Perfect Storms....

Tonight was one of those nights that doesn't come around often. Some gigs are great, and fun, and some gigs are a whole lot of work. And some are such a joy and delight that life doesn't get any better.

Tonight could not have been better. It was a Perfect Storm of really wonderful people coming to hear us, and having the kind of time one is meant to in an Irish Pub. The place went SRO early, and stayed that way, and was filled with a lot of people who have come to hear us before, and made our night, but never have they all been there together.

They made me SO happy. I can't claim credit, tho if I do say so myself, we did rock, but it was the people who MADE the rock, if you see what I mean. We got it from them and tossed it on back. I'm not sure I have ever felt so loved before..The kind of night where you leave thinking ..."THAT is why I do this."

Aleta and Laser Lady were there too, which always makes me happy. The only sore spot in the night was I had a fierce headache for no good reason, but Laser Lady, apparently, has special powers and was able to fix it. I must learn this skill.

(I know this is mean, but it's really funny..) It is always lovely to have Aleta and Laser Lady in for a show, but guys, you will be way more popular with the pub if you REMEMBER TO PAY YOUR BAR TAB before leaving.....(call them tomorrow, I assured them it was the Tequila and not intentional...)

Cabal comes home tomorrow, and I think he is getting better. The U of M vets could not have been nicer. They called me every few hours today to let me know how he was doing, and have been keeping them with them, in conference rooms and such, rather than leaving him alone. It was pretty scary, and not at all fun for a while there...Seems to be a case of him eating something Bad, that laid him low, and not something wrong...



It's funny how I have never thought much about the saying "Every good dead will come back to haunt you.." I mean, there I was a few weeks ago, befriending a Carrot, for goodness sake, it was alone and misunderstood, I wanted to help it achieve everything it wanted, and fulfill its hopes and dreams....And I did. And I thought that was the end of it. It was a one off thing, and made me feel like I could make a difference.

I did. And hadn't thought much about it since. Until I went for a snack tonight.

Oh Fods....



Love and Magic Evenings,
Lorraine

Late Night and Sleepy..

Hello, my Fiends,

This is not the post I had planned today, but as they say, the best laid plans of mice and men...I kind of feel like the last few days have sort of blended into one sort of long day. And now am here, home from my gig, and awake. I've been keeping up on the comments today and loving it more than you can know, you are the best! Truly...A majorly stressed and busy Assistant-girl thanks you.

The lunch yesterday with the Beowulf contest winners went off just fine, despite some delays. Boss has a broken finger, and it had to be ex-rayed, and getting someone off on a book tour is not an easy task. I think the only harder one might be the person DOING the book tour.

It got kind of funny this lunch, I met the winners at the hotel, delightful people all, and we limo'd over to the Greek to Me place, and all went well, but Kitty and I were pretty much non-stop on the Blackberry's answering last minute questions and the funniest, for me, was us sitting there , schedules and pens and phones, and her saying , "I have to call our limo" and me saying, "I am on the phone, call mine too..."

You have to laugh sometimes.

Today didn't much stop. Curve balls hourly. And then gig. But you do it. And do it again tomorrow.

Thanks Fiends, for being there....

Love and sleep,
Lorraine

Bees, and Photos of Bees and Just Who Got Stung?

Right. It's late, and I am almost too tired to be thinking. Certainly too tired to be writing, but after promising all day to bring you some Bees, I am going to Skull up my brain (see how I am evolving this new verb?) and Bee with you for a bit.

(Cut to the chase, Lorraine!) Right. The lucky winners in the Who Gets to Bee stung contest: Boss and the MPR Reporter. Boss on an unprotected bit of ankle, and our hapless reporter friend when he was unlucky enough to squash one under an arm.

But this makes for dull reading. Let's start with a little Girl-on girl full Bee Suit Wrestling, with The Birdchick and Miss Kitty..(Who won? Who cares!)



Kitty is one of the few people who can actually take a lovely photo of me. Here I am messing around with some WARNING Full on Voltage action tool. (No idea what it does but it lives in a little birdhouse on the fence post.)



Feeding Bees honey from my hand makes me so happy. Actually everything about tending bees does.



Cabal, while loving the bit where we all go off into the woods, does not share this love of our honey making Friends. That's Non-Birding Bill, bravely at the hives in only hat and gloves. Brave man. I haven't done that yet. May well not be brave enough.



In order to steal, er, harvest, the honey, you need to get the Bees to leave and go nicely back into the hive. You can do this a number of ways, the most direct being to take the full box, no light thing and give it a few good shakes. See Boss and I convincing the Bees to leave. See Boss and I Covered in Bees.



Another way fun day with the Bees. And all of us there. Check out the Birdchick Blog and Boss's for more photos and stories....Miss Kitty, it should be noted, took all of these photos today, and shared them with us for tonight's joint bee post. This one is my favorite: Quiche with Ross Rounds!



Love and Bees,
Lorraine

In Which We Try and Post Skulls..

Late night here, Fiends, but our Miss Kitty is safely here, and that makes us happy. She looks well for someone who spent the last six weeks on the road, (heck or even for someone who didn't!) And seems entirely as happy to be here as we are to have her. We have some big plans for a few days and her camera has a viewing screen.....

Here is my attempt to embed our Skull Map of the World into a blog....(OK, to be truthful, Philas attempt, I am the cut and paste artist, if you missed it first in the comments, it's a map that let's you put up a Skull where you are from,so we can see Skulls all over the world. Go ahead, Skull, you know you want to...)

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Tomorrow ought to be an interesting day at work. Besides more media than ought to occur in any one day, we are doing the big honey harvest, which means we go out and steal all the honey they don't need to get thru the winter, and extract it.

It was meant to be fairly straight forward, with Boss, Birdchick, Kitty (holding fast to my hand, as she says) and me, but Boss keeps, uh, adding to the group. Boss is just back from China you see, and still a little, perhaps, not quite with us.

Every time I turned around it seemed another person was coming along to the party, up to and including a reporter from MPR. I guess he figured he's kill two birds with one stone, do the interview WHILE harvesting honey and get another pair of hands to help in the process. Which is all good the more the merrier, but I did attempt to point out why he could not have all these people help, and mentioned the number of bee suits we possessed, and the number of people....

He said "You can give up your Bee Suit" (not that this would cover the number needed)

"Why Me?" says I

"You never get stung, you can wear the Bee Hat" he says.

I told him the REASON I was the only one not have been stung was that I was the only one who did not GO to the hives without a bee suit....

Ought to be an interesting afternoon. Never dull, this job.

Kali is attempting to savage my hands as I type, which is kind of cute after experiencing what the Bengals were capable of as Kittens (THEY are currently engaged in trying to pull down all the blinds in my sunroom. Go figure.

I'll leave you with a picture of her shredding my notebook instead.....



Love, Skulls, Bees, and Bengals,
Lorraine

Little Things and Sparrows

I was doing some updating on my blog. As in, we aren't Friends, we're Fiends, and then I read the little bit under, the bio-y thing, and realized I had no idea what it was talking about.. Did any of you? It seemed a little confused as to what, or who it or I was. Well, cleared that up, Fiends.

Then I went to save this brilliant new intro, and there were two buttons to choose from. One said "Save Changes" and the other said "Delete Blog Forever" with a note saying if you chose Delete, you could put up a New Blog there, but your old one and all of it's archives, would be deleted forever and they were very sorry but forever means forever and they could not be gotten back ever by anyone!

Pick the right button or be lost forever. Harsh choices.

I think the Save This button and the Delete Forever button ought not be in such close proximity, personally. And WHY is there a delete forever button anyway???? If one ever got tired of a blog, one could say, make a new one, but wiping everything out seems a little extreme.

I know I blogged and linked to this last week, but it is so in my head that I am going to again tonight. Sparrow Quartet. Quite simply one of the best albums I have ever heard. Truly a masterpiece of a work. I haven't listened to anything else since I got it, and never seem to get tired of it. (Not something you might think of when someone says "Hey, it's Chinese and the Banjo...You'll love it!") It could be one symphony, it is so well constructed. It may well be the best album ever.

If you can get to see them, GO! This isn't something you want to miss, and it may never happen again. Tour Info Here...

That's about it for excitement and adventures today. Nathilie did not, during my French Lesson Via Skype, hold her head in hands and shake it (much anyway) nor laugh at me (Very much anyway) and I made it up the four flights of stairs to class. (in one go..) I still haven't taken the first big test, but I have it, and I could have passed, except, apparently, spelling counts. Go figure.

Sending out Big hugs to Phiala, who lost a friend today. Never a good thing...

Love and music,
Lorraine

Photos to Sniffle to.....

I think since fully half of you have caught this computer virus we have been passing around and are curled up with various hot drinks, and tissues, and since I promised, we will go with something light and entertaining tonight, requiring no brain whatsoever...

Sound good?



Princess Kali-licious is some cute overload! Remember with these photos that one, cats do not sit still, and two, I have no idea what I am taking the picture of, as my view screen is toast. This next shot proves my point in that I thought I was taking a funny cat photo, but only managed to take a shot of four skeletons...



This next isn't particularly a good kitty shot, but I include it just because I REALLY want to know what the tentacled Thing is flying off out the top....



I have this Face, that people laugh at me for. It's the "Oh Fod! They are taking my picture face" Can't model to save my life. (Tho Kitty has had some success getting good shots of me, we will try later this week..) Apparently, Mim suffers from the same problem...



Kali is either rubbing out her tears, mourning the mousie, or waving at you. Or perhaps getting ready to rend and tear. Hard to tell. (note to self: Put some water in the coffee table fish tank, or Fishie will be sushi..)



You can kind of see her here, but mostly is is a great shot of a plant...It's funny, when I think of Kali, she was found in the country, half starved, at about 8 weeks old, no mother, and brought to the shelter, and had been there for a month, in a little cage, way at the top of the room, and not the main room with all the really cute kittens. The shelter is so overcrowded, and I mean no disrespect, just this is all she has known. Truly, a rescue.



There you have it, my sniffling, sneezing, Fiends. I will leave you with an arty shot I call "Bengal With Boots." Ok, with mostly shoes. But the illiteration suffered.



Love and Tissues,
Lorraine