Tis the Season in Trichotomy

Doctor's visit

I mentioned last entry that our rat Henrietta had a tumor and needed surgery. The surgery happend the first Tuesday of December, and went very smoothy - apparently tumor removal from rats is a common procedure. It’s still recovering now. We had kept it in a different, smaller cage to limit its mobility during the first few days so the wounds have a chance to heal, and then transferred it back to the ‘palace’ that it shares with the other rat.

The vet has a facebook page where he would post pictures of his patient. La Professeure discovered Henrietta’s picture on his facebook page and tracked the number of likes on it the whole day, and comparing it against the other patients on his page.

It’s like comparing your kids’ performance against other people’s kids.

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Party time!

We went to New Hip Company’s holiday party on the 17th - and it’s held in the American Museum of Natural History. It was a lot of fun, much better than the previous years (at the Waldorf Astoria and at a Hilton). We only had access to the first two floors, but it was weird to see the place decorated for New Hip Company’s party, with various logos littered throughout, and with a live band at several halls (the rotunda with the broncosaurus fossil had an African band, the Marine Mammal hall was transformed into a dance hall, with a life rock band, and the Teddy Roosevelt hall had a piano player, and the planetarium floor had a DJ). I don’t think I could look at those places the same way again. La Professeure had fun too; we went to see an IMAX movie abuot the Great White Shark… It was not very impressive, but at least it was worth the admission price.

Last Friday after work I went to a holiday meet-and-greet for the art song group, a new piano meetup group, and the chamber music group. It was primarily a networking event organised by the Treasurer. It was nice for the most part, but considering that there were only about a dozen people there, it wasn’t particularly exciting. I met up with Jean Valjean from the Les Miz I did several months ago, so that was nice. I went primarily because the Vietnamese Guitarist is leaving New York for good at the end of the year, and I wanted a chance to say good-bye. I didn’t even stay the whole time because my sister-in-law was coming in to stay with us and I had to meet her at Penn station when her train comes in.

Last Saturday I went by myself to Meistersinger at the Met. La Professeure was happy that I went without her, considering that it was a 6 hour opera, starting at 6pm and lasted till midnight. James Morris as Hans Sachs, but that’s the only cast member I knew by name. Still it was very entertaining and the music was beautiful. I miss going to the Met. I used to go all the time, when I could qualify for student tickets. I calculated that, as a fraction of my income, the student ticket back then actually costed me the same as a full-price ticket at the same seats right now. And yet I don’t go to the opera much anymore. It’s a shame really. But next weekend I’m going to go with La Professeure to see the Merry Widow (the big names are in it: Renee Fleming, Kelly O’Hara, Nathan Gunn, Sir Andrew Davis), so that will be fun. And it’ll definitely be easier to digest than Meistersinger. I’m looking forward to it.

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Home for the Holidays

I am now in Binghamton at La Professeure’s parents’ place for Christmas, having spent half the day opening presents (they are big on presents here, I’ve found). It’s hard to believe it is only the 3rd time I spent Christmas here, but I have gotten the hang of the ritual here pretty well. I took a bus up on the 23rd after work (it was a 4-hour bus ride, and I watched Guardians of the Galaxy and played Angry Birds Star Wars - time passed very quickly), and yesterday we went to mass and wrapped presents, and today we unwrapped presents and watched the Doctor Who christmas special, tomorrow we will play with some of the gifts (this year there’s a Wii and sets of Geomags), and head out to the mall for coffee and such, and by Saturday we will be ready to head back, but won’t. In between I’d practice the piano, we’d play games, and watch videos that sister-in-law has brought with her of her student’s year-end music performance. All in all it’s a very lazy leisurely time. By the end of the 3rd or 4th day it will be boring. La Professeure even has planned to not activate her new iPhone (which ahem I had gotten for her) just so that she would have an errand to run during that time.

For me, I actually feel that there isn’t enough time to do things I would normally not do. It’s a time to take a step back and remove yourself from the daily grind.

I don’t know who (or anyone) reads these anymore, but I hope you had a Happy Christmas.

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