This weekend we went to see the Arizona Diamondbacks play the Los Angeles Dodgers in Phoenix. I got the tickets for My Honey for Christmas. On the way up there we stopped at the outlet malls.

Bad things happened.

Specifically at the Michael Kors store. 

There was this glorious bag. It spoke to me from the back of the store. I could hear it’s murmurings the minute I entered, but it took me a few minutes to find it. Once found, it was obvious it belonged to me.

Like Harry Potter with the parseltongue, I speak purse fluently.

This purse is beautiful. It has a handle as well as straps so it can be worn as a backpack. It’s butter soft black leather with leopard print fur on the flap.

Seriously.

How can a purse like this be ignored? It can’t.

The sale price was outrageous — 25% of the original price. I hadn’t intended to spend money on a purse. I dithered even while I stroked the leather.

Sassy said, “Buy it!” because she doesn’t work and has no idea what the hell she’s talking about.

I texted Ava.

“Tell me I don’t need the backpack purse from M Kors.”

“I have a backpack by Coach you can have if you need that,” she responded.

“It’s too late. Things happened.”

You can’t possibly blame me. Look at the thing.

The lady who sat next to me at the baseball game commented on how pretty it was. I even let her pet it.

We’re writing this at 9:51am on Friday, and we’re wondering how soon is too soon to try to figure out when we can get out of work. Also, we’d like a muffin. And another cup of coffee. Good coffee — not this crap the office gets. We could go on a Starbucks run, but the car is all the way downstairs and way across the parking lot. That’s really far. You know, perhaps our biggest issue today is that we’re feeling extraordinarily lazy. You know what would perk us right up? Coffee and a muffin. Why doesn’t Starbucks deliver? Can you imagine how much money they could make on that? We’re already willing to pay $5 for a cup of coffee; imagine how much people would pay if they didn’t have to walk all the way through the parking lot and get into a hot car to get it. And what if it came with a muffin? Hey, Starbucks people – get on that, would you.

1. Speaking of Starbucks. Did you know they make grilled cheese? They do. We found out entirely by accident. We met there for lunch so we could work on some book stuff which we probably didn’t do because we have a little trouble keeping our conversations on track. We were anticipating ordering the double smoked bacon, chedder and egg sandwich, but they were all out. The horror! So we asked the barista to tell us what she did have. The third thing out of her mouth was, “We have grilled cheese.” What? We love grilled cheese. What’s not to love? The Old-Fashioned Grilled Cheese has a three cheese blend of white cheddar, yellow cheddar, and mozzarella on nice thick multi-grain bread. It was wonderful. You should get it.

Ahhhhhhhh!

Unless you intend to get it at OUR Starbucks. Then, no. Grilled cheese is not for you. Also, you won’t like the chocolate croissants either.

2. Sweet Jesus, that’s terrifying. The town in New York that claims to be the hometown of Lucille Ball has put up a life-sized bronze statue of her in a local park. Isn’t that a lovely idea? Everyone loves Lucille Ball. She was adorable and wore polka-dots. Here’s the problem. The statue is hideous. You’re thinking, “Right. How bad could it be?” Hideous is not too strong a word. The face is the stuff of nightmares. The town wants the artist to fix it, but he’s saying it will cost him $10,000 to do the repairs. We think this is a hell of a scam. The other possibility is that he’s the sculpter version of the American Idol contestant whose singing voice cuts glass and makes children cry, but who is positive they are the next Barbara Streisand. Sometimes people just need to face facts.

3. Here is another reason why fishing is a bad idea. Besides the fact that it happens OUTSIDE and in a boat far away from bathrooms and coffee houses, it turns out fishing is relatively dangerous. Oddly not for the reason you’d think, though. A guy in San Diego was standing on a boat posing with a fish he caught when a hungry sea lion launched himself over the railing of the boat and grabbed the fish. Also the guy’s hand. Fish, man, and sea lion all went all the way to the bottom of the bay. That’s 20 feet. We suspect the sea lion was just as shocked as the guy when he realized his snack was a bit larger than he’d expected. And was wearing

Youuuu light up my liiiiiife

shoes. All of this could have been avoided if the man had just stayed inside like we’re always telling people to do.

4. And you thought only in Disney movies. It turns out mice sing. Their little voices are very high pitched, too high for human ears. Starting in the beginning of their wee lives, they sing for their mommies and then later, when the hormones kick in, for mates. Turns out the males are like a whole group of Back Street Boys. They sing loud complex songs when they’re looking for a lover. Once they find her, the song gets all longer and more gentle. Like they go from Motley Crue to John Legend. That’s kinda cute. We wonder if cats can hear their ultrasonic love ballads. If that’s the case, they need to keep it down at the Bright Compound. Jojo Kitty is totally on to you.

5. Shoes that fly! Amylynn got some new kicks! Remember when you were a kid and got new sneakers and you’d race around the store to see how fast you could run and stop, and how high you could jump? Her new shoes are epic. She’s wanted them forever, and when she saw them in the store this week it was a no brainer. These might be the coolest shoes in the history of shoes. Now we’re stalking Amazon so we can be the first kid on our block to get the Lasso of Truth as soon as it’s available.

Do you remember me telling you about my bat issue from several weeks ago? If not, refresh yourself here. It seems more people read this blog than we ever realized. Why else would there be an article in the paper entitled Warm Weather Safety Reminders?

First, I had to laugh at the Warm Weather comment. We’re already debating how early the first 100 degree day is going to come this year. At this rate, I’d put my money on next Tuesday.

As I read the article, I began to think it was written especially for the Sisters.

“First, let’s all give the wild animals a wide berth.” Who, me?

This is the sun – note the direct line right to Arizona

There’s a picture of an especially angry-looking bat with a caption that says, “Never touch or pick up a bat or other wildlife.”

I assure you, there is absolutely no chance whatsoever that we’re going to pick up a bat. They’re freaking scary looking. (Ava – I’ll pick one up, they’re cute when they’re upside down.) As for “other wildlife”, that’s totally happening.

Next the article suggests we “watch out for mosquitos.” Isn’t that the problem? You don’t really watch for mosquitos. You only know when there are mosquitos when you’re itchy. Perhaps it says you should listen for mosquitos. When I went to Alaska for my Bestie’s wedding, you could hear the mosquitos coming like B-52 Bombers. I’m not especially susceptible to bug bites. Actually, I rarely, if ever, get them. However, my mother and children are like a buffet for insects. This article suggests the best defense is to cover up with clothing. What clothing is this? My mother could wear head to toe netting sealed with duct tape and I’d bet there’d still be a bite or seventy.

The last bit of advice suggests you be mindful of the heat. Like you could be anything BUT mindful. You’re to wear a hat and sunglasses and slather yourself in sunscreen if you want to go for a run. Who the hell is running? Are you running from the mosquitos and the bats?

Additionally, we are to drink plenty of water. However, if there is going to be a bat and mosquito infestation this summer I’d suggest you forgo the water and go straight for margaritas. I have a theory that bugs don’t like the alcohol. Or maybe you won’t care as much about the bites if you’re drunk.

So, I’ve condensed all this advice into something useful.

Don’t go outside.

You’re welcome.

One of the many reasons my grandmother would have thought me a bad parent is because I let my son’s hair get really long and bushy before I take him for a hair cut. This past weekend he insisted it was time. He totally looked like a crazed hippy so I agreed. I had a free haircut coupon for a new place by our house – Sports Cuts. The boy doesn’t care – he’s used to Supercuts. After all he’s a boy.

The place looked cool – everyone is wearing uniforms like referees. There are a a bunch of televisions, all tuned to sports. He went in for his cut and I waited up front where I could watch both the basketball game and my boy. Quickly his hair disappeared and my little boy appeared. The floor looked like he’d been sheared like a sheep.

I thought this was odd, but the lady took him back to wash his hair after the cut. This is when it got really exciting.

While he was leaning back, relaxing, she placed a warm towel on his face and massaged his head during the shampooing.

THEN, when they got back to her chair, she massaged his neck and shoulders. Followed by spiking up his hair.

He came out in a remarkably good mood.

I asked him how he liked it.

“I want to get my hair cut every week!”

And who can blame him? That was awesome.

Happy April, everyone! Kitties are so silly!

The Easter Bunny is coming this weekend. The Sisters have set an elaborate trap for the fellow using a bunch of couch cushions, a bag of Starburst jelly beans, and an old bed sheet. If you live further west than the Sisters, and the bunny doesn’t make it to your house, then you can be assured our plan worked. Our husbands won’t let us go to China or points further to get the animals we want. Instead we have negotiated terms we can work with. Essentially it allows us to keep anything that “follows us home”. We’ve made a very loose interpretation of that agreement as we’re sure you can imagine. We always wanted a bunny and we figure a bunny with easy access to chocolate is the one for us. Wish us luck. Here’s more silly stuff.

1. They only sleep 16 hours a day. Redbox announced a new program called PetBox and it advertised itself as specializing in videos to keep your pet entertained while you are at work. Look, we’ve heard of stupider ways to waste money. The advertising photo included a bevy of adorable fuzzy creatures panting to rent Gone Squirrel and Pig Hero 6 among a bunch of adorably altered titles. If that in any way helps us get an alpaca, then we figured we’re in. Sadly, it turned out to be an April Fools joke. We’ll admit, we were kinda disappointed.

2. Maybe for a white cake square. You’ve probably heard about this already, but it totally cracked us up. There is a 4-year-old girl in Philadelphia who really, really likes Slushies.  She woke up in the middle of the night with a hankering. At 3am she unlocked the back door, walked herself to the bus stop and hopped on. The bus driver thought it was odd, but she seemed determined and well-organized. She chanted, “All I want is a Slushie” while she swung her short little legs in the seat. It didn’t even matter that it was pouring outside. Fortunately, the bus driver is a father of 3 kids, and though he found her excursion scary, it was also an amusing adventure. He called the police and she was reunited with freaked out parents. Unbelievably, there is no answer in the news article if she actually got her Slushie or not.

3. We think it’s brilliant. Some guy in Odessa, Texas outfitted his truck with lights and sirens. He even went so far as to wear a uniform. He is not a member of law enforcement. Not even a volunteer firefighter. Here’s the deal, he wasn’t trying to arrest people, which was poor planning on his part as far as we’re concerned. He used these effects to get through stop lights around town. He got caught when he used the lights and siren

She looks like she means business

to cut in line at a fast food drive through. You can’t mess with people and their value meals. He got nabbed for impersonating an officer. A hungry one obviously. People always get caught when they get greedy.

4. Seems a bit extreme. A woman in Akron, Ohio stabbed her boyfriend because he ate all her salsa. This may have been a bit of an over the top reaction. We mean, really, salsa? We’ve never in our lives ever tasted salsa that was good enough to get that worked up over–not even the mango kind. It’s not like he ate all the chocolate chip ice cream or sampled a bit too much of her Godiva chocolate from Valentine’s Day or something. Still, the more we think about it, the more we can sorta understand where she’s coming from. When you go to the kitchen and you have a deep yen for a specific thing and it’s not there things can go very badly. We suggest this lady come with a warning label for the next guy. You know. In the spirit of full disclosure.

5. Obviously. We did a quick search on this blog and it turns out that Cadbury Eggs were never one of our favorite things. Seriously. We couldn’t believe it either. How could we have been so remiss? We’ll make up for it now. Here is a Cadbury inspired haiku.

Chocolate egg, my love; At only Easter. My love; my egg, till next year.

This is our new cover. We’re super excited.

We’ll bet she even has amnesia.

My laptop is dead. This is bad. A writer needs a computer. There are some people like Ava who prefer handwriting their manuscripts, but not me. If I handwrite anything there’s so many cross outs and arrows moving things around you can’t even read it.

But alas, the laptop is giving up the ghost. It’s a disaster. I won’t go into its symptoms but they’re not pretty. If my computer could manifest snot, it would have a lot of it.

So I took it to the computer hospital. When I walked it I saw two likely computer doctors inside the door.

“We’re going to need and old priest and a young priest,” I said in all seriousness.

The guy started laughing. “Having some trouble with your computer?”

“That’s putting it mildly.” I followed him to the back counter.

I described my issues and he made appropriate faces of horror and pity. He told me he thought it might be my hard drive. I suspect he is right. He started typing into his system.

“Are we going to have to euthanize it?” I’m actually not thinking of putting it out of its misery. I don’t care if it suffers. It’s making me suffer. An eye for an eye is my way of thinking.

“No, I doubt it.” He tapped some more stuff into his computer.

“Maybe it’s just all the cat hair?” I suggested hopefully.

He laughed and then realized I wasn’t kidding. There was more tapping. “Oh, it could be. Is there a lot of cat hair?”

“Well, it depends.” I thought of Jojo Kitty and his prodigious shedding.

“The diagnostics should take 2 to 4 days, but at least it will tell us what’s wrong.”

“I know what’s wrong. It hates me.”

He laughed but it didn’t sound exactly mirthful. What does scared laughter sound like. “It’s an inanimate object. It doesn’t hate you.”

“You don’t know.”

I left my traitorous computer with him. As I left, I told him to keep an eye on it. It was known to be shifty.

As the door was closing, I could hear his computer keys tapping away. I’d really like to get a look at those notes. I’ll bet they have me pegged as a complete whack-a-doodle.

On Friday night The Bandit and I went to the school Mother Son Dance. Every time we attend this function — our second year in a row — I feel like Jane Goodall watching the chimps. That phenomenon not exclusive to this event. It can happen at soccer games or birthday parties, really anyplace a group of boy will gather. This event just happens to be the best for anthropological study because there is no other activities for them to be distracted by.

Upon showing our ticket and entering the party (in the decorated cafeteria) we were given a goody bag. There were a few pieces of candy and a large bouncy ball. You know the kind. You can get them for like fifty cents in a gumball machine. These were larger than usual; I couldn’t close my hand around this one. About the size of a small plum.

What do you think happens when you give 40 eight to twelve-year-old boys bouncy balls? I swear I’m just happy no one died.

Then the dancing began. We could have been in a commercial for seizure medication. There is absolutely no room for decorum or sophistication when it comes to how boys dance. As far as I know, no one was hurt by this display either, although it’s a miracle.

Next year, I’m bringing a notebook for observations and protective eye wear. I fully expect to be nominated for an award. Nobel – here I come.

Amylynn got a tetanus and a MMR booster today. The doctor asked her which arm she wanted to hurt. Why does it have to hurt? Why? She picked her left. Since she’s a right-y she rarely uses that left one anyway. Really it’s just there to keep her shirts balanced. She doesn’t even use it to turn on Dave’s blinker. We firmly believe blinkers are for wusses. Unless you’re in Albuquerque. If you’re there please note that they take their turn signals very seriously. Don’t mess around. EVEN if you’re in the lane clearly marked LEFT TURN ONLY you had better have that left blinker blinking its little guts out. Somehow this turned into a rant about New Mexico’s traffic laws and that’s not where we expected it to go. You’d be surprised how many of our actual conversations veer off like this. Actually, you probably wouldn’t. Nevermind. Here’s some funny stuff.

1. Get ready to rumble! The oldest Bright kids are in Denver right now at the First Robotics competition. This year’s robot is named Elio, and he’s a looker! He’s already helped the kids win an award in AZ last weekend, and he’s raring to go in CO. His job is to clean up trash and save the planet. We’ll bet he can do it, too. Go Elio!

2. Have you seen the traffic? A guy got a ticket in Fife, Washington this week for Driving With Cardboard. It’s possible that wasn’t the reason stated on the ticket. Point in fact, he was driving with a cardboard cut out of the Dos Equis beer guy – you know the one – The Most Interesting Man in the World – in the passenger seat in the HOV lane. We looked that up once cause we didn’t think Hippos On Viagra was what the Department of Transportation was actually thinking when they printed up the signs. It means High Occupancy Vehicle. Thank God for Google. Anyway, the dude was stopped by a motorcycle cop because apparently it’s not legal to be interesting. Or something like that. We’ll bet the driver thought it was interesting when he got a $126 ticket, and we’ll bet his boss also thought it was interesting when he was late for work.

3. Space age La Di Da! Have you seen the new Mercedes luxury car? The F015 Luxury in Motion is very aptly named.  It’s a self-driving, hydrogen-electric automobile with 4 swiveling seats, 6 digital touch screens, 2 LED displays, and a laser projection system. Did you catch that part in the beginning where we said “self-driving”? That means you could read or sleep or whatever the hell you want while cruising down the road in luxury. Except have sex. The seat configuration doesn’t really scream, “sex me up!”. Although it’s certainly possible. We’re not advocating that, you understand. We think the whole idea predicts one hell of a case of motion sickness and you definitely shouldn’t throw up in a F015 Luxury in Motion we don’t care how good the sex is.

4. Mmmmm, pizza. The Brights were on a quest for dinner the other night. We’d stood around in the kitchen and stared in the refrigerator and pondered the pantry and came up with nothing. It wasn’t that there wasn’t food. On the contrary, it was just one of those nights when nothing appealed. So we went out into the world to forage. We ended up at the new Pizza Studio. The idea is that each personal pizza is made to order – every thing from toppings, to sauce, to the type of crust. With the exception that they were out of mushrooms – !!! – we give it a thumbs up. Make sure you try the rosemary herb crust. Delicioso!

5. The sisters were nowhere near Missouri. We’re just putting that out there first before someone casually mentions it. Two camels and 2 steers were stolen from a Missouri farm this week. First of all, the Sisters have absolutely no use for steers. There’s no way we’re going to get permission to put their horns on the front of Ava’s Jaguar anyway. The camels however gave us pause. We’ll admit that, while we didn’t do any camel-napping, we are kinda fascinated with the beasts. They’re very pretty with those long eyelashes. Our favorite part of the news story was when it was pointed out that the thieves probably used a trailer to steal the 9 foot camels and their bovine friends. You think? It would have been a much better story if they had just climbed on board their humps and ridden them away on the freeway. That’s how you know we weren’t involved. Absolutely no style was used in this crime. We’ll probably be caught, but at least the story will be stylish and funny – what with the low speed camel chase on the freeway and all.