brian's birthday (31/365d)

brian's birthday started out with me up very early and singing soft canons with the children. i mostly am still sick, i slept several more hours after the kids went to school and got up just in time for brian to leave to pick them up.

buffaloes rehearsal was kind of a bust. we started late because one of us got there late, and we ended 5 minutes (!) later because somebody else had the room and we had failed to properly book the room originally. good news, not my fault. bad news, no rehearsal for another 3 weeks because of vacations. good news, another big gig at the end of may. bad news, we have never practiced together.

a lovely time in the evening with practicing and reading and then a hour-long snuggle/chat time with theodore while brian did more work for work downstairs.

yet more sick (29/365d)

felix went back to school today, and i took him to his piano lesson. we were both very slow and very tired. he didn't respond much to anything, i also can't hear very well because of all the congestion. how sad. i felt bad for him - he had pages and pages of "make-up" work for school, all easy and "boring" but still it had to be done. we did his work and then i did mine - transcribing the last of the fiddle solos from the pieces we are rehearsing tomorrow. the last one i gave up on - i can't figure out how to play a good fiddle solo intro to make up for not playing a good harmonica solo. #musicianproblems

another sick day (29/365d)

henry was determined to go ice-skating today with his class, and although he "felt" like throwing up he went anyways, and stayed strong and came home much happier and full of energy. brian was one of the chaperones, so i didn't feel so nervous about letting henry go, but i'm glad it worked out - it could have gone badly. (i still remember a day when i was 8 years old and felt like throwing up and went to school anyways, and then i threw up on a worcester city bus. that was no fun. at least rainer took good care of me and brushed my hair out and took me home.)

the logistics for the day were complicated but i didn't take care of anything, i just stayed home with felix and we napped and drew and slept. centa came home and is happy her salzburg part of vacation has started.

even more sick (28/365d)

brian left for vienna in high spirits, the kids were ready for school, except for felix, still asleep, and still sick. then after a vomitous moment, henry got to stay home too... he was less lethargic than felix but neither of them were particularly interested in anything, not that i had anything interesting to offer. i was trying my best to put fiddle tracks on paper for my upcoming buffaloes rehearsal on friday, and i was super sick and tired myself too. i thought briefly of taking a photo of felix and henry angelically napping side by side, but i decided not to disturb them.

this day made possible by prescription homeopathic cough medicine (27/365d)

Felix home sick today. I tried to engage him with some books and puzzles and stuff but he kept just falling asleep again. Brigitta and I met with Elke and practiced Milhaud one last time before playing it tonight. First performance is always a bit wonky, but totally pushes one to the next level. Theodore played also at the recital... all of Elke's students played. Theodore's tone was miles better than it has ever been, and I think he got lots of comments about how good he sounded. It's been his struggle for the past year, and it's been quite frustrating to him that he can play so many complicated things but has trouble playing a single note with a good quality of sound.

Bow parallel to the bridge
Staying in one spot
Being held by the violin

I went to see Gospel night with PopVox and met a woman named Babsi there, quite by accident/coincidence, who is the new singer for the Buffaloes - we have our first rehearsal this Friday. Found out Ingrid Cz. is going to Thailand to visit Mama and Rainer and Puk. Puk wrote today to say that her pet Papillon, Pappelbon, isn't doing well.

tired of course, but do i have to be so sick? (26/365d)

woke up super sick, the whole thing, and felix too, fever, cough, sneezing, blah everything
plus only four hours of sleep. the day was a blur. the kids sang in alles tanz and henry visited a friend. and bedtime for us was 8pm. dinner was hot tea with whiskey.

from our 4am walk home
a completely empty, foggy herrengasse

opernredoute (25/365d)

day passed way too quickly, before i knew it it was nearly time to be dressed and ready to go... i think it was difficult to focus most of the day because both brian and i had the feeling we hadn't slept at all, somehow we were waking up every 10 minutes and restless and congested, and that makes for not the best feeling.

our trio played very well for the entrance, where we just got colder and colder. unfortunately we only played a tiny percentage of our music, because one of us chickened out and decided we should repeat things from before. if i'd known that i would have practiced quite differently.

all fancy
brian's tuxedo consists of:
henry's bow tie,
centa's tux jacket
my suit pants
and a child's sized cummerbund.

dancing until 4am is worth every amount of tiredness tomorrow (famous last words)

freezing hot (24/365d)

poor theodore came home with a fever today. he still went to his extra violin lesson with emilio percan and to sing the allestanz dress rehearsal with orchestra. bit of children's ibuprofen on the way out and then power through. what a kid. well, he missed half of school and all of a 3 hour kalif storch rehearsal, so it's not like he did *everything* ...

felix got more and more cranky until we realized he was sick too and put him to bed by 7pm
brian has slept on and off all day. so much for our hiking date.

henry and felix did go to the spar on their own today, first making a list and hunting for all the things, bringing them back and even putting them away - plus taking out the recycling on their way. so that was pretty cool. henry said he hoped everyone was done being sick by papa's birthday -- i certainly hope so!

i finished arranging "weil i no an engerln glaub"for quintet for barbara's mom's wedding next month - at least a rough draft....

afternoon tea for two (23/365d)

it was cold today. even brian was cold. i think he must be getting sick. he was too cold to stay up past 8pm. :(

a text message from jacky woke me up to ask me to babysit for her in the morning. which turned into a nice long coffee. from there i went directly to town to play milhaud with brigitta (i took a bus not a bike: i was too cold) and she even LIKED milhaud's lady from brussels and thought it sounded a bit like gershwin. we went and had soup together. 2 huge bowls of pumpkin soup, 7euros60, 2 cappuccinos, 7euros80... i found that kind of funny. i thought of dessert but saved room for nina and my upcoming afternoon tea and i'm glad i did!

at home everyone was sticking stickers in the new book that henry got from a classmate. they only need 20 stickers to complete the project, which is pretty amazing given how many duplicate stickers they have. i somehow separated felix and henry from the project, so that henry could go to organ and felix to piano.

i met nina at oma's teekanne and we spent two hours on a few cups of tea and a lot of butter. (and prosecco, not pictured, with a dried rosebud for decoration) ... i wanted to go over to nina's afterwards, but brian wrote that he was feeling sick and cold and tired, so i came straight back, watched some figure skating with the kids, read some winnie the pooh and then did some music arranging for barbara's mom's upcoming wedding.

sometimes you miss things (22/365d)

brian and i went out on a not-date this morning, after he did his daily stand-up meeting for work and i practice, then we went for  a walk past some stores where we had errands to run on our way to pick up the kids. brian took theodore and felix home, and i waited the next half hour by walking up and down the schlossberg trying not to pant as i talked to barbara on the phone.

jacky came over and we had dinner with all the kids running around. theodore and henry skipped judo because they had to be at the ice-skating rink in the evening with singschule where they sang the austrian national anthem for the opening ceremony of the european figure skating championships. which probably was cool but i didn't get to see it. after spending nearly an hour looking for a way to be able to stream it or watch it or figure out where/when/how we could see it, we went over to ingrid's house because she said they were switching to live at the championships..... and it was a guy commentator in front of an empty rink, and that was that. 

but ingrid made felix's rose for the day by giving him nearly 250 stickers (from the spar program stupid sticker stupid mania) his eyes lit up and right when we got home, henry and theodore also got home and their eyes lit up and it was impossible to get them to sleep until they had organized all of them and figured out which were duplicates and which they still needed. 

the blind leading the blind (21/365d)

i woke up with one leg still very sore from dancing last sunday. oh well, that's the price i pay for having fun. brian did all the morning work of getting everyone out to school, plus did 1billion laundry, all the sheets and all the clothes and a ton of other things. i hope our sheets are done before we go to sleep tonight... then we spent some time (the timer was set to 10 minutes) doing a little extra household chores together.

i went to get theodore from his organ practice. we played one piece together, he on the pedals and i at the manuals. then we went to cosa for an hour. that was pretty much just pure fun, except that he was disappointed at how difficult it is to play a race car video game for 90seconds without any prior practice. 20 minutes to "assemble" the car, and 90seconds to crash it and watch it lie belly up. yaaay. science.

the most beautiful moment i observed today was a couple walking, not hand in hand, but in tandem, he behind her. both blind. both wearing the same bright blue cable-knit hats with beige pom-poms. she had a cane, he did not. she was narrating to him, like "here are the people sitting at the cafe along the outside wall." then they came out of the shade into a little sliver of sunlight, and they both closed their eyes and their faces relaxed into smiles, and she said "how nice, we found the sun." ... even if i had had a camera i couldn't have (wouldn't have) taken a photo, but i hope i will always remember them just like that, smiling in the warmth of the winter sun.

henry had a craft-project in school that he had mostly missed out on because of opera rehearsals, and so i got to finish it with him. it was quite fun to work with him.

we lit the christmas tree one last time after brian went to choir. and sang songs and canons until felix pretended to fall asleep on the floor. theodore and henry both practiced by candle light, and i was enthralled. //that's my barney

all the things i don't want to do. (20/365d)

job rejection officially in, not that i'm surprised, considering it's a month after their decision deadline.

A lesson with Elke in the morning, that was very productive, although Brigitta was sick so we had no piano part. More focus on my stuff I guess.
Michi came over for lunch and I made about 8 different dishes so that she could have the quinoa bowl that we weren't ordering from the Lend Hotel 100 meters away. Mine was WAY better. Objectively!

I took care of the fine from yesterday and renewed my year-card, and each transaction took a pleasant  total 10 seconds and 10 words, and no standing in line. A++ would buy again

brian and i played team cleanup after bedtime, which was pretty alright. we sure tend to work well together. <3

wait! these papers expired 3 weeks ago! (casablanca reference) (19/365d)

I needed to get ready to go, to drink some coffee, pack my music and bags and go to Wildon for rehearsal, and I was going to be contacted when Olena left to come to me, but I got a text saying "I'll be there in 5 minutes" while I was contentedly playing bridge of the floor with all my four menfolk.

Thus started the Sunday Scramble of 2020.

In 4 minutes flat i was dressed and packed and out the door.

Rehearsal went very nicely, and during the last piece I noticed the time. To catch the train I would have to be on it in 8 minutes.

Thus started the Second Sunday Scramble of 2020.

I packed everything up again in 4 minutes flat and arrived at the train station with my shoes still untied with  1 minute to spare.

On the last bus home (a very optional bus, it only takes me one short stop, but it was standing there as i walked by, so i took it, why not) I was asked to show my ticket and she surprised me by saying it was expired, and I would have to pay a fine. I felt so stupid! I was sure I had renewed it in September with all the rest of the public transport tickets, but I guess I hadn't. Ooops. The funny thing is, I have showed that ticket SO MANY TIMES this school year, to other ticket inspectors, drivers, for cheaper train tickets, and nobody has noticed. Oh well, I guess that's the 2020 tax, or the new year tax or something.

Home again we made pizza, but I stuck to leftover vegan food from Artur's family.

oh so blue... (18/365d)

saw an email saying that there were last minute openings for the blues workshop today at 9:30. I called and emailed and heard at 9:40 that I should come on down. So off I hopped on my bike with only a cup of coffee to my name, and no preconceived notions about the blues, how to dance it or anything. The next two and a half hours were spent getting quite close to complete strangers, but I learned a lot.
Home for lunch, I found Artur over and the kids all having a chaotic bunch of fun. Arturs family had brought us tons of food, so we didn't need to cook. Yesterday and today Felix and Henry have taken to going to the Spar on their own - for purchases over 10Euros you get a package of random stickers, which are currently very coveted. You never know what you're going to get though. They want to go just so they can spend 10euros, but at no point do they think that maybe we just don't actually need more milk right now. and besides, last time they went they couldn't find the pasta. they will have to practice more...
More workshops in the afternoon, this time not in the super extreme closed-position, but more of a normal dance position, and more "normal"-ish moves.
Home again for bedtime, where I found Alois to pick up Artur. Artur had lost one of the most coveted stickers and there was general disquiet and sadness at bedtime, but after all had calmed, I read to them until Centa got home, and then I joined Brian who had already headed to the evening blues dance party ..... We danced like it was 1999 and then walked my bike home, because my body was just completely exhausted.

here is a gallery dedicated to photo books. (17/365d)

nina and i went out for breakfast and museums this morning. we took in hours and hours of fine art and ........
HAHA, no. I was pretty lethargic (and maybe a bit cold and didn't want to leave the heater) in the morning, and we didn't leave until noon. Pauli surprised me with a visit at 8:30, and he has yoga at 9:30, so it was a short quick tea, and some heavy chatting.
and THEN Nina came over, and there was some more (lighter) chatting, and finally after noon, right when the youngest kids came back from school, we left. Picked up Theodore and we went out to eat at Herr Karl, with its nice newly renovated old-school atmosphere.
Then costume try-outs for Kaliph Storch, which we would never have found without Nina, who has an uncanny ability to read signs for content.
Then the Kunsthaus, where we saw some interesting things, most notably a set of "paintings" made with only bent straw. and one photo book with 100 photos of a single spot and the ants walking by there, which i thought was kind of funny, and one photo book that distracted all three of us of all the photographs from the first moon landing.
We got back completely exhausted, and Brian left nearly immediately to go see the my hated Fledermaus. He didn't think it was that bad, but i think secretly he also needed the 4 free glasses of champagne to be impressed.

sometimes you only notice something when it's not there (16/365d)

brian came home today from poland! just in time for me to go to see fazil say at the congress. The concert was amazing, he played solo, mozart and beethoven sonatas, and then his own composition based on the trojan war, complete with stamping, grunting, humming, and plucking the piano strings. i got very annoyed when the ladies behind me pointed out that "they know" that mozart sonata, and he just does not understand mozart. it is THEY who do not understand Mozart!

It's always good to be reminded what a good team Brian and I make. For example, Henry had ice-skating today and forgot his helmet. I went to pick him up from school afterwards, and to bring him his organ music. I felt so proud of myself that I had brought him food, but forgot his organ music. So i biked back and left the other two kids alone at homework to go back to his organ lesson, only to find that i had forgotten to leave him his homework so he would have something to do while i was gone. Help, I need somebody! Not just anybody!

"too tired to be cranky" (15/365)

finished translating the first chapter, which felt good. but it also was short and started on page 10. the next chapter goes to page 50.... hmmm...

i picked up henry from to take home his ice-skates for him and give him his organ music. i brought him some hot food to eat. but forgot the music. he didn't like the food, and i left him there to go home and come back with the music.

they went to judo and asp all on their own while felix and i did home stuff.

centa told me about this shirt she saw and i liked it so much i looked it up before forwarding to nina.

FULLMOON MADE ME DO IT
and the stars keep reminding me

left at 10pm to pick up the kids from the opera after koenigskinder. they came out at 11pm. we missed the streetcar by a hair, and decide to walk home instead of wait for 33 minutes.

on the way home today theodore said he was "too tired to be cranky." i'm inclined to agree.

thankful for the internet so i can look up calligraphy terms (14/365d)

started a kind of stupid project. translating an 80 year old book because the german is right at the very edge of my comprehension level and for some reason i was impatient reading it for weeks, so i have decided to read it even slower, probably for the next few months. let's see how far i get. the first 3 pages took about 2 hours all together, but i wasn't really in the swing of things, and first i had to look up how to talk about all different kinds of breeds of horses, because that's an important detail. ah the things i do for art.

the morning we had trio rehearsal for opernredoute. i had the prettiest music (outside covers) because felix and henry and i had decorated it. then i practice a while on my own.

it was a day that i got email/text responses to a lot of things that i have been waiting on, and for some reason the responses filled me with a feeling like dread... they all include things i have to do, questions i have to answer, decisions i have to make. each one is kind of like an idea come back to haunt me from some other reality, but perhaps it is because i haven't had enough sleep with brian gone. not really his fault. tonight i am staying up way past my bedtime so that i can do research on some music people/composers that even i have never heard of so that i can make even more projects in the future.

vacuuming bread (13/365d)

sometimes you make perfect bread and then it is perfect timing to put it in the oven, and then it starts to smell gooood... then you think, maybe a little too good, and then oops, burnt.
we all still loved it though.

felix was in a terrible mood today, i know because brigitta and i had coffee with him before his piano lesson (he got a cookie) and then we stopped 10 minutes into the lesson because he wasn't cooperating and then i was trying to bike him home, but he refused a helmet and any suggestion of walking with me, so i biked home and he walked home annoyed. stayed home from choir too.

brian headed out to poland for work in the evening after everyone had baths and stories.
jacky and i shared a glass of wine and a 10 minute walk. and i got a chance to (briefly) chat with labeeby.

printer paper does not make a good pillow (12/365d)

brian brought home printer paper from the train station this morning so that i could print nearly 150 pages of music so that we could have some music to play at rehearsal. i was pretty annoyed that they told me at 10:30pm last night that we didn't have any music. one couldn't contact me because she was "in vienna all day" and one thought "we already had all the music".... but weeks ago i had asked them if i should research and organize/find/buy/print music for the upcoming ball at the opera and they had said nooo, it was all taken care of.... by the end of rehearsal my mood had improved, since music is a cure-all.

at home henry had a cello lesson, and immediately following, thomas and i practiced some duos by robert fuchs. we want to make a concert where we pair them with poetry. it's hard to find german poetry since i don't know any but the top 5 famous german poets, and we're not really going for the a-list names.

i have an idea to make the world better! me too! (11/365d)

11am rehearsal with brigitta and elke, working on the milhaud. neither of them like the lady from brussels yet. i've been trying to convince them.

it was a gorgeous day and arthur visited. henry and theodore were at a friends' house the whole day till 9pm, but we even went swing dancing at the schauspielhaus with felix and his friend artur. the walk back was so nice, we went window shopping and drew with side-walk chalk. dinner was popcorn. alois came to pick his son up, and was munching on a head of lettuce when he arrived. we talked about fixing the world but, so far as i know, nothing's changed yet.

try the movie with the soundtrack replaced by milhaud (10/365d)

slept late. did homework with everyone when they got home from school. did so much dumb logistical work today, calendar scheduling, planning, organizing etc.

and lots and lots of practicing of milhaud. discovered a film by Jean-Luc Godard called Un femme coquette based on the de maupassant short story The Signal, which i think matches the mood of the third movement, La Bruxelloise, very well. (the movement that nobody i know likes) .....

souvenir de florence (9/365d)

a model of a model of a model of a model:
davinci's vitruvian man (modeled on vitruvius' writing)
and mario ceroli's Squilibrio (Imbalance) (modeled on davinci)

made felix's davinci model with him in the morning, and he did some homework.. i think he's pretty much ready to go back to school. centa was bummed out that she has to move out of her office this weekend.

watched henry practice his organ and on the way home i ran into finn's mother andrea and we had a quick coffee at the gramm.

sextet concert with marielis... the first half i didn't like so much, it wasn't polished and it was kind of boring even though it was my favorite piece for sextet (brahms 2) but the second half i watched from a seat in the middle of the hall, it sounded better, and was better together and better practiced - yay for tchaikovsky played well.

long long walk after the concert, brian picked me up and walked me home... the long way around.

perfect timing (8/365c)

felix stayed home again, he was worse than yesterday, ears hurt now too, poor thing

brigitta and i played through milhaud for the first time today, and his four ladies (quatre visages) are wonderful... except that brigitta really doesn't like the one from brussels. as soon as we had finished nina came over, and we made ourselves some arabic lunch, at which i felt like i was going sooo slowly at everything. there wasn't really enough room for everybody to eat and have all the dishes, but we made do at our tiny attic kitchen table.

the kids had all gotten models of davinci inventions from my mama, and today we chose to put henry's together. actually we chose theodore's first, but it was too hard to start. i'm glad we chose henry's... his said it would take an hour and a half and theodore's predicted two and a half hours. henry's took over two and a half hours, and right as we were finishing it was 8pm and my head hurt hijus and i went directly to sleep. henry came and snuggled with me to tell me he liked his model. awww....

proud of the finished product

felix sick day (7/365d)

view from the window

Felix is sick today, and he couldn't go to school. i just stayed close to home except for taking felix to the doctor. and now he has to stay home tomorrow too. we were very proud of doing a "very difficult" sudoku together.

no ice-skating (6/365d)

bad haircut day. henry cried nearly all day because his hair was "too short" after he adamantly picked a very short buzz-cut himself. it doesn't look bad at all. interestingly, he said he thought people would think he looked like a girl, and make fun of him for that. he said "i want it longer RIGHT NOW" but that didn't help.

we didn't go iceskating in the morning because there was too much fighting

pauli came for morning coffee and watched edwards finished video
we sang songs for three kings day, centa's feeling a bit better

we finished watching the very last episode of frasier. we have now actually seen them ALL... in order! quite the accomplishment!

tired and a bit sick (5/365d)

just a rest day, we were all so tired and i think we are fighting getting sick. i woke up at 4am again, aand somehow did some blog updating and online chatting.
we went to punktchen and anton without felix. felix and i stayed home and played cards and music and read stories. felix had thrown a tantrum while playing ball earlier, and we just had to set an example.

travel day (4/365d)

got up with the alarm at 6:08, got packed, woke up the kids, walked over to tante friedas, rang the doorbell.... only to find that it was 6:30... my phone had never adjusted to the england time zone.... oops. good thing i was there early or i never would have spilled hot coffee all over myself and gotten to change my clothes before the trip.
tante frieda seemed just as easy going about us leaving as she had been about everyone being there. we took the same taxi, mama heads to thailand, papa heads home, and we to austria
then it was heavy carrying (luggage (with books!) for all three of us on my poor back) and airports and planes, and trains, and finally a bus, where we met brian's and theodore's smiling face and had pizza waiting. it was cold-ish pizza, straight from the oven... i think our oven is ... toast. i was so tired i headed essentially straight to bed, although in typical irma fashion i didn't exactly proceed directly to bed, but rather spent a long time hoping i would be teleported.

filming day (3/365d)

with edward we made a most splendiferous movie about two little kids who bother him to pieces.... we almost didn't film it because felix was so upset about something (nothing) that he wasn't cooperating. but after some time alone while edward and henry got some groceries for kaiserschmarrn everything was better again.

this time we found the bookstore... it was pretty amazing. of course i wanted to buy everything, but ended up with not very much, because i realized i still will have a lot of stuff to carry (mostly our clothes... our kids packed for themselves, so henry, for example, has 2 changes of short sleeved clothes, for example)

at tf, we found mama had also made kaiserschmarrn. great minds and all that. tante frieda was in a bad mood because katrina (the lady who checks in on her daily) had told her we were leaving tomorrow. but then felix taught her how to play rummy, which was very cute. he can be so patient!

henry really wanted to sing a canon he had learned during opera rehearsals (although not in the opera), so we wrote it up together on the computer, made a picture out of it so we could put it on the big screen tv and everyone could learn it together.

alles ist eitel

you're living in MY house? (2/365d)

waited around in the morning to film out little cool short that edward and i want to make with the kids, but it got later and later. finally we postponed those plans and just met him at the playground and played basketball.

we had a weird moment where tante frieda was overwhelmed with visitors (a local friend stopped by and so did katrina) and when she was introducing us she "suddenly discovered" that she had relatives. she complained that we were living in "her" house, and that her brother never told her he had kids. for the fact that her living room is "full of strangers" she was extremely calm.... for 2 hours she could not rid herself of the notion that we were some strange people who live in her house in graz, who coincidentally were visiting her for new years. how strange.

we watched the fledermaus in the evening, and all of the age outliers (young and old) complained now and then that it was "too long" but they stuck it out to the end and laughed all the way through.

year d take 2 (1/365d)

2020 started with  fireworks we watched on the roof outside of tante frieda's bedroom.
slept for 4 hours...after really good scotch ..... woke up with brian &theodore packing and we walked them to tf's house and dropped the two of them off at home.
back at our apartment, edward and i had some wonderful coffees, and planned a very short film that we'll try to make tomorrow with kids.
at frieda's house the tv was quite loud with a very 'scary" nature show. ... very loud, and there was some blood on some mother baboons that made felix unable to eat the tomatoes in the pasta (he loves tomatoes, but it remined him of the baboons)
we also watched the entire sound of music (WAY too loud0 and we went home "early" (9pm) ... i'm writing this with a bit of a headache, probably from lack of sleep. the house seems so empty with just the three of us.

HAPPY 2020! I remember celebrating 2000 with a small percentage of apprehension for the coming changes, and i feel like i couldn't have predicted how great the changes were that have been wrought in 20 years. - kind of like a century worth of change in 2 decades, technologically speaking.