Month: May 2023

Lights And Other Home Improvements

I finally have the lights on my balcony! All my neighbors had the lights, and I didn’t – that’s because the people who lived here before stripped off pretty much everything possible and impossible.

I still didn’t fix everything which was broken at the time I moved in, but I am getting closer and closer. I had a list of small repairs for which I tried to hire somebody to fix. That was one more never-ending project. The handyman who fixed the mice holes in my kitchen kept promising to find time and come over but kept pushing the date. Then I remembered that when I was looking for an electrician, somebody called me after I already found an electric company, and they said that they could do other repairs. This person was late the first time when we agreed he’d come over, and then he kept coming too late to start work, not showing up at all, etc. Each time, he apologized profusely and promised it would never happen again.

Somehow, I knew that he was not an imposter but had a problem with being on time. On Friday, he finally came here, if not entirely on time, but early enough to be able to do most of the things I hired him for. I knew he underestimated the amount of time it would take him to put the lights up (it took three times longer than he thought), so I paid him more than he originally asked and told him that we could finish the rest after the holidays.

Among other things, he replaced the lock on the back door, so I do not have a lock that can’t be opened with a key anymore (yes, I had it for two years!). And – he bought and put up the lights on the balcony. I need to replace the rest of the locks so that there would be one key for all, but not until everybody who has keys from my house has a new one. Hopefully, by May 31, everybody will have it! Meanwhile, I am thrilled to have the lights! They are operated by light sensors, so the light can either automatically turn on at dust and turn off at dawn or be on for a specified number of hours after dusk. Also, I have a remote to turn it on and off from the inside.

Not Enough Of The Lake

Rail Cars Reception

On Thursday, Igor and I attended the Annual Rail Car Reception organized by Historic Pullman Foundation. It was a benefit event, and since neither Igor nor I had time to go to Pullman Days this year, I thought I could support Pullman financially and see cool cars simultaneously. So I got two tickets for both of us.

I thought that there would be some programming, but it was literally a reception held in the old cars. It was nice because you could go through three different cars from the late 40s and 50s, but I hoped for more words :).

Also, for some reason, we were almost constantly passed on food (it was mostly finger food, and waiters were walking back and forth with the trays passing us:).

Igor spent a lot of time taking good pictures, but he still didn’t sort them and didn’t share with me, so I will only post the pictures I took

The coolest part was that we could enter all the cabins, and touch everything, and even touch the silverware and menus!

I am not sure I will do it again next year, but it was a very interesting experience!

Muti

On Tuesday, I went to the CSO concert one more time, and this time, it was with my neighbor, and it was a long-awaited concert with Ricardo Muti!

We were sitting in the first row, and we heard and saw everything, and it was so astonishingly, incredibly good! Jessie Montgomery was present in the audience, and she came on stage after her piece was performed, and the audience exploded with applause!

I realized that I didn’t hear Ricardo Muti conducting for a while, and I realized that I had missed this experience. It continues to surprise me that even going to these concerts after long work days does not make me feel tired, but just the opposite!

Mother’s Day And Mom

I wanted to do something more interesting than having coffee together for Mother’s Day, so I got the tickets to CSO for Renee Fleming and Eugeny Kissin’s concert. At the beginning of the season, I booked several tickets for Sunday matinees to take mom, but I had to return half of them because of scheduling conflicts. When I saw that concert, I thought there was no way thee ae any decent tickets left, but to my surprise, I was able to get two tickets, if not in the first row, still pretty close to the stage. Then I thought that I was not even going to try to make any dinner reservations because it would be impossible to get anything for Mother’s Day. Again, to my surprise, Forte was wide open, so I got the reservation right after the concert.

Overall, things were good. Mom complained about all the usual stuff but within average :). Unfortunately, one more time, I tried to reason with her when she told me that “here” things are different, and “back at home,” they would always announce the performers and the pieces, and she would not take my reminders that it was always the case at the classical music concerts. I blamed myself for getting into the arguments, but overall, she enjoyed herself.

I have weekly sessions with a therapist now, and these sessions helped me to realize that whatever I am doing and how I am talking to mom won’t change the speed of her decline; it will take its own course. I know that when I start reasoning with her and call for logic, it never ends up good; it makes bother me and her upset. So I am trying not to contradict her and not to argue, just to let it go.

I think that if I learn to control myself most of the time, it will be better for both of us. It’s along the lines of me stopping trying to fix everything and let things be the way they are.

Today’s good news: I finally got in touch with a Russian-speaking case manager, and she gave me a lot of good advice and reassured me that we will be able to resolve all the things related to mom that I am struggling with right now. That was very encouraging and really elevated my spirits.

Now, both mom and I need to focus on her citizenship interview that is scheduled for next week. She is panicking that she might forget some answers or not understand some questions, and I am panicking that she might start Putin’s propaganda… We have a weekend to rehearse, and I need to find and print all her documents, and a copy of her application. Hopefully, all goes well!

I Am Glad I Am Here!

Last week was two years since I moved to Rogers Park. Since then, I have changed jobs three times and had a lot of ups and downs, but one thing is for sure: I am so glad I moved! I enjoy coming back home, I enjoy walking the neighborhood, and that’s my home for real.

Elementary School In The Soviet Union, p.2

For the first three years of school, all the classes were held in the same room, except for PE and singing. Even in the first grade, the desks in the classroom were arranged the same way as in high school, three columns with six desks in each, with two students sitting at one desk. I know it is hard to believe now, but at seven, I was relatively tall for my age, so my place was in the fifth (out of six) row in the right column. My neighbor was a girl named Sonia Skorpileva. She was taller than me, clumsy, with messy hair and a leaking fountain pen. We all were as cruel as seven-year-olds could be and made fun of her. Unfortunately, the teachers often supported such behavior, publicly shaming the students for even minor mishaps. For example, on the days when we wore white aprons, we were also supposed to have white ribbons in our braids (and black or brown ribbons on regular days). One girl (and I even remember her name, Natasha Ponasenkova) had purple ribbons. Although it was our first First Day of School, our teacher called her out, put her in front of the class, and allowed everybody to laugh at her for these purple ribbons. And then she told her to tell her mom that the ribbons had to be white. She was a very pretty girl, but we never acknowledged that since she was from a “troubled family.”

Since the very first day of school, it was expected that we sit still for all forty-five minutes of each period. We were almost never allowed outside during the break, even though the school had a courtyard.

After a month or two, the teacher started grading both our classwork and homework. The grading scale was from 1 to 5, but 1 (“very bad”) was almost never used, 2 was already “bad” or “unsatisfactory.” Starting from the second quarter, we had “quarterly report cards,” which mostly presented the mean of all the grades one would receive in class through the quarter. At the end of the first quarter, all of us became Young Octobrists, the communist organization for kids aged from seven to nine. All Young Octobrists wore a pin on the left side of the chest: a small plastic or metallic start with the portrait of Lenin at the age of five in the middle. The name “Octobrists” (Oktiabriata in Russian) referred to the “October Revolution.” Since in 1917, the official calendar used in the Russian Empie was the Julian Calendar, all the dates were two weeks behind the rest of the world, thereby the Revolution happened on October 25, not on November 7. Although Russia switched to the Gregorian calendar in February 1918, by that time, the Revolution was already called “the October Revolution,” or “The Great October Socialist Revolution,” or simply “The Great October.” It was too late to change the trademark, so it continued this way. So, we all were “Young Octobrists” and wore these “Octobrists’ pins” on the left.

I know that all I am describing sounds pretty dull, but I didn’t think my life was boring or uninteresting at the time. My old post with the home movies covers the second half of the first grade, and there are lots of fun activities!

My historical posts are being published in random order. Please refer to the page Hettie’s timeline to find where exactly each post belongs and what was before and after.

New Planting Season

Even though I have no time and no car, and nurseries do not do deliveries, and even the water in our courtyard – what can stop me?

Morning Biking

A swimmer!!!

What I Liked About Yestreday

It’s not necessarily that I managed to squeeze in so many activities in one day. It’s not about numbers. It’s about the fact that throughout the whole day, I did what I wanted, things that were important to me and that I didn’t want to miss.

And also – I had many people’s interactions. I talked to the people in my neighborhood, and that’s what I didn’t do enough recently, especially because the winter was long and the spring was cold.

I talked to the florist from whom I bought the annuals for my balcony, I talked to many vendors at the crafts fair, I talked to the artists in the Greenleaf Center, and to the people at Grant Park.

Funny thing. I felt like I spent tons of money during the day because I bought from so many vendors. But when I sat down in the evening to record all my spendings I realized that it was way less than I thought. I believe it’s because all the interactions, whether I purchased something or not, were meaningful.