NEW RELEASES
THIS is why you pay attention in parking lots
Quite frequently, I am confronted with the fact that I just might not be the brightest bulb in the chandelier. I especially enjoy having this point driven home to me at the beginning of the summer here in the desert. No, I don’t go out without water, even I know not to do that.
Here’s what happens, sadly, every year. When the summer hits, everyone starts using their car windshield shades. Not just to try to keep the heat down in the car (it doesn’t work but try to tell a native desert person that . . .) but to keep the sun from causing the 
steering wheel to heat up to 9000 degrees. The sunshield actually does help with that, a little. Don’t get all crazy, it was 107 today – so by saying it helps, I mean it’s possible to drive the car if you keep oven mitts in there.
Anyway, every year it takes me about a week to stop backing out of parking spaces before I take the shield down. Then I freak out because I can’t see out of the windshield. It’s like a comedy routine. It’s like when I set the dish towels on fire and stand there with it burning – it takes me a minute to realize I need to zip the sunscreen out of the window toal see. Idiot.
The above results in immediate contact with Amy via text:
June 15th “You cannot drive your car w the sun screen on. Just like last summer.”
June 17th “Day 2. Still can’t drive w sun shield. The communist are winning.” ***Amylynn here: I snort coffee out of my nose every time I get one of these.
I guess I don’t need to ever wonder why Amy never let’s me drive anywhere, even when I rarely offer to – she usually shouts “Good Gods NO, I’ll drive. I want to get there today and not by using the right lane behind a bus the whole way.” I always promise to take the sunshield down but that just results in an eye roll. ***Amylynn here again – It’s for all our sake’s that I drive. Really. You’re welcome.
The beginning of the end of my sanity
So what did you do this weekend?
Have a barbecue in celebration of Father’s Day? Go to a guitar festival at the mall? Torture yourself by going to the human society and kissing all the puppies? Get your car washed an hour before it rained because you thought when the newspaper reported “the thinnest chance of rain” that meant it was safe? Watch a movie you’d been very excited about seeing only to be disappointed and bored?
I did all that. Even as busy as I was that was all still secondary to my real obsession over the weekend.
My Amazon rankings. It’s completely unhealthy and yet, I can not stop myself from refreshing my Amazon page at least hourly if not more. In fact, right now I had to stop and look. Down 40 points.
Then the next time I’ll be up 12. Down 27. Steady, steady, steady. It’s insanely nerve wracking.
I took my phone with me to bed on Saturday night and woke up twice in the night to check. That’s bad. I’m certain I’ll be completely batty by the end of next week.
Here’s my best ranking this weekend. It caused a great deal of celebratory dancing and squealing.
June 14
This has been an awesome week for book sales and rankings – at this very moment Miss Goldsleigh’s Secret is ranked #5 in Regency – and a very bad week to expect us to pay attention to anything that isn’t book related. How can we be expected to pay attention to work stuff when there are much more fun things to obsess over? We have no idea. At this point, the children are fed and clothed and the pets are alive. That’s really all we can be expected to accomplish right now. Maybe when this whole thing gets much more blase, then we’ll be like, “Whatever, #1, that’s nice.” Now, though, every time we move up in the rankings there is a new and exciting happy dance. It’s a 
veritable disco over here. We’re in such good moods we’re laughing all the time. Here are five things we picked out to share with you.
1. Crafty bears. We might be missing for a couple of days. We’re driving up to Steamboat Springs, Colorado. There is a young bear up there who has figured out how open car doors. It seems he climbs around in parked cars looking for food. We picked up a bunch of lunch
We’re gonna live right there
meat and a roasted chicken and we’re going to leave our car “unattended” in a parking lot. We’re going to name him Stewart and he’ll be very happy in our backyard.
2.Greece will be ours! Oh, yes. It will be ours. They keep getting in more and more trouble over there and pretty soon you’ll all be eating your scoffing words. Things are so out of control they’ve been booted from the list of developed countries by the MSCI. We don’t know who they are, but they’re making our jobs much easier. Still, we ask, how the hell can the home of democracy and freaking math no longer be a developed country?
When the Sisters get over there, things will be much better. You’ll see. Before you know it, everyone will be breaking plates, drinking ouzo, and eating baklava. All will be well.
3. Oldest man in history. The fellow finally died at 116. That’s not funny, but his picture in the obit is. He looks like quite a jolly fellow. Of course they interviewed his family. His nephew – WHO IS 80 – said lovely things about him. That always amuses us about these
squirrel and raccoon friendship
stories. The “kids” are always like a zillion years old themselves. Anyway, good on you, Mr. Kimura.
4. Squirrel and raccoon. Would you look at this? Just look at it a moment. Don’t you feel your blood pressure decreasing? Normal people have that reaction. The Sisters don’t, but we’re certainly not normal people. When we see this picture or the bear above our immediate reaction is to yearn for whatever fuzzy animal has been placed before us. You know those idiots that are always getting mauled because they stupidly pet a wild animal? That’ll be us one of these days. We’ll be the one 
drowned by the whale and sliced up by the mama tiger and trampled by the elephant auntie. Just you wait and see. This is a cute story. Follow the jump and see.
5. Sir Stanley. This has been a real crappy hockey season – what with the strike and losing half of the damn thing. Playoffs picked up with some really tight series and now the first game of the Stanley Cup kicks off by going into THREE OVERTIME PERIODS. Holy cow. Amylynn will tell you she’s a Blackhawks fan but that she likes Boston, too, so she’s just happy to be watching good hockey. Ava doesn’t like either team but she’s from New Jersey so what the hell does she know?
We honestly don’t know…
a rambling story about nothing but it has a moral
Ava and I were starving at lunch today. S.T.A.R.V.I.N.G. So hungry, in fact, they could make a country song about it.
So we got our big bunch of cooked meat – honestly, we’re getting tired of this diet. We really wish it wasn’t working, but alas it is so we must stick with it – and headed back to the office. Ava asked me to drive approximately 756 miles per hour as we could get back and eat before her stomach ate itself.
Instead, I called our super nice mailbox place to ask if we had anything in today. To be fair, the mailbox place was directly en route. (Ava – to be fair? Fair to whom? Not me, that’s for sure.)
LO! We had a box.
We’ve been waiting for the gorgeous bookmarks we ordered. I veered the car into the left turn lane to make a quick detour.
“Don’t worry,” I told her, “I”ll just run in and grab the box. You can wait in the car.”
But then I looked across the car at Ava sitting next to me, several takeout bags of delicious smelling meat on the floor at her feet. I realized that was probably a bad idea. I had visions of returning to the car and there being no food left and Ava covered in the flotsam and jetsam of Korean ribs.
So, I made her get out of the car into the 107 degree desert heat. That made her snarl, but I wasn’t worried since she was about to eat a boatload of meat within a few minutes. Whatever, I didn’t want to return to my Sister with bones in her hair and the carcass of a cow littered throughout my car.
The moral of the story is: Don’t get fat then you won’t have to eat tons of meat on a stupid protein diet that unfortunately works and consequently you won’t worry about your Sister getting heat stroke instead of eating all your lunch.
Fasten your seat belt…
I woke up with a migraine this morning. I can’t remember the last that’s happened or if it ever has. Usually, I get hit with one midday, out of the blue, like a Mack truck. I took all the prescription medication I’m allowed in one day and pulled myself together to get the kids off to summer camp and myself to work.
I had to come to work because I had a training today and there was a corporate person in the office.
Already, that last part puts us all in a super crappy mood. Worse than our usual mood, which is seriously saying something.
My headache persisted, a heavy, aching weight in the back of my head. I ignored the corporate guy which was really best for everyone, but we had to know that good luck wouldn’t last.
Near the end of the day he wandered into my office. I glared at him, but he kept on coming. The receptionist was watching from across the lobby with a look of horror. If he had any smarts at all he would have noticed my expression and inquired as to the location of the men’s room and fled, but no.
“Hi,” he said. “You have a few minutes.”
I gave him a steady look and took several beats to say, “All right.”
He proceeded to ask me questions about my opinions of Bank of No Forks. And I told him.
I could see Ava banging her head on the desk across the hall, and the receptionist kept walking past my window making wide, meaningful eyes at me.
Among other things, he wanted to know what my greatest accomplishment was lately. I was assuming he meant as related to Bank of No Forks so I didn’t mention my fabulous book sales. I mentioned that I managed to come in to work everyday with clean underwear.
I am not the person you send in to a room hoping I’ll keep my mouth shut. That sorta thing never works out. I really wish I was kidding about this.
We’re like Hemingway. Really, only with less bullfighting.
Have you ever wondered who I want to play me in the movie version? I dish on that and much more at Musing of a Manic Blond. Check
it out. It’s…shall we say, extensive. But I think it’s a good interview if you ever wondered about my process.
Also, If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you’ll see that sales of Miss Goldsleigh’s Secret are doing really well and I’m offering a $25 gift certificate to someone who shares my Tweets or postings.
You should repost. Really you should. If you don’t know what you want to spend 25.00 on then I’m absolutely certain that I can help you come up with some stuff.
Should you chose to select Amazon – they have everything. The Sisters are going to need Sloth Chow and surely Amazon sells Sloth Chow. OR you might want to buy a book. Amazon sells a few of those and if you need some suggestions, I have a bunch of those. I happen to know many fine authors.
Besides, it ups your cache when people think you know writers. We’re wacky and interesting people.
I didn’t die alone at my book signing
I had my very first solo book signing this weekend at Mostly Books. Actually, things went really well. A whole bunch of my author friends showed up and some of my friends from an old job. It was soooo fabulous of everyone to come and be supportive. I was so afraid I’d sit there alone and mortified.
Getting ready was a nightmare. I tried on 500 different dresses. I finally decided on a one but then was tortured by the shoe selection. Or lack of shoe selection. Honestly, all 79 pairs of my shoes suck. Then there was not a single necklace that worked.
The only thing I was happy about was my hair and I can’t even tell you how unusual that is.
Sassy decided to come with me so she and I met Ava at one of our favorite restaurants which happens to be next door to the bookstore. We shared an eclair and a chocolate hazelnut tort three ways. It was to calm my nerves, but that wasn’t working. I’d decided not to get a latte because I was already wound up enough, but even my iced tea couldn’t stop me from dropping my fork twice, 
buttered bread on my dress and flinging hazelnut tort across the table.
The poor girl next to us pretended she wasn’t alarmed, but she totally was. I am 100% positive she was laughing at me as we left.
Ava was like, “Are you nervous or something?”
Also, having nothing to do with the actual signing event but it still almost made me late was a Basset Hound Adoption event between the restaurant and the bookstore. That’s so not fair.
I offered them a box of autographed books in exchange for a sloe-eyed, long-eared baby but they politely declined.
It’s probably best in the long run. I’m not sure how my sloth would have taken to a Basset hound.
My Saturday travels
I’m a feature on the Long Ago Love blog. Pop over. 
AlSO
I’m signing books for Lady Belling’s Secret and Miss Goldsleigh’s Secret at MOSTLY BOOKS (Speedway and Wilmot) today from 2:30 – 3:30. Stop by.
June 7
We vowed that we’d stop complaining of the heat out of deference to the people on this planet who’ve been living with deadly weather like tornadoes and tsunamis and hurricanes. Unfortunately, it turns out that either we’re really awful people or total narcissists because every time we go outside the first thing out of our mouths is, “Wow, who turned on the dryer?” Somehow we do manage to make everything about us. It’s destiny. Sorry. We’re repentantly shallow — at least where heat is involved. To be fair, we don’t like wind or too much rain either, and we detest snow. We’re equal opportunity weather haters. Even while we melt, we do find things to laugh about 
though. And we do share.
1. Jeans. Since no one ever notices us here at Bank of No Forks, we’ve taken to wearing jeans everyday. That is a glorious thing. What is it about wearing jeans in an office that makes you feel like you’re getting away with something? Honestly, jeans are kinda hot and depending on how much cake you’ve had recently, tight. But still, we LOVE wearing our jeans. Especially when 
we’re not supposed to. We figure, if this is the reason we get fired after all this nonsense, then so be it. Levis for everyone! Power to the denim.
2. Souless. We’re very intrigued by steampunk. It’s so stylized and interesting. We’ve tossed around a couple ideas of our own for steampunk stories, but we’ve got so many other projects going on that we’ve restrained ourselves and not started another project. Don’t know what steampunk is? Dear lord, where have you been? It’s everywhere. You know all those interesting people you see wearing copper stuff and sporting goggles? They’re dressing the part. Anyway, we LOVE this cover. The story is delightful, too. If 
you’re interested in tipping your toe in, give this one a try.
3. Pretzels. You know how when you’re craving something it keeps showing up everywhere? For us this week it was pretzels. Funny how that seems to happen to us at the same time. Or perhaps we’re both highly suggestible. Either way, we wanted pretzels. On Monday, Ava suggested we head over to Philadelphia on our lunch hour for a nice street vendor pretzel. Amylynn was game, even though that would have put us over our hour by quite a bit. On Tuesday, Amylynn wrote soft pretzels into her current work in progress. On Thursday it came to fruition. Glorious pipping hot ubber salted pretzels with mustard and cheese sauce. All is right with the world 
again. Until the next craving…
4. Food craziness. Dunkin’ Donuts has introduced the Glazed Doughnut Breakfast Sandwich. It’s eggs and bacon sandwiched between two glazed doughnuts. Swear to Zeus. Now you all know we’ve been seriously dieting. For the most part that’s been going pretty well – for some of us. We really don’t have any intention of eating this concoction. First of all, Amylynn doesn’t allow her food to touch so this is unspeakable heresy (Ava would eat this). Still we do love ourselves a good glazed doughnut. And you have to hand it to the Dunkin’ people for basically showing the health food demographic the finger.
5. Thinning the herd. There is a woman in Seattle who’s decided that she can live off of water, air and light. She’s not eaten anything for 32 days. She’s lost 20 pounds – which we thing is a hell of a way to diet. She’s reported nauseousness, dizziness and exhaustion. Really. RE-freaking-LLY **eyeroll**. She’s part of a growing number of lunatics who call themselves Breatharians. We call them idiots. Or delusional. We wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised to find that we’re related to several of them. We certainly hope they have a lot of money to inherit because this working for a living thing isn’t’ really working out.