Three Ears

One of the things I love about our current home is our yard. Our house is on a half-acre and behind is a grove of trees that provide ample privacy and great animal watching. Squirrels, rabbits, and even deer. This is what I will miss most when we move (yes, we’re moving).

And coyotes!

Ever since Murray died, I think it’s safe to say the husband and I have grown attached to these wild animals. We leave them food and watch them play.

  

One little guy (or gal) has really taken over my heart. He’s (let’s just call it a he) is a rabbit and he has three ears.

  

He lives in the hedges by our garage and spends his evenings in the front yard eating apple remains that my husband leaves for the animals – and he really does have three ears. Or what appears to be a third ear. It looks like an ear and it hangs off the back of his neck.

He was pretty much out there like clockwork every evening and most mornings. But I haven’t seen him in over a week now and I am starting to get worried. What if something happened to him?

My husband and I were thinking maybe rabbits tuck themselves away in the late summer – because we really haven’t seen any rabbits around anywhere in a long time. And the squirrels have been going crazy, so maybe the rabbits just stay away until they are done.

But then last night I got home from choir practice and it was dark and I saw a rabbit in the front yard having a snack in the spot that Three Ears always has a snack. I got really excited, but then as the headlights shined on him and he sprinted away, I saw that this rabbit only had two ears. I think. It was hard to see. But Three Ears’ third ear is pretty noticeable.

So, where has he gone?

I am very concerned.

I was already feeling sad about leaving him behind when we move. I mean, I know he’s a wild rabbit and all…but I miss my dog and Three Ears is the closest thing I have to an animal in my life right now. And if you’ve read my post on the Story of Jaycer, you will know I have some serious animal abandonment issues.

But now he’s not around and I’m feeling a little abandoned. I wish he’d just show himself so I’d know he’s not dead. We have hawks and big dogs in the neighborhood. I worry.

Come back, Three Ears.

Turf Club Part 1

Great bands last night. I'd been wanting to play with Bethany Larsen and the Bee's Knees for some time now so I was so happy to finally share the stage with them. I really like their album and they were so good live.

Strange Names and Al Church and State played and were also highly enjoyable. Strange Names turned the place into a dance club and Al Church and State brought their own light show and sounded amazing.

I'll be back at the Turf Club on Thursday, September 6th with Silverback Colony and Actual Wolf and someone else who is yet to be determined.

I'd play at the Turf Club every week if I could.

Setlist for the Turf Club 8/25/12

• The Woods
• Float
• Flavor
• Ramble Song
• Here
• Beg, Borrow, or Steal
• Salt
• Adore

A Year And A Day

It was my birthday yesterday. Another year older. 33. I'm not fond of that number. Not because I think it makes me old (it does), but I just don't like the number. 33. I don't know. It makes me uncomfortable. I'm already looking toward 34. That number just looks better.

I had an odd birthday. I was completely depressed for the first half and giddy for the second.

Things with work are weird now and it is what it is, but it had me feeling very very down all through the work day and that's no way to feel on one's birthday.

But after work I got home to this display on the kitchen table:

My lovely husband bought me flowers, presents, and cupcakes. I love cupcakes. As for the presents, they were just as awesome as the cupcakes. Sharon Van Etten's Tramp album. You know the one with this song that just slays me:



Also on the presents list: My Morning Jacket's album Circuital, which I've been wanting for a very long time now but for whatever reason had yet to pick up. AND Amanda Palmer concert tickets. I am so excited. I wasn't trying to be excited that she was coming to town because I didn't think I'd be able to go. But I do! I do get to go! And I can't wait to see this woman live.



I also got season 6 of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. So I now I have something funny to watch during the week...after I finish watching all of Sherlock again, which I just started doing.

I also got to do something I've always wanted to do that I never thought I'd get to do...I got to sing the National Anthem at a ballgame! The gals in Prairie Fire Lady Choir and I sang it in 4 part harmony before the St. Paul Saints game. Totally awesome birthday treat. Check that off the list.

The best part (for me) was the ladies sang Happy Birthday to me before taking the field. It was so sweet.

Then Matt and I met up at a bar to celebrate both my birthday and his being done with school. It was a big day and it turned into a beautiful evening and left me feeling very good about things.

And tomorrow it's the State Fair and I am so excited. Matt and I took the day off work. We're going to get there early, get coffee, and enjoy the day.

I love the fair.

Birthday Week, Duluth, and Beyond

It’s my birthday week this week. What does that mean? Well, my birthday is tomorrow and for the Sunday through Saturday surrounding it, it is my birthday week. Basically that means that I don’t have to do the dishes all week, which, is HUGE for me. I hate doing the dishes.

But it also means week long celebrations and activities. Maybe that’s excessive or makes me come across as spoiled or narcissistic or something, but I think everyone should celebrate a birthday week. How often do you allow yourself to be pampered for a whole week?

So, Birthday Week kicked off yesterday with a show at The Cake Shop, the CakeIn15 headquarters, by Zoo Animal featuring Grant Cutler. This is the third show I’ve attended at The Cake Shop – which is really the living room of the two folks who run CakeIn15. It’s a great place to see a show. Super intimate and everyone just listens – which is rare these days. You bring your own drinks, they provide cupcakes, and the musicians provide great performances and Zoo Animal was fantastic. This Zoo Animal performance was just lead singer/songwriter Holly Newsom and her sometimes bandmate/sometimes album producer and also local musician, Grant Cutler. They were fantastic. She is so captivating to watch perform and, it turns out, quite hilarious when placed in a setting where conversation between the act and the audience and stories are encouraged.

And, as usual when seeing a live performance, I just want to sit at home and play my guitar and sing…but I won’t get a chance to do that until Wednesday!!! It’s torture. I did have a mini-band practice yesterday and we started working on some new songs and, well, I love writing songs. I don’t think there’s anything I find more enjoyable.

Speaking of my songs, about a week ago I performed in Duluth for the first time. I played solo and had a nice time. The husband and I drove up early and spent some time in Duluth and spent a large amount of time trying to get to some sort of lake shore. Lake Superior is very, very large and I was amazed at how difficult it was to just find a place to pull over and sit by the water. But, eventually did.

 

 

 I performed at Beaner’s Central later that night. It’s a cool little place. It sort of promotes itself as a coffee shop, but they also serve wine and beer, which is doubley nice. They have a great stage and it sounded really good in there.

Setlist for Beaner’s Central on August 10^th, 2012

• Good
• The Party
• Minnesota
• The Paul Simon Song
• Can’t Even Tell
• Easy to Blame
• Beg, Borrow, or Steal
• Adore
• Cast a Spell

We drove the 2 hours back home post-show on dark, dark, dark Highway 35. And, it was total white knuckle driving for me. It’s been a long time since I’ve driven unfamiliar roads at night in that – almost – total darkness. I’ll have to keep my fear in mind if I get to do any future regional late night touring.

Birthday Week will be capped off on Saturday, August 25th with a show that I get to play at the Turf Club. I’m really excited about this line-up and to play at the Turf Club on a Saturday night. 

In other news, there’s a lot of changes happening right now – a lot of uncertainty -  and I’m both excited and nervous. I’m really trying to take life as it comes and live in the moment and not worry too much about other things in the future…but I am a natural worrier so this is hard for me. It’s sort of like everything I’ve been saying that I want to do is setting itself up to happen and now that it’s presenting itself, it’s scary. It is so engrained in my brain that things are supposed to go a certain way in life and there are rules and by whatever age you are supposed to be doing this or that and, with the birthday tomorrow, it’s hard not to assess where I am in life and really look at it and to make sure I am truly comfortable with where I am and what I’m doing. Honestly, I’m still not entirely sure what I want to do in this life.

But, on Saturday I went out to see my dad again. He’s not doing well and it’s one of those things that for me is happening behind the scenes and I don’t talk about that much. People, like my co-workers, have no idea. Certain friends have no idea. It’s one of those things that I feel if I talk about it then it’s real. So, instead, I choose to ignore it or hide it. And in doing so, I am ignoring and hiding him and I feel terrible.

He’s already legally blind and has a leg amputated. He was living in an assisted living facility. He was, I think, happy there. He had his own room with all of his own stuff. He said the food was good. He had made some friends. He could go for walks.

But then he fell and broke his arm. This left him unable to be as mobile as he likes to because he can’t use the walker or wheel the wheelchair.

And then a week later, while sitting on his bed after lifting weights, one of the weights fell on his good leg and broke it. So, being that he is now completely immobile and too much for the nurses at the assisted living place, he has been moved to a nursing home and he is miserable. He can’t do anything on his own. He just gets placed in his wheelchair (which he can’t move) and sits there all day staring at the television he can barely see.

And there’s nothing me or my siblings can do.

None of us have the money to place him in some super fancy place or to take him in ourselves and hire at home nursing care.

For a man that was always active and outside 90% of the time to suddenly be stuck in a wheelchair unable to move and indoors all the time…I can’t even imagine what he’s going through. And it’s not like his mind is gone. He’s still there.

So he just sits.

The doctors say that they might have to take the other leg, as well, because the diabetes that started this whole mess in the first place is not letting it heal. Dad actually says he’d prefer if they’d just go ahead and take it so he can get the other prosthetic and maybe start to try to walk again instead of waiting 8 weeks to see if this one is going to heal and then getting it removed.

It’s all just so very weird and it makes me so sad.

He worked all his life. Put in overtime every single week. Went in at 4am came home at 5pm. Never went on vacation and never called in sick. And now there he is. That life of hard work gave him…that.

When I say I don’t know what I want in life, I do know I don’t want that. I don’t want to slave away at a job and then to one day find myself stuck in a wheelchair in a nursing home just withering away.

Sorry to get so down. Everything with my dad has been weighing on me and I just needed to put it somewhere.

Sigh.

This blog is all over the place today. That's what happens when I don't update often. There are a million other things I want to write about, but I should probably save it for later.

So, yeah, it’s Birthday Week and it’s Monday and I really don’t want to work today. It’s absolutely perfect outside. I want to be home with the windows open writing songs.

I want to be a musician. That is what I want. I want to make a living with music. I don’t need to be rich. I just want to be able to survive solely on making music.

That is what I want.

I jokingly said to my husband last week that I wish someone would pay me to sing songs to dogs. I think I’d be the happiest person in the world if that happened.

I think I'll leave you with this video today. This is Holly Newsom of Zoo Animal singing her song "Dream On" acapella and on ice skates. I'm pretty sure I've posted it before. It's a beautiful song. 

 

Lyric Of The Day

"yes, it really, really, really could happen
when the days, they seem to fall through you -
just let them go"

- from "The Universal" by Blur

Sea Salt CD Release Show Recap

O my goodness, where has the time gone???

My CD release show was almost a week ago and I haven’t written about it yet! It’s that whole thing about build up that I mentioned in my last post. Weeks – months – of preparation and then suddenly it’s over and you move on to the next thing.

I had some great press going into the event: Local radio debut on Cities 97, my first album review (!) from 89.3 The Current’s LocalCurrent blog, The Current also gave me a shout out and played my song the day before the show.

I had a pretty good time – and I only say ‘pretty good’ because I was super nervous and anxious the whole time and found it hard to focus on what exactly was happening.

Merch.

 I loved playing with the full band. It felt good to be loud. I love my band.

I had some crazy drunken dancers performing for most of my set.

We played 12 of the 14 songs from the new album (we left out the 2 instrumental tracks).

El le Faunt & His Traveling Circus, Walker Fields, and Prairie Fire Lady Choir all performed beautifully, as well. So awesome to share the stage with friends.

 Prairie Fire Lady Choir

 El le Faunt & His Traveling Circus

 Walker Fields

Speaking of the choir, two of my choristas (and friends) sang on “Blue Whale”  with me and then also joined us at the end for “Adore”. Loved having backing singers!

Unfortunately, I have very few pictures and no video (except for the dancer) from the event.

Post show, my husband and I stayed in a boat hotel – TheCovington Inn. A revamped river boat that is now a bed and breakfast. It was amazing. STAY HERE.

 My view the next morning.

And last Sunday night, The Current’s Local Show played me again. I’m now a part of the Local Current internet stream rotation, but you can request my song here to get me into the on air rotation.

Tomorrow I head to Duluth to play my first show there at Beaner’s Central. 

And, if you couldn't make it the show, the whole album is now available to download via my Bandcamp page. You can just click the Buy link below! 

I’ve got a few other shows on the horizon, as well. I’m just trying to keep on keepin’ on.

Setlist for Sea Salt CD Release Show at the Amsterdam Bar and Hall on August 4^th, 2012

• The Woods
• Float
• Can't Even Tell
• The Party
• Easy to Blame
• Flavor
• Ramble Song
• Blue Whale
• Salt
• Beg, Borrow, or Steal
• Here
• Adore

The Night Befores

The night before big life events are so weird. I spend all day just waiting to go to bed so that I can wake up and have it be the day of the event. I'm such a worrier that up to that moment I go to bed the night before, I still believe something is going to go wrong - usually related to my health. I just want to wake up, have it be the day of the event and know, okay, this is how I feel. This is what the weather is going to be like. This is what I know and this is how the day is going to go.

Last night was the night before my CD release party. But it was also my ten year wedding anniversary. I wish I could have celebrated properly - we did go out and get dessert - but I knew that I had to be in top shape today. I plan to celebrate both events properly tonight.

I'm in a really weird headspace right now. It's 11:47. The doors open for the show in 8 hours and 13 minutes. It seems like a long time from now, but I also have a lot to do beforehand. I need to eat something. That's important. I need to get ready. I need to meet up with my band and run through the  set one more time. I need to get to the venue and load everything in and set everything up.

And I need to remember to breathe.

It's been such a huge week. I feel like tomorrow I'm going to collapse.

The album got a really great review over on the 89.3 Local Current blog. It's my first official album review...and it's a good one...which is a relief.

It's all so very surreal.

I think back 10 years ago and, well, two days ago now, to the night before my wedding. Another night that I just wanted to get to bed and wake up to know that I would be in good health (I was) and that the weather would be nice (it wasn't). It was a chaotic day full of crazy emotions. Some things didn't go as I planned. But what did happen was that all those things that went unplanned ended up making things better. It was memorable.

I'm feeling calmer today. I know once I get to the venue that I will start to freak out a bit. Things will be chaotic for a while with load-in, set-up, sound checks.

But what I need to remember from my wedding day is that it all goes by so quickly. My wedding reception is a blur. All those months of planning and then suddenly it's over.

I need to remember that tonight. I need to remember to just breathe, take it all in, and enjoy myself.

Because no matter what happened on my wedding day, I was still married to my wonderful husband at the end of the night.

And no matter what happens tonight, my album is still out there and people will here it.

Now, time to get some food.