theodore's birthday (57/365g)

my first baby turned 16 today, and was not enthusiastic about his newfound right to buy alcohol or stay out all night. he'll be allowed to vote in the upcoming elections.

A 9am rehearsal with eva b. for women's concert, and then i met with brian in the city to buy food without packaging. it's VERY expensive to buy food without plastic, but the nuts and raisins are very good. on his way there, brian got a nice 50euro ticket for answering his phone on the bike. i feel guilty now for calling him.

i picked up theodore's violin from getting fixed another 370 euros. 

then i drove felix and brian to the airport for their trip to york. it was a borrowed e-car, with a 30km range when we left, and the airport is 10km away. i thought, why not park and charge real quick at the airport before heading back, but the thing wouldn't charge, and the cable wouldn't get out of the car either. i put it in but couldn't take it out. i totally melted down in the parking lot feeling completely alone and stupid, especially because i had apparently left my phone at home. the info-desk inside told me to go waaay far to the other side of the airport to the parking attendant, who told me to go to the info-desk. on the way two people at a car rental also told me they knew absolutely nothing to help me. the info-desk let me call brian, who was only reachable because his plane had a slight delay. he told me i had to unlock the car again in order to take the cable out. the info-desk lady walked me there and took the cable out. woohoo, i made it back with 12km to spare and i was annoyed with myself the whole time. that was my stupid tax for the day. 3,30euros for the hour i spent parked at that horrible place.

did kammermusik with dario and dropped my bike off for repair. low-key celebrated theodore's birthday with centa and henry and a guggelhupf, and then enjoyed my downtime alone on my hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor.

packing in piles (56/365g)

Eva was here to rehearse at 9am, and I was still groggy from sleep. She was a bit sick too, so our rehesraal was dementsprechend. I cooked a full meal before leaving for my baroque violin lesson. So happy that Dario is back! Got to play a sonata by Élisabeth Claude Jacquet de La Guerre, which was so nice. 

Then I went to kG, where I got to help carry artworks inside for the next exhibition. At home I found Brian and Felix still not packed for their trip tomorrow, and little piles everywhere. I helped Felix find clothes that are the right size for him, and also cooked an entire "fantastic" (felix's words) second meal for  everyone. - edward's favorite. Linsen mit Spätzle

We all went to bed way too late, since the packing lasted till almost 10pm.

chained trip* (55/365g)

Rushed to get to a frauen rehearsal on-time only to find that Eva had forgotten. Sofija (Eva forgot!) - We rehearsed a string duo zu zweit. 

i was alone at work for most of my 4 hours - kind of left in charge. 

Niko an I met up at a cafe and chatted books until the cafe closed, and then we went for a nice walk along the Mur. we would have walked the whole time, but I still had my viola on my back, and I don't enjoy walking long distances that way. I learned that he has hyperphantasia, and that his mother died after being struck by lightning 20 years ago.

I went directly from there to the conservatory to record sad music with Philipp for Edward to possibly use in a memorial video for lydia.

And from there, I went upstairs one flight to where Sina had a room key and we made ourselves a nice work evening - first time it actually worked out after talking about it for years. we stayed until conservatory closed.

I am brutally tired from the day of essentially one chained trip.

* Trip chaining is a relatively new way to look at the series of trips made by people every

day, and at its most basic level, a chained trip includes a stop on the way to another destination.

plastic fasting (54/365g)

Lots of house cleaning, very cathartic. Also scraped the door some more - the end of this stupid bathroom door is taking forever. Last three times has been "the last time"

YSOP ensemble rehearsal, where i was so happy that Philipp showed up again, and also so happy to go out to eat afterwards at ginkos

I practiced with Henry, getting him to do another few lines of music. 

Talked a long time with Labeeby - who gave Felix hair style advice which coincided exactly with the hair-style advice that Peter gave him independently.  

Made curry and basmati rice.

We've decided (well i decided for everyone) that we are going to try for no plastic as a family - that makes it hard to buy some types of food, but it does mean more homemade bread and yogurt. so, kind of a win. i just really hate how much plastic we go through, and i'm totally tired of it. if we make it through this fasting period i'd be happy to keep up the plastic fasting.

i'm so often invisible (53/365g)

While throwing away a flyer for a photo competition that was laying on the floor today I noticed the deadline was the 22nd. "Long past" I thought, and then... "Oh, that's today!" 

First I tried to figure out how to do double exposures on my sony (you can't do them in camera) then I took out my old pentax and did it then. 4 times on the shutter, two double exposures of me, quick edit, and submitted. I was very proud of myself.

I also wrote a very nice mini tribute for Lydia, which I hope Rainer will read at the funeral.

Started reading Invisible Women  - which I realize Brian read long before I had ever heard of it. It makes me soooo angry!

no colombas at the market today, not even for ready money (52/365g)

Irmi asked me to get 10 huge italian easter breads from Hofer, so I went there with the Lastenrad, but there were no breads available so I just ended up driving that big bike to work for no reason - almost tipping over once for taking a curve too fast and almost getting run over for taking a curve too slow. Very entertaining. 

After work I left the lastenrad and took the bus home, using the time to catch up with Joerg and Edward and Carina on the whole Lydia stuff. Back at home Brian had made a glorious chili, which we enjoyed. Then I practiced a lot with Henry who seemed receptive to learning a new piece on cello finally. He's working frantically on the entertainer right now on the piano, which is driving me a bit mad. Brian promised him "ragtime lessons" in the US, but i guess it will be me figuring out how to get those and from whom.

popcorn > popped ears (51/365g)

Snow day.... So much slushy snow - brian and i shoveled the walk in our pajamas (i was barefoot) 

Jacky left this morning after a light breakfast

Rubinig fixed our heater, which had made a loud pop when henry had turned it on a few days ago - luckily no singed eyebrows or anything else worse.

Brian and I did bureaucracy for contra and got the ridiculous messages back. it's really amazing how terrible the bureaucrats here are.

The pudding I made tasted like cardboard, nobody knows why. 

While I was sitting reading a book suddenly my ears closed up and would close up again as soon as I popped them. It stayed like that the rest of the day, which was very annoying and very worrying. Cars driving down the road sounded like jet engines.

We watched back to the future ii with Nina. Too violent for me

first old time jam (50/365g)

I didn't eat breakfast, and I met up with Katja so she could drive me to our rehearsal in Leoben, so we had Pad Thai lunch which was kind of breakfast too. 

Rehearsing in Leoben was productive but exhausting. On the way home it started to snow, and Katja dropped me off at graz nord in the nasty weather, but luckily i got to a bus that got me close to home. Hungry like crazy when I got home, I made bunches of food - baked bread and made a whole dinner which I scarfed down.

We had a wonderful evening with Phil, trying out an old-time jamming session followed by a late night Jacky and I hanging out, it was her turn to sleep over. 

ending up with ashes (49/365g)

Got my blood drawn for an anemia test today - I'm guessing I'm good and anemic from the amount of exhaustion I have every day after sleeping a reasonable amount.

Kunstgarten got a letter fining them for using a photo on their website.... Quite possibly it was a scam...

Listened to ockeghem requiem with Centa, and lit a candle in honor of Lydia

Tried to play the duduk which is surprisingly difficult. thank goodness for youtube tutorials.

Eva rehearsal.... Not playing so well... I should practice viola at least as much as the duduk

Late at night I was talking to papa and he was helping me find my confirmation certificate, and he ended up forwarding me an old email from me to fr., scanlon. my e-mail signature from 2001 was a quote from Abigail van Buren (Dear Abby) "If you fight fire with fire you will end up with ashes" ... which I took as kind of a message from my past selfe.

Fasching (48/365g)

Kunstgarten in the morning - Brian worked with Luis 

Dressed as a man with a dragon again - same as last year

Got pictures from all kinds of random people who saw him in the parade

While I was hanging around the festival myself the kids walked onto the scene like this... 

We helped clean up for an hour or two then I stood and got Krapfen, for which we payed with pfand the kids collected, and we had dinner

I had spontaneous girls night with Jacky where she and I had a nice late supper and watched Nikki glaser and a sting concert and talked and cuddled and eventually fell asleep. 

Was really nice

rosenmontag (47/365g)

7 hours of rehearsal (six playing, 1 eating) then 2 more hours of rehearsal with eva b. got the news that Lydia died. (Mama points out the last day she saw Aziz was rosenmontag)

went to a rosenmontag/faschingsparty dressed up as a musican - in an evening gown, with a cardboard sign around my neck that declared "WILL PLAY FOR FOOD" but ran out of energy and gumption and went home essentially right away.

Talked a long time with Edward and Jörg and Edward again.

--- in Memoriam Lydia ---

.... will be added later...

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.