Just catching up in Trichotomy

I feel, again, like I don’t write here any more, since it’s been a month since I last updated and that update was just a survey.

In truth, there is not much to write about. Except perhaps the snow we’ve been trying to dig out of, which I’m sure my Canadian Prairie readers would laugh at. I still spend time commuting to work on week days, and we still have a busy social life on weekends. Usually there is at least one outing per weekend, sometimes two, or three.

La Professeure started her temporary posting as an Associate Dean of her college this semester, and that is taking up more time and energy, I think, than her regular teaching post. I think it’s just a matter of time to get used to it though.

We are getting close to launching this new pipeline we’ve developed, and I’ve been the one doing full scale end-to-end testing last month. I’ve run into and fixed a lot of unforeseen problems and now we are left with problems that I can’t solve, so in the past few weeks I’ve done nothing but bug people to fix their stuff. My manager said “now you know what my life is like.” Still it’s a nice gig.

I am performing this Saturday at Carnegie Hall, accompanying Dramatic Soprano and her tenor friend in the love duet from Act I of Madame Butterfly. Dramatic sop seemed very concerned about this performance, and have been arranging for us to rehearse whenever she can, including a session where she rented out a large rehearsal studio and invited everyone performing to come and do a run-through. I think we are going to be fine, though.

The amateur musician group seems to be sputtering. Next year there will only be 4 regular ‘monthly’ concerts, and one Carnegie Hall concert, in Zankel Hall. And he instituted new rules for the Carnegie Hall concert too - no more solos, and in fact, no more duets either - I gather that threw a lot of people’s plans into disarray. I know a lot of us have been preparing solo and duets pieces in expectation that they’d be allowed, so it will be interesting in how every one copes. I have been learning a lot of song transcriptions - Liszt-Schubert’s Ave Maria I already know, Erlkonig, Auf dem Wasser zu singen, and Du bis die Ruh are on the list. The Lacrymosa from Mozart’s requiem. And I’ve been just picking out the notes from Earl Wild’s etude arrangements for The Man I Love and Embraceable You. I was thinking that one of these pieces would become my contribution to next year’s Carnegie Hall, but alas, this is not to be.

My music friends from the amateur music group have been hosting musical get-togethers parties: Marius from last year’s Les Miz hosted one, in January the tall Jazz pianist hosted one, in February Self-Taught Soprano hosted one, and next month Treasurer is going to host one, and I’m hoping to host one in June too. We are saying that we are picking up the slack of the amateur group, so we’ll still get to see each other relatively frequently. I’ll missed Maruis’s so far, but the other ones I’ve been too are all very much fun. The problem is that not everyone are invited to every party, so it can get clique-y. In addition, we obviously cannot invite members that we don’t know about.

I am right now at Killington Vermont, at a company ski trip. I’d been to skiing once before at Lake Tahoe, but did not enjoy it. This time we have a much better ski instructor - he is actually experienced in teaching children, and explained stuff to us at that level - so this time I actually understood him. However, I never move beyond the bunny slope - just negotiating that is beyond my abilities. At least I can count the number of times I fell off with one hand. It is also good that we are here on a weekday, basically the only people using the bunny slope were New Hip Company employees.

Last night I crashed at Wise Young Friend’s place because I had to catch a 4:30am bus to come to Vermont from the company, so I actually got the chance to meet Little Boo-boo’s violin instructor and had some quality time with him. So I did not sleep well. In addition to that, I did not sleep well two day before either, so I should be extremely tired now. I’ve also been a little down because La Professeure forced me to respond to my parents’ email regarding the lunar new year - I usually just ignore them. In the end we came to a compromise - she would write the response, but send it under my name. I suppose that is what it a compromise is - no one gets everything they want.