That was a funny one. I scheduled my AC check for today, because I was going to work from home anyway. The technician came when I was in the middle of my Zoom meeting with two of my colleagues, and by the time he was done with the inspection, we were wrapping up the meeting, and he heard me saying that I was leaving later that evening. He asked me where I was going, and I said – Finland, and started to explain that it will be cold (how cold? – it should be mid 70s this time of the year, but it is colder now, mid-upper 60 – well, that’s not that bad!). He asked whether I had family there, and I answered vaguely because explaining my family would lengthen this conversation way beyond the small talk. I described the white nights, the sun barely touching down, the lakes, the rocks, and the forest.
He listened with the great interest, and said: I have one last question: can you take me with you?
P.S. Having a goddaughter in Finland is a good way out of “Do you have a family there?” ๐
Yesterday, when I realized that it was after 10 PM and I was not packed yet, I scolded myself for going to the beach after work. But as it turned out, that was the right thing to do! Yes, I worked from home today, but it was raining all night, and after a little bit of the sunshine in the late morning, it started to rain again, and then the rain turned into a heavy thunderstorm, so no beach today!
It was my first and only beach day this season so far, and I can’t believe we are already in the second half of June! The lake was cold! No wonder, since the whole spring was very cold, and there was no chance for the water to warm up even a little bit. I plunged, jumped out, and plunged again, just because :), but I don’t know how all these kids could stay in the water for so long!
There were so many people on the beach! So many kids who should have been loud, but I was surprised by what a quiet scene it was! As if everyone were quietly taking in this first warm evening.
My flight is on schedule (hurray!), but I just finished packing (sort of, because two things are still in the dryer, and for those who know me, that’s something unthinkable – my luggage is usually ready on a weekend before my trip). I am working from home tomorrow, but I am actually working until the very end of the workday – I have the last meeting scheduled from 3:30 to 4 PM. I have the air conditioning inspection in the morning, and I need to see my mom before departure, and we have a conference kick-off meeting for PG DATA.
And yes, I still need to finish packing! I am so tired that I think I will sleep for ten hours straight when I get to Helsinki.
To finish on a brighter (literally) note: I found time for Pride Nails! I mean, I had to do my nails before the trip, but also, I actually remembered that I wanted to do pride nails for the past three years!
I know, I know – they featured multiple Postgres Women from Europe and the USA, and they were interviewing me for the past two weeks, but it still feels funny!
I genuinely love the graphics, though!
If anybody is interested in the full article, it is here. Enjoy ๐
I am hopefully flying to Helsinki in two days. “Hopefully,” because Finnair is on strike, but in some weird intermittent way, so I am still unsure whether my flight is affected. However, I should know by tomorrow morning, so fingers crossed! Unfortunately, I had something planned before and after my trip, so I could not move it. If my flight is cancelled, I must cut my vacation by two days.
Other than that, I am extremely tired. Work is absolutely crazy. Also, I am trying to use the longer days for longer bike rides. The trains are more and more crowded, and I rarely get a chance to sit down on the 7 AM train. And if I want to take 6:30 AM, bike for 1 hour and ten minutes (that’s what it takes to the Montrose Harbor and back), take a quick shower and change, and get out of the house at 6:10… You got the idea.
There are many conference-related activities, and although these are all good, there are still many of them. We had a meeting with potential website developers today, and I received a response to my email about budget lodging options, and I had to reply. I sent the first catering quote request. And I need to figure out who I can ask to do our social media, because I can’t do it all…
And with this, I am going to stop complaining right now and go to bed ๐
I started this post immediately after I finished the previous “historical” post. However, when I looked closer at the documents, I was about to show, I discovered some discrepancies and emailed my only living relative who could theoretically know more. The information I received in response created even more discrepancies, so now we are both trying to sort it out. Based on what he told me, I am going to make changes to that post, so if you are interested, check back in an hour or two.
And now, I will finish this post I started two weeks ago, even though there will be more questions than answers.
Presumably, I am named after my father’s mother, whose legal name was Henrietta Levitina. However, unlike her younger sister’s, her real name is questionable. I am unsure about the situation in other parts of the world, but as for Imperial Russia, Jews didn’t have last names until the second half of the nineteenth century. At that time, the last names were assigned pretty randomly. Also, patronymics were entirely a Russian thing; still, all residents of Russia were required to have a patronymic. Many Jewish names were Russified by the officials, who didn’t bother themselves with exact pronunciation, and routinely substituted them with the names from the Old Testament in Russian transliteration. If that’s not enough, at the turn of the century, it was fashionable to give children “foreign” names, not for the assimilation and not in hopes of advancing the future children’s careers, but for pure “prettyness”. So, similar to Nancies, Lauras, and Isoldas in the 1970s Soviet Union, there were Bertas, Roses, and Henriettas in the Pale of Settlement in the early 1900s. The main heroine of Sholem Aleichem’s novel “The Wondering Stars” started to call herself Henrietta Swalb when she became a famous singer, while her real name was Yentl.
When my grandma was born, she was not called Henrietta, but neither was she Yentl. I have “a copy of the copy” of her birth certificate, which reads:
Achieval Copy
I hereby certify that on August 13, 1903, Novgorod-Seversky burgeois Israel-David Zalmanov Levitin and his lawful wife Gily Morduchova, in the shtetl Sherotyn, had a daughter whom they named Gruny.
My Russian-speaking friends migh wonder why the parents names sound like two last names instead of a partonimic and a surname. This form of a patronimic was required in legal papers. “In real life”, Israel-David Zalmanov Levitin would be “David Solomonovich Levitin.” He would be Isroel-Dovid in a synagogh, and most likely Dodik to his friends and neighbors.
The most mysterious part is that nobody ever mentioned anything about Sherotyn. Both my grandmother and her sister always listed their place of birth as Priluki, a city in the Poltavska gubernia, also in the Pale of Settlement, but a good hundred miles away from Sherotyn, a shtetl in Mogilevska gubernia.
I know that this “copy of the copy” is true to the “just copy” because I saw this “original copy” in my father’s house many years ago. It was hand (actually, quill) – written, and the last character of my grandmother’s name was corrected to be an explicit “ั” (“y”). I have no idea why I never questioned the place of birth. Perhaps, I was more intrigued by the fact that neither the date nor the year of her birth matched what I thought to be true.
I know (and nobody denied it) that her younger sister’s birth certificate was forged (and I will explain why in one of the future posts). However, I can’t think of any reason for forging this one.
So, let’s say it here for the sake of future generations:
Her name was Gruny (Ok, maybe Grunia), not Henrietta, and she was born in Sherstyn, not in Priluki, and her date of birth is August 26 (13 by Julian calendar), 1903, not May 9, 1904.
Everybody else in the family had proper Jewish names, even though I didn’t know the real names until I was an adult.
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.
Boris turned seventy-five on Thursday, and that was the first time ever that he allowed me to wish him a happy birthday on the social media. And from what I can tell, he liked the result ๐
Under the impression of the recently finished book The Notebook, I decided to record some thoughts and encounters, even when they are “too small” for a blog post. Otherwise, they disappear, and I won’t remember them.
***
My coworker told me that her son thinks I am a very cool grandma, and told her that when he is a grandpa, he wants to be as cool a grandparent as Hettie:). I thought it was both funny and touching that he didn’t say “I wish I had a grandma like Hettie,” but “I want to be such a grandparent.”
***
I was in a L-train car when four police officers in full gear entered and stood close to the doors. I was sitting behind them and listening to their conversation. A couple of young women passed them with the clear intention to move to the next car through the door, and one of the officers stopped them: You can’t go there! – We can’t? – You can’t. You can exit at the next stop and move to another car. The reason they were trying to get away from that one was a nasty exchange at the front of that car. The guys standing there were still shouting something in their direction, and the women looked at the policemen expectantly.
One of the officers replied sympathetically: “It’s not illegal to be rude, sadly!” And then he stopped one of the women who started to shout back: “Do not respond. You already won! Just get into another car, the train is stopping, get out and move to another car!”
It’s not illegal to be rude, sadly! Something to remember.
***
How long does it take for a priority envelope to get from 540 W. Madison to 115 S. LaSalle? Yes, I know it’s a different zip code! But three days!!!
***
Last week, a co-worker asked me whether I would like to go for a drink with him. I stared at him, not finding the proper words… I do not have days when I am not doing something after work! I felt very bad, and tried to find time when I could go for a drink with himl and fortunately found about a week and a half later ๐
***
Standing room only in the 7 AM train. Remind me, who is not in the office?
I started the day with a long bike ride and then an escort shift:
It looked like it was going to be a very intense escorting, but the antis disappeared shortly after they marched by us. Our shift leader told us that they were fined on Friday for standing too close to the clinic entrance. If it continues to be like this, I won’t complain.
However, the moment I arrived at the clinic, a security guard told me about the Minnesota killing, which had just happened, and I was so shocked, I could not believe it (and I still can’t). For a moment, it felt like “Are we all going to be safe today?” Later, since we saw crowds passing us on their way to the Daley Plaza, these fears vanished, though the anger remains.
It was definitely a much bigger crowd than at the Hands Off rally, but same as in April, I managed to get pretty close to the center of events. I didn’t stay till the end of the march (there were at least three separate groups that took slightly different routes, and I think that marching to the Trump Tower was not in the original plans), but what I saw lifted up my spirit.
Below are some pictures and short videos taken during the rally and observing three marching groups.
Yesterday, when I chatted with a Knox alumnus, Governor Pritzker’s commencement address came up again. I shared how I wanted to go to Galesburg and how that didn’t happen, and he said, “It’s online; you can watch it!”
Indeed, I completely forgot that I meant to watch it! And yes, it’s not the same as being there in Galesburg, but still much better than not seeing it at all!
I watched it today, and cried a little bit (more than once), and listened to almost the whole ceremony, but to Pritzker’s address especially.
His closing remarks were: How do you know you are on the right side of history? The wrong side of history wants you to be afraid. The right side of history expects you to be brave.
Our country needs us to be brave; all of us, not just Knox graduates.
I do not know any of the 2025 graduates in person; still, I watched the ceremony and looked at their faces with hope. Watched until the last note of “For the long, long road to Alma Mater.” And it was inspiring.
Hettie's Reflections 