I’m languishing in Texas. Maybe that sounds melodramatic, but I fear it’s so. Are you confused? Here’s the definition in case you’re not sure what I mean.

lan·guish

ˈlaNGɡwiSH/

verb

1. (of a person or other living thing) lose or lack vitality; grow weak or feeble

2.suffer from being forced to remain in an unpleasant place or situation.

Here are some impressions I have of my trip and of Dallas, having never been here before:

Isn’t this a gorgeous color?

I made it into Texas, which was a miracle since apparently they were hardly letting anyone in. I’m certain they’ll come to regret it. Primarily because I’ve been complaining about the weather to any Texans who will listen.

So the Avis lady commiserated with me. She’s my favorite Texan so far. I almost got her talked into upgrading me to the Maserati Ghilbli they were promoting at the counter. You know I worked the hell out of that negotiation. Turns out instead she gave me a red 2016 Mustang with 900 miles on

Note all the ice on the car AFTER I drove it.

it. It would have totally rocked if the streets in Dallas hadn’t scared the hell out of me. This coming from someone who’s driven over 200 miles per hour on Homestead Raceway in Florida.

Every time I put my foot on the gas I spun out. Ice everywhere. This from a desert girl who has NEVER driven on ice before. I am in a car that made The Bandit so excited he nearly peed himself, and I’m too afraid to go over 40 miles per hour on the freeway.

To be fair, me and everyone else.

If I don’t break my leg slipping around on all this ice while I’m here it’ll be a miracle.

As part of the new day job, I have to go to Dallas this week. I am not excited. So much so, My Honey is tired of hearing about it already. Ava tried to forbid me from going, but sadly she must be ignored.

In theory, I could get a ton of writing done. I have a new project starting right now. My evenings are my own so that’s a possibility.

I could also go see some movies. I’m dying to see Birdman, especially now that it just won all those Oscars. And The Theory of Everything. And Whiplash. And American Sniper. It seems I don’t get out much.

I also have so much reading I’d like to do.

Sadly, none of these things ever seem to happen on work trips. I checked to see if the Dallas Stars were playing hockey at home this week, but no. Not until Friday – the day I come home. Not even an AHL game. Sigh.

At the very least, the 5 Things this week should be interesting.

Also, I’m missing My Honey’s birthday. I hate that. I love birthdays – even when they’re not mine.

I tried to make a cake for him today. I misspoke. I actually made a cake, it just took longer because I had to go to the store again. I left a pound of butter for the buttercream frosting on the counter to soften. I forgot about it and Roscoe the Idiot Dog let his nose get him in trouble again.

Around 3am he was walking around the house whining. He does this when he’s stolen food and he’s either feeling guilty about it or can’t figure out where to hide it. It’s like he’s begging to be caught. I got out of bed and removed an entire stick of butter from his mouth. Honestly, he seemed relieved. I couldn’t locate the other three sticks however and eventually gave up and went back to bed.

I awoke to piles of vomit around the house, all containing butter wrappers.

Like The Bandit noted, dog puke and butter is the worst possible combination. Roscoe has been feeling poorly ever since. I’d like to say I feel sorry for him, but he got what he deserved if you ask me.

Good news! The Sisters are getting the band back together. Ever since the layoff at BofNF we’ve worked at separate day jobs. (Correction – Ava worked, Amy got a free vacation.) Things did not go well. All we can say is thank the residents of Olympus that we’re not charged per text because the sheer volume of texts has been astounding. We don’t like being apart. It doesn’t go well for anyone. It’s not like we’re childish or anything, but we’re totally childish. We want – nay, need – to be together all the time so that other people aren’t subjected to our craziness. So starting in March, we’re back together in the same office. Let the rejoicing begin. As soon as feasible we’ll be getting the Worlds Greatest Receptionist over here too and the rest of the gang. We’re so excited we can’t even

We are wholly unimpressed with this watch

tell you. You should be excited, too. The stories get better when we’re together. Here’s some more funny stuff for you to ponder.

1. Our jigsaw puzzles weren’t worth squat. When we all worked at the other office of BofNF, we went to the Goodwill all the time to get jigsaw puzzles. While we were there we never saw anything of any real value. Apparently, we’ve been in the wrong Goodwill Stores. A watch collector in Phoenix was wandering around one of the stores and happened upon a rare Swiss watch on sale for $5.99. He sold it to a collector for $35,000.  That crap never happens to us. The watch in question was a 1959 Jaeger-LeCoultre diving watch. The Goodwill would like it pointed out that this

Uhhhh…not what we were expecting

proves there are great deals to be had at their stores. Of course not this good, but we liked our $2 puzzles.

2. This kind of thing always seems to happen in New Jersey. We’re just sayin’, maybe the people of NJ should take a good hard look at themselves. A rabbi in Lakewood has been arrested for running a kidnapping ring wherein a Jewish woman who found herself in want of a divorce from an unwilling husband could have the rabbi and his cohoorts snatch the guy and “persuade” him to grant her a Jewish divorce called a “get”. The tactics involved martial-arts type beatings, handcuffs, and cattle prods. When asked about this torture, the rabbi told the undercover cops, “If [the cattle prod] can get a bull that weighs 5 tons to move, you put it in certain parts of his body and in one minute the guy

These bangs alone are a crime worth jail time for

will know.” JEEZ! So for $50,000 you can have your soon to be ex tortured into submission. The Sisters can think of other people we’d offer up, but we’ve never been this angry at an ex. Nevertheless, we encourage the men of NJ to give their wives whatever they want.

3. On Ice, Ice Baby. Robert Van Winkle, known to children of the ’90’s as Vanilla Ice, has been arrested and accused of burglary and grand theft. He’s been doing “The Vanilla Ice Project” for the DIY Network where he does home rehabs. It seems he was renovating a home next door to an abandoned foreclosure in Florida when the empty house was ransacked. Apparently a bunch of the missing items were found at his work site. So now he sits in jail. Ava is duly upset. She has some bizarre fascination with this guy that Amylynn doesn’t pretend to understand. She wants to make a cake with a file in it to deliver to the jail. Amylynn is pretty sure we can find a better use for a cake. (I like the Vanilla Ice Project. It’s a good house flipping show no matter what Amy says. Don’t listen to her,)

4. Happiness. Look how much happiness can be found for $3.21 at Starbucks. It’s crazy how little one has to look in order to be blissful. A nice Venti latte, breve, no foam and a chocolate cake pop makes the Sisters gloriously happy. It’s kind of sad how easy

We hope we don’t win. We don’t want to ride bicycles.

we are. We’re not saying we won’t take a box from Tiffany, but if your budget is tight, we’re happy with cake pops.

5.The end of the HGTV Dream House contest. Seems a little backwards to be happy about this but we are. Every year the Sisters vow to enter every single day you can in hopes of winning the house. This year, the total prize package is worth over 2 million dollars. Why are we happy the entry period is over? Because the stress of making sure you enter every single day is too much. You can actually enter twice a day which caused even more stress. Somehow, the Sisters convinced themselves if they didn’t enter every day of the contest period they couldn’t win. Which is ridiculous because that would be cheating on the part of contest organizers. But there you have. We entered every day so you’re all invited to Martha’s Vineyard. See you there!

I was tired and crabby when I went to bed last night. It wasn’t really very late, but I was exhausted anyway. I grimaced as I walked down the hall because I could hear My Honey snoring the paint off the walls. My husband is a snorer of Olympic proportions. He’s legendary. Does he listen to his wife about going to the doctor? No, no he does not. And don’t any of you helpful internet people give me any bullshit suggestions like putting those ridiculous strips on his nose. Did that. Effing useless. It doesn’t matter what position he’s in either. He snores in every position. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. Even when I’m covering his face with a pillow.

I kid. I’ve not done that and I’m not going to admit it on this blog if I’d even considered it. Not with the FBI trolling here all the time because of a few cavalier comments made about panda bears. Bla bla bla national security my ass.

ANYWAY.

There are only a few options available to me if he’s in bed snoring away before I get there.

Option 1. Time it perfectly to climb into bed the very instant he hits one of those brief stages of sleep where his

snoring is severely diminished.

Option 2. Shove earbuds in my ears and go to sleep with my iPod playing loud music. I can sleep with this. I can not sleep with snoring. I’ve been known to sleep with Rob Thomas – with or without Matchbox Twenty. Also, the Irish punk band Dropkick Murphys. I know. You’re thinking that’s insane that I can sleep with that nonsense going on but not snoring. Punk music rarely makes me feel murderous. Fill in your own blanks.

The worse possible scenario is when he has rolled onto his side facing my side of the bed. At that point, I’d have a better chance of sleeping with a platoon of Marines marching over the bed. That leads me to Option 3.

Option 3. Poke and kick my beloved hoping he’ll turn over until he wakes up and gets mad. At that point, I pretend to be asleep and have no idea what he’s talking about when he wakes up all indignant. That’s what he gets.

Option 3 was what I faced last night.

I poked him excessively. When he woke up – very annoyed (imagine my expression) – I told him to roll over.

“I can’t,” he said. “I hurt my shoulder and can’t sleep on that side.” Then he promptly returned to snoring. In my face.

Even the dogs have been known to leave at this point.

I tried. I really did. I turned on The Foo Fighters and begged Dave Grohl to lull me into senselessness. It wasn’t happening so I snatched up my pillow in a huff and stomped off to my martyr bed – the miserable couch.

This evening I kissed him goodnight. “If you know what’s good for you, you won’t snore like that again tonight.”

“I’m sorry, honey.” He looked like he meant it, too. “But I really hurt my shoulder; I could hardly move my arm all day. Wanna hear how I did it?”

I rolled my eyes. “Was it in the service of doing something for me? No? Then I don’t care.”

He smiled. “No, you want to hear this.”

I huffed a heavy breath, shoved my hand on my hip and said, “Fine. Tell me.”

His grin grew wider. “I sneezed really hard.”

Holy shit we’re old.

This is the most important picture I have ever seen in my entire life. Seriously. It changes everything.

You’ve done this. Don’t act like you haven’t. The Sisters spent most of the ’80’s trying to get jeans on that were way too tight.

I wonder if other people in offices have the bizarre experiences that I do. Honestly, it’s like the universe likes to mess with me.

Late in the afternoon on Friday, I was sitting at my desk and I thought I saw something flutter by my office. I swear at first I thought it was a giant moth. Then I decided that was crazy and it must have been a reflection from the window. A bird must have soared by and it reflected off the grass. Everything was fine. No giant moths. That’s ridiculous.

Then the guy in the next office literally ran past, screaming – yes, screaming, “There’s a bat in the office! There’s a bat in the office!” Sort of like Paul Revere as written by Bran Stoker.

Wait? What? I followed him down the hall only to see the black thing flit into another office up front.

Our receptionist declared that she’d caught the last one and this time it was someone else’s turn. She shoved the guy into the office with a garbage can and a section  of newspaper then slammed the door behind him. I listened with eyes wide to the thumps and knocks from the other side of the door. Then he burst back out yelling, “I don’t get paid enough for this!”

I agreed whole heartedly. The three of us decided none of us did. We called the building manager, but they said they couldn’t send anyone until Monday. We hung a sign on the door, “BAT INSIDE ~ DO NOT OPEN!”

It seems this is the fifth bat that has somehow gotten in. We’re on the second floor and the windows don’t open – I assume it’s because they’re certain we’d use them to leap out and take our chances – so it didn’t come in that way. There are two exterior doors, but they’re never open because you must have a keycard to get in. None of the exterminators hired can figure it out.

I immediately texted Ava.

Me: There’s a f****** bat in the office! I can’t work like this!”

Ava: A bat? A real bat?

Me: YES!

Ava: Do we want a bat pet?

Me: No! Gross

Ava: We’d be the only girls with a bat pet.

Me: That is not what I want on my tombstone.

Seriously, if I’m going to get rabies it’s going to be from a bobcat like a normal person.

The first week of capitivity comes to an end. Everyone keeps asking us how it’s going and we guess that it’s going as well as can be expected. It’s better than being in actual prison, but then we keep coming back to the peace and quiet that would come with solitary confinement. As work goes, though, we shouldn’t complain. After all, we’re in an office with heating and air conditioning. We could be out roofing or digging ditches or something equally awful. Still, if you don’t think we’re going to complain, then you must be very new to this blog. We love nothing more than voicing a good complaint. Anyway, even though we’re at work these days we have plenty of time to amuse ourselves and you. Here we go.

1. Drink what? It has come to our attention that Mariah Carey is bored. That can be the only explanation for the fact that we discovered she is currently hawking water. We discovered this at the Walgreens on our corner (they’re on every corner. It’s their plan to take over the world. Be nice the the Walgreens people, soon they will be your overlord.) We are heartily amused by the packaging. It’s called Butterfly. Seriously. With no irony at all, it describes itself as, “A melodic beverage inspired by the magic of Mariah Carey.” It doesn’t stop there. The back extolls the following, “Butterfly gives everyone something new to sing about. Let this melodic blend of sophisticated sweetness lift you to your high notes every day that you pamper yourself with a sip of Butterfly inspired by Marah Carey.” We will tell you that it smelled like

Probably plague infested **shiver**

strawberries but tasted like perfume. Can you imagine the brainstorming session around this concept? Did we say BRAINstorming? We didn’t mean it.

2. The PLAGUE!!! Is still going strong! If you’re not alarmed you should be. The lastest bout is centered in Madagascar, having arrived in the wake of cyclones last month. So apparently, it’s not bad enough that your country is ravaged by cyclones, you get to have a deadly plague for dessert. It has already killed 57 of the 213 known cases. It continues to shock and amaze us that the plague is still a thing. We also DO NOT recommend that you Google “bubonic plague” because that will scare the hell out of you. And REALLY DO NOT look at the images. You’re not mature enough for that, we promise you. We do recommend that you don’t allow any rats to bite you. This has been a service announcement from the Quill Sisters.

3. Snakes are a thing. Say you live in Florida and you’re bored on a Friday night. You have absolutely no one to blame but yourself for that sorry state of affairs. We have discovered an activity that will keep you busy and possibly earn you money. No, not prostitution. Keep your pants on. Keep all your clothes on, please. Turns out the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is holding monthly sessions to train the general public on how to identify and catch “troublesome” snakes. We think all snakes are troublesome, but the FFWCC has specific guidelines. They mean Burmese pythons. Seriously. These non-native snakes have completly run Florida over and they’re sending the good citizens out there to catch ’em. We don’t know what they’re catching them with, but we suggest you stay in your damn car. Look at the size of that thing on the right. HOLY CRAP!

4. We still don’t think you should try spaghetti. A man in Marietta, GA received a ticket under the distracted driver law of that state. What was he doing you wonder? Was he shaving? Screwing his wife? Changing a diaper? Nope. He was eating a cheeseburger. In fact, the policeman who issued the ticked was reported as having said, “You can’t just go down the road eating a hamburger.” Of course, now we’re wondering how his driving was while eating the burger. Was he swerving? Bashing into other drivers? We don’t know what prompted the policeman to stop him in the first place and we never will because reporters never answer the important questions – like where he got this burger. Was there bacon on it? Anyway, a judge dismissed the case. Whew. Car Eaters Annonymous, Georgia Chapter can rest easy and nibble on their collective snacks.

5. Birthday woes. A woman wrote a letter to the newspaper advice column this week. She was frustrated because, while she remembers all her friends’ birthdays, they don’t seem to remember hers. She wants to know from the columnist what to do about this. Should she just forget it? Amylynn rolled her eyes SO HARD. No one ever forgets her birthday because she tells every one about it within the first 20 minutes of meeting her. (It’s August 5th, by the way.) Amylynn will then remind you on a regular basis of the date and how many shopping days you have left. She will expect a present and she makes that very clear. It is our position that if people forget your birthday you have no one to blame but yourself. Quit being a wuss! (Ava here – Amylynn left out the part about how she tells you to save a dollar a day for her present. She says it to near strangers as soon as she tells them her birth date. She even knows how many days are left until August 5 – as in “If you start today, you can still save $173.00 by August 5th.)

When my kids were little I used to color in their coloring books after they went to bed. I didn’t care if they were Strawberry Shortcake or Spiderman. My mother also loves to color. I shrug. Otherwise I have absolutely no artistic ability. I can string amusing grammatically correct sentences together and I can tell a story like nobody’s business. Ask me to draw anything, ANYTHING, and you will get a rudimentary stick figure. Seriously.

Doesn’t matter. I enjoy a nice coloring session. And crayons smell good, don’t you think? Kinda like Play-doh. Maybe I’m crazy. I shrug again. This is not news to you I’m certain.

There is a point to this blog, I assure you.

I found this today and I might have to track this down and get a copy. Isn’t this fabulous?

Off the top of my head – Some Cat Names:

1. Patches

2. Lolly

3. Blinky

4. Callie

5. Tiger

6. Wilford

7. Lucy

8. Fuzzy Boy

9. Hazel

10.  Basil

11. Clive