Songs, Snow, and Dark Matter in Trichotomy

Songs and Merriment

Last weekend was Take II of my sister-and-law and my house concert. Learning from the "mistakes" of Take I, we got much less food, and prepared more of them the night before, so that even though we had more guests - there were 23 people in the house at the end - it was less hectic preparation.

Almost everyone I invited came - the Treasurer and her friend, Dramatic Soprano and her tenor friend and his wife, the Japanese pianist, the Violinist, the Board Member pianist and her husband, plus all of sister-in-law's family (except my brother-in-law... which was disappointing). I figured they would get along since they are all nice and friendly people, and they did and mingled toward the end. Actually many of sister-in-law's family (mainly her mom) got into singing along too.

Performance-wise it was better; I had more control over my tempo and sound. I guess I was getting used to performing those pieces in front of people, finally. It still wasn't performance ready but I am pretty comfortable with where I am. The concert is still 1 1/2 months away. Ironically, people liked the Ave Maria - the one piece that our organiser requested not to be on the Carnegie Hall program more than the Godowsky Revolutionary etude or the Liszt Widmung.

Even though we prepared less food this time, we did somehow end up with an extra-ordinary large amount of treats at the end. Cookies, cakes, wine, tapas. We tried to give away as much as we could but still had a lot. That might just be as well, because we got snowed in two days this week and had to stay home all day. Living in the suburbs is a drag.

All in all it was a fun party; everybody enjoyed it.

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work

Having to work from home for two days was not too much of a deal for me in terms of productivity. I am pretty much done with the 'my' part of this quarter - I just needed to rollout my part - and it is only halfway over. That also mean that I am feeling less challenged this quarter. It is just as well - my brain can use a rest. However, looking at my income from tax - including bonus, stock grants, and other subsidies - I now make twice as much as I did when I started at the education company. Yet I don't feel as much pressure. I suppose it is a good thing.

I saw two of my ex-co-workers interviewing just last month, and wish they did well. I am just starting to realize how underpaid I was at my old job.

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Be my Valentine

For Valentine's day we went to American Museum of Natural History last Sunday to watch the new space show about dark matter. I was skeptical at first because what can we expect to see? We could just close our eyes. But the show was very well done, it was basically a recap of the summary of 20th century advances in astrophysics, explained as plainly as possible. We also went to see other exhibits at the AMNH that we hadn't gone to before - I'm losing count of the times I've been there... maybe 7 or 8? ... but there are still exhibits that I had never seen. It's a big museum.

After the show we tried to go to popover cafe for dinner, and to my surprised found that they hava closed. That was another of my go-to spot on the Upper West Side biting the dust.

It makes me wistful. I miss the neighbourhood.

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