Let me just jump to the juicy stuff right away.  I did not catch a ghost, but it certainly wasn’t from my lack of effort.  I brought my Costco sized pickle jar and everything.  When My Honey found it in our suitcase wrapped up in my pajamas he just looked at me.

Me trying to replicate the "ghost in the mirror" pic from their site.

Honestly, the man deserves some sort of medal for putting up with my silliness.

It occurred to me on the two hour drive up there that I should probably have some bait for the jar.  It struck me like an epiphany: REESE’S PIECES.  Hey, if it worked for an extra terrestrial, then surely it would work for a ghost, right? Besides, the ghost I really wanted was the little girl and certainly she would be drawn in by candy.

Guess what was in the vending machine at the hotel?  YES, Reese’s Pieces. What were the odds? It’s not like they’re the most popular candy ever.  I swear, it’s like they wanted me to catch their ghost.

When we checked in, the front desk clerk told me our room wasn’t haunted when I asked him.  Feeling confident, I told him that really remained to be seen. The room was totally charming and I could see a ghost being very content in there.  When we left for some dinner, I left the open jar on the bed, but without the bait.  I wanted the ghost to get used to the idea of the jar, to get comfortable with it, just like you do a cat with a cat carrier.  I figured the little ghost girl could flit in and out so that later, when there was bait, she wouldn’t hesitate.

My Honey was not excited about me targeting the child ghost.  He figured, on our one night away from our own children, we shouldn’t be inviting little kids in who cry all night.  He could just imagine she’d want to climb in bed and hog the covers just like our biological children do.

Whatever.  There was no point in worrying about it.  She didn’t show up, and I’d know because I didn’t sleep well.  It had nothing to do with worrying about spectral beings or anything like that.  Somehow I just don’t sleep well in hotels. Regardless, I’d have heard her crying.  All I heard was a maintenance man going up and down our hall.

My Honey was quick to point out that I didn’t count how many Reese’s Pieces I put in the jar, which was a good point, but there were still plenty in there come morning.

When The Bandit told what the deal was with the pickle jar and the candy, he suggested that perhaps the ghost would have simply preferred the pickles.  Clearly, I had never thought of that.  It’s entirely possible that so many people have tried to seduce her with candy that pickles would have been a happy change of pace.

Well, we plan to go to that hotel many more times.  It’s just such a cool place.  Next time I want to stay in either the Clark Gable room or the Marilyn Monroe Suite.

One thing I did learn that is of the utmost value: 2 M&M + 3 Reese’s Pieces = Deliciousness in your mouth.

Candy mixology.  Just another service I provide.

My Honey and I are off to the big city for a concert.  It’s My Honey’s favorite band and he’s understandably excited.  I’m thrilled to have Friday off work.  I’m shockingly easy to please.

We booked a hotel for the night so we won’t have to drive the two hours home so late at night.  I looked online for a hotel near the venue as it seemed to me it would be easier to park at the hotel and walk to the show instead of fighting stadium traffic afterwards.  Smart, eh?  Not just another pretty face, this Sister.

I picked a really cool, old hotel, Hotel San Carlos, in the heart of downtown built in 1928.  It’s been renovated but it has retained that cool charm and character.

Remember, I chose this hotel due to it’s closeness to the venue.  It is only five easily walkable blocks from the concert.

I went online today to Google driving directions.  This is what I found instead.

It has been featured on the Travel Channel’s “Weird Travels” and received the #3 spot on Horror.com’s list of “America’s Top 10 Haunted Hotels.”

Oh great son of Zeus! I am so excited! In fact, this may call for two exclamation points. !! 

The following is the conversation I had with Ava about my discovery:

Amy [4:50 PM]:
OMG – it turns out my hotel in Phoenix is HAUNTED!
Ava [4:50 PM]:
Let the bread fly!
Amy [4:50 PM]:
I’m so excited.  Maybe I’ll take the tour
Ava [4:51 PM]:
I think you should.  I’ll alert James Randi.

He's still offering $1,000,000 for proof of a ghost.

Amy [4:51 PM]:
It’s #3 on “America’s Top 10 Haunted Hotels”!!!
Ava [4:51 PM]:
It is not!
Amy [4:51 PM]:
TRUE!!!
Ava [4:51 PM]:
Bring one home in your suit case.
Amy [4:52 PM]:
I hope so!
They have pictures on their web site!
Ava [4:53 PM]:
Of ghosts?
Amy [4:53 PM]:
supposed one, yes.  I can’t believe this! I’m so excited.
Ava [4:54 PM]:
You should be.  Get pictures with your phone.
Amy [4:54 PM]:
I’m taking a real camera.  You’re totally jealous
OMG There is even a Wikipedia page on it!
Ava [4:56 PM]:
I’m jealous because I’m so bored I would actually go ghost hunting with you.
Amy [4:56 PM]:
come on.  What’s one more?
you can hang around and try to find the ghost.
Ava [4:59 PM]:
I’m in.  If anyone can find a ghost it’s me.  Being a fan and all . . .
Amy [4:59 PM]:
I know.  I’m certain to see one.  Absolutely positive in fact.
Ava [5:00 PM]:
You need a ghost hunting kit.
Amy [5:01 PM]:
what does that entail?  do they have them at Target?
Ava [5:01 PM]:
Ebay.
Amy [5:01 PM]:
I dont’ have time for Ebay.  maybe I can do a DIY one
Ava [5:02 PM]:
That needs to be Googled. I’ll bet there’s a list.
Amy [5:02 PM]:
Amazon has one for 279.00

And it’s true.  When you type in “ghost hunting kit” into the Amazon search engine you get 49 results.  49!! I was kidding, but apparently this is big business.  If you’re interested it seems that much of the ghost hunting paraphernalia is on sale. 

This is all the stuff you get in the Deluxe Ghost Hunting Kit:

Excellent Starter Kit Includes:
– GaussMaster EMF meter
– Portable Motion Sensor
– EVP Listener
– Digital Local Remote Thermometer
– “Ghost Tech” how-to book
– Deluxe Carrying Case to keep it all together.

In the DIY kit that I’ve assembled I have a Kodak camera and a giant pickle

Giant Famous Dave's pickle jar

jar I hope to trap something – or someone – in. 

I honestly hope I see a ghost.  I’d really like to believe in them. and all I need is a gentle push down the stairs or some creepy weeping by the little girl they say comes into guest’s rooms at night to cry.

I’ll keep you posted.  If I come home with something exciting in my pickle jar, you’ll be the first to know.

From my daily calendar:

“The practice of putting women on pedestals began to die out when it was discovered that they could give orders better from there.”

Betty Grable, she of the expensively insured gams

For the uninitiated, Betty was the #1 pinup girl during WWII. Her legs were so famous her movie studio insured them for $1,000,000 with Lloyds of London. 

My personal favorite of Ms. Grable’s films is How To Marry A Millionaire with Marilyn Monroe and Lauren Bacall.

Check it out – it’s a delightful comedy. Just ask my mom.

Brothers and sisters love to mess with each other.  This is a fact and I have no intention of trying to dispute that fact.  On the contrary, I’m going to add a little more fuel to the fire with the following testimonial.

Sassy has found the one thing that makes The Bandit crazy and she’s using the hell out if it.  Turns out calling the boy a “nutball” is just too much for him to bear. 

He honestly and truly finds the name offensive, and he made a really good case for her to stop using it.  He argued like a six year old lawyer so I intervened.  I usually don’t simply because I believe the kids need to work some stuff out for themselves.   Besides, I’ve started charging 1$ for the opportunity to tattle. I plan to buy a Mercedes next week on my profits.

But as for my parenting theory, my brother and I fought like cats and dogs and we turned out to be good friends. My kids will be fine.

So in the car on the way to camp, Sassy called him a nutball again and the little man threw a conniption fit back in the third row.

“Sassy,” I said, “he’s asked you nicely a bunch of time not to call him that.”

“I know,” she admitted. “It just slipped out.  What’s the big deal anyway?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I told her.  “For whatever reason, that name really bothers him. Please don’t use it anymore.”

“What should I call him then?” she asked.

I thought about this.  I didn’t really have an answer for her, but there was always the name I call him.  I made this name up one night when The Bandit and I were giggling in his bed one night.  While nutball makes him blow a gasket he seems to have no problem whatsoever with Twerp Muffin.  I don’t get it either but, from what I’ve learned, six year olds rarely operate under a mantle of rationality.

So Twerp Muffin it is.  Everyone is happy.  Only contented noises come from the third row seat.

The smells however – that’s for another post.

Ava is a diet Nazi. Granted, we all want to lose weight and her methods are effective, but I strongly dislike feeling deprived.

On Friday, Ava and I went to lunch at a national chain restaurant. We figured we get a crappy salad from somewhere new. Remember a couple of weeks ago when the whole zombie apocalypse was supposed to arrive just after the Rapture? Obviously, the Rapture never happened, but I’m not so sure about the zombie part.

We walked into the establishment and were sort of greeted by a host in the reception area. This young man looked like the walking dead. He looked at the two of us overlong, as if he was counting us over and over just to verify how many of us there were. Finally, he asked, “Two?”

Because I’m hungry and surly, I looked at Ava and then at myself before I confirmed. “Yes, two.”

He bid us to follow him as he grabbed menus and headed off into the dining room. I’ll estimate we walked fifteen yards or less to our table, but I swear to Zeus it took us thirty seconds to get that far. If you don’t think that is a long time, I dare you to get up and try it. Go ahead, I’ll wait. I almost ran the boy over he walked so slowly. I may have been stampeding to a table, I was that hungry, but still, he was ridiculously slow.  Slow enough to have been leading a wedding march – if Zombies were allowed to get married in the state of Arizona. 

By the time we sat down in our booth, Ava and I were wide eyed with unshared mirth.

“Sweet mother Danae of Perseus.” I shook my head

“It’s like he’s been wandering in the desert for forty years,” Ava said.

Every time he came in to the room where we were seated, he looked more vacuous if that was possible. You could almost hear him saying, “brrrrrraaaaaaaaiins.”

Then this evening, the Bright Family Four decided to eat dinner there, primarily because it was close and we were starving. This time there was a young lady acting as hostess. I suspect she and the guy from before are somehow related. At least I hope they’re related, otherwise it’s too terrible to think about.

If you know of anyone like I describe: someone who walks as if they are actively dying, has visible trouble counting as high as four, and gets lost on the way to the bathroom. Might I suggest they complete an application at this restaurant. Apparently, their hiring practices are very liberal.

 “The male sexual brain is like a single toggle switch. The female sexual brain is like the cockpit of an F1 fighter.”

neuroscientist Sai Gaddam

That brilliant, perceptive quote is from one of the eighty gazillion posts out in the Internet universe about the whole Weiner debacle. 

The Sisters were discussing men, a frequent subject of our conversation as we are all married to men and some of us even made little men. We love our men, big and small, but sometimes the species as a whole is very stupid.

I won’t say anything new or brilliant in this post that hasn’t already been said by smarter, wittier writers than I am, but still, since the world can’t seem to let this go neither can I.

I honestly don’t know one single woman, not one, who would welcome such a picture.  I understand that men in general, I don’t know if crave is the right word but it seems to fit, crave such a picture from a woman. The male fantasy pictures could come from their own women or one they’ve never met – it wouldn’t matter. But if I should open my phone to see a text message with a picture of THAT, I would have a heart attack. 

Let this be said as an open letter to men everywhere:

Women don’t want pictures of your junk.  Not blurry ones, not close-ups, not video.  We don’t.  Ever.  Do not send one unless the planets have aligned and there is an unlikely solar and lunar eclipse signifying the end of the world because that is the only plausible excuse for why a woman would purposefully request such a picture.

It’s a common joke – how complicated women are.  It’s a fact.  We know.  There is no great, deep secret here. And sex to women is one of the most complicated parts.  There are many, many considerations for women on whether or not sex will happen.  How fat does she feel that day? Is there water retention? Did she fit into the skinny jeans or the fat jeans that day? Has she spoken with her mother at any point during the day? Does she have on good underwear or was it a wash day and she’s sporting granny panties? Has the man in question done anything particularly “male” that day which should require any level of grudge holding? Are the children SOUNDLY asleep? Is the dog watching? How long is this going to take ’cause there’s stuff to do?

We understand the ying/yang of the male question:  Now?

Somehow children are born all the time so clearly sex is happening somewhere.  My bet is the man in question wasn’t stupid enough to send the mother a picture of his precious weiner. 

Honestly.  Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

This is what I needed like a broken hand. I’ve got so much writing to do and Ava and Kelli just helped me sort out the last details to finish up Dalton and Olivia’s story and now I find this.

See that bossy penguin? He's trouble.

This is worse than Spider Solitaire. 

It’s worse than Bookworm. 

It’s worse than Angry Birds.

It’s much worse than any crossword puzzle I’ve ever met.

It makes cute little popping sounds.

I’m doomed.

I think I need to find a place to hide and write with no Internet access.

The following story was related to me by My Honey this evening in a series of quickly whispered sentences and wild-eyed frantic gestures.

When I went out of town a week or so ago, Sassy caught a grasshopper at her grandmother’s and decided to keep it for a pet.  She brought it home in a jar and, later, they transferred it into a bug house.  It looks a bit like a bird house but the entire top is covered with a fine wire cage so you can see the bug that lives in there.

The bug became known as Hopper and Sassy went out to the yard every morning and selected choice weeds for him to munch.  Hopper was a big, BIG grasshopper and I sort of felt bad for him when I passed by his cage and saw him hanging upside down in there all the time.

Well today, My Honey finally convinced Sassy that two weeks was long enough and Hopper deserved to be set free.  The Grand Bug Experiment was concluded.  I’m sure Daddy really talked it up about how much happier Hopper would be once he was free to jump about in the world again.  He must have done a great job because Sassy agreed.  In fact, when she told me about it later, she made the whole thing sound like her idea.

So My Honey and Sassy took the bug cage with Hopper outside to the flower boxes with a great deal of ceremony.  The hatch was opened and Sassy tried to coax Hopper outbut, perhaps he thought it was a trick because he didn’t immediately leap for his freedom.  A couple of good shakes to the upside down cage and Hopper popped out.

I imagine the grasshopper must have felt a great deal of joy to be out of the cage and gave a boisterous jump.

Don’t you know a giant bird flew down immediately from the telephone wire and snatched him up mid-hop.  My Honey stared up into the sky, glanced back at Sassy and thought only one word: F   *   *    K!

“Daddy, did that bird…..” Sassy began, her hand over her eyes to shield it from the sun.

Her father interrupted her before she could get the thought completed. “Nooooo.” He shook his head vigorously.  “No, Hopper got away. He’s very happy hopping along out here in the wilderness.  Let’s go back inside.  Right now.”

Of course, if I was a good mother I’d sing The Circle of Life or some other bullshit but that’s not my immediate

Happy puppies who are just dying to live at my grasshopper-free home

 thought.  If My Honey would just let us have a puppy, there wouldn’t be any need to subject innocent bugs to interment camps and desperate freedom runs that end in heartbreak for the bug and a gourmet feast for some damn bird who will then immediately take a crap on my windshield. 

No puppy = no one happy.

Puppies almost never get carried off by pigeons. It’s a scientific fact.

The Quill Sister weekend was a smashing success!  We had the best time.  There was shopping and talking about writing and reading and shopping and drinking and shopping and a little sleeping and then we did more talking about writing. Oh, and there was giggling. A lot of giggling actually.

We arrived Friday in the early evening.  We checked into the hotel and terrorized the front desk.  Then we went to dinner and terrorized the waiter at Claim Jumper.  That’s where the drinking began with pomegranate sangria – something I recommend for everyone, by the way. 

Later that evening, we met Jimmy Thomas, world famous cover model. He just happens to be the dude on Kelli’s cover.  Even as drunk as I was, and I’m mildly embarrassed to say that I was quite drunk, I still took a pretty decent picture of Kelli and him on my phone.

Ava went to bed early and Kelli poured me into bed around midnight.  I guess.  Apparently, I snored and kicked her all night long and Kelli hasn’t let me forget it yet.  For the ten thousandth time, “I’m very sorry.  Truly.  I feel very repentant.”  But I still hold that she should have just woken me up instead of suffering silently as she did.

The next morning we headed across the street to the outlet mall and shopped our brains out.  I was so excited to get away from the family and spend some quality girl-time I could hardly stand it.  It was so nice not to be responsible for anyone but ourselves for two and a half days. We shopped for hours.  Seriously, hours, and it was glorious.  Nordstroms and Saks 5th Avenue, Kenneth Cole and Wilson’s Leather.  We fell madly in love with puppies at a pet store – more on that later – and and tried on countless pairs of shoes.  We had so many bags when we left the mall, we were staggering. When I unpacked today I found gifts galore for everyone and bought exactly one

The "after" picture of the car

 thing for myself.  Typical.

We got back to the hotel and had dinner.  We sat at a table hosted by one of my favorite Sci-Fi Romance writers, Gini Koch.  After dinner we terrorized a clerk at a CVS where we got the makings for Mud Slides, Mojitos and White Russians.  Of course, that made us a big hit at all the author panels we attended for the rest of the evening as Kelli toted around a 55 gallon drum of Mojitos in her purse.

One of my favorite things about meeting many of the authors we did this weekend was that I’d done interviews with them for the Tucson Festival of Books this year, but I hadn’t time to read all of their books by then.  There just isn’t enough time in the day to read all I want and write all I want and still go to that stupid 9 to 5 job and speak with my family.  The Sisters bought several books of authors that particularly intrigued us that we’ll pass back and forth.

On the ride home, Ava tortured her husband with texts about the puppy “we’d purchased.” We seriously considered getting one and then just passing it back and forth, moving it to the next sister’s house as soon as each husband caught on.  We figured we could make that work for quite some time before we were figured out.

Then I almost drove off the road laughing so hard when, as we passed the Rooster Cogburn Ostrich Ranch on the freeway half way home. 

Don't I look friendly?

“Let’s steal an ostrich and then pretend like we can’t see it when we get home,” Ava suggested.  “Come on, let’s practice our straight faces.”

“What ostrich?  You see an ostrich?  That’s weird. You know, we did go shopping but we didn’t get an ostrich.  Who would do that?”

One thing that still has me pondering….

Everywhere we showed up at the conference, and we always showed up together, people would say, “Oh! The Quill Sisters.  I’ve heard about you.”

Weird, right? Should I be alarmed?

I read this on MSN this morning and I’m just delighted to see that our good work is finally being recognized. 

LONDON (Reuters Life!)- British spies hacked into an al-Qaida website to replace instructions on how to build a bomb with recipes for making cupcakes, newspapers reported on Friday.

The Quill Sisters’ motto,”Everything’s better with cake!” is certainly true in most cases. In fact, I can’t think of anything not made much better with a good bit of moist cake and butter creme frosting.  Additionally, we also find that feelings of hate and rage are greatly lessened after double chocolate and raspberry filling. Let that be a lesson to the middle east. 

Everybody gather ’round, hold hands and sing along:

What the world needs now is cake, sweet cake……..