did you axe for the axe? (91/365d)

another day of mostly roses

slept in kind of, and then made up a music theory class for everyone, names of the notes and some intervals etc. we actually played tons of music today - piano and cello and violin. (henry started learning the first bach cello suite! - theodore and i try out my vivaldi - he plays his part, and i play a violin arrangement of the orchestra part, which works pretty well, actually!)

first henry and felix and i planted lots of seeds and then they got out some aggression by axing a tree stump. it looked even more wild in real life.

taking turns

also we went for a lovely family walk along the mur - it started to snow in the sunshine. when we talked about roses and thorns (at teatime with coconut cookies that brian baked while theodore and i were practicing) everyone but me said they didn't like the cold and the wind.

only minor thorn was a loud and long henry trantrum, which ended up with him snuggling for an entire wonder clock story.

Kadenza for two (90/365d)

TaDa! I am herewith a composer.

I spent the day composing, and have entered it into a local contest. Let's see. I was so excited about a piece I had in my head last year, that I dreamed. It was for viola and cello. Then I wrote stuff out, and tried it with Mary over Christmas and I didn't like it at all, and it was (nearly) impossible to play. Then I saw there was a composition competition (say that three times fast!) and it was for string duos... Strange. But NO violas..... So I tried rewriting, and it just got worse and worse. Plus my music editing software was out to get me and did strange things. Last night, I noticed the deadline was today. So I .... spent 10 hours at the computer and DID it. And I feel so proud. But I'm exhausted.

my favorite text moment in a sea of music

There was enough time for some couscous and tofu and salad (ready in 10 minutes, I'm that fast) and a game with the kids. I did one more evening webinar (this time for adults) and because Henry was still awake I read a story from the Wonder Clock to him, while recording, then edited it to send to Agnes.

so many roses, no thorns (89/365d)

So many roses.
Basically no thorns (except for a bit of brambly squabbling and prickery bickering among the kids)

I woke up with still a headache so I took a long bath and hid from everyone the whole morning. Then Brian and I shared a drink on the bench in the sun and started doing lots of yard work. Henry helped with the sledge hammer and the axe, which was pretty adorable.

Brian ran up the plabutsch.

we sent videos of organ practicing to their teacher

I did yoga.

We had cake and teatime after practicing.

We sang milk and honey's halleluja in all various ways Centa suggested: like a sleepy snake, and love-sick cat, a sad duck, an opera singer, a happy chicken.... very funny.

After everyone had a bath and was ready for bed, Centa read stories.

ewww.. we hate migraines (88/365d)

felt ok this morning. did some sam lloyd puzzling with the kids then sent them on a long bike ride with brian - they rode all the way to thalersee - only to find it *closed* ..... oh no! they did have a nice picnic and came back and read the penderwicks in the sun.

i spent hours trying to film my two videos for quintet, and felt a headache starting... by the time i was finished it was a terrific migraine. i slept while the family made pizza and watched a living planet.

no hands no video
manual focus too...

a non-disastrous coffee break.

impossible to film today (87/365d)

failed to make my video for quintet today. i wanted to in the morning but couldn't make the living room work for me (it was precarious at best last time)

after he was mostly done with work brian got all the kids out of the house for a nice long bike ride leaving me with this set-up

this was the least precarious i could manage to make it

but i was essentially too shy to play very properly outside with the neighbors hanging out in the sun on their balconies, and the noise of the street and people walking by also interfered with the shots. then i tried upstairs, but i ran out of energy and light. i told klaus on the phone that i thought everyone would need therapy after this quarantine. seriously, i have not yet felt the lack of space and resources until i realize i can barely move.

with the kids i cleaned and cleaned. we did one bridge hand, 3 minutes of cleaning, one bridge hand 3 minutes of cleaning.... and it made a HUGE difference. i was proud of them for working with me.
then i got brian to reattach the door of our kitchen cabinet that felix had broken in anger.

and felix helped with it.

BEETLES (86/365d)

It was snowing this morning..... i was awoken with the great news that homework had *already* been done, and they were watching charlie chaplin's 1a.m. like i had promised them yesterday .... i announed that this was the ONE time in their lives they could ever see the center of graz so empty and covered in snow in broad daylight, so we just HAD to go walk to see it. i was wrong. it was about as empty as a normal sunday and snow wasn't sticking or even really falling. still really nice to walk as a family. we brought hats and pretty coats for modeling and i got my camera out

beatles/beetles seems to be the theme of the day (see below)

for sure there was less shopping than normal days, and way less traffic.

where should i go?

raced home to get there in time for another webinar, drew some animals and played some cards. theodore had a whatsapp violin "lesson" (10 minutes of tips)

then centa finished a true masterpiece of a cake

for the wedding that's not happening on saturday :(

and i joined nina at her colleague's wikipedia editing evening event. i made myself a user-page. ... two user pages even - one for de and one for en.

paid for by irma's propaganda ministry (85/365d)

up til past 4am this morning, just because
kids let me sleep a bit in the morning,
definitely a rose for my day that henry came and did homework in my bed.
i got up just in time for the webinar and the kids were drawing various stick-figure people all day....

expectar patronum (theodore drew harry potter)
despite the webinar teacher saying she wouldn't draw harry potter
because of copyright issues

centa with her name (from felix)
and her portrait (from henry)

 theodore and i went for a bike ride to the train station to mail some things. way long line out the door.... a meter or so between people, not just to protect people from the virus, but from each other - they were all seriously cranky. theodore and i also dropped by his friends house to drop off a postcard.

agnes had a great concert that she live-streamed from slovenia into our livingroom, and we all danced along (peter and rainer in thailand, uncle ludwig in manchester, and all of us here. we were very greatful that david had taught us about jit.si meet. great program for just that purpose.

we planned our silent movie that we will make.... soon.

i'm quite amused by various corona-related mistakes. tons of terrible statistics etc.

but these new corona ads make me laugh .... weird little things like this. and this. and this. (the first one is just bad timing, ikea didn't know about corona when they made this)

"this spring, everything is allowed" ad by ikea
... except nothing is allowed.

Side-bar advertisement while I was scrolling online at 3am
perfect weapon against a virus!

China Focus from the Beijing Review
ad in the Economist
I hope the editors thought this was a joke.

fleabag at night with centa and drinks she made with ingredients left from her dung-beetle cake creation (more on that tomorrow)

low mood day (84/365d)

webinar in the morning in which we worked on writing words so they looked pretty.

and we did homework - henry needed love and support, even though the stuff is way beneath his "level"

we read Honki im Schattenland (which arrived in the mail yesterday, hooray!)

... after dinner, and after Brian got done with work, he also got to read Honki im Schattenland. It's quite adorable.

it's so nice to see Henry and Felix fighting (not too hard) about who gets to read the next page.

I'm wondering if people in corona land are still bothering with dressing nicely, shaving, worrying about their outward appearances, or if they are merely pretending on social media that they are super productive and doing cool things... I feel no connection to the outside world.

A calm game of checkers, while Henry learns to juggle

we didn't get a chance to do any practicing, or any robin hood, or any bridge. :( too bad.
but brian and theodore did get to go for a bike ride/run up and down the mur.
and centa did make a giant cake creation her friends, the couple whose wedding that was supposed to be on saturday has been postponed to next year. the whole house smells like baking and chocolate.

rough winds doth shake the darling buds of march (83/365d)

A very very cold and windy day, and we really did stay inside. felix and i dressed in our winter coats and watered the plants and that was about it.

it was also a little bit rough as far as doing a good job keeping everybody happy and occupied. we did do lots of schoolwork and practicing while brian worked. yesterday they set up a very elaborate train track and today they extended it, building tunnels etc.

Different homework styles:

Theodore writing to his teacher. 

Felix at the table in the sun

Henry on his belly on the floor getting easily distracted

we talked to david with his three girls online for a long time (for the first time in a long time). all 6 kids were at various times very shy and then very loud and silly. we had a most delightful time seeing them again!

quintet's roxanne video (in our corona series) was finished and posted online and looks great - klaus did a phenomenal job editing all our crappy cell phone videos together into one awesome thing.

cold toes (82/365d)

robin hood in bed, before we got up. we read about robin finding out will scarlet was his nephew after a good sound drubbing. then felix and i stayed on the howard pyle theme, and read a story from the wonderclock alone in the sun downstairs on the couch. he watered the plants outside with me, and then i disappeared for pretty much the whole rest of the day so that i could get some much needed work done, sent off my Jacobi introduction, and edited a ton of photos for people, and went back to my translation of the clara schumann novel, along with plenty of random wikipedia edits thrown in for good measure - they are kind of addictive.

meanwhile they went back to the mur to skip stones, and their feet got wet and cold again, and i got this text message:

Heat water please and make tea. On way back with cold toes.

Brian • 4:17 PM

tomorrow the plan is to start the day with music. i like the early morning for getting things done - certainly more than i used to!

Meanwhile Barbara asked me to take two (normal, and separate) photos for her, and I couldn't resist playing around just a *little* bit with some double exposures.....

i was not scared of anything...

lucky to be out in the sun before the rain (81/365d)

i got a few minutes today alone to do yoga while brian was still asleep, while kids played quietly upstairs. then the four of us played battlesheep until 9am when we could stay indoors no longer and woke brian up and we went for a family outing: A gorgeous (but chilly) bike-ride down the Mur (there were many people, but not nearly as many as yesterday. We stopped in the same place as yesterday and collected more rocks and skipped more rocks. I think we will be there again soon.

theodore and henry went across the little stone pathway several times
as soon as the first person (henry :) ) put his shoes in the water we went home.

Arriving home happy

we were lucky and glad we got out when we did. avoided the late-morning crowds, and the early after noon rain.

it wasn't even noon when we got home, but i was very hungry so i fried up a lot of celeriac pancakes and served them with yogurt-mustard and tons of green salad and left-over potato salad - and guess who loved them? henry! felix like it well enough with the sauce and "hated it" without. 

we read another section of robin hood - brian fell asleep during it, and woke up when we laughed, because he had repeatedly told us he was "awake" but didn't notice me handing off the book to him to read. 

we had a productive amount of cleaning up, where i started the enormous task of organizing our random photocopied sheet music. and then we played *bridge* ..... how lovely!

centa was inspired to take this photo :)

Brian gives some advice

and we played music! more lovely. our fledermaus overture even got stuck in centa's head.

brian got to chat with granny while felix and henry wrestled for "fun" until they cried. then we watched the video of theodore's kalif storch show on private link before bedtime and another manuela chat.

mad at the coffee for spilling (80/365d)

At 8am I started recording for our new quintet project to try to get done by 10am. It was a bit tricky, I had to balance my camera on a "tripod" made out of 500g of yeast, the game battlesheep and a stepstool. I had to manually focus, manually level, etc. and when I was nearly done, checking the recording, i knocked into a cable and catapulted my coffee on...... pretty much everything ....

really really stupid set-up
or as centa has taught my kids, to avoid "stupid"
....ill-advised

Things I can try to ruin by spilling half a cup of coffee ...

X my viola
X my bow
X my lens
X my brand new battery
X my camera
X my cell phone
X my microphone
X my sheetmusic
X a very difficult to clean step-stool
X some books
X a memory card

O some dirty socks on the floor
O a lone lens cap cover
O a closed make up jar

I didn't even hear the doorbell when Nina came by to wave over the fence.
Centa drank coffee at the windows with the neighbors...

enjoying the sunshine

and me and the kids went to the farmers market. We bought some vogerlsalat (cobb salad) to plant in our garden and some to eat right away. theodore helped me plant them, and henry helped me do the crossword puzzle that the little plants were wrapped in. then we started some radishes together.

when brian got done with work we went for a family walk on the Mur and there were so many people out and about, and also carefully keep a meter apart from one another. we stopped past kalvarienberg and skipped stones.

from brian's phone

we played several family bridge hands at home with very good bidding from my children.

then got some skype-catchup with mary and papa while centa continued her embroidery project.

social distancing continues to be awesome (79/365d)

very late morning, where brian and i went to spar together (waiting in line means keeping 1 meter distance from one another) while the kids played cards calmly and quietly.  and another fun drawing webinar.

sushi outside for dinner... except we only had 8 nori sheets, so we ended up making (much more fashionable) sushi bowls. meanwhile i tested some new software to try to help make more remote quintet videos, and one particular one ... could not even (for example) change aspect ratio, or anything, but it could...

put my face on a hot hair balloon....
...very useful
or as Mr. Gilbreth would say "not of general interest"

and more camera stuff.... i got my reverse ring today, so i could try it out, and have theodore make the grass wave back and forth so i could try to capture it in motion......

these grasses were NOT waving in the wind

but i immediately had to turn my lens back around, because theodore was reading the paper, an article about corona virus that ingrid had dropped in an enevelope over our fence, riding by on her laufrad-scooter that she bought because she is in so much pain with her hip.

too cute and concentrated not to capture

then the light was so cool, and they were really playing so very nicely that i took some dusty pictures of henry and felix playing soccer

Full action

Attacking the goal

Then, when we were all inside after reading Robin Hood, we found Nina alone outside with a small bottle of bubbly and a single glass. She looked lonely, so we decided to join her. Centa was feverishly making candied violets. She thought of making 20 and made over 100. The rest of the eggwhite and sugar had to be used!

a bubbly for one...

Played some Bartok stuff with Theodore and worked on intonation a little. Talked to Klaus about more video ideas, and thought of starting my recording of the next one, but the logistics were a bit too complicated for my late-night head, so I guess I will go to bed early and think about that tomorrow.

already we make appointments(78/365d)

Another completely relaxed day ..... no shopping, no plans, no trips, no appointments - I don't mind at all!

 ...well, we had one appointment, a stick-figures drawing webinar recommended by nina. it was pretty fun. we have them every morning this week for half an hour.

we read robin hood (twice! one section in the early morning with coffee and oatmeal and one on the bench in the sun after convincing felix to change his clothes into something cooler. his ears were hot outside, but putting on shorts just *wouldn't help*) They switched right back into soccer, and Felix really scraped up his knee and elbow and cried for a long time, and we snuggled in his bed and i read to him from the wonder clock.

...ok, so we had two appointments...
highlight of the day was talking to grandpapa and mary and making hot cross buns with henry. grandpapa read us betty crocker's recipe. mary didn't bake, she's sick and agnes was over at the neighbor.

Didi Patz watching Henry listen to Grandpapa's instructions

While those were in the oven, we practiced. theodore got some extra times through his violin stuff - first with me, as usual and then with centa too, so i got to enjoy just listening for a change.

deBeriot's Cantabile Grazioso

when that was done..... so were the things in the oven, so we had tea and hot cross buns

finished hot cross buns, still hot so i had to take the picture fast

Fun hit of the day - despite all the drawing from the webinar, ruler and compass drawings were the super-bestest fun today.

working together

working alone

que sera sera (77/365d)

can there be a better weekday morning than bridge and "homework"? i doubt it.

i was so proud of my bread. henry even wrote about it in his journal. he said it "looked really good" .... but i asked him how it *tasted* and he said "also really good.

perfect bread. really. actually perfect.

we had a surprise covert visit from nina - we stayed in the garden. officially we thought we would just wave, but changed our minds when we just couldn't leave the gate closed and between us.

we cleaned out the gutter - a production involving centa high up on the ladder, me holding, and felix and henry really actively cleaning it all up and putting the yucky stuff in the compost trash so they could play football as SOON as possible afterwards. They worked for nearly an hour like that.

quintet started a new remote playing project, where we recording "que sera sera" ... took a little longer because i had to wait for olena to record her part. we wanted to put it on youtube at 6pm but we were too late. tomorrow.

nick's singleton earring from brazil is useful to wear while playing viola
because it doesn't get in the way on the left side. 

we practiced stattegg music in trio/quartet form with centa, very fun - except now i have a blister on thumb from jazz pizzicato on steel strings. And the last of Henry's homework was to interview his grandmother, so he did that. It was pretty cute to watch, but I wanted to hear too!

henry with Grossmutter

Theodore's been diligently keeping his "Corona Journal" - I'm thrilled to see him making himself stick to writing... While Brian read stories theodore wrote a few sentences. But I am NOT allowed to read.

journaling.

first actual official corona free day (76/365d)

no school officially started today. - but the farmer's market is still open, phew.

long drawn-out tantrum morning this morning, i think henry is nervous about the new situation, but cannot express it. we snuggled and lazed around with him for several hours, only finishing with our new bridge games, courtesy of grandpapa who sent us a scan of the original goran tablecloth with bidding rules. then i put a carpet on top of another carpet so we could practice judo.

we also read farther on our howard pyle robin hood ..... we tried at the beginning of the day to have hard and fast times for the kids, but we kept getting distracted and then postponed, postponed, but we managed in the late afternoon.

dummy is directing here
henry was proud to have played (and won!) 4 hearts with only 2 points in his hand
and felix was proud when he bid 2 diamonds and got all 13 tricks.

Brian's turn with a section of Robin hood

judo while Felix doesn't watch

.i went into the school after noon to pick up school material for felix. the city is so empty, and the building was so quiet. i think they had attendance of 5 kids today. 

i took the kids with the basketball to the close-by basketball hoop, an asphalt floor and a hoop that's officially a playground (that is, there's a sign that says "spielplatz")  EVERY time we've gone there, felix has been worried that the ball would go off the court, across the grass under the trees, through the fence, into the little tiny canal and float sadly into the mur where it would be unrecoverable (in some scenarios we have to buy it back.) - we have told him repeatedly that that just WON'T happen. Today it did, although i doffed my shoes, jumped into the mini canal in my socks, and rescued the ball where it was quickly winning a fight with a stick that was trying to hold it back. i found myself in the false dichotomy of being both the villian and the hero "yay you saved it," but "you said it couldn't happen, liar"... then, after that, a police car pulled up slowly and sat there for a while watching us, then reminded us of a 3000euro fine for being in public spaces. so we went home.

quarantine music (75/365d)

these days are turning into the ultimate luxury of having infinite time to spend and having nowhere to go. so much easy going relaxing.
i even got a chance to nearly fully catch up on my blog (i hate being behind! - maybe i can leave being behind behind!)

everything seems magical, even taping music for the stattegg orchestra into the correct order (about 30 minutes of work for each theodore and henry) ..... we just took our time and were inventive with our taping and sat by the heater with tea.

felix requested an early morning family football game, and we obliged until the ball went into the gutters. oops.

at 6pm there was a city-wide (mary said also in slovenia, so i guess it was much bigger) campaign to play music with the windows open so other people could open their windows and join in.  we did our part, but the others mostly didn't, except ingrid who watched us mangle corelli and then bravely played half of alle-meine-entchen no her recorder. she suggested we try upstairs so the sound would carry better - so we did, and sang three part canons out of three windows and "goodnight irene" we finally got into the groove with some fiddle music and percussion instruments, but i'm pretty sure we were the only ones who cared. still fun.

we were the only ones with an open window on the street side

super grandpapa and grossmutter skype chat afterward - they are home from florida and are planning all their online classes... official corona diet: beans, onions and garlic, because... why not.

"is anyone else as happy as i am?" (74/365d)

puk's birthday today! we found her on skype and sang to her... twice. once before, and once during cake - we got to see her blow out the candles :)

Thank goodness it's normal

we bought a LOT of potatoes
or as one can also write it
potoooooooo

I was so very worried that the farmer's market would be weird or cancelled, but it was up and running and refreshingly normal! Thank goodness for that. I bought 25 little tiny lettuce and cauliflower plants which we planted on this very cool cloudy ideal-planting day. Nobody wanted to help. They wanted to "play soccer" which was really "fight about the ball and the rules" .... after I helped with their fight by taking the ball away they were suddenly interested in the planting. It was delightful to dig in the earth again.

Then, completely neurotically, I cleaned the floor on my hands and knees, remembering again, that my grandmother probably did that every single day. with lye.

each one of the three played music with me individually: each so musical and we had so much fun

we had a movie night with pauli, nina, kris and centa ..... kris' flight for tomorrow was cancelled, and he was a bit bummed out about that. the line-up of films was

"wallace and grommit"
"pink panther/noah's ark" 

(kids go to bed)
"saddest music in the world"* (aka "weirdest movie in the world" - i nearly turned it off after 5 minutes because i was woried about my audience/guests being shell shocked.
"ducks" by isabella rosellini

In a tense, dialogue-heavy scene of the movie, Pauli suddenly announces that he thinks he could maybe name a (very theoretical) baby irma... then, as the scene progressed, and the name of one of the characters was mentioned he said narcissa was also a nice name...

*We chose this because of a letter to the editor found in the Economist

"Love will tear us apart
The Graphic detail on why people listen to sad songs in February brought to mind “The Saddest Music in the World”. Directed by Guy Maddin, known for his homages to Russian and German Expressionist films, it stars Isabella Rossellini as a brewery heiress with plexiglass prosthetic legs (filled with beer, of course). She holds a contest to find which country has the saddest music, parodying the Olympics. Great fun.
K. CARLSON
Belmont, Massachusetts"

am i crazy for not panic shopping? (73/365d)

Yoga (the very last class for a long time... ) with brigitta and her friend barbara. when we left, it was raining and cold again like last week.

Nina and Kris (visiting from Lyon... we are speculating whether he will get a flight back or not) come over for coffee and stay for cooking and dinner. before we could cook though, we had to go to the spar and we found it very thoroughly and systematically emptied... canned beans were gone, but nina found canned keferbohnen for our salad in the "styrian food" section, despite the people working there telling her that they were "completely" out.

I wrote a new wiki entry on the composer "Oswald Lutz" - who unfortunately shares his name (and nothing else!) with a nazi general... now at least when people search for him, they can find him on a wiki disambiguation page...

Ingrid next door had a hip infection and went to the hospital, but was sent home because they don't want any people in the hospitals right now.

we practiced stattegg music as a trio, everyone got to chose one of the pieces.

late at night, in the online world i got to catch up with my darling brother peter and my long-no-talk-friend shannon. and even later, brian and i finished watching mrs. maisal and saw labeeby in the very last episode.

fuchs duo concert was NOT cancelled (72/365d)

Coffee and tea in the sun with brian, - a gorgeous, sunny, warm day

Had to meet with Anselm at the kons to work out paperwork details of maybe finishing some kind of diploma thingy.

Everything is cancelled in all of Graz, except for my concert, where the person in charge can't come (because she's over 65, and banned from going into the Mehrgenerationhaus from now until at least Easter) so I had to be there before 6 to pick up the key. The concert started at 19:30, and we knew every single person in the audience (grand total: helga's husband, thomas' parents and one student, my husband, three kids, and pauli) ..... we filled the room because we placed the chairs a meter apart from each other as per current government regulation.

the only photo today, not mine
because brian forgot my camera i didn't take any photos

Helga read very nicely, Thomas and I played fine ... I was struggling a bit because I had all new strings, because my D-string broke in the afternoon while I was last-minute cramming for the difficult passages.