not enough abstract watercolors in the world! (90/365g)

did art with nina, first i met her after work and printed some posters (btw anais was annoyed that we found a typo on the thing she made) and we printed some poetry on fancy paper. we also used fancy paper to print that poem josef sent me a few days ago. first i had to cut the edges off the paper so it didn't wreck the printer - then i had to rough the edges back up so i had that handmade look again.

then we took separate ways home, brian went to shape singing and nina came to me and we had prosecco and painted. i was very unzufrieden with my abstract watercolors - nick told me years ago that there is not enough abstract water colors in the world - i tend to agree.

10 minute job will take at least 10 days (89/365g)

Brian didn't manage to fix the front gate latch. I didn't want that to be the whole day, but I guess it takes that long. I got the kids to clean up a whole bag of paper junk from years gone by, and I also finished the de-painting the bathroom door finally. Baked bread. Made buckwheat pancakes. Still have a low grade headache (4th day!) I was super tired and lay down with Kristin Lavransdotir which is such a difficult book to read because it is soooo physically large and heavy that it always falls on my face.

 
With Sina I we did a work evening. For him i biked like an insane person to the camera store at südtirolerpl only to find that the manual focus lens that he wanted from there before closing time was actually not there. got a different one instead - those manual lenses are still kind of the best i think. increadible the fotos he was taking with his adapter ring. 

palm sunday (88/365g)

Palm Sunday - Theodore and Brian sang in the mass. I couldn't convince Henry and Felix to come along. The acoustics outside, where they began the mass, were terrible. It is still unbelievably windy. Brian went for a 25km run with some park-run friends - he went half of the way on his own, because he left nearly an hour late because we hadn't changed all the clocks forward by an hour yet. Went to the Foersters to grill, but it was too windy to be outside. The adults watched Tampopo while the kids spent the time not agreeing to do any one thing - great, but very weird, movie.

On the way there, we missed the bus by a hair, and had to wait more than 10 minutes, which gave me enough time to write a tune. While looking for a title, I saw on the info-screen that it was the 140th anniversary of Steinitz winning the first world chess championship, so the tune got named in his honor... Steinitz's Rag. It's a pretty great little tune, if I do say so myself.

no more angel voices (87/365g)

ferien are here! end of singschul! Brian and I got a message from Andrea saying that "ab sofort" Theodore and Henry were no longer supposed to come to Gruppe 3. She's never kept any boys after stimmbruch before but I guess this last weekend in Salzburg really clinched the deal for her. Henry and Theodore were disappointed but accepted the inevitable. 

The Zorns were having a birthday party for Artur which we went to in Eggenberg. The kids did bow and arrow shooting and I lay lazily in the sun. My head is quite hurty from the little bit of sleep-deprivation and I think also the weather. Literally under the weather.  we watched Zelig this evening. despite everyone being seemingly entranced the whole movie, they all told me it was "quite boring" when it finished... eh, that's ok.

hornstrauch (86/365g)

I essentially didn't sleep at all last night, the wind kept me up and actually even scared me a bit. In the morning I think every pine cone from the tree was on the floor. I filled the bio-trash almost to the brim with downed pine needles and cones and branches. Josef and I wrote back and forth to each other, because I sent him my poem from a few days ago and he wrote a translation - which I think is even better than the original. - i say that really unwillingly but it is true - it expresses my ideas better than i did myself in english. - you be the judge... i do very much like the word "dogwood" 

I made bärlauch pesto from the garden. I cooked as fast as I could so the kids would be able to eat before they moved on to their next stuff. Theodore got home with incredible Math Olympiad results - 4th in Styria/Kärnten with the privilege of going on to the next round. We need to celebrate! Theodore and Henry were at quartet with me, and we actually did a lot - they even totally participated! Met up with Niko and walked around. It was really windy and my head was hurting. Eventually we got ourselves a tea. He told me about how medieval parliament works and I told him about the differences between butterfly bush and lilacs.  Weird gig at Café Wolf in the evening. I was pretty nervous about it actually, but when I got there and saw how disorganized everything was I spent the time being a bit bored and speed sketching the other participants. it was essentially a glorified open-mic night. 

expectation: the band play three pieces and i play with them. reality: band plays ten pieces, i play two.
expectation: we start at 8. reality: we started at 10
expectation: i play no solos. reality: he points at me and says "go" ... err... half the band goes on, the other half doesnt,  eww.

cute little diminutions (85/365g)

Brian and I walked Theodore to the hauptbahnhof this morning to send him off to Leibnitz to participate in the Math Olympiad pre-round. He definitely doesn't need us to walk with him, but we went for the fun of spending a tiny bit of time together. Went directly from there to work where I wrote a application for a grant in luxemburg. Didn't play a note in my baroque violin lesson - instead we talked about diminutions. Stayed for kammermusik, and when I was finally home Brian had a Circle Mirror Transformations rehearsal. 

same wars different days (84/365g)

Hurt my finger walking up the stairs. Slipped, dumped out a box of popcorn kernels and my finger got caught under the door. Oww! Hurts! 

Called Josef spontaneously because I'm working on my tune-book that he promised to print for me. He stopped by, looked and my computer, and we decided to head out together to a gallery opening, by Maryam Mohammadi. Her images of memories of war made 10 years ago were particularly unfortunately relevant now. We looked at her artwork a while, I wrote a poem, and then the two of us went to the Bodega for a glass of wine. Quite a lovely evening, but a wind storm of epic proportions was brewing as I left at 11:30pm and it was raining.

new pieces (83/365g)

Henrik had dinner with us at kunstgarten today, and brought me new music to play - solo viola pieces for a concert in december - he's very well organized! - all handwritten and beautiful. 

I took Henry to rebikel to get his bike fixed. I bought 6 bike lights for 10 euros. They were left over from diagonale.  Felix was cranky and throwing his colored pencils around the room, some of which have yet to be found. He finished homework at nearly 10pm. It all started because of an Aufgabe from school that is supposed to be a 3d model "rund ums Tier" that he's been stuck on for day because he got it into his head he wants to make a tree with leaves that looks totally realistic, and has gotten so far basically a pole with 4 cylinders hanging off of it. And no, he doesn't need help. 

sometimes the gutters have to be cleaned out (82/365g)

Cleaned out the gutters with Brian. Hated being on the ladder with the gutter over top of me. got dirt and yucky stuff in my eyes, ears, nose, mouth, throat, hair, shirt etc. ugg.

Brigitta had asked me to listen to her play a Bartok Rondo in preparation for an upcoming performance, so I went over to her house in the morning and had a tiny 3 minute private concert, after which we had a nice chat & coffee. There was an ysop rehearsal again in the afternoon which was well attended, and then Philipp rode home with me and I made soup and we played Bach and "Vitali" (not really Vitali, I think. there's a whole wikipedia article about the possibility that the whole piece is one of those musical hoaxes)

schlossberg walks are rare if you live in the city (81/365g)

Manuela and I went on a photo walk up and down Schlossberg. Felix didn't want to go with us. Brian had rehearsal /run-hrough with his play, Centa too, actually. I came home for dinner with Felix (collected Bärlauch in the garden and made pesto) after which I went to work, where there were no registrations for the reading so I just hid in the office and did data entry. The kids came back really late from Salzburg, chatty and awake, full of stories and energy. 

bizarre how i chose to use my time (80/365g)

Today was a Saturday just for me. I had nothing scheduled, and everyone was gone. It was a tiny bit magical. 

Fotos:
Brian and Felix biked around Wörtersee (almost)
And Theodore and Henry were in Salzburg with Andrea (Chor)

Meanwhile I was alone at home and spent my time deliciously meaninglessly.. Buying a bike at the fahrradbörse for Bernhard (a dude there tried to convince me it was really bad... I think he wanted it himself) and by going for lunch with Robert Poech, whom i met by chance on the bike. I also did a ton of cleaning, watching old movies and did lots of reading. So that's what I do when I can do anything in the world.

there (to Stainz) and back again (79/365g)

got my second iron infusion this morning, after which I headed to sorger to have a cup of coffee with Michi, because the sun is not shining enough for a sonnenspaziergang. 

Brian and I went to Stainz for a very nice date night, which ended up being just that. Not a single person came to our tango / dance show there in the shop in Stainz, so we packed up our music stuff and headed out. Not before I finished writing a tune called "I forgot my dancing shoes" and playing it once through for the instagram. as brian says "What if we went all the way to Stainz and all we had was a nice date?" Really not so bad, huh?

gnu music in gnas (78/365g)

lazyish relaxing Day. Josefi tag, the patron saint day of styria, so some things, including school, were closed. Couldn't get Felix to go for a walk with us, but Theodore did come with us running errands to the Apotheke to get iron and to the farmers market on this fantastic day. Henry was off from 8:30-10:30 with a cello lesson so he didn't come along with us. I planted some little plants in our garden and we had a kind of lazy day. I finished reading "A spark of light" which made me sad, and then lay in the bath practicing blues harmonica.

Got picked up to go to gnas for katjaäs quartet concert. Went swimmingly well, but it was not so well attended. they gave us wines and juices to bring back with us. and a wooden heart that says "GNAS" on it.

chicago the highschool musical (77/365g)

Kunstgarten work in the morning, which went later than I thought, I rushed home to beat Eva J. to our house for rehearsal. went to see Chicago, put on by the Waldorf highschool, with Andrea who was a proud mama of Finn, playing the main character. I felt a bit left out of the conversations during the break, standing around with the adults. The show was great but also terrible - exactly what one expects from amateur theater, but very impressive from a group of rag-tag highschool kids. Was way too late because I thought it started at 7 and it actually started at 18:30... Ooops. I bolted out of the theater as soon as the show was over and went to the bodega with Josef to see a Spanish singer and Gray guitarist play traditional tangos. 

st. patrick's day (76/365g)

today was st. patrick's day although we didn't do anything particularly special to celebrate. normally i make soda bread and/or colcannon. but today the Rollo guys showed up and started banging away 5 minutes before 7am. Ugg. At least that project has been started. 

The evening was anything else other than Irish. I went to a Mongolian throat singing concert with Theodore and Henry which was incredibly amazing. We got free tickets through the conservatory, and Henry we especially impressed. He's been "practicing" throat singing for months now and making no progress. It might be time to go towards taking some online lessons. The concert went really long, all the way till after 10, but at no point were we bored or wanting to go home. I took some photos of them standing next to the musicians - they blend right in, huh?

if it takes 1 lady 2 years to (kind-of) save a tree ... (75/365g)

if it takes 1 lady 2 years to (kind-of) save a tree ... how many people does it take to save the world?

brian had an early desist appointment. the door lady came and took our bedroom door and admired my paint removal work. i finished reading Julia butterfly hill's book, and crying the whole way through. Overly emotional. I went off to ysop where we started learning a new purcell piece. Philipp was there, and although he rode home with me he didn't stay . brian had play rehearsal.

walden (74/365g)

opening of Ausstellung "Walden". Was not so well attended but the weather was astounding. The opening was lovely. Afterwards I took the kunstGarten car to st. peter where philipp, clementine, kurt and i played chamber music, including an astonishing choconne by a guy named vitali, not the same as wrote the not-real vitali chaconne. 

kurt sent me this watercolor a few hours later...

apparently i'm the fat one dressed in brown.

cold mountain concert (73/365g)

Our "Schoeckl Quartet" had a concert this evening in st. Radegund...... before that... er.... don't remember. Kids were at Singschul' all day.  Felix came to the concert and hid his head in his hands while we played. It went well. I didn't speak so well. I was really stressed by the quartet by Traiger, specifically his use of rhythms. Ugg. The church was also awfully cold. They served plain bread without butter or anything else afterwards. That should be illegal.

henrik's concert (72/365g)

more outdoor hours in kunstgarten. Was in charge of the kids quartet where we worked on shostakovich and a new Tango, and then back to work where I edited a voice over for our ausstellung this weekend. I had to get to Henrik concert in the evening. He is out of the hospital and even gave the introduction to his works. A lot of people there I think don't know he just had a major operation a few days ago. 

I had another wardrobe malfunction, Brian brought me a change of clothes. The bathroom of the kultursalon has beeen turned mixed gendered and that really annoys me. Concert full of people I know from various places, specifically Ruud, Mario, a Dad from singschul, Eva B, a violinist who came to our last contra, and many more. Was really fun and I was glad I went. 

the party hasn't aged well (71/365g)

lots of out-door cleaning hours at work, in the sun, getting ready for this weekend's first outside event of the year. Really wonderful to be outside on such a lovely day. had a wardrobe malfunction and met Felix with the bike so that I can quick get my stuff in order before going to my baroque lesson and Kammermusik. 

Felix and I take "The Party" and "Tampopo" our of the library. Decide on watching "The Party" with the kids in the evening to mixed reviews - i really don't think it's aged very well.

more new pieces (70/365g)

Woke up already exhausted. So tired and over-socialized from the last few days that I welcomed an extra hour off before going to Eva J's for a rehearsal at her place. She made dinner which we had in the sun on her terrace - sweet potatoes and beans and salad. Sweet potatoes are still relatively a novelty here. She cooks very weird - she apparently can't have a lot of things that are normal for me like onions, garlic or certain cheeses. We played more new pieces she wrote. She really writes a LOT - it's impressive - but I also insisted that we rehearse and not just always cram more new pieces onto the roster.

why you have to leave me? (69/365g)

I don't really like the time before departure - the packing and the discussions about packing, and especially the discussions about time - what time it is, when we have to leave, how much time we have left etc.

Today it was double - first Rainer left and then Mary with her family... I went from the train station to work, and it was such a beautiful day that i spent my time at kunstgarten cleaning. Although I was completely beat I stopped by the lkh to visit Henrik who was in hospital. Tomorrow he has a major operation and today he was in dialysis. it took me more than an hour to find him at the hospital. i hate that place. the people were nice though - visiting hours were only until 18:00 and although I got there quite a bit later, they let me stay as long as I wanted. I wished him all the best for his operation and went home exhausted.

too little time (68/365g)

Monday with Rainer and Mary and Centa, Brian was really busy but we did lots of nice hanging out. Rainer distributed Thai pillows and Thai coffee. We "played" Rubiks cubes with Jacob. Agnes, Theodore and Henry biked out with Rainer to show him the organs, and to play pool until way past their bedtimes. It was a wonderful fun-filled day where the biggest stress was that the day was too short!

Frauentag (67/365g)

For Frauentag: I made a flower meme. 

According to standard data analysis practices.... With yellow being men and red being women.... This is either a bouquet of yellow flowers, with the red exception which can be safely ignored.... Ooor.... A bouquet of orange flowers.

Rainer arrived early this morning. I had a reheasal in Frohnleiten with Katja and the quartet. Mary arrived with her kids while I was still out. We made dinner and hung around. Carina visited too, and met Rainer and Mary and Centa for the first time. She was lovely, but she told us stories that made our hair stand on edge. We stayed up till nearly 2am, at which point I totally crashed, I was asleep before Carina wrote to tell me she had walked home safely.

Bronze (66/365g)

Brian spent his day at a dance workshop just outside of Graz, which he ran/bussed to from his Park Run this morning.

Theodore had his Prima la Musica organ competition. I went to pick up flowers for his teacher Maria from the florist, and also flowers for Eva B for tonight's concert. Theodore played really well, but the jury was not so impressed. They were bugged by the fact that the pieces were "difficult" and that he wasn't wearing shoes. He got a Bronze prize, the rough equivalent of a "C" grade, but I was proud of him regardless! I went right on from there to rush to get the painting hung on the wall in the gemahltes house. Nadja was just back from Vienna after doing her final recital for her university studies last night. Today was the first time seeing the music, but she played great. We had told her we would rather she sightread with us than send a replacement. Our Frauen Konzert was a great success, Theodore took photos and did the recordings, but I couldn't get the other kids to come.  

300 days to go till the end of the year! (65/365g)

What a crazy day! I had the final dress rehearsal for the women's concert that's tomorrow night and eva was crying on the floor when i got there having a nervous breakdown. it somehow only took me 12 minutes from finishing playing to the apotheke to get my iron injection. After the injection I watched Lydia's funeral over Zoom, which was an experience I did not love very much. It made me sad, but also felt very distant and bizarre.

While I was participating in the funeral, Brian was loading up the lastenrad for our evening Contra Dance, which went great. Eva J even played bandoneon for the piece she wrote. we presented 26 different women tunes and 12 women choreographers. Was really fun.

fiddle tunes by ladies (64/365g)

I cancelled my Baroque lesson and chamber music practice today because everything is just too much after work. "Instead," I had a rehearsal with Eva B and then a contra dance rehearsal. We are playing all fiddle tunes by women, some are definitely better than others - i guess that's true for the tunes by dudes too... 

taking time off school to do other school but not the right school (63/365g)

Theodore took day off of school to practice organ, but instead he just did math problems for fun. Hard to get angry at him for doing math... but it was very annoying. 

busy day with a full to do list, full day of work at the computer, and then a busy evening, went to see Eva play tango music at Pierre's and went for a long walk with Sina and took a photo of Theodore at the organ. 

Fancy stage (62/365g)

 Con Fuoco concert. Easy peasy, and fun. Always feels so nice to be playing on the big stage even if it's just a little 40 minute concert in honor of 90 and 100 year old birthdays. In the break I sat alone at Cafe Erde, which I just really enjoyed. 

there's good news and bad news (61/365g)

Woke up to the news that Iran's Ayatolla had been killed. Spent way too much time worrying about world events.

Contra dance rehearsal with Phil, all new pieces to learn for Friday, got through about 70% of them. House is a mess, chaotic, now music is all over the floor too. 

We're playing all tunes written by women, which is a gigantic amount of research, and then we still have to try things out. 

Brian and Felix got back at midnight where I was already long asleep. At least I saw a good news report of them finding the 19th century film that captured a robot. "A newly rediscovered 1897 short by famed French filmmaker Georges Méliès is being hailed as the first-ever depiction of a robot in cinema." 

---- ? (60/365g)