switching off between walking and lazing (201/365g)

Breakfast in the morning was chaotic, with nobody knowing how to make coffee with the machines, and everyone wanting oatmeal their own way. I slept very late - we had to sleep backwards on our bed because the floor is not level and with our heads at the headboard they would be lower than our feet. Tara arrived! Her cat had been bitten by a snake on Wednesday, and she's taken the last few days to make sure it's back on its feet.

I read and lazed around for a bit, while other people walked around. It's pretty easy to be lost in this big house, or just not found by others. 

Most important for Felix and Tara was the soccer final today. Hooray. We had to plan around that. We took a delightful ice-cream run, before rushing back to switch on the TV. I hid away from the game and read some more.

Making dinner for 15 people in an unknown kitchen was an adventure. I made 5 cups of rice, and had no idea how long it would take for the water to boil on a stove that seems to go unreasonably slowly.

Long walk on the beach near sunset after dinner, which was most relaxing, and more reading and lazing before bed. Not so bad if you like that sort of thing. Was wonderful to dip our feet in the Atlantic again!

heading to maine (200/365g)

Woke up sore, all lopsided from contra, around 7, and Brian was already on the train to Framingham to do a 5k park run there. He got back around noon. 

Felix couldn't wait to get to the library to get the second book of a series that he finished yesterday. They didn't have that, but papa was delighted that he found the entire herodotus history audiobook which can stream on his phone. We got out other books in the children's room, and walked out with a huge stack of books. 

Back to bjs to return the clothes that I bought yesterday in the wrong size. 

Did some borax treating against ants, we had lunch, and packed, leaving later than Brian wanted. It started raining while I was drinking a cup of coffee with papa. Meanwhile, Rainer and the boys invented a bucket ball game, trying to get the bucket to flip upright by shooting a basketball into it. 

We packed all the boys into the teeny tiny mini Cooper, and drove up to Maine,stopping at the library again for Felix, where he happily got his second book. 

The house in York is unbelievably huge. After that cramped ride in the mini, we all really enjoyed being able to stretch our legs.

Felix settled right onto the couch with Kevin to watch the world cup 3rd place game, which ended 6-4 England vs France. He and Henry stayed back while Kevin Brian and I went another 70 miles north to contra in topsham. Ultimate luxury: two nights in a row contra dancing. This one was small but molto-energetic. The clementines were playing, and they kept the mood up. 

early run + late dance = sleepy (199/365g)

Brian and I woke I stupid early again and Brian was just heading out for a November project bancroft tower walk/run, so I went with him. We did that for an hour and then stopped at price chopper for bagels because Brian had a craving. We brought the toaster outside and the boys devoured those bagels completely. That was a big hit. 

Papa and I went to bjs where we bought fruit that was devoured the second we arrived home. 

Rainer Centa Theodore and Henry went to batting cages for the evening. 

Felix and Brian and I went to Contra in the evening, driving an hour and a half to get there. We ran into the caller will m's partner that we met in Normandy. She was the last person I danced with in Europe and the first I danced with in the US. Walking into the Montague town hall, she looked at me funny and I looked at her funny and then she said, do I know you from France?? 

We took a selfie and sent it to will who was really sweet and offered us admittance to Ashokan dance that he's calling at with jay ungar and molly mason- which we had to unfortunately turn down. 

I couldn't stop falling asleep on the drive back and Brian kept waking me up with loud hiccups.

nostalgia (198/365g)

reminiscing today on the patio Papa told a few entertaining stories about Uncle Lenny, grandpa's brother, who I didn't really know very well, despite his living in syracuse and living longer than my grandfather.

The story goes that Uncle Lenny was extremely intelligent and very quick to learn, but rigorously opposed to showing off. He would answer questions correctly on tests until he got to where he knew he passed and then just stop answering from then on. He passed all his classes with the barest minimum. This kind of behavior got him sent to the army, where, with his academic background, they wanted to make him a lieutenant, but he told them he'd rather be an enlisted man, and begin as a private. He had to learn to drive a tank despite being 6foot five and very broad, and barely fitting in the tank. His team had to learn how to extricate him from the tank in an emergency, by breaking his legs, but that never ended up happening.

His wife, Esther, after having been married for several, perhaps 10 or 15 years, in the family, pointed out one day to my great grandmother, lenny's mother, that she had never heard her play. Her first job was playing for silent films, and there was a piano in the room. Papa was there too, it was just his grandmother, Aunt Esther and him, and his grandmother sat down and said, "these are wildflowers" and played, "not any kind of specific piece, but it sounded like wildflowers."

...

It was a lazy kind of day, except for Brian, who ran 21km round trip in the blistering heat to Auburn, right next to the mass pike, to update his ez-pass, and return our 20 year old transponder that is no longer connected to any account.

I went through old papers in the basement this morning, and stumbled across some photocopies of music that I played with Theodore, Henry and Edward. 

Centa was wearing my dress to work, which was a weird thing to see - the one I bought for Danielle's wedding - I guess it's just hanging in the closet.

The wildfire-haze is still hanging over the NE, which just feels weird. The kids played pool and risk and  lots of basketball (i was awakened at 7am by dribbling outside the window), and I read the book Phil gave me and took photos, and fell asleep in the greenhouse for 3 hours.

hoops and dreams (197/365g)

many days missing for technical reasons.

but here i am again, here we are again. we have landed in the usa and are ready to begin our summer of paradise beneath the wildfire suns (there are wildfires in canada which is making the air hazy here, and the sun appear strange - appocalyptic, rainer calls it).

due to jet lag we were up at 5 am. 

first thing (with coffee) was to play a bit of the new banjo.

EVERYTHING IS BIGGER HERE!

(also the thrift stores!) walking around savers with henry and edward i ran into christine who was there with her kids walter and donald, donald celebrating his 13th birthday today. what a coincidence. i bought 10 books for no particular reason.

reading: all my friends are dead

for edwards birthday LAST year, he had gotten a sweet basketball hoop that just needed assembly. no problem, would go quickly - a few minutes. ended up taking edward, henry and me 4 hours, and we needed all the help we could get from grandpapa, brian, theodore, felix and rainer.

cooked dinner in the evening, and then went off alone to have a spot of beer and download some open source programs for my new laptop. 

still don't know how to use my cpl filter, but i'll figure it out i hope. now i will just read one of these new books and fall asleep.

supposed to be able to control reflections

like a line (98/365g)

i went to vienna to see renate's ausstellung in page 84 - actually the office of an advertising agency with the motto "„Out on the edge you see all kind of things you can’t see from the center. Big, undreamed-of-things – the people on the edge see them first.“ their name and motto they got by opening vonnegut's Player Piano to a random page (page 84)... Her ausstellung was really beautiful.

talked to maria organ about henry and found some possibilities for him to play but she was thinking they are too difficult - we'll see what he ends up with. 

right when i got to vienna, otto was waiting for me at the oenb, where he had pre-reserved a piece "kassandras ruf" for me at the musiksammelung. we spent some time photographing the score for personal reasons only, and then went together to a lovely coffee shop in the sun, where we payed more than 30 euros for 2 coffees and a single kaiserschmarrn. i had invited magda(lena) from contra to the gallery, and so we hung out together a bit, including for a pizza dinner. altogether i spent 5 hours in the train today, almost all of which was updating and editing my blog. there are no quick tasks. but i did it and now i feel good! - next up, pictures!

tuesday is the new monday i guess (97/365g)

the whole day today felt like monday. now the week feels too short! also, today was the first day since the time-change where we had to really wake up early enough. the workers for the rollos got here at 7:30 and hammered and banged around till the afternoon, finishing the job in record time. i went to work and then to ysop with only 2 people (not including philipp came over for a little bit in there) and we argued about payment, because i really don't want them to pay extra when not so many people come - i feel like that's not fair. this time i won the argument. 

theodore practiced calling a contra dance when he got back from singschule after 9pm. 

felix had a soccer tournament at school and apparently his team won every match. that was pretty cool for him.