Getting Dressed. The hardest part about my job.

Posted on February 19, 2015 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Good Morning. I’m writing to you from my hotel room bed, instead of my comfy chair with the cat sitting on my keyboard.

I’m on the road in the eastern part of the state for the rest of the week singing for my supper. And it just happens to be gearing up to be the coldest days we’ve had all winter.

Yup, that there says it “Feels Like -32”

And I can’t wear my snow suit on stage.

I swear. That’s the hardest part about the whole music thing some days. Deciding what to wear. I mean, the pressure is just too great.

And so I bring everything…and then that creates another problem that has to do with getting myself in and out of hotel rooms in an efficient manner.

I generally have a rule with my packing when I’m traveling alone that goes something like: Only pack as many bags and shit that I can carry up to my room on my own in one trip.

I’ve spent plenty of time in my life traveling from hotel room to hotel room alone so I know how annoying lugging stuff can be.

Especially when that stuff includes a giant guitar, computer, camera, purse, and bags of clothes and coats and makeup and seventeen different giant bottles of hair care products and another three or four pair of boots, which sucks because I like need all of those boots, but they take up so much damn room.

But I can usually get it all: Three or four bags thrown over my shoulders, a purse in the crook of my arm, a pair or two of boots in my armpits, a wheelie suitcase behind me and my guitar in my left hand.

God forbid they put me on the far end of the hotel on seventh floor like they have today.

By the time I get up to my nook of the world, I’ve gone from freezing, to thawed out to sweating to panting to full blown aggravation with myself and society at the fact that we can’t just all agree on one uniform and go with it.

Would be so much easier.

Anyway, I’m looking around my room this morning before I make an attempt to put myself together for a four hour drive to the next town and am wondering how I got this all up here…because I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to give in and get one of those carts from the lobby and drag my world back downstairs and across the frozen parking lot and back into my frozen car.

Because I don’t have enough arms for this.

And then, when I get dressed tonight, I’m going to have to call my mother or my sister to reassure me that I’m not too old to wear sequins on my boots…or my skirt.

Because I feel like I might be too old it, but at the same time, I also feel like if a girl has a chance in her life to wear sequins, she might as well just wear it.

Right?

These are the conversations I have with myself on the open road, between singing along to my iPod, getting depressed about the disappearance of the Dixie Chicks, eating an unhealthy amount of Gardettos, and coming up with elaborate and unrealistic plans for music videos or writing projects or neighborhood sledding parties…

Anyway. Tonight Husband is meeting up with me for the North Dakota Music Awards, and so is the band and my parents, so I’ll have some people to help me carry my shit, and drink vodka with and talk me out of all of my plans….

In the meantime, don’t you just wish you were here right now? Singing on the back of a horse drawn wagon in the middle of summer on your way to eat a homemade meal behind a tree row in a field.

Me too.

But this weekend’s gonna be fun. It’ll be cold outside, but we’ll be warming it up with some great music and celebration inside. If you’re in the Bismarck, ND area tonight or Fargo, ND this weekend I hope to see you out and about!

Thursday, February 19

North Dakota Music Awards
Belle Mehus Auditorium
7 PM
(I won’t be performing, but there are many great acts. Will be a fun night!)

with Outlaw Sippin’
Side B
Bismarck, ND

Saturday, February 21

18th Annual Celebration of Women and Their Music
6 PM
Historic Fargo Theater
Downtown Fargo
www.debjenkins.com/celebrationofwomen.html

Saturday, February 21-Post Show

18th Annual Celebration of Women and their Music
Post Show Songwriting Round
9pm-11pm
Studio 222
Fargo, ND
With: Nita Velo, Jessie Veeder, Natalie Shaw (award winner), Reina del cid (with Tony Lindgren) & Chastity Brown

For more music updates, visit:
www.jessieveedermusic.com
www.facebook.com/jessieveedermusic

A Winter Walk…

Posted on February 11, 2015 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

It has been a true winter wonderland around here lately. Lots of fog and warm temperatures have coated everything in frost.

And then it rained. And froze immediately on the ground, so now this place looks like Ice World on the Super Mario Brothers III game and the animals and me took a slippery stroll through it all, because who could stay inside on days like these?

Not me. And you shouldn’t either.

So welcome to your Wednesday Walk…

Sunday Column: Being human

Posted on February 3, 2015 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Winter showed up again this weekend. It was to be expected.

We watched the snow blow sideways across the sky and into the black trees.

I hunkered down on the loveseat next to my husband under the furry blanket and we watched “Legends of the Fall.” And then, as I do every time we watch our favorite movie, I got depressed about the plight of man. It was sort of fitting though, because it’s been on my mind for the last few weeks, the sort of struggle we face here, how even when we do our best, sometimes it isn’t good enough. Sometimes no matter how we wish and hope and pray and work, it just doesn’t work out the way we had imagined. We’ve all been there. Husband and I have been spending time talking about this lately, about people’s stories, about the news of the world and our community and how it’s hard to get facts straight these days, how it’s hard to distinguish opinions from the truth and how sometimes it’s a struggle to find any positive perspectives.

I worry that we’re getting disconnected from reality.

I worry that we stare at our cell phones and our television screens and we live our lives through photos and commentary instead of observing and wondering and speaking for ourselves.

I worry not enough people in this great country get their hands truly dirty or understand what it really takes to put food in our mouths.

I worry that we’re not spending enough time talking to each other and too much time talking at one another.

And then I worry that we’re not listening.

I worry that we’re getting harder instead of stronger…

These are things I say over lasagna at our kitchen counter with the news turned low on the television and a long winter night stretching out before us.

And then Husband reminds me that we are animals, animals who were somehow born with the ability to love and the ability to hate…and this gift of language and reason and religion and philosophy complicates and pulls at our simple instinct to survive.

The coyotes who howl outside my window at night and get a little too close to the house in the morning. these animals don’t know good or evil. They know danger. They know motherly instinct. They know what they need to know to survive. What a gift and what a burden it is some days to be human. To feel somehow responsible to these coyotes and to the landscape, to the cattle who feed there and to the people we know…and those we never will.

When I was a young girl, growing up and starting to realize that life wasn’t always a frolic in the oak trees, that most days your responsibilities were going to weigh on you, and that was what it meant to grow up, I remember wishing that I was one of those cows standing out in our pasture munching on green grass and knowing nothing different. Knowing no deadlines, or dirty dishes piled up, or the dull ache of your mistakes or the pain of losing someone.

I just wanted to be a cow. Well, maybe a cow in California where the weather never dropped below 70 degrees and sunny. Or a snapping turtle sunning himself on the rock in the beaver dam out back, the one who lived for a hundred years, and spent the winter sleeping.

Or the house cat sitting on mom’s lap concerned with nothing but getting a scratch behind the ears.

Because I knew it then, as I know it now. Some days the business of being human is overwhelming, and being that muley doe coming in for a drink at the dam at the end of a week-long January thaw looks about as close to peace as you’ve ever seen while living life in your human skin…

Coming Home: Promises made as we look toward spring
by Jessie Veeder
2-1-15
Forum Communications
http://www.inforum.com

Spring in Winter.

Posted on January 28, 2015 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

While the east coast braced themselves for a winter storm that was promising to be so epic they actually gave it a name, North Dakotans were out in shorts and tank tops watching the January snow turn into mud in 50+ degree weather.

The weather this week has been so gloriously warm that it is starting to freak us all out a little bit. I mean, we’re definitely grateful, and we definitely know that a good ‘ol ND winter cold snap is coming again soon, but it’s a little eerie to have summer-like temperatures in the middle of winter. We feel like maybe we’re being tricked.

We look at each other and say, well, we’re going to pay for this later aren’t we?

But what the hell. For once, we’re on the warm side of the weather news up here in the tundra, so you can bet we went out and made the most of it.

And by making the most of it, I mean, scraping all of the ice and snow off of our driveway and marveling at the fact that it’s no longer a skating rink/hip-breaking zone…for now anyway. And then opening up the garage doors and sweeping and rearranging and building steps and wiring…

And while Husband was doing all that, I decided to take a 4-wheeler ride up to the fields where I knew I would find the horses.

I’m still battling the cold of the year, my theory being that all of the germs have thawed out and traveled to my lungs to torture me, so I definitely wasn’t walking anywhere…or sweeping anything…or holding any boards…or helping my dearly beloved do anything useful.

Nope. Too sick.

But not too sick to pull my beanie down over my ears and head for the hills on a motorized vehicle, the dogs and I kicking up mud as we followed the road up to the flat.

Up here the weather is a freak, so even with the plague, I wasn’t going to miss an opportunity to feel some warm sunshine on my shoulders, because I know full well I might not have another chance for a while, memories of last winter’s months long sub-zero deep freeze are still pretty vivid.

And while I’m hoping for more snow before the summer rolls in, it was nice to see the golden grass and feel the warm air for a bit.

And it was nice to see the boys, content and fat and fuzzy and full of burs up there in the fields munching and chill as they let the same sun warm their backs.

I mean, they were so relaxed that none of them really attempted to drop-kick Gus out of their way as he sniffed and frolicked around them, getting to know these creatures he’ll be riding with this summer.

I think maybe these horses feel like they’re on a tropical winter vacation up here in these fields…all you can eat buffet…warm weather…no work to be done for months.

Ah, winter, if you stayed like this for a while I think we could all manage just fine.

But before you make any real commitments, why don’t you go ahead and send one more freeze to kill off this bug and a big snow to get my sledding hill ready, to fill up the creeks and dams and nourish the wildflowers and grass for spring.

Not that I don’t appreciate the break, but, you know, winter we all have a job to do up here…and you’re laid back attitude is sorta freaking us out…

Sunday Column: Thousands of miles away…

Posted on January 19, 2015 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

January is a tough month for us here in North Dakota. It’s smack in the middle of winter. It’s generally the coldest, the days are the shortest and the holidays are behind us…ahead of us? More winter.

To combat the January blues this year we decided to to break free before the New Year and ring it in somewhere warmer, somewhere that didn’t look anything like the rolling, white and brown ice colored hills and bare trees of the winter landscape at home.

So we packed up our swimming suits and our vacation hats, gathered our friends and headed to Mexico.

On a real vacation. One that wasn’t attached to some sort of work I had to do. (Which is typically the types of vacations Husband and I do).

I told you about it a bit, I showed you the juxtaposition of it all in a slideshow of contrasting photos of bare skin and snowsuits.

But there was more to say about it I think. More to say about a chance to break free for a moment…

It’s funny how a few days in a world so different, so far away from our own, sort of pulls you out of place, your own place, sweeps you off your feet, widens your eyes and lets down your hair.

But it wasn’t long before I started wondering what it might be like to really live there, on a place that touches the ocean. A place where cactuses stretch their arms to the sky and the wind blows sea salt and sand up on the shore, a place with sea fisherman instead of oil men.

Who would I be here in this sand, under this sun? What would I love?

What would I do?

Coming Home: Finding yourself thousands of miles from home
Jessie Veeder
1-18-15
Forum Communications
http://www.inforum.com

This week I’m back in Nashville, working on finishing up the new album. I’ll spend my days listening to instruments–dobros and guitars, fiddles and harmonies, fill up the spaces in my songs, songs about work and worry and love and landscape.

Songs about horses and home.

And I will sing and sing and sing to get every word right.

That’s the work I’ll do this week, hundreds and hundreds of miles from the buttes and the place that raised me…and I am so grateful for it.

Blame the cat, not the cat lady.

Posted on January 15, 2015 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Now, you all know I’m an animal lover, so I don’t think I need to really go much further to explain that if I could take all the stray dogs in the world with me on a walk, then I would do it. I would do it because they need a walk, and a scratch behind the ears, and a dog needs a girl.

A girl needs a dog.

We’ve been over this.

But a cat? I’m going to tell you right here, I’m torn on this…

As you can see, it’s been a lifelong struggle…

Because, frankly, if I’m going to be honest, and well, I’m going to be honest, I love them too. But they drive me crazy.

CRAZY!

Kittens? I can’t get enough. I. Can. Not. Get. Enough.

Fuzzy fur. Spontaneous attacks on nothing but air. The snuggling. The purring. The napping in weird places. The obsession they have with my guitar case and Christmas ribbons and random dust bunnies and streams of sunshine coming through the window.

And the fact that they generally always figure out the litter box situation quickly. I appreciate that.

I also appreciate that a kitten is too tiny and innocent to shed it’s fluffy hair all over my pants while she’s napping there and I’m doing my work. I like that about kittens. I like that they’re genuinely interested in what I’m doing during the day, and they want to be involved with it. It’s adorable and they’re small, so they don’t get in the way…much.

Speaking of small, I also like that kittens are too tiny to get up to the glass of milk I’ve left out on the kitchen counter. Same goes with the plate of bacon or the bowl of chicken noodle soup. Kittens might be able to smell it, but they’re reaction is restricted to their youth and their tiny bellies attached to tiny legs, and I like it.

Yes, I like that kittens generally stay on the ground or on my lap or on my shoulder where they belong.

And I like that they’re claws are tiny too, so whatever imaginary thing they are trying to hunt next to my couch won’t wreak too much havoc on the leather or the rug underneath.

Bottom line here? Kittens are tiny versions of cats, so they are adorable, less destructive, they sleep more, they stay off my kitchen counters and I cut them slack because they are babies.

And they are fluffy.

But the thing about kittens is that one day, and it happens pretty quickly, you wake up and discover that their legs have stretched a bit, and they have noticed it too, and so they use those legs to explore a universe in the house that is supposed to be off limits to felines.

But cats don’t give a shit about rules. That’s the thing. If you have a cat for a pet, you know this.

Ever tried to get a cat to sit on command? BWAH!

Ever tried to teach them to come to the sound of their name? Yeah RIGHT!

And to those people who have somehow figured out how to get their cat to use the toilet and flush afterward? All I have to say is that was probably the cats’ idea in the first place. You just happened to catch her in the act when you noticed she was in the bathroom and you were worried about her unrolling the entire spool of toilet paper.

Because cats are sorta little bitches like, with their own agenda…which is: I will love you when I chose to love you. You will pet me when I want you to pet me. I will sit on your lap when I wanna sit on your lap and I will always, no matter what, ruin your world when you are trying to wrap a present or type on your laptop or print something out of the printer. And if you decide to get a Christmas tree, I will own it. I will try to climb to the top and shame on you for thinking otherwise.

And when you’re not around, I will jump on the counter, because, really, you likely set that perfectly seasoned chicken out for me. And if you get after me, I will humor you by acting offended and scared, but as soon as you go into the other room, I will just jump up there again.

Oh, you wanna leave town? If you leave town I will definitely be up on that counter. And also the kitchen table. And also the chandelier if I can swing it…

God forbid you leave town.

Yeah, cats only sorta like us, but they suddenly get all hurt when we’re not around at their command, filling their bottomless food dish and being undyingly available when they decide they want a snuggle.

Do I sound harsh? Maybe. But I come from a long line of cat people. My two sisters happen to be the biggest feline worshippers around and I doubt they could argue with any of my reasons that cats are sorta horrible really.

And I’m only bringing it up today because I really believed my little orange baby Cheeto was never going to grow up and out of her sweet, smushy, fluff…

but then I came out of my office to find her on the counter licking the butter straight out the uncovered dish.

Dammit.

I shouted a profanity, jumped around and flailed my arms to try to scare the devil out of her, but I’m afraid her transformation has begun.

And I’m afraid I will love her despite of it, just like I have with the two other felines who scream at me from their perch in the garage rafters every time I open the door, lest I forget their twenty-seven scoops of food and the pat on their head on my way out the door, because, I mean, mousing is hard work.

But so is pet cat ownership.

There. I said it.

Now you can too.

A girl might need a dog and a dog might need a girl…but a cat?

A cat will make you believe she doesn’t give a shit one way or the other…

A cat will play games with your head. She’ll create in you trust issues. She will make you needy for attention.

She will grab you by the heart strings and then maneuver you like a puppet.

And that’s why they just might be superior after all, which I hate to admit… But if you don’t agree, well then, at least I’ve done my part to make my case for the Crazy Cat Lady in all of us. Because they get they’re claws into us when they’re young and innocent…so it’s not our fault…

It’s theirs.

Amen.

cat 1

Sunday Column: Full car, empty tank…

Posted on January 12, 2015 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

In my life, by my own unscientific, not so mathematic, sort of a wild and exaggerated calculation, I estimate that I have driven approximately 7,538,390 miles.

But it’s probably more.

I mean, living 30 miles (give or take) from the nearest town and having acquired my drivers license and a 1982 Sorta Pink Ford LTD I liked to call Rosie when I was only 14, I’ve had ample opportunity to put plenty of road behind me in twenty or so years…

Take that and add the five years I spent touring up and down the country singing for my supper and you think you could call me an expert…in maps, in traffic laws, in emergency preparedness, in flat tires and rear-enders, turn signals and every gas station from here to Ada, Oklahoma.

And I am. I am an expert in some of those things. Like emergency preparedness.

Just take a look in my car right now. I have everything you’d ever need if you were ever stranded…at a party…or a bonfire.

A can of Big Sexy Hairspray. Sunflower seeds. A guitar stand. Blankets. Magazines. An extra pair of Toms slip ons. A beach towel. Wrapped Christmas presents I still need to deliver to my best friend and her kids in Bismarck. Thirty-seven half drunk water bottles and one sorta-full Snapple. Can cozies. A partridge in a pear tree.

Oh, and the backpack my mother-in-law packed for me in case of an apocalypse. There’s that to go along with the winter gear.

I’ve got piles of it.

Yes, I’m a true North Dakotan, so in case the summer kegger doesn’t spontaneously occur, I’m covered for winter too.

So I should have known better…

Coming Home: Car stocked up for any situation, except running out of gas
1-11-15
by Jessie Veeder
Forum Communications
http://www.inforum.com

Hears to full tanks and full hearts.

Happy Trails.

We’re not in Cabo anymore…

Posted on January 8, 2015 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

We’re not in Cabo anymore.

Nope.

We’re home.

Home to the great white and frickin’ frozen north.

You know what that weather report up there doesn’t say? It doesn’t say that the wind is blowing 50 MPH, making the air feel like it’s actually -30.

Which would mean when I got on the plane in Cabo on Tuesday morning and landed in Bismarck, North Dakota on Tuesday night, my body was asked to deal with a nearly 100 degree temperature difference.

CABO!

NOT Cabo.

I can’t help but feel the shock of the juxtaposition that was the result of a couple plane rides …

CABO!

NOT Cabo.

But oh, we had a nice trip. We wore vacation hats.

We got some sun our our pasty white skin. We played beach volleyball and drank ridiculous drinks,

we swam in the ocean,

and rang in the new year in a blur of tequila and club music.

And while we were doing those things, the wind was whipping in a cold front up north, as it tends to do in January.

But you know what they do in January in Cabo? They ride horses in shorts and bare feet on the beach.

Yup.

CABO HORSES.

NOT Cabo horses.

Dammit, it’s cold here. No more vacation hats for us.

Beach Couple

Arctic Tundra Couple

White Sandy Shoreline

Just a white line

Cabo Husband.

Freezing Husband.

Cabo couple

Umm, no…

Cabo Cactus

Not a Cabo Cactus

80 degrees and sunny sisters

30 below zero and windy sisters

Vacation feet.

Not on vacation anymore feet

Warm weather pet

A more snuggly version

A beachy drink

A blizzard-y drink

A walk on the beach

Ah, son of a beettchh…

And that’s it. No, we’re not in Cabo anymore boys and girls…

But we’re not beach people really.

We’re pale and pasty northerners with a large collection of wool socks. And we’re home.

And no matter what the sky is doing in Mexico, or Jamaica, or Sunny California, it’s always good to be here.

Frosting

Posted on December 23, 2014 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Last week our world was covered in ice.

This week, just in time for Christmas, it has turned nice and white (and rather slippery).

The beautiful thing about this place and its erratic weather is that every day it looks a little bit different out there.

Every day it’s a little bit new.

So I like to explore it. And when the new pup is involved in my little quest, it’s even more fun.

He’s just a ball of energy jumping around, licking the snow, biting the heads off of weeds and bouncing his way around, discovering his world.

So take a break from what is hopefully your last working day before Christmas, sit back and watch my home transform from icy brown to white.

Because who doesn’t love a little frosting, especially on the holidays.

Peace, Love and Merry Christmas,

Jessie

Sunday Column: Our songs.

Posted on December 22, 2014 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

It’s a nostalgic time of year. The Christmas tree is up and families are making plans to get together. I’m working on cleaning up the kitchen after a cookie decorating party that almost didn’t happen if it weren’t for Betty Crocker and my mother.

And I’m thinking about the music as we move into the new year.

Songs that were written as my dad recovered. Songs that were written on the backs of horses in the spring, during a rain storm with the windows open in our house and the morning after a late night playing with the band.

Songs about settling into a lifetime love. Songs about promises and shoveling dirt and making it all work when I was sure it couldn’t possibly happen.

Songs about the world getting smaller.

Songs about home.

After the new year I will take another trip to Nashville, and then maybe another, and then plans will be made to get these songs out into the world. The work has just begun on this project. I have taken my music across the country before, but there was something sort of surreal about packing new and unheard words with me, carrying them up over the clouds and putting them down, recreating them in a place where music seems to ring from the windows of every building, when the music I make was taken from these hills and small town streets.

It’s always been this way. This place has been inspiring me since I wrote poems about the frogs I would catch in the crick below the house.

And as got older I wondered if maybe I should try something a little more catchy. A little simpler. Maybe a song about drinking beer while dangling my feet off the back of a pickup bed.

The subject matter seems to be popular these days.

And it’s not like I’ve never drank a beer while sitting on a tailgate. But isn’t there more to say about that? About the person sitting next to us? About the ground we’re drinking on?

About what it feels like to be 18 and then 21 and then 31 and so scared and so free at the same time?

Isn’t there a place for a song about the hot sticky calm before a rain that brings the men in from the fields?

I think so. I want to listen to those songs. And so I try to write them.

When I got home from my first trip to Nashville the music around me became apparent again, somehow just ringing louder in my ears. Maybe being away for a minute is a little inspiring in itself. Seeing Music City reminded me of what a weird and challenging little life I’ve set up for myself living out here as far away from any coast or city center as I can get, making my way as a singer and writer in such a practical environment, where a real job makes so much more sense.

Except don’t we need songs out here too? Songs about us? Isn’t that old country church that closed its doors years ago worth commemorating? Isn’t the story of the man in the bar who looked at me and lamented the loss of his high school love worth telling?

Isn’t this place just the right combination of romantic and heart wrenching, hopeful and unforgiving? What about the lines created on the faces of our grandparents earned through a life of work and worry, that in this day in age, we’d know nothing about if we weren’t told?

I’ve always just wanted to tell it.

Coming Home: Singing about home from a recording studio on Music City
by Jessie Veeder
12-21-14
Forum Communications

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

music, poetry, musings, photography and philosophy from a woman who found her way back home and wants you to come over for a hike and a cocktail.

Tag Archives: North Dakota

Getting Dressed. The hardest part about my job.

Thursday, February 19

Saturday, February 21

Saturday, February 21-Post Show

A Winter Walk…

Sunday Column: Being human

Spring in Winter.

Sunday Column: Thousands of miles away…

Blame the cat, not the cat lady.

Sunday Column: Full car, empty tank…

We’re not in Cabo anymore…

Frosting

Sunday Column: Our songs.

Thursday, February 19

Saturday, February 21

Saturday, February 21-Post Show

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