Work was good today. It’s great to be with people you’re familiar with that you can just sit and talk with openly and honestly. I want to lunch at some place called Flying Turtle’s, which did indeed have real live turtles. Not to eat. To see.

After work I headed out to the outlet mall around Niagra Falls. I didn’t go to the falls because the sun was going down so I wouldn’t have seen anything anyway. The outlet mall was pretty fun. I went to the Chinese store where I got my dress. The sweet old Chinese lady wasn’t working there, but I still ended up buying something.

Also stopped by a used record store where I picked up a couple treasures. I’ve been looking for a Frente album (any of them) and I turned around, and saw their cassette lying in the 89 cent bin. What a coincidence! Also picked up Merril Bainbridge’s CD - that song ‘Mouth’ has been haunting me since college. Got the Basement Jaxx CD also, and I was groovin’ to it in the car on the way back to the hotel.

Afterwards, I checked out the halloween store. It sucks that I’m out of town because there were so many cool decorations that just couldn’t fit into my luggage. I have no idea what I’m going to be for Halloween, because I’ve got these glasses and I need something that incorporates my glasses. I was thinking Velma from Scooby Doo, but Dave has his own idea for a costume, and it’s not one of the Scooby gang, so I’d be Velma all by her lonesome (yeah, nothing new with that!) Also thinking of Harry Potter, but I can’t find a hogwart’s cloak in my size. Any ideas?

Tags: Daily by Yano
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This week’s Picture This: Music -

Chamber Orchestra at Nordstrom’s - Chicago, IL: June 2003

Tags: Pictures by Yano
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1) Blair, from ‘The Facts of Life’ dressed up as a witch - the Blair Witch
2) The Scooby Gang is always a cute group costume
3) My ‘Little Red Riding in da Hood’ getup a couple years ago
4) The Steve Bartman costume
5) The Shower costume from ‘The Karate Kid’
6) The Disney Tigger and Pooh costumes
7) My highly controversial “Knocked Up Slut Nun” costume. Some Catholic Organizations just don’t have a sense of humor! Claudine’s Dinosaur costume - made for kids, but it fit her perfectly - she got herself a fiance out of that night!
9) Jerry’s home made Underdog costume
10) The Petco Dog Vampire costume

Next week: Ten Things You Want to Do Before the End of the Year

Tags: Weeklies by Yano
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So I’m in Buffalo, for probably the 5th time in the last 4 years. But luckily I love this client - we always have a great time together, and they’re pretty patient. When the company was sold, they were the first ones to email me and ask if I was ok. Isn’t that sweet? I need to do some shopping while I’m here - a dress to wear to a wedding on Saturday and possibly a Halloween costume. The weather isn’t too cold yet, and I’m anticipating going to some places here to get some grub with my clients. Hopefully I can find a good comic shop here, because I’m a bit behind with my books!!!

Anyway, let me go on…

Someone actually requested for me to make this post, even though I was going to do it anyway. I just wanted to say that because I think this is the first time that someone actually requested a post topic!

So last Saturday (I was a busy busy girl last Saturday) I decided to stop by the Chicago Silver Skates. The rink was only about 15 minutes from my place and was on the way to the Arboretum, so I thought I’d come by for a bit and get a short track fix, since the World Cup was in China, and I just don’t have the time or money to travel out there.

The competition was great. I loved the feeling of local competitions. It’s so different from the World Cup comps that I’ve been to, where it’s all big names, fans screaming, bright lights and it feels like a show. This was a competition of all ages, all levels, and the people cheering were brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers and team mates. No one was there to see their favorite Olympian beat people from another country, or to hopefully get an autograph and picture from that guy who was on TV. They were there to encourage the people they loved, the people they knew, the people they had supported since they were wee little Ponies. People came from all over, and they all got there on their own - people from Illinois, Iowa, New York, Minnesota, even Virgina.

It felt a lot like the US Championships in Bay City (which I never reported on, but I DO have it written out somewhere). There was this really intimate feeling, and you could feel the love of the sport that these people had, from the Pony group (the little kids who were SO cute skating their 3 laps around the rink) to the Masters, which were 50 and above. Can you imagine the dedication and love it takes to be skating that long? There were ex-Olympians there and people who were at their first competitions. As usual, the announcer did some awesome commentating and made the races fun for everyone.

I did feel a bit like an outsider looking in. I came in in the midst of the races and just took a seat in an inconspicuous corner of the rink. I didn’t know anyone there, but maybe that was a blessing. No press pass, no socializing, no press conferences, no worrying if my seat was close enough, no hovering at the side of the rink taking pictures at every turn or needing to report to a site. It was worry free and I could just sit back, relax, and enjoy the races, way up on my perch above the ice. I realized that day that I place too much undo stress on myself during other competitions by worrying about external things.

The races were exciting, and very different from the ones I’m used to. I’m used to everyone being at about the same level, so the ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ come from the many breathtaking passes. As I said before, there were experienced people and not so experienced, so in a way, you’re cheering for the people who weren’t in the front, to see them catch up or get up if they should fall. The kids were awesome. They tried so hard you could see how much they wanted to win. After the races, the skaters would come up to the bleachers. There was a little kid who came up to the bleachers after his race, and he looked so disappointed. He came up to his dad and said, “I didn’t win the race.” But his dad said to him, “It doesn’t matter, you were so fast out there! You broke your own record. This is the first competition. You’ll get ‘em next time!” And he put his arm around his son and the kid smiled up at his dad and said, “Thanks.”

I swear, I had to look around to see if they were filming a Hallmark commercial.

But that’s how it was. Sure, parents were cheering on their kids to win, but they were also just cheering on their kids. “Come on, stay low!” “Keep it up!” “You only have one lap left, you can do it!” All this positive encouragement was great to see.

And it was really cool when the heats for the older skaters came up, because many of the older skaters were coaches for the regional clubs. So their clubs would be cheering on their coaches, and the kids next to me were cheering on their moms or dads.

The “A” group had some great races, more like the ones I was used to. These skaters are the skaters of the future, the ones who will be moving up and going to those big World Cups that I was talking about. They did a great job and I hope they go farther in their careers.

So yeah, it was a good time. Even though I didn’t stay the whole time. It was a great experience to have fun at a competition and relax, something that I had forgotten how to do at the big competitions. There have been so many negative things happening with the sport - internally and externally, that I had forgotten why I had loved it so much in the first place. Thanks Chicago Silver Skates, for giving me a great reminder.

So Madison, you’re an even bigger maybe than you were last week!

Here’s one of the few pics I took at the comp - it’s the younger girls getting ready for their race as the starter stands atop the bleachers:

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In other ST news, congrats to Apolo Anton Ohno for winning two golds at the World Cup in Harbin, and Rusty for winning a bronze, and a big hooray to Allison Baver for winning her first World Cup medal, a silver in the 3000m!

And I found out a new rule at the comp - whenever there’s a false start, the skaters must go back behind the start line and wait to be called up again. Before, when there was a false start, the skaters would go back into crouch position and wait for the gun. Now, they have to set up all over again. Just thought you’d be interested to know.

Tags: Short Track by Yano
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Last Saturday I hung out with my cousins (Melanie, Marian, Marilyn, Marlon, Vernon, Fatima and Claudine) at Trully and Irio’s new place. They’ve got a pretty sweet pad, and it even came with a flat screen TV. Nice!

Melanie and Marilyn brought over some pumpkins for us to carve, but there were more of us than there were pumpkins, and Marlon had his heart set on doing the Headless Horseman pumpkin. So the two of us headed out to the nearest Jewel to go and pick up a couple more pumpkins. On the way there, Marlon got a call to get some ingredients for pumpkin pie. “What do we need to buy?” he asked. “It’s all on the label.” was the reply. OK, that’s easy.

So after debating for a while which pumpkins to pick out, me and Marlon headed into the store to get the pumpkin pie stuff. We found a can of Libby’s pumpkin pie mix. I looked in the back and stated that we needed to buy eggs, condensed milk and pie crust. “That’s all?” he asked. “Yeah, that’s it!” “Wow, that’s really easy!” he remarked. “Yeah, that’s why it’s the Easy Pumpkin Pie mix!” I said as I pointed to the name on the can. The condensed milk was in the same aisle, and we decided to make two pies, so Marlon grabbed another can of pie mix, and enough condensed milk for two pies. We also got a graham cracker crust. I picked out a Hershey’s chocolate crust for some variety, but then Marlon pointed out that there was an Oreo Cookie crust. Yum! So we threw that in the cart. Then Marlon asked me, “Will the Oreo Cookie crust be good with the pumpkin pie?” Who the hell cares! It’s Oreo Cookie crust!

We then realized that pumpkin pie isn’t pumpkin pie without the Cool Whip on top, so we went to grab a extra large tub of it. We debated a bit on getting the lite, low cal version, but thought, ‘NAHHH!’

We were like kids in a candy store.

So we returned back to the condo, victorious with our pumpkins and pumpkin pie mix. When we got back, Claudine checked out the pumpkin pie mix. “So where’s the nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon?”

The two of us looked at her with a blank expression. “Huh?”

She pointed to the directions. “It says here that you need cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. Or did you not read the ingredients?” I grabbed the can and looked at the ingredients. There, plainly written, were cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. How could I have missed that? And does anyone ever have CLOVES handy to back with? I think not. Also, she pointed out that one can makes two pies - so we couldn’t use the second can anyway, since we only bought 2 pie crusts.

So we were ridiculed for not getting the right ingredients and ruining the pumpkin pie. Our defense was that we didn’t need no stinkin’ nutmeg - enough Cool Whip will make anything taste fantastic. Of course, we were also reprimanded for getting the Oreo Cookie crust.

All that was set aside as we at an awesome dinner from Reza’s, courtesy of Melanie. Those lamb loins were awesome! And the dill rice was pretty tasty, too.

After dinner we started working on our pumpkins, which was a bit harder than we anticipated. We had stencils to work with, but had to punch/trace the picture on the pumpkin, which took forever. Then we had to meticulously carve the design into the pumpkin, which was pretty tough. How do they expect little kids to do this? All the while we were carving, we were also half watching ‘City of God’, the Brazillian answer to ‘Boyz in the Hood’ and ‘Bound by Honor’ (’Blood In Blood Out’). Since the movie was in Portuguese, but subtitled, we missed a lot of it since we were looking at the pumpkins. Of course, Irio enjoyed the movie, since he’s from Brazil and it was probably sweet for him to watch a movie in his native tongue and have US have to keep on asking questions about what was going on.

Claudine was done with her pumpkin early, so she decided to make the pie - sans the nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves. She only needed one can, since it made two pies, and we waited in anticipation for them to be finished.

The she was putting away the leftover can, and she looked at the back. She then realized what happened when she looked at the ingredients. “Hey, you guys got two different cans of pie mix!”

Huh?

It turns out that the can I was reading in the store was the Easy Pumpkin Pie mix. The other can that Marlon grabbed, which was RIGHT NEXT to the can that I got, and looked identical, was merely Pumpkin Pie mix. So the ingredients that we got were just fine - it was the cans that were messed up. So we weren’t ingredient blind - we just don’t know how to read the front labels!

All in all, we had a lot of fun carving out our pumpkins, pulling out the innards and getting hand cramps with our meticulous work. It was a great night to hang out with the cousins and pretty memorable!

Here’s some pics:

For more pics, check out Melanie’s or Marilyn’s sites.

Tags: Daily by Yano
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I went to the Morton Arboretum last weekend to relax and take some pictures. The trees there are so beautiful and vibrant, it’s the perfect place to enjoy the last weeks of fall, before all the trees lose their beautiful leaves. Here’s a couple of my favorites:

Tags: Pictures by Yano
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So I was going to develop my underwater pictures from my honeymoon and the cruise (which was a year ago, I know) because I’ve been putting it off forever. But since I was going to Indianapolis, I thought I’d just do it next week.

Good thing I put it off.

Because the Walgreens by my house exploded last week.

Man, I always miss all the good stuff when I’m out of town.

Another reason why procrastination is good, people!

Tags: Quickies by Yano
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Just wanted to share a series of emails with you with a completely random stranger…

#1

#2

#3

#4

Why do I feel like I just had a one night stand and woke up alone?

I feel like he just used me for my gmail invite.

Well actually, he did.

Hmph!

At least he said thank you…

Tags: Stories by Yano
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…on Yahoo Instant Messenger. I’ll be logged in for work, and my friend list is oh-so-empty.

I’ll still be primarily using AIM outside of work (and at times during work, too) but I’ll have YIM on during the day.

So if you’re bored at work or whatever, hit me up on YIM. Of course, I’m ‘missyano’ on it. I’ve got that name cornered on pretty much every chatting program out there.

Tags: Quickies by Yano
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So I endured the 3 hour drive back from Indiana, which really wasn’t that long at all, considering my commute from Long Beach to Thousand Oaks when I was in California. And because I was averaging about 85mph.

Normally I would say that road trips in the midwest are horribly boring since there’s no mountains or anything, but during fall it’s just gorgeous. I was driving home as the sun was setting and the last golden rays of the sun cast a wonderfull glow upon the trees that were already gorgeous shades of yellow, orange and red. I would have taken a picture of I had enough guts to just stop on the side of the road.

Speaking of stopping on the side of the road, Dave had some concerns for my driving out there on my own. “Christine, that’s Klan country!” Because as it turns out, there’s a lot of Klan activity in my neighbor state.

So as I was traveling, there’s this little Dave, whispering in my ear, hovering around my head, “The Klan, Christine! They’re there!” “Christine, the Klan is gonna get ya!”

I stopped for gas, and didn’t realize the name of the town was Whitesville. Argh. I clutched my cell phone tight and filled up quickly, keeping an eye out for pointy hats. But all I found was a Starbucks that makes the tastiest White Chocolate Mocha I’ve ever had.

So I got home, safe and sound, and spent a good part of my night removing antifreeze from my trunk, which had pooled up in the well on the side and soaked my laptop case. Yuck.

Tags: Daily by Yano
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