NEW RELEASES
One more reason…
Do you remember those baby goats we showed you a couple of weeks ago?
We really, really need one of those. They will provide us hours, literally hours of amusement. Believe me when I say you don’t want us bored.
Camping - meh.
I lived through my camping experience. It wasn’t so bad. I got almost an entire chapter written, so that was great. I didn’t find Bigfoot, so that sucked. The people who camped opposite us at the camp ground had a cat in a harness, so that was awesome. More on that later. No mama bears left me their cubs for safekeeping, so that was disappointing. Even though I never left the shade of our trailer’s awning, I still managed a sunburn, so that blew. I did see a herd of white tail deer, and that was nifty.
All in all I think things evened out.
Our little group was fairly large-13 of us in all-with another group of 5 hanging out for one day. We are all family and/or long time friends. That would also imply that we’re loud, funny and sarcastic. I just want to set the tone for you, dear readers.
This is Peko. It’s pronounced like pickle but without the “l”. This name confusion caused a great deal of deliberation at the campsite. I’m not completely convinced that we ever resolved the issue completely. I am positive I’m right, though, because I told the woman when I took the kitty’s picture that he was going on my blog and I needed accurate information. Part of the problem could be that Pickle is a funny name for a cat. Peko not so much. This was a funny cat and he deserved a funny name. What made him a novelty was the simple fact that he was a cat. There are nine thousand and seven dogs at a camp ground. There was only one cat. He thoroughly enjoyed his walks around the place. What I think he especially enjoyed was riling the dogs all up into a frenzy.
I did have an exquisitely bizarre conversation with my father as we left to go camping. Remember, he had a stroke several years ago and now he lives with my brother full-time. Sometimes things can get a little strange-conversations can go off the rails. Honestly, you never know what to expect.
“Hey,” he said as we were getting ready to head out the door Friday morning. “Do you have any rancid meat in the house?”
I squinched up my eyebrows and sniffed the air. “No.”
“You don’t have any chicken parts lying around?” He must have read my bemused look correctly because he added helpfully, “Maybe some gizzards?”
“No.”
“Really? No rancid meat in the refrigerator?”
“What the hell, old man? Why would I have that?”
He shrugged. I finally deduced that he was looking for catfish bait. He proceeded to ask every single person at our camp site if they had rancid meat they were willing to share. The problem with that was he didn’t explain why he wanted it. I swear I should send him around with a manual for making sense.
I have some concerns here and I’ll lay them out for you.
1. I don’t think I want to ever eat catfish again if they are that enticed by rancid meat. Ick. I knew they were bottom feeders, but that’s a little too graphic for me.
2. What the hell is going on in my brother’s kitchen?
March 28
This may be our last Favorite Thing post. Amylynn is being forced to go camping again. Things could not be worse. Well, we guess they could be worse. Let’s just decide that things are bad, very bad. She keeps going on about wind and dirt. The possibility of bugs. And Bigfoot, Bigfoot’s a definite possibility. The only thing that will make it better is if a mama bear should accidently abandon two cubs in our camp and Amylynn could keep them and raise them as their own. We discuss this possibility further below. The best we can hope for at this point is that she doesn’t kill anyone with a skillet, she gets at least two chapters written, and something blog worthy happens. Cross your crossables. Here’s stuff that made us laugh.
1. Jobs we don’t want. This picture shows the guys who get the job of cleaning the skywalk over the Grand Canyon. To be honest, we’re not sure if we’d be willing to go on top of the skywalk, much less go underneath the damn thing. 4,000 feet in the air. To clean. That’s really high. Absolutely NOTHING beneath you until you go splat on the bottom of the canyon. Cripes! There’s not enough money for this job. We wonder if the mother’s of these kids knows what they’re up to.
2. The Job we do want. Katy Perry just gave her five assistants $100,000 Fiskar Karmas. If you are not familiar with this car, let us let us educate you. It’s the latest in green cars. Goes zero to sixty in 5.9 seconds. And it’s beautiful. Also, if you needed further motivation, let us remind you that Katy often wears cupcakes over her boobs. Seriously. We like this girl. She knows how to party.
3. A cautionary tale. Alright, here’s the deal. When the mama bear leaves her cubs with Amylynn for safe keeping she should NOT post it on the internet. Facebook is the end of all illegal activity. We bet there’s entire cadre of law enforcement people whose sole job it is to cruise the internet and find bozos posting that they have illegal bears. Like these two idiots in Kosovo. When we get our bears/lion cubs/wolves we will not be posting pictures on the internet. You’ll know it happened when you read the article in the paper about the idiots who got mauled to death by tigers.
4. Prison ice cream. We’ve decided. When we go to prison for that bogus animal charge we would like to be elected the President of Cell Block C by a confidence vote delivered in ice cream. If you watch Justified you’ll know what we mean. Ava Crowder is totally gonna run that place.
5. You know that chicken coop…? We still haven’t gotten the go ahead on the chicken coop from our jailers, ie. husbands. We’re totally doing it though. Look at these chickens. These are the chickens we want. These are some hysterical chickens. They’re called Fizzles. Seriously. We have named these three Frederica, Francine and Fiona Fizzle. They’re sisters, because of course they are. Frederica’s the difficult one.
The stuff authors live for
We all need a pep talk
We were made to be awesome!
Yes, your honor, there was a bug in my soup
I spent the last weekend out-of-town with my children’s robotics team. Two other moms and myself were in charge of making sure the kids ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner. After lunch on the first day, we always go check into the hotel so that we don’t have to do it with a bunch of tired kids misbehaving in the lobby while we wait for seven rooms to be assigned. I don’t believe there is a more destructive force than nerdy robotics children who understand calculus and physics waiting for a hotel room - you only make that mistake once . . . and that’s another blog.
We had some trouble with making the reservations. The school decided we were spending too much money on rooms and made us move to a cheap motel. I try to behave myself with folks I don’t know well and the other two moms come under this category. As we were driving to the motel, I noticed the area got shabbier and shabbier. There were seedy bars and some “women” who may or may not have been hookers. I didn’t say anything, I was determined to “not be me”. While one of the other moms was dealing with the front desk, I walked the few feet over to the “included” breakfast section. I was handsomely greeted by a cockroach and a plastic tower of stale cereal. And still, I said NOTHING. I mean, I said “Look, there’s a cockroach.” But I did not say “Nothing on earth could cause me to stay here.” Which is what I wanted to say but I swore to Ed I’d behave and “not be me”.
When we were done, we decided we’d better have a gander at the rooms. We drove around to the back and found this. Yes, you’re seeing it correctly. That’s a mattress in the parking lot. I’m not sure if a guest asked for an al fresco sleeping arrangement or if they were trying something new.
***PS*** Amylynn here - When I received the first picture of the mattress via text, I started packing up my computer and gathering my things from my desk assuming the very next text would be her request to come fetch her 100 miles away. Seriously. Ava has standards, regardless of the fact that she grew up in New Jersey. Back to Ava.
I swear, at this point, I’m still “not being me” as in I wasn’t shrieking yet. The rooms were pretty much what you’d expect after meeting Mr. Cockroach and finding a mattress outside. Each had the required mold and grey – used to be white – towels set off rather nicely by dilapidated furnishings. I can’t even describe the fruity disinfectant cleaner smell.
Here’s where I became “me”. “We are not staying here. Get back in the car, ladies.” One of them suggested that we’d already paid and couldn’t get a refund. I think she meant it. I assured her I’d make sure we got all of our money back. Which we did. By the time I was done, we’d also received an apology.
The funny thing is, I didn’t take the pictures for this blog or in case I needed them to dispute any charges with the credit card company – I took them to defend myself when Judge Ed gave me the “You just had to be you.” look.
***PPS*** Amylynn again. I want it noted here that I learned something very interesting about my Sister during this crisis. She knows what an hourly hotel smells like and likened this hotel to one. My eyebrows went up but I did not inquire as to her intimate knowledge. I figured it was best not to poke the bear.
I’m even disappointed in myself
I’m old. I’ve caved to the facts. I can no longer deny the horror of the whole thing.
I got my first pair of bifocals today.
45 sucks.
They’re totally making me nauseous and I have a headache. Fortunately the optometrist warned me this would happen for a day or so.
You shouldn’t worry about me. Just because I’m old certainly does not mean I am an adult. Or mature. Or no longer childish.
The tech at the store who was helping me get the glasses after the exam had a wonky eye. The right one worked just fine, concentrating on me and the computer screen. The left one, however, was all over the place like a chameleon.
I can tell you with one hundred percent accuracy that I am not mature enough to deal with that.
No botchulism here, thank you very much
Did you all feel a disturbance in the Force this weekend? Maybe a ripple in the fabric of space and time?
It’s entirely possible that you did. I have proof that stars aligned or the Higgs Boson fluttered or, I don’t know, perhaps Zeus proved his existence. All I know is that something exciting happened and I was a part of it.
Here is all the proof you need.
Exhibit A - I was notified this week that I was going to need to work with the Bandit on a cake for the Blue and Gold Cub Scout dinner. It needed to represent Scouting. The idea made me want to throw up. I can’t even tell you how stressed out that made me. I can bake a fine cake, that wasn’t the scary part. What I’m not good at is getting it out of a pan-whole-and decorating it. Especially if frosting is involved. I’m not an accomplished froster. You know what I can do really well? I can eat the hell out of cake, and I can critique it like nobody’s business. Decorating? Not so much. Never the less, I present to you a cake that fairly well represents the cub scout hat in a whimsical yet totally identifiable way. In the spirit of full disclosure, My Honey did the little bear shape, but I totally went to the store to get the tube of black piping for his face. The rest is mine and the boy’s.
Exhibit B - My pop turned 76 today. He loves pie. LUUUUUURVES the pie. What he’d really like is a strawberry rhubarb pie, but rhubarb is a summer thing. So I asked him if he’d rather have plain strawberry or lemon. As you can see he picked strawberry. I’ve never made a strawberry pie from scratch before, but it was freaking GORGEOUS AND YUMMY! The strawberry filling was deliciously not too tart, not too sweet. Home run city.
I’m not getting a big head or anything. There is absolutely no risk of that. I shall not run around like a crazy person thinking I can make banana’s foster or something. Although I have a fairly good idea of what it involves, no one, least of all me, thinks I should be around flames in the kitchen.
Anyway, I’m inordinately proud of myself.
March 21
Ava has abandoned Amylynn for the exciting town of Phoenix for an even more exciting robotics contest. That means Amylynn is left to roam about alone. She had to go to the church (the Starbucks in the Barnes & Noble) by herlslf. She thought no one would pay her any attention without her Sister. The two of us always assume we’re only recognized in a pack. The Barista knew her though. “All alone today? No one to share a dessert with?” Sigh. Sadly no. It’s no fun to get fat alone. Fortunately for all involved, there were plenty of things to keep us amused this week PA (pre-abandonment). Ready, set, go.
1. Call off the dogs. We have been following the search for the missing Malaysian airplane along with the rest of the world. We’re completely fascinated that they can track every single thing you do with your smart phone, read all your emails, know what you watch on television and what you shop for online, but they lost an entire freaking airplane. How is that possible? How? They understand that it’s a rather large metal THING, right? Anyway, you no longer have to worry. It’s been located and by no less than Courtney Love, people. Yes, apparently, Courtney has nothing better to do than search for that plane. You know honestly, this revelation goes right along with the theory that we were operating under and that is that it was sucked up by an alien. There’s no other reasonable explanation. Thank you, Courtney. You’re Nobel Prize is in the mail.
2. Office supply stores. We love them. We like to touch all the sticky notes and marvel at all the pretty colors and shapes. We adore the pen aisle. We want to fondle all the day calendars and notebooks. We sit in the office chairs and ogle the white boards. We don’t know why this is such a thing with us, but we also know we’re not alone. There are many, many people with an over-fondness for office supplies-especially pens. We have a lot of pens. What we can’t understand is why the people who work in the office supply store can’t comprehend that we want to molest their wares unbothered by their constant demands to let them help us. Leave us alone to caress the merchandise and I guarantee you’ll make more money. Back off! Jeez.
3. Personalized license plates. Normally these things annoy the hell out of us. We think there needs to be certain creative requirements when granting personalized plates. There is really nothing stupider than a Mustang with the personalized plate: SueStng. We know what kind of car you drive, bozo. Putting your name on the plate only gives us more fulfilling phrases to swear at you as you drive too slowly in front of us. But then we saw this motorcycle and it’s driver. You can’t see it in the picture, but her plate says: I wont. It doesn’t say what she won’t, but based on the fact that she will do lace and leather we’re imaging that what she won’t do is very intriguing indeed. Capital job with the license plate, anonymous chick. Brava.
4. This cover. Isn’t it cute? Seriously. Isn’t it? We can’t wait for you all to read this book. We just love it, if we do say so ourselves. The lovely art department over at Carina Press did a great job of conveying the fun of this book. And did you notice the pink high heel hanging off the title? That plays very prominently in the story. It’s available for preorder at Amazon and Barnes and Noble and ibooks already and will be released June 2. OK - back to the cover. Let’s have a group **SQUEEE** on three, ready?
5. Jingle jingle. A guy in New Jersey is going to spend a lot of years on probation for stealing $460,000 from the Public Works Department. Pretty straight forward example of embezzlement, right? Not exactly. Thomas Rica stole it all in quarters-pockets full at a time. Seriously. They believe he stole over 1.8 million quarters over the course of 25 months. He deposited all of these quarters in his bank. 1.8 million of them. I don’t know about your bank branch, but ours gives us the hairy eyeball when we come in with one roll of pennies. We do love us a creative criminal. Hey, Mr. Rica - can you spare a dime? Blahahahaahhaha
I like to call it Independant Accidental Exsanguination
I’m going to tell you all something important. I am a clumsy person. I am dramatic, too. You add dramatic and clumsy together you get an epic fail.
There is this one thing I do all the time-well at least ten times-on accident, and one of these days it’s going to kill me. I’m going to describe it here in a minute, but the reason I’m telling you the gory details now is because I don’t want you people to think I’ve been attacked when I’m found dead in a parking lot.
So picture this: I use my right hand to take the keys out of my ignition, right? Then, still using my right hand, I grab my purse off my passenger seat and slip it over my right shoulder-still holding the keys. Women generally use that same right thumb to slide under the purse strap to adjust it on your shoulder. Keep in mind that damn ignition key is sorta pointing out. That’s when I’ve repeatedly stabbed myself in the jugular.
Now you ask, probably out loud because this tale is alarming, “Why, you stupid woman, don’t you put your keys in your purse first?”
Oh, internet, you’re forgetting that if I do that, then I have to fumble around again in the parking lot, looking for these same damn keys which will now have fallen to the deepest darkest recesses of my purse in the matter of mere seconds, to lock the car.
You see, stabbing myself is inevitable.
One of these days I’m going to bleed out in a parking lot. Just wait. It’ll happen and then you can say, “Holy shit! That’s exactly what she said would happen.” It’s like I’m psychic or something.