I am going to have a lot of fun pictures to post after I get back, but I wanted to write something this morning, and Kitty has them all, and the little darling is still fast asleep. They are all here on her computer, but nipping in and grabbing them seems a bit cheeky to me. So we wait.

Kitty asked me last week why the Birdchick never posted here, and I had to say , umm…Well, we don’t talk about BIRDS, and I am sure if we did something on birds her bird radar would kick in and she would be over here like a shot.

I wish I had a bird book and binoculars, as (this being a Tree House and all) there are a LOT of birds and I have no idea what they are. I know there is a hummingbird nest in the front yard, and a really cool orange bird that is not an oriole.

And I can HEAR an amazing number of birds ALL the time. They do not sleep. (Much like LA) they go all night, 1, 2, 3, 4 in the morning, they are up and at it. Then around dawn, they really go wild. I do wonder who it is chirping all night.

(and what they are saying. (Hey! My grandfather x 10 was the third bird from the left in the Hitchcock movie! I am SO in line for a part in the new Dawn of the Birds 4!!!!!! My agent is VERY excited!!! That’s the Buzz!)

And the other Birds reply…

(SHUT UP! You’re a bird! Buzz is for Bees!)

Anyway, LOTS of Birds out here.

Saw WANTED yesterday and loved it, as did Malena. Not so much anyone else we, and we loved it because it was Angelina in Leather shooting with guns at bad guys. If you want that, you will love it. If you are interested in believable, plot, pace, script and all that non-sense, you might want to wait.

I found the best necklace EVER at the Flea Market (WHY do they call them that??) The lady sold it for a price that was perhaps, a quarter of what it was worth, which made me feel a little bad, but when it comes to vintage amethysts, all’s fair in love and war.

The Karaoke last night was loads of fun, like I had never seen before (Ok, so I had never BEEN to one before) LOTS of fine 80’s music and I met SO many people, all so nice. Drew, home for a few days with Miss Kitty, did Whiskey in the Jar for me!! And he did some Duran Duran, a little Billy Joel (being as how he is out with him right now, he has had plenty of practice) and a couple of others my brain is not letting me remember) and did them REALLY well!

I have to say tho, (Sorry Drew) the highpoint of the evening was Malena singing “Something to Talk About” for me!!!!! GODS! That girl can SING, and MOVE!!!!!!! I wish she had dressed up a little more, same old boring skin tight jeans, heels and leather corset, but I guess it worked. (Hee-he, yeah it worked ) Especially when you can sing and dance like that. The place went nuts! Bonnie Raitt would have been proud. I sure was.

Today Malena and I are hoping for a little sit on the beach and talk all afternoon, before she takes me, sadly, off to the airport.

For now, I am going to try and figure out the mysteries of actually Making Coffee. It can’t be that hard, lots of people do it.

Love and Sunshine,
Lorraine

Dear Malena,

Good Morning! Here it is the day of your Event, and I am so excited for you! This is going to go so well, and remember, what we say in the music business “No one will show up and 1000’s of people will hate us” hee-hee…You will rock! Don’t doubt it.

Well, the reason I am writing your morning e-mail on the blog instead of to your e-mail is just that I have something to tell you, and since most of the blog is in on it, I thought I might as well go public.

You remember last week when you told me something was up, and for some reason you didn’t really feel like I had a gig this weekend? (No one will EVER know how hard it is to keep a secret from a psychic best friend!!!!!!!) Well you were right!

There was no gig! There is no Tom’s on Main! I had no show last night, instead I few to LA! Thank Pantagruel for picking me up at the airport since Kitty had to work. Thank Kitty for taking me into the treehouse. Thank Gaypet, Aleta, Danguy, Paul, Spacelaw and others I can’t recall in my tea deprived sleepless state for keeping up the charade of the gig. Thank Boss for playing along yesterday on the phone, and for giving me the time off even tho it turned out he wasn’t going out of town.

I wouldn’t miss this for the world, my dear!!!!!!!!

Kitty and I are waiting for your call, so we can come and help, see you soon, and …

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!

Love, Lorraine

PS The cookies were real. I brought them.

The Cookies got made! Sadly, not by Assistant Girl, one of those days that never stopped, so I enlisted some Young Ladies to help out. They didn’t seem to mind too much.

I think they did pretty well, more than well, better than I, I am thinking.

And how about a Frosting Party????

All very fun! And when I was downloading the photos, I found they had done this, (Having been following the Saga of Kitty and the Frosting)

I am glad this is a picture post, Boot Camp Dog School did me IN tonight. Here’s some pictures of tonight’s leash walking with Bengals….

Despite running for the door as soon as the little harnesses are on, Venus is not SURE this is good.

Mim up a tree….

Mim up another tree. (Mim likes being up trees.)

Michaela and I came to the conclusion that next time we will have a third person, who actually knows how to , uh, take pictures, doing the shooting, like our Kitty. But I have to say, I think this is one of the most beautiful shots of Venus ever…

Love, Frosting and Outdoors with Kitties,
Lorraine

Tonight was my first Belly Dancing Class, in a couple years anyway. Way fun! And I am way tired! Here’s a picture of me tonight, I was surprised the teacher had us all using such big snakes the first evening…That’s me on the right with the Snake, whose name is Harry….

Or not. It might be my Teacher, Rebbecca. But that’s what I felt like. You can’t help feeling really good doing Belly Dancing, graceful, sultry, happy. Hurting. I am pretty sure that I have muscles I have not used in a very long time but I feel like I have a lot more space inside, if that makes any sense.

And I am sort of slinking around the house with my new moves. The Bengals slink too. Kind of a slinking party tonight, all of us slinking together, from room to room.

Here is a picture of what I actually did look like. ( KITTY!!!!! I took this photo myself OF myself using Photobooth!!!!!!!!!!!! ) That’s the necklace Kitty and Malena made me for my birthday.

I thought it looked nice with my “Evil Keeps Me Young” tank top, and green harem pants.

Hmmm…That didn’t quite pan out the way I had hoped. Tho I do like the shooting rays of light.

Here’s another bad photo, with many shooting rays of light, just for Kitty.

I think it is me. Cameras simply fail to capture only my image. (Cue Spooky Music)

A message just popped up on my TV screen, saying the unit was overheated and I needed to move it to a cooler place. Where? The fridge??? I looked at the thermostat and saw it ws 87 here in the house. Hmm…..Might need to turn on the air.

I worked with a theater group years ago, taking improve classes and one of the things they taught us was how to work in any condition, hot, cold, you sort of slip into it and become it, so I don’t notice things like “Darn, it’s really bloody hot in here.” Would that my cable box felt the same. I turned it off for a bit, and fanned it with my coin belt, but am not sure it appreciated the effort.

The DVD player seems to be made of sterner stuff, so I will spend the evening improving my French by watching Underworld in French again. (which I am certain will cause some Arrogant comments in French , from a certain Arrogant Frenchwomen)

Love and Belly and Heat,
Lorraine

I found this today, thanks to Hans, our Sherpa Guide, and laughed so hard I cried. You know, you LA folks are a truly kooky bunch!!!!!!! And I truly believe it….

The pictures, which were so very critically Dissed by our Miss Kitty Batgirl, have been sent to her, and we will see what she does with them. Then I will post them again. It was weird tho, the way they turned out, there were better ones, but either Emma or I looked dorky. I am SO not good in front of the camera! It’s funny actually. When Malena and I shoot she has to talk to me the whole time, and won’t let me look at the camera, and she kind of uses me as a prop.

I am making Bat Cookies this week, and half will go to Malena in LA for her Event, and half will go to my gig on Saturday night (Tom’s on Main in ST Paul, 9-12) if you can make it to either event, you can have some. There will be frosting. Kitty, my photo Dissing friend MAY or MAY NOT be getting some.

(Holy Cookies, Batgirl, take that!)

Paul has put up a gig report, complete with pictures, over at Paulandlorraine.com

(we will await Batgirls comments on the quality of said pictures.)

(Yeah, I am SO after you Girl!!!!)

(it should be noted for the record that I ADORE Miss Kitty, and we are just having fun with this.)

Speaking of pictures, we SO need some of Venus and Mim in their little purple harnesses out walking. They are getting kind of famous, on our block anyway, and they really love these outings. Mim runs as fast as she can and goes up trees as long as the lead allows, and they are getting the walking idea. Venus is convinced all cats but Mim are evil and when the Kitty next door comes by, she moves into KILL mode. She did the same when I had the brilliant idea to introduce her to Jungle Loves 1&2. KILL, no warning hiss, just KILL.

Tomorrow I plant beans, buy new soaker hoses and start Bellydancing class. No end to adventures here!

Love and Pictures,
Lorraine

We got a visit from Emma Bull and Will Shetterly today, which was, as usual, delightful. Emma, you may remember, is my bandmate from the Flash Girls, who, if I do say so myself, spent a fair amount of time lighting the world on fire some years ago. We did three cd’s together too, two of which are still available. The first, may it rest in peace, we were so new then, hee-hee…But I remember it fondly. It shows up on ebay every so often and goes for around $300, believe it or not.

We even won a Minnesota Music Award, way back in 1993, our first year out. “Best World Folk Act” Not exactly sure what that is, but I was glad to have gotten it. Our fourth gig, (the first three were Coffee Houses) was opening for a sold out Warren Zevon show. I think that was the point the phrase ” A little trial by fire never hurt anyone ” was coined.

I took them over to the Spooky House Bengal Zoo, of course, to meet the Beasties, saying before we went that I had no idea what they might have done in my absence. Half kidding. Sort of.

All went well until we went upstairs, and found that they had not only dumped the box of cat litter OVER, but had then managed to EMPTY it ALL over the bathroom floor. WHY??? I clean the darn boxes every day. And they have three for the two of them. I can sort of figure out some of the things they do, like getting into the cupboards and pulling out all the food, or jumping on top of the cupboards and knocking over my candles, scattering glass everywhere, I mean , that stuff is FUN, but this?????

As we looked at the mess, Venus came in and uh, USED the litter box. (The litter IN the box, thankfully) she then went into the bedroom and in full view of everyone, did that thing cats do where they plop their butts down and scoot across the floor with their front paws, effectively, uh, wiping her butt.

They never do these things when we are alone. They save them up until I have company. We laughed so hard I cried.

I could have talked with her for hours, we had so much to say, so many stories to tell, so much to catch up on. Yes, we did talk about doing a show together, and yes, we did think it would be a good idea if Malena was there too. (Emma got in many a good joke about how I seem to find beautiful, tall, dark haired women to play with, and make me feel short)

(I say I would never have thought a girl could get so lucky twice in one lifetime, I love them both so, and to be on stage with both of them, would be the most magic ever…)

It wasn’t long enough, not by half, but the visit sure did make me happy.

Lots of adventures today. If you haven’t been by Boss’s blog, go and have a look. I learned on the Internet that no matter how cute baby raccoons are, you do NOT want to take them in and be their Mommy. Cabal did great at dog school and I got home early enough to take Venus and Mim out walking. (THAT is true Adventure Land…)

Love and Friends,
Lorraine

Danguy has now left, back to his home. He woke me WAY too early, (at my request) to say good by. A fine time was had by all. If you are thinking of having Danguy as a Houseguest, he comes highly recommended. Nice manners to. (sorry about making you carry everything everywhere!)

And he did a most excellent job of Live Blogging the show. The owner of Charlie’s wants him to come back and do live Video of the ST Pats show! (Yes, we are already booked!)

Come back anytime, Danguy!

The shows were wonderful!!! It made me so happy so many people came down, and I loved making so many new friends! I think the Saturday show many have been my best show ever, or one of them anyway. Dylan Hatch was amazing! He sat in with us the whole time, and it was full on ROCK the entire time. You can count on hearing more about him, he is way fun to play with!

Uh, as it were….

Today was a lovely day in Zombie World. Some Evil Crow came thru and ATE all the corn seeds I planted, so I planted some more, and placed some land mines around to discourage him from coming back.

And the even Eviler Rabbits came and ate my peas, so I planted a ring of Marigolds around the entire garden. Teach them!!!!!

The Birdchick insists she is not responsible for either the birds or the rabbits. I countered with “Oh, you think not” in an ominous voice….Some Park Ranger she is.

We did some bee things, and I am sure the Birdchick will give you the full update over at her Blog. One thing that was cool, was that we found Queen cells in the Queenless Olga hive. Two of them. They will hatch, and then fight to the death for the chance to rule supreme in the hive. And we will take their honey. Not sure what the lesson is here, but I am sure there is one.

I found a 4-leaf clover by Kitty’s hive today (hey, everyone has one really cool bit of useless magic, that’s mine. I can look down and there WILL be one) I had to carry it thru the bee-ing, and then, all the way to the other hives, and all the way home and the Birdchick smashed it with the spacer, but it made it tho somewhat battered. (the drama for today.) I have pressed it nicely for Miss Kitty and will send it on out to her.

It will bring her and Malena luck in their show next weekend, and then a part of me will be there! (I am also making Bat Cookies for the show,, any ideas on how to ship them???)

Love and Zombies,
Lorraine

Hello all,

One more night of live recording….One, More. Night.

Last night was a whole lot of fun, tho I don’t know if we got anything we could use, it makes one a little weird when you keep thinking how perfect it has to be, but once we forgot about THAT we had fun.

There was a group of Decidedly NOT People Like Us in there for a B’day gathering when we got there to st up, I wasn’t worried as I was sure they would move on, but they got a little drunker, and demanding we sing Happy B’day for their friend (Hey, before start time, and no tip? Now way…) They weren’t even nice about it. Some of the people who came to see us were getting worried and talking about leaving, as this group was no fun, and I said, sit tight, I have a Plan.

After the Sound Check song, I simply said, loud and clear ” THANKS FOR COMING DOWN TO OUR LIVE CD RECORDING! DAN AND MATT HERE ARE ALSO BROADCASTING LIVE BOTH AUDIO AND VIDEO OVER THE WEB RIGHT NOW YOU WILL BE SEEN ALL OVER THE WORLD!!!!!!!!”

You never saw people bail so fast! I was so proud. Then I told everyone who was there to see us that I made that up, and we got the last laugh!

One more night, where I will try and remember not to talk over the intros to the songs, and try and pace the show a little better, and ost of all,

Try to Rock.

Wish you were here! THEN it would be a party! More tales of Adventure With Dan Guy tomorrow! Stay Tuned!

Love Lorraine

What a beautiful day it has been. HOT too. Some areas on LA hit 100 degrees today. I’m getting used to it, the heat. I’d like to thank all of you for your beautiful birthday wishes, paintings and poems. I got a beautiful one from Michael Zulli today. His work is so ethereal and magic. Here’s a cute drawing from Nathalie that I think need to be a Salem greeting card titled,

“Malena, The vigilante witch”

NOTICE the BOXING glove! Love it!

I have a busy weekend planned. Tomorrow, I’m going out with my friends. David’s twin brother Daniel is getting married Saturday and I am the hair and makeup girl. I made her hairpiece tonight with pearls and roses. I love to do such things. On Sunday, I’m going shooting at an indoor range in Calabasas. Wehoooooooooo! Then it’s martial arts training with Mr. Lau. LOVE THAT! Miles bought me THE Wonder Woman cape, Cthulhu earrings (yes ebay is the place), some spidery things, a vampira tank top and gladiatrix flat boots. I feel loved. Can’t wait to be in shape for Halloween and wear it. I have the whole outfit except the hotpants and the bustier…which will be custom made in spandex of course.

Tonight is the full moon, so at 12 midnight my time, (yes 5 mintues away) I will be out praying in the courtyard. Say your prayers tonight and make your needs known to the universe. I know prayer works. I see it everyday with so many clients and friends. I will be thinking of all of you tonight. Thank you for all your love and support all these years. Lorraine and I have the best blog going thanks to all of you.

Love and Magic,

Malena

It is probably best that today was not considerably exciting, as Dan Guy is coming tomorrow, and Cabal has Dog School and that ought to be enough excitement for anyone.

I took my bow to a new place for re-hairing (No, I do NOT need to hear from you Mr Score on how I have been meaning to do this for months, and have had two weeks since the last gig to take care of this, and am only now two days before the big show getting around to getting it done…)

The New Guy was extremely critical, and spent forever looking at my bow. Discussing it at great length the entire time, before he moved on, un-asked, to the state of my bridge, pick up and violin in general, not finding much he approved of him. Hmmph. Artists.

Obviously, I adore him. Man who can talk like that to me knows his stuff.

Spooky Daughter came and cleaned. Now, I am not adverse to cleaning my own house, I am just not very good at it. And there’s that whole time thing. For some reason, she is amazing with Kitchens and Bathrooms. Like an art or a passion. The rest of the house looks good, but the Kitchen and Bathrooms…I am currently lying in the kitchen on the floor typing this, simply because it feels so good to be in there. (I can’t blog from the bathroom, that would be weird, unless you were in the tub.)

And I sure don’t want to give anything away here, but tomorrow IS the Birthday of a certain little dark haired Vampire friend of ours…..She is going to be mad at me when I tell her that her present form me is not ready yet, and won’t be for a week, but I think I found something she is REALLY going to love. She will call me: BUZZARD!!! Which is what she says when I do things I should not that she loves….I would tell you all about it, but she IS the other half of this blog, and will likely be reading this, but let me be the first to say…

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MALENA!!!!!!!

Love and such things,
Lorraine