Non-halloween (207/365a)

I still don't like halloween, and I don't miss it at all here, but its grimy little fingers are starting to smudge europe's discount stores markets and trying to poke and nudge its way into the quiet and calm all-hallows eve niche. I will have none of it! :)

It was the first day I didn't take a single photo of anything with any kind of camera since a long time. Too bad, because there were some photogenic moments today. Multiple coffees and cappucinos. Nina and I took Felix and Ro to town (ostensibly to buy some speakers off willhaben) and hung around playing pirates.

We stopped at the market on a glorious day and found perfect veggies which got turned into glorious eggplant pizza.

I had so much fun working on the Otto Siegl duo with Thomas.

Then yoga, where I was very restless. I had packed some change of clothes, but I didn't feel like the ones I had, so I went to the trading station, and spent a half hour trying on things until I found an outfit that was moderately appropriate for a concert and for dancing.

Then requiem concert. Michi was singing the Fux Requiem on period instruments, which is really a terrific piece. I find the acoustics in that church to be awful even for church music, but didn't mind it so much.

Then swing dancing, where some people were dressed up etc. but there was a refreshing number of people in regular clothes.

We were nebenan and were fragt (206/365a)

Felix spent most of the day at the Foersters, and Theodore and I had our lessons. There was no chorus today, which was a nice little bonus - an empty afternoon and evening that I had no qualms about leaving entirely empty. More kitchen work and music listening is fine too.

FragNebenan (ask next door) is an organization that Andi helped start a few years ago. It involves facebook groups in radiuses around your own home so you can ask people geographically close to you for help, and maybe get you out of your same-interests-same-friends-same-background-same-looks bubble. at 10pm he asked us to help translate his cv. (We learned some new things, like, that he gave a talk at TEDx, cool!) Finally something (small) we could give back.

working together: removing or maybe adding hyphens

moth day (205/365a)

:(

Happy moth day. Time to take everything out of the downstairs kitchen and fix the little moth problem...

 

Growing a new pickaxe handle on the hazelnut bushes

 

fall diptych

parsnip soup: dinner with nessie

The evening was an impromptu dinner cooking party at the Foersters, which was a most welcome distraction from cleaning.

Zorah: a study in watercolors

soberly sorting through everything

cleaning out the mixer - on the inside :(

my birthday a la nina (204/365a)

it was a day of cameras and cake. friends and fun. nerds and nerds. champagne and chasson.

Nina organized everything - the best help she could get was "I don't know" (Brian) and "chocolate" (Nick) in response to the question about what my favorite food is.

the morning was actually spent vacuuming and cleaning - which was actually fun. each kid helped with one room and we listened to fun music while we did it. brian went shopping twice .... tomorrow is sunday, and that means we have to stock up today!)

nina would have liked us to be there around noon, and we got there past 1:30 ... sorry sorry! dinner was ready and waiting and sooooo good. yummy mango curry and the "world's best salad" (Felix)

i took some photos too, but all these photos are courtesy of phil.

not too much before i kicked henry in the face

The sun along the Mur

the cake - was entirely with self foraged and processed chestnuts, and decadent chocolate icing.
i'm pretty sure felix wished it was his birthday.

the game was to try to eject people from the rotating disc.
the other games pictured here are
'cover me in rocks'
and
'please don't fall on me'

the party! not pictured: the photographer

pictured: the photographer

a dusk massage with a wide angle

But that wasn't all! We brought the party back home and kept celebrating round the table until midnight. We may have used a cleaver on some bread in the process.  Michi came over from across the street too.

so much cheese!!!!!

meh (203/365a)

some people in the house have energy

I was pretty sad all day, because of nothing. We finally turned on the heat, and I spent most of the day cuddled by myself near the stove. There were so many fun things I wanted to be doing on this day off, but we just laid low. We didn't even go for a walk. :(

Jackie and I went for a walk later into town to get a beer and talk. She actually ordered tea, not a beer, and asked for honey. They asked what she wanted it for. She said for her tea. They came back and said they had no honey, but they had agave, would she like that? She said sure. They brought her a 2lb jar of the stuff and a giant soup spoon. Strange.

We talked about life and walked home together, noticing there were stars out. I woke Brian up so we could walk across the street to the construction site and find the twins and orion, and he said happy birthday right at midnight. <3

nationalfeiertag (202/365a)

even when everyone's cranky and fighting, there are still moments of love and delight... sharing special band-aids with each other

dr. henry and felix

glad that nina came and rescued me to bring my spirits up... if she had managed to catapult me with the fig tree i would have soared even higher. there's even photographic evidence of the great schlossberg fig theft...

belles with beautiful beute

where's irma?

At home the mood hadn't lightened much. I took Theodore on a fun cool mommy-son bonding bike ride (my perspective) which turned out to be the worst bike ride ever (his perspective) ... I left Brian to pick up those pieces, and headed to meet about united intonations, and talk about videos/recordings/songs/and of course celebrate Austrian National Day.

cheers!

sleeeep (201/365a)

closing the shutters to darken the room at sleep time

brian took care of everything this morning while i slept off my day yesterday.

we had one of henry's new friends from school and his mother and brother over after school and I made dinner. Theodore didn't turn on the oven all the way, so dinner took a lot longer than expected, but it all turned out great. we all got along well, and the kids got extremely muddy "painting" the treehouse (with mud, of course)...

the kids don't fit all together in the bathtub anymore.... so it's officially "every man for himself" which of course takes longer. Looking forward to Nationalfeiertag tomorrow.... a day off to sleep in ... again.

Linz and more! (200/365a)

The last Neuroth concert, the ones where we are disoriented by concertizing at 10am with the feel of 8pm. again up at 4am, to leave Graz at 5. I have never been to Linz, but cannot pretend like I have been there now - we just drove through, gave our concert and left. We didn't even have the energy for a good photobooth picture. Barbara's step dad was taking pictures and video for us. I gave him my camera which happened to have no battery or memory card in it. Good thing he didn't even attempt to use it - he was happy with his own setup.

We got stuck in traffic because one of the tunnels was closed. The mountains we drove past were so beautiful. With rainbows, snow, gorgeous skies...

Terrible cell phone picture.

Went to yoga where I got sooo cold in the final meditation. Headed off to swing dancing beginners night. Met up with Manuela, which was the highlight of the evening [ we hid in the restaurant. Didn't really dance after she left, but ended up talking until late with someone Manuela knew and introduced me to when she was leaving.

earlier than we wanted (199/365a)

Today Rainer turns forty. I had so many intentions, but ended up with nothing better than a skype chat on my way to sleep. :( not all my ideas/projects work out. sad about that.

i was cranky all day anyways, because i was awoken about 2 hours earlier than usual for no particular reason. some days are just cranky days.

Theodore had his first lesson with Elke, right after mine. He had auditioned with Brian while I was returning from our trip. She surprised me with a pianist to play Bartok with me... Hooray! (But I wish I had practiced - I basically was on pre-and-post Algeria hold)

I made really yummy food that Henry refused to eat. we are on a game of "chicken" (well, the vegetarian version, haha) where I won't make anymore bread or buy more oatmeal until he chooses to at least try my food.

I drew balloons.
I also drew balloons on felix's pants at 7:30am.
I also played "balloon fighting" with felix.
Because today is apparently a day for balloons.

we did have a ton of fun looking up various bizarro animals in my animal encyclopedia. and we had a great time using watercolor pencils to draw.

felix drew hearts

I made Theodore cry by accident. He drew a man walking with umbrellas on his feet, and so I drew clouds on the ground and flowers coming out of the sky. And he was very upset because the MAN is supposed to be ride side up, and the rain is supposed to be falling from the ground.

Bumbershoot-shoes... Bumbershoes?

a rained out picnic (198/365a)

after Cecilia bought a new tricycle, we've been waiting for a time to go as a group on a little trip. We picked today for a bike ride to eggenberg and a picnic. The weather was predicted to be wet, and the morning was beautiful ... and then it started to rain. No matter! We are now pros at setting up indoor picnics, and this was no exception.

say cheese!!

Brian surprised us by buying the 2euro dollar bottle of prosecco, which was decent! We had Nina's yummy aufstriche, and veggies, and tarts and bread. I know half of what I talk about is food, but it was very good! And the experimental gluten-free brownie was better than any flourful brownie ever.

it turned out way better than this photo!

We played board games, and watched Top Hat. I walked Nina back in the rain and was rewarded with red wine an celebrity jeopordy! <3

Leben, Lachen, Liebe (197/365a)

l'chaim l'chaim to life!

kindergarten has occasional werkltage which are days they ask parents/friends to come and work on things together - stuff like chopping firewood, fixing/cleaning tents, putting up/taking down swings etc. i have never been, but brian tries to go every time. every time so far i have had a conflict. imagine my excitement when i realized i didn't have a conflict this time... 

until we were on our way back from algeria and scheduled a rehearsal for this morning. ...

which got canceled last night.....

...so i can, go, right?

yes, but now... i can chose not to. :) so i decided to spend the day werkling my own stuff - cleaning, fixing things, relaxing. 

eventually i went on a tourist walk of graz with nina, where we stood in the bike lane and took selfies with the uhr turm and checked out K&Ö ... very fun. 

we found this great bottle of wine, and it went very well with the raspberries from the garden. brian and i each chose one of the three things listed on the bottle to toast to: life, love, and laughter. i'll drink to any and all of those!

creativity attack (196/365a)

i haven't felt particularly creative recently, but my kids were really showing me up lately.

felix dug a huge hole in our driveway, and we asked him to kindly fill it in, so theodore helped by making him a tool ...... out of a board and several sticks and nails. then i took his picture with his very own polaroid camera.

building tools

felix brought me a very wonderful bouquet of flowers, picked with care

so beautiful

and henry interpretive danced to the bach chaconne (played on theodore's 1/2 size violin with a 1/4 size bow while i waited for him to come downstairs with the correct bow to practice) .... best viewed as a video.

recovery day ii (195/365a)

and because i stayed up so late last night and drank wine, i barely wanted to do anything at all *again* today. thus, when irmtraud asked me if i had recovered from our trip, i could say "yes, but now i have to recover from my new hangover"

disappointing orthopedic appointment this morning, that took up way too much time.
dinner was griessnockerlsuppe made of nothing. our little family had fun reading and crafting and cooking and singing. after bed time brian and i stayed up, nominally to clean, but practically to make more messes. he is the official muffin king.

banana bread master.

recovery day i (194/365a)

when you dump your laundry on the floor so you can have a table because you just don't care anymore.

so much to do at home, and after 12 hours of sleep i still wasn't prepared to do any of it. sometimes it's time to just go for walks and lay around and take naps. i didn't unpack, i didn't clean up, i didn't charge my camera battery, i didn't ......... ....... well, at least i made great bread [with chernushka seeds, that i learned about years ago from Alec at contra dancing, and just rediscovered in algeria, and with flour that brian ground yesterday at Das Gramm]

and in the evening nina and i had some lovely wine and snacks, eventually joined by brian and centa, when they coincidentally arrived home at the same time. brian had been out at the swing cafe.

can't stop (193/365a)

boarding: 1am
frankfurt arrival: 6am (lost an hour)
vienna arrival: 8:15
next gig in vienna: 9:15 - 2pm ... with a different cellist, a backup group (in case our plane doesn't arrive in time) a gigantic amount of luggage, and absolutely next to 0 hours of sleep.

can we do it? YES!

we change into concert clothes in the car, we play the gig, with multiple espressos, somehow pack everything into the van, and head home. i left my keys at home (on purpose so i don't lose them somewhere in africa) but noone is home so i head straight to jackie and andi's house where my kids are not-at-all waiting for me. ("oh hello mama" and off they go to play)

glad i went there, they had dinner all ready (andi's mom was there to cook) and i just had to enjoy and participate and talk a mile a minute because i was on a sleep deprivation high.

serving salad

relaxed!

home and instant sleep while reading the wizard of oz.

opera day(192/365a)

we spent an hour stuck in traffic, and were worried we wouldn't have time to rehearse, but the opera personnel were great, and our sound check went off without worry.

rehearsal at the beautiful opera house in Algier

we were quite optimistic and felt relatively well rested and ready to play. the contrabass kept being switched and lent to different groups but other than that there was basically no unknowns. we were brilliantly happy. we took a few minutes to go kind of shopping (i spent a total of 1euro) with youcef at the market down on the street where the hotel was. 

the shops were set up in the first floors of houses. it was too hot and dusty for people to be outside so the shop keepers sat inside in nearly dark. youcef made sure nobody gave me the wrong change. then it was coffee-nap time (20 minutes of nap after a quick cup of coffee)... Barbara and I also spent quite a bit of time working our social media outlets to highlight the coolest aspects of our trip.

the concert was to be at 6:30, and we were on at 7, but the first group started late played too long, we got moved to be the third group, and the second group also played things that weren't on the program. we danced backstage, like maniacs, ballet in high heals to "swan lake" and disco dancing to pirates of the carribean etc. we were getting more and more nervous, since we had to leave from the hotel at 11:30 to catch our flight. before that we still had to eat, and we still had to pack [a large amount of our luggage is necessary on stage!] youcef came to say goodbye - he had another group to drive now. we didn't want to say goodbye, so irmtraud made some phone calls and he got to stay with us! "cookie, do we have a problem?" :)

us pre-concert

concert went great! audience loved us, they came backstage to take selfies with us and interview us, ask us for cds, etc, but we were in a great hurry and left as quickly as we could. we were punchy and silly and sad all at the same time. we disco danced all the way in the car to L.E.J. one of youcef's favorites. straight on to boarding, goodbye Algiers!

more masterclasses and a very diplomatic reception... (191/365a)

great fun giving masterclasses this morning. they were like individual lessons, but attendence was mandatory so the audience at these kind of private lessons were quite large and the students were quite nervous. they mostly needed help with the very basics of playing, although several of them were playing very complicated pieces. we didn't have enough time for any of them.

one of the students asked me if i could "put a new string on her viola" ... i told her that of course i could do that. when she got out her instrument however, there were no strings at all on it, no bridge, and no sound post. i felt very sorry to have to tell her i really couldn't help her.

we were supposed to have dinner with the students, but somehow, without our knowledge that changed, so we waited outside for a while until the driver came and took us to the opera for more catered dinner by ourselves. i took this picture of the sea between a building and its reflection. a police officer came and yelled at me, for taking a photo of a government building. he was not pleased with me.

the Mediterranean 

we were scheduled to play at the Austrian Embassy that night in celebration for Austrian National Day (which is actually in a few weeks) ... we arrived very early, and for the first time we were quite cold. The ambassador and her husband informed us about the results of the Austrian Election, and we were very subdued by the news.

election numbers

after we played the austrian national anthem and two of our concert pieces we were free to eat, drink and be merry, mingling with military attaches and diplomats from all over the world. mostly we were surprised by the terrible misogyny and class-ism that is apparently accepted even by people who are not actively participating. since we had missed most of the real food while waiting to play we replaced those missing calories with wine, which was, in retrospect, a rather poor choice.

highlights from the diplomats:
"i cannot support music because i am an honest capitalist"
"du da! die bratsche mit den blauen augen!"
"i wish my job was to be surrounded by beautiful ladies" (like klaus, of course)

Tipaza, Entre l’Antique et le Classique (190/365a)

early morning breakfast and leaving. glad i went to sleep at 7, which gave me 12 hours. for me an extra hour of early because although i set my watch when i arrived i did not set my computer, which is also my alarm clock. last year there was no time difference and this year there was, because there is no daylight savings time here.

before i was aware of my extra hour i visited the hotel gym, which ended up being closed, unlocked and dark with no light switch to be found. when my eyes adjusted to the dark i discoverd that "gym" and "fitness center" was just a sauna, so even if it had been open it wouldn't have been useful. i would have liked to just go for a walk, but i really shouldn't be walking around this area alone (especially without letting anyone know when/where i'm going) so i decided to just go up and down the hotel stairs a million times. well, it felt that way. showered, changed, went to breakfast and found noone there. waited for a while, then i asked someone what time it was, and he laughed with me.

the bus was waiting. it was extra big because we are travelling with the students that we worked with yesterday.

happy to be coming with us

doing making despite the speed bumps

we arrived in time for our shady outdoor rehearsal...

ready for us

every time we are in this wonderful country they are confused by our need for music stands - they clearly don't need them, but we do! :)

their director, our director, and students

The concert venue was right around the corner, at some Roman ruins... There was a tent set up for us, but we could smell the salt air plainly...

water's edge

there was a catered dinner (way lots of meat so i stayed kind of hungry) and we played with stray cats and enjoyed the surroundings. the concert was a terrific success, completely full, people standing in the aisle and outside of the tent. people backstage were dancing. we played with our students, we played with the cool group, we played alone, we melted a little bit in the sun.

i gave (another) hilarious interview. i got so nervous and shy that i jumped off the wall. good thing i didn't hurt myself or my instrument.

you want me to play? umm... ok! i mean... umm... no.

at last we got to do what we have been dying to do since we first tried it last year... some traditional algerian food. youcef picked the restaurant and ordered for us and ate with us. there was beer and wine and everything was delicious.

musicians are always hungry!

a very tired masterclass (189/365a)

2am-1pm travelling, and then 2pm masterclass.... well, we did it!

youcef met us at the airport smiling and happy. no customs line for us....it was nearly like coming home, seeing the same places/streets and of course people again.

we did it - tired and vitamin deficient we had a terrific time meeting students, playing with them and exchanging musical cultures. they played a polka with us, and we played two of their songs with them. we'll play one of ours and one of theirs at a concert in the roman ruins tomorrow...

youcef was very helpful translating when we needed, for example, a double bass and a cello to borrow that weren't broken.

learning about algerian ornamentation

this student will let Iva use his cello for the next three days... he has been playing for 3 years and already knows all the bach suites and several concertos by memory. he also plays many other instruments, including traditional ones.

youcef organizing for tomorrow

on our way home we found this gorgeous sunset....

crazy driving, beautiful view

... then i chose instabedtime over dinner. probably a wise choice since tomorrow is a full day!