It seems fitting that since tonight’s post is the start of The We Support Kitty on Tour blogging, that I got a package in the mail from her today, with my NIN cd!

Kitty, as most of you know, is stuck in a trap, gnawing her leg off, desperately trying to free herself and come back to the real world. Yes, she is on tour with the Jonas Brothers, who by her accounts are really nice kids, and she has no complaints there, but being on the road with a huge band is brutal for the crew. (and the performers for that matter)

I started adding up once, all the things that would need to happen, and mentioned to her that I thought I had this wrong as it would seem that she might only get 4 or 5 hours of sleep at night, and that on a bus.

Yes, she said. You are correct.

So I thought since she certainly won’t be blogging much, I could do it for her, and we could all offer words of support for her to read in her, uh, down time.

Today, as I said, I got the NIN cd and am looking forward to becoming one with the NIN. I also, with the Bosses help, learned all about Last.fm. Found out I had an account (he was my only friend) but I had five other impending friends, including Aleta and Spacelaw. Now I have 6 friends.

I could send all day there! ALL the music of the world is there! Heck, MY music is there (who knew??) It seems terrible unfair that what I am meant to be doing is listening to 9 hours of live Paul and Lorraine and culling the best hour for the cd. Hmmph.

It’s odd listening to yourself, live. I am learning a lot. I have learned that I rock,( who knew I was GOOD??) that I am very funny, that I make a LOT of questionable musical choices (meaning SUCK!) and that I am a dork (as in I can’t believe I SAID that). All in all tho, wonderful fun! Reminds me of that Clint Eastwood line

“Sometimes the magic works and sometimes is doesn’t”

(Wait, that wasn’t Clint Eastwood. What movie was that from???)

I think tho, we will have enough great music for a really fine cd. We are still deciding about format, but it will be available online for downloading, and you will be the first to hear when it is ready. I wish I could put all nine hours up and have you all pick the songs for us, but raw un-mixed tape (as it were) is, like the road, brutal.

So in conclusion (always wanted to say that, no idea why..) Kitty is out there on the road for the next 40 or so days. Let’s send her all the love and support we can, yes????? I’ll be telling Kitty Stories every post (HA! Kitty, and I do have some rare ones!) and hopefully she will read them and feel loved.

And come home soon!

Love and Kitty,
Lorraine

Last night was a bundle of Adventures! They started with picking up the Mighty Kimbo, who I haven’t seen in a year since our vid shoot, (two of the best weeks EVER) from the airport, and nipping off to the gig at Charlie’s.

it was 92, and felt like we might well be getting some Storms, which I was all for. I mentioned to Kimbo that I had set things up so she would really get to experience the whole Mid-western STORM thing (she s a tried and true New Yorker) She asked would there be lightning and thunder, yes, I said, and she asked will there be Swirling Clouds and Tornadoes????? But of course, I say, all for YOU!!!!!!!!! And get this, I am even having the power go out, and we will play for you by candle light!!!!!!!

We were, of course. Kidding. Truly.

The first set went great, tho I was feeling kind of ooky, with stomach cramps and a Bad Feeling, but still it was fun. Kimbo warmed my little heart by saying “I knew you would be good but I didn’t know you were GOOD!” and I am thinking she had a good time. Took her about five minutes to get to know everyone in the place.

We took a break, and low and behold, there were Black clouds rolling in, aha, thinks I, there IS a storm coming. Then the Sirens went off. Then came the swirling clouds, and a quick look at the radar says, yup, sure as heck are Tornadoes about 5 miles to the North. The lighting was like Bad CGI, you would not have bought it in a movie.

Very exciting it all was, there at the pub. Then the power went. Am I good or what, I asked Kimbo, who was thrilled by the entire event. She must have called half her phone book, telling everyone HI GUY! I AM IN A TORNADO! (well, sort of, near one anyway, and darned exciting anyway)

We played lit candles all over the place, and played a second set, off the stage, acoustically, with a nice crowd all loving it. Then the Pub hearing that 26, 000 people were without power and not likely to be getting it back any time soon, decided to close, and we went home early.

I spent the entire night dealing with some nasty food poisoning, or an equally nasty virus, which was not good AT ALL (details omitted, trust me )but feel fine today, except kind of weak. We took Kimbo to the bees, which she loved, warily, and now I am for a nap before recording tonight.

Which, one hopes, will rock.

Love and Storms, Lorraine

Very exciting storms here today. All the truly exciting storms MISSED us by a county, which did not make Weather Girl happy, but we had enough so there was some fun watching the radar.

When it got time to go to Dog School Agility Class (Boot Camp for Out of Shape Owners!) there were some more storms popping up. The severe alert came out over the radio, saying Severe Storm! Take Cover! Some towns include Town X! Not our town, but on slightly North of us. We had a quick look at the radar, Boss and I, and figured out it most likely would not be hitting us, and this thing was growing fast, but Town X was going to get nailed.

Dog school is 5 miles from Town X. But what the heck, nothing ventured, no adventures to blog about I say.

Cabal and I nipped out there, it’s in the middle of a chunk of farmland so you can see for miles, and sure enough, there it was. Trainer Lady and I decided we would go for it, and take shelter as needed. Two other people showed up, and, one eye on the storms (oh, yes, another was popping up just south, and a third kind of west and don’t forget our darling to the North) LOTS of cloud to ground lightning, lots of thunder, but no rain, it was like a pocket of calm there at Dog School.

Until I looked at the Lady next to me, and her HAIR was standing on END! I have heard of this things before. I had heard it means you are about to be hit by lightning. I mentioned this hair phenomenon, to the Lady (while moving away from her) saying “WOW YOUR HAIR IS STANDING ON END!”

Another Dog Devotee told me it didn’t mean you were about to be struck, it just meant the potential was there. Oh Good. Because we noticed EVERY ONES hair was standing on end.

Well, it wasn’t raining, so we continued. (Note to children and non-Midwesterners: If you are ever outside and this happens, get the heck indoors! This is Very Bad and Dangerous!)

I suppose this blog would be more exciting if we HAD got hit, but there you have it. Wish I had had a camera, those were some really funky clouds.

Tomorrow the Mighty Kimbo comes to town. I’ll pick her up at the airport, and we will go to my show. Three gig weekend, which is a nice Ace in the Bill Roulette game, but a little hard on the self. Whole lot of energy going out. Tho it comes in too, I sometimes forget. We record again on Saturday. Sunday it’s the Biker Bar.

(Bikers on Sunday seems a whole lot happier than Church People do, which is something to think about, sitting outside, listening to music, riding your bike seems a far better way to feel good and close to Fod than telling it how horrible you are, in my personal opinion)

It’s funny, she says, tying both storms and Fod together, this is the song that was going on in my head the entire time we were foolishly hanging out in a field with severe lightning storms all around us…Funny old world. I think I will sing it tomorrow, in honor of, well, everything.

Does God look down on the boys in the barroom,
Mainly forsaken but surely not judged.
Jacks, kings, and aces, their faces in wine,
Do lord deliver our kind.
From singing for whiskey three strings on the fiddle,
Four on the guitar and a song that I love.
Many’s the night we spent picking and singing,
In hopes it be pleasing both here and above.
Jack’s string fiddle to my sawtooth bow,
Who loves loneliness loves it alone.
I love the dim lights like some love the dew,
Only thing I wonder sometimes:
Does God look down on the boys in the barroom,
Mainly forsaken but surely not judged.
Jacks, kings, and aces, their faces in wine,
Do lord deliver our kind.

Love and life,
Lorraine

Today, when everything was rolling along just fine, thank you, I went to do errands and thought to myself “My what a lot of Bees there are around.” HA! By the time I got back, Hans, our Sherpa guide and woodsman par excellence mentioned that there seemed to be a LOT of Bees in the Garage, in fact the place sounded like the inside of a hive!

Holy Hive Batman! A swarm! (thinks I) and I went out and darned if there weren’t 100’s of bees all over the old frames we had from last years Kitty hive (may it rest in peace). Of course the Bee Suits were hanging NEXT to these 100’s of Bees, so I did what any competent PA would do in a situation like this and said “Hans, I will give you one million dollars to go in there, get some bee suits” Bless him….

Here is a picture that looks very like what my brain saw…

I got on the phone to the Birdchick and explained the situation, and she asked would I like her to come out? I asked if that was some sort of strange trick question and could she please come as quickly as possible. By this time it was a full on Bee Party in the garage.

One thing you look for in a Swarm is a large ball of Bees, in the middle of this would be the Queen. This we could not find and came to the conclusion that some random Bee, in the half hour I had the garage open wandered in and went “WOW!!! An empty hive with frames with HONEY bits!!!!!” and flew back to her hive and did the “You gals aren’t going to believe this, but come with me Dance” and as word traveled, more and more of her friends came to check out the Party.

We got the frames out, opened things up, and told them Party Over. Out. And went off to check the other hives…

(The Birdchick will no doubt be telling the Full Story of what we did to the other hives over on her Blog, so I won’t worry about that now…Including the bit where we did in fact steal some honey, all in the name of Beekeeping)

Here is a Bee’s Eye view into the Kitty Hive, it’s such an amazing Bee World in there, and so beautiful…

One of the most Magic things ever happened to me next. The Birdchick wondered aloud if she could get a Bee to eat from her hand, and I wondered aloud if I was brave enough to do that too…So I took off my gloves, dipped my finger into some honey and…

Magic. Here is me and my new Friend. It felt like electric, magic, connected and like nothing I have ever felt.

I wondered what she would go back and write in her Bee Journal that evening something like “Magic today, I don’t know, never experienced anything like it, I was in the hive, and honey came down, so sweet, and another being and I bonded together, two souls linked forever….”

The Birdchick said….

More like she wrote “Licked a Girl and Liked It.”

Love and Bees,
Lorraine

Well that was certainly a fun 24 hours! A new religion, what WILL we think of next???? Fod help us.

Cabal the Dog got his Canine Good Citizenship award for the second time tonight, only this time, we did it with a collar and lead, not the Gentle Leader. It worked, but I still would not want to take him out anywhere like that. He does fine until he sees something else he wants and then pulls so hard I can’t handle him. He’s 80 pounds of pure muscle.

We had teaser storms all day, north and south they were all anyone might ask of a thunderstorm, but HERE, they could not have gotten closer and still missed us. Sigh. We need the rain! And quite frankly, the excitement, Weather Girl is Bored.

Hmm..Lots of excitement coming up, the Boss coming home, dance class, three gig weekend with houseguests, but I am having trouble coming uo with with Adventures today.

Dried some mangoes, took the Bengals for a walk, did the dog school, baked everyone chicken (which even Venus admitted MIGHT not suck) had a fine time at the post office, bank, grocery store and evil Wal Mart, snuck in a ten minute call to Malena while driving, dashed some hopes and dreams as the Princess of No, went by the Bees and ascertained they were doing Bee Things, located, pulled and washed 100 T-shirts (more on that later) wrote most of my Essay on Fod for next Sunday and won at Bill Roulette

(that’s where you call the bank, find out how much is in there, gather up the checks you haven’t deposited, make a pile of the months bills, and do some fine maneuvers in mathematics, and see if what you owe is less than what you have, and just how much can be put to that new washer and dryer.)

There was a lot more, I am certain, as I received and answered more e-mail than a girl should get, as well as spending a fine amount of time on the phone with people, and whatever it all was, it sure tired me out, as when I sat down to read (Bill Bryson this week) and listen to some music (I am SO on an Oysterband roll!!) I fell asleep after five minutes.

(Waking to pounding on the door, Cabels’s playdate Freckles had escaped and his owners, there to pick him up for dog school, could not find him. Sent Cabal out to find him and after a romp in the river, the two wet dogs were back and ready for action)

But other than that, not much happened.

The thing that makes me laugh tho, reading this, is that it really WAS a day when nothing much happened…

But it’s all good.

Love and Fod,
Lorraine

Let me start this by saying that I completely and totally support ALL religions and the choice for everyone to choose which one works best for them. Or to go ahead and make up their own, doesn’t matter, it’s a personal thing.

I was hired today to play in a band, outdoors in a park, where three Lutheran Churches were gathered to have a big celebrate together sort of thing. The music, as it turns out was great, but I started off a bit nervously tho everyone was really nice. There was a little of the “Who are you,” vibe going on (Lasted till I started playing.) but it wasn’t too bad, I think they were just nervous. I wasn’t, tho I hadn’t heard the music, if you can count 1,3,5, 7 and Sus, you can play anything.

I did get a little nervous tho when the service started. It opened with everyone saying:

(and I am taking this from the program, NOT paraphrasing)

“We poor sinners confess to you that we have sinned: We have worshiped other Gods, we have dis-honored your name, we have neglected true worship, we have dishonored our parents, we have treated life as cheap, we have betrayed our loved ones, stolen, lied and coveted what is not ours. And other things known only to You.”

WHOA! I thought, (barely remembering in time that this was NOT an improv gig or my stage, and I should keep this to my inside voice) You managed all that JUST this past week??? Ye gads, I have fallen among miscreants!!!!!!

Then they offered me wine.

I thought a moment about giving them a little info on how wine very often wasn’t the BEST idea about how to save yourself, relieve stress, and feel joyful, yes, it does WORK, but can land you in some trouble too….But the guitar player saved me, by taking mine discreetly after I told him wine-wine was a Bad Idea.

That being said, the music was REALLY fun. The players were all really good, piano, guitar, bass, drums, me and two Vox. Mostly I stayed in the background, adding bits here and there, but when we got to the last song, a kicked up version of Joyful Joyful (Beethoven’s Ode to Joy for you purists out there) I thought oh yeah Whhhee-hoo, love this song, and then the leader guy after a couple singing verses nodded at me and the piano and said TAKE IT, which means WHHHEEEHHHOOO in my book!

Surprised the heck out of that congregation. Beethoven rocks. And so, do the Lutherans.

Only, remember, that bit at the end, the Ode to Joy, when you were tapping your feet, singing and rocking and even dancing, that’s what makes God happy. Enough with the miserable sinner bits.

Love and joy,
Lorraine

I was going to just comment, but then I thought I might actually have a lot to say, so here is a late night post for you…..

(Side note, as I type Mim is SHREDDING a Wonder Women comic, and I mean DESTROYING the thing, no idea where she got it or why…)

Wonderfully fun gig tonight with Johnny. I got way excited about fireworks, and distracted the rest of the time, but I think the music was good. There were many people in Stillwater, a lot of them came by boat, it being on the river and all. (note to self, do not refer to them as “Boat People” from the stage)

Thanks to Aleta who brought her brother, his wife, Laserlady, Laserlady’s sister, and her Mom and her Dad (I think) and Laser Ladies Man and the nice girl I can only remember as Flash Girls Fan. Also to Gayle who brought her WAY to cute son, loved the wee Sex Pistols shirt!!!! And Gayle, Malena is SO after your shoes! Personally, I want the knee socks. You have been warned!

We tried to call Kitty and do Little Ghost for her, but alas, she was out doing sushi with Red and missed it. She did however send me the original version, and promise me a NIN mix.

I couldn’t bring Cabal to the pub, as he is too big. I brought Malena’s puppy, Tink a few times when I had her, but she was just a little thing. May bring Cabal to the Brookside next week, as it is outdoors. Tomorrow is Take Your Dog To Renn Faire Day and I am pretty sure that will be an adventure….

I wrote up a Thing on my Fosters, Sabrina and Ginger, formerly Jungle Loves 1 & 2, complete with pictures, let me know if you are in the Minneapolis area, and want to forward it to people. I need a home for these Kitties!!!!

Mim has abandoned the comic and she and Venus are tag teaming with, uh, yes, that time of the month. It’s pretty funny, Bengals are flying everywhere….

Love and Fireworks,
Lorraine

I was going to do an entire Blog about “Malena, does she or doesn’t she?” in regards to the whole NIN debate, hopefully ending with me being right, but the little Vampire hopped on and commented before I could do it, leaving me with nothing, and not to mention WRONG.

Sigh. Dev, you have to tell me these things. Just goes to show, you can know someone for years and never know….So I don’t know NIN, where should I start, and more importantly, why???

This is one of the pictures, by the way, that our friend David took at the event the other night. It makes me happy. NEARLY as happy as the Neverwear photo Kitty did, to forstall another war, hee-hee! (Hey Kitty reads and posts here, David doesn’t) Both of them are great to work with, and make me feel comfortable in front of the camera. No easy task that.

Dog school was full on Boot Camp tonight. Cabal is starting to get the idea that if he runs thru the course and does everything, he gets chicken. I will get fit. Between that and work tho, I missed my rehersal for a bizzare church gig I picked up on Sunday. Michaela is going to sing me the songs on Saturday, on the way to the Renn Faire.

(yes, I am going to a Renn Faire as a customer, WITH the Dog. First time for everything)

No Bengals escaped today. They got boiled chicken tonight, which the fosters LOVE, Mim is ok with and horrifies Venus. “WHAT??? IS!!! THIS!!!!” she says. ” I can’t eat THIS. You suck!!!!!!!!!!!!”

I am ging to stop staring at the screen now, hoping something exciting will occur, and go and stare at some SVU instead.

Love and NIN,
Lorraine

Lots to talk about tonight, here in Adventureland! First off, when I came back to the Spooky House to feed and love the Bengals, there was Mim sitting out front on the walk!

Venus was screaming in the window, and Mim was crying in the yard! She had managed to poke out a screen in the sunroom window and out she went. I have no idea where she had been, but she was COVERED in spiderwebs and bits of things. The really weird bit was that she had somehow managed to bring a toy to play with. Not a wee mousie, but one of those sticks with feathers on a string. How she go that out I do not know, but there she sat, so lost and alone….

My heart is nearly beating back to normal.

The solo Beekeeping went well, I needed to add supers to three of the hives. Supers are the smaller boxes with either frames, or rounds in them, and that is the honey we get to take! Frames are where they build regular comb, but we take it all and extract the honey. Rounds are sort of plastic round things, and that honey we leave in the comb, and eat it wax and all. (Malena really likes this, not so much me)

At least we don’t have the problem These people do, trying to pick up 12 million escaped Bees….

I would go into more detail, but Miss Kitty has come thru with some photos, so let’s move on…

This is me with Red and John at the Flea Market showing off our finds. My find was a really good one, the most beautiful necklace ever, and as it turned out a STEAL at $40. We looked up the designer when we got home, and her pieces start at $300 and go up! I am going to take a picture and write to her, as they are all one of a kind.

No visit to LA would be complete without a visit to the coolest shop ever, Necromancer

I bought a dead Rhino Beetle (not on a key chain this time, hee-hee, Malena will never let me forget that!) and two cool coffins for Malena and I, as well as some old keys, and spider light switch covers.

Kitty has been after me for a while now to pose for her Neverwear site, in a Neverwear Tee Shirt, which of course I agreed to do as long as she took the picture. There was a huge box of T’s in the living room, so I got the great idea to take the photo Covered in Neverwear! (as opposed to being Covered in Bees!)

I love this picture, and I am thinking will get no arguments THIS time from Kitty!!!!

Love and Adventures,
Lorraine