Birds who can sing a million songs without any words

A few years ago when I saw the documentary The Ground Truth, I became completely obsessed with the song that played over the final credits. It became my mission to find out who wrote those heartbreakingly beautiful lyrics.

Mary
You're covered in roses
You're covered in ashes
You're covered in rain.
You're covered in babies
You're covered in slashes
You're covered in wildernis
You're covered in stains

This is not Mary, the idealized virgin miracle mom, but Mary the real, suffering woman who had the son she loved taken from her in the most brutal manner. It was a powerful close to a movie about war. I've since learned that the writer and singer was Patty Griffin, who is an amazing storyteller gifted with such a simple, pure and honest voice.

The song has made me think a lot about the role of women and Mary in particular in religion. I am no Bible scholar. Until recent years, I probably spent more time actively avoiding anything even remotely churchy than going to it. We weren't super religious when I was growing up, but there was a period when I was carted off to Sunday School each week. My memories from that time of Mary are that while she was definitely on the side of the Goodies, she was always seemed to show up as a pregnant donkey rider, an idealized archetype of motherhood or as a "Jesus' mom is in the house!" footnote, but rarely as a fully fledged personality. No one ever talked about her feelings or her suffering.

But Patty Griffin did...

I'm late! I'm late!

Approximately half way through my January post-a-day project, I have fallen behind, but I think that is okay. Despite being an unrepentant cheater, I'll make it up. I'm not above back dating either, as you may have noticed. Sometimes it's more important to remain true to the spirit of an agreement than the letter. Even if it doesn't always turn into bits I can post, I have been writing each day and then filling in later with things I can post. Besides, what am I going to do, sue myself?

What I can say at this mid-point is that it has been good to sit down and just write a little each day. I used to noodle around with taking pictures, making music and writing stories, essays and (bad) poems all the time. Somehow as work started to consume more of my life, I moved further and further away until I just stopped. It is a sad thing, since I find far more fulfillment in creation than I do in my job. Funny how we can so easily slip into robbing ourselves of the things that give us the most pleasure. Reclaiming that neglected part of my life is really the point of this whole blog exercise. I'm not trying to write the great American novel (yet), the first step is simply to develop a habit. That seems to be happening and everything's comin' up Millhouse.

Meanwhile, I'm really glad that Jen (who is MUCH better about updating her blog than I am) is doing this too, and not only because it means I have a reader TWO readers!

Dancing with Myself

Ever since discovering Tito Puente back in grad school (Tito Puento and the Latin Jazz All-Stars at the Hollywood Bowl, still probably the most fun I have ever had at a concert!), I have had a thing for Latin music. A few years later, when I was living la vida boring on the prairie, music from the late 90's Latin explosion was one of the few things that cheered me up during a pretty miserable time in my life. I remember talking to a friend 2146.55 miles away over the phone while we watched Ricky Martin sing "La Copa de la Vida" on the Grammys and it was good.

There is something about the drums and rhythms that just makes me happy. It's hard to hear it and not want to move. That's probably why I was sucked in by the late night Zumba commercials on t.v. I have never been one of those people who just loves working out. Even during those times in my life where I have done it regularly, it has always been something to get out of the way rather than something to look forward to. Most of my dancing these day involves butt dancing in driver's seat of the car when a good song comes on. But, hey, it was worth a shot, so I ordered the DVDs.

I won't lie. The box sat unopened on a shelf for at least a month after it arrived. Then, today, I got the urge to get my groove on and opened it up. As it turns out, it is totally FUN! I am really out of shape, so I didn't made it through the whole thing, but I made it through enough to be sore afterwards. More importantly, I'm kinda looking forward to doing it again tomorrow!

Until then, here is some primo butt dancing music from Ricky Martin.

Rainy Day Reading

People sometimes complain about the Oregon rain. It does get kind of grey and depressing in the winter, but there are days when I really like that. I love the sound of the rain on the roof over my back deck, I love building a fire and nestling down with under my favorite quilt with my little Lily dog. On such days we read or watch movies and eat popcorn.

Of late, it's been reading. As it turns out, I may be the only person on the planet who could not get into The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, so we are dividing our time between two other books:

1. Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Eleanore Pruitt Stewart.

I am reading my version on Kindle for Droid. Originally, I thought I would hate reading on a screen, but I'm kind of digging it. It will never replace holding a real book in my hands, but it is pretty cool for those times when you're waiting somewhere and need something to pass the time. It's also great for those times when you are in bed and want to read, but are too lazy to get up and turn on a light. Hey, it's not pretty, but when you don't have a bedside lamp, it happens.

If you don't have a Kindle or the book, you can also read it for free online.

The letters were written between 1909 - 1911. My favorite letter so far is the one in which the widowed Pruitt (she doesn't become a Stewart until later) takes off with her young daughter in the middle of winter to go camping. I love how independent and adventurous she was. And the letters are so good humored and descriptive. They're great fun to read!

2. Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer

Eating Animals isn't fun in the same way, but it's definitely well written and an eye opener, if you have never allowed yoruself to think too hard about where the stuff at the grocery store originated. I am feverishly trying to finish it, because the library wants it back and I am only about 2/3 of the way finished. A lot of it, I already knew, but reading it makes me happy about the dietary changes I've been making. I find the more I inform myself and keep the reality in my mind, the less easy it is for me drop the curtain that allows me to push it all out of my head. I've said it before, but we do some pretty vile and cruel things in the name of factory farming.

The Kale Imperative

Earlier today one of my Facebook friends posted a status about how something about her cold was making her feel it was imperative that she make kale chips stat. My first thought after hearing "kale" was about the delicious kale and root vegetable salad I got out of Vegetarian Times a couple months ago. It has candied pecans and instructions about "massaging the kale", which make me feel vaguely dirty.

Naturally, my second thought was that if I ever write a series about a vegetarian sleuth or spy, the first installment would be called The Kale Imperative. I don't even have a cold, this is just my natural genius at work! Hey! Don't look at me like that! If Lilian Jackson Brown can spend 40+ years publishing "The Cat Who . . ." books, I can fill the shelves at Barnes & Noble with tales of vegetable murder and mayhem.

Speaking of vegetables, how awesome does this recipe for Beef Tagine with Butternut Squash look? I've been thinking I might like to try making a variation of it with some manner of soyified "beef". I'm also excited to try this Butternut Squash Lasagna. Both would go well with the aforementioned kale salad. Oh, kale, my friend, it always comes back to you, doesn't it?

Powellhurst meets Houston

January 2011 010, originally uploaded by Martina.

One of the more fun things about traveling to Houston last week was getting the chance to visit NASA’S JOHNSON SPACE CENTER. This would have been cool on its own, but was made even more fun by the fact that my dad worked on the space program back in the 60’s. My childhood was peppered with stories about all the people who came to watch the rocket launches at the facility where he worked. Somewhere in a box, I have a letter he kept that was signed by some astronauts, thanking him for the blood he donated for one of their missions. He worked at Cape Kennedy (now Cape Canaveral), which was responsible for launching craft, whereas Houston serves as mission control once they’re in the air, but it was still exciting to see.

One of the cool things about the space center is that it’s not just a museum, but a living, working facility that is still involved in training and mission control. Of course, there are parts of the center that are clearly there solely for tourist purposes, but the ones that interested me most were the working areas, like the old control center.

I was born exactly four months before Neil Armstrong proclaimed to the world “Houston, the Eagle has landed.” It is amazing to me to think that within my lifetime man took his first steps on the lunar surface. I wonder sometimes the way we have messed things up here on earth if we really need to be establishing a presence on the rest of our solar system, but when you are standing there looking at that room, thinking about all of the planning, work and excitement that went into that first step, it is hard not to be impressed by it.

The funny thing about the facility (once you get past the tourist center) is how normal it looks. Except for the occasional tourist tram running by and the number of bicycles you see parked in front of the doors, it looks like any other office park. As it turns out, the bikes are provided to employees for use in getting around the campus. They offer a quicker means of transportation than walking that also saves on gas and is healthy for the employee too.

The bikes I saw all had baskets, which allowed me to imagine low level space couriers rushing super secret documents from one building to another. In my imagination, they just put a stack into the basket and set a moon rock on top, so the papers don’t go flying around willy-nilly. Imagination NASA can launch a man into space, but has not yet entered the internet age yet. This is good for space courier job security!

The other thing I noticed is that the trams all had advertising placards, like public busses do. The one I rode in had a number for the Discount Tire Co., which now makes me think of NASA as not just NASA but “NASA! Now sponsored by the Discount Tire Co.!” Maybe we could supplement all of our government projects and bodies in this way. “The Oval Office, brought to you by Nike! Just do it!” “The McDonald’s Department of Health and Human Services?” You get the picture. Think of all the tax dollars we could save if some corporations would help foot the bill. They already get too many breaks. It’s time to make them pull their weight!

But I’m getting off topic. Soon I’ll be ranting about lobbyists, and nobody wants that. The point here is that the Johnson Space Center is worth a visit, so you should go. Really. Right now. I mean it. The Internet will still be there when you get back. You know you want to! Get out and see something…

Meatloaf

For the past few months I've been flirting on and off with vegetarianism. While I am not 100%, I have cut down considerably on my consumption of animal products. When I do eat meat, which happens at most a time or two a week (if at all), it's usually lean and in small quanities.

For some bizarre reason, though, yesterday at the grocery store I got it into my head that meatloaf sounded good. Maybe it was the cold weather, maybe it was nostalgia for the meatloaf and mac & cheese my mom would make when I was a kid, or maybe it was that I hit my head harder than I thought when I fell down last week. I don't know, all I know is that at that moment it sounded comfort-filled and good.

So, somehow I came home with a package of ground beef yesterday, thinking I'd make it later in the week. As it turned out, I ended up making it tonight. When you haven't touched a lot of raw meat lately, mooshing ground beef into something loafy is pretty disgusting. This is even more true when you can't get out of your head that the matter squishing between your fingers is ground flesh. Not meat or beef, but the flesh of a formerly living, breathing animal that felt cold, discomfort and pain.

Before Christmas, I went about five months without eating meat. This isn't the first time I've toyed with vegetarianism, but it seems that each time a little more of my ability to disassociate what I am eating from its living origins slips away. I sometimes think if I try it often enough, one day I will get it right and there'll be no going back. It wouldn't be the worst thing. I like the way it feels when I know that no living thing had to suffer for me to find nourishment. And just think what it would do for my cholesterol levels, my ever present struggle with weight.

As it is, I find myself thinking more and more about where my food comes from. I notice things like the amount of cow juice a meatloaf sweats when it's cooking. I don't know if the beef I bought was mislabeled or if it's just that I haven't made it in so long that memory of how much fat drips out of it was not generous enough. All I know is that the thing currently sitting on my counter seems like a big, greasy blob. I tried eating a little and it made my stomach turn. I'm not sure if it's the grease or the conscious awareness of where it came from. It's becoming more difficult to seperate the calf from the cow, the cow from the beef. Like I didn't have enough guilt in my life, now I have added this feeling of uneasiness to my emotional sphere every time I eat an animal product.

You'd think that would be enough to stop craving it. Food is a funny thing, though. It has so many social and emotional associations. It's not just nourishment, but it's tied to the way we live, how we interact, how we celebrate. Decades of programming aren't as easy to overcome as one might think, even when one is intellectually on board with the idea of changing. At some point I'll have it all figured out. For now, I'm just doing the best I can.