Bengals! Bengals! Everywhere!

Do you recognize these Bengal Girls? How about up close? Lovely, aren't they?



Would you believe Jungle Loves 1 & 2???????




I go this note today.....


"I say to Spirit she is a pretty kitty and she rolls on her back and lets me rub her tummy. You can tell she is enjoying every minute of it. She is the one that will often jump up on the chair and sleep on the foot rest with me. Angel comes up to play.

I sometimes have to step over them to get past them. Before they would run when we moved our feet.

I never get over the beauty of these cats! Their personalities are so different and they let you know what they want. RIGHT NOW. What did we ever do with out them? They won my heart when I first saw their pictures. And my heart was right!

Thank you again for choosing me to have these beautiful girls. I really don't know what I did with out them. They have given me many hours of joy and laughter. And I have had them just a little over a month. Just think what I have
to look forward too.."

Makes me happy. Especially since the other note I go today contained this:





Meet Queen Mab and King Lear (AKA Queenie and Lear) my new Fosters. Lear is a big F2 boy, who apparently Does Not like men, and his bonded sweetheart, the petite Queenie.
They are currently living in Chicago, and as it works out, Miss Kitty and I are going to go down in a week and a half and pick them up. We will bring them home, and we will see what happens....

Love and Bengal Happiness,
Lorraine

(Strange) Love, Sweat and Horsies...

Ok, this may be a Horsie night, but we so have to start here, with Bengals. I believe we are going to have to consult Marilyn, the cat coach, for an exact explanation for this, but I am calling it "What the heck?????????"



Aww...It's Rommy thinking "Is this a carrot I see before me??"



I rode English tonight, which was at first, somewhat daunting, it's a whole different thing, and there is a lot less of it, but it all came back to me, and it is SO much easier than Western riding. It's almost like, if you can completely relax, you could float there forever. You can float for a long time, but walking on post-float jelly legs is not easy.



The action shots didn't turn out so well tonight, we will wait till Miss Kitty comes out for those, but Melissa did figure out the florescent lighting setting, which seemed to help quite a bit.



I like to call this the "It is really goofy to be hot and sweaty and cleaning up an even hotter and sweatier horse and have someone taking pictures of you that you know will shortly be seen around the world" shot.



And yet ANOTHER new and useful skill I have learned! I don't know why one uses them, or what they are called but I can now put on and take off leg wrap bandagy thingies!



I love this horse. I love the people there at the stable. I love riding. I am going to get fit, and learn to do this really well. I love this hair-do more than the day I got it.

I worked hard for it tonight.

Love and Sweat,
Lorraine

Est-ce que vous vous habillez chez vous ou au cafè?

That was my sentence tonight in French class. Conjugating reflexive verbs we were, and there were many questions where one got to answer with the logical verb of choice. I drew a complete blank, as no doubt our French speaking Fiends are right now, as it is not a question one would ever, I hope, have to be asking another person.

The verb was "S'habiller" (to get dressed) But what was REALLY funny, and do not be drinking tea when you do this, was when I plugged it into Babelfish tonight and translated it just to see what might come up...Try it.

I do like saying "Vous vous" tho, I'll say that for the darn reflexive verbs...(and Est-ce que, is pronounced "Es-ka" so you get "Eska vou vou" which is a fine sounding start to any sentence)

I did pretty good on this "Eat Less, Move More" fitness plan today. No Pizza (Bison chili) and I did one 20 minute fast walk with the dog. Ok, not huge, but a start. I had to do an errand in Minneapolis this morning tho, and actually left the house, after writing my inspirational blog about getting fit, thinking, "oh great, it's early, I can grab a Breakfast Sandwich...."

OOPS!!!!!! Or not. Found an alternative.

I think most of this will be re-training my brain, to think in terms of "Healthy". Can be done. Must be done. I really, really want to be fit this spring and get my first Tattoo from Hannah.

And I don't want to spend the winter as a Dark Pudding.

Love and Vous Vous,
Lorraine

Off The Couch....

Fods, I love waking up and reading what you Fiends have been up to in the night!! This is something I do even before TEA, kid you not. (Well, to be honest if I had someone to bring me tea, I'd read you with tea, most likely snorting it in the process...) But there it is every morning, Bengals all over the bed, and Fiends on the Blackberry.

Not a bad way to wake.

I've been thinking a lot about fitness this week, and think I need some Fit going on in my life. It's that really hard time of year when it is dark all the time and grey, and cold. I don't want to go out, and when I am home, I want me some couch, and for dinner, the only thing in this town someone will bring me, PIZZA.

Horse started me thinking on this last week, and oddly enough, Kat Von D and her co-horts in her shop. I really want to go out to LA in the spring and get my first tattoo, I know what I want for a tattoo and now I know where I want to get it. Any of them can do it for me, I've been watching the show, and quite like them all, they make people so happy. They have this really great, friendly, cuddly, loving, anti-snob attitude going on. Could almost be the Midwest. I like them. A lot.

But back to my point, and I do have one, I want to be really fit and feeling strong and good when I get it. And it might help with this whole Winter Dark Ick Sleep Feel Like A Pudding thing that seems to be once again creeping in.

That's what I am thinking about this morning. And begging the question, the First Tattoo? Freaky Venus, first Bengal. More than anything this year, in a year when a lot has been going on, it's the Bengal rescue and work that has been most important, and I always thought that when I found something important enough to me, that I would want on me and with me for the rest of my life, I would get that first tattoo.

Found it.

Love and fitness,
Lorraine

My Winter Romance, Day Two...

Not sure how well these Horsie pictures turned out tonight, still learning about this camera, you are going to have to wait until Miss Kitty comes for some really GOOD ones, but these are fun.



I am not actually having a baby, tho it looks like it, I have managed to get my shirt caught up over the saddle horn, like a dork! Tonight was Western saddle again, I go onto English on Thursday, hurrah!



I learned something new from Horsetrainer Mel tonight, I was having a nice little canter, and she called out what to cue, to go from canter to trot, which I figured would send me careening in all directions, only the horse got it before I did and went to trot, and there I was posting along nicely! I was never so surprised! Rommy is so smooth, so perfect, I did it a couple times!



Here we are after the workout. Anyone who says the horse does all the work, is NOT a rider. We are spending a lot of time trotting and posting around the ring. I can go twice around, rest a bit and do another two, rest MORE, then turn around and go the other way, and do it again. I manage half an hour. I will get fit!!!! Don't need no stinking gym!!!!!!!



Scritches and rubs with the curry comb, which is I suspect , Rommy's favorite bit. Carrot time would have to be the first....



Horses are magic. That's all there is to it. It makes me so happy to be riding again, I never realize how badly I miss being around horses until I get back to it, and feel so lucky to have this chance to ride such a horse, (not to mention getting help from one of the best teachers going, MEL!) Not sure I can move now, and am really sure it will hurt tomorrow, but is so way beyond worth it.

I will leave you with a lovely shot of me using my Horsies mane for a new hair extension look. Always fashionable, that's me!



Love and Winter ROmance,
Lorraine

Love For Dread Val!

I had some things in mind today, but they have been a bit pre-empted by a comment I read a couple hours ago from Spacelaw saying Dread Val had been in her car for two days trying to reach her home in California. She is having trouble trying to get home because everywhere near her home is on fire.

Can't be good, I thought.

I called Dread Val, and spoke to her and she has indeed been trying to reach her home for two days. All the roads leading to her home have been blocked, and she had to drive some distance last night to spend the night with a friend. She is again trying to reach her home today. Driving the streets in her yellow Mini, hoping she can get there.

The mandatory evacuation order is in place in her neighbourhood, 1/8th of a mile from her home. I said "Let's be clear on this 1/8th of a mile thing, as in, we could sprint there, or hit it with a rock"

Yesssssss, said Dread Val, that's about it.

She is very worried about her dog and her cats. It is possible if she cannot get there, that her Mom can go and get them. She just, at this point, wants to be let in, grab them, and a few things, and get somewhere safe, but doesn't know if the fire and police will let her.

Kind of puts a lot into perspective, doesn't it?

She asked could we keep up with the good thoughts, and that it meant so much to her that we were worried and thinking of her and sending good things via the universe. She is going to keep in touch with me, and I will keep you posted.

I can't imagine driving around, in a Mini no less, hoping and hoping that you could get to your house, before it and all you owned burns forever and hoping at least, you can save your pets and one or two other things. I think it would very clearly crystallize exactly what is important.

Here's love for Dread Val, and any other Fiends in the path of this horror.

UPDATE! This just beeped via text: Passing the hills on the south and east side of my house, black, scorched and smoking"


Love and Prayers,
Lorraine