On Friday we told you about how Ava is dying to see a volcano and live lava flow. We told you that we really want to get close to it.

Some people might think at best we’re troubled and at worse we ARE trouble. We wouldn’t disagree with you. We have a lot of ideas that most people think are folly, or maybe insane. Whatever. We know how we’re perceived.

We also know, in our heart of hearts, if we get the chance to touch a panda, it is happening.

Just like this woman and her friend in Hawaii who trespassed over county property to dunk stuff in the lava. Like egg beaters, forks, coins, and golf clubs. They were arrested. The people who routinely sit across the street in lawn chairs and have picnics waiting for the lava to push its way over the road do not.

If Hawaii was smart, they’d open a special supervised section for people like Ava and me and a zillion other people who are just dying to stick stuff in 2000 degree lava to see it melt and contort.

They could charge–either admission or by the piece.

Another service we provide: Settling the national debt, one idiotic move at a time.

Happy Halloween! We wanted to think of the scariest things we could to give you a good fright today, but instead we got it ourselves. Neither Carly nor Dave participated in the car process this morning. Apparently, they’re not interested in being vehicles at this time. That whole concept of conveying their owner to school or work was inconvenient for them. Well we taught them. We caught them on fire and drove them into a ditch then dropped an anvil on their hoods and had them stolen for parts. None of that was especially funny regardless of how much we cackled. Maybe you’ll find this stuff funny.

1. Duck, duck, duck, duck, duck. A military veteran has been fined $50 and court costs because he kept some ducks at his house. He explained that the ducks make him feel better and relieve his stress. But West Lafayette, Ohio won’t let him keep his ducks. They’re just mean. We know exactly how you feel Darin Welker. They won’t let us keep our cat in the office either. We think it’s because they don’t want us to be happy. Mr. Welker, if you’re interested in moving to our town, we’d keep your ducks in our yard for you.

2. Bucket list. One of the items on Ava’s bucket list is to go see a real life lava flow. Our attention has been drawn to Pahoa, Hawaii. The lava is flowing big time over there. The National Guard has been deployed to the rural Hawaii town to provide security. We suspect that’s for people like us. People who want to touch the lava. People who are pretty sure the pylons and keep out signs don’t pertain to us. We’re just sayin’ you should keep an eye on the news because if we can make it to Pahoa we’re crossing the hazard lines.

3. Totally doing it wrong. We’re pretty sure we’re living our lives totally wrong. That whole Protestant work ethic is not paying off in the long run. We’ve gone to work every day since FOREVER and now we’re getting laid off. See how that’s not conducive to making us wanna participate? Other people are doing a much better job at this. For example, Japan’s Crown Princess Masako withdrew from official duties twelve years ago when she developed a stress related illness. We would love a stress related illness that would allow us not to speak to anyone for twelve years.

4. Bouffon. That’s French for clown. We bring this up because a French town has banned clown costumes – especially on Halloween. Wait just a damn minute. Are you saying people are running around France in clown costumes? Apparently it’s true. Don’t you think that’s awful? We whole heartedly support the ban on clowns, costumed or otherwise. Especially if they’re running around with the sole purpose of scaring the living crap out of people. We wouldn’t try that with us. You come up to us in a clown costume with the intent of scaring us and we’ll kick your ass.

5. Witchy brew. Timely and speaking for it’s self.

Have you seen those windowless planes? The concept is that cameras on the outside of the plane project onto the walls and ceiling of the interior so you’re flying through the clouds. Also, if that doesn’t float your boat, theoretically the screens could project anything – a rain forest, a city scape,

This looks very sinister, don’t you think?

you name it.

We can’t come to a consensus on what we think about this. On one hand we’re totally freaked out. We’d like there to be a nice metal shell, and the security of seeing the nice metal shell, as we go plummeting to the Earth.

Alternately, if they could put us in a plane with a bunch of frolicking puppies or kittens or PANDAS! that would be alright.

This plane got us thinking about other things that shouldn’t have windows. How about office buildings? That way you wouldn’t know what time of day it is and you could eat lunch every

We’ll fly in what ever it takes to get us here

hour. Or how about cars? No one needs those windows, right? Ava hardly ever uses the windows in her car, definitely not the side ones or the back one. It drives Amy crazy but if you get one of the cars that drives for you – you don’t need the windows.

So here’s our decision. We don’t need windows, but we do need puppies, kittens, and pandas as well as a car that drives for you.

Sold.

We have no idea what this guy is saying. Perhaps it’s, “HOLY CRAP! It got out!”

The really tragic thing here is that it’s not that easy to get all cute babies out of their zoo enclosure. We know; we’ve tried.

The Sisters want to apologize for yesterday’s blog.

How cute is he?! His name is Rolf.

Just under 50% of our readership voiced their displeasure at its AP like quality of leaving the most important facts out.  Those facts being about the world’s smallest penguins. The vitriol over no photo of the penguins accompanying the story could be heard all the way to New Zealand.

Here are the facts: The world’s smallest penguins are called Little Blue Penguins. And for those boring among you, the Latin name is eudyptula mior. They are also called Fairy Penguins. And, OMG, we love, love, LOVE that!!!  The penguin’s are about 13 to 16 inches tall and weigh just over 2 lbs. They are native to New Zealand and Australia.

Here’s the picture we robbed you of yesterday.

Amylynn here ~ and yet you still can’t see how adorable these wee penguins are. Their feathers are actually azure. Seriously. And look at how tiny they are. They’d fit right into your pocket. We also think it’s amusing that these penguins do mate for life, but a divorce is not unheard of. That fact gave us a chuckle.

Norway is super pretty

Every year the Sisters read the list of The 10 Most Livable Countries when it comes out. Ava has moved 7,500 times, living in 67 different states, but Amylynn has lived in the same town her ENTIRE life. So when the list comes out we’re always interested in daydreaming about options.

This year there were three that struck our fancy.

The number 1 country on the list is Norway. The place looks gorgeous and, by all accounts, the Norwegians are very happy. We’re going to take a pass, though. There’s the issue with none of us speaking the language, but that’s the not the big one. We couldn’t think of any super cute animals specific to Norway. We hope we don’t offend the happy Norwegians.

See the pretty hockey player!

We’re certain their animals are adorable, but none of them especially inspire us to larceny and kidnapping. Good news, Norway. You’re safe for now.

Canada is number 8. This is an intriguing option. They’re just over the hill and we understand they are very polite up there. That would be fantastic since we appreciate polite people. Also, they speak English in Canada, mostly. We are much too busy to learn another language. Or maybe it’s lazy. Whatever, we’re probably not going to Quebec anyway. But English fluency is not the primary reason to consider Canada. Do you know how much hockey is up there? A-freaking-lot. Canada we would tell you to prepare yourselves for our arrival, but it turns out there is a TON of snow up there. We’re not real fond of snow.

OMG! Sheep with attitude. New Zealand is perfect.

So it’s the number 7 county, then. New Zealand. We kind of like the idea of being hermits so long as there’s a mall nearby. The American impression of New Zealand is that it’s a gazillion miles from anywhere, so the hermit thing could work out. Also, there’s shopping. They speak lovely accented English there and the scenery is gorgeous. It’s very close–only 3 1/2 hours by plane from Auckland–to Sydney, Australia. If you recall there are quokka in Australia and we really, really want a couple of those. We figure it will be a hell of a lot easier to smuggle a quokka into New Zealand than on a 77 hour flight to the US. And Tasmanian Devils are right there. We’re pretty sure, if we get a hold of a tiny baby devil, we’d make it love us. But here’s the kicker and why New Zealand will win the race. They have HOBBITS. Done deal.

This is brilliant. I’m not saying we’re perfect over here at The Quill Sisters. But seriously. Even when I text I use correct punctuation. Bad grammar makes us crazy.

Weird Al is brilliant with this.

We’ve decided we need a vacation. Because we’re not going to have enough unpaid vacation coming up here very soon. Still, a nice jaunt to Fiji or, if we’re thinking domestic, maybe New Orleans or Key West. Maybe Hemmingway’s house will let us stay there since we’re writers. Perhaps if we just show up with our luggage. We understand they have a lot of cats there, too. We love cats. We think this could totally work out. Don’t tell the Hemmingway people anything about this. We think it would be best if we employ the element of surprise. Shhhhhh. We’re going to go pack, you giggle about this stuff.

1. Shark! In another story about why we don’t go outside… There have been three shark attack in as many weeks in Maui. We want nothing to do with a shark attack. We barely want anything to do with beaches in the first place – all that sand and sun. ***Shudder*** We defy you to sell us on the addition of a deadly fish as a lure. We don’t know about you, but we do enjoy a nice hotel bar and as best as we can tell, there haven’t been any shark sightings in the bar. If one waddles in, we’ll give him a nice drink. A bloody Mary perhaps. You’re welcome.

2. Supreme Court dogs. We’ve told you how much we love John Oliver. He’s adorable. His show is brilliantly funny. For example, last week they created a panel of dogs posing as the US Supreme Court. Then they read the transcripts and the dogs act it out. The one they cast as Ruth Bader Ginsberg is so perfect we can’t even believe it. Go to John Oliver and check it out. Holy cow – this is some funny stuff.

3. Chocolate pancakes. We went to get omelets for lunch. Good healthy omelets. We’re starting a diet. Then we found this – German Chocolate pancakes – Satisfy your sweet tooth with two of our rich, cocoa infused pancakes topped with warm cream cheese frosting, shaved, toasted coconut and candied pecans. Things went badly from there. We ate our omelets because we’re trying to be good. But this thing was GLORIOUS. We ate every single bite and then felt sick for the rest of the day. It was totally worth it.

4. Secret Service Dogs. Meet Hurricane and Jordon. They work for the Secret Service protecting the white house. They were the Belgian Malinoise who brought down that guy this week. We learned that no one gets to play with the Secret Service dogs. The minute we found out we rescinded our applications and we’re no longer accepting their calls. We’re not working anywhere they have dogs they won’t let you play with. Just forget it.

5. Underwear? We also learned this week about a religion with it’s own underwear. We don’t like to upset anyone so we won’t name it but we love a group of people with their own clothing – especially underwear!!! Who does that? We would! And upon further research, we found out they might get their own PLANET. There’s some controversy about that part, but we’re making plans to design our own chonies and get ourselves a planet. We’ll let you know when the big reveal is.

Sometimes having OCD can be a bit of a pain. They say most people have at least a mild case of OCD, now a days, due to the constant stress we live under. OCD allows you to believe you have control over something, even if it’s just obsessively washing your hands or refusing to use any gas station other than the one near your house.

Today, Ava had to drive to the other office she manages for Bank of No Forks which is over a 100 miles from the city she lives in. The day started out normal enough but on the way to drop of the kids, before heading out, Amy called with the bad news that the only highway Ava can take to where she was going was closed. CLOSED. Who closes an entire freeway? A normal person would just take a different route. But no, not Ava. Ava cannot take a different route. Once the route somewhere is set – that’s the end of that. This drives Amy insane. INSANE. To avoid dealing with the issue Amy insisted Ava stay home. However, Ava is not one to avoid issues.

Ava: (One hour into the trip) Maybe this was a bad idea.

Amy: Ok dumb ass. I warned you.

Ava: Well, too far into it . . . now it’s a quest.

Amy: I warned you before you got on the freeway you dope.

(For those of you keeping track – that’s two “I warned yous” and one “dope”) ***Amylynn here – and one “dumb ass”

After Ava finally got there, the abuse continued.

Ava: I’ll have to sleep here. The side of the highway with the accident was a parking lot for miles. I don’t think it will be cleared up by the end of the day.

Amy: You can come home through Florence. It takes you right to your house. It’s super easy.

Ava: I can’t vary my route. YOU know that.

Amy: So you’d rather stay there with no underwear?

Yep, Ava would rather stay there with no underwear. That’s how OCD works. Clean hands, trapped in Phoenix, and dirty underwear. ***Amy here again. All of the above text conversation is 100% true. Swear to Zeus.