Train Wrecks in Trichotomy

Derailed Holiday Plans

I’m in Binghamton now at my in-laws again, for Christmas this time. Normally my brother-in-law would visit as well, but it looks like he and his wife are not coming because his wife is exhibiting Covid symptoms after being notified by a contact tracer that her dance instructor, who had given her an in-person lesson without masks in their apartment the weekend prior, had since tested positive. They have a few at-home tests to confirm, but it’s unclear if they’ll make it up here for Christmas.

One upside: We can use it as an excuse to get out of Christmas service. Still up in the air whether it’ll work. According to my in-laws, the unvaccinated are shuffled off to a different section and masks are required, but they are not sure how closely people follow those rules. I’m not sure how safe it is for them to be in a crowded church for 2 hours.

Our New Years Eve party also saw people dropping out left and right, due to Omicron. A lot of people are telling us they know acquaintances that have come down with Covid and don’t want to come to a large party out of caution. So we postponed the whole thing - I wouldn’t want to have a party with just a tiny number of guests, who are the least cautious about Covid among our invitees.

Interestingly, compared to Mar 2020, I don’t personally know more people who are sick, but more second level contact who are. It can be just that the stigma isn’t there anymore. I think we all are going to catch it at some point eventually, so it’s less of a big deal to share that you’re infected.

It’ll probably be a while before things stabilize.

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Slow motion train wreck

A few weeks ago, our amateur musician group’s orchestra gave a concert at the main 700 seat theatre of Symphony Space. The orchestra only had about 40 minutes of material. So the rest of the concert was padded by a symphonic band who played about ½ hour of the material of their holiday concert (due to happen the following week in the same space) and solo and chamber music performers who had auditioned at the previous Carnegie Hall concert but didn’t make the cut.

The orchestra just did not have enough rehearsal time - they started planning late. It takes a lot of effort to run an amateur orchestra and I’m not sure if anyone cared about it enough to put in the effort. I made a promotional video to promote the concert, but it’s really just CV ware - it’s just to convince myself that I could do it. I had no vested interest in the concert succeeding.

Musically it was fine; the orchestra sounded like a decent highschool orchestra, the symphonic band sounded professional, and the soloists and chamber musicians were okay. But the 700 seat auditorium was maybe a fifth filled? The treasurer said they had sold 130 tickets when he checked the morning of the concert, but I’ll get the actual number at the next board meeting next month. But it’s going to be ugly.

It’s expensive to run an orchestra; the rents for rehearsal space and performance space add up quickly. If the musicians can’t bring in audience members to offset the cost, it’s not sustainable.

ENT Pianist is much more averse to going into debt than the Organiser, so absent a new revenue stream, I don’t see a scenario where the orchestra, having proven unable to pay for itself, can be continued.

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More Lockdown Food

We’ve been cooking less now, since we got the vaccine. But who knows, maybe omicron will cause everything to shutdown again. In the meantime we’ve been expanding our repertoire.

Poached Pear (really should have it with vanilla ice cream instead of mint):

Cod in Butter sauce:

We made another Strawberry Mille-Feuille cake, this time a more reasonable size

We learned how to make quiches from La Professor’s college roommate in Ticondaroga, and put the skill to use:

La Professor made Chicken vesuvio:

Alsatian apple tart (recipe from one of Viking’s spam emails):

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