I received an invite in my inbox inviting me to be a VIP guest at a Fashion Show coming up, which is very exciting, but I am not sure why they believe I might be an asset to this sort of thing. Still, I can see me there. It could happen. Mostly what I want is to read the write up in the fashion pages the day after. PEOPLE magazine needs me.

BBBGG (Beautiful Bleached Blonde Gay Guy): Quiche Medeadly! HOW did you LOVE the event last night??? SO glad you were there! Made the evening!!

QM: (that would be ME) Oh, dude, I loved it! SO many wonderful people, really, wouldn't have missed it! Was curious about the Gift Bag, what the heck is "Eye Cream"?

BBBGG: Let's talk about your outfit, Fabulously Whimsical knee socks from Target, black workout pants, and a delicious tattered pink tank top, was it hard to decide? Or did it just come together?

QM:It was easy, came together instantly, it's an outfit that's so right for anything. And all I currently own.

BBBGG: I know you've been photographed in a variety of hairstyles, and forever you've been going with the Messy Bun look, and now, you seem to be sporting braids, why the change? We LOVE it by the way, SO five years old!

QM: The bun doesn't fit under my either my Derby Helmet or my Riding one.

BBBRG: And PINK now? Very trending, your doing I suspect, pink is the new purple! Why pink tho? What lead to the switch?

QM: My hairdresser was out of purple that day and I was wearing pink socks*. (*Actual real event)

BBBGG: Tell us about your jacket...

QM: A Naptown Hoodie. Armani, I believe.

BBBGG: Those boots were too too! Michael Kors? Jimmy Choos? Was the mud a Steampunk reference or were you going for a "Crawl out of the Ooze" evolution statement?

QM: Red Wellies. Spring in MN. Be a fool to go with anything else.

BBBGG: We SO admire your stance on not accepting any designer jewels! Diamonds are SO yesterday!!! What are you wearing?

QM: Bee earrings. Only ones I could find two of.

BBBGG: Is that a BENGAL in your bag? Most people carry Little Doggies at these events, don't see any tonight tho...And is that a CASANDRA Designer Purse?

QM: Ah. The purse. Nordstrom Rack. I was weak. And the thing IS cool. And no, there don't seem to be any little doggies around anymore, who can say?

BBBGG: We notice that you are CURVIER than most of the sized 2 and zero starlet and icons here tonight, they look positively starving beside you, do you have any comment for young women in regards to this?

QM: Hell yes! I am a normal sized women and normal sized women have curves and aren't a size zero, who would you rather go to bed with? A stick or a women with something to hold onto*? (*Map of Tasmania reference)

BBBGG: Er...

QM: Oh. Right. Point. The point is I am HOT in whatever I wear, I look GREAT, and I am FIT and happy.

(Network/Mass Media note: We are not running those last comments, cut interview at question 8)

You know, I may well go to this fashion show at that. I got some points to make.

Love and Fashion,
Lorraine

Hanging out with Joan of Dark tonight at the Strange Brew Coffee Shop, live on the fish cam!

Actual website is www.thestrangebrew.net, click on Fish Cam there ought to be a chat option there, sign up and talk to me there. I just like having her shop up on my site too, for a couple hours.

Ok! Figured out how to chat over there, and I am in My PJ's! Come party at the coffee shop!

All forms if my name were taken so look for MEDEADLY!



Streaming .TV shows by Ustream

Lest we forget, at any time, that I am every bit as committed to Dressage, and riding well, as I am to Derby, I think it's time for another My Little Pony Post. And, not coincidentally, I just happen to have two new videos to show you.

When many people think of Dressage, if indeed they spend time pondering the sport, they think of proper, formal, very correct type of riding. This is true to a certain (ok, most) extent, but remember, this is ME, people. And sometimes a sport can benefit from a little ROCK. And pink hair.

And remember too, riding is what started this FIT. I wouldn't be thinking I could skate Derby NOW if I hadn't already learned that yes, some things are scary, but the more you learn, and the more you work, the better you GET, well, the more you can do. There are no limits.

This may be stating the obvious, but riding so that it looks effortless, easy, like you are just SITTING there with the horsie, is a huge lot of freaky intense work. It's all core, and triceps. I sweat, I work, my body screams, sometimes I think falling off would be no bad thing, as by the end of a lesson, it seems the easiest way to get DOWN.

I work with a great Trainer, who (whom? I mix them up) I call Poetry, as that's what she looks like when she rides. Sometimes, things go badly, and she turns into Madame M, and kicks my butt. Takes away stirrups. (Or reins) She'll yell at me and I hear things like DO IT NOW AND DON'T YOU DARE STOP. Often.

I don't mind this. I'm not messing around. I'm going to be GOOD.

There are times tho, that things need fixing and Poetry gets creative. These vids were from a month or so ago (Poetry and I have many skills but I am not sure computers are heading the list)

Going back and looking at where you WERE is painful, but these are too funny not to share.

Here's what happens when you can't understand the Half Pass, and your Trainer decides it is easier to run the show herself.





Love and My Little Pony,
Lorraine

Why yes, it IS my Birthday today! I'd almost overlooked that! How did that happen??? I think because this entire weekend has been a sort of wonderful B'day weekend sort of event, the DAY of it pales.

Not quite pales, it's going to end with my first Derby meeting with the Chippewa Valley Roller Girls, but I get ahead of myself here.

Let's just re-visit some of the weekend highlights...

Joan of Dark came (Still here in fact. She's meant to be going back home later today, but the jury is still out on if this will happen. Not excited about the idea, frankly, and may yet kidnap her and keep her in one of the libraries. It would be nice to have coffee made in the morning, and dinner at night and it would give the house sort of an extra cool factor, all sorts of people have Library CATS, but a Library Derby Girl??)

Here she is on my Boss'es new Inversion Thing. Being the lightest of us all, she was drafted to test it first and see how well the thing was put together. She does not lack a sense of adventure, this one.

Shortly after we all had a go (it being "safe" or at least not falling apart) we went off to see CVRG bout the Naptown Third Alarm team, which was made even more fun by the fact my Boss decided to come along with us, and see his first Derby Bout! I think he liked it, if you missed his account, it's up HERE.

I loved it. It was Derby. If Derby lights you on fire, every bout is wonderful. Every bout you learn.

It's spring here now, by which I mean we had a couple days with temps over 30. Lovely melty slushy outdoors! We decided to go and visit a White Witch and Mr Tumnus shoot in the woods by the Lamp Post. (I hadn't BEEN to this Lamp Post yet and good thing we saw the direction they all walked off in or Joan and I would be wandering woods yet in search of the thing. Had no idea where it was)

This is me trying to get down the hill to the Lamp Post. And here is 8 seconds of Joan of Dark following me down, carrying a Golden Wand dropped by the White Witch on her way down.



Whipping snowballs at people is fun. Mostly they turn and say things like "Oh! You got me! Argggh! Man, you so thru a snowball at me."

If you whip a snowball at a Derby Girl, it is not likely she will demure, at not only lobbing one back, but taking you DOWN, and involving some White Wolves in the process. I like this in people.


Here's the White Wolves rehearsing a scene from the shoot. They are great about rehearsing. The call "ACTION tho, leaves them still as the stone so many creatures got turned into by the aforementioned wand, or sends them off into the woods at a dead run.


Riding yesterday was nearly as much fun as I had thought it would be. That's Joan on Max on the left, and me on My Little Pony, Alex, on the right. Joan wants me to say that her horsie was not all THAT little and that mine is HUGE and hers only LOOKS very small.

This is relevant as she did go off shortly after this picture. (It should be noted that shortly after this picture, she also donned a helmet as well, no riding without) It wasn't her fault she went off mind you, it was a perfect storm of frisky horise, wrong canter lead among other things. Didn't like that part, could see it was going to happen a few strides before it did, and it's NOT a fine feeling see your friend tumble, but I knew it was going to be a good fall and she was fine. Still, poor dear is sore.

She got back up tho.


We did a re-enactment, as amongst she, myself and my trainer Poetry, the biggest irritation was that we did not in fact get this on camera. You'll have to go back thru FB and Twitter for the real fun pics, but we thought the roses were a nice addition.


Since today is a pretty big skating day for me, yes, the new skater meeting is tonight, here's some video of our session on Sunday. An entire 16 seconds, which would have ended with a very lovely toe stop had I mentioned to Joan of Dark I'd be doing this, so she could have say, stopped as well. Not SURE I can count it as my first hit, but it was pretty funny.



I think I am equal parts nervous and really excited about tonight. I've learned I in no way shape or form (as it were) have any of the muscles needed for skating, despite spending the last six months in the gym, even as I learned SO much skating with Joan.

Mostly I learned how little I know and how very far I have to go.

Which is no bad place to start from.


Can I do this? Don't know.

Mostly I know I would regret forever not trying.

Love and Birthdays,
Lorraine

I've been wanting to mention a few of the beyond wonderful things that have popped up recently in support of Great Lakes Bengal Rescue. First off, you are the BEST Fiends ever. And I love you beyond. Beyond anything. It means so much that you care enough to help with a cause I am so fully committed to.

First Erin Underwoods Poetry for Cats.

And next, The Night Garden Project, a group of artists donating time and work with 100% of the proceeds going to GLBR. Here's the shop, with my Magic, himself an F1 rescue via GLBR, on a mug!!!

And the portrait Kelli Bickman did of all five of my Bengals, Bengal Tree, is now available in prints, cards, bags and such, with a percentage going to rescue as well.

Thank you. From my heart. Words can't cover how grateful I am.

The other thing I wanted to mention was I got a letter today from a girl talking about how brave I was, writing about getting FIT, going for it, and all the things I've been doing. She said it had inspired her, and I am glad because that is half the purpose in writing about it. (the other half being, I need to keep telling myself things) But, I need to stress, being brave doesn't mean one is not scared. Exactly the opposite.

Me? Scared? Oh yeah. All the time. What if I fail? Hello? Skating Derby? Riding Dressage shows on my teachers horse? Meeting so many new people face to face and telling them, yes, I can be that good? Telling the entire world I can DO this and get FIT? It's a lot, and it's a whole lot of scary.

I have to tell myself every day and often: "Suck it up, Quiche Medeadly, you're doing this" Being brave isn't not being scared. It's being scared and doing it anyway. And if it were easy, what's the POINT? It doesn't matter what you feel inside, as long you do it anyway and smile like, yes, that was the plan all along. Know that you rock. Even if you don't believe it.

It reminded me of this picture Amanda Palmer posted sometime back, and a phrase I've taken on and play on repeat in my head. Repeat it often. It may help. The caption is hers and it helped me.

"Fuck Fear. I rock on purpose all the time."
Amanda Palmer

Yeah.

Love, Bengals and Brave,
Lorraine

This will be a short post tonight, as I am pretty tired and since I finally got home after work, I've both had to take out the rubbish for the trash service in the morning and upload my Coco the Hermit Crab video, both of which are about equally traumatic for me. (which says a lot right there about skills I may or may not posses.)

First, some Derby, as it was a nip down to see the Naptown Roller Girls Bout weekend. First photo is by Tom Klubens, you can see the entire set, and lovely it is, HERE.

And here's one by Marc Lebryk (full set HERE) of me! Ok, I suspect he didn't set out to take one of me, that's Joan of Dark, from the back, and everyone cheering her, but since it's the only photo I happen to BE in this weekend, I'm going with, yes, photo of me. She won't mind.

I won't go into a full detail on the Bout, or on Derby, since this IS a post on Coco the Hermit Crabs rare daytime scuttle, except to say Derby is beautiful like music, and every bit as strong, wild and magic. I did a post after the last Bout, which said pretty much everything I am still thinking, if you missed it, you can go back and read it HERE.

I would say the only thing I would add to it is that I am more sure than ever now that I want to be a part of this, and I am going to skate. Starting next week I believe. And trust me, there will be a post on THAT evening.

I love this sport. (and not to run a topic to the ground but: I will be that FIT)

There, that's Derby. Now, it being a Monday and me being brain dead, and Coco the Hemit Crab coming out for a rare daytime appearance, I was inspired to take some Actual Video, right there, of Crab Island. (my Boss did briefly wonder if this was exactly what he was paying me for, but this was huge, and I couldn't let it go by.)

Crab Island is not a tame, resort type Island, it's a brutal place. Coco once had a Friend, but the Friend had a bigger and better shell, and on Crab Island, it's all about the lodging. Brutal. No video of it, for which we are grateful, but suffice to say: Coco is now the lone tenant there.

Here he is ("he" is sort of guessed at, I have no clue if it's a he or a she, or how to tell, and if anyone is in possession of this knowledge, leave me ignorant, I do not want to know) in his first (and likely only) video, out for a scuttle to the pool. It's only a minute and 10 seconds, and I am sorry to say the real action doesn't come into play until around 50 seconds, so bare with us. It's worth it.



Love and Coco,
Lorraine

My Xmas Tree died yesterday, which is sad, really. I liked that tree. It was all cheerful, here in the dark every morning. I'd gotten USED to it, despite being not much into the Holiday Spirit thing. Our Housekeeper got it for me one year, in an attempt to, well, instill some Holiday Spirit in me. Not sure it worked, but I did like that tree.

I put it out into the cold. It failed to thrive. Has to go. The flowers can grow up around it in the Spring. If Spring ever comes.


(Completely random Bengal Photo, but I like Bengals. Obsessively so.)

It being six months now since I started working out and training, this was meant to be That Sort of blog, complete with amazing measurements and such, but we forgot to do them, and since I can't think of anything ELSE to talk about, we'll wing it.

My friend Daisy suggested I could Blog about Dexter Kitten, the little guy we found in a tree at the bottom of the drive a few months ago, that she adopted, and who is having a "procedure" today, worth a mention, tho not going to cut it (as it were) on it's own. But here is a picture of Little Dexter:


FIT. Right. 6 Months now. Is it working? Yup. Sure is. About 30 pounds now. If you are new here, here's the Plan I'm on: Eat Right and Get Your Butt to the Gym. Will never catch on, I'm afraid, it's slow and it's hard. But it does work. Have I learned a lot? Yup. Sure have.

Here's a few things you should know, should you ever decide to go with this:

1. People will tell you it takes a LONG time. They're right. There's no easy answer. You have to get up every day and go for it. Throw the scale away, it's not your friend. It's too depressing when it goes up a tenth of a pound, after dropping a half.

2. You don't have to do this alone. That was the first thing, Little Evil, who became my trainer a couple months in told me. You also don't need a trainer tho, walk, dance around the dinning room, go to classes at your gym, workout with a friend, whatever. Get inspired. REALLY inspired, find the people who are what you want to be. They will like you. You don't suck, you're out of shape. They had to work just as hard to get where they are now. More than anyone, THEY KNOW how hard this is. And it's REALLY really hard.

I'm kind of extreme, I like intense. That may not work for you. Find out what does.

3. You have to do things when you don't want to. Having classes, riding lessons, training sessions I am scheduled for works for me. All I have to do is Show Up. If you can make yourself do the DVD or go to the gym on your own, great. I can't. You aren't going to "feel like it" often. Suck it up.

4. You will fail. You aren't GOING to be perfect, no matter how hard you try. Fail then. And get up the next day and succeed. You can wake up one morning and wonder how you got this out of shape, but you aren't going to wake up one morning and find out you are FIT again.

5. Afraid? Scared? Don't want to be the fattest person in the gym? I was. All of that. I'm not now. What do you think people are going to say? "She's so fat what is she doing in the gym?" What do you CARE? In six months you won't be the fattest. You can't start sooner than NOW. It happened. I got fat. Not FIT. We can fix this.

6. It does get easier. You will make it thru the workouts. You will come home so tired that late night eating is no longer a problem, you will fall into bed at 9 (ok, or earlier) and sleep like the dead. Easier or not you will HURT. You will start to like this and in fact, it will feel normal. I am dead serious here. Every time you hurt, you will be stronger.

No more numbers. I'll just tell you:

What if someone told you that you could get everything you ever wanted? Every dream you ever had could come true? How hard would you work for that? What would you do?

Anything?

Uh-huh.

That's what I've learned.

Couldn't post this six months ago:

Can now.


Love and FIT,
Lorraine