NEW RELEASES
Happy Halloween!
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Voted Most Likely Not to Vote
The Quill sisters do not write blogs about politics because we know you have no interest in our political opinions and, frankly, most of the time we have no interest in our political opinions but – today’s blog is about polling.
I find it a great mystery as to why a person would answer their phone, speak to a poll taker and then embarrass the voting eligible human race with the following:
Question: Hello, are you registered to vote?
Answer: Why yes, yes I am.
Question: Have you selected the candidate you would vote for?
Answer: Yes – it’s (it doesn’t matter who).
Now, I think the polling should end right there - except no, it doesn’t end right there. The poll taker asks another inexplicable question.
Question: Are you likely to vote come Election Day?
Why in the world does that question even need to be asked? The person is registered to vote and they have expressed a preference for one of the candidates. That should be the end of it! Right!?
But no . . . it’s not.
Answer: No, I’m not likely to actually vote.
Who in god’s name is registered to vote, has selected a candidate and then tells another human being that they are too freakin’ lazy to bother to actually vote?????????
Who does that? Who are these people? How does the poll person not start shouting at them? I would.
Poll Person: No disrespect - but are you an idiot? You’re registered to vote, have selected a candidate but you’re not actually going to vote in the election? Are you kidding me?
Then, what does the person say? How can they actually defend themselves after saying something so stupid?
Idiot Non-Likely Voter: “No need to get hostile. I am registered to vote, I have selected a candidate but I’m terribly busy that day. I can’t be expected to keep an open calendar once every four years for fifteen minutes to vote for president of the United States. Geez, I have a life.
Apologizes to Amylynn, I drove her nuts about this all day. But really, who is registered to vote, picks a candidate and then says they aren’t going to vote??? Who does that?
I need to lie down.
Of all the things I need Child Protective Services to misunderstand
We all went to a Halloween party at my mom-in-law’s house this weekend. Ava, Ed, My Honey and I all dressed as the guys from Duck
Dynasty. My kids, The Incredible Hulk and a pirate, were allowed to come as it was their grandmother’s house and all our babysitters were at the party anyway.
They found another kid at the party and the three of them ran around squealing and having a great time.
Suddenly, The Bandit ran up to us, breathless. “We just got out of the whore house. We barely made it out alive!”
“You did what?” I tried not to shriek but, really, that was quite unexpected.
“We just got out of the whore house. There’s clowns in there.” He was panting from his sugar high and God only knew what else.
“Oh!” I finally got it. “The horror house!”
I really need to work with that kid on his pronunciation.
October 26
Now we remember why we live in the desert. The weather is gorgeous this week. Quick, take note – we are not complaining about the weather. This only happens for a week. Never fear, we’ll be unhappy next week. There is really only a three or four degree variance before we’re uncomfortable again. Oh, and if there’s wind, forget it. We hate wind. Here are five more things we do love.
- 1. Super nifty pictures. Every year, the Nikon Corporation has a contest for photomicrography - which is tech speak for pictures of super small stuff. This year, we fell in love with this picture. It shows black mastiff bat embryos in progressive stages of development. They look like little aliens, don’t they? Or little wax creatures for Halloween. Ava thinks they’re Yoda babies. What an awesome picture.
- Talking whales.We’ve long known that humpback whales make those cool whale
sounds. Now they’re studying how a beluga whale is mimicking human voices. When the scientists first heard the noise, they thought it was kids talking. Apparently, they’ve long known that whales, like many other animals, mimic human speech patterns, but they’ve never experienced a whale doing it spontaneously. The Sisters have questions for these whales. Lots of questions. Maybe they can tell us how sand gets inside your underwear even when you don’t go anywhere near the beach.
- Dental floss. Prisoners in Texas are suing to get access to dental floss. I guess we should be happy they’re pretending to floss. Apparently, the prison system has deemed that floss
and the plastic box it comes in are a major security risk. Still there are conscientious inmates who just want to get that gruel out of their teeth so they’re suing. Their jailors say floss can be used to strangle people, pick handcuffs, and hoist contraband. The thing we’re specifically interested in was using the floss to saw through bars. We’re always looking for a way to break out of Bank of No Forks and apparently it’s plausible. We’re now accepting donations for floss.
- The 1st children. There is a fabulous story today about how the President of the USA can’t get his kids to pay attention to him either. We hear he’s said, “Just act like you’re listening to me.” OMG. If the Commander in Chief can’t get them to listen, I don’t know what hope we normal parents have.
Like how many times do we have to gather the children into the bathroom and give them instruction on flushing the toilet? Sweet Jesus, we’re all doomed.
- Sharks. One of the things we want to ask the whales is why the sharks are so pesky. There were golfers in San Juan Capistrano who were a bit shocked when a two pound leopard shark fell out of the sky onto the 12th tee. They say he was scooped up by a bird and then dropped. They implied it was an accident. Riiiiiight. We think the sharks are in collusion with the birds. We posit the sharks aren’t happy just terrorizing us in the ocean. Perhaps the whales can work as intermediaries and we can all have some version of couples therapy.
With everything that’s going on…
Giving a Giant Panda a new meaning
I”m certian that most of you don’t know and certainly don’t care, but hockey season has been delayed because the players and owners can’t come to terms on a Collective Bargaining Agreement. October was cancelled and November doesn’t look good either. I have plans for New Year’s Eve that heavily involves a hocky game and I will NOT be pleased if that falls apart. I’m giving them three more days before I call Gary Bettman and whatever jack ass lawyer is handling the players and get this shit taken care of. Enough is enough.
Until then…
My Honey and I watched game one of the World Series tonight. I love baseball - live. I’m not a big fan of televised baseball. The announcers annoy me and I get tired of watching the ball players spit. Now live - I love baseball. Still, I will watch the World Series. I’m not really rooting for either team - San Francisco or Detroit.
I’m for the Panda. There’s a player on the Giants named Pablo Sandoval but they call him The Panda.
He’s roly poly like a panda and his hair’s a bit fluffy. Fans in the crowd wear panda hats and panda suits and panda shirts. I wonder if we could get him to come over for a cupcake and coffee or something with Ava and I to help us get over the jones we have for a real panda.
Not all Tuesdays are equal
We are swamped tonight with chapter 7, and recovering from the mind numbingly torturous day at Bank of No Forks, and some other secret (da da duh!) projects we have going on.
This is a hint of things to come this weekend.
Stay tuned….
Love and War
Anyone who knows me well knows I’m not a very romantic person. I just never have been. Ed is far more romantic than I am and he knows it. I hope my children turn out more romantic than me, however, judging by the boy’s last valentine’s day escapades – maybe not.
Anyway, imagine Ed’s surprise when I insisted on defacing public property in Paris by placing a padlock on the Pont des Arts in Paris.
The Pont des Arts is a walking bridge in Paris which crosses the Seine River in front of the Louvre. Couples buy a lock from an unlicensed street vender and write their initials, dates, hearts, etc. on it and attach it to the railing of the bridge. You lock it and throw the keys into the river – thereby sealing your love forever. I explained to Ed that our being married for 25 years and having two children that neither was willing to accept physical custody of in a divorce, was not nearly as binding as our love was now with a padlock on a bridge in a foreign country.
I could tell this caused him to feel more secure in our marriage than he ever has! This was obvious by his response when I pointed this out - “Let’s go get a glass of wine.” See?
Paris has expressed concern over the locks damaging the bridge but has not yet adopted a definitive policy on how to deal with this new fad. I hope they aren’t foolish enough to remove my lock because I’ll make whoever is president start a war - I’m that romantic.
I hope she won something more than bragging rights
They managed to convince me to go camping again. The saving grace was that it’s no longer 5,000 degrees anymore, and I was going to
“Hello lady”
have a friend along. Just about the minute we arrived, a squirrel bounced into our campsite.
“Hey, a squirrel!” I shrieked in excitement.
“DO. NOT. PLAY. WITH. IT,” My Honey instructed with both stern face and tone. “We’re NOT taking a squirrel home.”
Whatever. I’m not a maniac.
On Saturday, everyone decided to go out on the lake and blessedly didn’t try to make me go. I spent a perfectly lovely day by myself. I wrote three pages then went and took a shower. After that, I plopped myself in a lawn chair and read an entire book. It was outrageously lovely.
Until the squirrel invasion.
It started out with just that one squirrel from before, with the cute bushy tail and an inquisitive face. He paused several yards away and observed me for a bit, then bounced away. In mere minutes, he reappeared with a friend. I named them Robert and Mathilda - because I name everything. It’s a bit absurd.
Uncle Jeb followed along with Squeakers and then Bruiser showed up.
So long as I was quiet, they would dart around our campsite, coming up onto our porch where I sat and even got so bold as to run around underneath my chair. They would prop themselves up on their butts, balanced by their tails, and hold their tiny paw-hands in prayer and implore me with their eyes saying, “Please, lady, can I have some popcorn?”
After a couple of hours of this, Robert came very bravely up to my feet and touched my flipflop with his little hands and then darted away.
I’m certain it was some sort of double-dog-dare squirrel style.
Immediately following Robert’s successful turn, the smallest of the squirrels appeared at the edge of the porch. I read my book and tried to ignore her, but I espied her sneaking forward out of the corner of my eye. I focused on my book until she was right at the foot of my chair. I glanced down. She inched forward. I held my breath. She leaned in, very slowly, and nipped my toe.
I screamed and she ran away at mach speed.
What exactly would you have done if the most adorable squirrel ever nibbled on your toe? You’d scream, I assure you.
My Honey spent the rest of the weekend waiting for me to start foaming.