IrishOboe

I’ve been too focused on my studies and my dwindling bank account to bother with much exploration, but I had two day passes for the public transportation systems in northwest Switzerland so Friday after a solid practice session I met with Stephanie and we hopped on the next train to somewhere.

Let it be known that once again I called about Swiss taxes and once again I was told I do not need to do anything.  Last time that turned out to be false and I had to file though I didn’t have to pay.  Hopefully my German is better and I understood the lady correctly.  I do not have to pay and it doesn’t matter that I get a school stipend.  I don’t have to do anything.  If only I could rest easy and believe what she says.  I have her name just in case . . .

Here lies, extinguished in his prime,

a victim of modernity:

but yesterday he hadn't time---

and now he has eternity.

-Piet Hein, poet and
scientist (1905-1996)

My German Bible study is on vacation so I was left guilt free to host BCF Bible study last night.  I had a grand time doing it.  Maybe there’s something to the headline I saw in the post office today: “Why women don’t have careers: Differences in hormones that keep women at home” or some such thing.  That’s right, last night I worked on my non-career of baking and preparing a warm place for the study of God’s word.  Too bad it’s not worthy of the coveted word “career”.

So I’ve decided to stop being so scared about cooking and just do it.  I didn’t do anything too adventurous for Easter, but I did bake a Poor Man’s Cake (my favorite growing up) and make Mom’s Cytopathology dip fudging for missing ingredients.  Seemed fine to me and went over well at the Stuecklin’s, who had kindly invited me for Easter dinner after church.  I think I made a new record for playing with the least preparation.

In the dark we gathered at Margarethen cemetery, lit torches, sang, and walked over the hill to the church.  We gathered inside while it was still dark and sat in silence watching the Christ – I mean Easter candle.  With trumpet and organ and not too much enthusiasm we celebrated Christ’s resurrection.  Then we went outside to have breakfast together and behold!  It was snowing!  As we walked to the breakfast place it grew stronger and the whole area was covered in a wet snow.  We didn’t have a white Christmas, but we have a white Easter.  Considering the fact that it’s the second snow in Basel, it’s making me happy even though I can’t wear the open toed heels I had planed to wear for Easter.

Christ is risen!

I get up in six hours for the sunrise service, but I just got back from an Easter Vigil service that lasted longer than two hours and there was no sermon and I’m pumped!  Christ is risen!!!!

I’ve been working hard all week for the Good Friday service at BCF.  It was a nice service of readings, reflections, prayer and hymns.  I was happy to be asked to play piano.  After all, I said I’d rather do that than organize a group of instrumentalists to accompany the church.  I find that no instrument like a keyboard instrument works well with congregational singing.  That’s the bread.  The rest is seasoning.

Easter is not yet here, but Easter break is!  Today was the last day of classes and I had class until 10pm.  It hardly seems fair, but it was dance and it was fun.  I had a good partner who really played the part, so we had great fun flirting 16^th c. style.  A number of us went out for drinks afterwards and my apple juice mixed with water (called Apfelschorle – not to be confused with Apfelschale (apple peel)) cost more than the beer.  Gotta love eating out in Switzerland, but it’s the camaraderie that counts.  I learned a bit about Israeli politics from a friend from Jerusalem and we discussed how nobody seems to plan to move permanently to Basel but a significant number of people end up staying for the rest of their lives.  Just what you wanted to hear, I know . . .

They say America is the land of the ready-made, and it might be true, but I don’t remember ever seeing pre-dyed Easter eggs, unless you count the plastic ones, but they have their own function: to hold chocolate.  I haven’t asked a native, but it seems to me you can buy dyed eggs year-round.  I have no idea why.

In reviewing the function of my blog and the changing circumstances of my life I’ve decided to try a new approach to blog writing.  Instead of writing every detail of the week and making ridiculously long posts I’ll be writing about random stuff that occurs to me to right about and leaving the mundane daily out of the picture.  It might reveal an interesting set of priorities, but I suppose the details I chose to share before did the same thing.  My hope is that it will be easier for readers and writer alike to keep up since we all have too much to do.

It was too bad I couldn’t share the Renaissance dance concert with anyone, but I was blessed with the attendance of a number of special people at the concert on Thursday (Feb. 28^th), which was more important because I played in it.  Aside from playing Baroque oboe at the aforementioned Tanzabend last March because they were desperate, this was my first performance at the Schola.  I should have realized it would be well attended and treated with importance because it was part of the symposium, but luckily I didn’t put things together until that day.  The idea was to give a concert of improvised music, since after all that was the theme of the symposium.  I was not good enough to be one of the improvisers, but I played the tenor line and improvised rhythms on it because the harp sound does not sustain long enough.  Keeping the bray pins in contact with the strings and remembering the unwritten meter changes was challenge enough for me.  It went fairly well and I enjoyed it.  I recorded it so one day it might be in a form to share, for that was the intent.

 (More)

I blame Skype.  Stephan introduced me to it and now I can have a quick chat with my mom whenever I want to.  That means the principle person who nags me about a neglected blog is no longer ever-present in my subconscious because I can simply tell her what’s on my mind.  I don’t want to lose the rest of my audience, so please forgive this two-week absence!  I see I really deserve a beating because the last post before the silence was depressing.  You’ll be happy to know that Steph has been doing a good job of cheering me up.