Hello LaMies! What a week! I had some dental work done, so I haven’t been talking much. (I know, I don’t believe it either) So, I’m just hanging around the house making brownies..and doing my ball workout. Quite a combo wouldn’t you say?

Miles is quite the brownie Connoisseur. I love to bake so I don’t mind rising to the challenge of baking the ultimate chocolate confection…
Tonight I made double chocolate brownies with whipped creme (complete with a splash of Bailey’s Irish creme) then I grated some dark chocolate on top. I must say it was heavenly. You know you’ve got the dieting thing down when you can make brownies and only eat 1! (Ok, I ate one and a half)

I also (accidentally) learned to ski with my yoga mat. Yes, it was a “retard in a leotard” moment. There I am balancing on my ball. The video says to roll on your stomach and push out, catching yourself with your hands. Well, Miles was walking own the hall and I thought, “Hey I’ll do something cool to show him how limber I am!” So, I jump on the ball..which skids on the yoga mat and swoosh! My entire body makes a penguin style body surf onto the kitchen tile while my legs are still on top of the ball. Ahhhhhh! Miles just laughed and said, “Do you need help Lover?”
I guess the “Olive Oil goil” didn’t leave me in middle school after all. So much for swan dives ah? I always call Miles Basil, from Fawlty Towers…but then he calls me PEG..from Married with Children. (I think it’s because of the tight pants and high heels) But I took the cake on clutzy behavior today.

The only thing more crazy was when Lorraine and I went to a water park. (She’ll die that I’m sharing this with you)
At every park there is one ride the Moms stay away from. This time, it was the surf machine. Yes, they really had an indoor water surf ride. Ohhh, that was it! I had to do it. I’ve always wanted to surf. I did notice however, that everyone over 50 lbs. would lose some part of their suit when they fell. NOt to worry, I thought. I have my black mesh swim skirt on! And with that, off I went. I begged Lorraine to come with me but, NOOooo. NO WAY she said. Yes! It was finally my turn. The little instructor dude gives me a quick lesson on how to hold the board. (No one knew me, so what the heck!) I jumped on the board and with a quick swish, I was down the wave, or up the wave. I couldn’t tell, I was just spinning. The, I feel the cold water rushing up my backside. Oh no! My butt check is in full view. I hold on to my suit for dear life. (The goth girl swin skirt was now long gone) LORRAINE is laughing so hard people are concerned for my emotional well being. In mid snort, she cackles, “It’s ok, she’s my friend”
Finally the board stopped and I quickly converted my suit from a g-string to a full piece again. Every old..and young man was looking at my with empathy, trying not to laugh. And just when I thought I was the biggest dork of all, I saw the girl who went after me….putting her top back on. It’s always a show with LaM..always.

My friend Bill, of Bill and the Hot Birdchick Show, was over last night and showed me some pictures, and when I saw this one , I knew that I had to post it and say…” Captions, anyone??? ” That is their rabbit , Cinnamin, on a brief foray into the hall of their apartment building.

I have been Sprouting today. Yes, ’tis true. Most people think of Sprouts in terms of either things they take off sandwiches , or some alfalfa they buy to make salads healthy. Not so with the Sprout People. www.sproutpeople.com . Sprouts are their life and they have something going on. Lentils, peas, beans , radish , broccili the list goes on. They also sell Easy Sprouters. ( but not to angry people, they have no interest in angry people so says the website. )

Now , I don’t endorse things often ( corsets aside ) but you all ought to try sprouting. Soak the seends for 12 hours, rinse, the put them in a dark place ( sprout people have a list of music sprouts are most fond of as well , not amazingly they like the Greatful Dead, but I have been playing them my cd’s for years and they seem to like me as well )

Then just rinse the little guys off once a day , spin off the excess water ( like a salad spinner, whirl around the kitchen, it’s truly fun ) and in three days they have either turned into the alfalfa like things, or grown little tails, and are perfect for munching, salads or stir fry. The seriously most healthy thing on the planet that one can eat.

Try them. You will like them.

I am bringing Malena an Easy Sprouter and some seeds. It may change her life. And it is something to do in the winter, where ever you live.

( ok, so I might have a little to much time on my hands here in the North lately, but this is a great website, and you can’t buy Sprouts like these in stores….)

Love and Sprouts,
Lorraine

Hello All! To make up for this week of silence with no blogging ( sorry about that ! ) this will be a fun filled, full of news and thrills blog today.

Here is a picture from New Years Eve that someone sent to me. They sent a few, but I liked this one as it looks like Big Sexy and I are the Anti-New Years Eve Spirit of Fun! Yup. That’s mostly what I look like playing. When I try and smile, I look like some sort of Weird Creature. Or something.

I should point out too that when I started the set I was wearing a really fancy most elegant shirt made for me by our own Malena. Velvet, long swoopy sleeves, feathers all over the top…And completely impossible to play violin in! I had to get the bar to give me a tee shirt after the first song, could not play in the fancy one for the life of me. Live and learn we say….

Here is some WONDERFUL news…There is a review of MIRROR MIRROR up now over at rambles.net! Tom Knapp has always run one of my favorite websites for folk and alt folk music and once again , has made me very happy. he also reviewed Get Yr Hands Off Me Booty , the last FU cd, a live one we did on the fly, full of traditional music. Who knew he even HAD one! But back to US, I love the way he puts things!!! Sums us up in a nutshell, many thanks Tom!!!!!

If you have not been by Lisa Snellings blog lately, hop on over and check out the corset fun. She will be here in a few weeks for another visit, and I suspect I will be teaching her the secrets of it all, haveing got very good at the in corset out of corset thing doing photo shoots with Malena. I may be the envy of all! Corset lessons from the Fabulous Lorraine! If this day job and music don’t pan out for me….

There. That may be enough excitement for anyone. A few days ago I had meant to post something nearly as exciting, but was to astounded to actually do so……My entire post would have read:

i have seen the Sun. And it is good.

Love and Sunshine,
Lorraine

Ok, so while Lorraine is having a celtic do-wappen’ time at the pub with Paul, Miles and I are doing corsets. FYI, Lorraine was my “stylist assistant” for these photos. The shoot went soooo much faster thanks to her un-lacing skills. Good thing we’re not a boy band, ah? Paul looks so happy with his Baz#&$(^#%. Did I spell that right Lolo? Can’t wait to hear this new instrument Paul!

Miles and I just got back from a walk with the pigdogs. I’ve been thinking, it is sooo easy to get down on yourself for all the things you do wrong. How often do we sit back and look at all the things we’ve accomplished?? …never really if you’re like me. For me, 2005 was about removing everything that wasn’t good for me like, candy, processed food, TV, energetically taxing people and soda. In order for new patterns to make effect, I had to remove the ones that were impeding my progress.
We should all give ourselves a pat on the back for all the things we did RIGHT last year!

Question, Do you like the white background on the photo better than the grey?

Here is Paul ( and uh, me ) with his new Bouzouki at the show last night. To say he was amazed and delighted does not cover it. He has been wanting one for the past month and moments before I gave him this one, was telling me how he had managed to arrange to borrow one so he could start learning right away. Happy man he is. Of course, he started playing right away, first time he touched one, and could already make music on it!

This is a Celtic Bouzouki, or sometimes called a tenor mandolin. There is a Greek version of the thing as well, but this is the one most often used on Celtic music. It is strung like a violin or mandolin, with double strings, and has a wonderful rich, warm sound to it, much nicer than the plinky plinky of a mandolin. Perfect for playing with fiddle tunes. I told him we are playing again in two weeks and he had better have some ready.

The gig last night, our first as a duo, went wonderfully! We had a great time. The crowd had a great time and I can’t wait to play again this evening. The people in this pub come to hear music, and love it. We got pretty silly. ( not as silly, mind you, as Malena and I, but we two are in a league of our own, as you will see at Baltic Con ) Speaking of Malena, I did so wish she had been there too, really that was all the band lacked, her magic magic voice. ( and silliness )

We still need a name, for the two of us tho. Ideas? I suggested ” The Wee Folk ” as it is part Folk Underground, and Wee can mean Smaller, and we are a WE the two of us. Mr Score was not, uh, impressed. He likes LIM ( live Irish music ) which might be cool, as it is kind of like LaM.

Inspired by the lot of you, I have dug up a copy of The Golden Compass ( my Boss had one, figures ) and am going to embark on His Dark Materials. ( did I get that right?? )

Now I am off to walk thru the woods looking for Misty the Wonder Cat who failed to come home last night. Most likely she is eating steak by someone’s fire just now, and is fine, but I miss the little thing.

Music and Magic,
Lorraine

Had a lovely time webcamming with Malena last night and talking over plans and music and ideas, probably for far to long, as far as our families are concerned, hee-hee. We have also determined that this time for SURE, I am coming out on the 24th of January. Things have been so hectic thru the holidays and company and my other bands and work that we keep having to put off our time together, but now we have set in in stone . ( Tombstone knowing us )

( I am to the point, if you remember the blog of a few days ago, where I would go to LA even if she weren’t going to be there, if only to get some SUN and LIGHT for a day or two!!!! )

We had kind of a funny moment last night where she spoke of driving to Disneyland and there on the freeway, on the other side , fortunately, were a dozen police cars shooting it out with another motorist. I was properly aghast of course, and she laughed and told me that it would not even make the news.

City Mouse.

I live outside small town. We do not have a newspaper, but several towns over they do , being bigger than us, and in this newspaper they have something called ” What the Police Did in the Way of Crime Stopping This Week ” which I like to read to keep up on all the ” news” . I thought I might share with you the lead story.

” a call was made to the Police asking that they come and remove a dead squirrel from the sidewalk. When the officer responded, it was found that it was not a dead squirrel but a tuft of dried grass which had been dislodged while shoveling”

Hello????????????

Ok, two questions spring to my mind. One, who calls the POLICE to remove a dead squirrel from your sidewalk???? I mean, a shovel? A plastic bag? Even here don’t the police have more pressing matters to attend to? And Two, if you were so far removed from dealing with daily life that you DID need to call the police to remove a dead squirrel from your sidewalk, wouldn’t you first make SURE that what you had was indeed a dead squirrel and not a TUFT OF GRASS???????

Country Mouse.

( I believe Malena is still laughing about this. LA girl finds my life pretty amusing sometimes )

I am off in a couple of hours to play my first gig alone with Paul. ( At Charlie’s in Stillwater, I think I mentioned it !! ) I think it is going to be lot of fun, and very amusing for both performers and audience. We have some ideas and some new songs and tho Paul doesn’t know it yet ( hopefully he won’t read this blog ) he has a new Celtic Bouzouki that I just bought for him for Xmas.

Wish us luck!!!!

Love and LIGHT,
Lorraine

Hello LaMies! Boy did I miss you guys. We had some friends come and stay with us for a few days. Disneyland was great…crowded as h%$# but fun. Here’s a photo taken inside the “Indiana Jones” ride.
And here’s THE HAUNTED MANSION at dusk.
Lorraine will be here soon and we’ll do another webcam party. I’ve been reading The Sandman Series. Don’t you just love it? Oh, that’s right, everyone does. And they read so fast, you can get lost in them. I always like to pretend I’m Death and Lorraine is Delirium. Hee hee
More photos to come. I’m glad I’m back!
Hugs and haunted houses..
Witchy

The New Year so far has been one thing I can tell you and that is Busy. Very busy.

( And Dark. And Grey. The sun has not shown here since before the Holidays and I am sure that I am going to come down with the seasonal illness, can’t remember it’s name but I think it’s called something like ” Get Me Out Of Here Before I Sink Into Despair Forever !!!! ” )

Ah-hem, back to Busy. Lots of work type things going on and I have been working on songs for the next cd, never to early to think about them you know. Actually to be more accurate I have been THINKING about songs for the next cd while learning more Irish music and Melissa Etheridge songs on the guitar.

( that is I have been working until say FOUR each day which is when it gets DARK here, and all one’s energy leaves )

Paul Score and I have our first show with just the two of us on Friday and Saturday this week, 7:30 to 11:30 at Charlie’s Pub in Stillwater. We are getting together tonight to work on some new songs, and make sure we remember all the old ones. If you are in the Cities, folks, Stillwater is not that far away, about 45 minutes, and it is a really fun little pub.

( yes, I know it is hard to leave the house this time of year, haven’t done it myself in days )

Our own Creature of the Night, Miss Malena has had company all week but I expect will be back here very soon. I have it on good authority she did get to the Haunted Mansion yesterday , and contrary to rumor, did not in fact , buy the place and set up housekeeping.

( If you remember the last online Tour Of The Teves Museum, you will remember there simply is not that much difference between where she is now, and the Haunted Mansion. This had to be pointed out to her several times before she could be persuaded to leave .)

( I myself am all for the Night and all the Lovely Things in it, but NEVER to be day and sunny and bright???? I am starting to think things like ” Always Winter and Never Christmas….” )

I am off for a walk now

( no skiing the snow all melted. It is , I believe, raining. What fun )

and then back to work

( what else is there to do? )

and then off to band practice

( if I can stay awake )

Love and magic,
Lorraine

PS The preceding Winter Despair ought to be taken with some humor, I mean it IS after all January in the midwest, we need it!!!!!