Month: November 2024

The Secret Garden in Theo

On Sunday, I went to see The Secret Garden at Theo Ubique. I love their Sunday scheduling – they start at 6 PM, so it’s not a matinerr which completely breaks your day, but also not too late (for me, all days of the week are the same in term of bedtime, so I always prefer the earlier start).

My friend with whom I went told me earlier that that was the only show she wanted to attend this season. I liked others as well, but I understand why she said so – it’s a lovely music and a beautiful story. And the production is perfect! As usual, I hope that they will post some videos from the show later, and I will be happy to share them!

A Night At The Museum

For Nadia’s seventh birthday, I gave her a Dozing with Dinos—a sleepover in the Field Museum. As anyone can imagine, I was equally excited to spend a night at the Field and wonder around all the exhibits as long as I wanted to.

It turned out that there was not that much time for free-roaming because the whole night was full of activities: we met with the scientists, saw the animals skinning in the lab, identified different smells and sounds, saw a 3-D movie about the T-Rex and did a scary storytime.

Our sleeping area was in the Great Dinosaur Hall, and I think it was the best place, although Nadia said that sleeping by the Sue T-Rex would be better (when I was ordering this package, there were no places by Sue available, but maybe next time!)

We packed our things in the morning, left them in the locker, and went for breakfast. The only thing that could have been done better was the food provided as a part of the package or rather some inaccurate information about it.
They said there would be a late-night snack, but they had different bags of chips, tea, and hot chocolate. They also said there would be a continental breakfast, but it was just an apple, a banana, and one mini muffin (plus juice/milk/tea/coffee). Thankfully, the museum bistro was open at 7-30 AM, so we didn’t go hungry!
By 9 AM, Anna and Kira came to the museum. I thought we would stick around for an hour or two at a maximum, but we stayed there for more than four more hours! It’s the longest time I ever spent in any museum!

In the evening, when we all set for dinner, Nadia said that the best thing about that day was the whole day, and the worst thing was that it came to the end 🙂

Oh, and one fun fact: according to my Health app, I climbed 25 flights of started on Friday, and 25 on Saturday!

Smile!

The line for the passport control in ORD was the worst I ever stand in – I am not even going to estimate how long it was, but I was walking and walking, and still couldn’t find it’s end! To give the authorities a credit – they quickly put additional officerss to work, so it took me about 1 hour 15 min to reach the passport control (otherwise, it would be at least twice longer).

The office took my passport and asked: how are you doing? I replied as optimistically as I could: fine, I made it! It was clear, however, that nobody in felt happy after more than an hour wait. He lifted up the camera: let me take your picture! I looked into the camera, trying not to look super exhausted as I usually do on these entry photos. He said: smile! And since I kept staring into the camera, he repeated: smile! On the third time, I realized, that he actually wanted me to smile, and I smiled, first just a little bit, and then broadly, and heard ihis reaction: “Here we go! Good girl!”

Funny Story

I had a rather dramatic check-in for my October flight to Helsinki. As it sometimes happens when the first flight is not operated by Finnair, the trip locator changes for the partnering airlines, and you cannot find it until they send you an email that it’s time to register. And by that time, you can’t make any changes, like select your seats or order a special meal.

That being said, I could not order my low-calorie meal for my onward flight, but since I already had a trip locator, I could order it for my returning flight.

When I entered the aircraft on my way back, a flight attendant stopped by me, checked my name, and asked me whether I had a special meal, and I confirmed. But then, when the service started, another flight attendant asked me the standard “chicken or pasta” question. I said: special meal. She asked another attendant, and she was: did I talk to you on the ground? I said: yes, you did! Then both of them said that they are sorry and “one moment,” and then they returned with a very interesting tray:

A whole bunch of plates from the business class could all be considered “low-calorie.” They apologized again and then asked whether I also wanted a chicken 😀.

***

I am not going to vent about Tuesday. First, venting does not help, and second, as sad as it is, I can’t say it was unexpected. The mood in the office yesterday was gloomy, and the Finnish chocolate I brought came in handy. Yesterday was the day of our women’s circle meeting, and all of us came in like “meh,” but we decided to talk about positive things, and at the end, we all agreed that we would keep doing good and survive another four years.

As much as I always blame myself for all the bad things happening in the world, I do not blame myself that much for not doing canvassing. If there was anything I could do better, it was voicing my opinions, participating in meaningful discussions, and sharing information in all other possible ways. I am not even angry, not like in 2016, just focused on what I can do and what my priorities should be.

I think that the way Kamala Harris accepted her defeat and pledged to a peaceful transfer of power was the best thing she could do strengthen democracy and give an example of civilized behavior. Her speach was great, and I am so glad that she is not going to disappear from political stage.

Back to work. Back to life.

Sunday – Hello Michigan, I Missed You!

The boats are gone until next season

“Some Like It Hot”

This musical was on stage for only two weeks, and it was a primary reason I returned to Chicago one day earlier: it was part of our subscription and the only chance to see it!

The musical significantly differs from the 1959 movie, and the most important difference is the image of Daphne. The ending of the movie (“Nobody is perfect”) leaves the question of “what happened next” open-ended. In the 2022 musical, everything is more logical and there is no room for doubt, which makes the ending really perfect!

Staring At The Map

I had to work from home today because of the mom’s social worker visit in the middle of the day. Now, at half past seven, I am trying to work on ten things that are so overdue that I am afraid to think about them. I have a live election results map on my external screen, and I try not to look at it all the time. I still want it to be visible, even though the prevailing red is frustrating.

I remember that we survived one term of Trump, even though it was extremely challenging, and I believe that even with the worst possible outcome, the world won’t end tomorrow. However, I can’t work on certain things “until it is over.” It does not make sense because I will still need to work on these things regardless, but …

Ateneum

I am back in Chicago, and 200% of the time, I am busy, as anybody can figure out from my silence here. The previous post was drafted during my flight back and was not published because the in-flight internet connection went down in the middle of the flight, and I didn’t have time after that :). Still, I wanted to write a little bit more about what I saw in Helsinki.

Whenever I come to Helsinki, I immediately feel “everything is fine, and ok, and life is normal and orderly.” I know that my Finnish friends disagree with me, but we have different reference points :). This time, I worked every day, so it was not that much time to do something else. The only fun thing I’ve done was an outing with my friend Natasha: we went to the Ateneum Museum, which recently reopened after a major reconstruction.

The exhibit we saw is called Gothic Modern, and it explores the influence of Medieval art on 20th-century modern art. Each room is dedicated to one of the themes common to both historical periods: religion, life, death, sexuality, violence, etc. I didn’t know most of the Finnish artists who were part of this exhibit, and I even purchased an exhibit catalog with the hope of reading more! At some point, I stopped taking pictures because I realized I wouldn’t be able to remember what exactly had drawn my attention.

Munch
Max Klinger. On the Rails
Sasha Schneider. Feeling of Dependency

Getting back to the existing worries about the state of the economy and life instability. I would not say that the worries are unjustified. However, even now, even with all the economic uncertainties, I appreciate the virtual non-existence of homelessness, the accessibility of healthcare (yes, I know, but again – we have different baselines), and the fact that the buses run on schedule:))

My First River Cruise

One thing I am very thankful to my mom for is that since I was ten, she took me on long tourist trips, which would last for three weeks or even more. I tried to start writing about these tours several times, and each time I thought that I needed to find the photos form these trips, otherwise it doesn’t make much sense to write about them.

But realistically thinking, I won’t have time to search for these pictures for a while, let alone to scan them, so I finally decided to start writing about the trips and add the photos later, whenever I have time to find and process them (most likely, after I retire, but who knows!)

Before I start, I want to say a couple of words about vacation-taking in the Soviet Union.

I know that it was different in the beginning of the Soviet state, but by my time, most people had at least one month of vacation (and some had even more!) Vacation time was strictly about “calendar days,” not “workdays,” so if some public holidays were in the middle of your vacation, they were “lost.”

Since vacations were so long and were taken strictly once a year (in most cases, you couldn’t split it into parts), everyone tried to take them in summer. The parents needed this summer vacation to take their kids “to dacha” (as I already mentioned a couple of times), and others just wanted to have time off work. Since it was not sustainable for everyone in a company to take a month’s vacation in summer, there was a perennial nightmare of scheduling vacations in the beginning of the year and hard limits on how often each person could take a vacation in summer.

What would people do with their vacation month? In most cases, they wanted to get away from the city, and it could be just going to the countryside to visit their relatives or going to a dacha. In many cases, people could use a “trade-union voucher” to go on a tour or to some resort. A local trade union bureau would approve the distribution of the vouchers, selecting “the best workers” and/or “those who needed it most,” and the lucky ones would end up paying 10-20% of the full price.

Unlike most people, my mom usually bought the tours without trade union vouchers, paying the full price because most tours she wanted to go to were not available through the trade union vouchers. She would save money during the whole year to go to new places. For seven summers, from 1973 to 1979, we went on these tours together.

The first one was in the summer of 1973, and it was a relatively short one. We were going to take a “Volgobalt course,” departing from Leningrad and then getting to the Volga River through the system of locks, visiting Yaroslavl – an old city on the Volga River, and then returning back to Leningrad. There were several complications with this trip. First, it started on May 20, which meant my mom had to ask for permission to take me out of school on my summer break ten days earlier (that was not a problem; I was a good student). Second, I was only ten, and and a child had to be eleven to be admitted to the cruise (do not ask, I have no idea why), so my mom had to get permission from the captain of the ship. And the last problem was a force of nature: it was very early in the navigation season, and Lake Ladoga was still covered with ice, so the ship couldn’t get to Leningrad. A couple of days before the departure date, all passengers were given railway tickets to Cheboksary, where our ship was waiting for us.

As far as I remember, there were no organized tours at the stops. We had a full day in Yaroslavl. We disembarked, and my mom and I went to the city and tried to visit as many museums and churches as time permitted. We loved a fairy tale -looking city, and only wished we could stay longer.

I know that I have pictures from this cruise somewhere, and I hope to eventually scan them.

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.