very impromptu nirthday celebration (323/365b)

centa's birthday or not-quite-birthday celebration. she made a delightful cake for herself with new beaters (mechanical "old school" ones). - those were our present for her, but it was so funny because i didn't know she would do her celebration today, and theodore wasn't home yet, so i tried to get her to postpone making her cake till when he got home. when he got back, he seemed very disinterested in making the cake because the three of them went up to wrap the present. they got down in time, made the cake together and we celebrated in very haphazard style.

us cool people

for me??

felix and centa share a moment

extra work (322/365b)

theodore apparently told everyone at school and everywhere else that his birthday was today... because he was born at 11pm on the 26th in boston and that means it was 5am on the 27th in graz. he does have a point.

barbara came over and worked a bit in the morning. we even designed flyers for potential events in november. quintet just creates so many side projects, that are individually quite manageable, but in sum quite time consuming and overwhelming. one step at a time seems to work best. but i'm still obsessed with arranging. currently i am going one 5 second phrase at a time on a piece on youtube at 0.25x speed, and just writing down the notes one at a time.

checking notes on the viola before entering them into finale
my finale2003 version is one i still have left from when i went to college in ... what was that year?
oh yes, 2003. i still have fond memories of the finale class i took.

i took theodore, henry, felix and ronja to the kids chorus, and theodore and henry to the library in the meantime. every time i go to a library here, i get completely aggressively attached to the Dewey decimal system and well organized libraries.

Theodore did another krol roger show tonight. he got himself home by 8:40. unfortunately, brian got there at 8:20, and waited there for theodore until i called to say he'd gotten home by himself. it's not ideal that he goes home alone that late, but it's kind of cool that it works.

theodore's 9th birthday (321/365b)

theodore's birthday. i can't (i truly can't!!) believe he has turned 9.

very busy day, basically like a typical monday only worse. in between theodore's school and music things i took him for lunch at parks where we had a grumpy waitress. i got home and rushed to bake a cake, but i sadly left it in a little too long, and it got a bit dark. nina and manuela came over to celebrate with us. felix tried to scream during singing. brian had to leave for chorus before the last of the presents was opened. watched the third man after all the bedtime stories had been finished.

Nina plays rush hour before cake time

from persons far and near

9 years old!

the happy group after all the screaming and singing

nightmarish concert after a comically awful dream (320/365b)

i don't usually share dreams, since i think they are usually only interesting to others. also, i haven't been remembering them very much lately. there was a time in my life that i wrote every single dream down that i had, and they began to get so vivid, and so frequent i was waking up at all odd hours of the night to write in my dream book. eventually that novelty wore off. i have had some great ideas in dreams. also, once, in a dream, i proved, without a doubt, the existence of god, though sadly, i forgot how as soon as the day arrived.

this one is too funny and was too vivid not to write about though: i call it the tattoo dream
i was on a beach somewhere, with my quintet on a work trip. i was very dizzy from sun/dehydration, and asked a stranger for a glass of water, which she told me she would let me have if i just read through her catalog of tattoos she could make. i paged through it and chose one, i thought it would be small, but it ended up covering my entire calf. i was so nervous about what people would think. barbara made a kind of concerned face and told me ... "yeah... i would remove that." i asked her "yes please! do you know where i can do that?" ... yes, she could, but i would have to wait a few months, you can't remove fresh ink, and she's never heard of anyone removing it the day they got theirs. klaus told me he didn't understand the joke, and i explained that nobody understood the joke. i was mortified. and the thoughts and emotions (the most vivid part of the dream) just piled up. how could i hang out on the beach? what if mary came to visit? what would my dad think?

so i looked it up and i guess it's true
you've got to wait to remove that tattoo
-wannabe leonard cohen lyrics

i drew it pretty much right away
WHAT are those wingdings characters underneath?
what does it meeeean?

vacation is over and it's back to school and kindergarten and routine. everyone very tired but overall well mooded.

i wanted to go see buchbinder conduct 3 beethoven concertos from the piano, and have been looking forward to going with pauli but in the end he cancelled on me and i went alone. sadly it was actually a truly awful concert with a terrific soloist. the orchestra just didn't follow anything. i was all alone standing in the back, and after the intermission, i was still holding out hope for the great c-minor concerto, but no luck, it made me annoyed enough that i just went home. buchbinder became an ehrenmitglied of musikverein, which was kind of fun to watch after the break, he gave a nice little speech about how music is the only language that doesn't need a translator, no matter where your music originates.

more museum (319/365b)

made it to the joanneum this time for the guided tour for kids about hibernation. sometimes i felt like i could have given a better tour, but the under 10 set had fun. brian met us at the museum, and took henry to buy new sports shoes from willhaben. the shoes have been a point of contention between theodore and henry. henry likes theodore's better than his own, so has been wearing theodore's whenever he can, because theodore allowed him to once. he now has his own, that he picked out himself. sparkly purple ones and shiny silver ones - real soccer shoes. he's so happy.

felix decides he wants an egg, so he makes one himself.

brian and irma heading down down down to the museum

house keeping (318/365b)

saturday... delightfully letter writing day. lots and lots of writing, still full of excitement from the albertina. i didn't take pictures today, but i found this one that i took on brian's phone on wednesday

they should make this a postcard advertising the albertina

thomas came over for duet playing (after about a year off... he has been dealing with some medical things and has been attempting to keep any superfluous stress away), and the foersters had our kids over for a sleep over. we did lots of house cleaning with our free time.

i'm sad that the weekend is starting because the end of the break is coming (317/365b)

we did so much art today. we painted canvases and made projects. felix made a sculpture out of an old toothbrush from which he had removed the bristles with a pair of pliers and a lot of difficulty and using a lot of patience.

mr. toothbrush man

nina came over early and sewed up theodore's hat for his costume, filling it with stuffing to make it stand up straight.

after henry's cello lesson, michi and i took our kids to the children's museum to check out the end of the exhibit about water for 3-6 year olds. they have one exhibit for ages 3-6 and one exhibit for ages 6-12. if you want to go to both exhibits with all your kids, each person has to have 2 entrance tickets. i feel like that is unfairly discriminating against people with 2 kids, specifically aged 7 and 3 like michi has. she can't leave her older kid alone in the big kids exhibit "until he's 12" and neither kid gets much out of the exhibit intended for the other. oh well. we had fun until the museum closed.

on our way home we left theodore and henry at the abenteuerspielplatz, which is open late for a game of "werewolf" ... it's for big kids, and both my kids are by far the youngest participants. Henry had never played before.

I picked them up and on the way home stopped briefly at the lendhotel to look at the stars and each of us identified some half a dozen constellations and we had delightful conversation on our short walk home.

momo movie (316/365b)

felix stayed home with brian, very happily. just a very gorgeous day (other than a bit of congestion)

for me a bit of shopping and the library with theodore and henry. we found out our favorite second hand shop is closed for good.
henry has his costume all ready for fasching. theodore is just starting on his.
i spent lots of time on my computer trying to arrange some music for quintet by cole porter and seeming to get farther and farther away from what i want.

as soon as the kids were asleep we watched Momo (it's been months since we've finished the book, and we've finally gotten around to it) really great fun to watch, even though it was way too creepy for kids. good thing they didn't stay up for this one.

centa's glasses (really mama's john lennon glasses from the 60s with new lenses in them)
match the "real life" glasses in the movie opening credits with author michael ende's cameo.

the albertina (315/365b)

so much fun at the albertina. it was a truly wonderful full day, looking at paintings.

i wanted to go to the library, but late last night i found all the information online that i was actually going to search for, and i would have gone to the library anyway just to look around, but we found plenty of other ways to occupy ourselves. we filled nearly the entire day (about 7 hours of museum time) with art, mostly paintings and sculputures.
we had a chocolate break and a dinner break
they got more chocolate from the waitress

we saw charcoal paintings by robert longo (one, of mickey mouse that made felix have a laughing fit, and one of a whitepillow that i explained at first, was a photograph, before i read the description), surreal stuff from franz sedlacek (my new favorite surrealist), picassos (felix pouted that they didn't have his favorite picasso)...

on our way through the city

after, on our way out

brian still had to go for his daily run, so he left us waiting at the train station for a few minutes.

right after being told by a train official not to play with the escalators
waiting to see who catches the first glimpse of papa as he rushes back just in time for the train

ah ha, that's what took brian an extra couple minutes... waiting in line at the spar
the kids slept on the train ride home. we didn't :)

badger badger badger badger (314/365b)

kids went to schloss and schluessel museum. i just went last week with nick, so brian took them, and he had never been before. i was glad for a few minutes alone.

meanwhile the mushrooms that centa has been feeding coffee have finally gotten ready for harvest time.... and they look a little anthropomorphic... we don't know why the little center vent didn't produce any mushrooms.

a new alternative to hello kitty?

centa harvested and cooked with the kids who were quite delighted with the entire process. the ultimate dinner of champions (but not champignons).

mint julep reprise (313/365b)

dentist in the morning and then henry got to go visit a school friend of his, niklas, all on his own. they wanted to have him stay longer, but when 7pm rolled around we went and took him home.

i met with irmtraud about a possible concert, brought about by knowing nina who knows people.

all i wanted all day was tiramisu. i made one but the only problem is now that i've made t-irma-misu....  i want to be eating it NOW and not tomorrow.

nina visited for 15 minutes on her way too and from things. we were both pretty low energy.

theodore spent the afternoon in the basement doing ... something

gorgeous day out, felix just wanted to cuddle. i lay on the porch for a while just cuddling him, that was a special delight.

dancing in the evening with my love, just at home, to try to practice our dancing with the music of the song, rather than just the beat. we high-level analyzed the song mint julep so we would know when what was going to happen in the song. and then we danced to it over and over again.

:) mint julep

kiss me kate :) (312/365b)

quintet rehearsal, and we had a discussion afterwards which was a bit difficult and unsettling. i felt a bit sad afterwards. but at least i snagged this funny picture of barbara matching her percussion instrument.

we'll have to find a more curly snare brush

i just barely got to the opera on time to see kiss me kate with brian and the kids. i went home early with felix who thought the thing was just too long at 3hours. i think he was right. i also have to remember that american musicals just are not in the blood of these austrian actors/singers/musicians/etc. the costumes were phenomenal. and i just love the show anyways. i was afraid they left out "too darn hot" all together, but the boys assured me it opened the second act.

in the intermission right before i took felix home
they're so cute in their fancy dress shoes!

early in the morning, while i was at rehearsal early in the morning, i connected roxanne, the canadian violist, with brian, who borrowed the uboot to help her move her washing machine. just another thing i would have loved to have in terms of help from strangers moving into a new town. it's the least i can do.... then brian and the kids got to have an outdoors grill party (in february!) with the foersters before the opera show. i was so jealous. i just had a dry sandwich stuffed in my coat pocket to eat between my rehearsal and the show.

plus dancing at 10:30, doing social dance choreography to mint julep with brian. <3

music, music, music (311/365b)

quintet rehearsal in the morning turned into quintet rehearsal till 4. got to practice my shaker skillz.

while the strings practice barbara and i, the rhythm section (bongos and shaker)
take photos and drink coffee and do silly things

still bright and sunny when we leave rehearsal - winter is winding down!

met elisabeth, the secret admirer - very cool, but a little anti-climactic. watched klara flieder teach a student the prelude of the e-major partita. i was sorry to have to leave, but i was also so hungry, and i still wanted to go to the opera tonight.

found out that roxanne, the canadian violist, lives down the street from me. (because she asked for help moving a washing machine, and told me her address, which is ... well, about 0.1km from here.)

saw koenig roger, which was very strange. a huge bathtub in the middle of the stage painted gold - becomes the baptismal font, a gigantic pit of mud to bury people in, a strange deity icon, and lots more. meditation style: centa watched it without subtitles, standing the whole way through. i was so proud of theodore, standing right up front and center of the children's choir. theodore joined us after the first act and the two of us snuck into some nice seats at intermission. we walked home, the buses were on a strange schedule.

at home, all the music high had to be subdued a little so brian and i listened to a lecture on happiness by osho, which took some dark turns into analyzing dr. schreber as the father of fascism. osho was a really out there cult leader, but i know why.. his voice is so mesmerizing, and his ideas are so compelling.

nick out (310/365b)

so after a late morning and a nice brunch we left nick at the airport.

waiting for the plane to arrive
(with my new granite buttons)

kids came home with no homework and all 1s on their first report cards. so glad to be on holiday for the next week! all good stuff today. orchestra rehearsals.

quintet rehearsal in the evening. finally learned how to use a shaker, after 2 years of playing birdland. i didn't study percussion ... and it's not easy!

valentines day with friends.... (309-2/365b)

the musician's didn't exactly leave at 9... more like a few minutes before 11. but that's ok.

what are we watching?

we are watching the double bass player show off his purple trombone - he's good too!

posaune!

on the way back, i remembered it was valentines day, which didn't exactly change any of my plans since this isn't so much my kind of holiday.. 

i did get to spend my evening with lots of awesome friends. nick and i went for a fun walk, starting with buying some krapfen and some new buttons (for my very old coat) then just very half-hearted sightseeing, mostly sarcastic window shopping.

nina and nick and kris went to see blue man group, and manuela and i went to the opening of jun yang's show at the kunsthaus. it was kind of disappointing art-wise, but definitely entertaining, because manuela and i were together.

stuff and fluff

theodore had his krol roger premier at the opera. i didn't go see it, but afterwards the audience i met said they liked it. 

more kunsthaus

manuela's mirror selfie

we left to go to the second museum which was having an opening tonight, but they had closed early to make room for the one we were already at. this guy was down there, with a beautiful dog, and manuela wanted to take a photograph of it. unfortunately, there was no light. the man just decided to sit and smoke a cigar, and gave the leash to manuela. the dog was big and had a mind of its own, so he just pulled her along with her. i tried to grab a photo, but i think the conditions were pretty much against me.

manuela wanted a photograph of this dog, and he wanted none of it.

a couple looking at ... umm... not much

before all the exhibitions all of us (including little theodore) went out for dinner at ginkos. i had to leave to drop theodore off for his premier, but i came right back and we got some nice amount of chatting in before we went our separate ways. manuela gave kris a stamp so that he could mail her a postcard from last year before she moves next week.

a study in blues and greens

we walked all around the city taking more photos (some better, i think than some of the ones we saw in the exhibition) and after all this poorly organized post, we said our goodbyes and i took theodore home (very late - the only time he has to stay to the end of the show)

still covered in gold make-up

valentines day with friends.... (309-1/365b)

first things first ... poems for my boys.....

Theodore!

Our Theodore’s a funny beast
He likes to run and play
He also likes to think ideas
And read his time away.

I love it when he's stayed up late
And sings his way to bed
And love it when he's up at five
Snuggling before he's fed.

When he relates his new ideas
I love it most of all
The songs and games and parts that move,
and brand new ways to call.

Henry!

The camera finds it difficult
To capture your sweet face
With shining eyes so bright and green
You run from place to place

I love it when you stop a bit
to have a little snuggle
Or see that someone needs a hand
And help them with their struggle

I love it when you dance around
You’re always on the go
The camera adds a bit of blur
‘cause you're moving to and fro

Felix!

Felix is the kid we know
who beats us all at rummy
he counts the cards
he counts the points
And then he counts the money

He dresses up in capes and hats
And hides to trick us all
Piano player and acrobat
Watch out my dear: don’t fall!

We love to see your brain grow strong
Learning all the time
You read the clock, and sing a song
And find a silly rhyme

jazz cake (308/365b)

School and afterschool. Stuff like that. Some transcribing and some recording for me. and some cooking of course.

We are hosting 2 members of the soon-to-be-defunct jazz band "jazz cake" from the czech republic. i went to dance, got there horribly early and just wandered around the restaurant pretending i was looking for somebody. i met a canadian violist named roxanne whose passion is making transcriptions. i met her in the exact spot i met kris (also from canada) a year and a half ago. i thought it was funny. after lots of dancing, lots of talking, a little beer, we waited and waited for the band to pack up and get their car. but we stopped for the obligatory group photo first.

group shot at mangolds, markus, me and kris first standing row on the left

yeah, then centa and brian and i stayed up with our band people and cracked punny jokes until 2 or so in the morning. they want to be out of here by 9 ("or so")

monday on a tuesday (307/365b)

the doorbell rang and when i answered the door henry was there with his hands full of projects from school. there i also noticed a note from my first secret admirer who is no longer a secret... let's see if she stays an admirer.

after such and such i would love to meet for coffee! -elisabeth

so the way that worked is that shortly after arriving in graz mid 2015 i was practicing up in my room and the doorbell rang. since i didn't know anybody, and because i was practicing and there were other people in the house besides me, i didn't answer it. centa came up later to say: "somebody had stopped by who said she heard me from outside, and thought i was a fantastic violist and wanted to just say hi" ... she was already gone, when i tried to chase her. then i didn't hear anything from her for a long time. and i always wondered who that was. i thought i got it, when i saw somebody going up and down the street on a bike with a violin case on their back, but i couldn't very well stop her and say "are you the person who thinks i'm awesome?" .... then a few weeks ago, brian was leaving and she stopped by again, and i wasn't home. brian took her card and her number, and i texted and she didn't text back. now she wrote, left me a note about a concert next weekend, to say "she has been too busy to get together and meet a new person, but after this concert it should work." ... i'm so curious how that will be!

the rest of the day was just like a normal monday, except it was tuesday. i did lesson things, and finished working through the entire rebecca clarke sonata. i got another, hopefully the last, iron injection. i read, and wrote and played. things are good.

nick shows up (306/365b)

i moved my monday plans to tuesday so that i could spend a few hours with nick. - we got to have coffee and i got to show him the lock and key museum. all very nice.

good morning at "froh sinn" pronounced "frozen"
let it go!

Animal shaped padlocks from the 20th century <3

a door from india in graz!

then lunch, a nice walk with nina and nick. nina's dad put a new battery in felix's watch, and he was overjoyed when i brought it home. a few minutes at home, where i finished transcribing reznicek's nachtstueck from violin to viola. i also recorded a weird and beautiful little piece for viola and piano, but then my laptop turned off because some kid unplugged it, and i lost it, so i'll rerecord it later when i'm in the mood again. and then back for an evening with nina, some friends and nick, with brian joining us way late after kids bedtime and a run.

makey makey & museums (305/365b)

Theodore's been dying to try out his "makey makey" to let any object be mapped to a click on your mouse of a press of a key on a keyboard. so finally, nearly two months after christmas, we tried it out. it was super fun to play piano with bananas, bowls, and other random trash, or to play bongos by giving high fives.

alligator clips to begin

meanwhile, felix got bored and needed a place to zen out and found himself a quiet spot.

om....

brian had more choir rehearsal, and i took the kids to the various museums i could find that would be interesting.

in the evening i got to pick up nick from the airport for his super last minute visit to graz. before he arrived brian and i went over to play some games with jackie and andi, but we ended up just talking, mostly about various kindergarten problems we've been having.

a couple in love (304/365b)

after a long day

theodore and henry were at boys day with fritz today, looking at museums. they barely made it back in time for theodore to go to his king roger rehearsal. fritz told them they complained that the bread at snack time wasn't "dark" enough. meanwhile, brian also had choir rehearsal.

felix learns to read an analogue clock (303/365b)

henry's first orchestra rehearsal & he found a letter from spencer when he got home. he spent till 10pm writing a reply. by the end he was just making so many mistakes it was comical

theodore had another krol roger rehearsal. we practiced violin duets very nicely together

felix had a tantrum about a deck of cards because he lost

i was still nauseous all day.

brian called his dad for his birthday, same day as grandmas funeral

telling time (on an analogue clock!): 12 minutes before 2

a glass of whiskey while telling about the day by the last of the light after the children have drifted off to sleep

frauenorchester (302/365b)

feeling better today, but far from normal. just glad to be walking around.

combining all the calendars

i got myself made up for a meeting for the newly grouped women's orchestra in the city, and was a little freaked out to find henrietta there. they had planned the meeting for 7, which is when i got there. at 7 they decided to break up the meeting because they had changed it to earlier because "nobody could make it at 7 so we started at 6."

we watched a movie from 1939 in honor of grandma's diary, in which she mentions dozens of movies, many of which are "swell" ... brian chose the one with the highest imdb rating... called "the love affair" and it was simply awful, but we had fun watching it. they sang plaisir d'amour and i suddenly realized ... oh THAT'S the the song that elvis based his falling "I can't help falling in love with you" song on. i mean, this movie is made well before elvis, but he totally owns the song now, i can't listen to the one without hearing his smokey voice over top of it, chronology be damned.

so very suddenly sick.. (301/365b)

i wanted to take felix to a show today. and i got up, felt a little tired, but thought nothing of it, then went to have coffee, the very sound of the machine making me nauseous, and then deciding i would stay home and see if i needed some sleep, and then coca-cola was the only calories i had today and practically stayed in bed the entire day, and was blissfully happy that it was time for sleeping when night time rolled around.

medicine

when we were little my parents would get coca-cola for us, not as a treat, but to use as medicine. it makes sense, it gives you some sugar, some salt, some fluids, and rests easy in your stomach. it has caffeine to help against headache. eh, i'm a believer, but man, that stuff tastes like medicine to me, and it cracks me up to see happy delighted people in advertisements pouring the stuff into their mouths like it's delicious.

a tribute to elsie (300/365b)

at 90: a glimpse into her love of colors and celebrations

we thought she would make it until 100, but there was merely a shadow left when we saw her in 2017, and a shadow of that when we saw her this year. 98. 100 christmases if you count the one in the womb, and that's how she would have liked it. born in denver. grew up in newton (outside of boston), moved to fredricksburg on a street with her name on it in a house built for her. i met her when i was 17. the summer we spent a few weeks in maryland with her, i transcribed her diary from her young adult life. trying out stenography, watching the movie classics (that i grew up with) in theaters when they came out, talking about her various admirers. she was quite a personality.

a wonderful love story (not in her diary) of her meeting her husband (of 57 years when he died in 2001) was that he was a wwii soldier who wrote to her as a kind of assigned pen pal through a church organized moral booster for soldiers. they fell in love over the letters (man would i love to read / transcribe those!) and basically as soon as he got the chance they got married. i'm missing a lot of details here. 

i was very glad we got a chance to say goodbye at the end. i was very happy i double checked that all the kids had gone back in to give her one last hand hold on the way back across the ocean. 

smell this one! (299/365b)

oh today was another such a gorgeous day outside. pauli and i met for a spontaneous walk. the highlight was stopping at the swanky department store downtown and trying all the expensive men's fragrances. my favorite? oud, (i don't remember which brand and what the name of it was) a new smell to me, and very ... well, very yum. quick, spray it on when no-one's looking and then go back to smelling little test strips of paper.

fragrance testing

barbara's event management presentation tonight where we played our 7 second jingle twice and the entertainer. the entertainer got people up and out of their seats and we made some new contacts which is always great. got home nice and early for once.

while you're at it why don't you give me a nice paper cut and pour lemon juice on it? (298/365b)

there are some things i'll never forget: like felix's first paper cut this morning.
he is no stranger to hurts, hard knocks, falling, pain, etc. and then he is quietly sitting there reading a book, and he suddenly screeches in pain, throwing the book away from him in shock and betrayal, and looking at his bleeding finger in surprise. "WHY DID THEY MAKE THE PAGES SO SHARP" he screams in anger. it never occurred to him he could get hurt by sitting still and reading. books are dangerous now?


the morning we spent on cleaning out stuff in the kids room. things really does pile up. we did hours of work and barely made a dent. but the kids had fun with the new bookshelves. right now they just have games on them in any which order, but that's ok for now, i think.

adding a nail to hang the thermometer/hygrometer/clock on

we went for a nice walk, because it was simply just gorgeous out. we took maps of the city, because we had 3 of them for kids, with a promise of a prize if you answer all the questions.

felix reading a map

my color harmonic menfolk

we picked up a school friend of theodore's, luki, on the way home, and we enjoyed the visit. theodore wanted luki to play a duet with him, and luki tried really hard, but his piano sight reading skills are not quite what theodore i think had in mind. they got bored quickly and went out to play football, leaving me to hang out inside with felix until i got a call of "where are you?" and realized i had messed up and thought rehearsal was at 6pm and not 16pm. stupid stupid stupid. paid nearly 20euros for the slowest taxi ever. a very short rehearsal for tomorrow....

...then a taiwanese movie (cape no. 7) with people from salonorchester. it was very funny in lots of bits, and very beautiful in tiny vignettes.