Learning from the Master

Postcards to hand out so people know The Early Year is on its way! Greetings from the mountains in New Mexico. I'm holed up outside of Albuquerque for a family reunion and there are good times all around, including games of speed Scrabble, green chile stew, hiking, and blue skies to the moon and back. Excellent! Thank goodness wifi extends to the outskirts of civilization, because we've been going back and forth with the very cool dude who is mastering The Early Year in Berlin, Germany. The wonders of the internet allow us to upload files and he sends them back, and nary an ocean crossed by either of us. Amazing. The past two days between fits of Scrabble and harassing my nieces and nephews, I've been cramming in a bunch of info about the mastering process. Apparently you embed ISRC (International Standard Recording Code) info into the master...which enables royalties to be tracked and tells your computer/iTunes/whatever info about what track is what. Makes sense. Lots of numbers and letters. Off to harass some more family members, haha...

Biology Lesson with my cousin

Cleaning out some files (of the digital kind), I found this tiny little clip I had ignored from my tourage of New Mexico last year. We were at the Very Large Array looking at Very Large Rabbits. This made me laugh out loud...but maybe you have to know my cousin! Transcription: Susan: There's another very large rabbit. Rochelle: That is a big rabbit! Jana: Shoot, it's the jackalope. Rochelle: Oh it is. Jana: Just kidding. Rochelle: Is it? Jana: Jackalopes don't exist. They have elk horns.

Hello Seattle!

Chipper, which is not me at 6:45 am going to the airport. Hello. I have no new photos of anything exciting, but Photobooth always comes through. Well, depends on what your definition of "come through" is, but it provides imagery anyway. I am about to have a lot of new photos, though, because I am (procrastinating on) packing to go to Seattle for a few days. My niece Jenny is graduating from high school and I get to see it all go down. The graduation, I mean. So excited and so proud! It seems like yesterday I was playing with my Legos while Jenny sat in her little baby carseat because she was a...baby. There are perks to being only a few years older than your nieces and nephews, and one of them is that you can share toys when you're little. Bonus. Except I probably didn't want to share my Legos. Sorry, Jenny. I'll also be hitting up the honey and fruit and flower stands at Pike Place Market. And the coffee...Seattle really does know its stuff. I have been told to bring a hoodie, which is a foreign word in this 95 degree Texas heat. Other random thoughts for the week: - pancakes for dinner is almost as good as pancakes for breakfast. - not all laundromats are created equal. - don't let a hornet fly in your door because it's hard to figure out how to get it back out. Now please excuse me. I have a date with my caffeine destiny.

Ban the Bunny Hop

Scandal. When I was home this weekend my mom recalled a little about growing up in a rural area in South Dakota. I think we got on the topic because I was talking about Gruene Hall and the awesome Texas dancehall tradition, and of course it makes sense that these dancehalls exist wherever a large number of Germans or Czechs or other Europeans settled in the Mighty Midwest. See, I know a few things about Germans and Czechs, because I descend from both. While this probably leads me to some inner confliction because one half of my ancestry invaded the other half during World War II, overall it's a jovial combo. Things I know: - we like beer. - we like to party. So there were a few of these dancehalls around the towns where my parents grew up, and apparently there was a room dug out of the dirt under one of these dancehalls where meals could be prepped and served. Mom said that when people were really rockin' upstairs, the floorboards would be creaking and dirt would be falling everywhere. So much, in fact...that they actually outlawed the Bunny Hop at one of these halls. Criminal! But it cracks me up. How does one enforce no Bunny Hopping? Dang.

Happy Mum's Day and Birthday, Mum!

My mom lucked out this year, as she does sometimes, and her birthday is on Mother's Day. Double the fun! I bought two cards, wrote things in two cards, addressed two cards, and I am going to mail them. Soon. Tonight. (Sorry, Mom, they'll be late. I learned that from you!) Things I love about my mom: - she crochets awesome afghans while watching UNM Lobo basketball games. Multi-tasking is a skill. - she bakes pumpkin cake for me when I bug her about it. - either she cares about all the music stuff I yammer on about or she fakes it really well for my benefit. (No, she cares). - she survived years of handling the statement, "Jana is SO quiet!" She would always contest that statement. - she is surviving years of handling the statement, "So what is Jana actually DOING in Austin?" It's nice to have someone stick up for you on the homefront. - she's a kickbutt crossword puzzler. - she likes to wear nice shoes in public. She will change her shoes to go to Target. - in one phone call she can answer my question about why gas prices are going up so high and what I should do about the stain in my shirt. - one time, in college, my 5 roommates and I started noticing a weird smell in our kitchen, which bothered us quite a bit...but we couldn't locate the source. We cleaned the sink and checked the fridge to no avail. So mom came over and we asked her what to do about it and she took one sniff and said, "rotting potato." Sure enough, there were some potatoes in a bag on top of the fridge we had forgotten all about. We were impressed. We are pretty sure she has super smell powers. Clearly, she is awesome. Thanks, my Mum!

Happy Christmas Eve

Obligatory "Yes, I am in New Mexico" photos below. Luther knows he rules. Mom made poppyseed kolaches. WOOHOO! The weather is beautiful and wintery...can't beat a snow-covered Sandia peak.

Sophia Marie

Grandma and Grandpa with my baby niece...and me looking smug as a 5-year-old. We lost my Grandma this week, but heaven gained a heck of a jig saw puzzler and gin rummy player. She stays up late, too, so don't think you can wear her out and put the last piece in. She'll probably be smoking Virginia Slim Menthols ...at least I think I remember that being the brand. (Hey, she was 94 and I figure if you're 94 you can smoke as much as you want). There was always one missing piece we'd look for after the puzzle was all together, and the brown carpet in the dining room didn't help our search any. We usually found it, though. I was never much of a jigsaw puzzle fan, so I would comb through Grandma's cassette tape and record collection and play whatever struck my fancy. There was a lot of polka. She really liked Alan Jackson and Garth Brooks. I got told more than once that maybe it was time to play something other than "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer"...in July. It was at Grandma's house that I found a Rosanne Cash tape - "King's Record Shop." It's still one of my favorite albums to this day. I even borrowed it for the 10 hour trip home from Kansas to Albuquerque to listen to it on my Walkman (hey, I was 12) and to copy it (ah the days before Napster) and mail it back. She lived in Kansas for most of my childhood, and there were always people around, dropping in to eat lunch or work on the puzzle or watch her cuss at the squirrels that were chasing away the birds from the feeder outside the window. She loved bird-watching and there was usually a bird book laying around to identify the various species that passed through Rush Center. She grew up in the Midwest during the Great Depression and remembers having to shovel out the dirt that blew in the house during the Dust Bowl. She raised 8 kids on a farm and my mom says they never knew they were poor...somehow a family of 10 and countless cousins and visitors got fed at every meal whether there seemed to be enough to go around or not. There always was. When you visited, there was always a cake or a pie on the table when you got to her house, whether you had driven all night or all day to get there. She had an awesome cream puff recipe. I'd like to think my sense of snark and good times was passed on from my grandma to my mom to me and my siblings...we're a funny bunch. A few years ago Grandma moved into an assisted living home where she had her own room and still lived independently but had to abide by a few "house rules" including "No Smoking." I remember we were walking back to her room and she motions to my mom to come closer and whispers to her..."Can you hide a cigarette in the bathroom for me?" I think she wanted mom to stash one in the potpourri holder or something. Mom, of course, did not comply, but it had us in stitches...and hey. It was a good idea! So those of us who won't see her for a while are a little bummed, but you can't be too sad about a long life with lots of family and a legacy like Grandma's to show for it. May we all be as blessed and live such full lives.

Thankful

It's been an interesting week. I was trying to come up with some sort of poignant Thanksgiving post so you all could go eat turkey and tofurkey and think, "Man, that was brilliant. Pass the mashed potatoes." But...I think you all know gratitude in your own ways and I hope I express my gratitude to all of you enough on this blog. I probably don't, but I try. Last night I saw barely 21'ers and grandparents and mid-life-crisis sufferers and moms and daughters and uncles and aunts...all crammed into the Continental Club watching James McMurtry play a show at midnight. On a Wednesday. It was poetry, and the proof that what we all need is a song with a point was quite evident. People got it. Right now I'm pretty thankful for this poppyseed kolache for breakfast. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Pass it on down

This is my niece, Andrea. She and the family visited Austin last week or so, all the way from Minnesota. Minnesota shares many commonalities with Texas. Both can be hot and muggy. Both have a large amount of beer in them. Neither are as focused on cheese production as Wisconsin is. We're a lot alike. Anyway, Andrea started playing guitar last year. When she visited Albuquerque last June, she took home my old electric guitar (Chinese-made Fender Strat -- it's what I learned everything on). Apparently, she's forsaken things like homework and food for practicing, because the girl can rock. I think I remember how far along I was into my first year of guitar playing...and I think Andrea has quite a few more things figured out than I ever did. I had the fun of debuting Andrea to Austin at my Irie Bean gig last week...she wasn't nervous one bit. I used to feel like hurling before performances in high school. Yeah, that's a feeling to avoid. Anyway...the song was great and I hope it's just the tip of the iceberg! I have other nieces who play guitar...it's turning into quite the musical generation. I hope to get them down to Texas soon, too. I need more guests at my gigs. Maybe one day we'll be like the Marleys and an entire tour can exist with just family members taking part. "Wait. Do I sing a verse or a chorus here? Dangit." Here we are at the dining room table, and I'm attempting to chart out one of my own songs for Andrea to take home. That's cool. One day soon, Minnesota, you will hear "You're Gone I'm Not" at a venue near you, I hope.

Happy Mom's Day

Well, I couldn't spend Mother's Day with my mum (hi, Mom!) in New Mexico, so I went to a concert instead. As mom would tell you...my life is full of burdens, hehheh. The good news is I get to see her in a week when Susan and I roll into the 505, so it's all good. I'll bring her a present then, I promise. Today it was Love on the Lawn with Shelley King, Carolyn Wonderland, Susan Gibson, and Ginger Leigh. It pretty much was awesome. Lots of moms and kids, lots of front yardness, lots of good stories, and lots of songwriters. Four of them. Good times.