Hi, I’m Joe. My full name is Joseph T. Kittywiggles, Esq. The T stands for Tiger, but I don’t use it. Middle names can often be embarrassing, you know. Ask Aunt Ava’s kids.

My mom calls me Sweet Baby Joe, and that’s not at all embarrassing.

I am very handsome, don’t you think?

I live with Amylynn. I used to come to work with her every day to keep her and the rest of her friends company at their horrible job. Sadly, the fat little man at her work said I can’t come any more. He’s a jerk and the ladies at Bank of No Forks no longer speak to him or the selfish people in the office next door who narked us out. They’ll get their due eventually. The Sisters and their friends have way too much time on their hands.

Now, I just sleep away the day with the old cat at my house. Sometimes I find all the cat toys in the house and drown them in the water bowl. Other times I stare at the blank television screen for hours because I don’t trust the tiny people in there. When the dogs come in I wrestle with the dumb one.

I stood still for exactly 12 seconds to take this picture.

You’re welcome.

I was helping The Bandit get his Valentines ready for school tonight. I have forgotten exactly how stressful this is when you’re eight. Every child is supposed to get one, which seems fine by me. The problem is deciding which ones go to the girls.

Girls are icky, you know. We got all the boys done with the cool Valentines, but what to do with the girls?

“Carla’s next,” I say.  He wrote her name on a Way 2 Cool card.

“Next is Payton. Is that a boy or a girl?” I ask. Half of the names on this list I’ve got no idea if they’re male or female. Not a clue.

“A girl,” he says.

“Is she the cute blonde one?”

Oh, the look he gives me. “NO!” Alrighty then.  She gets one covered in hearts with a basic Happy Valentine’s Day message.

“Joceyln. Lilliana. Ixta.” I rattle more names off. Ixta? What the hell is an Ixta? We spend five minutes teaching me how to pronounce it correctly.

“Jessica,” I say. The only cards left are suspect. Sweet On U is not acceptable. Neither is Happy Valentine’s Day because that one says XOXO on it and we DO NOT want Jessica to think kisses are in the offering. We went with B Mine.

“I just won’t look at her when I put it in her box.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I tell him.

“OK, how about Jazmine. Is she nice?” I ask because we’re running of cards that aren’t mushy at his point.

“She put me in a head lock.”

I start laughing. I can’t help it. “Sounds like my kinda girl.” I get another LOOK. “Besides the headlock, is she horrible?”

“No.” We agree to go with the one with the XOXO and hope for the best.

“Amber?”

“She’s taller than me,” he informs me.

“Everyone is taller than you.” That’s a fact. “But is she nice?”

“Meh.” He shrugs. B Mine, Valentine it is.

We finally finish and I’m exhausted from the negotiation. I promise him that no one is reading Valentine’s Day cards literally. Not in third grade. I search my mind for what I was like in third grade. I had a terribly crush on Robby McLay, and I’m 100% certain I read, re-read, read again and discussed with my friends what his mandatory Valentine read.

Let’s not tell The Bandit the universal truth about girls regardless of their age, huh? Also, let’s hope Jazmine doesn’t use anymore headlocks.

We give you Iron Man.

And Sherlock Holmes

And now there’s this. Dammit.

We all know it’s going to happen eventually. There’s the tell-tale clicking on our phone lines. The white panel van parked down the street. The recurring appearance of the Caprice Classic following us to the mall.

Which of our internet searches is going to be the one that convinces them we’re not just goofy, but possibly serious in our inquiries.

We may have the right to remain silent, but we rarely have the capacity.

This doesn’t look at all suspicious does it?

As the owner of a cat who is definitely NOT sane, we can really appreciate this cat. Thanks again to Aunt Debby for the heads up on this one.

My boy got a Kindle for Christmas. As part of the set up I gave him an email address that I established and set up passwords for. I am the default address so I’ll be able to keep an eye on what’s going on in there.

This weekend he asked me to show him how to use email so he could email me and his sister. I also sent the address to his grandmother.

We’ve been in a bit of an email war ever since.

My first email to him: Hi! I see you sitting over there on the other end of the couch.

Bandit: HI!

Me: You smell funny.

Bandit: Puppies are cooler than you.

Me: You, sir, are weird.

Then there’s a flurry of talk about who’s weirder and whose fault that might be.

We can hear him giggling from his bedroom where he’s supposed to be asleep, instead he’s sending me emails from his bunk bed.

Remember the good old days when you’d just holler down the hall at your kids?

We have bad attitudes. Not all the time, just most of the time. We’re not sure anyone has noticed besides our boss, our co-workers, our husbands, the waiter at lunch today, our children, the next door neighbor, and the lady at the deli at Safeway. We almost got into a fight with another driver in traffic this week. He honked at us and we didn’t appreciate it. Then he honked again. That was ill-advised. We got out of the car and approached him, telling him exactly what he could do with his horn. Well, that’s what we would have done if we weren’t so fat and lazy. Anyway, don’t piss us off. That day we just might be motivated.

1. Joe Namath. Did anyone see that coat he was wearing at the Super Bowl? What the hell was that? It looked like a very fancy dead animal. Do you remember those rabbit fur coats girls had to have in the late 70’s? That’s what that looked like. Only worse. We don’t care how cold it is, grown men should not wear fur coats like that unless they are also sporting a hat with a pheasant feather and employed as a pimp. Where was his wife? Letting him go out of the house like that. Someone needs to have some words with her.

2. Puppy/Kitten Bowl. This was on opposite the Super Bowl. Honestly it was more exciting. Besides, who doesn’t love a bunch of puppies running around a mock stadium, wresting over toys and growling playfully. Not us, for certain. In retrospect, it probably wasn’t the best idea to watch that. Damn you, Animal Planet. Now we REALLY want a kitten. Or a puppy. Or a pony. Or a camel. Or a cheetah. Oh dear…

3. Tom Hiddleston. We haven’t had one of our favorite boys as a Favorite Thing for a while. There was a fabulous commercial during that slaughter of a football game last week staring prominent British villains. We loved it in no small part because Tom was in it. In a helicopter. Drinking tea. In a villainous way. And oozing good-looking charm.

4. Bruno’s Jacket. The half time show was very fun this year. Ava took a special liking to Bruno’s gold jacket. Of course, Ava wants it in silver because, honestly, besides Bruno, who is so crass as to wear gold these days? Well, besides Amylynn who wears gold jewelry all the time. Anyway, we thought silver jackets like that might be nice as a fashion statement. Sort of like the Pink Ladies in Grease – only silver.

5. Lady Grantham. We’re way behind in our Downton Abbey viewing. We’ve been watching Season 1 at BofNF this past week. We have now found a new patron saint in Maggie Smith’s Lady Grantham. One of our favorite lines was her expressing complete lack of understanding of what a weekend was and why the working class would look forward to it. Another had her sending a scathing insult to someone who didn’t take the bait. “Oh, I must have said it wrong,” Lady Grantham says. We howl every time she’s on the screen.

Fabio was in town. He’s selling some sort of whey protein powder that we’re not interested in drinking. Our only experience with whey involves curds and tuffets. Surely you can understand why we’re not ingesting that.

Anyway, we made plans to go see him at the Wholefoods – as did every other person within driving distance. We got there 1/2 an hour early so we were number three in line. We were in and out in an hour. Bada bing!

Before we get into the experience with Fabio himself, we feel that we must make mention of the people who waited in line with us. There were a lot of men. Really. And often, not the men you expected to see. Some of these men were with babies. We’re not sure if these babies were conceived due to a Fabio cover or what. Maybe they were just there to say thank you, we don’t know and we didn’t ask. It’s much more fun to speculate. Also, there were A LOT of young girls there. Girls so young as to not possibly know the significance of Fabio to romance because the books where he was on the cover were published well before they were born. Still, they showed up and made seriously loud squealing noises when he arrived. Then there were women like us. Old. Pudgy. Sadly self-aware.

While waiting in line we were offered beer, wine, chocolate covered strawberries, and a massage. We declined everything. Even the strawberries. We’re not allowed to eat fruit on Thursday on our diet. Go ahead and roll your eyes. We’ll wait.

In front of us in line was a woman shorter than Amylynn. That is a significant thing. Hardly anyone is shorter than Amylynn. Anyway, this woman was over-the-top excited. When his car pulled up in front of the store, she professed that she couldn’t breathe and her “heart was fluttering.” The college girls in the first position announced, after they’d had their picture taken and such, that, “Now I can die.” There was some concern that the tiny woman would not survive the experience, such was her inconsistent heart beat.

Seems a bit over the top, no?

Ava cuddled right up cause he was toasty warm. Also, Amylynn NEVER smiles in pictures. Just getting her in a picture is challenge enough.

So our turn came. We do want to tell you that he was super nice – something we weren’t expecting because our experience with cover models has not been good. He was very respectful and polite without being standoffish. In fact, after we’d had our picture taken, Ava walked away. He seemed a bit dazed by that as we’re certain the poor man is used to being gushed over and groped – there were several women (and perhaps a few men) behind us in line who looked capable of a good grope. So when Ava wandered off with alacrity, Amylynn felt bad.

She reached up and touched is shoulder/chest area (respectfully!) and said with a big smile, “Have a great rest of your day.”

He looked at the two of us and said, “Oh, sisters!”

And without a moment’s pause we both said, “Yep!”

We will say that Mr. Fabio clearly spends a lot of time in the gym as his jeans were skin-tight and his tushy was perfect. Also, he’s very tall and still remarkably good-looking.

We credit his outstanding cheekbones.

We are not crediting the whey.