NEW RELEASES
Look how helpful we are
Voted Most Likely Not to Vote
The Quill sisters do not write blogs about politics because we know you have no interest in our political opinions and, frankly, most of the time we have no interest in our political opinions but – today’s blog is about polling.
That’s the hard part! You already did the hard part!
I find it a great mystery as to why a person would answer their phone, speak to a poll taker and then embarrass the voting eligible human race with the following:
Question: Hello, are you registered to vote?
Answer: Why yes, yes I am.
Question: Have you selected the candidate you would vote for?
Answer: Yes – it’s (it doesn’t matter who).
Now, I think the polling should end right there – except no, it doesn’t end right there. The poll taker asks another inexplicable question.
Question: Are you likely to vote come Election Day?
Nov 6, 2012
Why in the world does that question even need to be asked? The person is registered to vote and they have expressed a preference for one of the candidates. That should be the end of it! Right!?
But no . . . it’s not.
Answer: No, I’m not likely to actually vote.
Who in god’s name is registered to vote, has selected a candidate and then tells another human being that they are too freakin’ lazy to bother to actually vote?????????
Who does that? Who are these people? How does the poll person not start shouting at them? I would.
Poll Person: No disrespect – but are you an idiot? You’re registered to vote, have selected a candidate but you’re not actually going to vote in the election? Are you kidding me?
Then, what does the person say? How can they actually defend themselves after saying something so stupid?
Idiot Non-Likely Voter: “No need to get hostile. I am registered to vote, I have selected a candidate but I’m terribly busy that day. I can’t be expected to keep an open calendar once every four years for fifteen minutes to vote for president of the United States. Geez, I have a life.
It’s next Tuesday. I can call and remind you if needed.
Apologizes to Amylynn, I drove her nuts about this all day. But really, who is registered to vote, picks a candidate and then says they aren’t going to vote??? Who does that?
I need to lie down.
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…
Love and War
Anyone who knows me well knows I’m not a very romantic person. I just never have been. Ed is far more romantic than I am and he knows it. I hope my children turn out more romantic than me, however, judging by the boy’s last valentine’s day escapades – maybe not.
Anyway, imagine Ed’s surprise when I insisted on defacing public property in Paris by placing a padlock on the Pont des Arts in Paris.
Our actual lock (E Heart L)
The Pont des Arts is a walking bridge in Paris which crosses the Seine River in front of the Louvre. Couples buy a lock from an unlicensed street vender and write their initials, dates, hearts, etc. on it and attach it to the railing of the bridge. You lock it and throw the keys into the river – thereby sealing your love forever. I explained to Ed that our being married for 25 years and having two children that neither was willing to accept physical custody of in a divorce, was not nearly as binding as our love was now with a padlock on a bridge in a foreign country.
I could tell this caused him to feel more secure in our marriage than he ever has! This was obvious by his response when I pointed this out – “Let’s go get a glass of wine.” See?
Paris has expressed concern over the locks damaging the bridge but has not yet adopted a definitive policy on how to deal with this new fad. I hope they aren’t foolish enough to remove my lock because I’ll make whoever is president start a war – I’m that romantic.
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.
October 12
Today is Winnie the Wonder Mutt’s birthday. She’s one. That would be one of our favorite things except that we found a bunch of other things to like better. Also, we’re not especially fond of Alpo cake. It’s been a very pet centric week. Jojo Kitten got fixed. It was absolutely time. Our kitty was getting very teenager-y with his desire for satisfaction. He kept molesting Amylynn’s arm which was very weird and not at all something she encourages. He did very well during the whole veterinary affair right up until we gave him his medicine. That did not go well. He was very angry. VERY ANGRY. It’s a good thing 
there was this stuff to keep us amused.
1. Giant blue eye. So this guy found a giant blue eyeball on the beach in Ft. Lauderdale. How giant? Softball sized. Seriously. It’s really beautiful – teal and indigo and enormous. They think it might belong to a giant squid or a whale. Think about that. Down there is some huge squid/whale with a gargantuan eye patch. Ava and Amylynn think it’s going to prove to be not of this world. We
If you play your cards right, this could be a foil wrapped piece of chocolate instead.
propose that it’s an alien eyeball. If they figure out who or what it belonged to, they should call Canada. Those people have whole boxes of unclaimed feet up there.
2. Chocolate = Nobel Prize. Some of the smartest people in the world eat a bunch of chocolate which we didn’t find outrageous in the least as we eat a ton of chocolate and are brilliantly witty. Not only did the latest study show that the countries that eat the most chocolate per capita also win the most Nobel Prizes; it gave a hell of an argument for moving to Switzerland. We’re checking into it.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
3. Horrifying inheritance. Another guy from Florida is in the news for inheriting his father-in-law’s 13,000+ piece clown collection. We understand if you stop reading here. Frankly, the only thing more horrifying and disturbing than this story would be if spiders were involved. This guy was really excited about it. He is quoted as saying, “Once you put this paint on your face, and when you get it in your mouth, you get it in your blood and now you’re a clown forever.” It’s entirely possible this article was written by Stephen King. He wants to open a museum for all this stuff. We’re all for it. Keep that crap together, all 
locked in one place, for the good of mankind.
4. Big Bird Commercial. The whole nation is talking about this commercial and the debate where the original statement was said that started all the controversy. We’re not amused by the politics and frankly were just counting down the days until it’s all over – 24 by the way. What we do find hysterically funny is the commercial the other campaign made in response. It’s freaking funny and the guys who threw it together should get an award or something. When that giant bird silhouette 
goes over the building we choke with laughter. “Only one man dare say his name….”BLAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAA
5. Huge freaking diamond. The Archduke Joseph Diamond is going up for auction in November. It’s expected to sell for around 15 million dollars. Whew! We think that’s a steal for a 76.02 carat, flawless white diamond from the famous Golconda mine in India. If someone buys us that rock, we will abandon our pursuit of a panda or five. Just think about it.
Lost in the Louvre
When you get to France you will be asked repeatedly if you intend the visit the Louvre. After you say “Yes, you dumb ass, of course I’m going to visit the Louvre. I just flew thirteen hours to get here, specifically to see the LOUVRE.” The person will tell you to make sure you have a plan or you’ll get really super frustrated inside.
The Louvre is Freakin’ BIG
If you are a frequent experienced worldwide museum visitor you will just brush this statement off. Before you left for France and you checked with everyone you know who has been to France – you won’t recall anyone telling you they were frustrated in the Louvre. You’ll remember them talking about the beauty of the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo – no frustration mentioned.
Some facts: the Louvre is 652,300 square feet, it houses almost 35,000 objects. The Louvre is freakin’ big.
Prepare yourself for some serious frustration.
Everything about the Louvre is enormous – the size of the line to buy tickets, the size of the line to enter the museum, the size of the line to see the Mona Lisa, the 80 page map of the place, etc.
I’m going to do you the favor no one did for me. Before you go anywhere near the Louvre – have a game plan. If you are planning to see the Mona Lisa or any of the more famous works, realize that you may only see that piece of art. There comes a moment in every Louvre visitor’s life when they need to decide if they want to stand on line for six hours to momentarily view a painting the size of a postage stamp or see two hundred other things.
Here’s the Mona Lisa, avoid her, you’re welcome.
And just so you know, whatever stuff you planned to see in the Louvre from your carefully laid out plans – you won’t actually see. You’re going to get lost. Really lost. There’s a reason the French did not discover the new world. The French are terrible map makers – the map to the Louvre is incoherent. Once you’re in the bowels of the building, you’ll begin to pray to every god represented in there that the night watchman will eventually find you and lead you to an exit. I pictured them with blankets and food supplies like the search and rescue workers on Mt. Kilimanjaro.
By the way, “Exit’ in French is “Sortie” which translates to:
It’s sortie this way out – but not really.
PS – it sounds like I didn’t like the Louvre but I loved it. It’s beautiful and I saw some incredible art while I was lost. Even though I got lost for hours, I did find a darling café that served French pasties and café au lait and I FORGAVE THE LOUVRE EVERYTHING!!!
PSS – There is one thing you have got to see at the Louvre that most people miss. The glass pyramid has its own cleaning system. It looks like a little Roomba vacuum that goes all over the sides cleaning it. It’s fascinating because it follows a pattern which my OCD side really enjoyed.
The glass pyramid “Roomba”
Sew . . . why do you have a cat with you?
Here’s something you don’t know about me – I can sew. I know that’s an old fashioned skill to have here in the 21st century (Joe Biden) but I decided to learn in order to make window treatments. I have this odd habit of making up something in my head that I want and then driving Amylynn crazy to find it. As soon as a salesperson approaches to find out what we want, she walks away. But not before advising 
them to run away or resign. For the obvious reasons – that doesn’t always work out so swell.
This skill has come in very handy and it’s about to again.
You know when you’re in a store and you see an adorable dog and you think ‘Hey, why’s that doggy in here? I want to bring my dog in here.” And then you notice that the pup is wearing one of those tiny blue vests. They used to just be on guide dogs
OMG – we’re gettin’ a tiny horse!!!
for the blind but they’ve expanded dramatically beyond just assisting the sight impaired.
They are now called “service animals”. According to the ADA website – “Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, service animals are
animals that assist people with disabilities in some way. Under the ADA, trained service animals are welcome in restaurants, grocery stores, and public places. Store owners
Cat Service Animal – for Mental/Emotional Assistance
cannot ask what disability the animal owner has, and cannot refuse them service. If
a business owner out right refuses to let a person with a service animal in you can call the police to help the owner understand that what they are doing is illegal.”
We just love to involve the police in our days. We always say – “No day is complete unless the police or an ambulance is involved!”
Anyway, I have to stop blogging now. I’m going to sew up a JoJo Kitty sized little blue vest . . .
Shopping fun with Amy and Ava
A note from Amylynn: Ava is off in France, but before she left I made her write a couple of blogs to help me out while she’s gone. Enjoy!
Amy: No, I’m not driving you anywhere else to look for boots for your trip to France. I swear we’ve put 1082 miles on my car already, all at lunch, on that fruitless quest.
I did NOT make them up
Me: Please?! I just know if we go to one more store they’ll have them.
Amy: They most certainly will not. No store has them because you made them up. I can’t watch another sales girl quit over your demand for grey suede ankle boots with a wedge. (note from Amylynn: OH SWEET HEAVEN! It’s not just the boots. There is also a fruitless search for a structured gray suede purse with an outside pocket and silver hardware that’s not too big and not too small. Just thinking about it and I want to lay down)
Me: How about if we go to the nail polish store than?
Side note – we call it the nail polish store because it’s really a wholesale supply place for manicurists and all they sell is nail stuff there.
Amy: How can you be out of pinky off-white already? Weren’t we just there for that?
Side note: I only wear pinky off-white nail polish.
Me: I want greige.
Amy: Excuse me?
Beautiful Greige
Me: Griege – grey beige.
Amy: Yuk.
Me: How is that helpful? It’s all over the fashion magazines this month.
Amy: They’re not going to have that, it sounds awful.
Well, they had it. It was a little more grey than greige but I think it will do.
Amy to owner of store who’s always really nice to us and sells stuff to us wholesale even though we’re not licensed manicurist: That color is ugly, don’t you think?
Me before he can answer: It’s in all the magazines this month. And look they only have one bottle left. It must be popular. (note from Amylynn: It’s a ridiculously ugly color. I’m not just saying that. Even the sales guy made a face when he thougtht Ava wasn’t looking. Imagine the color nail polish a zombie would wear, now make it a little uglier. Blech.)
Amy: Tell her there’s only one bottle left because it’s ugly and you only bought one.
The poor owner of the store didn’t know what to say. He clearly wanted to sell me the bottle of polish – not because it was the only one he bought but because it’s a fabulous color and he wanted me to look nice in Paris. (note from Amylynn: Ava spends an inordinate amount of time fretting that the French people will make fun of her. Now I’m positive of it. “Ha ha ha.” They’ll chuckle with a French accent. “Look at that stupid American. The practical joke we leaked to Vogue totally worked.”)
I’m thinking about getting him to drive me around for those boots . . .
Another note from Amylynn: She found the boots – she ordered three from Amazon and they all worked. Her darling husband Ed picked one and made her send the rest back. Do recall that I drove her to every single store in this town during our lunch hour over the past month and she finally found them on Amazon. I could kill myself.