NEW RELEASES
October 26
Now we remember why we live in the desert. The weather is gorgeous this week. Quick, take note – we are not complaining about the weather. This only happens for a week. Never fear, we’ll be unhappy next week. There is really only a three or four degree variance before we’re uncomfortable again. Oh, and if there’s wind, forget it. We hate wind. Here are five more things we do love.
- 1. Super nifty pictures. Every year, the Nikon Corporation has a contest for photomicrography – which is tech speak for pictures of super small stuff. This year, we fell
in love with this picture. It shows black mastiff bat embryos in progressive stages of development. They look like little aliens, don’t they? Or little wax creatures for Halloween. Ava thinks they’re Yoda babies. What an awesome picture. - Talking whales.We’ve long known that humpback whales make those cool whale
just like the Sisters chatting it up.
sounds. Now they’re studying how a beluga whale is mimicking human voices. When the scientists first heard the noise, they thought it was kids talking. Apparently, they’ve long known that whales, like many other animals, mimic human speech patterns, but they’ve never experienced a whale doing it spontaneously. The Sisters have questions for these whales. Lots of questions. Maybe they can tell us how sand gets inside your underwear even when you don’t go anywhere near the beach.
- Dental floss. Prisoners in Texas are suing to get access to dental floss. I guess we should be happy they’re pretending to floss. Apparently, the prison system has deemed that floss
Wonder if the waxed one is more dangerous?
and the plastic box it comes in are a major security risk. Still there are conscientious inmates who just want to get that gruel out of their teeth so they’re suing. Their jailors say floss can be used to
strangle people, pick handcuffs, and hoist contraband. The thing we’re specifically interested in was using the floss to saw through bars. We’re always looking for a way to break out of Bank of No Forks and apparently it’s plausible. We’re now accepting donations for floss. - The 1st children. There is a fabulous story today about how the President of the USA can’t get his kids to pay attention to him either. We hear he’s said, “Just act like you’re listening to me.” OMG. If the Commander in Chief can’t get them to listen, I don’t know what hope we normal parents have.
Jeez, they’re even holding committee meetings.
Like how many times do we have to gather the children into the bathroom and give them instruction on flushing the toilet? Sweet Jesus, we’re all doomed.
- Sharks. One of the things we want to ask the whales is why the sharks are so pesky. There were golfers in San Juan Capistrano who were a bit shocked when a two pound leopard shark fell out of the sky onto the 12th tee. They say he was scooped up by a bird and then dropped. They implied it was an accident. Riiiiiight. We think the sharks are in collusion with the birds. We posit the sharks aren’t happy just terrorizing us in the ocean. Perhaps the whales can work as intermediaries and we can all have some version of couples therapy.
With everything that’s going on…
Giving a Giant Panda a new meaning
I”m certian that most of you don’t know and certainly don’t care, but hockey season has been delayed because the players and owners can’t come to terms on a Collective Bargaining Agreement. October was cancelled and November doesn’t look good either. I have plans for New Year’s Eve that heavily involves a hocky game and I will NOT be pleased if that falls apart. I’m giving them three more days before I call Gary Bettman and whatever jack ass lawyer is handling the players and get this shit taken care of. Enough is enough.
Until then…
My Honey and I watched game one of the World Series tonight. I love baseball – live. I’m not a big fan of televised baseball. The
announcers annoy me and I get tired of watching the ball players spit. Now live – I love baseball. Still, I will watch the World Series. I’m not really rooting for either team – San Francisco or Detroit.
I’m for the Panda. There’s a player on the Giants named Pablo Sandoval but they call him The Panda.
He’s roly poly like a panda and his hair’s a bit fluffy. Fans in the crowd wear panda hats and panda suits and panda shirts. I wonder if we could get him to come over for a cupcake and coffee or something with Ava and I to help us get over the jones we have for a real panda.
Not all Tuesdays are equal
We are swamped tonight with chapter 7, and recovering from the mind numbingly torturous day at Bank of No Forks, and some other secret (da da duh!) projects we have going on.
This is a hint of things to come this weekend.
Stay tuned….
I hope she won something more than bragging rights
They managed to convince me to go camping again. The saving grace was that it’s no longer 5,000 degrees anymore, and I was going to
“Hello lady”
have a friend along. Just about the minute we arrived, a squirrel bounced into our campsite.
“Hey, a squirrel!” I shrieked in excitement.
“DO. NOT. PLAY. WITH. IT,” My Honey instructed with both stern face and tone. “We’re NOT taking a squirrel home.”
Whatever. I’m not a maniac.
On Saturday, everyone decided to go out on the lake and blessedly didn’t try to make me go. I spent a perfectly lovely day by myself. I wrote three pages then went and took a shower. After that, I plopped myself in a lawn chair and read an entire book. It was outrageously lovely.
Until the squirrel invasion.
It started out with just that one squirrel from before, with the cute bushy tail and an inquisitive face. He paused several yards away and observed me for a bit, then bounced away. In mere minutes, he reappeared with a friend. I named them Robert and Mathilda – because I name everything. It’s a bit absurd.
Uncle Jeb followed along with Squeakers and then Bruiser showed up.
So long as I was quiet, they would dart around our campsite, coming up onto our porch where I sat and even got so bold as to run around underneath my chair. They would prop themselves up on their butts, balanced by their tails, and hold their tiny paw-hands in prayer and implore me with their eyes saying, 
“Please, lady, can I have some popcorn?”
After a couple of hours of this, Robert came very bravely up to my feet and touched my flipflop with his little hands and then darted away.
I’m certain it was some sort of double-dog-dare squirrel style.
Immediately following Robert’s successful turn, the smallest of the squirrels appeared at the edge of the porch. I read my book and tried to ignore her, but I espied her sneaking forward out of the corner of my eye. I focused on my book until she was right at the foot of my chair. I glanced down. She inched forward. I held my breath. She leaned in, very slowly, and nipped my toe.
I screamed and she ran away at mach speed.
What exactly would you have done if the most adorable squirrel ever nibbled on your toe? You’d scream, I assure you.
My Honey spent the rest of the weekend waiting for me to start foaming.
October 19
Amylynn is camping. Her husband tried to tell her there were no laptops allowed. Clearly, he was mistaken. We can guarantee there will be illicit electronics – probably a laptop, iPhone and an iPad. There is no reason why everyone has to be miserable and you can all be assured if Amylynn is bored and stressed out because all she can think about is how she desperately needs to be straightening out chapter 7 and everyone wants her to be made seasick on a boat instead, well then, no one will be happy. As it is, she’s camping, so there is that misery as a base line. Ava is pissing and moaning at Bank of No Forks because not
Parlay, Jack, parlay!
only is Amylynn not there, that also means there is no Jojo Kitty. Woe are the Sisters. Good thing we had these things to laugh about this week.
1. Parlay. We’ve listed words we like before in the 5 things – kerfuffle being a big addition to our vocabularies. This week we really like the word parlay. It can mean either doubling up on consecutive bets or demanding safe passage to negotiate with a pirate captain. The way things have been going lately with the election coverage and also at Bank of No Forks – we’re not even sure which version we should use. Both of those things seem to be run 
by pirates, don’t they? And we’ll be honest, we do love us a good eye patch.
2. Scottish revolution – The Scots are getting ready to vote to break away from Great Britain. That’s pretty exciting, we guess. You know what we are 100% certain of? We love to listen to Scotsmen’s accents and they’re especially good when they get all excited. We also dig men in kilts with cute tasselled socks. We’d like to listen to those debates for a while instead of the mind numbing ones we’re getting over here. Maybe if our politicians wore skirts….nah, still wouldn’t help. Go Scotland!
3. Uma’s child abuse. Uma Thurman and her husband announced the name of their kid. Someone should retain
that kid a lawyer right away because this name is absolutely absurd. Hold on to your hats cause we’re going to tell it to you. Rosalind Arusha Arkadina Altalune Florence Thurman-Busson. There is no child in this world who needs seven names. Seriously. It’s ridiculous. Apparently they call her Luna which makes no sense. What’s wrong with Rosalind? It’s very Shakespearian and lovely. Whatever. Clearly they’re wacked out of their minds.
He has a blankie!
4. Baby elephant. A lady in Malawi got to adopt an orphaned baby elephant. Guess what we want now. The sweet little guy is named Moses and he’s only 220 pounds ’cause he’s still a wee baby. He lives at the house with the lady who founded the Jumbo Foundation, an orphanage for large animals. He hangs out with her while she watches TV and he likes to play with her dogs. Until it’s time for bed then, apparently, he shoos the dogs outside, gathers all the kitties, and gets ready for bed. She’s thrown a huge mattress on the floor of the dining room and she, Moses, and the cats all bed down. We are totally prepared to gather all our kitties and snuggle with an infant elephant. If we asked you really nicely, would you
write us letters of recommendation?
5. Stephen Colbert. We’ve talked before about how much we love Jon Stewart of The Daily Show. Ava was never a fan of The Colbert Report but Amylynn kept at her, insisting that Stephen Colbert is equally as funny as Jon – just different. She resisted for a long time, but now she gets it. While Jon is so outstanding at the dry gaze and the ironically raised eyebrow and he’s absolutely mastered the WTF look, Colbert is a poet when it comes to playing his character – a blowhard of epic proportions. If you don’t watch him right after the Daily Show, you’re short-changing yourself in comedy news reporting. Our favorite part is when he’s so outrageous that he finally makes himself laugh. By that time we’re close to hysterical. Tune in. You’ll see.
What if I promise to change the names to protect the innocent?
“I’m going to tell you something but you can keep it to yourself. ”
That’s what My Honey will say to me when I answer his calls. That’s code for, “If you blog about this, I’m divorcing you.”
The problem is he then proceeds to tell me a funny story. I’ll be laughing away and the whole time I’ll be thinking about how I’ll retell, the
Loveable, furry ole Grover
story, only better. I’m a good story-teller live. Even better than when I write it on this blog. I do voices and make a ton of expressions and use my hands and body a lot to tell a story. A very dear friend of mine used to describe me as a cartoon character [Michelle – ;0)] and she was unfortunately spot on with that description.
Waka waka waka
I actually prefer Muppet. My favorites were always Grover and Fozzie Bear. That’s actually quite telling, don’t you think?
I hate it when he says this, though, because some of these little stories are gems of humor just dying for my spin on them. He does not find being embarrassed amusing in the least. I, on the other hand, embarrass myself so much I’ve practically taken it to an Olympic level. Then, to compound the issue, I’ll tell the story of my mortification over and over. I have an entire catalog of embarrassing stories about myself I’ll tell to anyone who wants a chuckle. It’s practically a stand-up routine.
I’ll tuck this latest one away until later. I’m sure you’re thinking that there are plenty of other reasons for My Honey to divorce me and I should just quietly tell you this latest one anyway. You’re probably right, but if he leaves he won’t take the children and I’m not doing THAT by myself.
I’ll behave myself.
For now.
If it was in your power to do so….
Lets try chanting instead
When I got up this morning, I found The Bandit in the living room wearing regular clothes. 
“Hey, dude,” I told him, “You’re going to have to go get your uniform on for school.”
“No,” he said. “It’s Sunday.”
Oh no, this is bad, I thought. “Oh, baby, no. It’s Monday.” I reached out to hug him because I felt like a total creep having to spring that news on him, but he wasn’t having any of that and pushed me away.
“How do you know?” he demanded. “How do you know?”
This was sort of an esoteric, time-means-nothing, kind of thing for a seven year-old to say so I went with, “Cause they said so on the radio.”
I’ll be honest. I did take a second to do a mental double-check. How awful would it be to make the kid – and me – go to work and school on a Sunday cause I was too stupid to think it through? Unfortunately, there was no denying the facts. It was true. Today was Monday.
“NO. IT’S. NOT,” he screamed at me. “It’s Sunday.” Now he started to cry.
Wow, I totally know how he felt. I hate Mondays more than anything. But facts were facts. “I”m sorry. This really sucks, but we have to go to work and school.”
“But it’s Sunday!” A full-blown tantrum ensued and the morning devolved from there.
I wish repeating it over and over and clicking your heels together like Dorothy could make it so.
Come on everybody, repeat after me….
It was nifty that he did it on the anniversary of Chuck Yaeger’s famous flight
Did you watch that crazy guy jump out of that capsule 128,100 feet above the Earth? Ava and I had been waiting for it all week and were
He’s quite good looking. All the crazy daredevil types are.
disappointed each time it was cancelled for high winds.
When it looked like it would really happen today, I kept checking in on the TV for his progress but, honestly up until the last half an hour it was hopelessly tedious. I was fascinated by the balloon. Did you know it was 1/10 the thickness of a Ziplock bag? He was lifted 128,000 feet by a 7 story balloon made out of dry cleaner plastic bags. That’s just nuts.
I did think it was really cool how, when he looked up out his window, all he saw was black space. That was so cool.
When it comes down it though, taking into consideration that he actually fell at a top speed of almost 834 miles per hour, I think that man is a total lunatic. He’s also ridiculously brave, I guess. Still, I can’t help but keep circling back to crazy.
His mother and girl friend are some seriously patient women to put up with all that.
I had wished there was a camera on Felix’s helmet or something. I would have loved to see the descent the way he saw it. Except for the uncontrolled spin there in the beginning. I’m not a super big fan of spinning.
I guess we have to have the crazy men do insane things or we’d never get to the moon or anywhere else good. Just so long as it’s not my men. We’re gonna watch from TV like sane people.