The weather is great, and also, I have a million things to do, and also, I had time this afternoon because I moved several things around. And for the past two hours, I can’t do anything. I feel the time running away and disappearing in the sand of eternity, and I know I will punch myself tomorrow for this paralysis, but the only thing I can think of now is – why bother? I told a group of like-minded people a couple weeks ago: I will never forgive him Ukraine.
Another like-minded person said in a Telegram channel: I do not blame all Americans, I blame him. The thing is, however, that same as I can’t not feel my personal responsibility for Putin’s existence, I can’t not feel responsibility for Trump being on the top of the world. All the canvassing I didn’t do, no matter how good the reasons were, all the time I focused on solving the problems in the Postgres community, all the time I was fighting for other causes, I didn’t fight for that one. And it will stay with me.
And all of the half-written blog posts about the plays I saw this week, about the events I attended, and even the fights I thought felt absolutely meaningless.
Since I already received a couple of concerned messages, I wanted to let my friends know that everything is great, and the reason I didn’t blog much is that life happens multiple times every day :).
I had a second post-op today, and there was something going on (not with me), because the surgeon had to dash to other rooms multiple times, and I spent more than an hour just waiting.
However, the news is positive: everything is healing very well, and I can do all my regular activities, provided nothing hits my head and I am not lifting something heavy.
The vision is still fluctuating, however, as I already said, even the worst it was during this week is tons better than it was before and better than I was hoping for.
It’s not even funny, but Boris’ flight back was also screwed up. To be precise, his evening flight on Sunday was canceled, and he was put on a British Airways flight that departed almost four hours later. As a result, he missed his connection in London, and they couldn’t find his new ticket, so he missed the next flight as well and was at home after 10 PM on Monday.
With all that, I am not optimistic about my next week’s flight to LA because it’s also AA. My only consolation is that I fly in the day before the conference starts, and my flight back is super -early Sunday morning on the day of switching to the DST
The Siskel Center ran “20 Days in Mariupol” as part of their Shadows of the War Lecture series, which meant that this documentary was a part of the curriculum for the students of the Art Institute of Chicago. The tickets were also sold to the general public, so I got a chance to watch it (without advertising).
It’s incredibly painful to watch this documentary right now, with Trump doing what he is doing, with the UN resolution, and everything related. Adding all the other battles I have to fight these days, it feels like the whole world is against me, and all the evil forces are coming from one source (which is not true).
I do not think I can add any meaningful comments about this documentary. In the beginning, the lecturer mentioned that “there is not much reading available” for it, but I am sure that there will be plenty and that it will remain in the history of war documentaries as an outstanding journalistic work. And I hope that the time will come when it will be presented as evidence of war crimes to the International Tribunal.
Today, however, it feels like nobody is held accountable for all these atrocities.
You can watch the whole documentary here if you haven’t had a chance to see it yet.
She is brilliant! It was so special to see her so close from our first-row seats, to see how the CSO musicians looked at her during her amazing solos, and to see David Chen nodding approvingly. And she enjoys what she is doing so much!
Thursday was still weird, and although I was super happy with the optical effects, I still didn’t feel myself, both physically and mentally. I still had to make some important decisions because one of my “battles” was still ongoing (I hope that at some point in the future, I will be able to tell all about that, but not yet).
Friday morning was a turning point. Boris and I walked to the Common Cup for breakfast. I could not make myself eat normally since the surgery; I had zero appetite. That breakfast was the first time I enjoyed food, and I appreciated the Common Cup more than ever.
My vision is fluctuating, and it was expected. On Thursday, it was good; on Friday and Saturday, it was terrific; today, it is a little bit worse, but the surgeon told me it would be a rollercoaster, so I am patiently waiting. The best part is that even at the lowest, I do not need any additional correction on my left eye, and when I put a contact lens in my right, my vision is as close to perfect as it can be. I am trying not to wear the reading glasses to train my eyes. One of the most difficult things in my current situation is that I am not allowed to do any physical activity, and I can’t bend down. That includes no strength training, even with body weight, elliptical or stationary bike, or yoga. And on top of it, I am not allowed to move fast! It was very cold on Wednesday, and Boris didn’t even let me walk outside (the next day, the surgeon said it was fine). However, I am still motion-deprived and barely make half of my move ring on my Apple watch. No bending blocks most of my household activities, and it’s awesome that Boris is here because he can unload a dishwasher and move the clothes from the washer to the dryer. (And to be honest, that’s the best this time – no COVID restrictions and having him here). I forgot about “no bending”, and I am thankful that this is for one week only, not for three months, like after my back surgery! I also forgot about the drops: three kinds of drops four times a day, with 5 min intervals in between 🙄
After seven days, I will continue the two non-antibiotic drops until I use the whole bottle, but just twice a day.
One of the drops stinks a lot! I do not recall any of them causing such an “ouch” after my previous surgeries.
Last time, I was struggling getting the drops in the eye – half of them ended up missing, and I was never sure whether I should repeat or it was “good enough.” The nurse said, that if I am unsure, it is beter to repeat. Boris showed me his techniques to see the drop getting out of the bottle, which increases the chances of success dramatically, so I do not worry that much about it this time.
Boris is leaving later today, so we are going to do everything which requres bending and lifting before that. And since I am oging to the office tonorrow, I woun’t need to worry about the dishwasher until me next post-op on Thursday 🙂
My eye surgery was on Wednesday, and we had to be at Rush by 6-45 AM. If you recall how my first eye surgery was five years ago, it could not have been more different!
Rush Medical Center is something amazing! The top technologies, the high-skilled staff, the overall professionalism, friendliness, and respect for patients. It was great that, unlike five years ago, Boris could be there with me. It turned out that although I was not nervous, I actually was, and I missed a lot of explanations from the surgeon regarding what exactly and why would be done (there were three separate procedures).
Right after the surgery, I couldn’t tell what the result would look like because they told me to keep the patch on. I felt OK but could not really focus on anything, and I was motion-deprived because I couldn’t do any exercises, and it was too cold to walk outside. On Thursday morning, we went for a post-op appointment, where they took my patch off, and although my vision was foggy, I realized it was almost perfect! the surgeon told me that I saw way better than he expected me to see on day one, and I was sent home with a whole bunch of eye drops and instructions “not to move fast.” That’s the most challenging thing for me to do! This “no nothing” will last for a week (two days done, five more to go), and after that, I will be able to gradually return to my normal level of activities with complete healing in a month.
Boris was supposed to fly in on Sunday, right after I would bring my mom home from our matinee CSO concert. I had Monday off, so we were planning to spend it together, and had a long list of what we were going to do.
I didn’t expect anything unusual, so I checked Boris’ flight status at midday just to make sure it departed on time. Nowadays, it’s not always easy to find the flight status online unless it’s your flight and it’s in your app. To my astonishment, a Google search showed this flight approaching Reykjavik! I thought it must be a mistake; but one of the other searches also showed Reykjavik as the destination point. Another one still said Chicago.
I just locked the door of my apartment and started to walk down when I got a call from Boris: We just landed. I asked: in Reykjavik? And the answer was yes.
Nothing was clear for the next twenty-four hours, but now I know the complete sequence of events. Shortly after the departure, one of the four power generators located at the engines died, and they could not start the backup generator in the tail. (As they say in my world, “if you do not test backups regularly, you do not have backups”). This posed no problem for the flight itself but was not enough to support all the sensors, so they had to land in Reykjavik, which, BTW, has no American Airlines presence, so they could receive only limited equipment help.
Boris said that everything was very well organized, and throughout the ordeal, they were kept informed about what was going on, the options and possible outcomes, and all the moving parts behind the scenes. First, they tried to repair the generator, but since no parts were available, the AA decided to bring in another aircraft. All the passengers were transferred to hotels and transferred back to the airport in the morning. It took way longer than expected to reregister all passengers because this airport is not equipped to service aircraft of that size.
Fortunately, I found a website that showed all the “flight notes,” so I knew about all the expected delays and new estimated times. After the aircraft finally landed in ORD, I tried to take several screenshots to capture all the changes.
I listened to this radio collection, but he has separate books about at least two of the epidemic: Business and Angryness. The radio collection consists of four parts: Addicted to Busy, The Power of Negative Thinking, Why Are We So Angry? and The Death of Nuance. All of them touch on important topics, but I was especially interested in the first part. According to sociologists, it’s not like we are busier these days than in the past, but society’s expectations and standards have changed. For example, it’s a well-known fact that despite many devices that make cleaning the house and other household chores easier, people don’t spend less time on house cleaning than previously. And there is an explanation for that: the standards of cleanliness have changed. As Burkeman states, “Now the floor shouldn’t be just clean, but clean enough to perform an open-heart surgery on it.”
Another interesting observation is that people started viewing things that they do for themselves (like attending a meditation session) as “projects,” which also increases business.
As a side topic, there was an interesting discussion about “paid” and “unpaid” work. I never thought about it the way Burkeman approaches it, but it does make sense: if you can pay somebody to do this, and you will still get the same result, it’s work, paid or unpaid; otherwise, it’s not. For example, you can pay somebody to bake a cake for you, and you will still get a cake without baking it, so baking a cake is work. On the other hand, you can’t pay somebody to go to the theater to see the play instead of you, it will defeat the whole purpose of going to the theater. Incidentally, that perfectly illustrates what I always say about my baking: I love the process. I am fine eating out and I am glad that they feed us at work, but I will never delegate my baking to somebody (yes, I love Vanille desserts, but I am not trying to reproduce them!).
And at the end of this episode, Burkeman talks about the necessity of idleness. That is something many researchers are talking about: to innovate, our brain needs some idleness (I always generate great ideas when I am on vacation!) It is also related to the state, which I am trying to achieve with not much luck – not to have a super-packed schedule with no wiggling room. With all seriousness, I know it’s not good, and I know that there is a physical limit to what I can do. My only success in this area is that I learned not to be upset when my plans collapse.
I guess these are very appropriate thoughts on a day when Boris’ flight was delayed for 24 hours. To be precise, there was an emergency landing because they could not start a backup generator and had to wait for repair. So much for trying to have a day off together!
Hettie's Reflections 