We went to the Street Fair this weekend. On the way out we decided to eat at one of our favorite restaurants on 4th Avenue. It’s in an old house and the rooms wind around out to a patio. We were seated in the “new” room in which the acoustics are awful.

When we sat down, there was already a two-top and a party of about eight. So far so good.

After we’d ordered, fifteen of the loudest people on the planet filed into our room and instantly the decibel level rose to five billion. We could no longer hear each other across from out little four-top table.

My Honey looked like his head was gonna explode, he was so frustrated. I however found it quite funny. I have no idea why, since usually I’m the one with the short fuse who hates other people. Regardless, we started to get a little silly, making exaggerated hand gestures to pass the bread, cupping our hands into megaphones and giggling away.

At one point, the Bandit came up with a complicated plan to make the other table be quiet. Keep in mind we couldn’t hear 90% of the overall plan but we did clearly ferret out the tools required to execute the plan.

The Bandit suggested we get the following: A plastic bag, a vacuum, a yellow Canadian air conditioning hose and some gasoline.

We are unsure if Canadian air conditioning hoses are different from say the ones from the United States, Albania or Zimbabwe. Also, My Honey, who is an air conditioning guy, is unsure how the Bandit would have ever known about yellow hoses, but the kid apparently knows more than we give him credit for.

I’m thinking of calling Myth Busters to see if they can take these things, put them together and make people shut up.

If it works, we’re filing it with the patent office ASAP.

This time we’re serious. Spring has sprung and there will be no back sliding. Are you listening, Mother Nature? We don’t want any fun little 29 degree mornings or adorable snow at lunch time. You dedicate yourself to this spring concept and give it 150%. Do you need a bribe? A pep talk? What? We want to help. Truly. Help us to help you. If you give us a spring we promise to plant pretty flowers. Deal? While you mull that over, MN, we’ll talk about these five things.

1. 1. Neil Peart. One of the Sisters married a Rush fanatic. She’s been forced to attend several concerts and she goes because she loves her husband. A lot. Another sister was recently made to watch a several hour biographical movie about the band and what she came away with was a new and abiding love for Neil Peart, the drummer. Neil is an author of several books – both of which the above husband has read – as well as the lyricist for the band. You can blame all that Tom Sawyer nonsense on him. Besides the published author thing, he’s also an obvious people hater just like the sisters. We can completely get behind that concept. If he doesn’t actively hate other people then, at the very least, he can’t be bothered with them, not backstage, not at meet-and-greets, not on the bus. We’d be your perfect fans,
   

   Our shivs will be much more hygenic than this disgusting example

   Neil. As far as we’re concerned, we’re happy to sit in a corner and read as well.

2. Shivs. We have no idea how this came to be one of our favorite things, but for some reason the prison knives keep coming up in our conversations. We had some trouble at work the other day and a logical solution was to file down a plastic spoon (remember we have no forks) into a shiv and gank a bitch. Look how street we’re getting. You don’t need a permit to carry a shiv so they have that going for them. They’re also not loud like a gun and you can easily tuck it into your sock. We’re considering making a whole line of Quill Sister shivs. We’re thinking either pink or the blue/brown combination; maybe we can get licensing to use the Hello Kitty likeness. She’s on everything else so why the heck not?
3. Concert tours. We just found out that KISS and Motley Crue are touring together this summer. We’re not sure why this amused us so much, but there was laughter. Back in the day, we’ve seen both these bands on separate tours, but now we’re old and they’re even older. When this was mentioned to the Rock ‘n Roll husband, his response was something like, “you just found that out?” implying that we were seriously out of the metal band loop. Obviously we’re out of the metal band loop. We’re in our 40s for Zeus’s sake. We know when Julia Quinn and Jennifer Ashley books are due out. We suspect that R&R husband only knew about this because KISS personally called some of his band
   

   Winnie surrounded by her destruction

   members to alert them to the tour and an opportunity to drop $1,000.00 on tickets. If it’s alright with you, we’ll just hang out at the bookstore with a latte and buy $995.00 worth of books.

4. Happy puppies. Remember Winnie the Love Mutt that Amylynn got for Christmas? That dog is so funny. There is no puppy in the world happier to see you – every single time she sees you – than Miss Winnie. You put her outside to pee and then open the door ten minutes later and she’s like, “HI! Oh. My. God. I have so missed you.” If she happens to wander into a room and you’re there her response is always, “WELL HELLO! WHATCHA DOING? I LOVE YOU!” It’s really fabulous for the ego or if you’ve had an especially bad day. When you come home she’ll be the first to greet you with a happy, licky tongue and a joyful expression. Happy puppies are the best.
5. Hunger Games. Amylynn and Ava read these books and loved, loved, loved them. We’ve debated the appeal over and over – especially since there is an attempt to write a YA in the very near future. Amylynn even didn’t go to lunch several days this week so she could go at lunch to see the movie when it came out. Suzanne Collins has written a truly excellent series. Katniss Everdeen is a girl’s hero for the ages and the actress who plays her does an excellent job of making her strong yet struggling to keep her humanity.