Last night we had a little cracker party - we provided crackers and people brought things to put on or dip crackers into. It was also a salon party, so people were encouraged to bring music to play.

My roommate rightly pointed out that the cleaning we were doing before the party was just like the cleaning our parents used to do before they had company over. Only this time our mother's weren't telling us to stay out of the way because we were just making a mess...
As a result of the cleaning, the apartment was suitable for photos, so I finally took and posted pictures of my apartment online so people could see them.
To the left is the view of my apartment from my work desk. The piano, the kitchen, and the dining table are featured. The ceilings are about 12 or 14 feet (my numbers might be wrong, but they're really high).

You can see how high the ceilings are and how tall out windows are in this one(right). If you stand in the window frame, you can't even touch the top with your arms stretching up. Because we live downtown, the windows are great for people watching. The homeless people downtown seem to sit in front of the cafe across the street from us in shifts - morning, afternoon, and night - and each cast of characters provides a different type of amusement.
On the left is a picture of my room - it's pretty empty, I know. Since the walls are so high, I feel like I'd have to put huge things on the walls to even come close to filling the empty space, so I just don't. I like bare walls, maybe I'm crazy, but all I do in this room is sleep and take my insulin.


Ok, back to the party. It was quite successful - we had about a dozen people here. Lots of crackers and dips and spreads and wine kept people happy and full. No one else brought instruments, and only one person brought other music. My roommate and I performed some PDQ Bach specialties and later in the evening, we sang show tunes. Three people shared the role of pianist, by divying it up into duets. It's a lot of fun to play only the right of left hand of a piano part!

All in all, it was a delightful evening. There is little cleanup, other than washing wine glasses. I like having parties with respectful grad students.