Leaving, for the moment, the Transcribing that has become my world, and Miss Kitty’s for that matter, as I have no intention of suffering alone, let’s move onto Bees…

(We are transcribing a 2 hour 10 minute interview between Someone who may be our Boss and Someone Else. Very interesting indeed, but the sound quality of the recording is Very Bad. Makes for slow going. I’d say more, but we Assistants are not a chatty bunch some days)

Right. Bees. That I can chat about. The Birdchick is away today, off doing Bird Things, so Boss and I were sent a list of Hive Things that needed to be done. I like, generally to do the Colour Commentary, and leave the step by step to The Birdchick, but since she was not here today, I am going to try and write as her and Tell All.

I feel, sadly, as tho my venture into this, the being of the Birdchick, is a venture not entirely certain to succeed, in fact it may well, not, and perhaps we could go as far to say, no it will not succeed in coming up to her standards, as I have no camera, or any way of displaying the images that no doubt ought to go along with said record.

(ok, ok, so I have been reading a little too much Steve Brust’s Phoenix Guards, and 500 Years after lately, why use four words, when you can say it in a hundred? I’ll stop, but they are well worth re-reading even if one does tend to get a little wordy, great fun.)

Our first task was to check and see if Queen Kitty had gotten out of her Queen Container and was inside the hive laying brood. When you divide a hive, as opposed to getting a box of bees for a new hive, where the Queen is in her box with the bees and they all dig each other, you have to let the bees you have taken from the old hive get used to the new Queen. She is in a plastic container with holes, that is plugged with hard sugar. The bees eat the sugar and she comes out , and they are friends.

If they are not friends, they kill her.

She had not been eaten out yet, tho nearly. (You stick the container with Queen onto a frame with comb on it.) I wonder if it was because she was on a frame near the edge of the box? There were not many bees near her, tending and eating. We moved her more into the middle, so hopefully more bees will get her scent, and eat her out.

We did notice there seemed to be a new Queen cell, which is a baby Queen. Not sure what this means. You can tell, because they are much bigger. (I did not notice, but Boss knows a LOT about Bees.)

We checked the Olga Hive, which I like to call in technical bee terms, the ” We got some honey going ON hive” All well there. We took out her Sugar water bucket, as she does not need it. Obviously.

Going down to the Bickman and Mimiko hives, we found that all seemed well in the Bickman Hive, very active.

On the Mimko hive, we were to add a brood box if they had filled up 7 frames with comb. She had, so we took one frame, with no brood in it (confuses the nurse bees) and put it in the new box, to encourage them to go up there and do bee things. We gave her a new sugar water bucket. She was making a little Funky Comb, on top of the frames, which we scraped off.

We also set out carpet tack boards around the hives. They are slats of wood with nails sticking up. Discourages the heck out of skunks.

There you have it. The Birdchick will, one hopes, be home soon, and can get back to doing her own Bee Reports, and I can get back to saying things like: WOW, how cool, I was totally Covered in Bees!!!!!!!!

Love and Bees, (but not transcribing) Lorraine

I am feeling good tonight. I finished up a huge project today and now it is DONE. Sadly, I am not at liberty to tell you about it yet, but I am feeling right proud of myself, and feel that I should be patted on the back a few times, it was a new one for me. Stay tuned….

Here’s some fun. Freaky Venus and Madame Mim may soon be Internet video stars! It went something like this…

Last weekend, our new friend Aleta, came down to a Paul and Lorraine show, and brought four of her friends, (delightful all, one was even a Flash Girls fan, blast from the past!) and one of the friends, Colette, turns out owns a Laser Pointer Business. Now anyone who has cats knows how important these little things are, HOURS of entertainment.

We started talking, she has generously agreed to donate laser pointer to my Bengal Rescue Group, and it came out that she has been wanting to do a Kitty Video for the laser website.

Hello? Bengals. She needs Bengals. MY Bengals. Can you see it? Bengals chasing lasers on the Cat Wheel???? There are a few You Tube vids with cat wheel and lasers, but they are short things people have got by luck, mostly. My Bengals LIVE to chase lasers. And anything else. They will work as many hours as it takes, to get a good shot (kind of like Malena shooting our vid, which is very, very close, by the way)

And I just happen to have a handy soundtrack ready too. Go listen to The Fox again. Perfect? Who knows where this could go. My sisters dog was once nearly on Ripleys Believe it or Not. ( they made him a full suit of armour , but didn’t want to ship him and leave him for two weeks and could not go themselves )

CAA and I are talking. I can see it now. We will call it “Life in the Jungle”

My Friend who is the Assistant to a Director who may be making a Movie based on one of my Boss’s books, wants to be mentioned here, and let everyone know it is 92 degrees in Portland and she forgot deodorant today. She says “Yay Armpits!”

(yes, that is JUST the sort of exciting thing we top level Personal Assistants talk about. She also called me Sparklepants, which I kind of liked.)

Love and Superstar Kitties,
Lorraine

Bengals are smart. Scary smart. Look at Jungle Love 2 yesterday, taking the grate off the heating duct, with no claws, knowing that if she could get it off , she could go down there and hide.

I didn’t see this one coming tho…

When I got home tonight, Venus and Mim had started the dishwasher for me.

There it was, running. I sure hadn’t started it. It wasn’t on when I left around six.

Do you think I might get them to do the laundry too?

My friend Anne from New York and I made a Plan today for getting Jungle Love 2 out of the ducts. We couldn’t leave her there, in some sort of weird subterranean half life, wandering the ducts, scaring the children, haunting the walls. And there didn’t seem to be anyone in the yellow pages who specialized in this sort of thing.

We decided on a live trap. If we put her food in it and wedged it tightly, she would come and there she would be. Like the best laid plans of the mice, we didn’t end up having to. There she was, under the chair with her friend, Jungle Love 1. I got to the grate before she did, and Anne, who has tool skills, bolted it to the wall.

I bought Jungle Love 2 a cage today. She is going to live in it for a bit. It’s not something I want to do, but if she has any chance of knowing me and being a friend, she can’t keep hiding. It’s large enough, litter, water, and I covered it so she will feel safe. She can look out tho, and see JL1, and now she can learn when I come in, she gets nice words and food.

We will do this for a bit, and see if she warms up at all. And take it from there. In another day I will start giving her a pet, so she can know that nothing bad will happen. JL1 is still remembering yesterday and did not come out to eat while I was there.

Slow going, these kitties.

Venus, Mim and I are going to go off and go over the chores that need to be done tomorrow. Stranger things have happened.

Love and adventures,
Lorraine

What a day. Earlier today I was covered in Bees. Now I am covered in Blood. But I jump ahead….

Before we even got to the bees, The Birdchick and I found an Oriole in the garage! He did not seem inclined to fly OUT, and indeed, sat happily with the bee supplies. She was able to catch him, and he sang quite happily in her hands. And, she, being a good sport and knowing I do love Orioles, let me hold him. I am posting the picture as much so you can see the nice bird, but also so you can see the new heights I have achieved with hair-styling. Yes, people, hours of work every morning before I nip into work, both on the hair and makeup. It is also a rare photo of me in PINK.

We did the Bee Things, The New Queen Kitty arrived and was installed in her hive. A full report is up, or will be shortly, over at the Birdchicks Blog. I just do the colour commentary.

But here I am, as you can see, Covered In Bees!

Keep in mind here that there is also a fair amount of Assistanting going on and one switches from learning new skills regarding the Birds and The Bees to hoping one has the skills to outwit the never ending e-mail and three phone lines and evil airlines all in moments.

Things did not, however, get exciting today until I got home.

(Ominous Silence.)

I went to greet and feed Jungle Loves 1 and 2, and found that Jungle Love 2 had dug INTO the wall, removed the heating grate and is now somewhere in the duct system of the Spooky House. I had no idea this was possible, but it seems like if it could be done, a Bengal would do it.

Fortunately, Jungle Love 1 is too FAT to get down. She had another escape plan. She bolted past me and out into the house. I trapped her in the sun room. Mim in there too and shut the door. She ran screaming and yowling and running around the room, Mim sat on the fireplace and screamed, Venus, on the other side of the door, screamed and threw herself against the doors.

I tried to remain calm.

I cold not pick her up, she is the strongest cat I have ever seem and fought like the Demon she is. I got a towel, and she got me with her remaining back claws. Both arms, bloodied and painful.

I did not feel like doing any force holding when I finally got her in the towel.

I took the struggling mess back into the room, and went and wrote the Rescue Group for advice. SO far nothing helpful. Sitting in the room with food out until she comes out and then b;ocking the grate MAY work, but I am pretty sure she can out-wait me.

And oh, just to end on a positive note, the keyboard I took from my old IMAC seems to work fine.

Love, Birds, Bees and Blood,
Lorraine

The Great Tea Spilling Episode, in which my STUPID STUPID RAT CREATURES (If you haven’t read Jeff Smith’s Bone Comics/graphic novels, you had just better go do so) spilled tea, with honey (teach me to cheat, I generally have Stevia) ALL over my laptop at the Spooky House, has had some interesting repercussions.

(quite a sentence, that, I’m rather proud..)

My DELETE, ENTER and QUESTION MARK keys no longer work. And when one spells as badly as I do, and goes as many places as I do, and asks as many questions as I do, they are a necessary part of the keyboard. I don’t know what perhaps HALF of the keys actually do, there are a lot of them I could bid farewell to with no regrets, but why those??

And what do I do now? Should I wait for Dan Guy to come out in June? (he has promised computer help while he is here, in exchange for Rock.) Can he fix it? (I’d drop him an e-mail, but I have not much else to blog about and anyway, this is more fun) Do I call Apple and send the thing to them? Should I kill the cats? Is this even fixable? I can’t simply sit here , going thru life, unable to delete, enter or ask questions…

My work computer is fine, so I have that, but quite a bit of work gets done at night.

Today is New Queen Kitty Day! The Birdchick is on her way with her, and we will be splitting the old hive, and trying to convince several hundred old bees that the new place and New Queen is far superior to the old.

Last night was Dog School. He was NOT a Canine Good Citizen. His test is next week, at which point we will learn he is repeating the class.

JL1 and JL2 are getting curious. If I open the door to their room, and sit in the doorway, JL2 will come out, and start eating and LOOKING. Venus and Mim will come to the door and LOOK, tho neither group seems to want to be any closer.

Yes, this is what I do for entertainment in the evenings. Especially since I can’t enter, delete or question.

Love and Questions,
Lorraine

I am saddened to report that at some point in the night last night, Queen Kitty departed this life, and has now gone to that Great Beehive in the Sky.

It is believed that Queen Kitty, despite her most excellent attendants, and diet of sugar water, was simply not strong enough to survive till her Hiving. It will stand as a lesson to all future Queens, as to what can happen if you show up Way to early and have to live in a Queen Carrier for a week.

Queen Kitty is survived by one Worker Bee. (who is not expected to live much longer, such is her grief at the passing of her Queen.)

Funeral services are private, and her body will most likely end up as artwork in a Lisa Snellings or Cat Mihos Art Project. As did the first Queen Kitty workers.

Flowers may be sent to the Surviving Hives.

In Mourning,
Lorraine

It’s been a rather long day, which is fine, they often are, and I am just back from tonight’s Gig. It was a Good Gig, as these things go, lots of people came down, including someone who mentioned she hadn’t seen us since the Hera concert, but had now moved back, and when would Hera be playing here again. (Hera, when indeed??) Our new friend Aleta came and brought four of her friends and I found them absolutely delightful.

( Aleta, for the record is NOT, as she described herself “The frumpy old women at the bar” . Not in the slightest. Wonderfully fun. In fact, I kept looking for her, as she said she was coming, and when they all came in, I thought, well, no frumps there.)

I went for a brave new look tonight, and instead of Black, wore a New Spring Colour, for the first time this year. White shirt, black pants. Felt pretty sassy I did.

Sassy or not tho, I felt pretty dis-jointed from everything. Never felt like I got going, and was always behind things. Paul, who has been working non-stop on his Doctor Thesis Thing, and I would find ourselves looking blankly at the set list and asking the audience things like, “well what the heck do we play now???” And this was a Great audience, they were right with us and for us.

I found myself having conversations in my head with myself.

ME: (to myself) You have to get out there and help her.

MYSELF: Sod off. I’m tired.

ME: No really, she has been talking about Snow Parking for five minutes, and is suggesting that readings from Paul’s Molecular Genetics Thesis might make for some fun.

MYSELF: So what? She knows what she’s doing. I want my TiVo.

ME: No Tivo. Gig. We’re all in this together. THINK of a song for her to play.

MYSELF: Ok , I have an idea…..

(songs go by)

ME: Johnny Cash followed by Polka, Polka, Polka??? THAT was your idea?????

MYSELF: Worked, didn’t it??? How many episodes of Top Chef do you think the Tivo recorded today? And where are we going to plant those cool purple things we bought?

And so it went..

Cabal the Dog did not kill any cats, or eat anything bad. Queen Kitty yet lives..(Tho if she doesn’t, I get to do the blog headed “The Queen is dead, long live the Queen” which might be poetic) Jungle Loves one and two, are sill in hiding, but Venus and Mim are curled in on my legs and it is cold enough for a fire, here at the Spooky House.

Where am I going to plant the cool purple things I bought yesterday???

Love and tired,
Lorraine

Well, the Wacky Bengal Family will not post for Photobooth shots, but the Dog and our new Queen Kitty seem happy to. You can’t much SEE the bees, but there she is in her travel carrier, with a few workers for company.

She came this morning, in an envelope with holes punched around the sides, and my Post Office Friends seemed interested to I opened it to show her off, and one lady screamed and said “Don’t open that she will fly around and get loose!!!!”

I had to explain they did not ship them loose in an envelope, but in a Box and she would not be flying around. And anyway, I had a Bee Leash in my pocket. (some people have no sense of humour when it comes to bees.)

She has arrived rather early, we hadn’t planned to see her for a week, so the Birdchick is figuring out what to do. I need to Water her once a day. (with what, one wonders?)

Jungle Love 1 came out when I came up the stairs sat there LOOKING at me. (I have to say it LOOKING, if you could see their eyes, you would know why..) I showed her the food plate, and talked to her, and did my finger snapping, and she stayed for a bit, then ran off, so I left the food. I’ll take more when I go to bed.

Cabal did very well at his Dog School tonight. We have to state something positive each week, that they did so I said ” Well, he didn’t Kill the Cat when he lunged at her, and when he stole half a cooked chicken off the stove, he didn’t perforate his stomach with the bones and die horribly”

SO, in the last day I have acquired three new pets. Two cats who are terrified of me and a Box of Queen Bee, who Buzzes at me when I go near. I sure can pick ‘em!

I am starting to Really look forward to the gigs this weekend. Ah, three hours, of me, my bandmate, music and, one hopes a room full of people who love what I do. Compared to four Bengals, a Box of Bees, and a cat killing dog, it will be downright relaxing!

Love and Music,
Lorraine

Ideally, this post would start with some pictures of my new Friends, but alas, I still don’t have a charger for the camera, so we’ll have to wait.

Even if I had a camera, I don’t think I could get a shot. These poor Kitties! For those of you who missed this, today I went Up North to pick up two Bengals whose owners surrendered them to the Great Lakes Bengal Rescue Association. The GLBR exists to help find homes for Bengals whose owners did not do their homework before bringing them home.

These people were even odder in that they run a small Motel/Cafe in a Fishing/Cabin type area. And they live in one of the motel rooms. I can’t imagine living in a small Motel room and thinking, ” Well, you know what this place needs? TWO Bengal Cats. Yup, liven it right up”

They are completely terrified of people. Really really lovely cats, but SO scared. They are hiding now in their part of the House, ( About three times the size of their last home ) And I have set out food and water. We will have to see…The Lady who gave them up was very nice, and felt so badly about this.

Hopefully, I will have more success making friends with them that I did getting Cabal and Zoe to be friends. (An experiment that has been stopped. Someone is going to get hurt, either man or beast, and I believe there is no change it will suceed, sadly. I tried.)

So, now we need homes for them. If you know anyone who would be interested in adopting one of these wonderful cats, let me know. I’ll keep you posted on how they are doing, but I have never seen lovelier cats. One is a black and tan spotted, and the other black and tan marbled.

Sadly, their names were Pasta and Cookie. I’ll call them something else when I get to know them.

A bit of Jungle Love just looking for the right home.

Love and Kitties,
Lorraine

When I met Miles I didn’t OWN a pair of actual athletic shoes. (The rhinestone encrusted rocketdogs didn’t count he said!) I would run around trying to look my best and have the house just so.

I still try to have the house looking nice, but I never thought I’d answer the door in workout pants, a sweaty tank top and a skinned elbow and say,

“Dude! What’s up! Come on in!” joking.. I joking. I only talk that way SOMETIMES!

I don’t care anymore if people see me without my makeup. I let that go a few years back when a well known makeup artist complimented me on how well I covered up a flaw. (Obviously, not well enough!) I have been Hollywood-ized, but in a good way.

Hollywood makes you get into shape for one. If you are an actress, your body IS your business… so even Fag Hags like me have to work out. And with my “all or nothing” point of view, I chose swimming, hiking and KICKboxing, hence the skinned elbow. (Miss Congeniality FBI Fantasies again). BTW, go see IRONMAN! More on that later…

(Here’s me in my CSI gear)

Hollywood also teaches you to speak fast on your feet. If a camera is in your face, you’d better be funny AND sexy AND smart. Which is where Miss Fabulous Lorraine comes in. This WOMAN can make anything funny. She can get a room laughing and clapping with just a mic, no instrument or sexual hook needed. Trollops in LA can’t even fathom that one! She has been my BFF and PR mentor for the last 4 years. Yeah, I can sing, act and be sexy…even funny if I know you…but Fablo can do it anytime, anywhere. I am so lucky to have such an educated NUT as a friend. When you see me crack a joke on stage or on the blog, it’s probably thanks to Dev, that is…unless it’s explicit and rank, then it’s mine. Look at who I live with! Lorraine lives a very busy life as well and she does it with such class. No one ever dies or gets poisoned or disappears and comes back with one less toe. Yes, I still have a lot to learn from the Dev.

Anyway, thanks for making this Blog so fun and lively Lorraine!

Love ya Deva!

The absent, busy Madame Malena Mim