Amylynn and I have come up with a truly original new year’s resolution: We’re going to lose weight.  We know that’s cutting edge – so we wanted to share it with you.

As I’ve confessed right here in the past, I have a diet problem.  I’ll try almost any diet that comes along.  Generally, Amylynn refuses to go along with this foolishness. I’ve only been able to talk her into a few of them.

HOWEVER, last week she said “We’re going on a diet in the new year.”  That’s pretty much like telling me I won the lottery.  A diet?  With a friend?  WooHoo, I’m freaking in!

So as not to scare her, I suggested we start off with a simple 1200 calorie-a-day diet.  Nothing fancy, just a serviceable diet.  All the while knowing I was going right on the internet to find a new fangled diet to try.

Drum role please . . . I found the diet to end all diets.  Seriously.  It involves ice cream, cheesecake and bread.  Seriously.  It’s called “The Carb Nite Solution”.

We’re starting tomorrow and will keep you posted as the weight drops off.  I feel thinner already.

****Notes from Amylynn**** Honest to God, she has come up with the most ridiculous diets you’ve ever heard off. If she heard a testimonial from some whackadoo that eating freeze dried worms and orange juice would cause you to lose twenty pounds, she’d have me driving all over Hell and gone to find freeze dried worms. Only the smelliest health food store would have them and they’d be $75 an ounce, but she’d do it.

This time it was my idea. It’s a diet philosophy that makes sense and I’ve studied up on it and know the science works.

All I know is that I’d better get thin cause I’m sick of this.

I have book signings to go to this year and I need to be svelte.

Christmas is so close – you can smell it. The aroma of cookies and peppermint wafts in the air. A hint of reindeer poo hangs around on the fringes. We hope you have all the stuff done you need done because you only want to go to the mall this weekend if you have a death wish. Or perhaps you have  a deep desire for incarceration because that’s what you’re setting yourself up for before you even get out of the parking lot. Besides, it’s cold out there. There’s wind. Remember, we don’t do wind. Actually, we might consider doing a bit of a breeze if we were wearing the outfit from #1 below. Get yourself some nog and a cookie – if the Quill Sister of your choice hasn’t already eaten them all – and find something to chortle about.

1. Coziness. We’d consider moving to the frozen tundra if we got to wear this. This kid is adorable and we’ll bet with the exception of his wind burned cheeks, he’s nice and warm. We’re also going to assume he’s not the least bit smelly. That can sometimes happen with fur, you know. We know for certain we wouldn’t smell if we wore this. Fresh as daisies on the Siberian plains we’d be. We’re wondering, if we buy two of these do we get a discount on a yak? We’d like a yak to park by our yurt. It’s possible we’ve had too much sugar.

2. Hasbro. We’re so proud of Hasbro for stepping up to the plate in designing an Easy Bake Oven for boys. If you’re unfamiliar with the story then we suggest you move back to the States cause this story was everywhere. Outer Mongolia might have fur snowsuits but the Wall Street Journal doesn’t deliver there. Anyway, a wonderful sister wanted to get her brother this toy but she could only find it in very girly colors. She appealed to Hasbro, the manufacturer of the Oven, and with the support of several famous male chefs including Bobby Flay, Hasbro will be putting out a silver and gray oven next year. Yea! We love to get ourselves riled up for injustices – no matter how small. Or tasty. However, in this case possibly the morsels in question will most likely be half raw, half burned globs of unidentifiable dough decorated with sprinkles.

3. Incredibly apt bumper stickers. Just the other day, Ava saw this bumper sticker: Queen of Everything. We believe we deserve stickers that say that as well. We might not know everything, but believe us when we tell you we certainly have an opinion about it.

4. Oreos at the end of the world. We didn’t start writing this blog until way after 11:11 today – just in case we didn’t have to write it at all. That would have been a damn waste of time had we all died with an unpublished blog sitting out there. Anyway, we’re still here. Nabisco hasn’t gone the way of Hostess so the End-of-The-World forecasters can drown their sorrows. Wouldn’t it be funny

This is a very cute dog, but it’s not a sheep

if the Mayans were off by a day and tomorrow is really the end of the world? Like if maybe they let the Chief’s son do some of the calculations even though they knew he was a total putz and he jacked it up by one day. It sounds like the basis for a great Saturday Night Live skit. Get Loren Michaels on the phone.

5. Goldendoodle Sheep. There is a church in town who does a live Nativity complete with a donkey named Jasmine – which by the way we think is a terrible name for a donkey unless that donkey is a stripper or a sultan’s daughter. After we liberate that poor animal, we’re changing her name. Polly is a good name for a donkey. ANYWAY… They added a goldendoodle (golden retriever and  poodle mix) to the manger scene. Wait, you say, where the hell did a poodle fit into the Nativity? It’s substituting for a sheep. Yes a sheep. You’re giggling now aren’t you? We did when we read the story. Do they really expect us to believe they couldn’t get their hands on a real WHITE poodle? Or a sheep for crying out loud? Great, now we’re going to have to liberate a mis-named donkey AND a goldendoodle with an identity crisis. We just hope they get along with the yak.

Wow – what a weird time of year, especially out here in the desert. It’s been in the 80’s which is so strange when you’re listening to Christmas carols and singing about snowmen and such. We’re not complaining, though. We hate cold more than we hate any other weather. Especially windy cold. We found some things to laugh about this week. Here they are. Take what you need.

1. Baby makes 3. Or maybe 4 if you believe the tabloids. Just like everyone else, we’re fascinated by the British royals and we’re completely smitten with Kate. The Duchess was in the hospital this week – you may have heard something about it. It was all over the news. We have no idea what’s happening with the “fiscal cliff” but we know the intricacies of the royal vomit. Since she was in the hospital the royals were forced to admit it was because she is pregnant instead of leaving it up to the imagination of the tabloids. If it was us, we’d have come up with some interesting cover story. Kate is in the hospital because, while riding a sheet pan down the royal staircase, she banged up her knee.  OR Kate is in the hospital because, while visiting one of those third world countries she’s always being forced to visit, she contracted Beriberi. Anyway, we’re hoping for twins. However, for a successful pregnancy, we suggest she eat a couple of sandwiches or something. She’s much too thin for twins.

#2. Dave Brubeck. Dave died. We’re sad. We love us some good jazz and Dave was a master. If you’re feeling blue – pop onto Youtube and listen to Take 5. You’ll feel better.

#3 Bears on the run. Down south from here, the bears have been invading. They’ve broken into a few houses and raided some kitchens and given some joggers a lovely greeting. Safe and sound up here, we’re quite amused, but we can see why perhaps they are a problem. Thats not to say if a bear showed up in our kitchen we wouldn’t be thrilled and offer her biscuits with honey and perhaps a hug. The wildlife officials authorized a “population management hunt” to kill the bears that were being the most threatening. Well, apparently the bears got the Quill Sisters’s memo and they’ve all disappeared. The Wildlife people called off the hunt for now because they assume they’ve all gone into hibernation. We doubt it. For Zeus’ sake is 80 degrees. Who hibernates when it’s 80? We don’t know either. But if they’re still listening – RUN YOGI! RUN!

4. Trip to the Moon. We are going to ask 750 million of you out there to send in a dollar. We really want to take a trip to the Moon. There is a new company headed by ex-NASA officials called Golden Spike Co who is putting together a proposal to send people to the Moon two at a time for $750,000,000 each. If you guys would each send in a dollar – which isn’t that much to ask really for the entertainment value – then we’ll have some sort of contest between Amylynn and Ava to figure out which of us gets to go. Come on. It’ll be fun.

5. Amylynn’s cover. Oh. My. God. Isn’t this thing gorgeous? It totally is. Our very lovely and talented friend Jaycee did an outstanding job. Keep tuned for updates when and where you can purchase it.

Amy and I spend many the entertained hour at Bank of No Forks.  We keep a lot of the stories to ourselves because you wouldn’t get them unless you worked here.  However, readers of this blog know that that’s not always the case.  We have been accused of making sh*t up all the time.  I assure you, we do not . . .

The other day we got an email telling us that we were to have a small, end of year celebration and it was to include a sheet cake.  And maybe some fruit – budget allowing.  We weren’t going to have to do anything; it was all going to be handled by corporate.  “Really?” I thought.  How was corporate going to order sheet cakes all over America?  But, what do I know . . . certainly not much since I work here.

My question was answered rather quickly in the form of a second email requesting the following:

• Point Of Contact from your team that I can reach out to with any questions I may have as I am placing orders etc, if it’s not you.  This will be the person the cake is delivered to on 12-14.
• Verify your Cost center.
• A local bakery phone number you utilize.
• *Please note I may request for an associate to pick up the cake for the Celebration in the event that the bakery does not deliver.

Hmmmmmm – after I provide all of that info AND go pick it up how is that being handled by corporate?  You know how?  It’s not.  It’s being handled by me.

A third email arrived with two “job aids” attached for ordering cake.  “Job aids” tell you how to do something – step by step.  Thank the gods that the job aids arrived; I was at my wits end over ordering cake. “How?” I kept asking myself, “How would I ever be able to order cake?”

Oh no.  One of the instructions says to order the cake by 11/30.  Except the email came today, 12/4.  I felt a panic attack coming on . . .

Luckily, a fourth email came and was an invitation to attend a 30 minute conference call for ordering the cake.  The email states if I can’t attend, I needed to provide a cake proxy.  I sh*t you not.  A cake proxy.  A conference call to order cake to go with two job aids . . . I couldn’t even get the words out to explain all of this to Amy.

She all but called me a liar.  “You DO NOT have a conference call to order the sheet cake.  They do not require a cake proxy if you can’t make it.  You did NOT get job aids to order cake.”  ***Note from Amylynn*** I’d like it noted I was not made the Cake Proxy. Apparently I’m not to be trusted.

The real issue isn’t receiving four emails to obtain one sheet cake – the real issue is that we don’t have forks to eat it with.  Where are the instructions for that?

What happened to this year? How is it possible that eleven months just disappeared like that? Did we all fall into a coma or something? We find it really hard to believe that almost an entire year has passed and we can’t hardly remember any of it. We suspect shenanigans. Still, we do believe the calendar when it say that it is indeed the end of the year. Doesn’t that usually mean cooler weather though? That’s what we thought, too, except that it’s like 80 degrees here. It’s hard to get into the Christmas mood when you’re shopping in flip-flops and a t-shirt. All kinds of good stuff went on this week. We laughed a lot. Sometimes it was maniacal laughter when we plotted the demise of Bank of No Forks. Sometimes it was the laughter of the doomed when we discovered that in fact we had not won the Powerball and had to retract that co-letter of resignation that ended with, “Go fork yourselves.” Still, laughter is laughter. Here’s what we’ve got for this week.

1. Hijacked chocolate.  18 tons of the stuff was hijacked in Vienna. Apparently, someone pulled up a tractor-trailer and loaded 33 pallets of chocolate and drove away. We want to make it perfectly clear that Ava and Amylynn have valid alibis for this day. We were nowhere near Vienna

oh barf!

and we don’t really like chocolate that much anyway. We gotta go – we hear the beeping of our semi backing into the driveway  we hear a our mother calling.

2. Thinning the herd. So another person died under ridiculous and disturbing circumstances. This time, a fellow in Florida (why are they always in Florida?) died after winning a cockroach eating contest. The prize for the winner was an ivory ball python for Zeus’ sake. Earlier in the day he had entered a super worm eating contest. We didn’t make any of this up. How could we? The idiocy plays out when this jackass wins the contest after eating dozens of giant cockroaches. He complains of feeling sick (?!?!) and starts vomiting before collapsing in the store. He’s declared dead at the scene. The autopsy revealed he choked to death with “arthropod body parts” blocking his airways. Oh, ick.

3. Beautiful ass kickings. We’ve long thought that really beautiful people are crazy. We are the exception that proves the rule. Or we are crazy and not prepared to deal with that truth. Whatever. For the purposes of this story, we’re referring to REALLY beautiful people. The fact is, we think all the attention they get from being extraordinarily beautiful makes them bat-shit crazy. We have no real proof of this it’s just a very scientific hypothesis we made up. Anyway, Halle Berry is outrageously beautiful. That is undisputed. She had a long term relationship with another shining diamond of gorgeousness named Gabriel Aubry and they had a child together. They ended badly and have been in court arguing over their daughter. Halle has since become engaged to another stupendously attractive person, Olivier Martinez. On Thanksgiving, Olivier and Gabriel got involved in a knock down drag out fight – presumably over who is prettier. Probably. Gabriel claims not to have fought back and has released the following photo. HOLY CRAP ON A CRACKER! We’ve long held lustful feelings toward Gabriel. In fact, Amylynn used him in her head as the model of the hero in her second book. This is an atrocity. Can you even imagine what that fight looked like? We’re rushing over right now with an icepack and a New York Strip steak. Poor baby.

4. 12 Things of Christmas. PNC Wealth Management has done the annual accounting of what it would cost to give someone the 12 Things of Christmas this year. At $107,000, it’s up 6.1% from last year. Hmmmm. Here’s the thing. If Mr. Bright and Mr. Louis show up with this nonsense under the tree this year, we hope they kept their receipt. Who the hell wants nine ladies dancing in your living room? And Amylynn’s house is plenty loud already without 11 pipers and 12 drummers marching around in there. Eight maids a-milking might be alright. We do go through a lot of milk. Really, all we’re interested in is the five golden rings. And maybe a partridge. They’re kinda cute. Otherwise all those birds are going to make a real mess out of the upholstry.

5. Absurd compliments. Someone called Amylynn a “ray of light” today. She and Ava laughed about that for a good twenty minutes.  A Ray of Light. BLALALAHAHAAHAHSAHAHASHGHAH. **snort**. No Ray of Light should have the advanced aptitude for swearing as Amylynn has. Yeah, we got your Ray of Light right here, buddy.

Amylynn entitled yesterday’s blog post “We had all better hope something funny happens“.  And wouldn’t you know it – it did . . . to her.

I’m sitting in my office without a fork and I see Amylynn come up the sidewalk.  Oddly, it’s just Amylynn.  No purse, lunch bag or most importantly – no bag containing our breakfast burritos.  I hear her ring our security door bell and then someone buzz her in.  I dash right to the inner locked door and open it to allow her passage into the private inner sanctum of our space.

“Whatcha doin’?” I say.

“I locked my keys in the car.”

I do not heckle her, after all, I’m the person who locked my keys in the trunk and had to be rescued from the grocery store.

Back to our story.

She calls her husband to report that she is an idiot and to get help.  The whole plan comes down to her lovely mother-in-law bringing her the house keys and taking her home to get the spare car keys.  That seems fairly simple right?

Nope.  We mess that up by my telling Amylynn to just take “Carly” (I name all of my cars so they’re nice to me) to her mother-in-law’s to get the key instead of making her drive to our office and then to Amy’s house.  We feel this is an excellent idea and call m-in-l with the change.

To protect the innocent, I’m going to leave the next part vague.  It results in Amylynn coming back to the office with hangers, our security guard, a blade of grass, a paper clip, and Amy’s spouse calling to find out how the hell we messed up such a simple solution to the crisis.

In the end, the vehicle gets open but not with the key which is obtained after a second trip in Carly, a trip to the bathroom and more keys being locked in Amylynn’s house.

It will take Amylynn the better part of the day to get over this event but I’m quite happily sitting here eating my still-warm burrito and telling you this tale.

You’re welcome.

***Comments by Amylynn***

I have no intention of trying to defend myself. In fact, let me just add a few more details. Yes indeedy, I did lock my keys in the car with my purse, cell phone, security badge and breakfast burritos for the office on the passenger seat. I knew it almost the instant it happened. Our receptionist suggested that we call AAA and have them come open the car.

“But who knows how long that will take,” I said, “And I want my burrito. I’m very hungry.”

“Tell then you left your baby in the car. That’ll get them here right quick. Then when they open the car say, ‘Oh did I say baby? I meant burrito.’ That’s how everyone does it.” I seriously think our receptionist has missed her calling in crime.

Then all the manic driving around happened because I got flustered and couldn’t think things through. I’m excellent during other people’s crises but, with my own, clearly I’m a moron.  By the time I finally got a hold of the house keys I had to pee so desperately I was doing that stupid wiggle dance. I burst into my house and trotted down the hall, grabbed the spare car keys and ran into the bathroom. Then, because I’d already been racing around for over an hour with this nonsense, I sped out the front door locking the hasp as I slammed the door. Once again I realized almost immediately that I’d managed to lock the house keys inside the house and consequently I couldn’t lock the deadbolts. That gave me pause. I stood in my front yard laughing hysterically because, really, what else could I do?

I’d also like to mention that when I got back, Ava informed me that My Honey had called to yell at her in my stead and “I let him because you’re dumb.” When he said, “she (meaning me) and my mom can’t manage to get this coordinated, but if it had something to do with shopping you better believe there wouldn’t be any problems”, Ava admitted that she agreed with him, “Cause that’s totally true.”

So, to sum up, I locked the car keys in the car and the house keys in the house AND managed to screw up the easiest plan in the world.

Sigh.

This was a rough week for the Sisters.  We didn’t really laugh much. One can’t really laugh when one is being re-trained for the 9^th time in one year.  And in the middle of the re-training, we stopped to be re-trained again.  Arrrrrrrrrgggggghhhhhh.  And may we add – Waaaaaaaaaaaa. 

Just so you know, we tried to find some fun.  There was a brief moment when we almost laughed over the legalization of marijuana in Colorado but it didn’t last because we don’t live in Colorado and can’t take up smoking pot to make re-training better and that made us sad again.  For a second, we almost smiled when we found out that the Republican’s had a “get out the vote” party on a gun range in Alabama – that’s funny, unless you wish you were with a bunch of Republicans on a gun range instead of at work, that’s not funny. 

Deep sigh.

And so dear reader, we do not have five things this week.  We can only promise to bounce back next week.  Ava has a dentist appointment so there’s always hope . . .

Can you believe it’s November already? Us neither. We’ve made it through Hurricane Sandy with nary a breeze but many people we know weren’t so lucky. We’re drinking a toast to all the people who don’t have toast glasses anymore, or electricity to make the ice for the margaritas, or a bed to pass out in afterwards. It’s really awful and not funny at all and we watch the news in horror. But still, if you don’t laugh what else have you got? Won’t you join us in a chuckle over these five things. We did find some Sandy stuff amusing and we hope you agree.

1. Gov Chris Christie. We admit to being fascinated by Mr. Christie and we’d really like him to slim down a bit so we don’t have to worry about him so much. Just before Sandy made landfall in NJ he was on the news telling his fellow New Jersey-ians that they didn’t need to be on the beach taking pictures of the thirty foot waves. “I’m talking to you!” he said. We love that Christie knows his constituents so well cause don’t you know the very next story is showing twenty Jersey boys standing on the beach. Sigh. Some people you just can’t help.

2. Storm Coverage. News reporting has become, shall we say, a bit dumbed down these days. Still, this is the same country where they have to tell you not to blow dry your hair in the bathtub. We like to look at it as thinning the herd. While much of the news films were mouth droppingly awful, some provoked more than a chuckle. One of our favorites showed water gushing into one of the tunnels to NYC. Gushing may not even properly convey the amount of water we’re talking about here and the speed in which it was traveling. It was epic. Still at the bottom of the picture needlessly scrolled, “Tunnel Closed.” Just in case some of the Jersey boys wanted to pop on over, we guess.

3. Star Wars. Disney bought Lucasfilm Ltd for 4.05 billion dollars. Disney is promising more Star Wars movies and that excites the hell out of us. Mr. Bright is acting like he won’t go see them, like he’s some sort of Lucas Purist or some bullshit like that. He’s mistaken. Not only will he see it, but it’ll be opening weekend at a 3-D theater. We were considering standing in line now with the rest of the nerds until we found out it’s not supposed to open until 2015. Yeah, we have stuff to do, but know that we’re VERY EXCITED.  And if anyone wants our opinion, we vote for Quintin Tarrentino to direct!

4. Haunted Mansion. In more Disney related news, someone has built an exact replica of the Haunted Mansion near Atlanta and is auctioning it off on Ebay. It’s 10,000 sq. feet and has 7 bedrooms. There’s a two story library! And is ready for elevator installation. We want this house. We want it bad. So far, the highest bidder is $873,000. If you all want to kick in we can use it like a timeshare. What do you think? Pretty please?

5. Thrice. The word of the week is “thrice”. We had a run in with a very….let’s go with insane, insane customer at Bank of No Forks this week. This person was in no way amusing, more along the lines of really freaking disturbing. Still, when we started digging around in all his stuff we found a letter where he used the word “thrice”. “As I have informed you thrice.” HAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahahahaha. That’s good stuff right there.