On a totally random visit to Technorati (actually, not totally random, I wanted to check my “Authority” which is still pretty low), I searched for the term “Yanchak” in the blogs. To my surprise, three blogs turned up: one was mine, another wouldn’t load, and the third was a new site called simply Yanchak.com: The Official Home of the Yanchak Family and Family Reunion. I didn’t know there was an official site, and I was also was unaware of – and therefore absent at – the recent family reunion. These must be a new strain of Yanchak…I wonder where these organised Yanchaks are from? Though the name is from my dad’s Ukranian family, the website’s colour scheme (red and white) and imagery (white eagle), belies a definite Polish vibe.
A more careful search of “Yanchak” reveals…well, a lot of Yanchaks. Fittingly, the web reveals that Yanchaks are mainly either brainiac scientists (like my dad) or artists of some kind (like my mom). I did find, also, an article in which my sister, Laryssa Yanchak, got some big ups for playing a feisty barmaid in the new Brad Pitt movie with a long title: THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD. Her role was described, by the New York Observer, as a “far-from-unenticing female distraction from an essentially male-oriented narrative.” Haven’t seen the movie yet, but seeing my sister larger-than-life, on an enormous theatre screen will be weird.
Natalia Yanchak 