first day of school vacation (46/365g)

Everyone was so lazy and lazing around, and i guess that's a good thing when you have time off. Only Theodore made an effort to really do things - went to record his organ composition, and worked on some other computer project. I also did a lot of prepping for tomorrow's rehearsal, which will be here, rehearsal prep included both practicing and cleaning. I also read most of a kind of silly novel (new genre: trivial holocaust literature) by Natasha Solomons (whose Mr. Rosenblum's List I really loved), which I had taken from the free books in klagenfurt on friday.

valentine's day (45/365g)

Dropped Jackie off at the train station and borrowed her car to get rid of the horrible ugly and also long broken sofa. Picked Brian up from park run with the couch in the car, and first drove around like idiots to see if we could donate it, but it wasn't nice enough, and finally we got rid of it. It made me feel bad to throw it away, but it also felt nice to have it gone!

While Brian brought the car back to the Foersters, I went on to the Oriental Music workshop, where we learned a song called "La Rosa Enflorence" with which I got a bit obsessed. 

I ate alone at a cafe wearing earplugs because I didn't want to listen to people chatting around me, then went to work. Catalogued books, which is work I love.

Recorded a little mini song for Danielle's birthday which I sent her a whole year after i wrote it. Theodore played the chords, and it turned out quite well, I thought.

end of semester (44/365g)

Brian and I headed to Klagenfurt for no real reason today, just to try out the new koralmbahn that gets us from graz to klagenfurt in 41 minutes. our ears popped in the tunnel and we went 225kmh. The official reason we gave was to sell our little 1/8 size cello over willhaben, but there would have been more efficient and reasonable ways to do that. Figured we could just consider this our Valentine's day date. We had coffee lazing in the sun, visited the Musil Museum and headed right back, where we arrived at home before the children had returned from school with their report cards.

I was in charge of the kids' quartet today, I taught them some Shostakovich, then dropped them at the movie theater, where you can pay with whatever math grade is on your zeugnis plus 60 cents. So if you have a 1 (equivalent of an A) in Math, you pay 1,60 for a movie ticket. Felix went to one film with a friend, Theodore and Henry went with Julia from Quartet, and Brian and I headed home by way of dropping a ton of stuff off at the free store. Felt much lighter coming back.

loooooooooong (43/365g)

Wow today was a long day

Starting with a dream about naked sumo wrestlers serving dim sum and noodles at a fancy party and some dude that-wasn't-but-looked-like trump giving a speech about "finally putting an end to sexualizing fat middle-aged men"

Henry stayed home from school today to get ready for his performance. didn't matter anyways, most of his class is on a ski-trip today.

He was annoyed with me the whole time - I think he was nervous

At work I just did stuff with receipts and spreadsheets and was relatively happy to head out to go tune henry for his competition and watch him play. He got a second prize - not bad for 3 days of practice.

After Henry's strings on stage was baroque lesson and chamber music. - I got to play around with sight reading the solo violin part of bach's bwv1041, which was a party. It was gabrieles last day teaching us in dario's stead.

Then I headed to the opera to see "on Zhe tong" (how austrians pronounce "On the Town") with michi. it was the last night playing and she had promised me that for my birthday. actually i payed for the tickets which were standing room only. i only realized later that the great film is based on a berstein original that is less than stellar and hadn't fixed any of the plot holes but kept a lot of the more boring songs. I was plus or minus begeistert.

We had prosecco afterwards and I felt it instantly. Oof.

on the mend (42/365g)

feeling much much better today 

called the akm and fussed around for an hour trying to figure our their rules and their websites - austria still leads the world for worst websites ever. the akm posits themselves as protecting musicians and composers, but as far as i can tell they do more paid antagonizing.

rehearsed with eva j at her place again, where we did lots of new pieces and i realized im starting to understand her composition style a lot better

got henry to finally practice for tomorrows competition (he tends to cram)

brian and and i did 10 minutes of very efficient clean-up with felix while the other two were at choir. 

even sick days can be used well (41/365g) (photo of me sleeping at brunos from 2023)

Sick day - Feeling better but still miserable. i finally got the presse photos together for bruno and my concert in june - found a photo for kg which didn't get used, but i love this photo so much. Wrote a tune, "raggle taggle" inspired by henry's sight reading of the entertainer, and theodore did not like it at all.

practiced a lot of music with henry and theodore. read a lot. saw a nice episode of bewitched, sitting on the floor in front of the gas stove with felix.

cheese please (40/365g)

got up super early to take a photo of a chair that i had seen yesterday. got there just in time before they continued their demolition efforts - they were just in the process of refueling the bagger.

henry finished 24 hours of not eating cheese - a challenge he told me about only after he finished. 

- and how did you feel during that time? 

-"annoyed" 

....yup, we noticed.

had ysop, and one of the older ladies in the ensemble, claudia, had bought a new cello on my recommendation. philipp also showed up with his recorder, and we went back here and he accompanied henry on his practicing.

executive exceptions to the rules (39/365g)

sniffly, too much computer for everyone. we were like zombies lazing around on couches staring into screens.

at kg, there was a reading by angelika reitzer. because of a typo i accidentally charged 14 instead of 10 euros to everyone... oops. i noticed halfway through but decided it was too complicated to fix it. my nose was running the whole time so i stayed in the back room away from the public and left right after, although she would have been great fun to talk to.

conducting with the sniffles (38/365g) (whatsapp watercolor from kurt)

sick, no oriental music. brian left almost immediately on his return from parkrun for henry's forgotten vorspielstunde. Brian recorded it for me to hear later. I guess he has a competition on Thursday that he has decided he may want to start practicing for... 

I just couldn't cancel on Clementine who was holding her first ever conducting workshop - a very exclusive affair for just me, philipp, her partner kurt one lone outsider. i learned a lot even with ducking into the other room to sneeze or drink tea. it was a long walk back all the way from waltendorf with philipp, who graciously sight-read the piano accompaniment parts so henry could practice along. henry didn't even help me look for the piano sheet music. we chatted over getreidekaffee until brian got home from his pennyless players evening, then we chatted another half hour in the doorway.

happy birthday, contra dance (37/365g)

Brian had the day off, and we mostly just got ready for this evening's contra dance. we ran up against running out of time anyways. 

On my way out the door, the organ teacher called to tell me that Henry is not and will not be ready for prima la musica - for which i feel a strong sense of personal guilt (don't ask me why!) but i don't have time to talk to her, and bike off to contra where we had a nice time in kraeftner, but first we had to stand out in the cold waiting, because of a miss-communication, he unlocked the doors for us half an hour late. this was the first time since we started that we didn't have over-night guests or international visitors. i made a cake to celebrate, which centa brought with her. 

the dance was a success again, and i thought we played really nicely. Brian called very well, the dancers were all happy and our after hours party was also entertaining. the kids went home on their own and put themselves to bed, which made things very simple. 

art is better than food (36/365g)

renate was visiting from vienna, so we took the opportunity to hang out - we saw two art galleries, at haus der architechtur, there was an multi-artist exhibition where people could borrow the art for a year, 

and at akademie graz there was an exhibition of Christian Eisenberger (nomen est omen....) that showed various ice-sculptures and clever use of snow - i sent some terribly blurry photos to rainer. 

I had a Baroque lesson (that i was also unprepared for) and during chamber music we played john dowland. my plan of getting things that i had prepared to take to the free store didn't come to fruition because i didn't make it back home in time even though i had a key for maria's car.

not a nice day for a bike ride (35/365g)

it was unbelievably wet and cold and rainy and disgusting. 

before work was the first rehearsal with eva b. for the next concert featuring women composers, and we read through the new pieces for the first time. i was sight reading, totally unprepared. i can't keep up with my own projects!

kunstgarten work, then had to leave my viola there because of the rain and got home wet and bedraggled.

little extra things take all day (34/365g)

went to geza's to get bridge fixed. on my way out the door i found a sealed bottle of wine in the street, so i took it with me - why not!? - biking all the way to work and back home with it rolling back and forth in the basket. the violin was ready to be picked up in time for theodore's violin lesson this afternoon, but talking to geza took the whole hour. 

went to pierre's for late night, despite not feeling quite up for it, and going all alone. i got quite a lot of comments from strangers for sitting alone in a corner hanging out and listening, writing poetry.

give us your tired, your poor (33/365g)

Late getting out of bed. Somehow the morning hours are the most precious and I still manage to waste them. I wrote another new tune, one that I kind of half dreamed - based loosely on how I think the words "give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free."

Tried making a gel print from a page of vogue magazine, which is supposed to work great, but it was not quite contrasty enough unfortunately. i get a lot of energy from trying things like this though.

Kids had dispensepruefung right after i had an ysop rehearsal. we supposedly couldn't leave though the whole concert, but the whole quartet had some laugh attacks while we waited through the 3 hours.

theodore's violin bridge and sound-post fell down with a resounding "clomp" right after he finished playing, so i called geza for an emergy luthier appointment tomorrow morning.

phil and i rehearsed for contra until very late in the night, i had to leave some things out because we didn't have enough time to learn all new stuff

day of unrest (32/365g)

After our 2am return this morning, Brian sang a mass and I helped kids with getting school studying organized. A friend of Brian's birthday was today, and he was celebrating by running his age in kilometers, Brian joined for half of them. 

I went to work for the afternoon, and got back after Brian had left for his Shape Note Singing. The kids spend tooooo much time on their computers. I hate it. 

We made a soup to absolutely die for...
3 inches of ginger and 6 cloves of garlic roughly chopped, sweated in a mixture of canola and coconut oil. Spicy Thai curry powder and sweet paprika and 2 big carrots. add hot vegetable stock and cook till soft, puree and add a can of coconut milk. mix ins in the bowl: ripped nori, lightly baked smoked tofu, and softened rice vermicelli. 

Athrive at forty-five (31/365g)

Brian's birthday today, which we celebrated the only way we know how - doing as much stuff separately as possible. I baked a cake while Brian was doing his park run.

Theodore and Henry had an organ recital, vorspielstunde, at which we were told they really should practice if they want to do a good job at the upcoming competition.

Theodore was off to do a special training from the university about how to perform on stage. Maybe that would have been useful before the recital this morning, haha. 

Brian and I started but did not finish the set list for the upcoming contra dance, and I wrote him a tune for his birthday.

Henry went over to a friend to work on school work, and when everyone was home again for 25 minutes we sang happy birthday and Brian's parents called.

I saw part of a cool show at Kraeftners with Manuela, (Maria Magdalena, the band name of Tobias Pöcksteiner) and then went to the communist ball with Brian and Jackie and Andi where we danced to way too loud music and stuffed napkins in our ear and drank warm beer outside in the cold and ate cake out of a Tupperware and stayed out till 2am.

i tune my viola down a half step (30/365g)

a few minutes before 9 i found out that the guidance councilor at school wanted to have a chat about felix. it was quite nice and helpful, and i came out of it with positive feelings.

hung out for coffee with andrea - we  didn't do any art this time, just sat and chat, and she showed me some of her art, which is always very impressive. sometimes a get a bit jealous. 

i was the last minute replacement to play at a gallery opening this evening. sometimes when i want to mask myself a bit i tune my viola down a half step so that everything resonates a bit differently. i practiced for a few minutes before i left to take care of quartet practice, and then a bit longer afterwards. i got some really positive comments afterwards. 

hopefully i chose pieces that matched what they wanted...... Tamara Friebel, Imogen Holst, Yann Tiersen..... for an exhibit called "Der Weg Nach Innen"

 

now do everything with a headache (29/365g)

uggh, i hate headaches, and sometimes I just gotta live with them - like today, I didn't feel like cancelling everything, but it did impede my enjoyment of the moments.

Drizzly cold rain and I biked to work, and stared at a computer for almost 4 hours straight. 

My baroque violin lesson was less than stellar, as was the chamber music afterwards.

Wikipedia evening was a little silly with two little old ladies who took all of my and Nina's attention and didn't get along with one another. I did get start creating nice list of Hungarian Female composers but there are almost none of them born before 1950.

Nina and I went out for Sri-lanken food afterwards just for fun. After that my headache finally subsided, but by then the day was done.

life really is a divine comedy (28/365g)

doomscrolling for an hour and a half starting at 5am, then waking up the kids.

yay dentist for felix and then right after brian and me have a parent teacher conference to talk about the "incident" from two weeks ago, which derived from a test taken a month and a half ago. Talk about immediacy of reactions. It was an intense debate that put stress on my emotional availabilities, but I think I managed well. 

Met up with Sina and a friend/colleague of his and felt so super old compared to his 28 and the other's 20 years, talking philosophy with all the enthusiastic ego of their youth. 

[photo from parks compared to painting]

I finally returned Henry's borrowed Cello to the kons, and just getting that out of the room downstairs felt lightening. 

[photo from the antique store dancing people]

Nina had tickets to tonight's performance of the Divine Comedy at the opera, which was a ballet set to music of Arvo Paert and Philip Glass. Glass who just decided to cancel the world premiere of his symphony about Abraham Lincoln at the Trump Kennedy Center. The show was funny because half an hour was spent with the public aimlessly walking around the entire opera building to find mini ballet performances before all trying to get to their seats and watch the rest of the show. 

[photo from oper graz maybe]

everyone wants to talk to me (27/365g)

So beautifully foggy, I wished I had my camera all day today. But wishin ain't the same as havin.

Henrik was at kunstGarten today for dinner. 

I went to pick up Theodore from his violin lesson so I could bring his instrument to the luthier. When I got there he was showing his organ composition to Anselm, and I couldn't help but watch for a few minutes.

back in town I ran into Mario, with whom I have some uncommon and unexplainable connection. He made me a cup of coffee at kraeftners, and I listened to him while I got about 5 calls from Sina. He wanted to meet me after an exam, and he was close by. It got so late though that I rushed to an elternverein meeting. I'm still not sure how involved I want to be with the parents of the school.

At home the kids were finishing the movie big, and I watched a bit with them until Jackie and Andi came to pick up their car after a nice evening out for them. They stayed and chatted until Brian got back from choir. 

Best days off are Monday (26/365g)

Specifically had nothing planned today, which made the day feel so nice. Wrote a new short music bio where I don't mention quintet, which was a kind of sore-spot for me for a while that I kept putting off. 

Was generally less productive than I wanted to be, but still sorted out some old clothes, put stuff on willhaben and made some phone calls to a bunch of people which was also nice, Mary and Edward and Jörg.

Also got a piece of music which was written for me for the concert series that feature women composers. First read through of it on Thursday to see how it is.

Burns Supper (25/365g)

just woke up from a dream where I arrived late to tonight's burns supper.
Steph lives on the bottom floor of a triple-decker in Worcester MA, by the way.
And everyone was waiting for me when I arrived. It was 17:06, which was egregiously too late. "Leave your coat on we're just going to start right now"

Happy Burns' Day sounds funnier than Happy Burns' Night.

We made vegetarian Haggis, which was entertaining enough after I found the Mace. A spice I bought just for this which I then misplaced by leaving it in my room for no particular reason. 

Felix was working on his (stupid, stupid) bird house, an assignment for school which had him using a terrible online software which is way overqualified for what he had to make. He kept getting frustrated by it. Eventually right before I left I got him to just start over, for whatever that is worth, because the software was so buggy it was impossible to tell where the mistakes were that he made and where the mistakes were that the software made.

Burns night was awesomely fun, lots of singing and poetry.

I responded to the lassies toast with my own laddies toast (a word that is often autocorrected to "ladies")

His Toast to the Lassies

Here’s to the lassies that reign 'long the Mur,
Like pumpkin seed oil—rich an’ bold;
A wee bit thick, aye canny to pour,
But worth their weight in green-black gold.

The finest drap’ll no spoil the broth,
But tells yer fortune, guid or ill;
Choose weel the lass ye gie yer hand,
For ane can warm—or break—yer will.

They deepen flavour the langer they bide,
They’ll ruin yer sark an’ rule yer plate—
Yet life would taste but thin an’ pale
Without their strength, their fire, their fate.

So rise yer glass, accept the toil—
To a’ the lassies: rich as pumpkin seed oil!

My Toast to the Laddies

Dear laddies all hail,
Give me a wee little hark
We rich and bold lassies
Have a fierce little bark


When you lads come to greet us
You'll take notice askance
While you dressed the salad
We prepped for the dance

you likened the lassies to styrian oil
essential to plate and perfecting the palate
and since all ye lads be our eternal foils
you must be like vinegar: sharp, bitter and sour.

All laddies start life with a sweetness as pure
As sun-ripened apples, luscious and firm
Then time plays a trick: you ferment and cure
your sugar is changed into acetic acid

when tartness tickles the tip of my tongue
The reaction is instant: my face puckers up
Same when manly heroics are braggardly sung
"Heh - heh - look at us" makes my nose wrinkle up

So hail to the laddies: hope the best for time's test
And let oil and vinegar mix well for our fest!

When I got home I stayed up till almost 11 helping Felix finish his school-work.

I'll do my crying in the rain (24/365g)

I brought Felix to his M3 math competition this morning while Brian was at his Park Run, then he and I met on Glacis to water plants at Renate's place (Renate told me "Keep the key, turn on the heat in the kitchen, and use a few hours and finish your novel" which is a nice sentiment, but I haven't done it yet, other than keeping the key) and going shopping for tomorrow's Burns night. Weird ingredients that I need are steel-cut oats, which I didn't find, Marmite, which I forgot, and square rice paper, for a score of 1/3.

Brian left me in the city so I could attend my oriental workshop again, and I lent my extra viola to the organizer for the next few months. I think he was very happy about it. I headed to work from there, where they gave me dinner before I started my long slog of copy and pasting excel cells from various sheets to other sheets. It's the time of the year when we have to justify our expenses to any grants from last year. Slog is really the best description.

It rained while I was in kunstGarten, and the roads were frozen. I biked very carefully back home, only to find the couch was still outside, getting rained on from picking it up on, what was that, tuesday? big effort to get everyone helping to get it inside and dried off. It's not so bad to have an extra source of humidity in this dry weather, but maybe not the most ideal choice of said source.  

first time in stainz (23/365g)

Morning with Jackie, walking around the city, she was waiting for ski-service to be done, and I was putting out flyers in various spots. She called me this morning to tell me she was "5 min away" and I was happy to be Guerrilla-ed for coffee. 

So many little errands to do at home before leaving for Stainz with Brian, leaving all the kids at home. Hoping all goes well without us.

[Photos Brian took of us in Stainz]

... all is well when we got home. 

The concert/dance event was just 6 people that were close personal friends. I accepted no cash (this time)

How to overstuff a a day (22/365g)

First a few hours of work (after spending extra time to get there using a bus and needing to freeze while waiting), then a baroque violin lesson with chamber music, then dropping off stuff for work at Neue Gallerie - it was cold! Made turnips for the family, and garlic soup, ran off to Pierre's which was cancelled, made music at home. Practiced and read before bed.

Felix and Theodore went to the spar for a baguette and butter. They took 20 euros, spent 10 and lost 10. This stressed Felix to no end, so I promised him that I would give him 10 euros personally if he could spend tomorrow saying only positive things about himself and others... no "I'm so incompetent," or "Why am I so dumb?" or "Are you stupid?" ... Henry got in on the offer too, though he speculated that he would "probably fail". Theodore said no to the offer, since criticism and negative thinking are important for keeping life in balance.

blah-di-blah (21/365g)

i keep getting behind on writing here, but i will not let myself be deterred so easily. 

again early morning rehearsal outside graz with eva j. almost missed my bus connection at jakominiplatz and it is unbearably cold right now. we played until after lunch time, and i came home with total Heißhunger again. 

Brian went for a walk a friend in crisis, and I stayed home with Felix.

homework/bewitched with felix in the evening, and didn't go to the session.

theodore and i reminisce (20/365g)

Work in the morning felt so early even though I didn't get there till 10:30. It's sooo cold and dreary and dark and grey outside that I barely feel like doing anything. I borrowed their car so that brian and I could pick up the couch. 

We were on the latest possible side to get farther in our day. Brian had choir right after and I wanted to see Theodore's vorspielstunde. 

"oh yeah" said theodore, I need a photo from 2014, or 2015 for tomorrow. 

So I looked through old photos with him (mostly he said, "I don't remember that, either") for a few hours. It was quite a nice little time to spend with him. I found so many of him reading, including this one where he was completely enthralled on his way inside out of the rain.

[theodore reading 2015] 

i guess he hasn't changed much, since after he printed out the picture he needed I told him to go brush his teeth, and found him like this....

[theodore reading 2026]

two very different rehearsals (19/365g)

Monday before 8am we went to look at a willhaben couch for our guest room, then Eva J came over for rehearsal for Friday night dance evening that is at the end of this week. I don't quite feel prepared yet. The rehearsal went quite late, so I just had time to quick cook/eat before I had the YSOP rehearsal.

Philipp came to join us again, and we went out to Ginko's for tea afterwards, and ended up talking til after 9pm so there went this day.

sunrise hike (18/365g)

beautiful hike fast up and fast down schoeckl. we tried to be slow on the way down, because of ice and knees and photos, but i must have slipped about four times anyways.

by 10am i was already back home, so one would think i had the whole day ahead of me... 

but i was exhausted, and took a nap, and lazed around and read the whole sunday.

learning turkish pronunciation (17/365g)

brian went running in the park this morning, and i got up quite late. the kids watched saturday morning cartoons.

i went to seomthing called the Echo.Akademie for learning eastern-ish musik. Singing a song called Hekimoğlu Derler Benim Aslıma. I had my Adufe with me and tried to sing and play at the same time, which is not as easy as I want it to be.

Hekimoğlu Derler Benim Aslıma

I stopped for a quick falafel sandwich next door, where it was freezing cold (i could see my breath inside) as the guy stood behind the counter sweating from the heat from the oven and the rotating meat. Then I was off to kunstGarten for working on last years books, and found several typos that I had made that I corrected before sending them off to be reviewed. 

By the time I got home I was compelled by Heißhunger to eat as much as possible before beginning baking cookies and quiche for everyone else for tomorrow. I'm planning on leaving early in the morning for a sunrise Schöckl hike with Manuela. This time I'll bring snacks and water with me, unlike last time, where I was singularly unprepared.

Friday morning is date morning (16/365g)

Brian had the day off, as he has many Fridays. We used the morning to go out to a cafe, and try to committee-write my "Toast to the Laddies" for the upcoming Burns night supper. I'll have to do it on my own. We also ran silly errands, including picking up my coffee machine. 

After lunch, I went to Theodore and Henry's Quartet rehearsal, where I played the viola to fill in for one of them. It's so fun to play music with them.

Then we finally had a nice little movie night with the Försters. I made pizzas, and the adults hung out in the kitchen while they watched the German version of the Court Jester. 

Ended the day with a late-night meetup with Katja and Pauli at Cafe Harrach which was also way to loud to have a normal conversation. Why do people like those places? I want to know! 

In any event, it was the cheapest night out I've had in a long time. 2 euros including tip, for a small glass of soda water. 

an over-filled day (15/365g)

So much stuff today....

Brian woke up at 2am for an online contra-dance-caller meeting and then again for a 7am mastermind meeting. I left way early with Felix to go to the dentist. It was brutally cold, and as we travelled through the frozen city we saw lots of sleeping homeless people, and watched one man pack his things (3 thermarests, 3 sleeping bags, and multiple blankets into a suitcase with the help of a passerby to get the zipper closed.

The dentist was speedy as ususal, so we got back to his school before his next class started, so i took him to see the director about yesterday. it was not an easy moment for him, but i was proud of him for being relaxed and polite under stress.

My afternoon was one thing to the next... work then baroque violin lesson followed by baroque Kammermusik. directly to pick up nina from work, to go directly to the celebration for 25 years of wikipedia. the restaurant we met at was just way too loud to have a normal conversation, and I was starting to have a very bad headache.

When I noticed how late it was, I realized I had almost missed all of Eva's evening concert in Pierre's that I had wanted to stop by at. I got there for the last 2 songs, and stayed till almost midnight.

here we go again (14/365g)

way early morning, waaaay too early, especially with no coffee-machine. rehearsed with eva at her place.

After my rehearsal I checked my phone on the way home and saw missed calls from the school and from Brian. Felix had to be picked up and my heart sank. Memories of traumatic kindergarten and elementary school garbage came up and I felt quite bad. He had been quite rude to a teacher and then to the other teachers who had tried (not very hard) to reason with him.

I took out some worry and disappointment on the door finishing all the paint removal. Then while the big kids were off at sing school Brian and I had a nice relaxed talk with Felix where he told me more of the story. This all makes me very anxious. The last time this stuff was going on I couldn't sleep normally for weeks.

concerts and more (13/365g)

because of the afternoon concert with the baroque people, i took my stuff already in the morning to work at kunstgarten. it is sooo hard to leave the house when its so grey and cold. biking is no fun with icy wind in my face. 

work was fine, and i left in just enough time to get to our little preparatory rehearsal. we did such a nice run through or two where we sounded absolutely fabulous, i even took some audio recordings.

then i went on a crazy errand run, picking up theodore's case (repaired for 35 euros, a bit cheaper than they had promised!) and watering renates plants, and buying a new bicycle saddle, because i hate my other new one, and eating some leftovers standing up in the kitchen, changing my clothes and getting back.

naja, that was all fine, but i had left my violin under a church pew, only to find that since i had had rehearsal they had turned on the heat, which is under-pew heating, so my violin was "nice" and warm..... not so great. the harpsichord was a bit not in tune, and my playing was made more difficult by some (idiot) filming with an LED flash the entire time in the corner of my eye.

We went to a "beisl" afterwards, for soups and beers, and on the way out some older people jabbed us, telling us we couldn't leave because we hadn't played anything yet. I told them we did just play - im geriatrischenzentrum, but that they had a few years before they would hear us. They haw hawed and guffawed over that.

Philipp and I walked on over to Kraeftner where a dude was playing Nyckelharpa. Its a dude I don't like much, and has an ego problem, but I don't know him personally, at least, he never recognizes me ever. I stayed for half the concert, then on my way chatted politics and saving-the-world at the bar until the concert was over. Could have stayed for all of it after all.

no picture monday (12/365g)

cool that my headache stopped in the afternoon. but blech, what an annoying morning.

afternoon i had ysop, dropped theodore's violin case off to get fixed, and would have left his violin at the luthier too, but she told me everything was great, just adjusted the bridge a bit and sent me back. philipp showed up for the end of ysop with a recorder and played along with corelli, and we went to get some nice getreidekaffee before doing our rehearsal for tomorrow's baroque ensemble. 

and that was about it.

beautiful january (11/365g)

sometimes january is more than just cold and grey. today manuela and i went to a little 10km hike near Wildon. We saw caves and ruins and trees and tried and failed to capture birds with our cameras.

[wildon pictures]

I almost didn't go because my head hurt, and I stalled as much as I could leaving the house, but I was glad I forced myself to leave the house. My headache didn't go away though, and it really put a damper on my afternoon/evening. That didn't stop  me from taking the paint off one side of our bathroom door. It's so addictive to watch the paint melt away.

I still played Theodore's new violin while Theodore played chords on the guitar. I love playing music with my kids - more than most things in the world!

suffering the consequences (10/365g)

so.... staying up late and partying and eating lots of salty snacks has its consequences... i was super tired this morning and groggy and the whole day a bit headachy. 

Birgit and Iliya were leaving relatively early this morning, and barely had time to stay for breakfast. Park run was cancelled due to snow/ice in the park, but brian went on a little run before taking the same train to vienna with theodore. ostensibly for celighd but also to buy theodore a violin. i hope he made the right decision, i haven't seen it, they may be a small crack on one of the shoulders.. i'll see it tomorrow.

henry and felix did as close as possible to nothing today, read and sat by the fire again. i don't know how to get them to move around. i had to work, so i was at kunstgarten adding events to facebook and cursing meta for their terrible interface. 

at home i got henry to practice a tiny bit again, and then i read a bit before deciding on bed with a bit of a headache. i hope i feel better again tomorrow. i guess theodore/brian will get into hbf around 00:00....

first of the year or last? (9/365g)

so today was our 12th contra... a the last of a year of monthly contra dances organized by us! but also the first dance of 2026. it was decently well attended, including some people who have been promising for a while that they will come. 

ninas brother phil came over in the morning for coffee, in a first, i haven't seen him in forever, like years. it was a nice surprise, and we just nerded out about cameras and such. 

When theodore got home from school, he asked for pizza, but he told me he had to be "back at school" in 35 minutes. no problem, dough, cheese, sauce, bake, eat, i did it! well - everything except eat it - he did that. meanwhile, while i was blitzing the pizza i also made a proper dinner for myself, beet salad and tempeh and couscous, to which everyone else turned up their noses.

then the crazy set up for contra, which involved completely filling the lastenrad with stuff, and putting things on our back as well. when fiddler phil sets everything up its super easy, but this time it was up to me. chuck played with me and it was super fun, everyone had a great time. theodore took a video of the last dance, where in the background i think i saw klaus watching from the hallway. man that stresses me out, but i gotta live with it - there was a candlelight concert going on at adjoining church, so that would make sense. 

it had rained while we were dancing and then froze over. on the way back with theodore on our bikes i took a turn too cavalierly and slipped and fell along my entire right side. i'm bruised, both body and ego, and took it more carefully from then on. we were still back before any of the bus/tram/bike people for the afterparty at home.

the afterparty was full of joy too. we had some people from the session who brought flutes and we did some tunes, and sang some songs. it went quite late - even the kids didn't go to sleep until almost 1, and we got to bed nearly at 2. what a fun day! 

Another unbelievably cold day (8/365g)

Another unbelievably cold day, and another, way too early, rehearsal (unrelated to yesterday's) ... 8:30 i was already at the conservatory rehearsing with philipp for a departmental concert this coming Tuesday that i only found out about two days ago. we chose vivaldi rv2, the last two movements, which will be something i need to way practice.

then i rushed to the dentist, where he reglued my crown with no drama. he's the fastest dentist ever in the history of the world. when i went in for my cleaning last time, my appointment was at 10:30. I got there 15 minutes early. by 10:20 I had had my x-rays, and he had examined and checked my teeth, then i did the cleaning afterwards. 

on the way home i bought myself three chunky sweaters, at a thrift store because it's been so cold, and i have had a real desire for them. i also bought another pair of the best tweezers ever from pheromone guy. now i have an actual pair of tweezers.

at home i found henry some asterix to read in french, because he does always the minimum to learn french, but that's not enough at the beginning.

i made pasta with cheese and spinach that everyone liked, but theodore thought it was too spicy (it was only pepper - i feel like my mother saying the same to me when i was theodore's age!)

i had my baroque violin lesson where we worked more on the vivaldi, and aftewards a chamber ensemble hour where i was over-qualified. 

I got henry and felix out of the house for 10 mintues, to go to the spar to get chocolate chips, and then we were going to make american chocolate chip cookies (from the recipe on the box of baking soda) but it ended up just being ME making them, which is totally ok. i'll bring them to contra tomorrow.

then lots more baroque vivaldi practicing, and a nice episode of bewitched with felix (we are watching very slowly, it's a special thing we have together)

Theodore basically finished his toccata composition for organ that he's been working on for weeks, i think he wants to enter a competition with it.

as different as they all are... they do have some similarities....

[photo of three boys in the bunk bed]

feels like monday (7/365g)

first day of school this morning, and it felt like monday all day. 

chuck leM. came over for rehearsal this morning. he was supposed to drop off his wife at the airport at 6am so we had scheduled for a 7:30 rehearsal, which is the earliest rehearsal I think I've ever had.... but because of all the snow, planes were cancelled, but he didn't change his plans, and showed up for a very early contra-dance rehearsal. it was pretty fun. 

i went to work, and got things ready for 2026, and biking was sooo cold.

at home, i couldn't get felix to eat with me, he turned down his freshly made omelet, and took his plate of food downstairs. i did way too much door scraping - it's turning into an obsession, practiced some baroque music and watched some late-night tv. also read through some john hartford tunes from his "mammoth collection of fiddle tunes" that brian ordered for me "for christmas". when theodore got home from sing schule after 9pm he still had an hour of biology homework to do, because "legally, they aren't supposed to give me work over the break"

3 Kings Day (6/365g)

There was a spontaneous invitation from Maria per sms to have coffee and traditional spanish cake for three kings day. When I got there she was with a friend, Luis, who spoke next to no german. Maria speaks next to no english, and I speak next to no spanish. So the discussion was entertainingly triangulated.

[picture from my phone of cake and hot chocolate]

Theodore went to practice organ, but henry said he would later.... he didn't, it was always too cold. so much for the movie yesterday convincing people not to make constant excuses.

I did some composing and lots of paint scraping. in the middle, a guy from chili came and bought our old technics piano, now that we have a newer yamaha with wooden keys. we gave it to him for quite a small price. 

we watched a documentary that rainer had sent me several years ago. i found it facinating then and now. 2/3 kids fell asleep. one did not want his photo taken. i won't say who. 

theodore and i made recordings for ysop to practice corelli with, which took waaaay longer than i wanted it to - for 10 minutes of music almost an hour of recording and cutting. ugg. i hope the files get used.

hard to get to bed in time on this last day of vacation before school starts tomorrow. 

Snow day (5/365g)

I used to love when everything is cancelled from snow, but now I was a bit sad that we couldn't have our fireside goulash and film evening with the foersters. The snow is pretty but it's oh so very cold - a high of negative six degrees Celsius.

I woke up way too early to get to rehearsal with Eva J, tango nuevos, for which I was not particularly well prepared. She has an absolutely beautiful studio, very impressive. I took the bus there and back, before hand I made sure I got the goulash on the stove, and when I got back it was hot and ready, and after dinner alone (just to test!) i fell right asleep.

Brian and I spent a little while censoring yes-man to make it almost child-appropriate. Unfortunately we did such a bad job that we didn't end up censoring much of anything, and our weird cuts actually seemed to make things a bit worse, so that was a bit embarrassing... oh well.

I couldn't stop eating goulash, it was sooo good, had another helping almost at 10pm. Also didn't work on the door today, it was so cold and nobody wanted me to have the window open so long. I am wearing a winter hat to bed, and have already warmed the bags of rice for later.

resolutions - better late than never (4/365g)

Theodore and Henry have been playing with a Quartet for a few years now, and they sometimes get quite cranky about it although they could make such beautiful music together. This morning, though it's still vacation, the other two kids came over and I helped them rehearse together. We played through all their pieces and then we had palatschinken.  

As soon as they left I ran out the door to get to kunstGarten for work. Eva J. was playing today, accompanying Irmi reading horrific stories about South America, sadly only too relevant to the news in the world since yesterday. A new year means new budget files and excel spreadsheets, so I made those.

I was so hungry when I got home, but there was no food, and nobody had any wishes. 

So, in chronological order... I ended up having 2 day old soup. Theodore made himself an egg. Felix made himself oatmeal. Henry made himself pasta. Brian ate something when he got home from shape singing. 

9pm was New Years Resolution time - this year we started with a dark room and with every resolution we lit a candle on the Christmas tree. The resolutions are as follows: 

Brian: Every day, practice improving my singing

Irma: Talk less, say more, listen more

Centa: I will continue to jumping jack the date

Theodore: Resolve to practice violin more, because organ I practice enough

Henry: Also, hmm, also, hmmm, hmmm, I think I'll try to do pull-ups every day

Felix: now i have no idea. how about...... I'll answer every letter/postcard I get

Trying again (3/365g)

Brian woke up early enough to volunteer at Park Run, and because one other guy wanted the same volunteer position they raced to get it - Brian won, so he got to scan bar codes. Before he left he even got "Saturday Morning Cartoons" onto the USB stick for the kids. After he got back, he did all the shopping for the day - tomorrow being Sunday, there's always a lot to get (and a lot to forget, too). We made Curry and Rice with the pre-cut "soup veggies" from the farmer's market, which was good for everyone except Felix. 

Since Jackie had told me to try to make my day "as long as possible" by filling it with useful experiences, I tried to pack everything in that I possibly could, but the day still ended too quickly.

I picked all kinds of tunes with February's contra dance in mind, hoping to play a lot of new tunes, because the old ones are starting to bore me. I'm way ahead, because I still have to practice for January's contra at the end of this week.

I started the door project, and although my hands and wrists started hurting from the strain, I found that scraping the paint off with the heat gun to be quite addictive, and I couldn't stop. 

[Photo of me scraping paint]

And a few wonderful afternoon hours were taken up by the year in review that Papa put together oh so beautifully. 

[Photo of me year in review]

I had nice phone conversations with Kris and with Sina and with Jackie. 

We made pudding in the evening, but we didn't have cornstarch, we only had potato-starch, and it tuned out very weird and gluey.  

Art with Nina (2/365g)

 It's been so long since Nina and I did any art, but we did this evening.

First I wanted to meet for coffee, but instead, Brian and I had to go to the baumarkt to get aluminum tape to patch a hole in the gas pipe that Henry noticed. We also bought almost 200euros worth of other stuff - for example tools to strip the paint off the door in order to save hundreds of euros from the Tischlerin, who told us she would rather we do that silly grunt-work. I know it's going to be my task.

Brian and I did a whole bunch of other random shopping too, leaving the kids to try to make instagram pictures for contra. They didn't manage while we were gone, unfortunately. That kind of stuff just takes so terribly long, and is so stupid. 

We had fancy sandwiches for lunch - it's a way to get the kids to eat veggies, is by cutting them appealingly and laying them on a platter.

Right when Nina was coming over, Jackie asked me to go for a walk, and I couldn't say no to a third walk in as many days, so I brought Nina along and we walked to Andritz and took the bus back. It was quite wonderful. 

Although neither Nina nor I wanted to drink anything alcoholic, Centa unknowingly brought us eggnog, and we couldn't refuse. But now starts dry January. Then we went at gel-printing, and enjoyed ourselves, although I couldn't get the laser printing ones to work. Maybe next time - I won't give up!

Nina brought us my Christmas present, since I had been so sick before Christmas that we had put off meeting until today - a book of poetry by Maria Lassnig. It's wonderful!

[Picture of poem by Maria Lassnig]

[Picture of suck-it-up-buttercup]

Unfortunately, flossing knocked my beautiful crown right out of my mouth, and I kind of clipped it back on, but I was totally traumatized and I didn't think I could sleep. Brian and I ended up watching Yes Man which I thought would put me to sleep after 2 minutes, but ended up keeping my attention till the very end. My plan is to censor it and cut it so that it is appropriate for the kids. Some things are just so unnecessary and add nothing whatsoever to the movie, which is otherwise quite adorable.

New year new feelings (1/365g)

Having left off blogging for several years now, I thought I would go back to it. Especially seeing as the original idea was to keep my brain working, but now it seems I don't remember anything at all if I don't write it down.

It was lovely to start the year in the house of the Foersters, waking up at some random time, the clock hidden behind curtains. Brian had already left at some ungodly time this morning to volunteer at a special park run event, and had not come back. When I was trying to call him, I could not find my phone. It was especially upsetting that I couldn't remember seeing it after I was on the bus yesterday. I realized I must have dropped it sometime on our 2 hour long hike yesterday, somewhere in the snow. I was remembering last year when Brian dropped the key to the rental car while sledding at the Foersters house, and how we borrowed a metal detector and searched for 5 hours straight without finding it. I was also remembering the time I went up and down Drachenhoehle 3 times in 24 hours, once with Felix on a Monday morning because I dropped my phone glissading the way down after Theodore's birthday party in a cave. The third time I found it.

This time I found it where I had made snow-angels with Vito and I was very happy to tuck it back into my pocket, dry it out, and only plug it in when I got home. 24 hours without a phone is a good trick every now and then. Plus the added benefit was a nice sunny walk with Jackie and Zorah.

By the time I got home, I was so tired (I mean, we were up past 3am) and headachy that I went to sleep and only woke up at 7pm. Had a bowl of soup, read the book Train Dreams (which is short!) and then went right back to sleep.