Melyssa-with-a-Y

Dani posted this one too, here goes: Four places I have worked are: - Political Americana at Union Station (most frequently asked question: Where's the restroom?) - American Clinical Laboratory Association (started as a temp, stayed for almost 2 years) - Internet2 (start of my techie geek days) - Georgetown University (continuation of the techie geek days) Four movies I would watch over and over again: - Princess Bride - Star Wars - Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade - Usual Suspects Four places I have lived: - Washington DC (and suburbs) - Salamanca, Spain - Piscataway, NJ (blech) - Austin, TX (next month!) Four TV shows I love to watch: - CSI (the original) - Grey's Anatomy - What Not to Wear - The Sopranos Four places I have been on vacation: - London, England - Sydney, Australia - San Francisco, CA - Nassau, Bahamas Four websites I visit daily: - Huffington Post - Washington Post - Kiss 'n' Blog - my family blog (yes, we are ALL geeks) Four of my favorite foods: - F...

heh. Dani got that question in the restroom after Clueless in Clarendon slew (slayed?) the competition for a second week in a row!! :) It was my last night at RiRa for trivia (for a while, anyway), so it was nice to put in a good showing! Kudos, first of all, to Joan, who pulled from you-know-where a few answers to the hardest picture round yet - TREES! I mean, really. Who knows anything about botany? ;) Joan, to her credit, it studying to be a naturalist. There is a debate going at the moment over what should be considered the "tuchus point." It's between Joan's knowledge of foliage, and Dani's World Cup soccer trivia genius, which she saved us with last week as well. For your reading pleasure, the questions from Tuesday night's game: [I am skipping the ones we thought were way too easy, which were doozies like "who was married to Ferdinand Marcos and had a lot of shoes?" and "What American statesman invented the lightning conductor?"] Wha...

A few weeks ago I completely "frogged" the cursed purple sweater I made for Samantha (I finished it the first time in February , and had started again in June, to no avail) ... I borrowed Dani's ballwinder and made pretty little yarn cakes. :) Here are the yarn cakes, and just for comparison, one regular unused skein of the lovely Filatura Lanarota D.K. yarn I'm using. This sweater was just plain unwilling to be completed. So, I gave up on that pattern, found another , and started again, in pink. Fortunately, I believe Samantha likes pink a LOT. So here's a pic of how it's coming along. I like this sweater pattern because it goes side-to-side (funny enough, the crochet cardigan I made for her last year also went side-to-side. hmm..) I pinned the armhole together so it wouldn't get too stretched out. I'm also doing the regular part of the pattern in stockinette instead of garter stitch -- I just plain don't like garter stitch. The color is a little...

We did it! First place! :) It didn't start out well... the mic didn't work, and we were treated to a few seconds of high pitched feedback each time Patrick tried to use it. So, we went without... Patrick wasn't quite loud enough so one of the waitresses (a huge voice in such a tiny person!) to called out the questions. The photo round was distorted photos of famous people... We had a minor disagreement as to whether one photo was Aretha Franklin or Raven Simone. (Yes, the photo was that distorted!) Unfortunately, we chose poorly on that one. (it was Aretha) So here are some of the questions -- see how you do. Who became King of France in 1643, at the age of 4? Who made the first airplane flight in Australia? Who played the Headless Horseman in Tim Burton's version of Sleepy Hollow? What was completed in Paris in 1345, after 182 years? What Apache chief became a Christian and a farmer? In what 1996 film did Geena Davis play a pirate? What month did Iraq invade Kuwait? ...

Nothing Says Hell Like High School Courtesy of Dani Fill in the blanks about your senior year, and begin with your senior portrait. Hm. It was a black and white pic that my boyfriend took to put in the yearbook. I was holding my stuffed Opus . 1. Who was your best friend? Kelly has basically been my best friend since kindergarten(we're up to 28 years now!), and we've only ever had one big fight. (In 8th grade, she wore horrible blue mascara, and I was the only one who would tell her it looked awful - everyone else said it looked great. Naturally, she hated me for it... for a day or two.) :) 2. What sports did you play? Volleyball. Captain of the JV team junior year... haven't played much since. 3. What kind of car did you drive? I didn't learn to drive until I was 21, after college. 4. It's Friday night, where were you? Hm. That depended on whether the synagogue youth group was doing something at the Temple, or whether I was working makeup crew for the school ...

Gartner's annual IT Security conference rolled around again, so Marc rolled into town on Saturday night (while I was out with the Yentas). Sunday, we went back to Fortune for dim sum (he likes dim sum, and that place was a big hit last year), then we went back to the mall. This time, the weather was SO much better (last year it was over 90 and really humid when he was here).... and I remembered my camera. We went first to the Lincoln Memorial, stopping by the memorial to DC's war veterans. Here's a pic from the top of the steps of the Lincoln. Then we went to the American Indian Museum . The architecture is by far the most interesting on the mall -- it's made to look like an adobe hut. You can read all about it at the link above. For dinner, we went to the new Tapeo restaurant at Pentagon Row . Can't say I was terribly impressed with the tapas (the tortilla espanola had literally just come out of the fridge, it was ice cold), but the white sangria was excellent. The...

We did it! The Yentas (and our friends and family) walked the 5K National Race for the Cure in DC this morning - the largest 5K in the USA! Here we are with Judy's mom, a breast cancer survivor (YAY Terry!) ... wearing our "Eye of the Tiger" ears. ---> There were TONS of people there. I think we will try to meet earlier next time, if only because it will force us to get on the metro sooner! and NOTE TO METRO: run the 8-car trains on the Orange Line on the morning of the RFTC ... too many people (and strollers) to fit on the 6-car trains, especially when they're running 15 minutes apart! I am not claustrophobic, but let me tell you, by the time we got off the train, I had to sit down on the platform for a minute or two -- I nearly passed out!! :( But I got better after that. We did the 5K (screwiest race course yet... it changes every year!) in just over an hour, and then met up to grab some swag from the sponsor tents. We got pink scarves from Ford, Sun Chips in pi...