Sunday, June 30, 2019

sing together - without me (79/365c)

felix has been waiting for weeks to have his birthday flea market. it was kind of a bust though, there were nearly zero customers, and the ones that came were looking for baby clothes ... but jackie bought some things from felix and he was thrilled!
shop is set up

simple pricing
i was supposed to take pictures of sing together, and i somehow thought i would have time for everything, but i didn't of course, because it conflicted with getting to the dress rehearsal at maria trost. i even called a professional photographer (i have seen him at other events i do, and i know he was also at the ball yesterday) but no luck. friends i knew refused on the basis of not being confident enough to take good photos. and i ended up calling andrea chagrined. she didn't mind though. i would just take photos an hour earlier, and leave the cameras there. did it.

yet another moment i wasn't there for...
another violist was there dropping off her kid and said i could bike with her after taking all the photos. she didn't point out she had an e-bike, so man was i out of breath by the time we got to the car-pool place. like a bad viola joke, the guy driving was like... i thought only one violist was getting a ride, and now there are TWO of you....

kris and i biked back from mariatrost together, and i very willingly had a short dinner with nina and her family, even though i was nearly ready to throw in the towel on the evening.......

......very late in the evening we got rid of some mud dauber nests on one of the beams in our living room. for a few days theodore has been explaining that "sometimes" he hears noises like a "wind-up toy" - turns out the noise was wasps. a very specialized wasp. after we removed them we looked them up and it seems that they may be endangered here. now i feel terrible.

Saturday, June 29, 2019

kunst uni redoute (78/365c)

still discouraged. spent the day trying to finish one of my arrangements, and kind of failed at it. had a mariatrost rehersal. missed the sommerfest for school - brian even baked for it, and i kept thinking i would be able to go, but i used every minute and still couldn't finish my tasks.

quintet rehearsal in the evening after which olena, barbara and i went to the annual ball at the kunst-uni, which was delightful except that they closed everything up at 2, and i danced exactly 1 dance. barbara and i danced the quadrille together (and the lady announcing pointed out that *usually* barbara plays and not dances, and NEXT year they should not have *canned* music)

Friday, June 28, 2019

das dasein ist köstlich (77/365c)

found myself at the library today between a three-hour reherasal, and a quintet gig we were playing with austria's president in attendence. found a dissertation written by someone i knew, and loved this music example.
Das Dasein ist köstlich....
olena, our cellist, met van der bellen, and we pointed out she was a newer austrian than the nearly new-born baby that was in the room.

stayed up late (but not quite all night) trying to arrange more things - it's not going very well. i'm feeling discouraged.

Thursday, June 27, 2019

sunstroke (76/365c)

sometimes as a mom, you miss the moments, like theodore's school play that i couldn't go to because i had a rehearsal in mariatrost.

then as a mom, sometimes you take pictures to remember the moments and the photos don't really turn out right... like when theodore has a recital, we wait an hour to watch him play for 2 minutes, where he switches from the violin to the bugle, and i totally miss the moment.
missed moment
i was running against all odds though. felix had another thing he was going to with brian, and theodore and henry had to get themselves home, and i left them there to get to my quintet gig at the schlossberg, where lots of other people used my camera to get pictures (mostly about the same quality as the one above) ... i nearly passed out from sun exposure.
looking away from the sunset
i wrote a text message to theodore's ensemble teacher asking him to remind theodore and henry of all the things they had to take - wings, school stuff, violin, trumpet (bugle), my fan (because i forget things too) and of course school bags and i think there was even more stuff. 

Wednesday, June 26, 2019

one of the first of many lost days (75/365c)

Brian took care of everything today. I feel like I'm drowning under stupid things I have to do and finish.
guys can multitask too!
school stuff and violin and dinner and park

Tuesday, June 25, 2019

it takes us hours just to FIND the music! (74/365c)

terrible to wake up on a monday feeling terrible. 
no lesson for me though, it had already been postponed till tomorrow... we did have to get everything to theodore though. and i had a long rehearsal in the evening. i was so happy with the new sting arrangements that i didn't make myself. mine didn't turn out well at all, but we have plenty of stuff to practice so onwards and upwards. 
we spent 2 hours sorting music for the 4-part concert series coming up
now we will have to start practicing

Sunday, June 23, 2019

quick craft time before bed (73/365c)

i got to sleep long tonight: and wake up to henry and felix playing wonderful piano together. i'm so thankful for moments like these!

we had icecream ("nice" cream - blended bananas) and jackie came over with her kids and her sister and we sat on the doorstep drinking water.
three boys sharing one bowl of icecream
i made wings for theodore's school play, we painted some cardboard and sewed them to felix's suspenders... they came out pretty well. all ready for monday now.

Saturday, June 22, 2019

when two wedding planners get married .... (72/365c)

when two wedding planners get married, they hire our quintet :)
that made us very happy.

there were no better places to get married in the near vicinity so we had to go all the way out to Liezen, in the mountains, to a schloss. At 6am I had a complete wardrobe crisis, and didn't know what to wear. I settled on cool and breezy black. At the schloss I discovered it was COLD.

It turned out to be a completely unbelievably run-of-the-mill basic average over-spent wedding. All the cliches. The bride and groom even left the hotel early in the morning so that they could "arrive" together in a rolls royce. They arrived in style, to our quintet playing to people milling around the parking lot.

In the church the priest was quite old, and also took the carefully decided and well written out program to be more of a friendly suggestion. We stood front and center, which was a bit odd, but that's how the bride wanted it.

a road selfie

the schloss from the car

the church in Pürgg, "St. Georg"
900 years old
Quite beautiful, inside and out
Quite small
and yet, in Pürgg, it's the "big church"
We went out to a fish restaurant afterwards, and there was nary a vegetarian thing on the menu, except for a nutella crepe. Even the soups and salads were with beef, pork and fish. But i got some potatoes and some wine, and brian had saved me some soup. 

I made it home even in time to keep reading from Lindgren's "Bullerbü" for bedtime. I got all emotional reading the cover to myself, which was Lindgren's response to children looking for the location bullerbü and what's there now.

„Gibt es Bullerbü? Ich bekomme ständig Briefe von Kindern, die beharrlich um Auskunft in dieser Sache ersuchen ... gibt es Bullerbü? Dann möchten sie nämlich dorthin ziehen und zwar sofort. Es gibt auf jeden Fall ein kleines Mädchen in Wien, das in diesem Punkt eine unerschütterliche Entschlossenheit an den Tag legt. Sie hat zu ihrer Mutter gesagt, dass es idiotisch sei, in Wien wohnen zu bleiben, wenn es einen Ort gibt, wie Bullerbü. Den gibt es doch, fragt sie besorgt? Es ist schwierig, so einen Brief zu beantworten. Was die junge Briefeschreiberin erbittet, ist natürlich, dass es ein kleines Dorf gibt, in dem drei Höfe gleich nebeneinander liegen. Die Häuser müssen so dicht nebeneinander liegen, dass man aus der südlichen Dachstube des Mittelhofs über eine Linde in die nördliche Dachstube des Südhofs klettern kann, und in dem Dorf müssen sechs Kinder wohnen: Lasse, Bosse und Ole, Lisa, Britta und Inga, und Kerstin nicht zu vergessen, Oles kleine Schwester.

Wenn ich der kleinen Briefeschreiberin ganz ehrlich antworte, wird sie nicht erfreut sein. Sie wird nicht zufrieden sein, wenn ich so antworte:

Bullerbü gab es früher einmal, aber das ist schon lange her. Es war nicht genauso, wie in den Büchern - das ist es nie - aber die Kinder gab es, die Spiele gab es, die Wiesen voller Steine und Walderdbeeren gab es, die Kinder aus Bullerbü liefen dort barfuß herum und bauten sich Spielhütten und Baumhäuser und haben Erdbeeren auf Grashalme gezogen. Es gab den Heuboden, die Kinder aus Bullerbü haben dort manchmal geschlafen und viele Höhlen im Stroh gebaut. Es gab den Eulenbaum, in den Bosse einmal ein Hühnerei gelegt hat, damit die Eule es ausbrütet, es gab die Rattenfarm, „Bullerbüs Rattenfarm“, obwohl die Ratten gleich in der ersten Nach davongelaufen sind ... sehr zum Ärger von Bullerbüs Lasse.

Die Frühlingsstelle im Graben gab es, wo Anna und Lisa hinter der Faulbaumhecke saßen und „selbst nicht wussten, was sie tun“, es gab die Wiesen mit Himmelsschlüsselchen und die Stellen, an denen die ersten Buschwindröschen wuchsen, das kluge Pferd Svea gab es und es war genauso klug, wie es im Buch steht, den bösen Widder gab es und den netten Großvater, der den Kindern in Bullerbü Kandis gab und „Ach jajajaja“ sagte, ihn gab es auch. Ja, das ganze Bullerbü gab es und Lisa aus Bullerbü wohnte in einem alten roten Haus mit weißen Einfassungen und einem runden Blumenbeet davor.

Das rote Haus steht dort heute noch. Das wird ihnen jedoch wohl kaum ein Trost sein, wenn sie schreiben und fragen: „Gibt es Bullerbü?“

Das Bullerbü, das sie meinen, gibt es nicht mehr und es kommt nie mehr zurück.

-Astrid Lindgren, Röster i Radio, 1962

Friday, June 21, 2019

and then sometimes things just work out (71/365c)

Another day off. Not much other than some practicing and some reading... very relaxed.

While Brian out swimming with all the children, I somehow got one million things done, and still had time to get to rehearsal on time. I pre-painted three pallets for the next family art-project, scrubbed the floors, baked a cake, put all the toys away and vacuumed, did laundry and a ton more stuff. All totally chill, and in about an hour and a half.
Art for Dinner

Quintet rehearsal was a bit less chill, everyone (except me) had had a kind of rotten day and everyone was very low energy. Half-way through rehearsal though, everyone started to perk up and by the end we were all happy again. Wedding tomorrow, and that means another early morning.

Thursday, June 20, 2019

hail and farewell (70/365c)

a complete day off, Fronleichnam. Day off means that quintet has time to rehearse, which we did all morning, nine to noon. The menfolk were all swimming when i got back, so there was time to cook and clean and do some gardening work.

the afternoon brought 10 minutes of the strangest weather pattern ever.
i woke brian up out of a sound afternoon-nap sleep just to show him the thunder-hail-rain storm in the bright sun.

full sunshine
hail
rain in torrents
and thunder and lightening
hail in the sun
since it was pouring out, henry figured he would try out the "new" vacuum cleaner (mama had sent the 30 year old vacuum to get fixed and it arrived back in the mail)

chores are fun!
learning all the attachments...
...let's see when the novelty wears off

Wednesday, June 19, 2019

anniversary #15 (69/365c)

what better way to start your anniversary than with team work...

we installed a new light in our living room.

out with the old

wiring work
finished!
now....
who's job is it to take all the packaging out?
after we finished all that, we took felix to meet his new piano teacher, although they won't start until the fall. we stopped by at the foersters, but they were busy and we agreed to come back after choir.

which we did. i bought 10 euros worth of dried mangos at das gramm and we ate them all with jackie and andi and i held the baby for a while. quite nice.

got home in time to watch the end of as you like it, and then spent a few hours with phil the fiddler, half talking half playing. 

Tuesday, June 18, 2019

as you like it (68/365c)

facebook suggests: "Grazer Mamas" and "Dumpsters Graz" as pages for me to like....

errand day in the morning... picked up mama's bike from being repaired at vichodyl (the original store she bought it 40 years ago) and a newly sharpened knife. bought felix some stuff for school. being out and about with felix was fun, a pretty slow walking tempo and lots of window shopping.
a 10 minute stop at the architecture design gallery while we were walking past

sent theodore to mini strings only to get a text message a minute later that mini strings was cancelled today. luckily theodore had missed the bus and brian could collect him from the bus stop.

kris and i had a work evening by ourelves. i had only about an hour of time before brian had to go to choir, and i spent about 45 minutes talking to kris .... but the last quarter of an hour was pretty productive. we also looked at the art in the lendhotel bathroom downstairs. .... maybe i'll take some photos so that i can prove for later what funny art choices somebody made.
off to the playground
following the light or the soccer ball?
home again home again
look who's on the look out for mama
brian had choir in the evening. first we watched "as you like it" (with laurence olivier of course! - the sound quality of the original is pretty bad, and it's shakespearean english, so felix kept asking if they were speaking in a different language) i read and read and read and read. it's way too light too late out for anybody to want to sleep. did another 10 minutes of work before brian was home from choir.

Monday, June 17, 2019

weird monday (67/365c)

went to Renate and Gise's mothers' funeral. Before I left, Felix informed me he knew what happened after we die. What? I asked. "You go to god, and he makes new people out of you." Reduce, reuse, recycle, I guess. "I'm not sure about that." "Well, I know." he assured me.

I had to take a taxi to get there, because the tram had a 15minute delay, and I didn't want to cut it that close. The taxi driver really wanted to make jokes about getting me to my "last appointment" etc. After a very nice ceremony, with all kinds of really artistic photographs (a family of artists), I took the opportunity to wander the cemetery there, all alone. Cemeteries in Europe are a rather different place than in the US. the ones in the US I find clearly superior, just beautiful, peaceful places.

spooky bureaucratic 
Henry had a cello lesson when I got home, and Brian had cooked, but wasn't home, so I could just hang alone and have dinner, quite the luxury.

Quintet rehearsal in the evening. We haven't convinced Klaus to play our big show with us at the beginning of next month that I've been arranging songs for, so we didn't try out my arrangements or even talk about them. We practiced for the wedding this weekend. 


Sunday, June 16, 2019

goalless day (66/365c)

a lady in the whatsapp group for henry's class ALWAYS USES ALL CAPS TO MESSAGE THE GROUP, and today, she organzied a PICNIC!

brian went, and the kids had fun, despite some thunderstorms.
i stayed home, and tried to do more arranging, and some other computer work, and some cleaning work. arranging takes me so long and i am so bad at estimating how long it will take too.

saw ingrid and stefan cz's gospel choir with pauli.... i brought some beer and pistachios in my purse, but we weren't in the mood for them, and there was no intermission. it was so unbelievably hot. it was even hotter on stage under the lights.

instead, pauli rode home with me, and we hung out in the treehouse with my purse until brian finished his run.
i can never stop!

Saturday, June 15, 2019

saying goodbye to mama (65/365c)

tried to have music breakfast morning, but the details were all wrong. mama got so nervous that we gave up after playing half way though my bonnie lies over the ocean. it was sadly the only music we played together while she was here. better track record next time? now she heads to england for a few weeks for tante frieda time - maybe she will play the piano every day there and finally learn "may song"
felix is excited to have found a penny
maybe mama thinks its disgusting to pick it up out of a corner on a street
we walked mama to the train station, and stayed with her on the train until it left for the airport. then i ran home to take my (only a bit burnt) bread out of the oven.

after eating and practicing we went to celebrate abenteuerspielplatz's 25th anniversary. there was plenty of stuff going on. brian got some alone time at home but joined us at the end to teach me how to use a  bicycle pump (all i had managed was to let the air completely out of my tires.)
hokus pokus musikus, a professional music/kids song/dancer guy
hundreds of kids running around distracted
my kids danced every song with him
home again we went, everyone so happy (after felix found his ball an hour after the party was over)

Friday, June 14, 2019

watching henry's cello teacher really play the cello (64/365c)

we haven't had much time to get together recently, so manuela and i had a short meetup this morning, first at das gramm, then walking around the city not buying clothes, and then at parks for more coffee. we sat at bad-zur-sonne and waited for brian and the kids to go swimming with me, but brian and the kids were waiting for us at the kunsthaus.... pretty bad communication. for part of the waiting time manuela and i got went to get felix' id photo printed... finally, no corrupt memory card this time.

swimming was nice, but i left halfway through to get my stuff ready for my chamber music "exam" (playing a leclaire duo)... at home, mama was waiting in the garden with hot pizza. after the exam i met up with everyone and we went to nadja's concert (her pre-concert for her bachelor's recital) which was great. the second half i watched from the back, since i assigned the page-turner task at the last minute.
too hot for pants
very hot all day.

Thursday, June 13, 2019

we are just so culturally well-versed (63/365c)

Various museums for various people today. Brian took Felix to the Joanneum. When he got back, he announced he "knows what he's going to be when he grows up." ... What? "A Stone Collector." A geologist? "Yes, but first I'm going to work on a computer, so that I have enough money to buy a digging machine, so I can go deep into the earth and find stones nobody else has found yet."

Mama and I went to the Stadt museum to find paintings by either V. or K. Kreutzer, one or both of them supposedly lived in our house. Konrad von Kreutzer painted a lot of landscapes featuring towns, general lifestyle, and specifically Graz.
kreutzer: can you spot our house?
it's the same as his house
I made a photo of Felix and on the way to concerts thought I'd have it printed for his next year's city bus pass. I put the card in, it told me I had only one picture on my card. I wasn't worried yet, my camera takes raw photos, and they probably only read jpgs. But then it didn't find any pictures, and in the camera I could take no pictures, nor look at any because "the card was not formatted"

two concerts back to back. the first was actually the generalprobe for the opera brunch this weekend. Mama got to see them sing up close. Then we went to Tosca and watched from far away, but we had mega over-kill binoculars. Felix wanted to see the opera too. We stood in the back, and watched the first half. Went home all together. One more has come to an end.

 ... at home, my computer recognized the card just fine. catastrophe averted by luck.

Wednesday, June 12, 2019

Felix turns 6 (62/365c)

morning coffee and story in the treehouse
matching pajama colors
While in the treehouse we finally took care of the mistletoe that was parasiting in there since last year. I cut it out with an extension thing that was quite unwieldy, but eventually the ground was littered with branches and the work was done. we thought it would be a 5 minute job to pull the ringlotten tree into the yard (it's hanging over the street) but that turned out to be more of a production and we never actually got to doing it.

blowing out the candle to grow on
(left over, used for centa, theodore, henry and now felix)
We celebrated Felix's birthday the best way we knew how, outside, with grilling and cupcakes (made with peach jam Ubuk gave him in lieu of payment for a snail shell) and friends. Grilling outside in the sun is so thankless. Ugg, it was hot and I was hungry, but the reward was a fun party which ended well past bed time, although it was still perfectly light. Nearly solstice. We started the party up again afterwards, just the adults. though it threatened rain, we were lucky to have just a few drops. Mama and I had an argument about whether "waiting" was a useful skill and whether it can (or should) be learned.

Tuesday, June 11, 2019

a day off (61/365c)

modern art:
a study in negative space
OR
the use of grain in the first world
A day at home, no school, no anything else. Just glorious peaceful lay-in-the-grass-gathering-ticks. Nina brought us some croissants on her way to work. Technically it wasn't completely off for us either - brian still had choir. Mama went to a concert with ingrid cz. and I went to a work party with Kris, who came over for a visit afterwards. Shortly after that Centa got back from Cincinatti and listened to Kris trying to explain to me how a four stroke engine worked. "Bang, push, pull blow," or... "Pull, Push, Bang, Suck" or maybe "push, pull, suck, blow" ....

Mama wanted me to photograph the baking sheet after I made bread because it looked so beautiful. So I did. 

Monday, June 10, 2019

we request the pleasure of your presence (60/365c)

A few days ago we agreed that to help improve the table manners of our kids something had to be done.
I had said something like: "Sorry, my kids have no table manners"
and they had answered: "Yes, we do. We have bad table manners."

So my dear Mama wrote fancy invitations and had them sent by personal courier, inviting us each individually to a fancy dinner, tie required. 
special delivery
serving, please pass your plate
fancy meal: beans, topfen and saurkraut
One short crying jag when Felix was called "sir" because, as he explained, we "KNOW his name is Felix, and we call him sir anyways." We promised not to call him "sir" ever again. Dinner was very very good. Especially the mangos, which were perfectly ripe, and which Brian had purchased (the end of the week, before a long weekend, at the Turkish shop) ... 8 Mangos for 1 Euro, and perfectly ripe with nary a spot. Luxury!!

End of the day was stories, including Grossmutter reading The Little Man, in english translation. 
nobody wants to go to sleep
...it's too hot

Sunday, June 9, 2019

leaving sarajevo (59/365c)

home again home again jiggity jig.
still awake from last night, we piled into the bus, and spent the next 13 hours in the bus. the funniest moment was when denis played a nose flute and "auditioned" for the orchestra with the main aria from tosca.
florist for the dead
olena drove me home and i rang the doorbell and woke mama. brian was out for a run. he had to pick me up from the kitchen floor where i was quickly falling asleep.

Saturday, June 8, 2019

having a ball at the ball (58/365c)

off to our 8:30am soundcheck barely rested after 4 hours of sleep. the ballroom is completely empty. the organizers aren't there, the people working there don't know where any equipment is. it's funny, but we aren't in a humorous mood, when at 11:30 the organizer walks in with a to-go coffee (we would kill for coffee at this point) explains that she is "sooo tired" sits on the stage and starts reading the newspaper. our soundcheck ends up being at nearly 1pm. at 1pm exactly the organizer says "it's time to eat. stop your soundcheck and come with us." but we decline, because really, we have to finish this because there's no way we're coming back. we wander around downtown sarajevo for 2 hours (we were supposed to have several free hours and a walking tour of the city) head back to the hotel, get ready for the ball and go. 

watching and waiting
in an empty ballroom
all dressed up we wait, hungry, for we have been promised dinner. at midnight they tell us we can serve ourselves from the buffet. we dance until 4, keeping the dance-floor rocking for our big band colleagues who disdain to do the same for us. at 4am we start packing up. at 5am the bus takes us back to the hotel, where we make gin and tonics and stay up till 6am which is when the hotel breakfast opens. much fun was had.

Friday, June 7, 2019

leaving for sarajevo (57/365c)

left at 5:40, brian walked me to lendplatz. 13 hour bus trip today to sarajevo. i was light-heartedly afraid that barbara and i would get kicked off the bus for laughing too much, since we were watching movies (gentlemen don't eat poets, inspector general) with headphones and giggling like anything, but the big band that we picked up from bad gleichenburg was more annoying. at a beer per person per hour they were rowdy and loud and annoying and they had to make the bus take breaks every hour for the bathroom. they stopped in zagreb and bought another case of beer. In an extremely narrow tunnel (bare iron rods on one side,  and a deep drop-off on the other) they heckled the bus driver and took videos out of the windshield.

we nicknamed the guy sitting in the aisle "niles"
because he looked a bit like fraiser's brother
man was he more annoying though
at least we could talk about him
without him knowing we were talking about him.
because of their antics we got there after the sound check should have happened. had some buffet dinner (we were starving) and went salsa dancing till 2am.

Thursday, June 6, 2019

felix says goodbye (56/365c)

The day after Felix's first day in school he celebrated his last day in kindergarten. Brian went, and even sang songs with his guitar. First he sat on the steps and learned it. The kindergarten day only started at 11am for us, so we watched Ronja and Zorah until then.
Meanwhile Grossmutter made cinammon buns for Felix to share.

before

after
lots of confusion today with chorus ... theodore and henry were supposed to get themselves there from the playground, but they were waiting for us to pick them up, then they called, and we said they should *leave* so theodore left, but he didn't tell henry so he came home crying, and brian biked him there. and then tosca, with our free tickets (one from henry one from theodore) ... i was late to the opera because felix didn't want to let me go... and then the bus was late... and then the tram had to change drivers... and then i ran there, and 2 minutes after show begin i got there, and they were waiting for me, but they wouldn't let me in anymore, so they put me in the artists box. the second half of tosca is so long and ugly. mama said the kids were easy peasy while we were gone.

Wednesday, June 5, 2019

so close to starting school (55/365c)

First day of school for Felix, kind of. He got to spend the day in his classroom with his teacher for next year. At first he didn't want to go at all, but overall he was glad to be there. Brian brought him there, and I picked him up. At home he did "homework" and Henry helped him with it. It was so sweet!

color by numbers are so silly
Talked to a plumber about fixing our sink/faucet upstairs. I slept in, and only woke up in time to be out of the room as he came up the stairs.

In the evening I went out with Irmtraud and Barbara to "FemCon" - a convention for women in business, which ended up just being a lecture of how to sell things for other people by using a blog to promote products. We disappeared as fast as we could to a Thai Restaurant, where we talked over the intricacies of organizing the many different projects/concerts/new pieces/rehearsals for the next month. The phrase "*after* Sarajevo" was used many times.

Tuesday, June 4, 2019

getting paid to practice in an empty room (54/365c)

theodore ran at some event again today
i can't keep them straight anymore
school, running, barely squeezed in 20 minutes of mini strings, exra chorus rehearsal ....
...TOO MUCH STUFF!
company party hired quintet to play for their dinner at a golf-course schloss country club thing. they decided we were too loud and moved us into the adjoining room, where nobody was. we played for 3 hours (with plenty of breaks) ... they were supposed to give us a dinner during one of the breaks, but we had to wait until after 10pm to eat, because we understood they would tell us when dinner was ready and we would take a break, and they understood we would take a break and tell them we wanted dinner.
they all laugh when i'm getting the camera ready

Monday, June 3, 2019

Ajdovi štruklji s skuto (53/365c)

Mama spent lots of time today on some struklji, which is where you make a dough out of buckwheat flour and then roll it up with quark and herbs. i wasn't around while she was cooking. there was so much to do, the normal lessons and i had an extra bit of lesson, and theodore had a violin exam, and there was the normal chorus etc. i was busy doing more arranging while waiting for theodore to do his lesson.

Ajdovi štruklji s skuto
i'd never heard of it either
there was some struklji left over so after the kids were asleep we adults hung out together and had fancy snacks and wine. 

Sunday, June 2, 2019

let the spending begin (52/365c)

My bike was gone when Brian went to get it from where I had left it last night. Stolen. The combo lock was locked back by itself on the pole. :( I've never had anything stolen before, and it gave me an uneasy feeling for the entire day.

Henry proudly showed me his newly assembled airplane that he bought yesterday with his own money. So far (until this very moment) the kids have only been interested in accumulating wealth and not in spending it on anything. Herewith begin the teaching moments.
happy henry
last orchestra rehearsal before sarajevo. this is going to be a busy week.

Mama and Centa and I went to see the opening of Theater im Keller's Mic

hael Kohlhaas ... a terrific production of a very depressing story. It put a good perspective on what a reasonable reaction to a stolen bike is ... perhaps i shall not burn down several cities until i find the person responsible.

An den Ufern der Havel lebte, um die Mitte des sechzehnten Jahrhunderts, ein Roßhändler, namens Michael Kohlhaas, Sohn eines Schulmeisters, einer der rechtschaffensten zugleich und entsetzlichsten Menschen seiner Zeit. – Dieser außerordentliche Mann würde, bis in sein dreißigstes Jahr für das Muster eines guten Staatsbürgers haben gelten können. Er besaß in einem Dorfe, das noch von ihm den Namen führt, einen Meierhof, auf welchem er sich durch sein Gewerbe ruhig ernährte; die Kinder, die ihm sein Weib schenkte, erzog er, in der Furcht Gottes, zur Arbeitsamkeit und Treue; nicht einer war unter seinen Nachbarn, der sich nicht seiner Wohltätigkeit, oder seiner Gerechtigkeit erfreut hätte; kurz, die Welt würde sein Andenken haben segnen müssen, wenn er in einer Tugend nicht ausgeschweift hätte. Das Rechtgefühl aber machte ihn zum Räuber und Mörder.

Saturday, June 1, 2019

this was never meant to be... (51/365c)


another day that i didn't participate in a family outing - they biked to the aero-museum and back... they had seen it on the way there and desperately wanted to go again. i just wanted to stay home. the kids loved the museum.

i tried to arrange some sting but was having trouble hearing the bassline. i thought it was just me so i biked over to barbara's and we tried to listen together, but she couldn't tell either. she loaned me some bose headphones though that make the job a bit easier.
i'm not arranging "home on the range"
.... actually trying to hear the bassline for "this was never meant to be"
walked back with brian under the stars - first stars we've seen in weeks.........