happy birthday, contra dance (37/365g)

Brian had the day off, and we mostly just got ready for this evening's contra dance. we ran up against running out of time anyways. 

On my way out the door, the organ teacher called to tell me that Henry is not and will not be ready for prima la musica - for which i feel a strong sense of personal guilt (don't ask me why!) but i don't have time to talk to her, and bike off to contra where we had a nice time in kraeftner, but first we had to stand out in the cold waiting, because of a miss-communication, he unlocked the doors for us half an hour late. this was the first time since we started that we didn't have over-night guests or international visitors. i made a cake to celebrate, which centa brought with her. 

the dance was a success again, and i thought we played really nicely. Brian called very well, the dancers were all happy and our after hours party was also entertaining. the kids went home on their own and put themselves to bed, which made things very simple. 

art is better than food (36/365g)

renate was visiting from vienna, so we took the opportunity to hang out - we saw two art galleries, at haus der architechtur, there was an multi-artist exhibition where people could borrow the art for a year, 

and at akademie graz there was an exhibition of Christian Eisenberger (nomen est omen....) that showed various ice-sculptures and clever use of snow - i sent some terribly blurry photos to rainer. 

I had a Baroque lesson (that i was also unprepared for) and during chamber music we played john dowland. my plan of getting things that i had prepared to take to the free store didn't come to fruition because i didn't make it back home in time even though i had a key for maria's car.

not a nice day for a bike ride (35/365g)

it was unbelievably wet and cold and rainy and disgusting. 

before work was the first rehearsal with eva b. for the next concert featuring women composers, and we read through the new pieces for the first time. i was sight reading, totally unprepared. i can't keep up with my own projects!

kunstgarten work, then had to leave my viola there because of the rain and got home wet and bedraggled.

little extra things take all day (34/365g)

went to geza's to get bridge fixed. on my way out the door i found a sealed bottle of wine in the street, so i took it with me - why not!? - biking all the way to work and back home with it rolling back and forth in the basket. the violin was ready to be picked up in time for theodore's violin lesson this afternoon, but talking to geza took the whole hour. 

went to pierre's for late night, despite not feeling quite up for it, and going all alone. i got quite a lot of comments from strangers for sitting alone in a corner hanging out and listening, writing poetry.

give us your tired, your poor (33/365g)

Late getting out of bed. Somehow the morning hours are the most precious and I still manage to waste them. I wrote another new tune, one that I kind of half dreamed - based loosely on how I think the words "give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free."

Tried making a gel print from a page of vogue magazine, which is supposed to work great, but it was not quite contrasty enough unfortunately. i get a lot of energy from trying things like this though.

Kids had dispensepruefung right after i had an ysop rehearsal. we supposedly couldn't leave though the whole concert, but the whole quartet had some laugh attacks while we waited through the 3 hours.

theodore's violin bridge and sound-post fell down with a resounding "clomp" right after he finished playing, so i called geza for an emergy luthier appointment tomorrow morning.

phil and i rehearsed for contra until very late in the night, i had to leave some things out because we didn't have enough time to learn all new stuff

day of unrest (32/365g)

After our 2am return this morning, Brian sang a mass and I helped kids with getting school studying organized. A friend of Brian's birthday was today, and he was celebrating by running his age in kilometers, Brian joined for half of them. 

I went to work for the afternoon, and got back after Brian had left for his Shape Note Singing. The kids spend tooooo much time on their computers. I hate it. 

We made a soup to absolutely die for...
3 inches of ginger and 6 cloves of garlic roughly chopped, sweated in a mixture of canola and coconut oil. Spicy Thai curry powder and sweet paprika and 2 big carrots. add hot vegetable stock and cook till soft, puree and add a can of coconut milk. mix ins in the bowl: ripped nori, lightly baked smoked tofu, and softened rice vermicelli. 

Athrive at forty-five (31/365g)

Brian's birthday today, which we celebrated the only way we know how - doing as much stuff separately as possible. I baked a cake while Brian was doing his park run.

Theodore and Henry had an organ recital, vorspielstunde, at which we were told they really should practice if they want to do a good job at the upcoming competition.

Theodore was off to do a special training from the university about how to perform on stage. Maybe that would have been useful before the recital this morning, haha. 

Brian and I started but did not finish the set list for the upcoming contra dance, and I wrote him a tune for his birthday.

Henry went over to a friend to work on school work, and when everyone was home again for 25 minutes we sang happy birthday and Brian's parents called.

I saw part of a cool show at Kraeftners with Manuela, (Maria Magdalena, the band name of Tobias Pöcksteiner) and then went to the communist ball with Brian and Jackie and Andi where we danced to way too loud music and stuffed napkins in our ear and drank warm beer outside in the cold and ate cake out of a Tupperware and stayed out till 2am.