frauenorchester (302/365b)

feeling better today, but far from normal. just glad to be walking around.

combining all the calendars

i got myself made up for a meeting for the newly grouped women's orchestra in the city, and was a little freaked out to find henrietta there. they had planned the meeting for 7, which is when i got there. at 7 they decided to break up the meeting because they had changed it to earlier because "nobody could make it at 7 so we started at 6."

we watched a movie from 1939 in honor of grandma's diary, in which she mentions dozens of movies, many of which are "swell" ... brian chose the one with the highest imdb rating... called "the love affair" and it was simply awful, but we had fun watching it. they sang plaisir d'amour and i suddenly realized ... oh THAT'S the the song that elvis based his falling "I can't help falling in love with you" song on. i mean, this movie is made well before elvis, but he totally owns the song now, i can't listen to the one without hearing his smokey voice over top of it, chronology be damned.

so very suddenly sick.. (301/365b)

i wanted to take felix to a show today. and i got up, felt a little tired, but thought nothing of it, then went to have coffee, the very sound of the machine making me nauseous, and then deciding i would stay home and see if i needed some sleep, and then coca-cola was the only calories i had today and practically stayed in bed the entire day, and was blissfully happy that it was time for sleeping when night time rolled around.

medicine

when we were little my parents would get coca-cola for us, not as a treat, but to use as medicine. it makes sense, it gives you some sugar, some salt, some fluids, and rests easy in your stomach. it has caffeine to help against headache. eh, i'm a believer, but man, that stuff tastes like medicine to me, and it cracks me up to see happy delighted people in advertisements pouring the stuff into their mouths like it's delicious.

a tribute to elsie (300/365b)

at 90: a glimpse into her love of colors and celebrations

we thought she would make it until 100, but there was merely a shadow left when we saw her in 2017, and a shadow of that when we saw her this year. 98. 100 christmases if you count the one in the womb, and that's how she would have liked it. born in denver. grew up in newton (outside of boston), moved to fredricksburg on a street with her name on it in a house built for her. i met her when i was 17. the summer we spent a few weeks in maryland with her, i transcribed her diary from her young adult life. trying out stenography, watching the movie classics (that i grew up with) in theaters when they came out, talking about her various admirers. she was quite a personality.

a wonderful love story (not in her diary) of her meeting her husband (of 57 years when he died in 2001) was that he was a wwii soldier who wrote to her as a kind of assigned pen pal through a church organized moral booster for soldiers. they fell in love over the letters (man would i love to read / transcribe those!) and basically as soon as he got the chance they got married. i'm missing a lot of details here. 

i was very glad we got a chance to say goodbye at the end. i was very happy i double checked that all the kids had gone back in to give her one last hand hold on the way back across the ocean. 

smell this one! (299/365b)

oh today was another such a gorgeous day outside. pauli and i met for a spontaneous walk. the highlight was stopping at the swanky department store downtown and trying all the expensive men's fragrances. my favorite? oud, (i don't remember which brand and what the name of it was) a new smell to me, and very ... well, very yum. quick, spray it on when no-one's looking and then go back to smelling little test strips of paper.

fragrance testing

barbara's event management presentation tonight where we played our 7 second jingle twice and the entertainer. the entertainer got people up and out of their seats and we made some new contacts which is always great. got home nice and early for once.

while you're at it why don't you give me a nice paper cut and pour lemon juice on it? (298/365b)

there are some things i'll never forget: like felix's first paper cut this morning.
he is no stranger to hurts, hard knocks, falling, pain, etc. and then he is quietly sitting there reading a book, and he suddenly screeches in pain, throwing the book away from him in shock and betrayal, and looking at his bleeding finger in surprise. "WHY DID THEY MAKE THE PAGES SO SHARP" he screams in anger. it never occurred to him he could get hurt by sitting still and reading. books are dangerous now?


the morning we spent on cleaning out stuff in the kids room. things really does pile up. we did hours of work and barely made a dent. but the kids had fun with the new bookshelves. right now they just have games on them in any which order, but that's ok for now, i think.

adding a nail to hang the thermometer/hygrometer/clock on

we went for a nice walk, because it was simply just gorgeous out. we took maps of the city, because we had 3 of them for kids, with a promise of a prize if you answer all the questions.

felix reading a map

my color harmonic menfolk

we picked up a school friend of theodore's, luki, on the way home, and we enjoyed the visit. theodore wanted luki to play a duet with him, and luki tried really hard, but his piano sight reading skills are not quite what theodore i think had in mind. they got bored quickly and went out to play football, leaving me to hang out inside with felix until i got a call of "where are you?" and realized i had messed up and thought rehearsal was at 6pm and not 16pm. stupid stupid stupid. paid nearly 20euros for the slowest taxi ever. a very short rehearsal for tomorrow....

...then a taiwanese movie (cape no. 7) with people from salonorchester. it was very funny in lots of bits, and very beautiful in tiny vignettes.

spontaneous plabutsch! (297/365b)

it tastes a little  bit like water when i drink it but when i stop drinking it tastes like tea. -felix

went to a concert this morning with isabella (in lieu of not going to salome with her on wednesday because i was afraid of the modern set and weird extra stuff that the opera likes to throw in there) ... it was a concert called the "organ brunch" and it was just organ music, some vocal music, and a brunch afterwards. the performances were by students, and some were quite nice. the brunch was ok, but there was no space so isabella and i sat in a tiny corner and balanced our plates and cups on our laps. i found out she had never been hiking so i suggested today, since it was such a nice day, and plabutsch, the closest "mountain" is so very close.

the view from the overlook

oh mann, genießen ist sooo schön!

meanwhile theodore and henry were on the plabutsch and then to an outdoor lichtermesse (fritz dropped them off there, then dropped off their wet outside clothes here and brian brought them new clothes to wear there), brian and felix were at the theater, and we got some bookshelves on willhaben very early in the morning. they are just particle board, and at 25euros for 3 of them we got exactly what we paid for. their redeeming quality is their size - just small enough for our weird slaty walls. let's see if we continue to have books spilling out everywhere.

successful exam (296/365b)

I can't believe January is gone and that February has rolled around so quickly.

Henry with his new Phileas Fogg hat
his friend finn's mom andrea heard he needed a hat for his costume
so she got him one
and gave it to him in school
"i didn't say anything, she left so quickly.
and i didn't understand.
is it for me to keep?
or do i have to give it back?
do you really think i can keep it?"

in the evening bettina and i had our jury exam for chamber music, where we played the bridge lamento, and it went fine. i wasn't even the oldest one there. not even close. normally at the conservatory there are a bunch of young kids and today for the exam people of all ages who came out of the woodwork. we probably did just fine. we definitely played it well, and it was better than anything else that everyone else played. so that was nice. plus unlike normal "concerts" the exam was at 5 so i got home nice and early, and got to read stories for bedtime.