HO!!!! Now we need a bunny? A bunny we can give spa baths to.

At first we were concerned that this bunny was in a coma, but no he’s alive – just insanely relaxed.

I love BirdBoxStudios. Love them.

Ava and I are putting together a basket for a raffle we’re calling The Quill Sisters Favorite Things. Inside, we have, well, a bunch of our favorite things: Copies of our favorite movies (Action, comedy and classic love story), our favorite books (comedy, historical romance, and best book of all time), there are animals and treats and other stuff we love.

We also figured we better put a Bruce Springsteen CD in there or his feelings might get hurt if he ever finds out he was accidentally forgotten. We’d feel just terrible if that happened. Really.

The trick was finding a copy. There are no record stores anymore, at least not in our town. Target didn’t carry a copy of either Born to Run (ideal) or Greatest Hits (acceptable). I won’t go into Walmart unless forced. I looked in our everything used store, Bookmans (in two separate locations). Nada.

It was musician husband who clued to me in to the only real music store left in town – Zia.

We pulled up to the store and parked.

“What’s this?” Sassy asked.

“This, my dear, is a record store.” My Honey said the words with awe. “Back in the day, this is the only place your mother and I could buy music.”

“Really.” Both kids sounded leery and confused and sorta unimpressed, but they followed us inside anyway.

“Behold.” He spread his arms wide, encompassing the racks of cds, posters, and other stuff. “THIS is the ’80’s.”

“Hey!” I exclaimed and pointed to one rack. There were actual records in there too. Granted, My Honey and I probably have more in our stash in the office, but this really was a record store with LPs and everything. 10 for $10. Such a steal.

Sassy immediately curled up her nose. “It smells in here.”

I took a deep whiff of patchouli. “Actually, this smells A LOT better than I remember the ’80’s smelling.”

I thought of the old, stolen beer and stale cigarettes and pot smoke and boys and Aqua Net hairspray. I had an extra smell to add to the mix when I was a teenager. Popcorn. I worked in a movie theater all through high school and most of college. Everything I owned – my car, my clothes, my hair – smelled like popcorn. I couldn’t eat it for decades afterwards.

I wound my way over to the rock section, found the “S” rack, and located my Springsteen. I wandered around the store and touched stuff, picked up old albums like friends. Read some liner notes. Thought about where I’d been when I bought Prince’s Purple Rain or Welcome to the Jungle by Guns and Roses. I thought about drinking bottles of Riunite on the roof of my first apartment, which was actually a house, and listened to MTV blaring from below. My friend Jenny and I were the official tenants but about twelve other people had keys, too.

It was a nostalgia overload. Until we were walking out of the store.

“I just don’t get it. Why would you bother to go in there when you can get iTunes from the couch?”

And another part of my youth quietly died.

If you wonder what the gentlemen in our books look like…

Behold! I have video proof of Jojo downing his toys. Sadly I had to shorten the video in order to email it to myself. In the full length version you would have heard My Honey doing a comedy routine about the School for the Deaf and Blind playing a volleyball game. It’s very sad and very, very funny and completely wrong. Sadly that part was edited out. Still, enjoy Jojo drowning his beloved pink pipecleaner.

It’s Sunday night. Normally I would be moaning the fact that tomorrow is Monday. But tonight that doesn’t mean anything to me. Bank of No Forks is closed on Monday for Columbus Day. Columbus himself might have been an idiot, but he did give us a work holiday so I’d shake his hand. But I wouldn’t smile at him. He did bring slavery and disease, so that was a problem.

So to recap, I don’t have to work Monday and I used Tuesday for a vacation day since I had to work Saturday. I don’t have to go back to the horrible place until Wednesday! G L O R I O U S!

Also, I have my sweet kitty back from the doctor. He had an absolutely awful Urinary Tract Infection. The veterinarian didn’t say so, but I think, based on how long he was in the hospital and such, I think my little orange maniac got very close to dying. The idea makes me feel more than a little panicky, I’ll tell you.

So now that he’s home, I’m watching him like a hawk. Every time he pees I’m there to watch. He’s going to have a complex by the end of the week. He’s definitely feeling better. His first couple of days home he was still feeling a bit peaked, but today he’s almost back to his old self. He hasn’t drowned any toys yet, but I’m sure that’s coming in the next couple of days.

Also, in a bizarre non sequitor, The Walking Dead was on tonight. I freaking love that show.

Is the week over yet? Is it just us or was that the longest week eeeevvvveeerrrrrr? Maybe it was that the Sisters beloved Kitty was at the vet hospital for seven days? Or maybe it was because the Bank of No Forks was especially tedious due to us learning something we didn’t know about our sick time. No, not that we’re sick of BofNF. Perhaps it was because we are dying for The Walking Dead to start on Sunday?

Who the heck knows, we sure don’t, but here’s some stuff that amused us even while we were counting the seconds go by . . .

1. Neiman Marcus Fantasy Catalogue. The Sisters hemmed and hawed over this. Should we go for the Astin Martin or the diamonds? Honestly, it was a really hard decision. Ultimately, we decided we liked cars an awful lot but we LOVE diamonds. We’re super excited about the trip. We’ve decided to travel in March because nothing much is going on then. You can rest easy that we’ll keep you updated on every bit of our trip. Surely there’ll be trouble

while we’re getting our private tour of the Crown Jewels in the Tower of London. Can you imagine there won’t be? We fully expect to come home from Africa with our 25 carat diamond and something fuzzy.

2. Chickens. Here we call them hens. Either way, French ladies don’t like it. During a session of the French legislature, a member was fined a quarter of his monthly salary for clucking at another member while she was giving speech. Apparently, Veronique Massonneau took umbrage at the rude behavior insisting, “That’s enough… I’m not a chicken!” With all this news about our own government embarrassing us on an international level, it’s nice to see

that other countrys have to deal with jackasses too.

3. The next generation. Recently we brought the beautiful child of Clint Eastwood to your attention. We’ve recently discovered another cutie we’d like you to note. We introduce to you, Steven R. McQueen, the grandson of the first Steve McQueen. He’s very adorable as a character on The Vampire Diaries. Ava and The-Girl-Who-Lives-At-Her-House have just started watching the series and they’re smitten. We think it’s fun to see the Hollywood royalty in round two or three. We don’t think he looks too much like his grandfather. We think they should stick him in a Mustang

in San Francisco and see what happens.

4. Veterinarians. We love veterinarians. They are very nice to our fuzzy sons and daughters. We finally got Jojo back from the doctor after six days and 638.00. HOLY SHIT! If you’re with the IRS you should look away right now. We’re working out a way for that to come off the Quill Sisters tax return. A business expense perhaps?

If you have any ideas about this, post a helpful comment.

5.Norman Reedus. We’ve nearly gotten ourselves wound up to a fever pitch over the return of the Walking Dead. Our favorite character, Daryl Dixon, is played by the delicious Norman Reedus. He told US Magazine 25 Things We Don’t Know About Him. He didn’t bother to tell us his home address, which would have been nice. Instead he told us his favorite food is macaroni and cheese or chocolate. His favorite number when he was a kid was #3 because, when laid on its side looked like boobs, and his favorite thing to do is lie down. US TOO – with him! We’re certain we’re perfect for him. DUDE! Give us a call.

So there are a couple of phobias I have. Spiders (shiver) are absolutely terrifying from the smallest to the biggest, hairiest one that ever crawled up from the sludge of hell. I will not ride a Ferris Wheel. I don’t care if it’s the smallest one in a kiddie park to that giant Wheel of Death in London. I’m not getting on it and you can’t make me.

And dentists.

On a scale of one to ten I’d give spiders an eleven. Ferris Wheels get a ten. Dentists are at about an eight.

I can deal with a cleaning. I’m not thrilled with it, but I’ll go. I start to get a little more freaked out over the x-rays. Putting that pokey cardboard in my mouth revs up my cortisol levels. Fillings. I don’t even want to THINK about fillings.

I had my six-month cleaning this week. They gave me a reminder call on Monday. It was in my calendar but I’d forgotten all about it. Who the hell remembers something torturous for six months? Not me, I assure you.

So I wake up the morning of my appointment and my anxiety skyrocketed. I went to work for an hour. I kept thinking to myself that I needed to get all my work done in case I died at the dentist’s office. I left for the appointment like a dog headed to the pound to be put down. I forced myself up the stairs and into the office so the perfectly nice girl at the counter could check me in for my appointment with the excessively charming Nazi agent could clean my teeth.

“What’s your name again?” the receptionist asked.

“Bright. Spelled just like you think,” I replied. I resisted the urge to say international selling author.

She kept staring at the computer and then all of a sudden it dawned on me.

It was Wednesday. My appointment is Thursday.

I’m a total idiot and now I have to go through all that torture again.

Absolute moron.

Can you believe that nonsense is still happening in Washington? Us neither. It’s great fodder for making fun, though. So what do you think we should do?

Jojo Kitty is still in the hospital. It’s just awful. They assure us he’s doing better, but he couldn’t come home today. Maybe not tomorrow either. Ava and I went on Monday at lunch and gave him smooches. He looked miserable. I’m miserable. Four days without my kitty. The guilt is killing me.

Enjoy this video by the genius of Simon’s Cat, but do know that if that squeaky toy were Joe’s he’d have drowned it in the water bowl already.