August 7

Amylynn’s birthday came and went and she did not receive a panda bear, a clouded leopard, or a prehensile porcupine. She didn’t even get a puppy. Not even a kitten, and people give those away free all the damn time. She goes into this event every year thinking, “This might be the year!” It never happens, of course. Maybe it’s because people don’t want her to be happy. One thing for sure though, she’s a glass is half-full kinda person. Eternally optimistic, and all that. No other idiot gets her hopes up every year like she does. Each year her plan consists of telling every single person who asks her that she wants a puppy. It’s gotta happen eventually. Poor stupid girl. Here are some other silly things.

1. A cow with attitude. The City of Mesa is thinking of suing the University of Arizona because one of their cows got loose and created havoc. It seems a volunteer was “escorting” said cow to a 4-H Livestock event when things went sideways. The cops were called and they attempted to corral the beastie, but their efforts did not go smoothly. Not even when one of the cops tried to subdue it with a Taser. Eventually, they found a cowboy who had to get his horse out of a trailer and rope the cow and another cowboy wrestled it to the ground, but not before one police man injured his hand and four squad cars sustained damage. The police were even thinking of charging the volunteer with some crime or another for letting the cow get loose in the first place. The Sisters can feel for the cow. We’ve been mistaken for bovines before, and it’s made us a little testy, too.

2. The plague, again. We keep our ears to the news for important stuff. One of the things we pay particular attention to are reports of the reemergence of The Plague. We’ve found our first report of someone dying from the plague in our country this year. Actually, two of them. In Pueblo, Colorado. If this doesn’t freak you out, then you’re not paying attention. It’s the plague people. THE PLAGUE. It killed 200 million people in the 1300’s. Yeah, that plague. The moral of this story is that you shouldn’t touch dead rats. We’ll keep you posted. You’re welcome.

3. More death! Another scary thing we keep an eye on is Legionnaires Disease. Don’t get complacent because its still out there, too. In New York City eight people have died  and 97 people have been diagnosed. Mostly it seems to be contained in the South Bronx, but New York is New York. As you may recall, the Sisters were in Manhattan last month. We don’t know about you, but this seems significant to us. Apparently it was significant to the people at Romance Writers of America because they sent out an email letting it’s members know that no evidence of contamination has been noted in Times Square. Still, we’re paying special attention to our coughs and we’re going to look it up on WebMD. We’ll let you know where to donate for our health care.

4. No, not that Tarzan. Oh California, we can always count on you if Florida doesn’t step up. A man claiming to be Tarzan has been arrested for allegedly climbing a tree at the Santa Ana Zoo and trying to get into the monkey exhibit. Reports state he was wearing no shirt and was probably high on methamphetamine. The most important part of this story is that he got away. Oh sure, he was arrested eventually, but he got away at first. You can giggle all you want, but this guy has gotten closer than the Sisters ever have. We think with proper planning – and the absence of mind-altering drugs – this could work out.

5. Jordan Almonds. The Sisters love these things. Like a lot. So much so that we are able to abandon our obsessive compulsive propensity to eat candy by specifically ordered color and simply eat these all willy nilly. We’ve talked about it quite a bit in the last several days and we think part of why we like them so much is because eating them is so inherently dangerous. You never know if this particular candy will be the one that breaks a molar. We’re not saying they’re hard, but seriously. You feel like a rebel when you eat them. And we eat the hell out of them until our stomach’s hurt. We’re fairly certain we’re idiots.