Month: July 2025

This Week Was About Missing Out

This week, instead of saying “Yes” to a million things you can do in Chicago in summer, especially if “you” are “me”, I did the opposite. I was saying “no” to many activities, because I needed to catch up with my professional responsibilities.

My talk at PG Conf EU in Riga was accepted, which means I need to prepare it, because it’s a new talk. That’ in addition to the community event I am hosting there. I have things I promised to do for the ACM Chicago Chapter, and couldn’t find time for weeks, but most importantly, my big tutorial is only half-done.

And I have no more free weekends until that conference! My only “free” day will be upcoming Sunday, and it will be a day after the red eye flight back from Portland.

Do not take me wrong – I love all these activities, and I am taking this all completely voluntarely, but still 🙂

I Taught A CTA Employee How To Take Metra!

Today is Wednesday, which means I have a personal training session over Zoom. My trainer lives in LA, so even though he is an Early Bird, he can’t train me at 5 AM CT. We tried to work it out for several years, and our current arrangement is that on Wednesdays, I go to the office super early and we have a training session in our office gym.

For a while, I was able to take the shower 6 AM Metra train, and be ready just after 6:30, but when the new station opened, the travel time increased, and I opted for taking the Red Line (there are no Metra trains between 5 and 6 AM). I know that in order to be comfortably on time, I need to leave the house at 5:20. Five minutes later is still OK, but tight.

Today, I was ready at 5:22, but I stopped to check whether my flowers needed more watering and lost five minutes. I ran into the CTA station just at the moment when a CTA employee was putting up the sign “Service disruption.” He said he didn’t know what had happened, but something had happened at Thorndale, and the trains were not moving. I sighed and said, “Well, I guess I am going to the Metra station.” Another employee asked: You know how to get there? I said: Absolutely! The train leaves at 6 AM. I will be a little bit late, but not so bad.

I turned around and started walking when I heard her shouting from the station: Could you wait for me? I will go with you!

While we were walking, I learned a lot about her. She lives in Aurora(!!!), and commutes by Amtrak and then CTA every evening. She works night shifts Monday through Friday, and another employee who lives in Waukegan had told her a number of times that she should use Metra, but she was unsure how to get there. We talked about how Jarvis Station was so nice, and such a contrast to Howard, and about the homeless sleeping on the trains, and how it’s scary that Trump wants to put them into some facilities. I told her about my volunteering for the Bight Ministry, and how everyone is anxious, and living one day at a time. She said that the world is a scary place these days, and I must worry about my children and grandchildren. I told her that worrying is not productive, and I am trying to do good things when I can.

She said I inspired her with my active lifestyle, and that my energy was contagious, and that she will see me on the CTA :). I might actually see her when I am returning from the shows!

Funny Little Things

When I stood up, getting ready to get off the CTA train at Lake, I saw a face on an Apple Watch of a person standing in front of me. I saw that his watch was drawing a green circle counting 3-2-1. I immediately realized that he did the same thing I always do before exiting the train: turned his “outdoor walk” workout on. You think you are the only one being a little bit workout-crazy, but then, there are more people like you 🙂

About Imperial Mindset – Again

One of the topics of our conversation with my friend, who visited me on Saturday, was how we both strive to break away from the imperial mindset we had for most of our lives, and how the war in Ukraine has forced both of us to re-examine our beliefs and our “defaults.” She told me about a project she is working on with the Chicago Kyrgyz community, and how she knew virtually nothing about Kyrgyzs before that. She feels a great deal of respect and admiration for this community, and she regrets that she was once clueless, following the “younger brothers” shortcuts of Soviet propaganda. I understand her very well, because I feel the same way, and I am ashamed of the younger me looking down at the “smaller nations.”

One particular story she told me, struck me. When she was teaching a gymnastic class in a Russian-speaking daycare for pre-schoolers, she noticed a girl, sitting by herself and not coming to participate in the gymnastics activities. She encouraged the girl to join, but the teacher, who herself was a Ukrainian refugee, dismissed the move: “What would you expect from aul?” The aul is a word for a small rural village, and the whole sentence was a diminitive reference to the girl being from a “small nation.” My friend was appauled by the fact that a person who just experienced the Russian agression would say this, but she said nothing and still encouraged the girl to participted. Months later, that same teached approached my friend and said: I was thinking about that episode and our conversation, and I am sorry I said that. Now I realize how wrong I was.

I do not think there is much to comment on that, but I shared both my friend’s respect for this person who came a long way to realize that her believes needed some corrections, and also my friend’s deep regret about how deep inside each of us this sense of superiority was rooted.

The Longest So Far…

Exploring new territories (and new angles)

It’s The End Of The Weekend…

… and if you ask me right now about my weekend, I would say that I was working! This would be at least partially true, but I do not feel miserable about it. This impression comes mostly because I was working for the past nine hours, more or less nonstop. There are two reasons why this does not make me miserable: first, I had many meaningful activities before these nine hours, and second, I had been extremely nervous for the past two weeks about not finding time to do all this work. So now that a big chunk of it is done, I feel much better :), and feel like this weekend was well spent.

One of my old friends from Palatine visited me for the first time since I moved to Rogers Park, and we had an amazing time together! She liked my house, the neighborhood, and the beach. The weather was not especially beach-friendly, so most likely, if I were by myself, I wouldn’t even go, but since she already went that long way, we went, and the rain retreated :). While we were sitting chatting at the beach, a lady approached us and said that she was advertising a chess tournament, and how there were not enough women in chess, and maybe we could give it a try. I had no time and no desire, but I loved her enthusiasm, so I took the information from her. It was so “Rogers Park-like” that I could not explain better what I love here!

We visited my mom, then went to Charmers, got some coffee, and ate the buns that my friend had brought from a Polish bakery.

She loved our courtyard and wanted to take a picture of it, and then she said she wanted me in the middle because my clothes matched our beautification color scheme.

After she left, I changed from the beach outfit to the nice one and went to a coworker’s 50th birthday party. I really admire and respect this person, and he might be the only person for whom I would go all the way to Berwyn! An over-an-hour one-way Uber trip, plus staying there for an hour and a half, and a trip back, and 50+ people in the bar from whom I knew maybe five or seven… I am telling you, I would not do it for anyone else!

“The Magic of Rogers and Hammerstein”

It’s one of my favorite summer concerts, and for the past several years, I have been trying not only to attend this concert but also to get tickets closer to the stage.

Before the concert, my neighbor and I tried a new French cafe. Just a couple of days before, I noticed a new cafe on North Michicgan Avenue, and thought the it would be nice to check whether they are open in the evening:I constantly lament about the disappearance of the inexpensive food options in the early evening hours; the places I oculd have a dinner before a show ora concert without breaking the bank. Panera, Cosi and Pret – all of them are mostly gone, and those that are left, close at 3 PM. The place which I spotted, Lea, reminded me of Toni Patissery, that didn’t survive the pandemic. I noticed that they are open until 7 PM, and decided to give it a try before the Friday concert.

It was great, both the food and desserts, and reasonably priced ($32, including the tip) for the meal below.

The concert was great, and although it looked like it was about to rain, it didn’t rain except for a couple of drops during the intermission. The seats were great, and I could see everything what was going on on stage. After my most recent surgery I can see very well even without glasses or contacts (except for the reaing glasses), but it was a little bit problematic to see things on stage. However, in June, I got contacts for both eyes for a perfect long-distance vision. I do not wear them every day, because I am fine without any visial aid most of the time, and also, when I have them on, I need a stronger reading glasses (I can’t even see the phone without them).

But for the performance, it was perfect! Eve though we were not in the front row, I could see everything!

I have a ticket for one more concert, which I will probably skip, and then Carmina Burana with my French guests in August.

Marion Mahony Griffin Beach

This beach is not ten, but a five-minute walk from my house, but it always felt like “too small, too crowded,” and not allowing me to enjoy the lake in all its glory.

However, I decided to give it another try for my early mornings, and it turned out that there were just a couple of people at that time of the day, doing the same thing as I – immersing in the calm, warm water, and then walking back home.

I will do it again 🙂

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Yesterday, I finally stepped down from one of my activities: The Howard/Evanstone Community Board. I was very hesitant to join this Board from the start, and the reason I ended up joining was my desire to help my local community in addition to helping the world at large :). Also, I indicated from the very beginning that my commitment will be limited, and I will only participate in the strategic initiatives group.

However, during these last two years, I was still unable to get an answer regarding our budget and measuring the effect of any of the programs that we ran. And there was a huge push to participate in the direct fundraising efforts, which I refused from the start.

When I agreed to run for the LPI Board, I promised myself that in the unlikely event I am elected, I will drop one of my existing volunteering activities, and that was the one. I am actually proud that I did it – I do not take these things lightly. Also, I didn’t want to resign by email, so I came to the quarterly meeting and talked with the CEO and explained.

It seemed as though he had expected it, and he said he completely understood. I still felt bad, but it was the right thing to do.

Office Events

This week is packed with multiple office events. On Tuesday, our firm hosted a workshop organized by 100 Women in Finance. Rebecca Malotke-Meslin talked about negotiationg strategies. I was hoping for more generic negotiation techniques, but it was mostly about salary and promotion negotiations, although very well done!

Today, we had a Women Networking Breakfast at our rooftop. A little piece of irony: our regular breakfast is/was much better! We had a fruit salad, Greek yogurt, spinach and onion scramble, and proscutto and pesto scramble. And an apricot-raspberry topping for oatmeal. And freshly baked croissants. And the networking breakfast had iced coffee, chocolate croissants, and donuts. So I had a “normal breakfast” and then went to networking!

Tons of great conversations, new connections and catching up!