The Sisters work in an industry where people spend a great deal of the time in a panic. Understand that this is self-induced panic, not related in any way to any real life or death situation. This does not stop people in my industry and its periphery from FREAKING THE HELL OUT!

Sadly, we can be the most competent people in the world and when we sense someone’s freak out coming, and we know it’s gonna be bad, we turn into a complete jelly fish with a heart condition. It can’t be healthy. We’re 100% certain we’re damaged in the head for going back into this industry. There are days we’d consider doing almost ANYTHING if someone offered us a job doing it and we could get the hell out of where we are.

We’ve long had this fantasy of owning a book store. A lovely little shop with lots of windows, tables to sit at for hours, lots of outlets for your laptop. We’d have a shop cat, of course. Maybe a dog. Who knows. The place would smell of paper, bindings, coffee and pastries.

And you know what? We can’t imagine anything that would happen in a book store that would put someone in a panic. Except maybe a fire. There is nothing that occurs in a bookstore that anyone would freak out over. It’s a wonderful place. A womb with things to read and maybe a nibble. A place to be content.

Sounds like heaven.

I love tests, especially ones that don’t mean anything. I’m hyper competitive about things, especially stupid things. I just can’t help myself.

Here’s a test we can all pass. I think. I don’t know, maybe you don’t do these things. If so, I doubt we can be friends.

I know you think we’re crazy over here at the Quill Sisters. We are, but not for the reasons you think. The reason I mention this is because I’m going to bring up something that makes me sound a bit like an alarmist. Maybe I am, but this is some alarming stuff.

The Sisters have long had the opinion that going outside is bad news. Everything out there is trying to kill you. I have more proof.

Outside is where squirrels are. Sure, squirrels seem awfully cute with that fluffy tail and quick, smart eyes but things aren’t all as innocent and adorable as they seem. Don’t be drawn in by that tail.

Several — meaning two — squirrels have died in Yosemite National Park from PLAGUE. We brought this up just last week and there was some disbelief out of some of you. It’s true. The plague

That is a magnificent tail, but NO!

is still alive and taking down rodents. We’re very happy to tell you that the campground has been closed to spray for fleas, but not before a child was hospitalized with the plague. The kid lived — which of course is very good — but still.

PLAGUE.

If that wasn’t enough to convince you not to go outside, I want to tell you about another alarming trend at Yosemite.

A large limb fell off a tree crushing a tent and killing two youngsters inside. The people at Yosemite admit that falling limbs happen all the time, even giving a list of incidents. They’re probably being bounced on by plague-y squirrels.

If this isn’t reason enough to stay indoors, well then, we don’t know what is.

Like much of the world, the Sisters have had a great big crush on Daenerys Targaryn. We’ve narrowed it down to the fact that she has dragons. Dragons she can sic on people she doesn’t like. How freaking fantastic would that be? So then we started wondering, since apparently dragons aren’t real, maybe we could train our cats to do our bidding instead. That’s what we really, really need–someone to do our bidding, we don’t care if they’re scaly with wings or fuzzy with sharp nails. Since our bidding is evil, cats should fit well into those plans. You know how cats are. We may need more cats. This is

This is the road to the grocery store.

where we run into trouble with our plan. You read this while we keep working out the kinks.

1. Phoenix is sinking. That’s what the scientists say, anyway. It seems it’s going down three-quarters of an inch a year. They say this is the result of ground water pumping decades ago, but we know better. This is all evidence that Phoenix is getting closer and closer to Hell. You don’t think so? Clearly you don’t live here. Now we’re not in Phoenix — thank Zeus — but we’re nearish and we are able to confirm to you that it is HOT AS HELL THERE. See, 3/4 of an inch closer every year. If you don’t believe in Hell, then the scientific reason is that magma is HOT and we’re getting closer to it. Either way, these are perfect conditions for a dragon.

2. More interesting than seaweed. Some teenager from Berlin was swimming in a lake in the German Alps when she found a 17.6 ounce bar of gold in the water about six feet under. Like all honest idiots who find good stuff like bars of gold and bags of money that fell off an armored truck, she turned it into the police. They have no idea where it came from or what the heck it was doing in the lake. They promptly dove into the water, but they didn’t find anything else under there. We never get lucky and find good stuff in lakes. We don’t even find ducks. We’re clearly going to the wrong lakes. (Okay, let’s be honest. We don’t really go to lakes.  Lakes are kept outside. We’re opposed to the outside unless some promises us a gold bar.)

3. Do you suppose she used wrapping paper? A baby baboon was missing from the Skopje zoo. Skopje is in Macedonia, in case you didn’t know. We didn’t know. In fact, we’re not ashamed to tell you that we’re not entirely sure we can tell you where Macedonia is with any real clarity. It was discovered that a woman stole the baby monkey as a birthday present for her son because he was in love with it. Because of course she did. We’re rather depressed to discover that no one loves us enough to steal us a monkey. It’s a good thing we don’t really want a monkey, but there are plenty of other animals we do want. Dear Macedonians, the Quill Sisters are available for adoption. Do you have any lion cubs?

4. It’s the Boston accent. This Sister firmly believe that we don’t need any new shows. We don’t want you to tell us about some great show you’re watching. We don’t want to watch just one episode to see if we like it. We will and that causes us trouble. Our list of must see TV is way too long as it is. Imagine how annoying it was when Ava accidentally found Ray Donovan on Showtime. She wouldn’t shut up about it and now Amylynn is nearly done with the 1st season. It’s a very good show. Liev Schreiber is great. Jon Voigt is better. The cast is excellent. And Liev takes his shirt off at least once an episode. Great show, shirt off – double win! If you have a hole in your television schedule…

5. This kid should get the latest bus pass. Did you hear about that kid in Switzerland who wanted the latest model Ferrari, but he was afraid to ask his dad for a new one, so he set the old Ferrari on fire to collect on the insurance money to buy it? We’d like to point out that this car was only one of twenty luxury cars this kid owns. Seriously. If we thought we wouldn’t go to prison, we’d consider setting things on fire in order to get replacements. Sadly, the person we want to engulf in flames won’t burn, being the Devil and all. We really, really need a dragon or two. (Truthfully – this kid should get a beating not a bus pass.  Nitwit.)

Today is International Left Handers Day.  Which means it started in America but being American we put “International” anywhere we want to put it.  Anyway, I’m left handed so people spent the day telling me all of the left handed facts they looked up because they wanted to be funny.

Left handed people are more likely to become alcoholics. That’s true but no one ever tells you why.  So let me – we are more likely to become alcoholics so we don’t have to pay attention to you rightys telling us stupid sh*t on International Left Handers Day.

Left handed people are more likely to be schizophrenics. Of course we’re schizophrenic. We live in a world trying to use sharp objects clearly not meant for us. We don’t understand how to read street markings because they’re BACKWARDS. We use both

remember these torture devices?

hands because we have to do so in order to survive. And by the way, which hand should we wear our watches on? Who knows?! We don’t. All of this makes us, well, schizophrenic.

Left handed people are more easily frightened than right handed folks.  Of course we are. You’d be more easily frightened too if you were dropped into an alien world not built for you. How the hell are we supposed to use a measuring cup for goodness sake when the markings are on the wrong side.  We drive on the wrong side of the road! Forget about using a pencil sharpener. See? Frightening.

After spending the day defending “my kind”, I will leave you with one solid fact – left handed people make more money than right handed people.  It’s true. Go ahead and look it up. Oh sure, we die nine years earlier than everyone else so we don’t have as much time to spend those extra dollars but while we’re here we’re going to buy all the left handed scissors we can get our hands on and become President of the United States or as we call it here in America –  “International President of the United States.”

I’m going to tell you a tragic story.

The Bandit has a cell phone. That’s not the tragedy – it’s wonderful because now we have something to threaten him with.

The Tragedy in this story is the invention of Caller ID. Now you might have thought that was a good thing, but not when you’re a ten-year-old boy.

Don’t you remember how fun it was making crank phone calls? Today’s children will never really know this childish joy because your phone number – and usually your name – comes up when you call someone.

No one is fooled when this picture comes up, compounded by his special ringer, and his name plastered across the screen.

I doubt I would have been fooled anyway when I answered the phone and a poorly accented voice informed me that he was calling from Tony’s Pizza and someone had ordered 20 pizzas to come to my house and he was demanding payment.

Possibly the giggling gave him away as well. I wasn’t ever able to pull off a good crank call without giggling either.

My brother had me sneak into The Bandit’s phone and change his ID to read Ronald McDonald. He promised to terrorize the kid with crank calls. Sadly, nothing yet but I remain hopeful.

I totally, totally need a Harvey!

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.

It was today! I’ve been quite restrained with my broadcasting of this fact. So much so, some people were worried.

My day started out with a box of Jordan almonds My Honey gave me to take to work. It was only about two hours in when my tummy started hurting. You’d think I could behave myself and not eat 1/2 a box of candy, but you’d be wrong. Ava took them away from me in an attempt to save me from myself. About 10 minutes later, her tummy was hurting from the damn almonds. Seriously, you’d think… Nevermind. I’m not even going to complete that sentence.

Then our office mate went around and told everyone I was 50 today. I’m definitely NOT 50. No, I am not! I have paperwork to prove it.

Sassy made me cake and I got great presents.

Google even gave me a birthday logo.

I love birthdays! Love, love, love them.