NEW RELEASES
I’m feeling more and more like Papa Hemingway
Monday’s coming. I swear that makes me feel like drinking.
We were at Costco today getting our regular stuff – 80 tons of laundry soap, 275 rolls of toilet paper, 57 lbs of hamburger. You know – the regular trip.
This was the display that met us as we went in the front door.
HOLY ALCOHOLIC, BATMAN.
That large one is 18 litres. I looked it up. They call that a Melchior, after one of the biblical Wise Men. It’s 24 standard bottles of wine and 90 glasses.
90 glasses.
I have questions. The thing was insanely huge. How the hell do you pour that? You’d need a cherry picker or some sort of leverage system. Perhaps one just uses super long straws.
If you feel a bit intimidated, might I suggest the one on the right.
It’s 12 litres called a Balthazar, another of the Magi. It equals 16 bottles and 60 glasses worth.
I looked this wine and the vineyard up and they have received excellent scores on Wine Spectator.
Now the only problem is coming up with 3,899.99. Who wants in?
September 20
It’s Friday! The day after Thursday! The high holy day at Bank of No Forks. We’re doing a special edition of The Five Things this week. We stumbled on it entirely by accident and then were inspired. You know we pride ourselves in keeping you abreast of all the stupid stuff you need to know. It’s a tough job. Think of all the stupid stuff we have to sift through before we find just the right stupid stuff. Sit back
Scott from his Town & Country shoot
1. Scott Eastwood. Son of Clint. That alone should be sufficient, but we’ll continue. Wow. What a lucky winner of the DNA lottery, huh? He looks remarkably like his father here. Of course, he spouts that nonsense about wanting to earn his celebrity, that he’s not cashing in on his father’s notoriety, so he’s waiting to pay his dues to be a huge star. What the hell ever. He’s 27, what is he waiting for? This is like those lottery winners who
David violining it up
2. David Garrett. David is a German virtuoso violinist who started playing at the age of four. He’s studied everywhere and under all the influential teachers. We haven’t heard him, but we assume the critics know what they’re talking about. When Ava first brought this boy to our attention, Amylynn’s initial reaction was that he seemed arrogant. A big ego turns her off. Ava rightly pointed out that was a stupid thing to say as we had no intention of actually talking to him. Ava is very wise. Probably because she’s five years older than Amylynn. Five whole years. That means she’s way
Prince Carl of the unpronouncable.
3. Prince Carl Phillip, Duke of Varmland. We don’t have any idea where Varmland is. We think they made it up. One of his sisters has an equally hinky name: Princess Madeleine, Duchess of Hälsingland and Gästrikland. What? We’d call shenanigans except they’ve got that prince/princess business in front of their names. And, more importantly, he’s adorable. We’ve long acted like we’re royalty already so hooking up with a
Well, then.
4. Martin Sensmeier. We don’t want you to think we’re not equal opportunity lovers of pretty boys. Or that we are only drawn to Europeans. That is so not true. We present this beautiful American Indian. Honest to whatever God is in charge of hair – have you ever seen anything like it? Nary a split end in sight. Yowza. We’d also like to point out that there aren’t very many people who can pull off the double denim phenomenon without looking like
BIRKIN!! by Hermes
5. Hermes Birkin bag. If you happen to be a heterosexual of the male persuasion OR any other person who knows nothing about what’s important, the Birkin bag is a uber-ritzy purse originally made by Hermes for model/singer Jane Birkin in the early 1980’s. Now it’s become iconic and the style is produced by many others. An “Exceptional Collection Shiny Rouge H Porosus Crocodile 30 cm Birkin Bag with Solid 18K White Gold & Diamond Hardware” just sold at auction in Dallas for $203,150, making it the world’s most expensive purse. Birkin is a large purse – just right for toting little boys around in.
When bears cave to the pressure
I know that when you read these stories about the Bank of No Forks you think we’re either:
A) Insane
B) The worst employees in the WORLD
C) Totally lying.
I’ll tell you the absolute truth. Dont’ I always? All three of the above assessments are reasonable, but none
Before he went downhill
Still, all of the above adjectives are going to run through your mind when I relate today’s events.
Remember how we have an Italian panda bear named Carlo? Well, that damned bear was drunk today. Drunk, I tell you. We were all sitting at the table in the center of the room doing our current jigsaw puzzle and we let him sit with us. Normally he’s a nice bear and a joy to have around. But lately he’s been hiding puzzle pieces and calling people names, which is wholly uncalled for.
Today was the last straw. He was so damn drunk he was falling out of his chair. We haven’t figured out which one of us is going to claim him as a dependant and get him into rehab, but enough is enough.
Well, at least it isn’t Hal
I’ve not been writing this evening. I’ve been playing with my new IOS7 software update on my iPhone.
The thing I was most excited about – a male Siri voice – was my first change. So now when my phone calls me Serene Royal Highness it does it in a man’s voice. Yes, Siri really calls me Serene Royal Highness. What else would he call me?
So I was listening to him talk to me, just saying the banalities like what in my calendar and who my husband
Alan Rickman – perfect!
“He sounds like that guy. That famous guy. You know the one.” He rolled his wrist and looked at me like he was trying to send me a psychic message. “That guy. The really smart one.”
“OH YEAH!” He was totally right. Now my phone sounds like Stephen Hawking.
I was dreaming about handsome Englishmen (think Colin Firth, Clive Owen, or oooooh oooh oooh how about Alan Rickman! Oh my God, I’d never get anything done. I’d spend the entire day talking with Alan Rickman) or roguish Scots (think kilt) and I got a physicist. It’s a good thing I like smart guys.
*****I just want to note that during the writing of this blog I was attacked by a rogue dragonfly. What the hell is that all about?
My adventures with a variety of weasels
I went to Laughlin, NV with my family this weekend but sans children. It was a lovely time away from Bank of No Forks and I didn’t have to yell at anyone for four whole days.
The first day we got there and this is who I met. I named her Petunia and she was only about ten feet away when I took
this picture. I saw Petunia again and again as well as her friends over the several days were in Laughlin. Everyone of them was unfailingly polite. I also saw an adorable raccoon. I wasn’t quick enough to get his picture but he was a sprightly thing who wandered across our sidewalk on the way to the river to do some fishing.
I had no idea when I got to Nevada I was going to find new pets.
On Saturday My Honey and I drove up to Las Vegas because, lets face it, there’s not much to entertain in Laughlin besides skunks. We saw Love by Cirque de Soleil at the last-minute so we got excellent pricing for our tickets. What a cool show, and we knew all the words to all the songs. We had dinner at Gordon Ramsay’s Pub & Grill and it was wonderful.
We had a really great time with the exception of the most obnoxious fans in the world. We were stupidly there on a fight night – Mayweather vs Canelo. There were 90 million people in the streets all wearing sombreros and chanting and generally annoying everyone. We got out-of-town before their guy lost, but we’re betting it was a great deal quieter.
The best thing though was we were walking around with our version of Flat Stanley, Flat Bandit. We got his picture taken with some Minions, two different M&Ms, the red and the green. Also, we found a zombie who put his flat little head in his mouth. We got two perfectly nice showgirls to pose with him.
Las Vegas has everything in the world to amuse and entertain – except skunks. Didn’t see a one.
September 13
Thank goodness we found these five things to laugh about this week because Ava is mainly not in a laughing mood. Why you ask? Ava can be counted on to laugh at just about anything, right? Well, not when Amylynn goes off on a small vacation with her adult family members and leaves her at Bank of No Forks all alone for two days – Ava is not laughing then!!!! But she did let out a small chuckle and a tiny guffaw over these . . .
1. Dennis Rodman – The sisters have always thought Dennis was a bit of an idiot. After all, he
Remember this? WTF?
SoftSoap King
2. Robert Taylor 1936-2013 – Who is Robert Taylor you ask? Well, we’ll tell you who . . . he’s the guy who invented hand soap via a pump. His company introduced Softsoap in 1978. He says he came up with it because he hated the mess left behind by bars of soap. I hate the mess left behind by the children who live at my house – can someone invent something to take care of that? Well done Mr. Taylor, well done. You’ll be missed. 
3. That’s MR. Siri to you – Finally, the Apple people have come up with an improvement that the sisters have been hankering for. We like Siri well enough but it always bothered us that she was a girl. The sisters don’t respond well to being pushed around by other women. Siri can now switch gender to a male voice. We’d like our 
male voice to be British. Like James Bond. We won’t mind being pushed around by 007. We don’t know any real women who would.
4. Crown Tattoos – Ava doesn’t have any tattoos but she saw a crown tattoo that she fell in love with. She showed it to Amy, who does have tattoos, and to several other ladies at Bank of No Forks and now they all want one. We’re all going to go over to the tattoo parlor after work on Friday – who’s in???!!!
5. A Balanced Budget Amendment – As you readers know, we’re not a political blog even if we keep 
calling up the white house with our excellent suggestions for the running of the country. They need to stop hanging up on us or we’re going to think they don’t want to talk. We came upon the excellent idea of the federal government having a balanced budget when we saw a poll showing that better than 72% of Americans agree. Americans can’t agree on anything and ba-da-bing – there it is, an agreement. If we have to balance our budget at home and suffer, everyone has to. We will presume that Mr. Rodman did not vote in the poll since he’s out of the country . . .
Unless you have other ideas
I think there’s a poltergeist in my house. I can think of no other reasonable explanation. In my world a poltergeist is reasonable, you see. I’d love nothing more than to be proven that my guess is right.
Someone out there, please come prove it. I’m dying to meet a ghost.
So what evidence do I have that there’s a poltergeist?
Nothing so mundane as rattling chains or ghostly wails. That’s very pedestrian and not at all weird. That’s what everyone expects from a supernatural being in their house.
No mine is more sly.
Every single time we get into bed we have to put the pillow cases back on all the pillows. This is a recent development. What the hell is going on in that bed that precipitates all the pillows escaping? I assure you that My Honey and I are not that mobile. By the time I get in bed, My Honey is fast asleep, snoring like a fleet of chainsaw testers. The minute I hit the pillow I’m asleep like a dead person in a coma with a paralysis problem.
The other thing is gravel. Why is my bed always full of gravel? Why? It’s compelling, isn’t it?
It’s a gravely, flailing poltergeist. It’s the only answer.
It’s also Wonderful Weirdos Day. Yeah – you don’t need to say anything
Sadly, we still work for Bank of No Forks, despite all our efforts to get fired. We’re teasing. We talk a big game about wanting to be fired but that’s no what we really want. We want to be given excellent six months severance packages. 
Actually, that’s not it either. We want our crappy jobs to be there for as long as WE want them. When we’re ready to quit, then we’ll write one hell of a resignation letter.
That being said, the crap continues to roll over there. Corporate is in our office mucking things up again. Our fingernail painting and screwing around on the internet have been severely curtailed – at least until they leave.
That stresses us out. We need a puppy.
Did you know that National Puppy Day for this year was on March 23. So – shit – we missed that one.
Turns out National Kitten Day is the same day. What the hell? How come March 23 needs so much fuzziness?
So then I looked to see what today was. National Teddy Bear day. YEA! We can totally work with National Teddy Bear day. Get yourself a bear and snuggle on! We knew Carlo was a good idea.
Still – she seems devoted to the effort
You ever feel like this? Like you know what you’re doing but not really. Like you’re racing forward at top speed only to stop at the last moment and give a half-hearted tap instead of a hearty try? I do love, love, love how she backs up with such determination only to weenie out in the end.
Sept 6
This week has been a doozy. There has been way more bakery items consumed than should be necessary to maintain our happiness. Cookies, cake, brownies, ice cream – dear God. And we wonder why we’re never losing weight. We blame Bank of No Forks. That place would depress Richard Simmons. It’s either eat a plethora of dessert while we jigsaw puzzle or we’ll never stop crying. Nobody needs that. Nobody. Least of all
the bakers in town who are counting on us to maintain their business. We did manage to giggle about these five things.
1. Unhappy fans. There has been a great deal of hullabaloo over the selection of Ben Affleck as Batman and Charlie Hunnam as Christian Grey in the 50 Shades of Grey movie. The Fan Boys/Girls lost their freaking minds over this. We just want to go on record and say we believe that Ben has the chin to pull off Batman, and we’re totally willing to suspend judgment until the movie comes out. The second selection actually made us squeal. We’ve paid as much attention to the casting of Christian Grey as the next red-blooded American women. We read the books and were not especially 
impressed but the names bandied about for the lead in the film version did give us pause. We are more than happy to pay our $37 admission fee to see the beautiful Charlie Hunnam run around with torn jeans and no shirt. You boys need a pep talk, come on over. We have cake and kind words.
2. Dilbert. We are 97% certain that Scott Adams works at Bank of No Forks. There is no possible way he can understand so succinctly the irony and insanity of what goes on over here if he doesn’t work here. Really. It’s uncanny. We read the morning comics and after getting to Dilbert we check under our desks for sneaky, eavesdropping cartoonists.
3. OTHER banks. For the sake of clarity and to dispel any rumors before they get started, we want it to be perfectly clear that we DO NOT work for Azizi Bank in Kabul, Afghanistan. Now that we’re all clear – a young female employee is 
missing from the bank. She worked there for three years in the money transfer division and then one day she just disappeared along with $1.1 million. Wisely, Bank of No Forks doesn’t let us anywhere near any of the money. We think that’s best, don’t you? Think of how many bakeries we could keep in business if we had that kind of access.
4. Fall Fashion Mags. We’re talking seriously serious magazines here. Vogue alone has 902 pages of “Fabulous Fall Fashions” and In Style has 716 and is the “biggest issue ever!”. We can only hope the mail man doesn’t have to deliver both of these on the same day. The poor fool could get a hernia since each one weighs eight or nine pounds. Imagine an entire subdivision of fashion minded moms. Gads. 
5. Surprise rain. We love rain. Those of us in the desert are fascinated by water, boarding on obsessed. We love nothing more than a huge rain that comes out of nowhere. We were told by the professionals (smirk) on the local news that there would be no more rain. Not today. Not tomorrow. Maybe never. We lamented the heat and the dryness. We did some whining and – we’re sure you won’t believe this – but we also complained. Then lo! Out of the blue the sky opened up and rain poured down. There was thunder and lightning like all respectable storms must. The best part? The sky was blue during the entire episode. Really. The desert weather is very weird.