Rather than projecting an air of fabulousness, I was projecting an air of extreme illness. Oh, the humanity!
Had fallen into bed at about 6 AM. The phone rings at 9 AM. We were so not answering it. LOL
Sleeping, sleeping, sleeping, sleeping.
Woke up and had some vague thoughts about making it to at least the last couple of groups in the ladies short program. Somehow though, the prospects of an extremely long hot shower on full shower massage setting and an urgent quest for rolaids seemed more important. I couldn't have been in a bigger void.
I listened to the phone message. It was Tricia! She sounded very nice and very, very energetic :) An extreme contrast to my state ;) She said something to the effect that she and her husband had not gotten away from the venue until 11:30pm and decided that since we'd all probably be gone from the Hyatt by then, that they thought there was no point of going there. LOL!!!!
Moving about the hotel room getting ready in a daze, the phone rang again. This time I answered it, YAY!! It was Tricia, she'd looked for us during the ladies short program and was surpised not to find us. Oops! I replied in a making a good first impression mode and admitted that we had been out until 5 AM, eeeek!
Anyway, plans were made to meet up that night at a surpise destination : The Hyatt! We decided to exchange descriptions. I hastily decided what I'd wear that night, and Tricia gave what would turn out to be a remarkably useful description: She'd be the one with the blonde puffy hair, wearing khaki pants and a denim jacket. At least that's what I remembered ;)
After our conversation, I finished getting ready and forced Dave to go on a hunt with me for the elusive Rolaids. Then we left for the arena. Today was the free dance and I had no intention of missing any of it! When we got there, we'd just missed the last of the ladies short programs. Oh well! At least we had time to purchase delicious and hydrating beverages and get situated before the free dances started.
Got to our seats in a timely fashion and our seat neighbors were missing. Somehow I didn't remember them being at the Crime Lab the night before, so I'm guessing they took a long break after the short programs and decided to ditch the 1st dance group. So, I still didn't know what had happened in the ladies short program. Once again, oh well!
Sat through the first group. I'd thought I'd immunized myself at practices against the Japanese teams music -- Swan Lake with vocals PML But, I hadn't. I think it put me over the edge. I made it to the first skaters in the second group, Belbin & Agosto, then decided a very long exposure to fresh air was in order. While out there, I finally got the scoop on the ladies short program. Yay me! I'd really been feeling like a horrible skate fan, but the marvellous (and stylish!) woman who filled me in totally absolved me of any wrongdoing, saying that I hadn't missed much and that the ladies events were the best to ditch LOL
I made it back in time for the 3rd group and Delobel and Schoenfelder.Yay! All week I'd talked up their free dance to my seat neighbors, who'd also made it back by this time, so we were all rather excited LOL I think D & S made some new fans that day :) Standing ovation from me! Also, looking over to Sharpie and the guv, standing ovations by them too! YAY!
(For the free dance, Sharpie and the guv had both managed to get lower bowl seats in sections on the same end as me. Thus began our practice of being the only ones in the arena standing and cheering for skaters that tended to be either rather unknown, voidy, or not exceedingly popular. Sharpie describes it best as our "Stand up and applaud on our own and wave at each other so we dont feel lonely' voidyness." LOL)
Many enjoyable free dances followed. I still wanted to be as fabulous as Tatiana Navka, loved D &L's Titus, who cares if it's all highlight moves? LOL No discipline's free skate was complete without a gladiator program, got to hear that again LOL C & S were fab! Standing O! Loved L & T, though it was a huge shame that they weren't as spot on as they'd been in practices :( (Still, standing O!) I don't think my seat neighbors were surpised with my Standing O for the voidy Bulgarians, either LOL
I felt much tension waiting for the final group to start, Ugh! I wondered if A &P would prevail in the first to skate spot. They were fabulous, it had to be the best they'd skated their program all season! Standing O! Still, there was plenty of room left in the technical mark for them to be beaten. Next up, F P & M. Yay for the chest bumps! Standing O! ( Me, Sharpie, & the Guv. Ok, it was just us for many of the other times I mentioned, too. But it seemed a shame to me that FP & M weren't getting much appreciation from the crowd all week) To me, it could have gone either way. The marks were very close but, it ended up being Babs & Mauri ecstatic in the K & C. I like both teams, but I was disappointed for A & P.
D & V tiffed it pukka! I was so happy they'd gone back to Spente le Stelle as I'd always wanted to see it live, yay me! :) Standing Ovation from everyone! ( Except of course the jaded sorts sitting in the front row on the long sides)
The crowd went delirious when it was B & K's time to skate. March with Me is burned into my auditory memory. (Make it stop! Make it stop!!) I am so not a fan of that music. At the end of their skate, I dropped my pen or something and spent so much time looking for it that somehow I missed the entire standing ovation! Huh! When their marks were announced a massive outcy of boos resounded in the arena. But, yay for L & A anyway.
It was astounding how many people ditched the medal ceremony. All week, nearly the entire crowd had stayed for it. Haters! LOL
Oh well, it was back to our hotel to attempt to tiff ourselves up and I had to change into the outfit I said I'd wear so Tricia would recognize me.
Back at our hotel, the tiffing thing was so not working. I had extreme outfit issues. Considered revising my plans, but then how would Tricia recognize me? Ack! Oh, well. Decided it was more important to be findable then it was to be perfectly tiffed.
Called Fab & Rik to advise them of the unusual meeting place, then it was off to the Hyatt!
(Disclaimer: Many narrative liberties follow, particularly in regards to the sequence of events. I was in a void)
Arrived at the Hyatt. Sharon, Tara, Madam Cruella, Jenny and Neil were already there. Mysteriously, shellybean was not there! LOL I went over to say hello and noticed that they were sitting by the rather omnipresent group of Shae, Morozov, & her mother. This time, the ominpresent group also included assorted family members and such.
Had a look around the bar for a blonde with puffy hair and khaki pants LOL Tried to be surreptitious looking at everyone's pants, but think I still got some odd looks PML
The others were eating, I think, so I voided off to join Dave at his perch at the bar. He was chatting with some man, who turned out to be Naomi Lang's tribe leader, or something to that effect. I joined the conversation for awhile then wandered out for a smoke with Sharon and Tara.
Many of the ice dancers had returned and the ladies were doing a fantastic job of out diva-ing each other YAY! Irina had a full length black & white pony/dalmation print coat, Babs had tiffed up her hair and was super trendy with studded jeans and fabulous shoes. Marina, however was resplendent in head to toe purple, including marvelous purple stiletto boots! Yay Marina!
Dave had his picture taken with Marina at some point that night. He came back with the following report: "Her hair is hard."
Anyway, on the way out for the smoke break, I'd noticed that Maurizio was out in the lobby waiting to be adored. LOL I informed Sharon & Tara of this and they decided that adoring him would be a very good idea, so after our smoke, off we went! We congratulated him on his free skate, then chatted a bit about such things as where his girlfriend was and didn't he think it might be a good idea if he grew his hair long again for next season as there were Spanish OD's PML He said it would depend on what free dance they decided on. Hope he didn't take the suggestion the wrong way LOL
At some point we were back outside when the entire italian team walked past us all happily on their way to celebrate. We thought we might be able to sneak into their group by falling in behind them and tossing off such phrases as 'Ciao bella' and such, but we decided against it ;)
Back inside, Fab & Rik had arrived and I tried to enlist her help in spotting Tricia. Suddenly I spotted a pair of khaki pants attached to a blonde with puffy hair! I accosted the woman. 'Are you Tricia?' Yay! She was! I introduced her and her husband, Rick to Dave, Fab & Rik, and to everyone else. I think we managed to have the brief official Gallery get together at this point LOL I gave her the IFS mag scoop, and I'm sure Dave showed her the pictures ;-)
We were sitting at the bar by Dave, who was still chatting with Naomi Lang's tribe leader, when in walked Peter Tchernyshev and John Zimmerman, the porny twins looking beyond fabulous. They headed over to the man Dave had been talking to, and the man bought them a drink. We had the best seats in the house. All of a sudden, all of the women that I knew in the bar came over for a chat. PML! I think there were some arguments over who was porniest, PT or JZ. This seemed to go on for awhile, with Peter seemingly pretending to not notice the sudden influx of women standing there LOL
Naomi's tribe leader turned to us and made some comment that he wanted to take a picture of all of the women's faces as they looked at Peter & John LOL Hmm, I thought we were all being terribly casual and inconspicuous!
The others wandered off and Dave decided that I needed my picture taken with PPT. eeek! "No!" "Come on, he's standing right there!" "No!" 'Why not?" "Nooo!! I'm not going to, just stop it! Leave me alone!"
(Unlike Dave, I hadn't done the picture taking fan thing all week, I was in a hangover void, my outfit was hateful, and ummm ... I knew Dave would say something cheesy. Oh, the horror! I'm back in time, having a painful flashback!)
More arguing ensued, the Naomi guy even got into it helpfully suggesting that he could ask Peter for me. ACK! Dave explained to him, "she's always like this, I don't know why" Heck, I think even Tricia was lobbying for the cause LOL
In a state of incredible hung over lameness, I succumbed to the pressure and stood up for the photo op. After all, I didn't think I'd been in any of our pictures all week LOL At this point, I tried to rally by ignoring the whole asking for the picture situation and pretending to talk to Tricia LOL Then, all of a sudden Dave said something to Peter about his new citizenship status, and Peter said something all serious like "It's an honor" (hmm, hadn't PJZ said something like that about the porny skater of the year award?) I went into a void. Managed to say something brilliant like " Love your free dance!" and posed for the pic. PPT looked at me all expectantly as if I were going to engage him in a sparkling conversation....
... so I mentioned that I'd spoken to Sasha the night before and that it was such a good move for them to switch coaches, etc. Bitched a bit about them not being signed for more COI dates and promised to talk to Tom on his behalf.
OK, I'm lying. LOL
.. I pretty much just said thanks and bailed, went over to the table where the others were, muttered something about being in a void. Then I went out alone for a smoke and rolled my eyes at myself repeatedly for my essential lameness LOL . Ran into Sharpie on the way back, told her what had happened and she was peeing herself laughing LOL!!!
Went back inside to find Shae and her table were regaling the entire bar with loud, bositerous singing of assorted national anthems PML
Spotted Tara at the bar standing by PPT and PJZ and looking back at the FSU table. I knew something was up, so I decided to prove to myself that I was not entirely lame, and totally inserted myself into the situation. PML
John wandered off a bit and somehow Tara started talking to Peter, pointing at the FSU table and mentioning that he'd won an award on their website. LOL! He seemed a bit unconvinced and asked all sorts of questions about what the award looked like, etc. We were pretty much decided that we were going to take the award away from him at this point and give it to the runner up, John Zimmerman, instead and we informed him of this LOL Then I told him something like " Yeah, we told John about it last night, *he* seemed really impressed!" Peter gave me this look like I was totally bs'ing him, reached his arm out and pulled over John Zimmerman ! PML
John came over all smiling at Tara and I, and Peter asked him about an award. Then, HA!!!!!, John said something to the effect of "Yeah! The porn skater of the year award! It's great! I want that!" YAY! He started talking it up to Peter, remembering all the details from the night before, including the previous winners PML!!! I was in a state of total disbelief and gave Tara an OMG look. I just wanted to start laughing. To Peter, I gave a total raised eyebrow HA! smug, triumphant look Then I told John that we'd been considering taking the award away from Peter, and giving it to him instead as the reigning runner up. Suddenly, since John had vouched for it, Peter was all interested LOL
Can't remember what was said next, but all of a sudden John gave Tara and I intent looks and asked if we were sisters. No, we were from different continents etc etc. Then he asked if he and Peter looked like brothers LOL We studied them carefully, for a very long time PML I think we said we noticed a bit of a resemblance. I'm not sure what all the sibling stuff was about, but we were thankful for the excuse to give them the once over LOLOL ( hmm, maybe that was the point?)
We wandered off, probably in a disbelief void ... on a personal note, I was happy that I had overcome my lameness just a little bit LOL
Shortly thereafter, I looked over to see Tricia chatting up Markus Leminen LOL I think Sue was there , too They seemed to be perfectly content doing that for hours, so I left them alone LOL!
Went and joined the others outside for a bit and the Italian team was coming back. We cheered deleriously for Babs, who didn't quite realize what was happening until her husband told her " They're applauding you" So then she smiled and waved at us and said thank you PML
Somehow a conversation was started on the practice of putting the letter P in front of a skater's initials to designate their porny status ( PMM, PPT... PJZ) and it became important to find out if there were any female skaters with the initials M.S. So, Neil and I decided to cruise through the lobby to the start order board to see if we could find any LOL Got very delerious poring over it for ages as skaters milled about around us. Can't imagine why it took us so long as there was only one event left to be skated PML!!
Tricia left at some point and I said goodbye to her with the proviso that she'd tell me all about her night later LOL
The Hyatt bar was closing so Sharon, Tara, and I decided another night at the Crime Lab was in order YAY Couldn't get any of the Canadians to join us, but Laura agreed to come, yay her! Collected Dave and off we went! Saw some of the people we'd seen last night, including Eric who had been bartending. He came over for a long chat and told me how much of a gentleman Dave was LOL Many touristy things were recommended to Tara and Sharon as they were leaving days after the skating was over. Fun was had, I avoided the Fingerprints LOL The Ladies Free skate wasn't until late in the afternoon, still we left rather early. A bit after 4AM? LOL Walked the other's back to their hotel and hooray, took a taxi back to ours! I think that bloody stumps conversation the night before had a really made an impact on Dave.
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