Today did not start out well.

I’d been up much of the night with a very upset stomach so when the alarm rang, I was not ready to get up. If I’d known how my morning was going to proceed, I’d have just turned off the alarm and taken my lumps. Instead, I got up and roused the children.

I wandered into the kitchen only to find garbage EVERYWHERE. To make matters even more delightful there was rice and noodles all over the place – the tile, the carpet, everywhere. Have you ever tried to sweep moist noodles and rice? You can’t. I’m here to save you the agony. So as I stalked through the house, stooped over to pick up the garbage, I discovered whatever Roscoe had eaten didn’t appeal to his stomach either because there was poop all over the family room carpet. Not nice poop you can scoop up with a paper towel either. No this was going to take rubber gloves and a bucket of solvent. Something I most definitely didn’t have time for this morning.

I headed back down the hall to make sure the boy was getting dressed only to find the cat throwing up in the doorway to my bedroom.

I swear, I am not making this up.

Before I knew it, the clock read 8:18. The drop dead time to get out of the house and into the car to get the kids to school is 8:15. That gives me enough time to deal with the traffic and the parking lot. So I gathered our stuff and proceeded to shove the kids and their backpacks out the door. I pulled the wooden door shut and just as the security screen door snicked closed, I realized I didn’t have my keys.

No house keys. No car keys. No keys of any kind.

I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes as I dug around for my cell phone. I got a hold of My Honey and he said he’d come and rescue us as soon as possible. Until then, we had no choice but to sit on the front porch bench and wait in the record low cold. The weather reports stated parts of town were getting snow.

Sassy was really irritated at me, because clearly I didn’t love her and I had done all of this on purpose just to mess with her. She informed me she was walking to school – a mile and a half away. Now in all honesty, I walked that far to school when I was a kid, but now our children are spoiled and pampered.

I called my mom to whine while I was waiting – forty-five minutes by the way, although who am I to complain? I’m the idiot. My mom, trying to make me feel better, said, “Well, it can’t get any worse.”

“Oh sure it can,” I promised. “I haven’t even made it to work yet. There is still plenty of opportunity for it to get worse.”

So far it hasn’t, but there are still many hours left till midnight.

My Honey and I were attempting to have some adult time this morning. The bedroom door was locked. We could hear the cartoons playing on the television in the living room.

We thought we had a shot at least ten minutes of child-free time. But then the banging on the door started.

“What do you want?” I yelled at the closed door.

“Sassy says you’re either having sex in there or wrapping Christmas presents. Which is it?”

Fa la la la la, la la la la.

Did you guys know I want a puppy? I might have mentioned it before.

I think I have My Honey convinced that it would be the perfect gift for the children. Of course, you, Dear Internets, know that what I’ve actually done is convinced my husband to let me find my own Christmas present. This is good for me on so many levels, you can’t possibly know.  Not only would I already know what I’m getting and therefore wouldn’t be forced to resort to snooping like I do every other year. But I’m also guaranteed to get the perfect size and color. See? It’s not like I want to brag or anything, but genius!

However, there are still problems. Let’s assume I find a puppy. Obviously, I’m going to find a puppy, so lets assume the cute little ball of bitey fuzziness is bouncing along with me, it’s silly, little tongue lolling out of it’s mouth. Where am I going to keep this wee bit of adorableness until Christmas? I honestly have no idea. I could take it to work with me for the day but where would it go at night? I couldn’t leave it alone in the office. I just don’t know.

Issue number two. My Honey won’t let me spend any real money on this animal. He likes the idea of free. Well, I love the idea of free, too, some of my best dogs have been free. I don’t know about you but I don’t see “free puppy” signs like I used to. So of course, I’m checking the shelters and the want ads and Craigslist.

I”m not too worried. The universe wants me to have a puppy. I just know it. I’ll keep looking and the rest of the plan will figure it’s self out.

So on that note….

I was at a puppy store that Kelli reminded me of today at lunch. Ava wasn’t with me, which was unusual. I told the clerk what I was looking for and she promised to keep her eyes open and give me a call. Nevertheless, I stopped and petted each and every puppy. Even the ones I wasn’t even remotely interested in. I’m pretty indescriminate that way. I’ll totally admit – I’m a puppy whore.

I paid special attention to one puppy – a mix that would grow up to be a large dog. Not as large as my Sophie or Hugh, my Newfie and St Bernard mix, but around the same size as Roscoe who’s about 65 or 70 lbs.

There was another man in the store, a customer also browsing the puppies, who I’d managed to ignore up to this point.

“Excuse me, miss,” he said, inturrupting my communion with the baby. “I don’t think you want a dog like that.”

I cursed myself for engaging in conversation with him, but I did it anyway. “Oh. Why?”

” Because that dog will be big. I can tell by looking at you that you can’t handle a big dog.”

People always thought Sophie was a bear on a leash

I rolled my eyes. That was totally laughable. Sophie was 185 lbs. Hugh was somewhere around 160. My smallest dog was 76. I live for huge, giant dogs. My cat is bigger than most people’s canines.

“Don’t talk to the Queen.” I shook my head at him.  “You might not know right now because my entourage isn’t with me, but I’m not interviewing for jesters at this time.”

But I am interviewing for a yippy, cuddly companion should you see a likely candidate. My standards are decidedly limp.

I’m finally posting the vacation blog. There were a zillion pictures to look through to find the ones I wanted. I had to sort through nine zillion photos The Bandit took of all the stray dogs in the Caribbean and every single pigeon he saw.

Here we go…

I write this at 30,000 feet crammed into a dinky airline seat, crowded on one side by Sassy who hasn’t stopped talking in nine days and hemmed in on the other by an old man who snores and hogs the arm rest. He also may or may not have tuberculosis. I’m so ready to go home. I miss the Idiot dog, my giant, fuzzy, orange cat and my own bed. Sigh.

A cruise trip to the Caribbean over Thanksgiving, that was the proposal.

Last Friday ten members of my family climbed onto airplanes and jetted our way across the country to Florida and a Princess cruise ship. Clearly, we took everything we own with us. Sassy insisted on bringing two jeans jackets. To the

7 suitcases and 4 stuffed backpacks

 Caribbean. No amount of arguing with her could convince her to leave them at home.We spent one night in a Fort Lauderdale hotel that I’m fairly certain has either been on Cops:Broward County or Law and Order:Shit That Could Happen to You. The hotel had been specifically chosen due to it’s close proximity to the pier and because it advertised a restaurant. Nuh huh, nope. When Jethro checked us in he informed us of the sad demise of the restaurant which had apparently been torn down by the health department. Not really, but based on the state of repair for the rest of the place, my guess is probably not too far off the mark. Additionally, all the men on the staff seemed to be wearing “wife-beater” undershirts as their uniform. We had no mode of transportation, so we started the long search for a restaurant. We turned our feet to the right out of the parking lot and peered off in to the distance. Surely left would have been a better choice because, even after vetoing it and walking further, trudging for at least two miles, we came back to a Kentucky Fried Chicken. It had started to rain and we were very tired. Honestly, I don’t think we cared anymore.

Crown Princess

Saturday found us on the boat. We got mini-suites on the Emerald Deck that were very lovely. Ours had a comfy queen bed and a bunk bed for the kids. A balcony off the back was big enough for four chairs and a table. We even had a bath tub and a walk in closet.

Day One: no sunburn

Our first stop was at the island of Grand Cayman. We split from our group and boarded another ship – this one run by pirates. My kids, especially The

My people

 Bandit, had been looking forward to this particular excursion. My Honey and I laughed with glee as the pirates rounded up all the children on board and made them scrub the deck with old brushes. We laughed harder when they doused them with a bucket of water. Oh what joy! But the tables were turned, don’t you know. The pirates took me and one other lady to make examples of when the children got their revenge. We were lashed to the main mast and ice water was poured on us from above during an extensive interrogation. My Honey has the whole thing on video. You can see the camera shaking with his laughter, the jerk. His words of sympathy were limited to, “Seeing your wife tortured by pirates, priceless.” We walked the plank and swam in the gorgeous sea then lunched at Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville restaurant and resisted buying $149.00 shirts. The afternoon my family swam in the ocean and I took a nap on Seven Mile Beach.

Day Two: no sunburn. Winning!

Roatan, Honduras was next. We shopped on the pier then loaded six of us plus a driver and “tour guide” into the world’s smallest minivan. The island itself was lush and fragrant when we weren’t driving through a dirty, depressing town. We went to a monkey farm! Adorable White-faced Capuchin monkeys were everywhere.  Ava will try to tell you monkeys are not cute but I’m here to tell you that these monkeys were adorable. Quite tame, they happily climbed on your shoulders and, once to my particular glee, sat on My Honey’s head. I was expecting them to have course hair, but no, it was smooth and silky, their palms and long fingers soft and gentle. We also held a lemur – fuzzy and brown like a kitten, and fed deer, macaws, parrots and toucans. It was like being in the movie Rio. The beach on Roatan was like glass, very small waves – nothing like you’d expect growing up near the Pacific Ocean. We just floated in the teal blue water and enjoyed a relaxing soak.

Day Three: no sunburn. I’m on a roll.

Belize. Charmingly the only English speaking country in Central America. Well, it’s island-English which means you have to listen really carefully and

So much worse than any equipment in the gym

pick out the words you understand, but it sounds lyrical. Our cab driver, Jason, (Hi, I’m Jason, mon.)drove us in his car through the coastal jungle to the Mayan temples of Altun Ha. There are still distinct pyramids remaining in the area. It was easy to imagine Mayans gathering around and celebrating the Sun God or good harvest or sacrificing annoying children. My imagination ran wild. We scrambled to the tops, slipping on the moss and stones, which was like doing a thousand lunges. My fat little legs quivered like jelly. I seriously considered just rolling down the grassy side in lieu of climbing back down. Ultimately, I only fell down three

sunburn avoidance plan: note hat and shade

times which I consider a win. We vetoed the beach that day – primarily because we were exhausted.

Day Four: no sunburn. Wahoo. Maybe the curse is lifted.

Cozumel started off exciting. We went to an absolutely gorgeous resort to swim with dolphins. There were only eight people in our little group not counting the trainer and the actual dolphin. His name was Louis – the dolphin not the trainer. I don’t remember the trainer’s name. He was unimportant. Lewis was beautiful and funny and very charming as dolphins go. We all got the opportunity to pet him repeatedly and learned the hand signals to kiss him on the snout and get kissed on the cheek, dance with him and hold him while rubbing his belly. Even more exciting, we got to ride his belly while he swam upside down and then ride a boogie board while he pushed us by the feet. I might be in love with Louis. We also got to pet and feed manatees. They feel exactly like elephants, which we learned are their closest cousins. Then we walked over to the beach where I took another nap in the shade. It was a beautiful and relaxing day. We shopped on the huge pier and had lunch at Three Amigos, a fun restaurant styled after the movie. I have no idea when I got sunburned but I did. Massively. On my left arm. Oddly the right arm was not burned, or rather not to the delightful shade of magenta that my left arm was. We had lobster for dinner – Caribbean turkey. All in all, it was a lovely Thanksgiving.

Day Five: deep fried arm. The charm was broken.

Best line of the vacation by The Bandit to his sister: “You’re not the boss of me, Sassy. You don’t even speak French.”

Most annoying behavior as exhibited by Sassy: She tried out every single accent she heard on the ship which is A LOT because the crew is from everywhere on the globe. At any given moment she sounded like a Cockney Phillipino who grew up with Russian as a second language. I never knew what the hell she was saying.

Hey, quick question. Is water supposed to pour OUT of the dishwasher? Yeah, I didn’t think so either, so when it did tonight, I freaked out a little.

I had just loaded the dishwasher completely full with breakfast dishes and the evenings dinner dishes (stuffed shells and Italian sausage – YUM!), turned it on and commenced to wipe down the kitchen counters. I discovered the impending flood when the water seeped into my fuzzy socks.

My Honey came running, drawn by my mournful wails. “Please God, please let it be a simple plumbing problem and

Picasso must have had a premonition of me in the kitchen tonight

 not a broken dishwasher. It’s so young with so much life left to live. Oh the horror!”

The above histrionics are only slightly exaggerated.

I mopped up the water while My Honey went out for his tool belt. I wandered helplessly around the fringes of the kitchen while he disassembled the full racks and the front kick plate. I murmured helpful, sympathetic words in his general direction and stopped frequently to pat the dishwasher like you’d pat a person in the emergency room awaiting blood work.

My Honey made those unhelpful noises repair people and dentists make while they try to determine the trouble. “Yep, there’s a leak.” You’ll be proud of me when I tell you I didn’t hit him.

The mystery was we couldn’t tell where the water was coming from, but as best as we could deduce, it wasn’t coming from the dishwasher. That was both good and bad. If not from the dishwasher then from where?

We laid on our stomachs with our heads together on the kitchen rug and stared at the pool of water on the foor under the dishwasher with flashlights. We didn’t speak, just stared at the water and willed it to tell us where it came from. I’m sure this is exactly how real plumbers to it. Plumbers like my father and brother. When I worked for my father as his indentured servant I don’t recall this actual procedure, but a lot of that time is a blur due to lack of sleep and a near constant hangover (mine not his).

Well, I’m here to admit that My Honey and I are not Water Whisperers. I’m not even a water suggester.

I suggested that perhaps the water had leaked over from under the sink. Perhaps there was a problem with the garbage disposal or the drain. Ahoy! Isn’t that what you say when you’re on a sea of water? Ahoy, there’s the leak!

There was also scary mold all over the back of the cabinet. And bugs. And a scary amount of water we could see dripping down the back of the cabinet between the brick wall and the several thousand dollars worth of three year old kitchen cabinets.   

I have an incredible urge to fling myself on the floor and wail uncontrollably. If you recall, we had a massive plumbing issue just last year involving Army men and a toilet (here, here, here, and here). My Bother the Plumber is booked solid until Monday. My Honey plans to get started on the excavation to make it faster when My Brother gets here.

I was informed that the dinner dishes, the ones that I’d just loaded lovingly, and with a high level of organizational skill, loaded into the dishwasher will now have to be washed in the bathtub. I hope My Honey plans to eat out for the next week.

**whimper**

Guess what I learned today. Apparently I’ve been eating tons of health food and I didn’t even know it. I’ll bet you have, too.

According to a Wall Street Journal report I read in the Las Vegas airport today, Congress considers pizza to be a vegetable. And they’re not talking about one of those crazy pizzas with all the bell peppers and onions and crap. They actually consider the tomato paste to be the vegetable. Well, at least this is the case for school lunches and their nutritional requirements.

So if pizza is a vegetable then it just goes to follow that it then becomes health food. I have no reason to distrust Congress in this matter. I’m 100% confident that they have only our best interests in mind.

Ava was already under the impression that pizza was a vegetable so when I texted her she wasn’t nearly as excited as I was. I haven’t been able to notify Kelli yet, but I have every reason to believe that she will be just as thrilled.

I’m going to talk to Ava about bypassing the vegetable & fruit juice diet she has planned for us this week and trying out an all pizza diet instead. I really don’t want her trying to put a slice of pizza in a juicer.

I’m back. Back from the crystal blue water of the Caribbean. Back from the land of dessert 24 hours a day. Back from never cooking or washing the dishes.

Back to the 9-5 hell hole. Back to piles and piles of laundry. Back to bills and groceries and an empty gas tank.

Yea me.

I have a long post written about the trip but I’m waiting for photographic proof. I’ll post it in a day or so. I wrote it during the 18 hour epic day of travel on Saturday. It started at 7:00am EST and ended at 11:18pm AZ time. I’m really proud of the fact that no one, either of my own family or a complete stranger, was slaughtered. It certainly wasn’t because I didn’t consider it several times throughout the day. Man, there are some really obnoxious people out in this world and I believe they congregate in airports. Perhaps that is their meeting location. How horrifying would it be if we discovered they had an actual club? Maybe we ought to consider infiltrating such a club because that can’t go unchecked. We need to make a stand to protect the sanity of those of us on the edge.

A woman and her ten-ish year old daughter sat in front of me on the plane ride from Fort Lauderdale to Las Vegas. Soon after they were joined in their row by a hip young man in his mid-twenties. He had a short ponytail and wore a Jimi Hendrix shirt.

The trip from Florida to Nevada is five hours and I’m quite certain that guy had no idea he would be discussing American Girl dolls all that time. Seriously. The woman was obsessed. She literally talked about nothing else than American Girl dolls. Somewhere over Lousianna, the man was glassy eyed and itchy. By Albuquerque, I think he was ready to chew himself out of his seatbelt.

“We just love American Girl dolls,” she would intone. She told him about all the clothes, highchairs, car seats, cribs, and hair accessories. It was mind boggling. “We just love American Girl dolls.”

Why he didn’t just blurt out, “You know what I love? Guitars and girls with huge tits.”

We need to start checking into this club. The membership rolls must be huge.

Oh. My. Word. Do you realize how close it is to Thanksgiving? You know, right after that is Christmas. That’s quite alarming, don’t you think? It gets faster every year. How does that happen? Are we getting closer and closer to all the black holes or something? We think Ava needs to get back on PBS and pay better attention. While we ponder the deeper things, we found these things to amuse us.

1. Names of minerals.A UofA professor recently had a newly discovered mineral named after himself – Bobdownsite. Oh, we so totally want that. We can think of so many amazing things we’d lend our names to. Minerals not so much, but how about new cupcakes recipes? If it must be something natural then how about The Quill Diamond? OR, how about a hurricane? Not a benign-blows-out-at-sea-and-doesn’t-do-any-real-damage hurricane either. You’d understand if you ever went out to lunch with us. Which brings us to…

2. Waitstaff with a sense of humor. Every once in a while, the Sisters encounter a waitperson that can hold their own with us. One that can take our crazy substitutions, teasing, fifty mile-an-hour zingers, and general wackiness. We encountered one such jewel this week. Adela was her name and she hung in there like a trooper. For once, the Sisters were sure that we left a restaurant without a server quitting or throwing them-self on a steak knife in the walk-in.

3. Pedicures. Are you familiar with the sound Homer Simpson makes when he eats donuts? That’s the same sound you should make when you’re getting a great pedicure. And at the end – you have pretty toes. And the best part isn’t the reflexology massage or the kneading of your calf muscles or even the pretty paint. The best part is you didn’t have to fold yourself in half in order to smear paint all over your cuticles.

4. Bradley Cooper. People magazine has named him the sexiest man alive for 2011 and the Sisters are not of a mind to dispute them. He’s ridiculously pretty with great hair and piercing eyes. He speaks French. He’s very funny. You’d know this if you saw The Hangover and if you didn’t go to Netflix right away. You know what we want for Christmas? Bradley Cooper delivering our red pandas. Get on it, Santa.

5. Husbands Who Rescue You at the Grocery Store When You Lock Your Keys in the Trunk.  At the end of a long work day, one of the Sisters stopped at the grocery store for a few needed items.  All went well until the very end – sometimes that’s just the way it is.  After opening the trunk, the Sister threw her keys in because she had no pockets.  She has done this before (No, Ed, she won’t do it again.  Really, just stop already).  After loading up the groceries, she closed the trunk and took the cart back to its cart corral home.  Walking back to the car, it started to dawn on her that perhaps, just maybe, she’d left her keys in the trunk.  She had.  Luckily, she had not locked her purse in the trunk because she had her crappy Sprint cell phone in there.  One quick call to the husband resulted in a “less then 10 minute later” rescue.  May I point out, this would not have happened if the Sister had not been driving herself around and we all know that’s never good – SEE?

So I took the day off work so I could get my family ready for this vacation.  By the end of the day, I actually feared my “vacation” was going to turn into something else entirely. More of an “on the lam” kind of episode rather than a relaxing respite from my life.

One of the imperative things I needed to accomplish was to pick up My Honey’s suit from the dry cleaners. I took it in on Monday and stressed what day it needed to be ready. They assured me it would be ready the night before.

I dropped the kids off at school and went there first thing this morning.

No suit.

I reiterated that it MUST be done today. The manager called the “plant” and they said they held it back because of a stain on the tie. They promised to have it ready by early afternoon. I sighed deeply and left with the assurance they would call my cell phone the minute it was available.

After lunch around 1:30 I dropped in again even though the manager hadn’t called. Still no suit and I could tell by the surprised look on her face that she’d forgotten all about it. She launched herself at the phone and called the plant again. I put on my angry eyes and told her to tell “the plant” that, as far as I was concerned, they could throw the tie in the dumpster. I didn’t care about the tie. I could buy a new tie. I could not, however, buy a new suit this afternoon. The manager repeated my speech almost word for word to the kidnapper of the suit. They didn’t get the full effect of my glare over the phone, but she managed to relate some manner of my menace to the person on the other end.

She swore on a stack of coupon books that the suit would be there around 2:30. She showed me that she still had my cell number. She told me there would be no charge due to the screw up.

I picked up the kids at 3:15 and still no call. I went to get gas for the car and planned to stop there afterwards and scowl at them until someone showed up with the damn suit. I also planned to bring the children and let them fight in the store. I figured if my scowling didn’t prompt them into immediate action, the sound of Sassy and The Bandit bickering would drive them to it out of desperation.

Fortunately for the dry cleaners, I did not have to murder anyone. The suit showed up – clean as a whistle. The tie, too. All will be well.

Best of all, now the dry cleaner is terrified of me.

As you’ve been made aware of before, the Sisters are none too happy about their current employment. Two of us are floundering away at Bank of No Forks and the third one is trying to make hard decisions about re-entering the torture circus in a big way.

But there is good news. We’ve found our new jobs and we’re really quite excited about it.

yeah, white's not gonna really work for us. We'll check with Michael Kors to see if he can whip up something cute.

NASA is hiring astronauts for the International Space Station. They describe the ideal candidates as having creativity, ambition, and team work. A sense of daring and a probing mind. Oh. My. God. It’s like they’ve been reading this blog! Frankly, we’re surprised they didn’t just come to us directly.  

We pulled the listing off USAJOBS .com and we think we could totally handle it. The requirements are not nearly as forbidding as you’d think. There is a height requirement of 62 inches. Amylynn, the shortest of the three, just squeaks by, and there is no weight requirement. Also, they require that your vision be correctable to 20/20 and they’ll pay for the LASIK or PRK. They babble something about “anthropometric” requirements for the “extravehicular activity mobility unit” (space suits ) but, honestly, we’re not too worried because of the next point.

They try really hard to scare you with discussions of “arduous” training that takes 2-3 years so we figure that any issues we may have with the “anthropometric” nonsense should be resolved with this training.

We’ve really thought this through. We figure our husbands will love it because we can’t spend money shopping, unless there is internet in space. You lose weight in space what with that zero gravity business. Sold! Ava has been watching Nova on PBS and she thinks she’s got a pretty good handle on this physics thing. According to her, time moves slower the closer you are to a black hole. For example, two hours at a black hole is equivilant to fifty years on Earth. If we’re at the International Space Station (ISS) then we’re closer to a black hole than we are on Earth, ergo we’ll come back

We've been wanting our own apartment...

thinner and younger than when we left.

See! this is a win-win.

Additonally, we’ll have various duties, but we’ve already split them up amongst the three of us. Amylynn will be in charge of driving the thing or any other vehicles since she is the designated Quill Sister driver, and Kelli and Ava are both quite skilled in maintenance tasks so what ever they come up with we’re pretty sure they can handle it. Any robotics issues we come across that we can’t handle, then we’ll just call Ava’s fourteen year-old son who totally has the robots area covered.

They are looking for bachelor’s degrees in various sciences, which Kelli has, but Ava and Amylynn think we can get our work experience as an equivilant. We’re quite sure that once they interview the three of us they’ll completely understand that we’ve got this covered. For goodness sakes, if we can learn extensive lending guidelines we can certainly handle this. Besides there’s that 2-3 year training. Which by the way, happens quite a bit in RUSSIA.

You know what else? We’re really looking forward to the “frequent travel” they warn you about.