Archives for February 2024

I had gone to bed just half an hour late. I count that as progress.

I had to jump out of bed right away because I had to leave the house at my usual breakfast time. So no morning pages, yoga or meditation. The boy had sent me a late text to wake him up at 8 if he wasn’t awake by then but he also texted me at 8, so he was awake. He had to leave the house in time for a 11 o’clock exam.

I did leave the house at 8.15 in the rain and caught a train. I only had to ride it for two stops and the new dermatologist was pretty easy to find. I didn’t have to wait long, everything looked nice, new and shiny and the dermatologist was making a good impression. Of course, the rash that prompted the appointment was much better now. I still got a prescription for some lotion and a couple of shampoo samples. Did you know there are anti-itch shampoos as well. Mind-blowing!

I took the train back, took a picture of the machine that had smeared my ticket with ink the other day so I had its number (all the machines have individual numbers so that when one is broken you can call in and report it). After getting down from the platform I saw the boy go up. I followed him without calling out at first because he usually is rather late and I didn’t want to be the reason he missed his train but up on the platform it became clear the train was already gone. So I talked at him for a bit before realizing that he needed peace and quiet to mentally prepare for the exam.

I went to the pharmacy – again – for the lotion which had to be ordered and they offered to deliver it to my in the afternoon. So now I have a pharmacy membership card. No idea if that is a badge of aging or what.

I went back home where my husband was eating breakfast and the wood stove was making everything warm and cozy. I did the dishes and listened to a Mozart sonata for two pianos in D major. It was very nice but my husband kept preparing things for lunch so my attention was divided. It did get me thinking about how I used to dislike Mozart. When I was young and didn’t know anything I thought Mozart was just empty tinkling but then I studied musicology and now I know better.

Then I went grocery shopping. Since there were only a few things on the list and it was already late I just walked to the nearer supermarket. Had to circle the store three times, squinting at every shelf to find the baked beans and then left without them because they only had the version with artificial sweeteners. „No added sugar“, my ass. I mean, yeah, sure but I really don’t like the taste.

When I was standing in the queue to pay my phone went off. At first I wondered why my husband was calling me but it turned out to be the thyroid doctor. She called me back after all! I quickly went over to the side and discussed my thyroid nodes in front of a fridge holding beer and energy drinks.

Went home, found that my husband was right in the middle of cooking and that the pressure cooker had re-opened twice already and decided to make an appointment for a fine-needle biopsy. After 10 minutes in the loop listening to the same music over and over I finally got a real human on the line. „Do you have a referral?“ Um, no, but I will get one. „I am not allowed to make appointments without referral.“ Bam!

So I guess I’ll get myself a referral first and try again next week. Since I’ll be seeing my primary care doctor then, it shouldn’t be a problem.

Then lunch:

So, it turns out when you pressure cooker loses pressure three times before closing you actually lose a lot of the cooking liquid. And when the goulash starts to smell burnt you need to stop cooking even if it might not be completely tender yet. So. Not the best meal ever but definitely not the worst either. We ate while my husband kept complaining that everybody was always telling him that cooking only ever takes half an hour but the way he cooks it takes two and he needs that time and if he doesn’t get it this is the result.

I’m still not entirely convinced one can’t cook these things faster but what do I know, I haven’t cooked in years.

The boy showed up shortly after, not all that happy with the exam. We talked a bit and then it was time for me to get teaching.

I had an extra long teaching day because I had rescheduled my first Wednesday student to Thursday. We had a lot of fun with „Dust in the Wind“ and he is making great progress. The next two lessons were online, the next one didn’t show, the next one is making a valiant effort to learn „love token“ by Elena Kats-Chernin. And since the student after had canceled as well we just kept going for a bit longer. Then I ate dinner, taught my last student, who is also working really hard and making great progress, and that was it.

In between I tried figuring out how to fix the boy’s phone that is acting up and doesn’t charge anymore and did some research on and off about something completely different. There was also some folding of laundry.

I finally did the dishes and very little Duolingo, watched the second half of the episode I had started the day before and went to bed.

Phew.

Today there will be lots of teaching, the changing of the sheets and the cleaning of the house. At least I hope so.

Well, I turned the lights out past midnight again because I watched C-drama at a time when I should have gone to bed. And that is why I was basically sleepwalking all day yesterday.

I got up at 7, wrote morning pages, did yoga and meditated. There there was breakfast. After brushing my teeth and a quick round of Duolingo I set out to get Brez’n and Weißwürscht’. I got dressed in funeral clothes and found that a) my boots (brown, not black because the black ones disintegrated last year) were scuffed and unpolished; b) my dress looks wrinkled and the interfacing at the front neck keeps flipping out; c) the clasp of the necklace I wanted to wear is broken and when I looked for another chain to put the pendant on I couldn’t find the one I wanted, and d) the leggings I wanted to wear have torn seams at the knees. I did deal with all of these problems and put on make-up but I still haven’t found where I put my black hair fork.

When I came home from the bakery and butcher I got the mail as well. And found that I got a letter from the train company. Now, when I was on my way to the gastroscopy two weeks ago on the train I ran into ticket inspectors. No problem, I had a ticket, everything was fine. Only, the ticket I had looked like this:

That smudge on the bottom edge? That is the stamp from that trip. Now, what happened was, I stamped that ticket, thought, „Wow, that’s a lot of ink,“ waited a bit and then put the ticket in my pocket. When the inspector came I showed her my ticket and she was all, „But I can’t read this, this is not a valid ticket, I need to write you up. But don’t worry, this will be checked out, just keep the ticket until you get a letter in the mail.“ I had to show her my ID, she took my address down and all the while I was completely freaking out because of the medical appointment and was scared I wouldn’t be on time.

Now, yesterday I got the letter. It says all the machines were in working order on the 6th and therefore I need to pay 60 Euros because I didn’t have a valid ticket.

I am livid.

I never said the machine was broken. There was just too much ink. See the stamp on the third stripe from the bottom? That was stamped this Monday on the same machine. There is still too much ink in there. This time I let it dry completely before putting it away but it’s still smudged.

So. I guess I’ll be making a phone call or writing an angry note. Stay tuned.

And speaking of phone calls, I also tried calling my thyroid doctor but – as expected – she couldn’t answer the phone. I was told she’d call me back. I even left my cell phone number and unmuted my phone but nope.

And then we went to the funeral. It was really nice, everybody was very moved, often to tears and I – as usual – felt a bit weird and like a mere observer. I really liked the deceased and you could see how many people he had touched deeply. He was about the same age as my father. There were his children and grandchildren and one great-grandchild. It was really nice to see everybody and meet in memory of him.

My husband and I did not join the others for lunch because we still had to teach in the afternoon.

There was lunch:

We shared a beer in loving memory and afterwards the boy and I pulled out the ice cream:

I then proceeded to teach, afterwards ate another pretzel (and more ice cream), started writing this post, did the dishes and Duolingo, watched C-drama again and went to bed.

The piece of classical music for the day was also oddly fitting: „Selig sind, die da Leid tragen“ from Brahms „Ein deutsches Requiem“. Very moving.

I’d like to spend today recuperating but instead I’ll go to a new-to-me dermatologist. The plan is to go grocery shopping after but I might just… not.

Since I turned the lights out after midnight and woke up from my usual alarm I was very tired all day. I also skipped the morning routine because, well, I didn’t feel like it. I read instead.

We had breakfast, my husband built a fire, I did the usual morning things and then we waited for furnace guy. And waited. And waited.

I did manage to open the manuscript and proofread for half an hour but that was it. He had said he’d be here around 10. When it was past 12 I called to ask if he was still planning to come. „15 minutes, that okay with you?”

So my guess is he was still in his shop at that point and the 15 minutes were the time he needed to get to our house.

Now, it’s not all his fault, I mean he had left a message at 6 the day before saying if we didn’t here from him he’d be at our house at 10 but that he might come at 8, depending on a phone call he was still waiting for.

Since I’m me I a) didn’t want to use the phone at all, b) did not want to disturb a hard-working man after 8.30 when I finally got the message and c) thought he’d just show up because that was what he had said. In hindsight he probably had expected me to call him anyway. Which I didn’t.

With perfect timing he showed up right when we were starting to eat lunch. He spent an hour in the basement, changing a part and doing maintenance. The bill was – interestingly high. It seems the price for parts have skyrocketed.

Oh, and I helped making lunch for once and finally had an opportunity to try out my shiny new knife:

The knife is fabulous and very, very sharp. Lunch was very Bavarian:

Then I had a short break before teaching. I taught many, many students until 7. I had planned to use my break between two students to do mobility training but felt too exhausted and ate some almonds instead. Throughout the whole day time felt both extremely slow and went by very fast. I had a hard time keeping track of time even when teaching which is unusual.

I ate dinner, I fell into a social media hole and started writing this post around 9. Did the dishes, took a shower, watched som C-drama and went to bed.

I totally forgot to make an important call during business hours. I might try again tomorrow. Today will be another slightly insane day but at least there won’t be as many students.

Not that I’m still in school but since we follow school holidays I had a week mostly off. And yesterday my full teaching schedule came back into play.

But first:

I had gone to bed somewhat late because I wanted to do too many things in the evening. Woke up from the alarm, wrote morning pages and did yoga and then my husband showed up a little earlier than usual. No meditation but that was okay. I ate breakfast while he started the fire, we talked a bit, he felt horrible, maybe the coffee he had had two days in a row. Somewhere in between I rescheduled my last student of the day to today.

I tried getting to everything I want to do in the morning but failed because I suddenly realized that I needed to leave as soon as possible to renew a prescription at my gynecologist’s office. I was so late I even ran part of the way to the train station. Running felt great everywhere, by the way, but my poor feet. I hadn’t even managed to tape the poor things.

I got my prescription, went to the health food store there and bought a couple things, arrived at the train station just as a train was pulling in, arrived back in my town, went to the second health food store just for vegetarian Leberkäs, went to the pharmacy and the third health food store and walked back home.

When I walked in the door my husband greeted me with, „I can’t cook for you, I’m just making potatoes for myself, maybe do something with the leftover pasta.”

I packed away all the groceries and such and decided to just have potatoes and the leftover pork from a few days earlier:

Also, I had bought chocolate.

After lunch I had a thirty minute break during which the boy showed up. He was slightly confused about having to fend for himself for lunch but then went on to fry the pasta with some eggs.

I started teaching. After five students in a row who refused to look at the sheet music I slightly lost it and the fifth student got a bit of a lecture about how it would really help to actually look closely at the page. And no I would not write „g“ next to the note because there is a reason why people developed music notation and did not keep on writing music down with letters. And yes, I get that it seems complicated at first and that you just mastered reading words in German and feel that yet another system is a bit too much to ask but trust me, it’s not as hard as you think it is.

Followed by my usual question, „So, where is the piece of paper you have that shows you all the notes?“ Followed by the students’s traditional answer, „At home.“ Followed by me pulling out the piece of paper I have for just that reason.

Which reminds me that I didn’t get said paper back. I guess it’s time to make yet another copy of it.

The student after that had canceled during breakfast. So I decided to play the piano for a few minutes before answering a friend’s text. She was feeling a bit off and clearly in need of sympathy but all I could do on that busy day was send a hug emoji and tell her I’d answer later.

But then the student after that canceled as well. And I decided to just video call my friend. Well, if she liked. And she did and so we spent 1 1/2 hours talking which was great. I really missed that.

Then I saw I had a call from the furnace guy who had left a message that he wants to come in today. Oh, and the new windows we ordered months ago? They’re supposed to be put in next Monday.

I went upstairs and talked with my mother-in-law about the funeral tomorrow, finally ate dinner, scrolled through Instagram a bit, did all the dishes since the night before, did not do my voice and feet exercises but Duolingo (very briefly), watched an episode of „Love me, love my voice“ and went to bed.

Oh, and at some point in the morning I also got a reschedule offer for my dermatologist appointment. It was moved up to Thursday which is good but I can already say that I’ll be just a pile of limp dishrag by Friday.

So, today there will be furnace guy, a phone call with my thyroid doctor, an insane amount of teaching and then I’ll probably pass out. Oh, bonus points for feet and voice exercises and for getting the clothes ready for tomorrow.

And the last day of carnival break.

I went to bed on time, woke up from the alarm and lounged in bed until the boy showed up. We talked briefly, then I did my complete morning routine and was about five minutes too late for breakfast. So my husband and I had to make breakfast around each other.

We talked, I crocheted, I went online for a bit and then I finally took that much-needed shower. Talked with my mother on the phone for almost an hour, did the breakfast dishes, sat around a bit useless while my husband made lunch. First there was pancake soup:

And there was a kind of pasta salad that was inspired by leftover green beans:

After that I sat and read and played silly iPad games and talked with the boy some more. We finally talked about our trip to my mother and decided to reschedule to August or September because the boy has no idea when he will be free yet. So I booked a train ticket for just myself for the week before Easter. That ticket was surprisingly cheap. Weird.

I gave in to temptation and ate half of a small store-bought pound cake. My husband thinks we should have more snacks at home for guests. And now I remember why I stopped buying crackers and cookies and cake and such. I’ll have to move such things to the basement in the future.

Then I planned the week, talked with people online, finished reading a book and started two more, talked briefly with my husband, made plans how to get to the funeral on Wednesday and asked my husband to tell his mother we were okay with her plan and to ask whether we should bring flowers or anything. Somewhere in between I folded a load of laundry and did some more proofreading.

I ate dinner, read some more, confirmed the date our new windows will be installed, participated in an online study on poetry and musicality, started writing this post, finally did the dishes, watched some C-drama and went to bed.

I did not do my mobility exercises and I did not tape my feet. I’d say it’s no big deal but I don’t really see when I’ll have the time for it this week. Well, I guess we’ll see.

I turned the lights out half an hour too late, slept well, and for some reason decided to write morning pages after breakfast instead of first thing. Guess who did not write morning pages yesterday? Yep.

I did do yoga and meditated. My 12 minutes of yoga were pretty nice but also included some interesting stretches for my hips and legs that I can’t really do. Progress not perfection, I guess.

I talked with my husband over breakfast and crocheted a bit. Was happy to find that I still had 26 grams of bright yellow in stash because I ran out mid-row. Then, instead of the morning pages, I somehow got started on line edits for book 1 and got so focused that I almost forgot to do the dishes and such even though my brain was feeling like it was melting. I did cut myself on the awesome but slightly intimidating new knife I bought. That one is really, really sharp. And big. I haven’t really used it yet, though.

While my husband was cooking I did some mobility training. I’m pretty sure those kinds of exercises will make my feet hurt less in the long run but in the short run working on isolating my movements and going to the edge of my range is a little uncomfortable. On the other hand not being able to sit back on my heels and being stiff as a board in general is also uncomfortable.

We ate rice, black beans and pork:

Only afterwards did we remember the leftover pancakes in the fridge that we had planned to turn into pancake soup.

Just when we were about to finish eating the boy showed up. We talked and showed each other stuff on Twitter.

Then I finally did the lunch dishes before getting on my bike to pick up groceries. I bought all the things, came back home, unpacked everything, talked with my husband again, made a feeble attempt at taking a shower, ate dinner while reading, scrolled through social media, decided that I’d take the frigging shower right after starting this post and just as I was typing along the boy showed up. „I’ll take my shower now,“ he declared, „sorry, I feel asleep.“ Okay, so my plans apparently changed.

I watched some C-drama while crocheting, did Duolingo, decided that it was too late for the shower and went to bed.

Will there be cleaning today? Stay tuned.