100% random

Someone please go find a small child to give these to. I stopped by a small shop in my neighborhood today and stumbled upon the most amazing set of blocks by miller goodman. Apart from being wildly entertaining they seem like the kind of toy I imagine you might actually want to be thrown across your floor...
I will be back later with my usual banter.

You can tell I'm stepping up my game because now I have a mood board :


clockwise from left: dress-french connection, veil-twigs and honey, sandal-j.crew, beautiful girl-unknown, flowers via once wed from this post, tree- i stock photo

sweetness and light

SOME people seem to think it's getting a little too dark and gloomy around here... so as a gesture of good will I leave you with the loveliest of wedding fou-fou. Which I might just wear on my head. With a trombone. Just because I can.

All veils from the beautiful Twigs and Honey of course

a few thoughts

Things seem to moving along at the speed of light around here, leaving no time to catch my breath. Officially, I was in Hamburg on Saturday for an audition. But between us, that was just the cover story. My real motive was of course my continuing mission: Operation not-ugly-wedding shoes. Sadly I came back empty handed (which was luckily only a partial failure because I did manage to get the job). Next week there will be a chance for redemption when I go for another "audition". Hamburg is very serious about the shopping and it is definitely not for the faint of heart or modest of budgets. It's hardcore- so wish me luck.

also on my mind:

1. Sights and sounds of the new wave Gothic festival. Once a year Leipzig crosses over to the dark side, big time. For a few days the city is flooded with the most fascinating if not mildly disturbing masses of bizarrely decorated human beings I have ever seen. Pierced and tattooed faces, altered eyeballs, sharpened pointy teeth and elaborate black costumes all crowd the streets and trams. The locals hit the streets for the ultimate people watching experience and everybody eats würst and drinks beer (which come to think of it is pretty much par for the course for everything from Easter to Christmas) .Coming home on the tram I felt very conspicuous in my jeans and flip flops and had to laugh as the grandma sitting across from me couldn't take her eyes off a mostly naked corset-clad cat lady .

2. Packing, tying up loose ends, and leaving Leipzig. A hyperactive individual by the name of Uwe called me early one morning to see if he could come get my closet RIGHT NOW. When he got here I couldn't tell if his 1980's Jazzercise headband was ironic or for real but I made him coffee anyways and looked on as he dismantled my furniture.

3. Fonts, stamps and paper. You guessed it-let the invitation fiesta begin! After an afternoon spent on the phone trying to figure out the logistics of Prägezangen and Prägeapparate we're taking this bull by the horns and doing it ourselves. I'm only afraid that like with all crafty projects, things could go terribly wrong and we'll end up with invitations that look like glitter covered ransom notes.

4. My mood these days is very dependent on the mega-to-do-list. Crossing things off makes me very happy-looking at the remaining 20 pages does not. I leave in 14 days and for some reason this stuff is not packing itself...



Photo collage by Richard Avedon

Happy Shavuot ! Enjoy your cheese cake and
I'll be back soon with all kinds of crazy, I promise.


photo by Dutch artist Sebastiaan Bremer

I humbly share with you my flowers from the market, along with the best wedding decision we've made yet:

There are many things I don't know, like who will be coming, or what we will serve them to eat, but all of that just sort of pales in comparison to the importance of DESSERT, and this is just too good to keep to myself...
In an epic summit of east meets west, Baklava meets Peach Pie with Vanilla ice cream.
Can it get any better?
( correct answer : no. )

Wiener schnitzel and golden shoes

Dealing with some major disappointment in these parts... I thought I was going to spend next week eating Wiener Schnitzel and playing a concert at the Musikverein in Vienna, but instead I have to hike myself on up to Hamburg for an audition. bah humbug.

In a feeble attempt to deal with these recent developments and the absence of schnitzel in my near future, I have spent a good part of the day researching fonts for invitations, and the perfect rose-gold strappy sandals to go with the maybe-dress (both which seem to be quite illusive at the moment).I can no longer tell if the sandals I'm looking at are elegant and understated or scream : hello, red light district! This seems to be yet another symptom of a common case of loss of good judgment ,which should be gone without a trace right after the wedding but is making it difficult to make important decisions at the moment. Might just be safer to go barefoot anyways...

In other news, I am very much looking forward to flying home in a few short weeks where I will eat forbidden vegetables to my hearts desire, and take wedding planning to another level entirely

one small step for man...

I am most excited to announce that we now have a real place, and a real date (September 2nd , at the Sternbach Winery for those of you taking notes). There are no ostriches or goats, but there is one rooster, who I think will do the job just fine. The rest is beyond lovely, or so they tell me. My beloved groom and family went to check it out today as I paced my room in Leipzig. A wonderful exercise I can only recommend for anyone with control-freakish tendencies. Now that that is taken care of, I'm thinking that all the rest will easily fall into place... HA! Just a few loose ends as they say.

moving mountains, ya'll

I know I'm in hot water for being Awol for the past week, but I've been off moving many mountains. Literally and figuratively. On Tuesday, H. came from Hamburg and we made it in the nick of time to our meeting with the lovely Frau D. at the Leipzig municipality, where handed in all of our carefully curated documents.* We will know in 1-3 months if we are authorized to TAKE IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL. From there I stopped at home to throw random things into a suitcase, and we caught a train to Berlin, arriving at H's old apartment just in time to meet all the people who came to buy the furniture that can't be stored/isn't worth schlepping to Hamburg. It looked like an ikea slaughterhouse in there. Expedit shelf parts were flying, wardrobes were being torn apart-not a pretty sight. The next day we packed up all the rest, and all of the other awesomeness that is moving. For extra credit I got to travel through the subway with a blue bucket filled with paint,varnish and other toxins you are forbidden to throw away making my way to some god forsaken lot at the end of the world where men in orange overalls happily took it from me.
Now I'm back in the 'zig, catching my breath, practicing for auditions and packing up my apartment. Oh, and planning the wedding-which at this point consists of staring at my to-do lists, and questioning all the decisions we've made up until now. good stuff !


* from this point on I won't** complain about this anymore, because although I find the whole system slightly clumsy and tedious, I am also very grateful for the possibility to do this here, something not available to me my own little country.
** won't, meaning of course : will do my very best

The happiest of birthdays to my beautiful mother !