Flights to Vegas

Are always a blast. The energy is all chatty and giggly as people plan to lose their money and their inhibitions.





We're headed to the great temple of the Id for a show at the Silverton Casino tonight. And even though I've lost what little desire I had to smoke cigarettes while throwing money into the bottomless pits that are slot machines (I've got no gambling luck) and the bean will be on my hip, thereby making debauchery of any kind an impossibility, I'm looking forward to Vegas.

I like the energy man. The promise of the greatest highs and the lowest lows is like a scent on the air.

Tomorrow we fly out of Vegas. Those flights are always much more subdued, filled with regret and hangovers.

But today, I feel the giddyness.

Vegas, baby.

-- Post From My iPhone

Back in the Studio

So, I'm making a record. A new record. A record of songs that I've written, and that friends of mine have written along with some songs that I've just been dying to cover.

I've mentioned this before, yes? Ah, yes, I posted about this a couple of days ago. But I was tired, and needed a nap. And quite frankly, writing about the process of making a record is totally and earthshakingly anxiety producing. I've actually never done it before.

Because all my previous recording was pre-blog.

But now I'm kind of into the idea of getting all behind the music and whatnot.

So here goes.

And by here goes I mean stay tuned. I started writing this post and it started to get monstrously long, so I've decided to break it down yo.

Until tomorrow!

Day at home -- a haiku

Waking in our bed
Falling asleep on our couch
My heart is quite full

-- Post From My iPhone

Sweet Songs for a Good Cause

As some of you may know, I'm a mom.

I know, I know, I never talk about that aspect of my life. But it's true. I'm a mother of 10 month old beautiful baby girl. See the snap for evidence:




I'm also a proud breastfeeding mommy (I actually don't talk too much about that here. After all, my grandfather reads this blog. Hey Granndaddy!) Let's just say that I believe in breast milk.

Which is why I'm so happy to be a part of "Sweet Songs for Families from Austin Mamas" or as we like to call it, "Sweet Songs." Monica Cravotta, Noelle Hampton, Erin Ivey, Gretchen Janzow, Libby Kirkpatrick, Mary Londos, Sarah Sharp, and Elizabeth Suggs and I have all contributed songs that are set to appear on an upcoming CD that will benefit the Austin Mother's Milk Bank.

The Milk Bank is a very cool organization. They collect, pasturize and store donated breast milk. According to the Mother's Milk Bank of Austin, "The need for human milk becomes paramount for premature and ill infants, who are six to ten times more likely to acquire life-threatening infections during the critical neonatal period if they are fed infant formula instead of human milk."

We're lucky to have Sarah Hickman onboard as a producer and Andre Moran as an Engineer. All the studio time has been donated by Hideout Studios.

Dude, it's going to be awesome.

We do however, need to raise a little more do-re-mi before we can complete the record. And that's where you potentially come in. If you believe in the power of breast milk and the mission on the Mother's Milk Bank then you can help us help them by contributing to the making of the record.

The details are here. Why not start off the holiday giving a little early. It will make you feel rad. I promise.

In case you missed Austin City Limits Saturday night

So, if you follow me on Twitter and/or Facebook, you may recall that I announced that the Austin City Limits show featuring Willie and the Wheel aired Saturday night. I announced it a couple of times because, hello! I was excited.

But maybe you had plans Saturday night, or you forgot, or maybe you feel asleep super early...Anyway this is for those of you who missed it. And for those of you who want to check it out again, well you can watch it in it's entirety right here:

http://video.pbs.org/video/1305419931/

It's a hour long special to celebrate the 35th birthday of Austin City Limits. You see, Willie did the pilot and the Wheel did the first show, so this is kind of a full circle type of situation.

I have to say, I sometimes think about my decision to go back to work six weeks after Lisel's birth and I think was crazy nuts. I mean, what was I thinking right. Little baby, big road trip...I mean I could have stayed at home and been warm and safe and snuggly and new mommy-like.

But life is about choices and I chose this experience, a part of which is captured on film for me and Dave and Lisel and my folks to look back on. It was this great adventure we all embarked upon as a family. An experiment that went so much better than we could have ever predicted.

What I'm saying is, I embrace my choice, man

My only regret will be that there is an hour's worth of nationally televised footage of me before I lost any substantial amount of baby weight. Hey, I was doing my best, you know.

So go watch Willie and the Wheel, and while you're there why don't you donate to PBS. They're worth it.

In the Studio...

Dave and I had a couple of days off, so we though we'd go into the studio and cut some sides.

We invited some of our best friends/favorite players to
come over the Bismeaux Studios and play some songs -- some we had written, and some thta we needed to cover -- with us.




From the left:
John Doyle, clarinet and saxophone master
Andrew Nafziger, my oldest musical friend in town/favorite guitar player
Sam Siefert the engineer with the mostest
Me and the bean
Dave my favorite drummer/life partner
Lindsay Greene my second oldest musical friend in town/favorite bass player/Fellow Joss Whedon enthusiast

Dude, it was awesome. Above and beyond my expectations.

You'll notice the baby is there. Yes, we brought our baby to the studio. Claire came down and we set up baby land in the front lobby



I was understandably nervous.

But it all worked out delightfully. Having baby added some special baby magic.


I want to write more, but I'm hungry and tired therefor need to eat and take a nap. But I'll fill you in later!

Recording! Boo ya!


-- Post From My iPhone

We're on our way home!

Baby, here we come!





-- Post From My iPhone

Why I Heart Yoko Ono

Okay, so this post might be a but of a non-sequiter, but I twittered that I would write about my newfound love for Yoko Ono and I'm a woman of my word.

I fell in love with Yoko (@yokoono) over Twitter. In fact, my love for her is mostly twitter based. I added her because I follow Mark Ronson (@iammarkronson) and he mentioned that he was going to be part of the Plastic Ono Band on an upcoming appearance on Jimmy Fallon (Yes, I jut plugged the Plastic Ono Band. I told you, I love her!)

My heart first skipped a beat when I read that she has like 500,00 followers, and is herself following 150,000 ish people. I don't know if you twitter, but the follower/follower ration is usually looks something like this:

Following 48
Followers 1,000,0000,000,000

It's a classic trick of the popular. Many are interested in them, but they are interested in only a few. Not Yoko Ono. She's cooler than that.

Then there are her tweets. Allow me to retweet a few:

Bless you for your search of direction its a sign of aspiration. Transform the energy to receptivity And the direction will come to you.

Bless you for the times you feel no love. Open your heart to life anyway and in time you will find love in you.

And my favorite:

Join in with the #smilingfacefilm http://www.smilingfacefilm.com ☺

I plan on submitting a picture. And I love her directions on how to smile. Smile from every part of your being. I too thought it was cheese at first. But dude, it works

So here's why I'm loving her right now. In this age of twitterblogfacebooktumblrwhathaveyou madness, the technology which connects us all in a very real and potentially deep way is so often used instead for gazing at, documenting and broadcasting the state of our navels into the ether (mine included).

But here's someone who's actually trying to use these new powers we've all aquired for some kind of good. She wants to inspire people to embrace peace and encourage them to smile. It's a nice change, and one that inspires me to greater things.

I know people have pretty violent anti-Ono feelings. They say she broke up the Beatles and that her music is not in fact music.

But rather than dis her, why not take a little direction and smile from your knees. Dude, it works.

What a Difference a Day Makes

I want to thank everyone for their very kind comments. It helps to know that I'm not the only mommy out there who's dealing with this conflict between work and baby. Y'all brought me closer to shedding the guilt (thanks Alex!) and reminded me how lucky we really are. Our daughter has grandparents who love her madly, and who she loves madly in return (Thanks Cindy!) She's being raised by a village (Thanks Lee!) And a teething/coughing baby will have a better time staying in one place (Thanks Donna!).

I think it takes to village to raise a mommy too. Or at least to give a mommy perspective.

Thanks guys. Y'all rock!

Leaving The Bean At Home, Again...

I have to admit something to the interwebs. Once again, we've left the bean with my folks for the weekend.

Again.

I had actually kind of planned on just ommitting this small detail. Maybe inserting an old picture of her on the road (How would you know really?). I'm devious that way.

Because I really didn't want to leave her. And we had planned on bringing her out here, but plans changed very last minute and it didn't really make sense and she's teething hardcore and has a bit of a cold anyway...

And I was, I'll admit it, embarrassed. Or maybe that's not true...ashamed in a bad parent kind of way? I mean, it was just too weeks ago that we left her at home...that's so soon. What kind of mother...

And to add to everything, I didn't really want to talk about it again. About that middle place. The place that is thankful for 3 consecutive full nights sleep, but also bummed about the lack of baby goodness around.

It's so broken record-ish.

I know she's happy. I mean, just look at this snap my folks sent.




But still...

Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.

The view frommy morning commute

I've finally realized that I've been flying to and from gigs pretty much once a week. Once again, my life has taken a turn I did not really forsee.

I'm one milistep away from being a business commuter. Dude.

I took this shot on my iPhone out the window of a teensy weensy prop plane headed from Denver to Salt Lake. I think it looks a bit like we're in orbit. Cool.

-- Post From My iPhone

Things about Canada I learned on this trip

-- Canada is a very big country, but it has a tenth the population of the United States. And 90 percent of those people live within 200 miles of the US/Canada border.

-- In Regina (sounds like...) it can get as low as -40 degrees in the winter. Oh, and -40 degrees if the same in Farenheit and Celsius. That's stone cold my friends.

-- The from Winnepeg to Regina (sounds like...) was best described by our bus driver Mack Neal as "like driving through Lubbock...for 5 hours."

-- You never have to see a medical bill in Canada. You're taxed at 38%, sure, but you won't ever go bankrupt because of health care costs.

-- The exchange rate is 1 Canadian loony, to 1 US dollar. When did that happen?

-- Canadian football is like American football...only different.

Throug the Looking Glass...

This trip to Canada was my first ever. Of course, I had my theories about what it would be like. Lots of people who ended their sentences with the word "eh" (Correct!). Brown gravy on all french fries (I saw not a drop the entire time). French written on everything (Yes indeed).

What I also expected was to feel a bit like I had gone through the looking glass. Where everything was almost exactly the same is in the US...but not quite.

That experience was way more jarring than I had thought it would be. It was perhaps the most culturaly disorienting trip I've ever taken, precisely because I kept on being blindsided by the differences.

Just when I thought I knew what I was dealing with, the Canadians shook my world.

For instance, gambling. Specifically gambling in casinos.

I think we're all familiar with Casinos, yes? Those temples to the id, where women in skimpy clothing ply you with drinks whilst you throw away money trying to make even bigger money. Places where anything can happen. And what goes on there stays in there. Places where dreams are made and lives are ruined.

We played a couple of casinos in Canada. And everything I thought I knew about them was turned all upside down.

I assumed the casinos were run by a Native Canadian tribe. Wrong!

They are run by the government.

Let me say that again.

In Canada, some casinos are government run.

Say what?

Um, hello, but in the USA, we have a, um, complicated relationship with gambling. We want gambling and casinos and all the sin they provide, but we need them at a bit of a remove. So we make sure they're on Native land that's not officially U.S. soil. Or on "riverboats." Or far away in the the middle of the deserts of Nevada.

It makes us feel more comfortable, okay?

But in Canada, the government runs casinos. And consequently, the casinos have a different ethos about them.

First off, there's no drinking on the gaming floor. Which doesn't really compute with me. How are you supposed to recklessly throw away money without the aid of liquid courage?

But, you see, in government run Canadian Casinos when the customer are also the constituents they don't actually want you to get wasted and blow your rent money on the slots. They don't want to give you false hope that you'll end up a winner. Instead, they want you to understand that gambling can be a fun leisure activity, but that you will lose money over time. And the more you spend, the more you'll lose.

People, they have pamphlets telling you this! In one casino there was an entire room dedicated to informing people that, sorry, the house is going to take your money. In fact, there was a sheet (that I picked up but lost somewhere between Regina and Moose Jaw) that laid out exactly how much money you would lose per hour. For every game in the casino. Dude.

Hmmm. A casino that cares about the lives of it's patrons.

I've literally never heard of such a thing.

But it's like, a whole reality in Canada.

It's backwards and bizarro, yet kind of cool.

Oh, Canada...

So I just got back from a weekend in Canada...and boy are my arms tired...as well as the rest of my body my brain, my darling husband, my wonderful sister and my beautiful daughter.

I didn't post at all in Canada because, well, I had to turn my iphone off. Yous see I got a text from the nice folks at AT&T while we were waiting at the border for them Canadians to check us out and wave us through. They told me that they'd be charging me $15.38 for every MB (megabite, right?) that I used in Canada. Now I truly have no idea what that means...I mean, how much is a mega bite? An email? A Text? 2 emails and a text? A Voice message, 3 texts and half an email?

Whatever it was, it seemed like using any kind of internets or networks could become a really pricey situation. So Dave and I opted out of it all. Voice service? bye bye! Text messaging? See ya! Internet? Check ya later!

And you know what? It was kind of awesome. The simple act of putting and keeping our iphones on airplane mode transported us back to the early 90's, where when you left your house you were effectively off the information grid. We just couldn't be reached man.

It was kind of cool.

I'll admit, we did have a computer with us. And yes, I could have tapped into the matrix if I'd wanted to. But I never use a computer on the road anymore and I wasn't about to start to start just because we were in the wilds of Canada.

Besides, I kind of loved being incommunicado.

Now I'm home and back in the mix. Over the next couple of days I'll update you on our Canadian adventures! Until then, check out these darling family portraits taken on the 50 passenger prop plane we took out of Regina (sounds like...).