too much headache for sculpture park, or for anything (50/365c)

ok, i stop blaming the champagne. i blame the migraine genes. out cold today. everyone else went to the sculpture part (my idea! i wanted to go!) except centa and mama who went on a nearly all day wine tasting tour with centa's english conference. i rested and tried to arrange some more sting music...

which i'd been there.....

musicians spend their holidays working (49/365c)

national holiday today, and thus i spent from 8 in the morning till 8pm at rehearsals with salonorchester for sarajevo. it was fun but exhausting. i took headshots for the orchestra and they took one for me....

when you put the camera into someone's hands.
the ivy is nice and sharp.

barbara and i went out to see a balkan band and dance. my head hurt (i blame the bottle of Veuve Clicquot, of which i had a quarter glass).....

may time pass quicker! (48/365c)

mama waxed and cleaned the vorhaus all morning and noah headed out on his way to his next stop on his european backpacking trip - most of his time here it was raining, except for the perfect climbing weather on his first day.

arrived super late to the opera - now i know what happens, they write out a ticket for you.

it rained all day, barbara and i practiced for sarajevo, and i forgot to go meet the lady with the oboe for duets - i have wanted to meet up with her for a while, but my head was elsewhere.

i took photos for chorus, and took ronja and felix to the museum afterwards
watched half of tosca and walked home with theodore and henry.
we stopped at the spar and i got confused about coffee at spar coming back with theodore and henry. 2 were on sale for the price of 1, but i got 2 different ones by accident, so i had to pay more than twice what i was expecting. nearly 40euros for 2 kilograms of coffee instead of 12 euros for 2 kilograms. The guy at the checkout couldn't understand what my problem was, and the shop was already closing, but i ran back and brought 2 more.

some interesting wishing from the past:
Gesundheit verlaengere Dein Leben
Und Freude verkuerze die Zeit.

"May health lengthen your Life
and Joy shorten time."

we found my mom on the walk home.
the kids were gloriously color-coded

an action-packed weekday (47/365c)

day started with a pretty terrible parent teacher conference where we scheduled a day for felix to say goodbye to kindergarten for the last time. the process has been so long and tedious for us. i was so emotionally exhausted, and it was only half an hour!

completely easy and happy
fresh herbs he cut himself
and an umbrella from nature

we celebrated henry's birthday with his friends, and i was so grateful that mama made the cake for him. she wrote "henry" on it in buttercream, and it was two huge layers and henry was overjoyed.

Henry with friends

they read a theater play "kasperl soll geburtstag feiern" aloud to us adults, and started a craft project with wool that they gave up on entirely. brian took felix to his chorus rehearsal. the rest of us ran directly to the grazer congress to hear Ivan Eröd's concert fantasy with elke as soloist. a very rarely performed work, which was pretty stunning. there was a 30 minute talk instead of a 20 minute intermission and i didn't know if henry would fall asleep, but he didn't, and we saw the holberg suite and walked home.

we found we were locked out again (second time this week!) but by chance brian arrived 10 minutes later carrying felix.

new dishes (46/365c)

at exactly 10:22 I met up with Pauli at the bookstore, we ran some errands around town together, and ended up together at a japanese restaurant. for lunch they had 3 types of sushi full menus, all with soup. one was called "vegetarian sushi" which I ordered. It was fish sushi. We asked the waitress, and she explained that what I wanted was "vegan sushi" since "fish is vegetarian" so Pauli explained that fish are animals and can she please bring some "vegetarian sushi" ... she went away again, and came back with some sushi with vegetables and some with eel, because "eel aren't fish" .... and no soup. when i asked about the soup, she asked if that should be vegetarian. she ran inside to get a clipboard and a paper, and then asked me "so you would like a soup?" and then she wrote "soup" on the paper. I think I only have weird restaurant experiences with Pauli.

i picked up theodore from school and sat with him in front of the art museum to do homework. i borrowed the car from the foersters and picked up all of our pieces from our pottery class. traffic was terrible. Our results were (some of them) quite cute.

bad, better, and room for improvement

theodore's breakfast set

my new coffee and cream set with flowers from outside

listening to the grass grow (45/365c)

not too early, not too late.... we had breakfast outside with nina and kris (and noah and mama and everyone else) ... i walked with theodore to get the croissants.

mama and felix planted sunflowers to hang in the treehouse

very relaxed day with lots of chilling. ronja came over to play, and we made about 50 pita breads.

watching the bread rise into pockets

i got to meet vito, the new foerster baby, when felix and i took ronja home. when we got back everyone was gone - noah was in town and everyone else was at tosca. we didn't have keys so we were locked out of the house. we took a bath and cleaned the basement in the meantime. still plenty of fun without having to go inside.

tosca apparently fantastic, unless you asked henry.. he never wants to see the second half again, it is too "yucky".

mama arrives from ljubljana (44/365c)

peter's friend Noah arrived early in the morning. very early. i wanted to go for a nice klettersteig with manuela, but i was so stressed about getting things finished for my mama, so i sent noah with my equipment instead for his first via ferrata. it was a good action, i think: perfect weather. i was so jealous. brian was gone the whole day doing frisbee stuff. he didn't get back till 2am.

they got back and we had a drink and then a walk to get ice cream. finally mama arrived, right around bedtime. she read some stories, the kids went to bed (a little too late) and finally centa, mama and i had some snacks and some chats.

so much excitement
so much too tell
don't want to go to sleep yet

lange nacht (43/365c)

didn't feel like learning anything, cancelled lesson, had headache, blech.

took theodore and henry to "lange nacht der kirchen" where, among other things, we watched a concert at the church that's part of the folklore museum, and is only open once a year. a few weeks ago we had looked down from high up, but now we had the opportunity to sit down in the pews and look up from below.

Antoniuskirche, Graz

there would have been swing dancing and more concerts later in the evening but brian was too tired and i wasn't in any mood to go alone so ... eh, meh.

tu gig and pauli time (42/365c)

this is what happens when you set the camera, ask a guy to take a picture
and he changes where he stands, the zoom, presses random buttons and then snaps a photo
(it was even worse before i cooked it in the editing program)

2 golden diploma gigs in a row. i left way too early in the morning early in the morning. barbara was dizzy and couldn't hear anything due to an ear infection. it was olena's first gig with us. overall ok.

stopped at pauli's on the way back, and talked him through some crankiness. he suggested i try bikram yoga (the kind where the room is heated to 80 degrees or so) ..... not sure that sounds good.

picnic in the park (41/365c)

Today Mama arrived in Ljubljana. We called in sick so we could leave shortly before 9am (after way too little sleep, and early morning so i could bake bread and a cake) .... and while brian was hanging up the phone on school the phone beeped and it turns out mama was arriving several hours later.

new plans. leave anyway but meet up with mary's family (and felix!) and martin chose a place, a lake we could walk around, a mere 8km from the airport. a very idyllic place.
cb

idyllic, surrounded by mountains, nearly deserted

agnes asked: are we stinking cute?

how many types of clouds can we count here?

after a gorgeous picnic lunch together (together without mama, since her flight was delayed for several hours), complete with sunbathing and wading, we got mama at the airport and sang, to the tune of "alles schweiget"

" Schau! Da fliegt sie
Grossmutter liebste


Wer gerne singen mag
Zu den Geburtstag
Hilft mit dem jetlag
Am Nachmittag " - Mary's idea and text

We enjoyed the rather spectacular lightning show on our drive from the airport to the hotel in Ljubljana, and after a terrific downpour we had a cake and whipped cream picnic in the Park. Although not the park we were expecting. Luckily Mama's hotel was named "the Park" and they let us soaked people have a room.

brian was the soakedest because he bought the cream in the downpour
the flowers were a joint all day effort

Pizza for dinner, very late drive home, the guy we rented the car from told us he wouldn't wait up for us and we would have to bring it back very early tomorrow. better for us. 

Surprise visit from New Zealand (40/365c)

Got an email this morning explaining that the kindergarten would now officially abmelde Felix because we weren't willing to work with them. I was pretty mad. Brian calmed me before heading upstairs to conduct his first job-interview in a long time.

We picked up Theodore from school and Nina and I and theodore took the tram to the end of the line and walked a good km to the ceramics studio to glaze our pottery. We were under extreme time pressure.

When I got home with Theodore from painting pottery with Nina my cousin Harry was standing in our kitchen drinking a beer! He said he considered calling ahead but had decided to just ring the doorbell "serv..tius style" He stayed for an hour, we caught up a bit, and he's heading back to New Zealand in a few days. I guess we see him again in 10-20 years....

quick! take a photo before he disappears!

....Because of the surprise visit I missed my work evening, and Brian headed out to go get our rental car for tomorrow's visit to the ljubljana airport.

i need to practice! (39/365c)

at 9am the carpet guy rang the doorbell and collected our rug to clean it. i really really didn't want to wake up yet. i really really really didn't want to have any lesson today but i did. i think i'm still tired
from saturday's party.

theodore doing his work before his lesson

henry spent some of his reading/book money and bought new books with me at carla (the charity thrift similar to goodwill). i got one book about drawing/anatomy. it's a huge heavy tome, but since they just weigh books, we got about 8 books for 6 euros, which is just incredible.

Henry also wanted to take a photo of us while we washed the dishes

we wanted to go for a bike ride but it rained again, pretty much exactly when i said we should be getting ready.

our evening entertainment was duck soup, at which theodore laughed and giggled like crazy, but henry sat there and stared without a smile, at some point asking "how stupid is he?" (harpo)

also we heard that jacky and andi's baby is here. it's a boy (i knew it!), vito. :)

sunday rainday (38/365c)

May 19th 2010 is when i met up with chuck homic.... we had set a date in 2000 that we would meet again in 10 years, and when 10 years had rolled around, there he was. now it's been 9 years since then. hard to believe. i wonder if we will meet again next year...?

woke up too late to see the kids off on their way to pre-service rehearsal. i really really wanted coffee, so i made a cup and carried it with me on a nice walk with brian. we made it to church to pick them up 45 minutes after begin, just in time to see them sing dona nobis pacem in 3 parts. henry remarked afterwards that we were "very late" ... correctamundo. at the church gates a beggar walked up to us, got way too close, and was very aggressive. when we turned away he spat at us. first time for everything.

we wanted to go for a bike ride but when we decided to go, and woke brian up from his afternoon nap, is suddenly started pouring outside. so we stayed inside instead and the kids played that old dos computer game about mother goose. we sat those kids in front of that video game and it suddenly stopped raining, so brian and i left them staring at the screen and went for a walk to buy some cabbage at the main train station, the only grocery store open on sunday. it was completely packed with people - a complete madhouse, but we took our head of cabbage and ran.

we've barely seen centa since she's been home, and today she's packing again for salzburg tomorrow early. she took a break from her preparations to play cards with henry who was ready for bed right on time.

biggest cards ever....
who wants to pick up the rummy pile?

song contests (37/365c)

the day started with a 2 hour skype phone call about an uncontrollable felix tantrum. that was very difficult. i wanted to leave at 12:15 to meet up with pauli and at 12 andi dropped by with ronja and zorah to do the thing i had been promising for weeks - an instrument demo of all they types of instruments and what their pro's and con's are. it should have been a bit for andi too, but he was busy with the sudden announcement of Heinz-Christian Strache's resignation as vice-chancellor. it pretty amazing. i was trying to also be dressed and ready for the party later today. at 12:35 i finally left brian in charge of everything and biked away in my fancy dress.

Pauli has a friend Michi who wrote a song and i was supposed to play back-up strings. we played it a few times, and it sounds pretty nice, we recorded a working version. it got totally stuck in my head.

there was swing at the schauspieldhaus, although sources differed whether it started at 2, 2:30 or 3. we got there slightly before 3, and heard the band play the last 2 songs, and headed straight from there to irmtraud's party.

theodore has to finish his book before he can be social
#matilda #roalddahl

way too much social stuff for me all at once. but very very good (and LOTS of) food. hung out with marilies a lot, and then later with barbara and olena watching eurovision. olena's husband drove us all home, but was in a really cranky mood about it. i'm not sure i'm surprised, we were really loud ;)

halleluja with gli atari AND conchita wurst (and of course us)

after watching all the songs from the eurovision finals, i can honestly say pauli's friend wrote a better song than any of them. :)

i've come to vipe your vindows (36/365c)

brian watched the kids run at the hoffnungsrunde - a cancer charity where kids run round and round a track as many times as they can. they get a huge kick out of it, the school does it, and they don't have to take their backpacks with them. since we've had such weird weather lately it took forever to decide what they should wear. then we toasted to tosca, and henry was just so tired it took forever to get him to get dressed and leave, but somehow eventually they left. i went on a billion errands while brian watched the running. i bought some presents for irmtraud's birthday tomorrow, and met up with maria at the farmer's market and printed some photos for the kids to paste in albums. when i showed them the photos after they got home, they liked them very much, but so far they have made no attempt to paste them or keep them very well...

while the kids spent the afternoon at the playground (more running around can't hurt) i went to irmtraud's to wash windows, clean floors, and sooth pre-party nerves. i left early enough so that i could get home before the willhaben guy - "melanie's ex" ... basically i wanted to buy some dishes from someone named melanie who lives an hour from salzburg. she didn't want to send them in the mail, and i didn't want to go there, so she told me maybe somebody would drive through graz one day and she would send it with them. then i got a call "hi, i'm melanie's ex and i was wondering where you live so i can deliver these dishes." ... he delivered them straight to my house. i was very surprised - the things that can happen if one just asks!

once everyone was asleep
and i was done waiting
i hung around and played with reflections
of our room
through the window into the dark street

tosca premier (35/365c)

they are hiding ice cream cones behind their backs.

As Theodore has pointed out, it's not technically a "premiere" it's a "wiederaufnahme" because the opera is just rerunning a performance that was successful about 5 years ago. But technically theodore and henry weren't in it then, and it's their first time singing tosca, and anyways, it's henry's first time at all, and we were very excited and very proud of them.

getting them there was a bit of a saga because henry went home by himself from singschule instead of waiting for me, but i didn't know that. then we went and hung out at the church across the street where irmtraud was helping organize a grilling event for church youth - funny story, we didn't fit in. we didn't belong there really at all for any reason/demographic. there was an organ concert that night that i decided to go to. the organist and the page turner both know me, but neither of them could place me for a moment because i was so totally out of context. i had to leave before the last piece so i could walk across the street and pick up my very exhausted but happy and talkative kids. we were going to toast with apple juice when we got home, but it was just too late at that point so we postponed till tomorrow morning. brian was at frisbee until very very late, he came home having won one and lost one game.

communication technology (34/365c)

in person chats are still the best: brian and i spent the morning chatting and talking. but technology is good too: felix read us green eggs and ham over skype.

theodore and i played our concert with thomas (the last for the spring) right after school. i wanted to give him a "ysop" plant (the ensemble is called YSOP) but i forgot and then it was too late. we left right away to get to the abenteuerspielplatz where markus, the unschool guy wanted to convince us to start a coop unschool with him. and we rushed away from there to get home because kris came by after work to say hi on his way to rehearsal. i made really good food today, as evidenced that kris came over, not hungry, but still liked it. it was swiss chard soup, as green as ... well, as green eggs and ham ... and a chickpea "omelette" which is the best vegan fast food i know.

then i rushed out away from bath night to do a bit of barbara therapy who had just finished taking a "general intelligence" test in german (her third language) ...

there's technically no alcohol in this picture 

the last of the magic flute (33/365c)

today was the absolute last zauberfloete performance. i couldn't have left any later, i was still basically asleep when i left. it was in a gym packed with nearly 500kids. they laughed when the tenor started to sing (to be fair, i also always want to laugh) and they gleefully counted with papageno when he was preparing to hang himself. //is-culture-dead?

spent lots of time with theodore and henry today between mini strings rehearsal and library time and getting them to tosca rehearsal. they're excited about their first performance tomorrow.

i made it to do some work evening with kris, and left after doing about 15 minutes worth of work - just long enough to whet my whistle. quintet rehearsal was also not quite so productive, there was some kind of drain/pump/problem at the house that started about 10 minutes after we arrived, and that took most of our concentration. we still celebrated olena's new citizenship, and irmtraud's birthday (a day late, she's birthday buddies with henry)

doesn't need to be focused to be able tell with absolute certainty who this is.

bon voyage agnes and felix and mary (32/365c)

It's actually Henry's birthday today, and we sent him to school this morning with 30 "boring" cookies that mary and i made at midnight.
I left for my normal Monday madness a bit earlier than usual, and said my goodbyes...
Mary took Felix and Agnes to Slovenia with her for the next 10 days. I already miss him.

not ready to leave yet
one more game of schwarzer peter - with new rules:
take the peter card out and just take each other's cards until you have pairs
quite often there is a tie for number of pairs.

Right after my pre-poned lesson I played another performance of the magic flute, waited around a bit for theodore's lesson, we went home and had just enough time to eat. then choir and recital time. Salon Erfurt and I played Rebecca Clarke and Theodore played his little concertino. We thought about going out for ice cream afterwards but it was so cold and rainy we went for a glass of wine instead and Theodore went home with Brian and Henry. Ice cream another time.

I was totally beat when I got home, but i watched the 3 and a half minutes of my clarke, that brian had cell phone recorded. before i went to sleep. It was pretty decent. Especially for the first time!

Happy Birthday, Henry!(31/365c)

awoke to being showered with mother's day presents in bed. so many cute made-in-school stuff. all the crafty things made felix want to make things too, so he started making party hats for tonight, which mary escalated with her creativity to include paper pompoms and other decorations.

i went right from a zauberfloete to the opera... well i tried to. first i stopped on the way to get a cup of coffee and see manuela a bit early before the opera started. right after she arrived i get a text saying the family is coming without felix (who will just have to stay home with centa) because he is having a tantrum. oh no. so i bike home, bring felix, bike back to the opera with felix on the back of the bike.  25 minutes round trip including changing my clothes and getting felix's shoes and helmet and concert shirt on, in a terrible wind storm. #givemecompliments! centa made it at the last minute too!

Henry birthday party - we celebrated when we got back from the opera. it was actually a ballet choreographed to haydn's "seasons" oratorio. it was very amazing and very cool.

the tenor soloist singing "winter"

Agnes would be glad to help blowing out the candles

Most impressive headgear

Theodore is trying to be as bewitching as Mary

Do you like my party hat?

For his birthday Henry wanted nothing so much as the book called "Das Schoenste Ei der Welt" by Helme Heine. I don't particularly care for the book. Among several quibbles: one of the hens lays a cubic egg - which is called a 'four-sided' egg." But who am I to say what other people can like? Henry was overjoyed, and was very happy to read it outloud a few times.

The most beautiful book in the world

Manuela brought some crafts for the kids
Agnes finished hers with great care and was very happy with the result

I still can't believe he's eight!

henry's first communion (30/365c)

Exactly 12AM *on the dot* this morning:

- boo! surprise! I'm dressed
- umm..felix it's midnight,
- oh, it is?
- yes, you have to go back to sleep
- for how long?
- umm.. about 8 hours
- really?

why oh why does time have to go so fast? yesterday henry was saying he "wants it to be tomorrow", and i wast just thinking "no no no no not yet, please not so fast"! But here is today, and it's Henry's first communion, and it's even already over and done with. Waaay too fast.

undercoffeed in the morning  - theodore and i played, i had coffee with me, but it didn't get drunk. we didn't find mary till we were in the crowd afterwards. mostly we were just glad to get out of there and home again.

i quickly made cake and dinner and we had a relaxing time eating in the garden.

family photo

Centa and Henry

oblaten cake, with henry's bee candle

The grande fork trading before cake can begin

Felix and Agnes

after the zauberfloete in the evening, i wanted to go hang out with pauli but i gave up because it was so darn late and i was still editing my website for the quintet and going through a billion photos. instead i spent some time updating my blog (still dangerously behind) and having a sad glass of wine by myself.

multi-tasking people (28/365c)

first day in daaays that there was no zauberfloete...

brian sang at a mass, a marienlob, where, among other things he sang an extra specially beautiful
Ave Maris Stella by Lajos Bardos. i left 15 minutes before he got back for quintet rehearsal.

i left them like this
completely peaceably playing together
brian found them still that way 15 minutes later

quintet rehearsal was mostly very detailed birdland rehearsal. a bit of champagne at the end to celebrate... who knows what? do we need a reason?

zauberfloete premier (27/365c)

henry came home from school so sad, because he had been made fun of for his haircut and for his cool zebra socks :(

i rustled everyone up to get to the zauberfloete in the minoriteensaal. i first took the older kids to singschuhle and then henry waited for me to do the sound check and then we walked around the kunsthaus bookstore together critiquing postcards.

during the performance one kid just kept trying to have a conversation with the flautist ... what's your name? how long have you played the flute? do you like playing the flute? etc. i was cracking up. another kid cried everytime papageno came on stage... i think he was scared.

my debut at the minoritensaal
yay from the pit

If your majesty doth ask it, 

I will tell about the basket with a

willo willo wailey and a nonny nonny 

henry walking home with agnes 

everyone is just so busy doing stuff! (26/365c)

brian had another ausflug to kiga, complete with agnes... they went for a walk up and down to the old kindergarten and brought back loads and loads of treasures. early in the morning, while that was going on i was very sleepy but there was the first zauberfloete with audience. a fine time was had by all.

such a hummus craving, so we had a tapas and pita party, and brian made the pita dough and it was perfect and every one made a pocket and everything was so delicious. near the end of our meal centa came back from salzburg.

i announced: no stories after 9!
and at 8:59 Henry decided to cut his hair.

i totally read him a story anyways
how could i not, he's so cute!

yay yay brian's back! (25/365c)

late last night i asked theodore if he had worked on his annual book presentation for school - this should not be a problem for him, he reads basically non-stop. no he hadn't worked on it, or even started it, and it is early this morning, so i awoke at quarter of six to the sounds of him getting his poster ready and trying (a bit angrily) to find the passage of the book he wants to read aloud. am i really raising a terrible procrastinator?

i met with an oboist to play some new music that we might use for the first communion. one telemann canon (my idea) and a whole new table-canon by a composer i had never heard of, Paul Wetzger, - her idea. it was a pretty cool piece, but when i tried to play it with mary she was not to be convinced of its coolness. not surprising, since it is a lot of effort if you have to try to transpose and then try to play with me, not a cellist, not good at transposing, and doing a bad job at it.

we were all very happy when brian was home again, although he was pretty tired. we had so much to show him:

felix can read this book
agnes built this tower taller than any of us

henry wants to pick out sports activities
theodore wants to use brian's phone to sign up for a scientific study
(and to verify that he has a ticket so we don't have to pay a 100euro fine
because he got stopped when he had forgotten his ticket)

brian's choir was simultaneously with my rehearsal with quintet.... saw our new video which will be uploaded tomorrow and released on friday. poor mary was on the short end of the logistics stick again.

a day of AND (24/365c)

mondays arent exhausting enough. the kindergarten reiterated that felix couldn't come without me - but ... but ... i sputtered...  i have to work and felix WANTS to go. nope. he stayed home and dressed himself "as a jester" and agnes offered to "make him some shoes".... it was so cute my heart almost fell apart.

measuring the soles

the kids had choir rehearsal AND tosca rehearsal
i had a lesson AND zauberfloete

at the end of the day, we were just exhausted

but the cuteness didn't end:

Reading to agnes

reading to mama