"I got it because we got drunk and it was just a really funny idea and my friend said he’d do it for free."

"I sat on it for a couple days and was finally like, 'Man, I’m gonna get a butthole tattoo that says "Let It Be" with a bumblebee flying out!'"

She sat on it for a couple days and now she will sit on it for the rest of her life.

She's not even a Beatles fan. Well, no. If she were, she'd have a beetle crawling out.

"Obama Polishes His 'Regular Guy' Image With Beer."

NPR chooses a good Saturday to polish Obama's image with a puff piece about the President and beer. 

Polls show President Obama has been winning that likeability contest. And he's been raising a lot of frosty mugs on the campaign trail, hoping to press his advantage over the teetotaling Mitt Romney.

The strategy could come to a head in the swing state of Colorado.

As President Obama was holding an outdoor campaign rally in Golden this past week, the signature smell of beer brewing washed over the audience, a reminder of the nearby Coors brewery.

Did anything else happen this past week? Anything relevant to the election? I mean, more relevant that that Obama drinks beer and the White House has its own homebrew with "a secret recipe [that] was just declassified with a video on the White House website."

The White House beer is flavored with honey from the first lady's beehive....

Speaking of teetotaling Mitt Romney, the beehive is an important symbol to Mormons (and Masons):

Freemasons also used the bee and beehive as symbols of cooperative work, and the images are found in early American art and literature. "Many of the founding fathers were Masons, and America had become the new "promised land" of opportunity," says Staker. Many early Mormons were also Masons, including Joseph Smith.

The Book of Ether in the Book of Mormon tells the story of the Jaredites, a tribe that lived at the time of the Tower of Babel in the Old Testament. According to the Book of Mormon, the Jaredites made a miraculous 344-day voyage across the ocean to North America. They brought with them the "deseret" which means "honey bee" in the language of the Book of Mormon.

When Brigham Young and the Latter-day Saints arrived in Salt Lake Valley in July of 1847, Young chose the name "Deseret" for their new home, and the beehive as its emblem, symbolizing the kind of cooperative work that would be required to make the desert bloom....

Mark Twain commented on the Utah beehive symbol in his book on the 1860s American West, Roughing It, "The Mormon crest was easy. And it was simple, unostentatious and it fitted like a glove. It was a representation of a Golden Beehive, with all the bees at work."

What would it take for you to realize you had 80,000 bees in your house?

"... it wasn't long after that honey began to slowly drip from newly emerged cracks in the living room and kitchen ceilings, while a cascade of the sweet liquid even blew a lightbulb after filling it half-full of honey."

And for comic relief after that (as suggested by a commenter there), try "Covered In Bees":

At the Bumble Bee Café...

... share the buzz.

"The Beatles, 'Revolution,' cut up, scrambled, and looped. The Beatles sing 'one two three four' for an hour."

"All of Billy Joel's greatest hits played at once. Celine Dion screams for 1.5 minutes. Please enjoy responsibly."

Yes, indeed. You can end up feeling a little ill.

Like, if you go here: "Have you ever wondered what each Beatles album would sound like if you played all the songs together at the same time? No way! Me too!"

And they recommended this...



... which seems pretty entertaining while it's going on, but I don't feel so good now.

"Let Bee Fly Out of Car Window."

Advice from an old newspaper. I'll leave it to you to guess how old this is.

ADDED: More clues on this page:

At the Dahlia Café...

... burst forth...



... or buzz off.

At the Delicious Dahlia Café...

... you can get busy.

The News in Beehives.

1. "Lochearnhead beehive thieves strike again."

2. "Bees are ingenious at cooling their hives down."

3. "Amy Winehouse, the talented and troubled singer who died last week in her London apartment... did her own thing. She worked a flamboyant retro look that embodied a reckless rocker style – the beehive, the eyeliner and the attitude were strongly influenced by Ronnie Spector (known as the original bad girl of rock ‘n’ roll) from the popular ’60s girl group The Ronettes – and established her signature look."

4. "[S]ome chefs are... installing rooftop beehives. The idea appears to be mainly to give the ailing bee population a boost... While obtaining honey isn’t [chef Bill Clarke's] chief objective, he has some ideas for where it might go, including a honey ice cream and a honey and peach-glazed chicken."

5. Sarah Palin's "hairstyle is set to bring fresh attention to her Alaskan home town. The high-volume do, similar to a 1960s beehive look, is the inspiration for a new TLC reality show, Big Hair Alaska. The two-part programme will focus on the appropriately named hair salon, Beehive, which is responsible for Ms Palin's signature up-do."

6. And here's a bonus, non-news, I-can't-resist reference to "My Dinner With Andre" — Andre describes an experimental theater exercise called a "beehive"...

"You see, we worked together for a week in the city before we went off to our forest. Of course, Grotowski was there in the city, too, and I heard that every night he conducted something called a beehive, and I loved the sound of this beehive, so a night or two before we were supposed to go off to the country, I grabbed him by the collar and I said: "Listen, about this beehive: you know, I'd kind of like to participate in one. Just instinctively I feel it would be something interesting." And he said: "Well, certainly. In fact, why don't you with your group lead the beehive instead of participating." Well, you know, Wally, I got very nervous, you know, and I said: "Well, what is a beehive?" He said: "Well, a beehive is at eight o'clock a hundred strangers come into a room." And I said: "Yes?" And he said: "Yes, and whatever happens is a beehive." And I said: "Yes, but what am I supposed to do?" He said: "That's up to you." I said: "No, no! I really don't want to do this. I'll just participate." And he said: "No, no. You lead the beehive!" Well, I was terrified, Wally. I mean, in a way I felt on stage. I did it anyway."

Is traveling a good use of your time?

I keep trying to leave Madison, Wisconsin, and wondering why it never quite happens these days. Today, I ran across "4 reasons traveling is a waste of time," a blog post that Penelope Trunk wrote a couple years ago. It resonated. Especially #3: "People who love their lives don't leave."

Imagine if you were excited to get out of bed every day because you had structured your life so that every day was full of what you have always dreamed of doing. And you were in love with your boyfriend, and your job, and your new handstand in yoga. You love it all—imagine that. Would you want to leave all that behind for two weeks? What would be the point? You'd have more fun at home than away from home. So instead of traveling somewhere, how about figuring out what you'd really love to be doing with your time, and do that? In your real, day-to-day life.

Someone in the comments groused: "You are describing 5% or less of the population."

Today, it was was 67° here, and I took a walk along the lake path...



.... and through a garden....

At the Allium Spacecraft Café...

... don't take off just yet.

(That's my photo, animated by Chip Ahoy, according to instructions by Penny.)

At the Bumblebee Café

... just be yourself.

"Shouldn't that home brew technically be called a mead, being made from honey?"

"Alert the Meadia!"

The "colony collapse" mystery is solved.

It's us! I mean... it's -us.

Fungus + virus, acting together.

Bee climbs goldenrod.

"Althouse wows audiences with her bee knowledge."

"She has a passion for informing the public about bees and encourages everyone to consider setting up a hive on their property if they can.... Althouse helps folks get started with their own hives: ordering the bees, purchasing materials and setting up the hive.... In January, Althouse ran for American Honey Queen of the American Beekeeping Federation and was first runner up. The five other state honey queen contestants voted her Miss Congeniality, and anyone who knows her would not be surprised at this. She’s modest to the degree that she didn’t mention this honor in the interview."

The modest and adorable Maya Althouse, of Rebersburg, Pennsylvania.

At the Shy Bee Café...

... creep into this delicate shade, hide from the cruel word, and tell me your tender secrets.

At the Bee Café...

... keep the buzz going all night.

"A thousand years ago, popular birth control methods in the Western world included spitting into the mouth of a frog, eating bees and wearing the testicles of a weasel."

Actually, all those things work.

Birds and bee.

(Today, in Madison.)