October 23

Can you believe Halloween is next week? How is that possible? Time has just sped by. One thing that is still exciting about this time of year is costumes. Even at the Sister’s advanced ages, we still feel like kids when it comes to trying to figure out what to be for Halloween. The options are nearly endless. Should we be scary or cute? One of these days Amylynn wants to be Cinderella but she refuses to do it until she has an actual Cinderella ball gown. Not one of those cheapy things at the costume stores. A real blue and silver ball gown with underskirts and sparkles. It will cost a fortune to have it made but that’s the deal. No ball gown = no Cinderella. Also, a zombie could be appealing but we suspect that makeup is really itchy. Now that we’re in our bronze years (not silver and certainly not golden but old enough to know better) we can see all the advantages to a comfortable costume. We look forward to eating about a hundred stolen Butterfinger minis over the next weeks. Here’s some stuff to mull over.

1. A moth by another other name… There is an auction on Ebay to win the rights to name a moth. We went on to Ebay and couldn’t find this listing, although we did find lots of other stuff of interest. The gist of this auction as we understand it is as follows. An entomologist named Eric Metzler found a new species of moth in White Sands, New Mexico. We can’t understand how these bugs stay hidden for so long in some place like New Mexico. It’s not like it’s the Amazon jungle or something where a bunch of its inhabitants are probably never going to be discovered. Nevertheless, it’s a new moth – a tiny one weighing in at less than an ounce and measures about an inch. It’s been eight years since the discovery and still no name. Hence the auction. We’d like to nominate something classic and a bit funny considering the thing’s size. How about Mothra? Give the bug a little ego trip. Seriously, consider it.

2. The world’s richest man. We’re talking richer than you can ever imagine. And yet, he’s photographed wearing this shirt. ***eyeroll*** What do we know? He was probably on his own yacht whereas we may be wearing cute shirts today, we still went to our crappy jobs in Amylynn’s 10-year-old SUV. Anyway, he’s the guy that owns the European clothes dynasty Zara. We’ll be the first to admit we’ve never heard of him, but again, what do we know. We think we bought the shirts we’re wearing now – cute as they are – at Target. Anyway, at the time of the article this morning, Amancio Ortega had a fortune of 79.8 billion dollars. BILLION. As in a bunch more than a million. The article also stated he made over $4 billion over night and that’s how he overcame Bill Gates. OVER NIGHT!! While we were sleeping in our too-old mattresses on sheets from Bed Bath and Beyond that we got with a coupon. It didn’t last long. Bill’s back on top, but you shouldn’t worry about Amancio. We’re pretty sure he’s going to be ok. We’ll also bet he lets his wife have a dog when she asks nicely.

3. Diet with proven results. This comes from the brilliant and skinny Natalie Schafer. You might remember her as the charming Mrs. Thurston Howell III on Gilligan’s Island. She claimed that she could lose three pounds in five days on a diet she invented. She called it the Ice Cream Diet, and we think she’s a genius. The plan goes as follows: She ate a quart of ice cream a day. First a bowl of vanilla with her coffee in the morning. Then two bowls of different flavors at lunch, a bowl of any flavor as an afternoon snack and then two bowls for dinner. Honestly. We’re pretty sure that’s a diet we could stick with.

4. Very important scientific studies. While the Sisters do think that scientific study is really important especially when it comes to space exploration, curing cancer, and figuring out why we’re fat, we’re very appreciative that there are still exciting studies like this one just published in the US National Library of Medicine being funded. If you’ve ever been concerned that you’re addicted to cheese, you probably are. Apparently, the University of Michigan wondered about it enough that they tested 500 students against the Yale Food Addiction Scale. Turns out cheese is highly addictive because it has an ingredient called carsein. It’s in all milk products so don’t panic. During digestion it releases opiates called casomorphins. That explains the cheese stuffed mushrooms, the fried cheese, the quesadillas, the fondue, the pizza, and the cheese and crackers we ate for lunch. Still not more addictive than cupcakes. Wait, we might have figured out why we’re fat.

5. Spotify. We love our music. Not everyone agrees. In fact our children are the President and CEO of What-is-That-Crap-You’re-Listening-To? Club. But here’s the thing, we love the music we love. That doesn’t mean we want to buy a whole album of that stuff. Thus the glories of the electronic age. We play the hell out of our Spotify with our electronic singles of the classics. Of course we only have like three songs on there because we have to get our kids to help us load more music and then we have to put up with their criticisms. So we’ve played Papa Was a Rolling Stone and House of the Rising Sun about 75 thousand times. If things don’t work out with mortgage lending, we’re fully ready to go on the road as back up singers.