Since I had figured out how to use my macro setting on my camera, I decided to go into my garden yesterday to see what I could find to take a picture of. Unfortunately, most of the flowers there are dead (is it my fault? I don’t know. I think the plants are supposed to be dead around this time. Right? Please tell me they’re supposed to be dead, because they are.) Well, not all the flowers are dead. There’s a bush with some pretty purple flowers on it that I was going to take some close-ups of.

I found this big fat bumblebee looking for pollen, and took a couple pictures of him, though I really had to control the urge to flail around and run for cover every time it started flying around. Soon, I realized there were a bunch of bees in the bush, reveling in all the pollen that this plant produced.

After running around the backyard as I was chased by a deadly dragongly, I returned to the bush to find a monarch butterfly checking out the pollen count. It was hard to take a picture of him because he just wouldn’t stay still. I would have loved to take a close-up of him, but that didn’t happen.

I noticed that the flowers right next to the house were in bloom (seems like every time I come home there are new plants in bloom. The people who owned this house before us were master gardeners, I feel bad that we have no idea what we’re doing) I took a couple pics of those, then came back to the big purple bush. I saw this fat bug flying around from flower to flower, then realized it wasn’t a fat bug, it was a hummingbird. This little guy was a little more sensitive to my presence with the camera, so everytime I came in for a close shot, he’d move away. Next time, I should remember to camouflage myself with leaves or something. But I managed to get a good shot of him, after about 20 pictures.

[edit: After a short debate (I wasn’t too sure anyway) Sam has convinced me that it wasn’t a hummingbird. It was, in fact, a very fat moth. Hmph. FUCK YOU, AQUAMAN.]

[edit #2: because I cannot stand being wrong, I did some research, and found out that this thing is indeed a hummingbird - a hummingbird moth! Yeah. I’m half right.

So here are my pictures of my photoadventure. The first picture has the butterfly, bumblebee and fat moth all in one shot - can you see them? Click on the picture to see where they’re hidden….

Tags: Pictures by Yano
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I was in the airplane coming home from Jackson, and I saw this article in American Way magazine. This is a fantastic article based on an interview with John Cusack, Chicago’s favorite son. He talks about what he loves about Chicago, and it just makes my heart sing to hear him talk so fondly about my hometown.

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Just a Guy on a Bike
by Mark Seal

John Cusack is a would-be boyfriend in multiplexes this month in Must Love Dogs. Anyone who wants to keep up with him as he guides a tour of Chicago must love riding a bike.

The guy on the bike is famous, but he’s not right now. Zipping up and down the skyscraper streets, along the famous lakeshore, and through the heady arts, restaurant, and nightclub districts of Chicago, he’s no longer best identified as John Cusack, one of the most venerable actors of his generation. Returning to the city where he grew up, Cusack reverts to the role he loves most. He becomes just another Chicagoan, another guy on a bike in awe of the city sprawling beneath his pumping feet.

‘Chicago is the best-kept secret in America, in a weird way,’ he says. ‘It’s an international city, and you have all the great ‘architecture and all the stuff that any major international city would have. But it still has a great, down-home, down-to-earth, almost no-nonsense sensibility. They don’t suffer fools well.’

Which is why Cusack’s favorite way to see Chicago is not from some stupid sports car or silly limousine but from the seat of a bike. And even though America’s third-largest city stretches across 229 square miles, Cusack insists that the heart of the city is easily navigated.

‘It’s a great city for biking around,’ he says, rattling off streets, sites, secret places. ‘I do it on a little half mountain, half electric bike called the Wavecrest.’

So, with the wind in his hair and his grip on the handlebars of his Tidalforce Spike bike from Wavecrest, Cusack takes us on a tour of his hometown, the City of Big Shoulders, the Windy City, Frank Sinatra’s kind of town.
[Read more →]

Tags: Cool Link by Yano
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I’m SO tired, SO stressed, and SO homesick….

Anyway, just a couple questions I’d like to ask my readership out there, all 5 of you….

- Have any of your read the latest Harry Potter book? I’d love to have a discussion going…

- How many of you have photoshop or some other sort of photo editor? Are there any things you’d like to learn how to do in photoshop?

- Any web tricks you’d like to know?

- Any suggestions for trivia?

- Would any of you care to join a football pool next season?

OK, I think that’s all…

I’m going home today! Yay!

Tags: Questions by Yano
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I’ve fallen in love with photography again, thanks to my new obsession to my Flickr account that Walter gave me. I’m not even a quarter way of posting up all the picture I have, but that dream of finally having galleries for my photos is coming true. It’s easier to post up my higher quality photos up here than what I’ve been doing.

So the other day, bored in my hotel, I finally figured out how to use the supermacro lens on my camera. I absolutely love this picture that I took, of my favorite shade of lipstick. Click on the picture for more detail…

Tags: Pictures by Yano
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This story is from several weeks ago, when we went to the Santana concert at the Taste of Chicago.

Mel, Fatima and I had gone to the bathroom (well, bathroom isn’t the right word for it. ultra-toxic port-a-potty is more accurate) and we had just finished washing our hands at the fountains they had set up. We were going to go back to our table where everyone else was. Budweiser had set up a place for its employees to watch the concert, which was in a shaded area next to the bandshe11, so it was a little hard to maneuver around because there were trees, roots and grass all around. We were walking back and then I saw Fatima trip over a root in the ground.

Then her shoe fell off.

She went to retrieve it and realized that her cute little stylish flipflops that she had bought in Texas were broken. The side strap had broken off, as had the strap by her toes. The shoe was completely unusable. I offered her a ride on my back, she was frustrated and refused, choosing to take off her other shoe and just walk barefoot back to the table.

Once there, we let everyone know of what happened. Fatima had no shoe! We debated tying napkins around her feet, but she shot that idea down. Finally I offered to go back into the mass of sweaty humanity that was The Taste to go to the souvenir booth in hopes that they had some sort of footwear there. I mean, flipflops are ‘in’ right now, wouldn’t it be logical that they’d have official ‘Taste of Chicago’ flipflops? Melanie agreed to go with me on my quest and off we went.

We maneuvered around the crowd like pros. We were women on a mission! There was a poor girl out there with no shoes! I wanted to shout out to the crowd, “My sister has no shoes! Out of the way!” to part the people, but I don’t think they would have cared. We finally made it to the souvenir booth, where they had an assortment of keychains, t-shirts and hats. But no shoes!

Then Mel suggested that maybe we leave the taste and go to Michigan Avenue to see if there were any stores open that had shoes. We made our way through the crowd and walked over to Michigan Avenue. We found a souvenir shop open, but no luck there. A woman then suggested Osco, which was several blocks down the street. We walked down there, tired and broken. We wandered around Osco, and finally, tucked in a little corner, we found the flip flops. Alas, we had no idea what size she was! We just got a pair that fit Melanie and hoped for the best.

Then I looked at the price. $9.99 for a pair of freakin’ flip flops!!! They’re ordinary rubber flip flops, I didn’t know why they’d cost so much. Grumbling a bit, I went to the cashier and she rang it up: Seventy nine cents. Looks like that 9.99 was actually 99 cents. And they were on sale!

So we ventured back to the Taste, fought our way through the crowd back to our area. By that time, the guys had somewhat fixed fatima’s shoe, but it really wasn’t in walking condition. She was very thankful and enjoyed hearing about our adventure.

As we all left the Taste, she was carrying her dear, broken flipflops in her hand. We all knew there was no hope for them, but she didn’t want to let them go. However, after some prodding and chanting from the rest of us, we persuaded her to throw them in the trash. We had a short moment of silence, and moved on, Fatima in her not-so stylin’ but highly functional flip flops from Osco.

Tags: Stories by Yano
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Since I’ve been really bored here in my trashy hotel in Jackson, I decided to have a photoshoot with myself to show of my new hairdo. Ten minutes and about 50 pictures later, I’ve found three that I don’t look completely dorky in. Not that I don’t look dorky in these…

I am lovin’ this new cut. It’s got a lot more layers, but these are healthy layers, compared to the hacked off layers I had done when I was in California. If I put it up in a bun when it’s wet and take it down around midday I get a nice amount of body and waves. These pics were taken at the end of the day, and it’s still bouncy and happy.

Jack Hayes at Studio 8, you are my hero.

Tags: Pictures by Yano
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I fixed up my last entry and turned the comments back on. Sorry, I forgot that I have my comments turned off for all my ‘extras’.

Then again, maybe you didn’t want to comment anyway. But you can if you want to.

Tags: Page Update by Yano
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Really busy today, here’s something from my ‘when i don’t have time to post’ backlog….

————
Got this one from Dizzy-Girl. Bold the ones you haven’t done.

Of course….there are stories to go with some of these which I don’t have time to go over right now, so the things I have done have a ‘but….’ attached to them, but you’ll just have to use your imagination. Remember, some of these I’ve taken quite literally, so it’s not all that bad…

Tags: Lists by Yano
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To counteract the pretty depressing post from this morning…

Prairie Dog : Los Angeles, CA - May 2005

Isn’t this little prairiedog adorable?

Tags: Pictures by Yano
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em·pa·thy (mp-th)
n.
1. Direct identification with, understanding of, and vicarious experience of another person’s situation, feelings, and motives.

A friend of mine had a good friend pass away a couple days ago. She was sick and in the hospital for a while, and he was there for all of it, day and night he and their friends stayed with her until the end.

I’ve never lost a friend before, so I don’t know exactly what he’s going through. But I was there when my mother died, and I know how it feels to be there for the last moments of someone’s life. It’s a bizarre feeling, it doesn’t feel real.

I tried to think of what to say to him, if I should give the words that other people gave to me, the “right” things to say. Things like, “she’s in a better place right now” or “be strong, you’ll make it through this”. During times like this, people just don’t know what to say, but I didn’t know what to say for a different reason. I didn’t want to make it worse. I didn’t want him to know what he was going to go through.

But then I decided to just tell the truth. When my mother passed away, the words that consoled me the most were the ones that were truthful. The ones that didn’t hold back, the ones who said, “It will never be the same.” Because it won’t.

So I told him what I felt, I told him what I went through, I told him the feelings I went had, that I still have, I didn’t sugarcoat it all. I think when you’re feeling pain like this, you don’t want people to baby you, you don’t want to be babied. You want to hear that the feelings you’re going through are okay, that you’re not crazy. Although we didn’t go through the same experience, I knew so much of what he was going through.

I spoke from my heart, I spoke from what I went through, what I’m still going through. “You’ll hurt. You’ll feel so many emotions all at once. Anger, sadness, hopelessness, despair, confusion….there will be times when you’ll literally feel your heart breaking, times when your sadness makes you feel like you’re standing at the edge of an abyss with no end in sight. Life isn’t fair. You feel selfish, you want her back. You want more time with her, there just wasn’t enough time…It’s not going to be easy, and it will be something that is on the edge of your consciousness all the time. You’ll realize how trivial some things in life are, that the bigger picture is the more important thing, how precious every person in your life is…”

Of course, in a way, I was saying these things to him more for my own sake, than for his. Well, that’s the way it ended up. I was trying to console him and ended up opening up my soul and letting out my own issues.

It’s an understatement to say that I’m not over the death of my mother. It’s something I think about all the time. There are times when I miss her so much that I can’t breathe. There are times when I get so angry that she’s not around anymore to share all these things that are happening in my life and the lives of others around me. There are moments when I wish she was just around, sometimes I feel like my life would be so much better if she was just here.

I hurt. I still hate it when people ask me how I’m doing, because I always lie and say, “I’m ok.” Because sometimes I’m not. Someone once told me that she thought about her mother every single day, whether it be a song, a smell, a moment that triggered a memory…It’s the same for me - something reminds me of her every day, and in a small or large way, I would feel that despair in the very core of my heart. There are good days, and there are bad days. Luckily, there are many more good days than bad, but when those bad days come, watch out.

I would never want someone to go through this. But if they had to, I would want them to know that they’re not alone, they’re not crazy for feeling what they feel. It’s ok to feel selfish once in a while, or to shut down yourself so you can figure out what you need to do to try and lead a normal life again.

I try. It’s not easy and I don’t know if I’m doing good job of it, but I try.

Because that’s what she’d want me to do.

Actually, she’d probably tell me I was being O-A (which stands for ‘over acting’, which is the Filipino way of saying that someone is being a drama queen) and then she would tell me to go to sleep, muttering under her breath that I spend too much time on the internet.

So true, Mommy, so true.

Goodnight.

Tags: Daily by Yano
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