The girls at Bank of No Forks are our own worst enemies. Every Monday we all show up for work with dieting on our minds. There is grumbling by noon on Monday. Tuesday there might be a slip. Wednesday shit happens. Thursday we abandon all hope. By Friday we hate ourselves.

Take for instance yesterday. The Worlds Greatest Receptionist (henceforth referred to as WGR) and I went to fetch lunch. We got excellent chile lime salads. Very healthy. On the way back to the office, less than a mile away, she says, “I want cake. CAAAAAAAAAAKE.”

Me, being the good friend that I am say, “Where from?”

She can’t make up her mind. She’s straining to think of a nearby bakery.

I take pity on her. “I know of one. The secret bakery.”

“The secret bakery? What’s that?” she says. I can see suspicion on her face.

“A bakery that is a secret.” I try to act nonchalant. She gives me a quizzical look, and I cave. “It’s a secret cause that’s the bakery Ava and I go to and don’t tell you about.”

So now she’s pissed. Betrayed, and rightfully so. I direct her to the place and she’s in love. We brought back three giant slices of cake to share with the girls.

Now its Wednesday. I thought we were doing very well, diet wise. Ava had been in an absolutely FIERCE mood after dealing with the Cadillac dealer first thing in the morning. (Just a hint to GM and the guys over at the dealer - we just finished watching Breaking Bad and I’d be careful if I was you. Don’t use any Truvia is all I’m saying.) I’m freaking out over the book I’m trying to finish on schedule. WGR was feisty probably out of solidarity with the rest of us.

I went to take The Bandit to the doctor. This is the first text I got while in the waiting room.

How can this be ignored?

This is just a sampling. Another followed and another and another. Not long after this barrage, I got a text from someone else in the office. Someone who doesn’t usually participate in this nonsense. When she texted her wishes, I couldn’t very well ignore the nicest person in the building.

I got no less than fifteen text on the topic of donuts. You see all the donut emojis?

Don’t you love the pictures of the fruit with the “none a dis!” comment?

We’re a hopeless mess.

Honestly.

So I did. I found us donuts. I told the checkout person I lost a bet, I was so ashamed.

And we ate them.

Donuts filled with sorrow.

Normally, I don’t go for winkers. There’s something inherently suspect about someone who winks at you. Most men are demoted right to icky the minute they try that winking business.

Not this one.

Oh no.

We want you people to know that if this happened to us, we’d be the proud owners of a baby fox. How many of you would be able to let him go after that.

HE KISSED THE MAN’S TOES, FOR ZEUS’S SAKE.

We wouldn’t kidnap him. We’d lure him into the house with yummies and he’d be so happy he’d have to stay.

I really dropped the ball this weekend. I feel just awful about it. On Friday I had a half day at Bank of No Forks so I took my computer to my favorite eatery that also has glorious sandwiches and wifi so I could work on the book due on May 14. I sat against the back wall because it freaks me out that people might be able to read over my shoulder. Of course they can’t but I’m always certain there’s someone behind me with Superman vision who is silently judging my work. But enough about my psychosis.

I was positioned so I could see the entire restaurant and I would periodically look up at the crowd. One guy caught my attention. He was a good-looking man in his late fifties or early sixties. He was fit and very big - way over six feet. Dressed head to toe in gray BMW motorcycle gear - a textile shirt and pants, and boots, he carried a helmet and some square thing that went over his shoulders. He sat at the table about ten feet in front of me and at an angle so I could really only see his profile.

I watched him while I wrote and he ate his glorious sandwich. I was pretty sure I knew who he was, and it was later when I discussed the event with my husband that I have become convinced that I watched Neil Peart, the drummer from Rush and writer of glorious travelogues, take a break from riding and nibble a late lunch.

Here’s where I dropped the ball. I did not go up and say hi. Upon further dissection of the event, I think my reticence was because, at the time, I wasn’t 100% sure it was him. The crazy thing is, if I was certain, I would have said something, but because I wasn’t sure I didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of a total stranger. I didn’t have my posse with me so I was a lone wolf, so to speak. I’m much less obnoxious when I’m alone. No, that’s not true. I’m probably always obnoxious on some level. I’m much less brave when I’m alone. Isn’t that always the case?

Anyway, I know that Neil rides a BMW touring bike, that he travels practically everywhere on it, and that he likes to eat in yummy restaurants. He is six feet, four inches and handsome in a rugged way. My Honey, the rabid Rush fan, has told me way more than any woman who isn’t married to Neil needs to know about the man. Well, he didn’t tell me he was handsome; that’s something I made my own determination about.

I apologized profusely to my husband for not quietly and politely asking for an autograph from the man whose band inspired My Honey to be the fabulous musician he is today. I really regret that I didn’t get the opportunity to tell Neil that his writing is outstanding, as that is what I admire the most. Mr. Peart, if you were actually around this weekend, drop me a comment so I know I wasn’t crazy. Your writing is fabulous. You play the drums pretty good, too.

Things are warming up here in the desert. That means everything is blooming. That also means that all of our allergy symptoms are out of control. Amylynn’s sinus infection is no big deal so long as she doesn’t move her head, or her eyes, or think too much. Ava on the other hand has a terrible pollen induced cough that’s keeping her up at nights and is making plans to turn into pneumonia. I’m sure you can imagine, this means there is whining. Normally we don’t whine much. We’re very reasonable, centered people. That’s what everyone says. We’re pretty sure no irony was intended. Here are other silly things this week.

1. Bomb-sniffing cat? There was a letter to the editor in the Picayune were an outraged citizen takes another contributor to task over a letter published earlier in the week. Apparently, Person #1 makes the statement that cats are the best pets. The assertion goes that dogs are “goofy and dopey and surprisingly gullible” compared to cats. Well, Person #2 insists that draws the line in the sand. She asks, “When is the last time you saw a bomb-sniffing cat, a service cat, or a police cat?” We suspect things will get nastier from here. The dog gang and the cat gang are meeting with pistols at dawn to hammer this out. We personally love dogs AND cats so we-for the first time in the history of EVER-have no opinion.

2. Excellent obits. There was the best obit in the Picayune this week. Ken was described as going “to the great big tennis court in the sky.” The picture included with the text is with his dog. A mighty cute dog. With one black ear. We’ve decided that we’re totally doing this for our obits. We’re going to have pictures taken with our tiger

(as soon as we get it). It’s a two-fold plan really. Certainly having a picture taken with a tiger will be the reason that we’re dead in the first place.

3. Jaguar country. There’s a very elusive bachelor in our area. Every time they snap a new picture of him we all squeal down here. He’s just gorgeous. We name him each time, but we can never remember what we named him last time. This time we’re liking Carl. We’re waiting for our new shipment of Purina Animal Chow to arrive from Amazon. Then we’re heading into the mountains to do some luring of Carl. Here kitty, kitty.

4. Fermented fruit. Two of our favorite topics collided today. Diets and animals. Getting drunk is a distant third and you’ll see how we got there in a minute. Ava and The World’s Greatest Receptionist found a new diet that was heavy on eating fermented fruit. Amylynn was in until she discovered that fermented fruit wasn’t referring to wine but to sauerkraut. Amy’s not eating that. Nope. So in the course of Googling fermented fruit we discovered the elephants in Singita Kruger National Park in Africa are all drunk on the fermented fruit that falls from the trees. Then we saw the similarity between drunk elephants and the fact that we can’t find a diet that works and now we want to be drunk too. On the REAL fermented fruit.

5. And now we need a Zonky. Look at this little dude. A cross between a dwarf albino donkey and a lovely lady zebra. Look at how adorable he is. We hope no one’s mean to him in school because he’s different. If he does, he can come live with us. We’re different over here, too. We tease a lot, but we do it with love. And we love striped legs. And cute little manes. And big donkey ears. We’re naming him Saul. We hope he eats Purina Animal Chow.

Because Ava is no longer allowed to say the word “Chipotle” under threat of bodily harm – it was decided by a two-thirds vote to have a rotisserie chicken for lunch. Ava being Ava, and not caring for being out voted, demanded she get to pick the side dish. “Go ahead,” one of the chicken voters said. Amy knew this for the trouble it was about to become.

And sure enough, Ava insisted the side dish be McDonald’s apple pies. Other than some people thinking apple pie is not a REAL side dish, what the heck could go wrong? Go to the drive-thru, place order, pay, go to next window for food, leave. Fast and easy.

Amy to Unseen McDonald’s Worker: Do you still have apple pies on the dollar menu?

16-year-old Unseen McDonald’s boy: No, ma’am.

Amy: You don’t have apple pies anymore????!!!!

Boy: We do. They are 59 cents each.

(Note to McDonalds – Honest to the gods, if you need the extra 9 cents you should just say so. No need to disrupt the natural order of things on the Dollar Menu.)

Amy: Great. We’ll have seven.

Boy: Seven?

Amy: Yes – seven. S-E-V-E-N.

Boy: We don’t have seven.

Amy: McDonalds doesn’t have seven apple pies?

Boy: We have four made.

Amy: (Say this in Amy’s sarcastic voice) Can you make three more?

Boy: We can but it will take 12 minutes.

Amy: (Deep sigh) Fine. Why didn’t you just say so?

Boy: How about if we just make seven fresh ones?

Amy: AAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH

After wrapping up the order, we were told to go wait in the parking lot and “someone” would bring them to us. We pictured them drawing straws in the kitchen to see who would have to go outside. Sixteen and half minutes later, a boy brought them over in a bag he had managed to rip in the twenty steps he had to take to the car. We were just happy to be on our way but not before Ava suggested that we never had to sit around in the parking lot waiting for anything at Chipotle.

Amy: DEEP SIGH

Things we didn’t do, yesterday, in celebration of Earth Day.

1. Go outside. We find outside to be a let down. It always looks lovely in pictures and on television. Often it even looks pleasant enough through the window. Sadly, when we do venture outside it often turns out to be hot. Or cold. Or windy. Or very dry. Or too humid. Or, how do we say it? Outside.

2. Ride a bicycle to work. You have got to be kidding. You’re kidding, right? Right? Did you think for even one second this was going to happen? You’re even more delusional than we were when we built that panda pen in the back yard.

3. Set up a compost. You understand that happens outside right? See #1. Also, do you understand that compost is rotting garbage? Ewwwwwww.

4. Hug a tree. Outside again. Do you see a theme here?

Things we did do in celebration of Earth Day.

1. We skipped the shower. We took the opportunity to sleep an extra ten minutes. It was probably all a wash though because then we had an extra (or three) cups of coffee instead.

2. We paid for stuff online. We love the internet and we’re especially fond of Amazon. If you buy from Amazon you never have to go outside again. Like ever.

3. Hugged the wildlife. Well the wildlife that we managed to lure into the house. We used all purpose “Animal Chow” from Purina. Amazon delivered it right to the door.

4. Break the plastic water bottle habit. We’re totally in on this. We’re now only drinking our margaritas in the office coffee mugs that we’re no longer washing.

You’re welcome planet. We think you’re AWESOME! Stay green.

The Sisters each have one girl child and one boy child. You’d think that being girls themselves, they’d understand the daughters easier than the sons. Turns out that’s not always true. Every morning, when we drop the kids at school we are witness to the oddest ritual we have ever seen. Now mind you – although it was decades ago – we were once pre-teen girls. Which should qualify us to have some serious insight into the minds of said people. Nope. Not even close.

Here’s what happens: The girl child jumps out of the car, rushes to her peeps, arms flailing, legs running, all while squealing loudly. They then fall into each other’s arms for a group hug.

***Amylynn here - my girl child has a mild variation on this technique once all the girls merge into the hug, then they move en masse away from the car and up to the sidewalk. It’s like a squealing mass of arms and legs. Weird.

A HUG. Every single blessed day. It’s like they haven’t seen each other for years instead of seventeen hours. There’s joy, laughter, and more squealing. You might think that’s heartwarming until you actually see it for yourself. Then you know it’s odd.

ODD.

Who taught them this? Where did it come from? Is it communism? We think too many germs are involved – stay back, save yourselves! We should have just had boys.

We went to the county fair this weekend. I love the fair. Not because of the rides. I’m actually very afraid of fair rides. I’ll happily ride roller

coasters at a Disney park or Great America or just about any actual park. Not at the fair. Those rides, plus the people who traditionally operate carnival rides. scare me. They take all those down every ten days! That crap’s scary. I’m very happy to be the official holder of crap while everyone else puts their lives a risk.

Also, Ferris wheels are scary! Scary! SCARY! You could have a Ferris wheel built by the best engineers and mechanics on the planet. You could have it inspected by the biggest hard-ass inspector ever born. You could have it blessed by the Pope, a rabbi, and the high priestess of The Flying Spaghetti Monster. I’m still not getting on it. I can’t tell you exactly what my problem is, but I can’t tell you what it is with spiders either. They both just scare the bejesus out of me.

But you know what’s good at the fair? ANIMALS!!!

I could spend hours in the petting zoo alone. In fact, I was expressly forbidden from putting a baby goat in my purse. And the wee tiny pigs were adorable.

The llama had a bit of an attitude, but he was very stylish about it. My favorite though, was a baby donkey. We named him Edgar and he liked to nibble your fingers very gently.

Also, not in the petting zoo, there was an Egyptian Sphinx. You know it as that weird hairless cat. This is the kind Ava wanted to get for her daughter when she wanted a cat. Ava liked it ’cause it wouldn’t shed. I told her very sternly to quit f***ing around and get her daughter a cat with hair. Thus Ricki the finest Abyssinian came to live at their home and provide us with entertainment. When I saw the hairless cat yesterday, I had to touch it. Wouldn’t you? Turns out she felt like a little bald man. And she was very warm. And quite tolerant all things considered.

We always go to the 4H barns, too, to see all the piggys and goats and bunnies. Some woman was trying to sell me bunnies. Me of all people.

Can you imagine? Some people just see a sucker coming, huh? Well, I didn’t buy a bunny, but not because I didn’t want to. I wanted to, believe me. I think a bunny would be lovely to cuddle with. Instead, I was busy “helping” all the 4H kids rename their animals.

“Hi,” said a boy carrying the world’s biggest guinea pig. “You wanna pet him?”

“Obviously! I wanna pet every animal.” I tickled the monster under the chin. “What did you name him?”

The boy looked thoughtful. “I’m thinking Zeus.”

I squinched up my nose. “That’s not a good name. How about Herbert?”

“Uh, okay,” he said and looked over his shoulder for, I’m guessing, support from a sane person.

As soon as that boy walked away, a little girl asked me if I wanted to pet her guinea pig. Clearly, she’d not witnessed how badly that went for the last kid. This animal was smaller and a lot less bulky all around. It was also a pretty bronze color.

“Sure!” I said with excitement. I petted the thing, then asked, “What did you name it?”

“Cinnamon,” she said with a confident smile, “because of her color.”

I shook my head. “I think Susie would be better.”

“Uhhhhhhhhh.” She looked at me with raised eyebrows.

My kids grabbed my arm. “Come on, Mom, you’re scaring people.”