So we got this weird phone message at the house line regarding some money owed to the IRS. My initial reaction was, “Whaaaaa?” I wrote down the number and called this morning.

The man who answered made me immediately suspicious. His Indian accent was so thick I could barely understand him. He rattled off something about the call being recorded by the IRS, legal officials, and the police. My eyebrows gathered together.

Then he said that the IRS had audited us from 2008 and 2012 and determined that we had willfully attempted to fraud the US Government out of $3,981.00. I thought that was odd.

Let me just stop the narrative at this point to tell you that, IF I was inclined to commit fraud against the US Government it would be for a hell of a lot more than $3,981.00. I’m not going to prison for that paltry sum. I can’t even get a decent black market panda for less than $20,000. I’ve checked.

Back to the story.

He then informed me that they were seizing all my property and putting me in jail. I calmly asked if he intended to send me the regular round of official correspondence in this regard? He rattled off some highly accented bullshit legalese that I could barely understand but the gist of it was that he didn’t have to. He basically followed that up with the Hindu version of nanny-nanny-poo-poo.

Obviously I was highly suspicious at this point.

I asked if there was possibly someone who spoke English that I could speak to about this matter. That’s when he got nasty. Nastier, actually. He yelled at me that the sheriff would be at my front door with agents from the IRS to arrest me in the next 45 minutes. Seriously. Not 46 minutes and not 44. He knew the time frame.

Then HE hung up on ME!

I got off the phone and Googled the phone number and – surprise, surprise – there was a gazillion responses about this scam. So I blocked my caller-id and called the number back.

He answered right away.

“What are you wearing?” I asked. He hung up.

I waited an hour. I wanted to make sure he knew the sheriff hadn’t shown yet and I couldn’t wait around all day. I have things to do today. Nevertheless, I was willing to hang in there if they promised solitary confinement.

Awesome jpg borrowed from lifehacker.com

I called back. “I’m with the Homeland Security. We have reason to believe you have woefully–” He hung up again.

I wrote a page of Chapter 34 and called the number again.

“Is Barbara there?”

He didn’t immediately hang up. Score! He informed me in his accent that there was no Barbara there.

“How about Walter?”

“No.”

“Gwendolyn?”

“No.” He was beginning to get a bit huffy.

“Phillip?”

“No.”

“OK. Just tell Juan Fernando Guadalupe Jorge Rodriguez that I’m on the line for him.”

I think my giggling clued him in. It couldn’t have been my outstanding Spanish accent. He hung up.

I’m not insulted. I’ll check back in with him tomorrow.

The Quill Sisters will be at the Glendale Chocolate Affair this Saturday and you should come see us. We have to say, we’re a bit freaked out about the festival being in the same city the day before the Super Bowl, but we’re game.

We can only hope there are a gazillion women who love romance novels because we’ll be there.

With romance novels.

And chocolate.

It’s all in the name.

We’ll be there on Saturday, January 31 from 10-2 in the romance writers booth in Historic Downtown Glendale.

We can’t wait to see you.

If this was true, I’d need to take out a loan.

How were things at your house this weekend? Ours were about the same.

We didn’t know what to do with ourselves while the blog was down. It was weird. We had to threaten people with, “I’m going to put that in my blog…when it’s back up.” Not really the same oomph, you know what we mean? What little kid fears, “I’m telling the whole world about this maybe in a couple of days.” Not ours, that’s for darn sure. Also, the evenings are a lot less hectic without running around screeching, “What should I post? What should I post?” like some sort of Dr. Seuss escapee. Still we missed it. It’s been a huge part of our lives for almost six years now. We can’t believe it’s been that long, but it has. Who knew we had so much to babble about? Our second grade teachers, that’s who. And our mom. Our therapists. And the lady at the Hobby Lobby who now looks afraid every time we get in her line. Anyway, we’re back to babbling to you and it’s much better this way. Here’s some silly stuff we found.

1. Puppies with things to do. You probably already saw this on the internet, but in case you didn’t we want to make sure you don’t miss it. We’d like you to meet Eclipse. She’s a very pretty black Labrador who lives in Seattle. Apparently she really likes to go to the dog park. Alas it seems her owner isn’t always as prompt as she could like. She has solved that problem by taking the city bus to the park whenever she wants to. She waits at the stop, gets on the bus, visits her friends and gets off at the correct stop. It has been reported that she behaves better than many of the other riders. Obviously, she’s become a favorite with the bus drivers and other riders. We don’t know about your human kids, but ours can’t follow directions that well.

2. Other people who love dogs. The Sheriff’s office in Pinellas County, Florida got a new rug in the entrance area. It cost $500. It’s green and has a yellow sheriff’s badge in the middle and it’s been there for a couple of months. The super observant sheriff and deputies only just now noticed that instead of saying, “In God We Trust” it says “In DOG We Trust.” We actually, we do trust dogs. Amylynn just got new carpet in her house. When they ordered it they didn’t know there was an option of having it say In Dog We Trust, because they most certainly would have chosen that instead of the plain brown

If you can identify either of these hoodies…

tufted version they got. We have a suggestion for the citizens of Pinellas County, Florida. Perhaps you should trust in Eclipse from above – apparently she pays very good attention.3. People who don’t get paid enough. It was reported in our town that two men are wanted by the police for a massive theft of beer. The story goes like this. The two men went into a convenience store and walked out without paying for 5 thirty-packs of beer. A few minutes later, they returned and backed a truck up to the front door and stole 5 more. That’s 300 cans of beer. How did the conversation with that clerk go? Do you want any chips with that? How about a hot dog? When they came back for round two did they try to up sell the thieves a lottery ticket? The whole things sounds very odd to us. The police are asking for the public’s assistance for leads. We think they need to be keeping their eyes open for one hell of a party. This crime seems like it’d solve itself.

4. Add Glue Sniffer to your resume. Dateline Cairo Egypt. The Conservators at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo have just informed the world that the blue and gold braided beard that King Tut so famously wears on his gold sarcophagus was knocked off and “hastily glued back on.” This gave us pause. The next line tells us a lot about this story. “Archaeologists and restorers say [the museum] is not run to professional standards.” Immediately we have a vision of Lucy and Ethel being hired to give the world’s most famous pharaoh a bath. Or maybe the Three Stooges. Or Pauly Shore and Stephen

Brain food

Baldwin. Honest to Ra, it says the beard was glued back on. No word if they used rubber cement or Superglue. We suspect it must have been Larry, Moe and Curly because Lucy and Ethel would have tried chewing gum first.

5. That’s exactly why we eat cake. A very important study has just come out that attests that women who have curvy butts and thighs have smarter children. Here’s the important gist of the study ~ “The brain-building, breast-milk lipids (fats) are largely derived from the fat stored in a mother’s thighs and buttocks. Women with larger thighs have higher levels of these lipids. There is even evidence that they and their children are more intelligent as a result.” There are other things in the study that are down right insulting. For example, the professor compares women to fat hibernating bears and whales. Also, he says that women lose about a pound of fat a month while breastfeeding. The Quill Sisters new diet plan is based on this research. We figure we just need to breast feed some kids for the next 6.8 years and we’ll be as svelte as when we graduated. Anyone know any dehydrated kids?

There was a huge uproar today when the UPS truck showed up. There was barking and squealing and doorbells ringing. I wonder if UPS and FedEx guys get God complexes since it seems like people are always so incredibly excited to see them.

Anyway, The Bandit flew into my bedroom and tossed a box on my bed. Then he demanded that I open it immediately so he could see if it was for him. He ordered something from Amazon and it’s taking a really long time. I’ll get to that in a minute.

Sadly it was not what he was expecting. It was my box of RITA entry books I am required to judge this year.

Before my very eyes, the boy went through the stages of grief.

“Maybe the delivery guy is coming back. Check the box again. I hate Amazon. It’s never going to come. Call them up and tell them we’ll order two more if they hurry up and send them.” Then he cried huge, pitiful, sobbing tears. “Fine. I’m going back to my video game.”

I feel bad for the kid. The problem is the vendor, not Amazon. Even though we get most things super fast, sometimes vendors are shipping and not Amazon. Then you’re at the mercy and whim of the Gods and there’s nothing you can do about it.

I gotta try anyway.

Dear Pixnor,

Please, please, please send the Call of Duty Ghost mask my boy ordered. The Amazon site says the expected delivery date is anywhere from January 27 to February 12. We ordered the thing on December 31. Are you all waiting for the sheep to be sheared? Are you weaving this material from unicorns? Is an alien space craft bringing the shipment?

I’m just sayin’, I can’t put up with another 15 days minimum of this boy’s nervous breakdown.

Just see what you can do, huh?

Thank you from the bottom of my frazzled little heart.

Amylynn Bright, Mother of The Bandit.

This week the Sisters did a LOT of complaining and you didn’t even have to hear about it. You’re the lucky ones. The people who sat next to us at Chipotle had to suffer through almost a solid hour of it during our lunch on Tuesday.

Also, Amylynn got a ton of writing done since she wasn’t messing with this blog. The work in progress is coming along nicely, in case you’re interested. We hope

Us doing computer repairs and being Zen about it

you are. That’s really the point of all this, isn’t it?

Anyway, there wasn’t anything either of us were technically able to do about the computer issues anyway, so we practiced being Zen. (Ava here – Amy does not know the definition of ZEN. Trust me on this. There was no zen while this blog was down. None.)

The good news is that now we will be back to reporting the regular lunacy and we anticipate much, much more. We’ll delve into that in the weeks to come.

Also, The 5 Favorite Things will be back up on Friday. We’ve been hoarding news stories. We really missed writing it.

And you. We missed you. It’s just not the same on Facebook.

Leave us a comment. We’re feeling needy.

Oh, sweet kitty.

Nous vous aimons, chat.

Today is International Kiss a Ginger day! Things are looking up.

See how much he loves me

Amylynn is a ginger! And you all know who her favorite ginger is, don’t you?

Everyone go find yourself a ginger and smooch ’em up good.

This weekend had a bevy of ridiculous things that happened. A cornucopia of the absurd, if you will. As each thing happened, my family looked at me speculatively.

“This is going in the blog, isn’t it?”

Oh yeah.

Things started out well on Friday.  My Honey and I aren’t as strict about bedtimes on the weekends, consequently, the Bandit falls asleep on the couch most weekend nights. I think I’ve told you before how we will wake him up enough to guide him as he stumbles down the hall. We make a pit stop in the bathroom then he falls into bed.

So I steered him into the bathroom, pulling off his shirt along the way, and poked him awake so he could pee. My Honey and I always laugh because he’s just like a drunk, swaying, while you try to keep him awake so he can aim for the toilet.

This night he was no less “drunk.” In fact, he was mumbling something while he scratched his bare belly. He looked remarkably like Al Bundy.

“What?” I asked because I couldn’t hear what he was saying.

He leaned his head back and scratched. “I already have a girlfriend.”

What? I started to giggle. I tease him all the time about girlfriends, and at nine he does not find this funny. I asked him to repeat himself.

Still scratching, he mumbled, “I already have a girlfriend.”

Oh, this was delicious. “Who is it?”

“I already have a girlfriend.” He was emphatic, which made me wonder who was hitting on my baby in his dream.

“Who’s your girlfriend?”

He scratched and mumbled. I repeated my question, but his mumbling was no clearer. I asked three times and got nothing. He finally finished going to the bathroom and staggered to his room.

I interrogated his sister, but she didn’t know anything about the mystery girl. Neither did his father when I did a spot on imitation of his confession.

As you can imagine, this has given me a great deal of fodder with which to tease him.

When we ate pizza for lunch, I asked. “What kind of pizza does your girlfriend like?”

When he put on his favorite red shirt I asked, “What’s your girlfriend’s favorite color?”

We will proceed along these lines until I no longer find it funny. So maybe by the time he goes to college.

Then on Saturday, we went to a Coyotes Hockey game My Honey got me for Christmas. I don’t know why this always happens, but he always, ALWAYS, has a maniac sitting behind him. Last time, the woman was hopelessly drunk and beyond obnoxious.

This time the fellow behind him had a moronic running commentary the entire time.

“Didhehitthepuck? Ithinkhedid. Yeah,hehitthepuck. Didthatguyfalldown? Yeah,hefelldown. Musthavehitaroughpatchontheice. Doyouthinkhe’sok? Yeah,hegotuphe’sok.”

At no time did it seem his companion, TheOtherGuy, needed to contribute to the conversation at all. So if that wasn’t bad enough, TheOtherGuy started to complain about his leg.

“This damn thing’s been killing me all day.” He groused like this for several minutes and then WHAP! he hit My Honey in the back of the head.

Actually, more the point, he kicked him in the back of the head. Before My Honey could recover enough to do anything about this, a prosthetic leg came flying over the back of the seat and landed next to him.

What does one say to this? “Um, hey. You’re leg seems a little out of control.”

Great paroxysms of laughter ensued.

Sunday, I was appealed to by the family to make Eggplant Parmesan. I have no idea what they were thinking. I’ve explained to you all on any number of occasions how the kitchen and I don’t really get along. Nevertheless, everything was in the oven and I set the pot on the stove to boil and went back to the office to work. The smoke detector alerted me to a problem–three-inch flames coming off the burner. The wrong burner, I might add. I

A reenactment. My actual kitchen isn’t this neat.

hadn’t even turned on the right burner under the pot.

“What the hell was on the burner?” My Honey yelled at me while we hyperventilated trying to blow out the flames.

I shrugged. I have no idea what could have been on there.

Eventually, the flames were extinguished. Ava was mad because I didn’t have video of the fire. WGR was irritated on my behalf because I didn’t get to call the fire department. Dinner took an extra forty-five minutes so the kids were tweaked about that.

In the end, dinner was good, although Sassy took great delight in informing me hours later that I forgot to turn off the oven. I reminded The Bandit to wash his arm pits in the shower because I doubted his girlfriend enjoyed smelly pits. And nary a fake leg was tossed.