Hearing and Breathing Stars

There was a symphony on Wednesday night. My Math015 students had a test, so I arranged for someone else to be there to distribute and collect it. The symphony was awesome. It was the annual pops concert, which translates to "stuff not usually considered classical" and usually includes more modern pieces. There were medleys from Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music, but the best part was the Star Wars medley. One of the violins had been sharping through the earlier pieces, and it did a bit in the Main Theme from Star Wars, but then it seemed to fix itself. It was very awesome to hear that music played live. We got the Throne Room, Han and Leia's Theme, May the Force be With You, the, uh, space trumpets (don't know the name of that piece; shows up just as the Death Star gets ready to fire and blows up, and several other places)... Missing was The Imperial March and Yoda's Theme. Ah well. The rest was pretty awesome anyway.

The last piece didn't really fit the pops theme. It was Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto in C Minor. Interesting tone piece. The first two movements were all twilight, like pale teals lingering in the shadows. Not very much color at all. All faded out. The last movement had a sort of explosion of color, with bright yellows and reds. I was starting to get tired of it before the third movement, but there it improved immensely. It felt like an experimental piece. Interesting result, just not something I enjoyed all that much.

And my mom has all but one of her windows in now. The missing one is, of course, the egress window for the basement. The guy who cuts for those is apparently backlogged into the next millenium. Or something like that. Anyway, the fumes from the REST of the windows are quite bad enough. She had at least 20 times as much of that sealant put on as I did, since she had ALL her windows done. I was over there for a while today, and had to leave. Ugh. She does have air purifiers running, but so far they aren't enough. Too much stench, not enough air purifiers. The smell makes me nauseous and feverish, besides messing with my head. At my house, the smell seems to be gone now except right beside the windows, so maybe by Tuesday, Mom's house will be breatheable again.