En Route

Flying high through the sky! He'll be here tonight! A peach straight outta' Jaw-Jah...My Hero!

YUM

In an effort to be a little more responsible with my hard-earned cash, I've taken to loosely planning my menu for each week. Loosely, in my case, translates to "Eat out less but still consider Trader Joe's pizza a 'planned meal'". I wouldn't say I enjoy cooking but I especially detest it when cooking only for me (plus scraps for Davy Crock). Since I have a few very special guests coming my way this week, I just planned out my list and am gearing up to make my first crock pot meal (Pioneer Woman's Dr. Pepper Pulled Pork with jalapeno 'slaw).

Tell me this doesn't look UNREAL delicious (via)

But a normal week for me doesn't involve too much scratch cooking like this. I go for a lot of frozen basics I can add veggies to (like Trader Joe's gnocchi), soup or turkey chili and any kind of pasta with Trader Joe's chicken sausage added. I'm seriously addicted to the stuff. The method to my madness is simple - it's got to be quick, easy and relatively healthy. Trader Joe's frozen section is my saving grace most weeks. Before, when I bought fresh fruits and veggies, 75% of them would go to waste since I'd forget I bought them or not use them in time so frozen is my way to go these days.

Every week when I grocery shop I thank my lucky stars I'm not a mom yet. Cooking and meal planning for a family scares the hell out of me - there's got to be variety, nutrition and it has to be edible (not my strong suit). So, I'm learning. I also am soliciting recipes from YOU. If it's quick, a family fave and involves meat and carbohydrates (my two favorite food groups) pass it my way! Either link up in the comments or FB moi. My stomach thanks you in advance.

Oh Praise the Sun

Now that the sun peeks out before 7am, I finally get to make my half mile trek from the bus to my office in broad daylight! 

Literally, thank God. That walk across the U-District is creepy in the dark - like "look-over-your-shoulder-avoid-alleys-and-walk-at-an-extremely-brisk-walk/jog-and-avoid-eye-contact" creepy. PLUS, now the bus can't possibly miss me anymore (remember this?)

Oh praise the sun!

Eternal Fair Vol. I

It's no secret I love Eternal Fair (lots and lots). They're one of Seattle's best kept secrets which is good for those who like to hoard local indie talent, but bad for an up-and-coming band. After months of wishing, hoping and waiting for an Eternal Fair album, the clouds parted on my inbox and lead singer Andrew Vait dropped musical gold last month with, "Are you interested in an advanced digital copy of our EP?" 

Um...YES. A thousand times, YES. 

The Vait-Rusinow-Nash trifecta comes in hot on their eponymous EP, Eternal Fair, Volume 1, released for public consumption this past Monday. It's a mix bag of kaleidoscopic hustle filling a rock & roll shaped void in Seattle's music scene. Best of all, you can download the whole shebang for FREE (seriously guys...FREE!) here and read up on my two favorite tracks below. 

Boxes in the Attic - Warning: Best listened to on full blast with the sun blazing and windows down. This ear snack reeks of summer, the Duck Tales theme song and is guaranteed to make you stomp and shake it.  Best of all there's something deliciously nostalgic about it - instantly taking me back to a summer spent on the rivers in Texas with coolers of Lone Star, spigot bags of margaritas and a floatilla of drunken friends. 

Billy Keep Your Head Up - I'm shamelessly in LOVE with this song. I first heard it last year when the EF boys opened for Allen Stone at the Crocodile and they kill it live every single time. It's a swagger-filled fable wrapped up in fuzzy guitar solos that showcase Vait's talent on the strings. 

As if free music isn't enough, you can see these guys live this Friday, February 25th @ the High Dive. Show starts @ 9:30 pm and is $8 in advance or $10 at the door ($1.27 service fee if you buy pre-sale). Get your tickets here and get 'em quick people. This show is sure to prove that Eternal Fair is here to stay. 

The Greatest Love Story

Since it's February 14th, I thought I'd share a little bio on, what I believe to be, the greatest American love story. It's not saccharine, traditional or couth but it was genuine and withstood the test of time. I'm talking about Johhny and June and their story was best conveyed by Sarah Vowell on This American Life. 

The marriage of Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash is the greatest love story of the 20th century. The first time Johnny saw June, he was on his high school senior class trip to Nashville, and she was on stage at the Grand Ole Opry, singing with her famous relatives, the Carter family, and cracking jokes with Ernest Tubb.

Years later, in 1961, the Opry was where they would meet. They were backstage, and Johnny went up to June and told her, "You and I are going to get married someday." She laughed and told him that she couldn't wait. I'm guessing that when Cash went home that night, he didn't mention this to Vivian, his wife.

Not long after that, June joined Johnny's road show and they were traveling around the country together on tour. His wife mostly stayed home, and so did her husband. But June Carter was a lady-- a solid, accomplished, well-meaning Christian professional. And no solid, well-meaning Christian pro willingly falls in love with another woman's husband, especially if he's a pill-popping speed freak like Johnny Cash was back then.

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Years later, June would describe falling in love with Johnny this way. "I felt like I had fallen into a pit of fire and I was literally burning alive." So June, who had been a professional musician since she was as tall as a ukulele, called her songwriting partner, Merle Kilgore, and they wrote about June's forbidden feelings for Cash.

It was a song straight out of Dante. They gave it to June's not particularly Dante-esque sister Anita, who recorded it as "Love's Ring of Fire."

Johnny Cash heard Anita Carter's record, and then one night, he had a dream. He dreamed of mariachi horns playing this song. Some say it was the influence of the then-popular Tijuana Brass. Others say it was the barbiturates he took before bed to take the edge off the amphetamines. Either way, Johnny cash went into the studio with a couple of trumpet players and made his dream come true.

The peculiarity of the song's orchestration is topped only by the weirdness of its credits. Here was a married man singing a song written about him by the betrothed woman who was in love with him, and singing the record back-up "oohs" were said woman, June Carter, as well as her sister and her mother. Mother Maybelle Carter, the most respectable elder in the history of country music, if not America itself. Listen to how cheerful they sound.

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 In this song, to compare love to fire, isn't just the pop music sexy heat cliche like "you give me fever" or "hunka, hunka burning love" or "it's getting hot in here." This is fire as in brimstone, old-time religion, written by the daughter of a people who believed in the eternal flames of hell.

June Carter was coveting her neighbor's spouse, which meant she was breaking one of the Ten Commandments. Loving Johnny Cash was a sin, and for her, the wages of sin were death-- a death in which the sinner spent all eternity as nothing more than kindling.

When June Carter admitted to herself that she loved Johnny Cash, it is, in a small Country and Western love song way, not unlike the moment Huck Finn resolves to help the slave Jim escape, even though he's been told that doing so would be wrong. "All right then," he says. "I'll go to hell."

This is from June's recording of "Ring of Fire." Notice, no trumpets. Just an old-timey fiddle, and she strums her autoharp, maybe ribbing her husband a little by pointing out in the liner notes, "That's the way I've heard it from the beginning."

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There's an acre of misgiving in that little word, "oh." As in, oh, what have I done. Oh, his poor wife. Oh, Lord, forgive me. Oh, for crying out loud, I better flush his pills down the toilet yet again. Oh, I am Grand Ole Opry royalty, and this belligerent drug addict is about to get banned from my beloved Opry for smashing out the stage lights with a mike stand, and oh, I'm going to love him anyway.

"Ring of Fire" became a number one hit for Johnny Cash in 1963. Then, finally, he got divorced, and June got divorced, and he got sober, and in 1968 they got married.

When I say that Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash's romance was the greatest love story of the 20th century, I'm not just thinking about their fiery courtship, though your better love stories do require that obstacles are overcome, and the Cash's had plenty of those. I was really thinking about their marriage-- 35 years of actual happily ever after.

The pictures of the two of them together through the years are almost suspiciously entertaining to look at. Johnny's cracking June up, or she's cracking him up, or in my favorite, the photo on his compilation album, Love, she's fallen asleep against his shoulder. His chin is resting on her head, and he might be smelling her hair. In his liner notes next to that picture, Johnny Cash says that he's sitting there thinking about Robert Browning's poem about the death of his wife Elizabeth Barrett Browning, when June Carter Cash walks in and wonders what he'd like to eat for lunch.

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 And that seems about right-- the two of them in a room together, pondering sandwiches and poetry. Grandly, he often credited her with saving his life. But he also bragged, she likes the same kind of movies I do.

On June's solo album, Press On, after her "Ring of Fire," the very next song is a duet with Johnny. It's a gospel ballad narrated by an old married couple worried that one will die before the other. Worried about getting left behind. "If it proves to be as well that I am first to cross," June sings, "and somehow I have a feeling it will be."

As she predicted in the song, June died first. Four months later, Johnny was buried next to her, because, as he once said, "This thing between us has been happening since 1961, and I just don't want to travel if she can't come with me."

Southern Women

As written by Allison Glock in the Aug/Sept 2011 issue of Garden & Gun 

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It is not posturing, or hyperbole, or marketing. (See: all those song lyrics about California girls and their undeniable cuteness.) Southern women, unlike women from Boston or Des Moines or Albuquerque, are leashed to history. For better or worse, we are forever entangled in and infused by a miasma of mercy and cruelty, order and chaos, cornpone and cornball, a potent mix that leaves us wise, morbid, good-humored, God-fearing, outspoken and immutable. Like the Irish, with better teeth.

To be born a Southern woman is to be made aware of your distinctiveness. And with it, the rules. The expectations. These vary some, but all follow the same basic template, which is, fundamentally, no matter what the circumstance, Southern women make the effort. Which is why even the girls in the trailer parks paint their nails. And why overstressed working moms still bake three dozen homemade cookies for the school fund-raiser. And why you will never see Reese Witherspoon wearing sweatpants. Or Oprah take a nap.

For my mother, being Southern means handwritten thank-you notes, using a rhino horn’s worth of salt in every recipe, and spending a minimum of twenty minutes a day in front of her makeup mirror so she can examine her beauty in “office,” “outdoor,” and “evening” illumination. It also means never leaving the house with wet hair. Not even in the case of fire. Because wet hair is low-rent. It shows you don’t care, and not caring is not something Southern women do, at least when it comes to our hair.

This is less about vanity than self-respect, a crucial distinction often lost on non-Southerners. When a Southern woman fusses over her appearance, it does not reflect insecurity, narcissism, or some arrested form of antifeminism that holds back the sisterhood. Southern women are postfeminism. The whole issue is a nonstarter, seeing as Southern women are smart enough to recognize what works—Spanx, Aqua Net—and wise to the allocation of effort. Why pretend the world is something it isn’t? Better to focus on what you can control (drying your hair) and make the best of what you have. Side note: Southern women do not capitalize on their looks to snag men, though that often results. The reason we Southern women take care of ourselves is because, simply, Southern women are caretakers.

An example: I have lived in the North off and on for fifteen years. In all that time, only once did another woman prepare me a home-cooked meal (and she was from Florida). I recently visited Tennessee for one week and was fed by no fewer than three women, one of whom baked homemade cupcakes in two different flavors because she remembered I loved them.

Southern women are willing to give, be it time, hugs, or advice about that layabout down the road. Southern women listen and we talk and we laugh without apology. We are seldom shocked. Not really. Sex in the City may have been revolutionary for the rest of America, but not for Southern women. Of course we bond and adore each other, and talk about all topics savory and otherwise. That’s what being a woman means.

In Terms of Endearment, a dying Debra Winger visits a friend in New York and is immediately bewildered by the alternately indifferent and aggressive way the women relate to each other.

“Why do they act like that?” Winger asks a friend, genuinely confused. Why indeed.

Southern women see no point in the hard way. Life is hard enough. So we add a little sugar to the sour. Which is not to suggest Southern women are disingenuous cream puffs. Quite the opposite. When you are born into a history as loaded as the South’s, when you carry in your bones the incontrovertible knowledge of man’s violence and limitations, daring to stay sweet is about the most radical thing you can do.   

Southern women are also a proud lot. In any setting, at home or abroad, Southern women declare themselves. Leading with geography is not something that other ladies do. You do not hear “That’s just how we roll in Napa.”  Or “Well, you know what they say about us Wyoming girls…” You may hear “I’m from Jersey,” but that’s more of a threat than a howdy. 

There are other defining attributes, some more quantifiable than others. Southern women know how to bake a funeral casserole and why you should. Southern women know how to make other women feel pretty. Southern women like men and allow them to stay men. Southern women are not afraid to dance. Southern women know you can’t outrun your past, that manners count, and that your mother deserves a phone call every Sunday. Southern women can say more with a cut of their eyes than a whole debate club’s worth of speeches. Southern women know the value of a stiff drink, among other things.

Which brings us to what can only be called: the Baby Thing.

Southern women love babies. We love them so much we grab their chubby thighs and pretend to eat them alive. This is not the case in the North or the West or the middle bit.

I grew up, like all Southern girls, babysitting as soon as I was old enough to tie my own shoes. I was raised to understand that taking care of children was as natural and inevitable as sneezing, that when we were infants, somebody looked after us, and thus we should clutch hands and complete the circle without any fuss. I was also taught that your children are not supposed to be your best friends. Southern women do not spend a lick of time worrying about whether or not their kids are mad at them.

They are too busy telling them “No” and “Because I said so,” which might explain why there are rarely any Southern kids acting a fool and running wild around the Cracker Barrel.

I have two daughters, Dixie and Matilda, and when we go down South, they are surrounded with love from the moment we cross the Mason-Dixon. Elderly men tip their hats. Cashiers tell them they are beautiful. To be a girl these days is more fraught than ever. But growing up among Southern women sure makes it easier.

Which is why we are moving back home. I want my children to know they belong to something bigger than themselves. That they are unique, but they are not alone. That there is continuity where they come from. Comfort too. That there are rules worth following and expectations worth trying to meet, even if you fail. If nothing else, I want them to know how to make biscuits. And to not feel bad about eating a whole heaping plate of them.

Because before I know it, my girls will be grown. And they will be Southern women too. And that, I believe, will have made all the difference. 

Shake It Out (Acoustic)

Hands down, the best song on Florence+The Machine's October release, Ceremonials, is "Shake It Out". Who else can make playing with ghouls, shaking the devil off your back and burying horses of regret sound so enticing? As I'm osmosing her genius, I try not to dwell on the fact that Flo is the same age as me and has progressed a bit further than the 9-5 desk job. Rather, I get lost in her verve, solid gold pipes and inimitable way with words.


After finding the acoustic version of this song, I'm growing to like it more than the original. Something about hearing every line stripped bare and unadorned seems to drive her words closer to home.


Watch her acoustic version for AOL Sessions below or click here to view my favorite version on Vimeo. If you still haven't gotten your hands on this album, leave me a comment or FB me your e-mail and I'll Dropbox it to you in a hot minute.

Flat Max Pays a Visit

Despite last week's influx of visitors, an overwhelming sadness loomed because of the absence of Maxamilian E. Hinton, my hetero-lifemate. Max couldn't bear to see me, Forrest and Strek's shenanigans on Facebook and even threatened to hide us from his news feed to prevent unquenchable sadness and incredible feelings of exclusion. With that in mind, and in an effort to preserve my personal policy of "No Friend Left Behind", I created Flat Max (in the same vein as Flat Stanley) to join us in on our Seattle adventures.


Flat Max was always at the ready, ever prepared for a good time. He woke up with Strek and I at midnight on Thursday (er...Friday morning) to go pick up Forrest from the airport.

Thankfully, Strek's pea coat is big enough for two

Telling an awesome joke just minutes before Forrest's arrival

On Friday, he was up bright and early to take me to work. He bought me coffee and brought along a car beer for the road. In my opinion, it was a bit chilly to go shirtless but it didn't seem to phase Flat Max in the least. 

7am PST means 10am EST...which is a slightly more acceptable drinking time

While I slaved away at my desk job, Flat Max played tourist with Forrest and Strek. They hit up the Monorail - Seattle's most decrepit and overpriced mode of transportation - the Flagship Starbucks and even the illustrious Space Needle, which clearly doesn't abide by the "no shirt, no shoes, no service" policy. 

Suns out, guns out...YA DIG???

ORANGE MOCHA FRAPPUCCINO!

Smooches from on top of the world, baby

Bro time with Forrest on the Monorail ride back

That night we had big plans to head to Bitterroot, Seattle's newest BBQ & bourbon hot spot. Sadly their wait was wayyyyy too long so we meandered over to Sam's Sushi. The wait was ATROCIOUS there as well but Flat Max helped us make the best of it by playing hide and seek in the foliage.

Brings that damn beer EVERYWHERE. So embarrassing.

Saturday morning Flat Max roused us all for family breakfast at Five Spot. Thanks to his charming kissy face, we got a table post-haste. We soon discovered Max was ALL ABOUT their Bloody Marys and guzzled a handful before informing us he conveniently "forgot his wallet"...

Who can say no to THIS?

Slurps McGee

Flat Max took some "me time" for a couple days (aka we might have left him on my kitchen counter) but returned Thursday night for The Last Supper at Christo's on Alki. After some tasty pizza, we stopped on the beach for one final photo op. 

The Emerald in all her glory, basking in Max's ethereal glow

Hottie alert. 

Max & Eggs hugging it out

All in all, Flat Max was the perfect house guest. He took up very little space and left no mess - we hardly knew he was here! He was a perfect gentleman and had no problem sleeping in the car since my apartment was at max capacity. Hopefully this isn't the last we'll see of Flat Max but, to be clear, the REAL Max is welcome any time (:

Sloth Meltdown

Have you seen this yet? In a matter of 3 days, Kristen Bell's appearance on Ellen has scored over 3.5 million views because of her closet obsession: sloths. She loves them. She hysterically loves them. I've watched it twice and I'm still laughing through tears. Mostly because she is adorable and partly because I'm so disgusted she had one of the filthiest animals on the planet just chill out at her birthday party. To each his own.