Someone needs to go down there and get the penguins some sweaters and booties. Someone besides us needs to do this. We’re

NOT fancy

willing to do a fundraiser, but we’re not going anywhere near that place if it insists on being that cold. Ridiculous.

2. Wine? Yes. There was a wine heist. How fabulous is that sentence? Like 17-year-old boys, we’re drawn to anything with the word heist in it. Heists are fun. This particular heist involved 2,500 bottles of wine valuing in the neighborhood of $648,000. WHAT? Seriously. A Seattle wine shop was heisted of all their fancy wine. That’s the way the newspaper described it. “Fancy wine.” Obviously it was fancy wine. What the hell wine isn’t fancy for $648,000? How many bottles of Reunite would you need to total that much money? According to Target the answer is 33,174 bottles. We would be considerably drunk if we drank that much wine. So would you. What vehicle would you have to use? A school bus? Jeez, this heist just got really complicated. 

3. Ritz Carlton Hotels. Ava had to go out-of-town for work and she made BofNF pay to put her in the Ritz Carlton. She fell madly in love with the place. They have “afternoon tea with delectable sweets.” Surely you know the appeal of such a thing. In addition there were Christmas trees everywhere and the staff was lovely. When we finally get our apartment away from everything, that’s where we’re doing it. Just like living at the Plaza only it’s the Ritz. That’s a lovely address if you ask us.

From Vanity Fair

4. Robert Evans. He’s the film producer who did Rosemary’s Baby and The Godfather. He’s also the guy who did the Proust Questionnaire in the December issue of Vanity Fair. He’s been married 7 times. Yikes! Still, when asked what quality he most liked in a woman he stated, “Willingness.” We like a person who refuses to give up. Also when asked what his motto is he said, “No price too high does an original bear.” Huh? We have no idea what he’s talking about, but we do like bears.

5. Street Fair. This weekend is the winter Street Fair. That means there will be interesting people wandering about downtown and awesome cart food including Indian fry bread and roasted corn. There will also be magnificently overpriced art to gawk at. Even though they’re not supposed to be there, there’s always cute doggies in the crowd because people can’t follow the rules. We love the street fair. We REALLY love fry bread. With honey. Mmmmmmmm.

You know, you never can trust the internet. Still, I’m going to pass this on to you as I read it because the whole thing seems totally plausible.

Apparently, some homeowners kept coming home finding water all over their pool decking. They thought the neighbors were sneaking over and swimming in their pool so they hooked up a security camera to see what was going on.

This is what they found.

This could so totally happen. If you don’t believe it, you apparently don’t own a dog.

So the Pope is the Time Man of the Year. As far as we’re concerned that is neither here nor there, and we have no opinion if it’s a good or bad thing. The only time we venture into politics or religion is when they’re funny. We have a rather disturbed world view so this is often the case.

We’ll admit that we get a lot of our information from the internet. Sometimes that’s very good because it’s up to the minute, streaming-

This is not the right Pope but it is TOTALLY the right hat. Two please.

as-it-happens kinda thing. Other times it’s not beneficial because the internet is stupid.

Not too long ago we had a brief freak out over some fake, rumoresque nonsense that the Pope was gay and resigning office. There was shrieking and wonderment expressed at a loud volume. Then we immediately popped on the internet to REAL news sites and we learned that it was all a load of hokum. No such thing happened.

So today, when we learned that the Pope was given the honor by Time, we saw a chance to benefit from our gullibility.

We thought it possible we might be receiving a visit from some representative of the Holy See regarding some slanderous talk. Here is our official response:

WE HEREBY PROMISE TO STOP SAYING THAT STUFF IF YOU CAN HOOK US UP WITH A PAIR OF NIFTY POINTED HATS AND SOME RED PRADA SHOES.

Deal?

The time is inching closer and closer to the big day. We’re not very good with waiting. We’d really like to know what you’re getting us.

Just a hint?

How about if we give you some possibilities and you pick the one closest to your delightful gift.

There now, don’t you feel better? Keeping secrets is really hard and we want you to feel better.

This video is amazing. Ride it out to the end. It’s worth it.

Besides the holidays, the month of December is the time we use up all the vacation days we have left. “Use ’em or lose ’em,” Bank of No Forks says. That means we have weird random days off through the rest of the year. Like today for instance. We’re both off. Off work, not our rockers. Our rockers are perfectly fine, thank you. Amylynn’s clandestine day off was ruined by having the ten-year old girl home sick. Nothing puts a damper on a perfectly lovely “sick” day like a sick person. Selfish little kid, we say. Regardless, there were some funny things this week.

Rabbi S. Binyomin Ginsberg

1. Epic complainers. The Sisters do enjoy a good complaint. We also seriously dislike Delta Airlines. Because of this we read with interest the story of the Minnesota Rabbi who was just kicked out of the Northwest World’s Perks program of which he was a platinum member. The Supreme Court is listening to this case and will make a decision sometime next year. Here’s the deal. He was dumped from the program for complaining too much. Everyone agrees that is the issue. What the court is deciding is whether the airline is allowed to expel him for that. We’re really hoping the answer is no. We don’t like the precedent this would set. There are a lot of places we

We don’t think that’s necessary

want to continue to go to, even though we complain.  Although, we’ve never, ever complained in a bakery. Ever.

2. What the hell Seattle? When you picture Seattle we’ll bet you’re like us and you imagine some generally quiet yet caffeinated people. Apparently not. Those people are noisy. They screamed and yelled and jumped up and down so much at a recent Seattle Seahawks football game they registered a 1 or 2 level earthquake at the local seismometers. And they set a sound record at 137.6 decibles.  That’s louder than you think. It’s louder than Amylynn’s house on a Saturday morning while she’s trying to sleep in.

3. Drinks are on the TSA. We read with our mouth’s hanging open how the Transportation Safety Administration has collected $531,395.22 this year alone by people who tossed their change in those bins before they go through security and fail to retrieve it. That’s a LOT of change people. Miami flyers left the most money at $39,613 and Guam had the least with $1.70. Can you freaking believe it? More than 1/2 a million dollars in coins. Holy Quarters! We wonder who rolls all that change.

4. On line Christmas shopping. We’re huge fans of Amazon. Our books are for sale there. (Please note the shameless plug – click the covers to the left to take you right to the buy screen.) But they’re also good for buying camels named Leon and shoes and if they had a panda bear on there you know damn good and well we’d have hit that buy button a zillion times already. There’s a lot to be said about the enjoyment of shopping in person, but we also LOVE getting home to packages on our door step.

5. Boys asking girls to dances. We’re all for women’s lib. Or at least equal pay and equal opportunity. OK – what we’re really into is not being told what to do.  That’s not to say we don’t enjoy telling other people what THEY should be doing. Take for instance 16-year old boys who don’t think they have any cute girls at their school. We’re very happy to point out the good-looking girls and shoving our boy in their direction. Obviously, we think that girls can ask boys to the dances. After all, it was Amylynn who asked her husband to marry her, but we like it better when the boys do it. Nervous boys are cute. That’s what we say.

Internet, meet Teddy Bear the North American Porcupine. This is the cutest thing you’re going to see all week.

Did you people know this was a thing? Did you have any idea they make all those noises? Us either.

Can we have one? Please, please, please.

Pretty please?

You know sometimes you have to be an adult and tell your children they can’t do stuff no matter how enticing it might be?

My daughter, Sassy, is dying to use a defibrillator. You know those things they use on TV all the time to shock a person back to life?

“I’m just dying to get my hands on one of those things,” she’ll say with a frightening gleam in her eyes. “Grab a hold of those paddles – CLEAR – then zaaaaaaaaaaap!” At that point she’ll make an exaggerated noise and flail her body around like Kermit the Frog.

Every time we see one strapped to a wall at the mall or something, it’s everything I can do to keep her from yanking it down and resuscitating someone. I sincerely don’t think this stems from an altruistic desire to aid someone. She just want’s to yell CLEAR and zap the crap out of someone.

I know exactly what she means. That would be cool, right?

This being an adult thing is not nearly as fun as I thought it would be.