overtone singing (243/365d)

A way too early (8am) doctor's appointment for all the kids to get checked before school-start that they are physically fit for singing. They measured each of them and weighed them, stamped the paper and that was it. Then I took Theodore to his first day of music camp down the street from us at Kalvarienberg.

Bow technique lesson with Gerda I.

At home I did music of my own. Jacob Collier had a moment in his Qwest Masterclass where he did overtone singing and said that everyone has those tiny baby notes in their throats - "it's like little hairs on your arm" - so I went on a quest to find the overtones in my voice - and i found them!

Manuela and Dorian arrived for their extended visit - we hung out in the kitchen for a while while the kids fought us on going to sleep, but at some point all was quiet on the western front.

a sad / tired day (242/365d)

then there are days where i disappoint myself.

rain was on the way, just postponed (241/365d)

spent the morning on reading, like dahl's "the sound machine" short story sent by my papa

look ma! i'm in the paper!

spent the evening on playing a little bit of music in a coffee house... we played at eschenlaube to a "packed" (corona-allowing) crowd. 

Pauli and Ingrid came, and Brian and the kids (who were dressed up to the nines - i absolutely love when they dress up for concerts!), and Centa brought Karin, but there were plenty of others. We rocked the house, and the energy was terrific. 

everyone was taking photos and videos with their phones, but i haven't seen a single one. 

rain scheduled all day, and we even played indoors instead of outdoors, because of weather worries, but it didn't start raining until 1am, right when we left the cafe. and then it was REALLY raining. 

may the south never rise again (240/365d)

Bruno points out: there are two kinds of people in the world... Those who are depressed and those who don't get it. .... I found this very funny for some reason

there was some drama at quintet rehearsal again, and then i stole a project. someone in irmtrauds very distantly related family wrote a polka that was dedicated to jefferson davis. not exactly very politically delightful, but she had asked olena a few weeks ago to record it so the other side of the extended family could hear it. olena had never gotten around to it, so i did it this evening.

i know texas is the "lone star" state...
but... i can only think
There's only one man who would dare give me the raspberry: Lone Star!

then i lay awake all night with anxious thoughts that had nearly no obvious reason.

fond of fondue, are you? (239/365d)

Started the morning by guiding my first ever meditation - for Bruno over whatsapp. I tried to meditate myself but didn't really because I was always checking the time.

morning reading in the sleeping bag

amazing times in the afternoon cleaning the yard with centa and brian. i mean, really amazing. we borrowed ingrid's lawnmower and cut down weeks worth of grasses that had been given free *reign* due to heavy *rain*

after a high-energy quintet rehearsal, i had the sudden need to make cheese fondue. luckily kris and nina were energetic enough to spend kris' last night in town with us. it may have gotten a bit late, but it was exactly what i wanted, in terms of company and in terms of fondue.

wonderful times (238/365d)

Felix and me made coffee together - once he was on my back the whole time pushing buttons which was extremely exhausting but also extremely fun and silly. once all on his own.

drawing a portrait...

...a portrait of Brian, perhaps?

i went to renate's to do some sponaneous fabuli work and meditate... it was a difficult meditation for me because i felt very distracted and creative and i couldn't manage to get deep into the brain until the session was nearly over.

i stand on the edge of an ocean, holding my heart, the empty space in my chest cannot fit the heart anymore. the waves come in very close and go very far out 

after that i dropped off some books at the uni library and asked about an article that i had been waiting to ask about since before corona. the official advice as to find out whether the library holds the article or not was to request it on ILL and they would tell me if it was available there. *sigh* *libraries here*

Henry finished the HP book he was working on, and I was surprised and bit proud and a bit impressed that he walked himself directly to the library on his own (well, with Theodore) and got himself the next book out.

Nina and Kris came over for coffee, and we didn't get enough time together before it was time for me to go to rehearsal with quintet. After rehearsal I got dropped off at Nina's. Brian picked me up and walked me home after a glass or two of wine.

some days get a bit lost (237/365d)

i guess yesterday was too much altogether. today was such a day full of negative emotions, probably a come-down from all the excitement yesterday. i said nobody could go to the playground today because they were that annoying. in fact, we didn't get to do anything, really.

by the afternoon though, everyone had calmed a bit, and pauli came over for some evening tea. centa wondered how to get the pear out of the schnapps bottle, and after a youtube tutorial suggested a hammer, pauli tried,

Theodore is not convinced by the plan

Centa amused, but keeping her distance

and it ... "worked"...

well, the hammer pushed the bottle off the counter and it smashed on the floor. success. the pear was out and the tool that was used was a hammer. the kids found this moment quite funny.

many tiny hikes (236/365d)

started the day before breakfast with a hike with Brian.

after breakfast, klaus and I filmed filler material then we went on a hike down to the village and back with the foersters - i had my film camera with me for the first time in a long time. won't see those exposures for a while...

view of the burg from the other side of the Mur

coming back from the hike

one last game of table-football

after everyone else left for home, our family all went for another hike. by the time we got back it was time to drive home, but it was hard to motivate any of the kids to leave, and they were cranky and annoying on the drive home. we even had to stop the car for a moment in an effort to convince them not to poke each other.

filming day (235/365d)

other families got here a bit late, but Klaus and I started filming right after breakfast, desperately trying to beat the rain. each scene we are filming twice - once dead with no people, and ivy everywhere, and once filled with people and props. it means a lot of moving and keeping the camera exactly in the same place. We also were very happy it was overcast because it meant perfect unchanging light.

reviewing the shot

and... action

We finished everything right before the rain came. I wanted to have a nice relaxing evening like yesterday and i had prepared lots of little food stuffs, but everyone was just tired an exhausted and eventually everyone trailed off leaving only the foersters, olena and me.

arrival at the burg (234/365d)

Today we left for Burg Finstergruen, where quintet is going to film our next video. It is a bit crazy to go all the way there for a 3 minute video, but creativity in this case is just a means to go out on a mini-vacation with friends. Jacky and Andi came with their kids, and Brian came with our kids. I left much earlier in the morning with Irmtraud and Klaus. We spent the whole day scouting locations for tomorrow. It's the perfect location/backdrop, and Klaus has a new Gimbal that takes a lot of learning.

setting up the first shot

The castle is huge, and we have a few rooms all to ourselves - the interesting thing is there are other groups here, at least 50 other guests, and yet we feel we have the entire place to ourselves. it feels magnificent.

NINETY files (233/365d)

finally focusing on some projects that i've been laying aside for a while. Bruno asked me to send him some samples of viola sounds. today he got a folder of 90 files of viola samples... i'm curious what ends up happening with them

also found beckett's Company in mama's seemingly endless bookshelf today, and I think this quote sums up the whole book "As then there was no then so there is none now." .. i kept alternating between wanting to tear up the book in frustration and finding moments of pure genius. "For why or?" AAAAAAARGH

my favorite passage so far...

the kids all left for a boy's day - which is actually a boy's night - they are sleeping in a cave in Peggau. Felix is on his first overnight trip with the abenteuerspielplatz. They all packed and got ready both for this trip and for tomorrows trip to the Burg to do the next video for quintet. Brian and I have the evening to ourselves to clean up and finish watching "what about Bob" that we started yesterday (we had to stay awake long enough to wait for the laundry to finish because we had promised Henry his pants, although he didn't even end up wearing them today)

playing catch-up (232/365d)

A morning where I was unexpectedly inspired to write some poetry about the moon...

Nina surprised us pleasantly with croissants in the late morning. We had them with homemade "dirndl" (a regionalism for "Cornelian cherry") marmalade that she had also brought with her.

nina sent this photo to brian
he was working inside
this convinced him to take a break and come outside
bringing henry with him
henry who was originally sad and didn't want to join us

We worked hard cleaning up together but made only a little bit of headway on what has turned into quite a mess. There's still school papers to organize from June. Sometimes I am not sure even where to start....

While they were at the abenteuerspielplatz I mostly just caught up on my blog and weird little projects. Now that I'm caught up I can finally focus on other wonderful tiny projects that have been piling up in my brain. I'll be happy when I can start crossing some of these things off the enormous list (the list isn't even complete!)

the day culminated in a happy walk along the mur with just Brian and me, and in one of the bookshelves along the way i found a very eccentric play for centa, "murdering marlowe"

climbing with henry (231/365d)

quite the adventure day today... henry and i went climbing in the trees at hilmteich - ziplining and safety-carabiner-ing our way through the canopy. we wanted to go to the next hardest parcours but i got nervous because i wasn't sure that henry's concentration was exact enough (had made a mistake or two locking a carabiner and checking the zipline connection) ... he had super fun while we were climbing and was a great buddy, though afterwards he was very disinterested in looking for mushrooms before we biked home.

jacky took all the kids swimming so i had some time alone, until pauli called. then i went to get coffee (actually just some water) with him. during our chat he was a bit annoyed that i laughed at something he said which brought back memories of so many other times in my life when i've laughed at inopportune moments just because laughing comes naturally to me at incorrect times.

at home my new wobble board arrived, which gave me a great surface to have a telephone talk with bruno - the background swaying crazily behind me as i balanced on the balance board.

training abdominal muscles with the feet

and after kids' bedtime i had the ultimate luxury of a long online chat with papa while brian had a work meeting till after 11pm
.

the new table! (230/365d)

Wanted to go climbing in the trees with Henry today but the rain was too much, and I had a story-board to make with Klaus that took all morning. Instead, Henry had a lesson with Nadja, and I promised him to take him on the climbing adventure tomorrow.

They were very excited about getting to the playground early enough to be the first ones to play on the new table. Brian and i went to pick them up at closing time, also because we wanted to see too. it's very pretty.

family at work!

I waited till after 9pm to read them a story and they didn't want to hear one until I said it was too late for me. i went for a walk and ended up at the foerster house for some wine and cheese and olives. Brian joined us at nearly midnight, just in time to walk me home - a very pleasant evening temperature for a walk under the stars.

goes up to eleven (229/365d)

It's nice to have a Monday where we have nothing scheduled. Maria stopped by serendipitously and Pauli and I met up to have empanadas at a restaurant at which he is newly a regular stammkunde. 

we received our official looking stimulus check with voldemort's name on it. somehow this seemed a bit entertaining to me.

lady liberty looks away

I stopped by the asp playground and discussed the possibility of donating a new foosball table and they found a perfect one on willhaben about an hour later and had picked it up already an hour after that. the one that is there is used every day, and has been falling apart for years. the kids are already looking forward to seeing the "new" professional one tomorrow.

the evening was movie night... "this is spinal tap" at barbara's house - since it's a cult classic that none of us had ever actually seen. 

rainy sunday (228/365d)

Kris and Nina spent their whole Sunday with us. We made good use of our possibilities. 

We had a nice early lunch and then a walk to town, and up the Schlossberg, where we withstood a very short cloud-burst under the fig-tree. The figs aren't *quite* ripe yet. Then we tried the slide down (the longest indoor slide in the world!) everyone except me and Felix. Felix is too small. Brian was going to stay behind with him but I chickened out at the last minute and told Brian to go instead of me. It was apparently very fun for all. Felix and I met them down at the bottom again and we got ice-cream and walked home, getting caught in the rain right at the end of our walk.

What better thing to do on a rainy day than water-colors? Mary had suggested a youtube tutorial for a sunset using three colors, so we did that.

same tutorial, different results

Kris discussed all kinds of little puzzles with the kids - various sorting algorithms using cards, the tower of hanoi, etc. and then he and I tried to build Notre-Dame out of blocks...

Kris had brought us all kinds of cheeses from France so we enjoyed those for dinner with several white wines, and then filled out personality tests (the OCEAN one I had never heard of) for each other discussing the results with much amusement. 

my first buffaloes concert (227/365d)

drove back from horn today, started a bit late because i'm a softy and drove somebody to the train station first. then brian was stressed about getting the car back in time and the kids to their friends' birthday party. it all worked out with a bit of fiddling...

fiddling just happens to be what also came next... my first show with the buffaloes. the only song i really completely messed up was the one i practiced right before the show to double check.everything else mostly went off without a hitch... the place was packed with line dancers. Nina and Kris came and spent the whole evening, and Brian came to the end of the last set.

before the show

festival finale (226/365d)

today was the last lesson i had with r.glassl, and it was just wonderful. lots of technical things, and i played a bit of bach. he didn't hate it.
the festival had one more concert in the evening, again it rained and had to be moved indoors, and it was just fine to listen to. a pianist played a most convincing scrijabin piece. i didn't take any photos, but someone did, and i stole this one:

corona interlude

dinner afterwards was quite nice, although i didn't eat anything. late night at a bar until it was too boring.

sorry, bernstein! (225/365d)

played clarke this morning in the "internal concert" of the viola class ... it was the only thing i've worked on this week, so that was ok.

there was no time for movies or anything else today, there was that concert in the morning, a little rehearsal, a lesson, and then the evening public concert for all the instruments. the viola class all played together, an arrangement of "tonight" by bernstein, which sounded catastrophically terrible. it was like a horrible viola joke - these violinists and cellists play their showiest pieces, including ysaye and paganini and saint saens, and then all the violist come on stage after a huge show of disinfecting 6 music stands, and we play one minute of disorganized pop music, don't know how to bow at the end of it, and that is that. kind of funny too.

how i felt after playing

at the end of the concert it was pouring rain, and we ran into town and found it had stopped raining. we sat outside at a grill house and had drinks. everyone went to a bar except for me and another violist, who comes from a family of seven children all of whom play musical instruments., grew up in rochester, was homeschooled. we talked about strange and wonderful and unknown music and composers. eventually the people who had gone to a bar got done with the bar, and walked past, and saw us still hanging out there and thought our evening had been boring. it hadn't been.

concert in a library (224/365d)

it's getting to be a habit - early morning despite late night, and nothing to do here in the hotel but watch old movies quietly. this time a lucille ball movie, from 1949, Grant Takes Richmond with another great feminist message - if you want to get ahead as a woman you have to be really really stupid.
after movie morning came lesson times, i listened to hours and hours of lessons, all morning and all afternoon. in the evening the star professors had a concert in the library of stift altenburg. the library was so impressive you barely noticed the enormous statue of a rearing horse on one of the columns.

stolen from the internet because i didn't bring my camera

they played beautifully and the location was gorgeous but the acoustics were very bad. the corona virus rules were also very extreme and silly - we had to wait in different areas depending on where we were sitting, and we had to of course keep our distances from everyone. if we were standing up we had to have a mask, but sitting down we didn't. the performers had to wear one to walk in and out of the hall.

afterwards we got pizza, the first hot meal i've had since saturday. it's just been bread and sandwiches. not that pizza is very far removed from a cheese sandwich...

technical help (223/365d)

again i was awake at 6:30am. so i watched another old movie before breakfast. this time, Together Again from 1944 which totally passes the Bechdel–Wallace test, but also includes this delightful quote... "A mother is just another piece of furniture in a girl`s house"... thank goodness the lady mayor gave up her job and got married at the end! #feminism

downtown Horn

Alley to the center

In the evening our viola professor offered us an hour of technical education, which turned into over 3 hours of explanation. When we were done, idyllic Horn was essentially closed, and none of us had had any dinner, so we ended up at a wine bar with cheese and olives for dinner.

my love is a weeping willow (222/365d)

couldn't sleep past 6:30, so i watched an old movie... actually 2 old movies before breakfast!

Millie (1931) and Too Many Husbands (1940)

i played my clarke sonata today in the morning, feeling uncharacteristically nervous and shaky. mr. glassl made lots of helpful comments and was generally encouraging, although he did say that i was playing like a trauerweide (a weeping willow) ... he took me back to basics and we really didn't work on the musical side of things, so i will play the same thing again tomorrow.

i took his ideas to heart and went back to my hotel room to practice very basic things. i bought some jars of olives and feta and such things and made myself a bit of a sad dinner in my hotel room interspersed with viola practicing

"the usual magnum, for one." (from the divorce of lady X)

horn bei wien (221/365d)

first day of the music camp, and I had no lessons or anything, which was good because I was very tired. Everyone here is very much younger than I but that's ok for me, I'm here for me not for them. I listened in on several hours of masterclasses with my chosen professor, and was very impressed. I've learned a lot without even holding an instrument.

Horn is very small and my hotel room is as far away from the masterclass location as possible without leaving the city. I passed this location on the walk in the morning and found this strange vending machine very charming.

 most photogenic spot

i was completely exhausted by my lack of sleep (arrival after 3am, and festival greeting at 9am) so I spent the evening in my hotel room and was quite happy to rest up for tomorrow.

a wedding (220/365d)

Started the day with watercolors and coffee...

morning light inspires

cappuccino to go

henry and agnes

saying goodbye

then we drove and drove and drove and drove and finally arrived in Graz, where I changed my clothes, gathered my viola, and went to Anselm's wedding. Klaus was setting up all the things, since he was there as musician, videographer, sound engineer and general friend. I was not feeling so well, so I didn't offer that much help. it was a beautiful wedding if you like that sort of thing (i don't) but it went very late, and I was waiting very long. Brian brought the kids around 8pm to say goodbye to me, as I'm leaving for a week. Then after the final show, at 11:30pm I took the car that Brian had rented for me and started the long slog to Horn, a very tiny town north of Vienna.

deep in the woods (219/365d)

we went on a very long, several hour, mushroom hunt with the kids. when we got back we discovered that the whole traveled route was about 0.6km. when we got back edward made palatschinken with 3 different random kinds of flour we found, and they were simply amazing, especially filled with chanterelles and sharp cheese from the farmer's market.

mary did a mini water-color class with everyone with felix, who decided he would rather try tomorrow. there was a bit of fighting and crankiness that resolved itself pretty quickly.

morning snooze

morning star-gazing
Brian slept well in strawbed in the little hut in the background

watercolor tutorials

view from the window... where are all the people?

they are all inside solving newspaper puzzles

and making palatschinken

cousins by the campfire

fireside chats

a day of rest (218/365d)

Agnes woke me up to tell me that she had seen the stars last night, and that they were so beautiful.
We spent the day close to home; looking for mushrooms when we were in the mood to be in the woods; playing duets, trios, and quartets with Uncle Ludwig when we were in the mood for music; playing Dixit with Uncle Martin when we needed entertainment; cooking when we were hungry; building fire when we felt like it. Brian slept in the little antique cabin on the bed of straw

coming back from the woods

reading, stretching (after a 14km run)
playing and meditating

explaining the rules

assessing the mushroom collection

evening mood

joyous arrival (217/365d)

to get somewhere nice one has to pay the price of packing and leaving. nina was over in the morning to lend us a mushroom book, and she got stressed out just watching us pack. there was an hour-long fight getting into the car about who sat in which seat. but in the end, we were on our way, and there were no more problems, and we got to slovenia, and it was just as beautiful as last year. this year centa didn't go along, but edward did! there was a campfire, and we made dinner and sang songs.

a special moment complete with the sparks of the fire

at nearly midnight, agnes asked me to look at the stars with her, so we looked at some basic constellations and saw some shooting stars, and i was overwhelmed with affection.

take a break and relax (216/365d)

henry and i worked out our extended family tree this morning

and this is your second cousin once removed...

and then we got fat envelope from the US that was full of letters for everyone, that we read aloud.

the kids requested sushi for lunch, and our policy is pretty much always "ask and you shall receive"

there was a tremendous thunder/rain/hail/wind storm the second i arrived at this evening's buffaloes rehearsal. we stood outside watching the rain for a while, and the lead singer tripped and fell into a puddle straining his ankle. "i'm fine! let's rehearse!" he said the best cure was apparently to drink a beer, to stop the pain and the swelling. after the rehearsal they took him to the hospital where it was definitely sprained and he can't walk for a week now. no more rehearsals until our gig on the 15th.

no more rain, and quintet had a rehearsal with anselm for his wedding, for which he had arranged daning cheek to cheek to sing and dance with his wife. olena had her birthday today so it was just the four of us and the wedding couple. there were some discussions afterwards, but i left and found nina on the tram, and we went out for some chinese food... in my fortune cookie: take a break and relax

slow way home (215/365d)

Wassererlebnisweg in the morning before everyone else was awake - that is, i took a hike on my own right by the castle, along a gorge. Centa had done it last week after the concert and told me about it. It was a bit strange, but the waters were beautiful, and it was very drizzly and Monday and early, so I had the place to myself. I didn't have so much time, so I didn't stay as long as I would have wanted to...

we took a very slow drive back with barbara, because her fancy BMW didn't feel like accelerating. if the road was even slightly uphill we didn't get over 80kmh.

athletic eating of grapes

reading theodore style

reading henry style

huge thunderstorm while renate visited to talk about fabuli... nothing seemed to work - my computer didn't want to start up, the microphone didn't want to do what i wanted, my phone ran out of battery, but we talked music and i think it should be ok. 

biked to my buffaloes rehearsal in the rain.... it is always raining when we have rehearsals