We announced to the world, on our Monday Listicle a couple of weeks ago, that there were certain children’s books that we would, well, like to throat punch. Now it is our turn on  The Character Assassination Carousel hosted by the hilarious and industrious Nicole Leigh Shaw over at Ninja Mom Blog. Time to turn the flame up to full roast!

Robyn at Hollow Tree Ventures came before us and skillfully poached Babar. Treat yourself by checking out her post, after you’ve finished reading ours of course! Christine of Naptime Writing is up next. Can’t wait to see what book she targets.

And speaking of treats, do we have one for you!

This is a Read-Along Assassination!

To hear our voices soothe you off to Dreamland, click the media player and get started.

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Erin: It’s the close of another juice-cup-filling, nose-wiping. . .

Ellen: lunch-packing, homework-crunching, dinner-slopping. . .

Erin: sports-hopping, bath-drenching day. Little Darling cuddles in for his evening storytime and hands me this little gem.

Ellen: Oh, joy! A book without words that your crazy, artsy friend gave you at your baby shower. Because nothing will top off an evening like this more than making up your own story.

Erin: I hardly have enough energy to brush my teeth tonight,  but sure I can make up a humdinger for you. It only takes me 25 edits to write a blog post.

Ellen:  Truth be told her story sucked, but now in the new light of day with a little sleep, she remembers how funny WE are.

Erin: So we decided to make lemonade out of this lemon.

Ellen: We present for your enjoyment…

Erin: …and ours too if we are totally honest…

Ellen: the victim of this week’s Character Assassination Carousel, Fox and Hen Together by Beatrice Rodriguez.

Erin: Henceforth to be referred to as Fried Kentucky Shore as lampooned by Erin and Ellen.

Ellen: It’s a beautiful day on Fried Kentucky Shore. Some might say it is an unusual day because Chooki has put down the bottle and is nursing her maternal instincts by rocking her egg to a techno-beat.

I knew Poultry magazine had it all wrong. Chooki is going to be one fine feathered motherclucker.

Erin: But Southern Coop Living had it all right! Look at those tacky PDA photobooth pictures on the wall! And that empty fridge.

The Foxuation grunts, “Yo, Chooki, where’s the eats?!?”

Chooki says, “We only have half a bottle of Stoli and this champagne you swiped from the wedding you valeted.”

Pauly C, the mooch, chimes, “This is bogus, man, I haven’t had anything to eat since I hit the floor after those jeigerbombs last night and landed in that pile of pretzel crumbs.

Chooki says, “You’re such a bottom feeder. I got this, you losers.”

Erin: So she does what any chick in a den of slacker boys would do. . .

Ellen: And we do mean slack-ers! The Foxuation lost the car in a gambling spree, and Pauly C used all their extra scratch for GTL…

Erin: (Look it up in the Urban Dictionary, losers.) She takes care of business herself with the only thing she has left—a fishing rod.

Ellen: I think she thought it was a whip.

Erin: I think if she had more brains she would see that Pauly C looks like a good appetizer . Just saying.

Ellen: Hold on a minute, Erin. Are you just skipping over the tender ménage à troi farewelling  to the egg? Back it up for a minute and REALLY look at those tacky love pictures on the wall.

Erin: Alright, let’s humor Ellen and all look at the pictures on the wall. Wait a minute, who has this chickie been chucking?

Ellen: That‘s what I’m saying. This is no-teach-a-chicken-to-fish-and-the-menagerie- eats-forever story.  It’s a “Who’s Your Baby Daddy: Fried Kentucky Style”.

Erin: I see warning signs a-flashing à la Dr. Phil. The Foxuation is the ultimate bad boy: he’s foxy, he’s needy, and he is an ever-loving ACTUAL predator.

Ellen: Run, Chooki, run!  Do not walk! And do NOT take the creepy crustacean sidekick with you!

Erin: Ellen, focus your inner Winnie the Pooh, we are only the narrators.

Ellen: So let’s focus on the Springer in this story and skip to the fight scene. It all starts when FUGLY steals the fish.

Erin: FUGLY?

Ellen: Falcon of Unknown Genealogical Lineage…Y’all.

Erin: Oh, him. He drags our Chooki and Pauly C, who is hanging on her tail feathers like the backpack he is, and unceremoniously dumps them in the drink. But the Ch-itch still has her fish.

Chooki screams as the FUGLY flies away, “ You ruined my blowout , Motherclucker. It cost me a Benjamin. But, you’ve messed with the wrong chick. I won, ‘cuz I got the fish.”

Ellen: Chooki thinks she’s won, but her screeching rouses the Guido from his hole.

Erin:  He is pissed because some skank slinked off with his gold chains this morning. He is coming off a bad night, and he is just looking for trouble.

Ellen:  But instead he finds himself presented with a tasty snack of Filet o’ Fish with a side of nuggets and crab claws.

Erin: Little does he know that he has actually found trouble with a capital T, and it is spelled Chooki.

Ellen: Chooki is spelled with a C, but anyway, she is one tough…

Erin: Primo Poulet

Ellen: Um, are you serious? We’re going a little more street than that. This is a Jersey Shore spoof. Who needs to focus now?

Erin: But anyway, Chooki is bringing it Kentucky Shore style.

Ellen: She’s on the left.

Erin: She’s on the right.

Ellen: And she’s down.

Erin: But not for long.

Ellen: She hog ties that mouth-breathing-chain-wearin’-gel-sloppin’ Guido…

Erin: …and shows him “Who’s Your Daddy.”

Ellen: I like how you channeled your “street” there, much better, but “Daddy?”  Don’t you mean, “Who’s Your Momma?” Chooki owns this; Pauly C. was as useful as a trap door on a canoe. In fact, let’s cut that poser Pauly C out of this.

Erin: In fact, let’s cut to the disturbing ending, shall we?

Ellen:  Sure. The lighting is soft.. . .

Erin: Good lord, you and your soft lighting.

Ellen: I just appreciate the scene being set. Anyway, it’s spotlighting the broken egg.

Erin: Chooki is horrified.  She picks up the frying pan like a weapon.

Ellen: I’m horrified too! How is her first thought that her Chuck Buddy was snacking on her chick? And why does a chicken have a frying pan ANYWAY?

Erin: She totally went to, “Motherclucker ate my baby, WHAT?”   She is going ALL Loretta Bobbins.

Ellen: What the heck are you talking about?  Do you mean Lorena Bobett?

Erin: Yeah, you know, the chick that sliced and diced her husband’s package.

Ellen: Disturbing. Um, adjust your glasses, Granny, she is taking it to the next level. She is about to end the Foxuation for good.  She knows she picked a lowdown scoundrel. She watches Maury Povich every afternoon.

Erin: And speaking of Maury Povich, the master of the paternity reveal, are you really looking at that offspring?

Ellen: What is that thing?? There is no creature like that in nature.

Erin: It’s got fox ears and wings. It’s the Frankenstein of babies.

Ellen: It’s not a Frankenstein baby. It’s a FICKEN.

Erin: There’s no such thing as a frickin’ Ficken. You made that up!

Ellen: Ya think? There are no words for that biological fail.

Erin: But the most important part of any children’s book is the happy ending.

Ellen: And what is happier than toasting a weird-ass newborn creaturewith a little ALCOHOL and the conquered roasting on a spit?

Erin: Wait! But there also has to be a moral!

Ellen: So what kind of moral exactly are we finding in this train wreck, Pollyanna?

Erin: Don’t chuck a fox or you could be raising a Ficken.

Ellen: And that there is your Sisterhood Secret. Sweet dreams, Mothercluckers!

This post was written in response to a Monday Listicle prompt, but as you can see, it turned into much more than a list. It is actually a little, tiny portal showing some of the nuts and bolts of how two women cooperate to write a blog together. If you have never visited us before, Erin and I CO-AUTHOR the blog posts and transcribe them like our conversations. This requires a level of cooperation that nations should strive to achieve as a model for world peace. Seriously.

So, without further ado, we are linking up to Yeah Write Me #48. Head on over there to check out more great blogs. It is our favorite place to catch up on our reading.

                                       - Ellen

Ellen- Stasha at The Good Life  hosts this fabulous fun party known as the Monday Listicles. (If I get any comments pointing out that it is now Tuesday, I might drop kick a stuffed animal. Do you want that on your conscience?) This week’s Monday Listicles topic comes from Jessica at My Time As Mom, who suggested we make a list of things we’re rubbish at. And since Stasha personally asked/challenged us to join in, I immediately called Erin. (Ok, maybe she didn’t challenge, per se, but I am rubbish at turning down a request.)

Erin- Yesterday Ellen could barely speak, had a fever, and was suffering from one of the more heinous upper respiratory infections making the rounds in our fair county.  This point is significant, because today, slightly less feverish and ill, she rose from her bed and practically BEGGED me to write this list.

Ellen- I was thinking it was so much cheaper than mediation and would require less energy than slugging it out in one of those inflatable sumo wrestling rings.

Erin-You see, I am absolute RUBBISH at technology. This is not a big deal unless you have decided to partner with me to write a blog. And then it’s a big, stinking, miserable deal, because blogging is only partially about writing.

Ellen- It is a whole lot about mastering technology and making it your biotch.

Erin-  I keep hearing Kelly Clarkson singing, “That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Watch out for Ellen then.  Really. After blogging with me, she will be able to lift a bus with one hand. She really will be able to wear those red boots and lasso. 

Without further ado, the top ten things about technology that flummox me, thus almost kill Ellen, and at which I am absolute rubbish:

1. My Virtual Mailbox

Erin- Ahh, email. This lovely technology has made my life easier in so many ways and completely highlights how little attention I give to organizing certain things. Like email. In the earliest days of our blog, Ellen emailed me everything she could find about blogging.

Ellen- Lots of these were about technology, folks. Take note that until about four months ago, I would have sworn HTML code was a coupon for H&M.

Erin- She even organized the emails in a folder on her Gmail account—I would NEVER even think to do something like that.  Later, but not THAT much later, Ellen got irritated with me, because she thought I was ignoring her emails.

Ellen- Gee, they were only about getting our domain name pinned down.

Erin-I was responding. Truly. But on further inspection, they were stuck in my outbox. Oy. No words. Just oy.

2. My Voicemail

Erin-Yeah, my Voicemail on my home phone and cellphone are both full. I have lost the access numbers and passwords. My BIL Dan tried to help me rectify this over Christmas. He has the patience of a saint, but after about thirty minutes he Pontius Pilated me and washed his hands of the whole mess. When your patron saint declares you a lost cause, you know you’ve got troubles.

Ellen- I sometimes resort to telepathic powers to communicate with her.

3. Posting Pictures

Erin- To be fair, posting pictures to a blog is one of the trickier things to learn early on. There’s re-sizing, and LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS of choices. Thumbnail, medium, full-size. Right, left, center. It’s like the Starbucks of visual media, and all I was looking for was a little coffee. On the Blirth-day of the blog, Ellen was setting up Google Analytics, Twitter, and, well, everything else. Meanwhile, I was trying to put my picture on my bio. It took AWHILE.

Ellen- I was actually generating code and she called me expecting a celebration when she got a picture posted.

Erin- I have gotten better, but it’s SLOW.

4. Distinguishing Activity From Productivity

Erin- One of the unwritten rules is that blogs are like houses in a lovely community and you are supposed to make the rounds and COMMENT on them.  Hey, nice curtains, lovely rug–that sort of thing. The first time we linked up to Yeah Write Me, I read like 50 blogs, wrote a lovely, lengthy email to Ellen about who we should vote for and why, but I didn’t write a single comment on a single blog.  Yeah, I know. (Head hung in shame)

Ellen- Don’t worry folks, I’m all about playing fair, so I swept behind and commented up a storm.

5. Linking Things Up

Erin – It’s kind of a key part of blogging to link things, but I break links like they are a china shop, and I am a bull. Letters appear out of nowhere and attach themselves in funny places BREAKING the link. I don’t copy the whole address BREAKING the link. I don’t even know WHAT I do and I end up BREAKING the link. To say that it’s a problem might be the understatement of the century.

Ellen- Maybe just checking every link you “think” you have posted, might be a goal? I feel like I just channeled Dr. Seuss.

6. Posting Videos

Erin- AGAIN. It bites me twice, because we also like to add videos to our blog posts. Well, the story here starts with my optimistic email to Ellen that read, “Hey, I loaded the video. Blog is ready to go!” Um, well, not really. I hadn’t actually added anything but a link to YouTube that took readers away from our site.

Ellen- And a picture of the video that took you to a blank page.

Erin- Don’t you wish you had a partner just like me??

7. Using My Awesome, Superduper, SmartPhone

Erin- This phone is like a bucking bronco I can’t break. It pocket-dials, refuses to return emails, tweets when it feels like it, and only surfs the net when the mood strikes it. I took it back to the store and they claimed it was an ID10T error.

Ellen- Hmmmm.

8. Mastering My MAC

Erin- I am the world’s worst spokesperson for the world’s best computer brand. Apple makes products for people just like me. Everything about Apple is supposedly intuitive and user-friendly. I am the unfriendliest user EVER.

Ellen- She actually FROZE the screen. I have spent years having Mac users snarkily tell me to abandon my PC because Macs are so foolproof.

Erin- This is such a rare occurrence with a MAC that the Apple Geniuses almost had me escorted out the door by the cops who stand sentry. The bottom line is that I don’t even know how to harness all my power for good.

Ellen- Yet.

9. Attending To Details

Erin- So much of technology in general, and blogging technology specifically, is the ability to dot i’s and cross t’s. I am a big idea person; the details often confound me or in this case poor Ellen. I regularly forget to check boxes that tag our posts or bring readers back to our pages. My husband Steve calls this Erin phenomena “Oh, look, a rock.” As in, Erin is swimming around a fishbowl and “Oh, look, a rock.”  Over and over and over. I get lost a lot too.

Ellen- She DID NOT inform me that her hubby had named a phenomenon about her attention span before I agreed to start blogging with her. Just sayin’.

10. Squashing My Utter, Gripping, Handicapping Fear

Erin- Ellen was out for jury duty two weeks ago and left me in charge of the blog. I was sweating like it was a heat wave in August. I know me. Too damn well. I knew I would forget to check a box, or break a link, or post a picture upside down or backward (I know you think it can’t be done, but I am like the anti-superhero of the computerworld—just watch me!).

Ellen- She does produce a force field that makes even my computer go wiggy sometimes. I think she should get her dental work inspected.

Erin- And it’s not like Ellen has all that much computer background, she’s just not terrified of it. I buck, I stomp, I stone-cold back away from the challenge of it all. But the thing about calling a spade a spade, or in this case, myself RUBBISH, is that it takes the power of it all away.  Words can tame the beast. In our house we say, “Fight the Tiger; Embrace the Mountain.” All this time, I thought technology was the tiger at the door, but really it’s just the mountain to climb. And I’m going to get my gear on. Really.

Bonus

Ellen- I hope so! But there is one more thing at which Erin is rubbish: giving herself props. She has the most accepting and good-natured disposition of any woman I have ever met. Her kindness knows no bounds. She is the friend we all rely on to deliver hard to hear news to members of the Sisterhood because she truly has a gift for being non-abrasive. She is the Labrador Retriever of women, friend to all. She can also accept criticism like no one I have ever seen. Grace should be her middle name. It is the only thing that can explain why she still takes my calls (of course, she has to have her phone turned on). Let’s face it, it’s one heck of a woman who would write this post.

Erin- I just didn’t want to rent the inflatable sumo suits.

Write on Edge‘ s prompt this week was:

“We’d like you to explore friendship. You can talk about a current friendship or one from your past, a friend you met over kindergarten snacks or happy hour at your first job. Examine your emotional interest in the friendship and the role it plays, or played, in your life.

The word limit for this prompt is 400 words. While that may not seem like many words to devote to a friend you’ve known for thirty years, try to provide us with a snapshot that encompasses your feelings about the friendship.”

Two-For-One

We are including two prompt responses under one post because, well, there are two of us. We blog with a shared voice and focus as Sisterhood of the Sensible Moms. It can be challenging, but what might be even more challenging, is explaining to people how we do it without killing each other. We decided to take this prompt as a blind challenge to explore this question. Ellen is going to write about Erin and vice versa. Erin’s husband is going to load both essays and then we are going to see where the chips fall. Does anyone have Judge Judy’s phone number?

Erin: One Analogy Is Not Enough

Erin is the self-described Labrador Retriever of Women. With her being the wordsmith that she is, I’m going to take the easy road and continue with this analogy. She has all the very best qualities of a Lab – loyal, fun, outgoing, intelligent, and adorable – without the shedding, slobber, and muddy paws. Well, occasionally she has muddy paws, but she does always clean up after herself.

But a woman this fabulous cannot be pegged by just one analogy. She is also THE safe harbor of friendship. She draws friends of all personalities and shelters them with her compassionate and accepting nature. I am prone to bitterness, because I tend to tamp down my feelings so as not to offend anyone. This is never an issue with Erin, because while she will hold you accountable, she will never turn you away for sharing who you are. She just has this supernatural ability to reflect and magnify all that is good in you.

She is also like a poorly maintained roller coaster: if you are not buckled in and paying attention, she will have you off on a tangent in the blink of an eye. While this can make planning a trip with her challenging, it is in these tangents where the heartstrings of friendship are woven tighter.

If I just made you throw up a little in your mouth with the word “heartstrings,” let me redeem myself. She can also get on your nerves like a stonewalling teenager. If she goes “radio-silent” on me one more time, immediately after blog-posting, texting, emailing, Facebooking,  or tweeting, I’m going to pee in her Pollyanna Kool-Aid. Love you.

XOXOX – Ellen

Ellen

“You can write me, but you will never capture me.” Thus speaketh Ellen, and like she has so many other times, reveals the absolute truth of the matter. Ellen defies the pigeonholing that sums most people up. She is just so Ellen.

A force of nature, she is so the chick you want in your get-away car. Ellen is a do-it-yourselfer extraordinaire harboring Macgyver-esque fantasies. She can also help you find what ails you, bake a cake that makes you want to live in her kitchen, and guide some pretty great kids through life.  She manages all this with a flair and fashion sense that I admire.

Over the years, Ellen has blown me away with the many shades and depths of her character, but the thing that binds us, the thing that makes US work is our ability to make each other laugh. Even if nobody else agrees, we think we are funny as hell.

I am grateful to Ellen on many levels, but I owe her truly for being the one who kicked me out of my Erinness and made me do what I have always wanted to do—write.  She wrote me an email once in response to a piece I had written that said “I can go in and do some editing like an overachieving 4th grade mom who wants her kid to get the A.” She can, and she has, more times than I can count. She pushes, I pull. She demands, I rise to the challenge. She laughs, I dissolve in giggles. She is the right partner for me in this blog, because she sees me and what we are trying to do so clearly.

“You can thank me later for your first sentence.” Yes, Ellen, and then some.

In our new world of blogging, we found this creative playground at Write on Edge, an online community of writers. This week’s RemembeRED  memoir prompt challenges its readers to write a Title and Tagline describing a part of their lives.

Here is ours. Drumrolllllllllll…

Schweddy Palms

Erin and Ellen’s Excellent Adventure in Blogging

We have been tripping along this pathway of blog creation fueled by Ellen’s stubbornness and Erin’s optimism. Luckily, we have been guided by the light of blessed serendipity that emits from The Sisterhood in our lives.  Our barometer for knowing that we are on the correct trail is the “schweddyness” of Ellen’s hands.  We know the idea is worth keeping when her eccrine system starts beading .  In fact, her fingers are slipping off of the keys right now…