As many of you know, earlier this year I was planning to tour California. That hit the fan really fast. Here’s why: There are too many dang musicians in Cali! I kid you not, every House Concert Series host I talked to in California was booked until 2012. Who plans that far ahead?!?! Most people don’t even plan their own weddings that far ahead. That’s 2 freaking YEARS!!! Subsequently, a definite spanner was thrown into my tour-planning-works. Any future Cali tour will have to be extraordinarily premeditated.

And then Florida fell in my lap. Figuratively, of course. Here’s the scoop:

My Mom-in-Law has relations in Fort Lauderdale, FL. So, she has decided to drive there in late November to celebrate Thanksgiving with them. She suggested that I accompany her and we can hit venues in the area and all the way back home. And Jason can come too!

Brilliant!

My dream tour (and I’m not promising anything yet, I’m just working like a honey bee trying to make this happen) is as follows:


Maybe Tallahassee and some other allongish-the-wayish cities too if opportunities open up.  What do you think?!

Question: Should I Expand the FL Tour into a Gulf Coast Tour???

Here are some ways YOU can help me out:

I will need places to crash after concerts. If you have a spare room or spare sofa, and wouldn’t mind playing host for an evening, I’d be much obliged (o:

If you are ANYWHERE in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana (particularly on the southern sides) or North / East Texas, please consider:

• Hosting a house concert in you home, backyard, or neighborhood clubhouse
• Putting me up for the night
• Informing me of venues (clubs, wine bars, coffee houses, etc) in your area (it’s really hard to tell which ones are the good ones online) via email.

Remember, all this will occur in the first and second weeks of December 2010 … THIS YEAR! I’m so incredibly excited!!! (o:

Love,

Jennifer

Tuesday, August 31, was Jason’s Birthday. I got him two short sleeve dress shirts that make him look very dapper. I made him an uber lasagna for dinner and I also made him birthday cake. Actually, I made him 10 very small birthday cakes.

You see, for the past month or so, nearly every time I’ve gone to our local grocery store, I’ve been stopping in the Kitchen Goods Isle (which is between the Kitty Litter Isle and the Fine Nut Isle) to gawk at these cute little heart shaped china baking dishes.

Well, last Friday I went to the store …

And they were GONE!

Vanished!

Sold out!

… Or were they???

I forlornly went about the rest of my shopping, and as I approached the frozen food section I spotted a cart in a corner bearing a hand-written sign marked “CLEARANCE!”

I have seen this dejected little cart before and never really paid much attention to it (it’s usually full of opened deodorants, dented cans of vegetables, and nearly expired bottles of hazelnut coffee flavoring syrup).


Call it feminine intuition. Call it the third eye. Call it God. Call it luck... Regardless of what you call it … there … in that miserable cart full of rejected, half broken, mostly hideous or incredibly cheap and completely random items, were about 20 of my darling little heart shaped dishes.

I was elated!! I bought 10 of them at only 75 cents each!!!!

When I got home, Jason said, “You spent $7.50 for 10 little heart shaped pans? What are you going to do with them???” (A remark which I interpreted to be a rhetorical question, since they are BAKING pans, thus, I shall BAKE with them!) Jason’s just not the baking type, so he doesn’t understand the value of these nifty little finds. Since then, I have discovered that these cute little dishes are called Ramekins . . . Isn’t that an adorable name?!?!

So for Jason’s birthday, I made him 10 little lemon cakes in heart-shaped Ramekins with strawberry preserve icing (pink of course, as all icing on tiny heart-shaped cakes should be).

He ate one.

I ate one.

And he took the remaining 8 to work on Wednesday to share with friends.

I adore my little Ramekins!

And my little Jason!

Julie Powell is Dead.  No, not in the, “Doctor, we can’t find a pulse!” sort of way, but in the “Julie Powell does not have the Love of Jesus down in her heart” sort of way. Those of you who are Powellites (and not Christians) will be breathing a sigh of relief right about now. Those of you Powellites and are Christians are probably thinking, “Oh good! We’ve still got time.” Those of you who don’t know who Julie Powell is … think Julie & Julia. Yeah. She wrote the book.

In fact, it was Julie Powell who inspired me to become a world-class blogger. For me she is to blogging what Susan B. Anthony is to women’s rights: Monumental! Only of course, women’s rights are much more important (no offense Julie).

Anyway … I just finished reading the book, Julie & Julia. Over the course of the 359 page epic cooking spree, I had become Julie’s best friend; I laughed until I cried when her plumbing malfunctioned, her cat became a hermit in the ceiling, the whole blue egg in aspic episode was excruciatingly funny (in fact, after reading her book my abs are a good deal firmer) and yet, I am disappointed!

Don’t worry – I won’t let any spoilers slip (except I will tell you that at one point she does cook brain).

Why am I disappointed you ask? The very last page, of the very last chapter, of the entire book reveals the fact that Julie Powell doesn’t believe in Heaven, let alone God! Aaaah! For me this is a big deal people. How can a woman who has tasted the wonderments of French Cooking not believe in God?

That is a serious question!

We all know people by nature are selfish, mediocre and asinine in general (Don’t lie. You know it’s true). If there were no God, humans would have killed each other off a long time ago, wwwwaaaayyyy before bombs were even invented.

In fact, I believe that if Life were a cell in an asylum, and Humanity were the inmate, God would be the padding on the walls and the straight jacket. You see, he keeps us from destroying ourselves, and then some.

Back to Julie P. and the question of Atheism.

In my experience (which at 25, is rather limited), many (but by no means all) Atheists are rather arrogant people. I think that’s because they don’t give God any credit for anything good that has ever happened to them. They take all the credit themselves. Ironically though, a good number of them (but again, not all of them) are quite quick to blame God (or God-believers) for all the crap that befalls them in their sardonic existenses. Ironic, no?

Now don’t get it ingrained in your dear little head that if you tell me you’re an Atheist I will automatically hate you or think that you’re stupid.

I won't.

I have a number of good friends who are Atheists, and even some Atheists friends who don’t know they are Atheists (which is rather alarming). I may however, give you a concerned look as if you’d just said, “The sky is jazzberry jam, and there are green pigs gallivanting about in it!”

Actually, if you said the latter to me I’d be a little concerned, but mostly just impressed by your vocabulary!

You see, when God is personal to you (and I don’t just mean in a soupy nostalgic or placebo sense of the word – but really personal – like when you feel a very intense love and respect for God because you don’t just believe in him, you KNOW that if he weren’t real and active in your life then you would have died by now – several times over), it’s then that you start to feel rather protective of God (which is funny, because God, of all beings, does not need protecting). So, when snarky misanthropes come gadding about, happy as June Bugs as if they’re dancing on God’s grave, while He’s quite obviously (yet unbeknownst to them) hovering just above their shoulder to make sure they don’t trip and brain themselves as they dance, all the while mocking the notion that I’d prefer to be happy with my late relations post death, I get irritable.

Perhaps C.S. Lewis said it best in these words: “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”

That’s how I feel about God.

It’s not that I think people who don’t believe in God are dumb or weird … I just think their third eye needs its contact lens prescription adjusted. Some people can’t see, other people have a lousy sense of smell, and still other people don’t have that Sixth Sense of Faith.

So, when Julie Powell proclaimed on the last page, of the last chapter in Julie & Julia, that Julia Child is dead, saying “When you don't believe in heaven, death is about as 'The End' as it gets. As lovely as it would be, I just don't believe that Julia is eating sole meuniere in heaven with Paul. I believe that her body's buried – under a very cool gravestone … and the brain and heart and humor and experience have been extinguished. All that’s left of that is what resides still in all our memories,” I got all hot n’ bothered.

I mean, what a morbidly depressing epitaph!

Dead. Gone. Zilch. Obliterated out of existence. Your body is hollowed of all memory, desire, knowledge or thought and becomes as devoid of self as an old, boiled marrow bone.

And then bugs eat your carcass.

But don’t be sad: People still remember you!

Why would anyone go to extremities to convince themselves of such a dark and depressing theology??? It’s masochistic! Or is it? Perhaps this is just “un-saved” people being brutally honest?

And why do Atheists try to be good people anyway? If there is no God, then there is no Heaven (reward) or Hell (retribution) in return for our actions in this life. Why not just go 100% and say you’re a Nihilist?

I can tell you, if I didn’t think there was a God, and that I only had 60ish years left to live it up, I would NOT be living in Spring, Texas drinking Cranberry Juice right now!

Love (to ALL of you – Atheists included),

Jennifer

PS: When I get to Heaven, C.S. Lewis, JRR Tolkien, Dorothy Sayers, Jason and my cats and I will all have a good chin-wag.

Today is a Jonah Day. You remember Jonah from Sunday School? He didn’t want to go to Nineveh (he was a ninny) because the Ninevites there were jerks, but God told him to go anyway.

Then Jonah’s plant died, and Jonah got swallowed by a very large and unlucky fish (though, at least it wasn’t a giant squid). Then Jonah (who apparently didn’t sit well with the fish’s tummy) got vomited up and washed onto the beach.

Granted, my day isn’t quite that bad, but … I'm on pins and needles wondering what else could possibly go wrong!

1). Jason and I woke up this morning to find our water pressure was incredibly high. Our kitchen sink works like a fire hydrant, and when I showered today, I was concerned that the nozzle might pop right out of the wall and konk me on the head. Plus, it was like showering under a fire hose. I called the Water Company. They were bewildered, but at least they believed me. They said they’d check it out.

2). There is a 3.5’ sinkhole in our front yard. I know, because I measured it. It’s about 9 inches wide and goes straight down like a fissure. Based on what was stuck to my measuring tape when I pulled it back up, the bottom of the sink hole is wet sand. Not good! I called our home builders (it’s a new neighborhood) and told them about it. They said (very politely and respectfully) that they’d come by as soon as it stopped raining to investigate. Unfortunately, it’s not forecasted to stop raining until Friday.

Hopefully by then my house doesn’t look like this:


3). My dumb Home Owners Association sent us a letter earlier this month informing us that our front lawn was dry and dying. This is not surprising considering that it’s been over 100 degrees for the last month, and hasn’t rained since late July. Last week they sent us a second letter informing us that if our grass didn’t miraculously come to life within 30 days that they were going to take us to court. No more warnings, no fines, straight to court. How ridiculous is that??? I mean … what am I supposed to do? I water it. I reseed it. I fertilize it. But in point of fact, it’s just too freaking HOT. We are in Texas. TEXAS.

Here’s a picture of one of my neighbors and his wife out in front of their lawn (SEE RIGHT)

Now, does that grass back there look green to ANYBODY??? Noooo!!!! Because it’s August. In Texas. And there’s a drought. Heeeeello!

4). Now #4 is a good, good, good thing. In fact, it’s the only reason I’m not leaving bags of flaming cat poop in my neighborhood associations mailbox.  In fact, Dear Neighborhood Association - if you are reading this right now - send a thank you card to Doug & Joelyn Lauglin  B  E  C  A  U  S  E .....



A big thank you to www.LaughlinPhoto.com for taking these beautiful photos. If you’re within a 100 mile radius of Houston or The Woodlands and need absolutely drop-dead gorgeous photos for any occasion, please call Doug & Joelyn Laughlin. They took my wedding photos, and they take all my CD and promo shots. They’re super talented, fun to work with, and reasonably priced (actually, they’re a steal for the quality of work they give you).

Here are some of the photos:

View MORE PHOTOS HERE!

Love,

Jennifer

Yesterday was such an amazing day! It started out with Ms. Valerie Hartzell arriving at my house. I’m working with her to design a website for her new classical guitar group, The Presti Quartet. We got so much done! I designed a logo, we wrote and edited bios and articles … Once the site is done I’ll share the link.

Around 4:00 PM Valerie and I headed over to Dosey Does, my absolute favorite music venue in The Woodlands. The building is actually a 100-year old Kentucky barn that they imported to Texas and rebuilt with add-ons. It’s so cool and rustic looking! The owner collects antiques, piggy banks, old movie posters, and all sorts of vintage items that make the place feel like a cross between a Keep-Sake Museum and your great grandfather’s log cabin.

We got to listen to Jon Vezner’s sound check before Dosey Does even opened, which was fun, and then I had my soudcheck. Then Valerie (who was kind enough to help me set up), Jon Vezner and I went up to “The Green Room,” which is actually a rather dark room upstairs with rustic decore and comfortable sofas, and hung out until show time.

It was interesting getting to hear Jon talk about how he met and worked with the cellist performing with him that evening, and what it was like hanging out with major country stars in Nashville, and how so many of his songs have been covered by celebrities such as Clay Walker and Faith Hill. I found it all quite fascinating!

At 7:30 I went downstairs to prepare for my concert (this involved making sure I had room-temperature water, locating the manager, and then hanging out antsily* by the stage entrance ready to pop up there like a toy bird out of a cuckoo clock and crawl behind the piano.

Doug Laughling of Laughlin Photography came and shot photos of me performing, and Jon too.  He should have them ready in about a week, and I will post them as soon as I get them!  Check out Doug's website at www.LaughlinPhoto.com.

The concert (IMHO) went fabulously! I just had a really fun time, and the audience was completely mesmerized. They listened so intently to my entire set – it was wonderful!!!

I would tell you want my song line up was in order, but someone took my set list. LOL. It went something like this …

The Search
Scarborough Fair
The Haunting
Praying to the Walls
Avuncular
Blackbird
The Mad Mad March Hare Acoustic Exposition
Mercy
The Bedroom Door
Red
Snake

Jon Vezner, of course, put on a fabulous show, during which I had one of Dosey Does’ most fabulous, amazing, delicious, and humungous hamburgers with home-made fries, a little bucket of ketchup, and a glass of red wine. *Sigh!* It was a wonderful night.

I gave my Serpent Tales & Nightingales CD to Jon after the show and we are planning on staying in touch. He is a remarkably kind and down to earth fellow (o: I understand that he plans to tour through Texas on a recurring basis. I’d highly recommend visiting his website at www.JonVezner.com and signing up to his email list so you are notified whenever he’ll be in town next. He’s a great storyteller and a really fun performer to watch and hear live.

Have a lovely evening!

Jennifer

*Antsily: to behave in an antsy manner. And yes ... I made up this word.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to Valerie, Jason, Frank, Megan, Candace, Sharon, Craig, Tracy, Arnold, Ann, Cynthia, and everyone who came out last night to my show at Dosey Does opening for Jon Vezner.

As usual the sound quality at Dosey Does was top notch, and the food was great. I thought the show went really, really well. I had so much fun!

Before the show I got to sit up in the “green room” with Jon Vezner and chat a bit while we waited for call time.

I’ll take an hour or so tomorrow and really write you a play-by-play blog of the whole evening. It was very exciting, fun, and very interesting. I am so worn out and happy! (o:

Love,

Jennifer

Jason and I are thinking about writing a song inspired by The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien.  As many Tolkien buffs are well aware, Peter Jackson is set to direct a movie of The Hobbit, which is poised (rather precariously) to release in 2012.  Who knows ... if I get the chance you know I'll submit it for consideration in the sound track!

How should the song sound?  Mysterious? Scary? Happy? Haunting? Humorous (in a cute hobbit-ish way)?

What should it be about? Bilbo? The dwarves? Gandalf? The journey?  The mission? The ring? Gollum?

Let us know what YOU think via the voting poll HERE and the comment section below!!!


Love, love,

Jennifer

Tomorrow is going to be a Whale of a Day, and I am not referring to the Twitter Fail Whale. I am referring to Whale in the good old fashioned way; enormous, imposing, notably rare, and krill devouring.

The weather is supposed to be quite nice; highs in the upper 90’s and lows in the 70’s. For Houston, that’s practically paradise.

Around 2PM a certain blonde guitarist will be arriving at my hovel to work with me on creating a website for her new quartet. The guitarist is none other than Ms. Valerie Hartzell, and the group is The Pristi Quartet.

Shortly thereafter (around 4:30 I’m guessing) we will embark upon the perilous and extensive journey from my office to Dosey Does Coffee House … a pilgrimage that should take precisely 10 minutes.

There, we will do a sound check, and I will be very pleased to meet Mr. Jon Vezner, a singer, songwriter and Grammy Award winning recording artist who is touring through Texas from his home city of Nashville. In fact, I will be opening for him.

Here are the details:

Wednesday, August 25, 7:30 PM, Tickets: $8
Jon Vezner with opening act Jennifer Grassman
Dosey Doe’s Coffee House, 25911 I-45 North, The Woodlands, TX 77380
More Info: 281.367.3774 or www.DoseyDoesCoffeeShop.com

I will, of course, write you all about this gig in retrospect, tomorrow!

Love,

Jennifer

PS: For a "Fail Whale," the little Twitter mascot certainly does look happy and contented doesn't he?

I barely blogged last week. Did you miss me? Well, either way, I was swamped. My sisters were in town, and were shooting scenes for a Star Trek spoof entitled The Problem With Pogos that my sister Kaitlin Grassman (the film major) is producing. In fact Kaitlin is starting up her own little film company, which she has dubbed Penny Electric, and she’ll be directing my music video for The Haunting over Spring Break.  CLICK HERE to find out how to audition!

Here are some photos of us at work. I was a Pogo. Jason was the Head Pogo.













I'll post the episode on my blog and elsewhere when it's finished!!!!!!!! LOL!!!!!!!!

Below are some photos from The Houston Press Music Awards.  Read my interview with The Houston Press by clicking HERE.







Above: Accepting the Award for Best Keyboardist in Houston.






Above: With Jo Bird and Jerry Ochoa of Two Star Symphony.







Above: Singing Somewhere Over The Rainbow in front of roughly 1,500 people (most of whom were musicians) at Warehouse Live.