Month: January 2026

Water Heaters

My Armenian hosts mentioned that they had a gas water heater “just as it was in Saint-Petersburg in old times, do you remember?” I told them – not really, but actually, I do remember. It was very different from what they had in their house, so I thought that this was one of the fun facts I should share in my historical posts, because nobody would ever ask!

In this post, I described what my childhood apartment looked like, and in that post, I talked about the heating systems. To reiterate: you had to light a match to start a pilot in the water heater, and then you had to keep the water running; otherwise, the flame would die off. Since you had to light a match each time you needed hot water, you had to have “something” to discard the burned matches. This “something” was a tin mug which worked perfectly for that purpose as long as I remembered. Many years later, when I was about 14, I finally noticed “1915” scribbled on the side of the mug and realized it was an army mug from WWI.

There was a large washing machine in the bathroom; for the life of mine, I couldn’t tell the brand, but it was the size of a small table, and that’s how it was mostly used :). I hardly remember any time it was operating, and I am not sure whether it was not working properly, or at some point it broke and no one fixed it, or whatever the deal was. All I know is that it was there and not working, and I washed all my clothes in a washing bowl in the sink using the laundry soap.

The kitchen had no hot water at all. There was a gas heater as well, but I can’t remember why it was not used. To wash the dishes, I had to do the following:

  • boil a kettle of water
  • put a washing bowl in the sink
  • pour some hot water from the kettle and mix it with cold water from the faucet to make it warm
  • wash the dishes
  • rinse the dishes with cold water
  • put all the dishes back into a washing bowl and pour the remaining hot water from the kettle over the clean dishes
  • dry the dishes with the kitchen towel

There was a gas stove in the kitchen (as I mentioned, the old wood-burning stove was not operational), but you still had to use matches to light a burner. For some reason, I was afraid of lighting matches until I was eight or nine years old, and my mom yelled at me for it. Upon returning from school, I had to warm up my dinner, and for me to be able to do that, my mom had to leave a burner on low since the morning (again, no idea why; my grandaunt was there, but that’s something in their relationships I was never able to figure out). I was very proud of myself when I finally overcame my fear and learned to light matches.

It’s good to remind myself how things used to be; humans become spoiled very fast and are miserable when there are problems with hot water, or when a washer breaks!

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.

Books – 2025

Here is my year in books according to Goodreads.

I read more books than that, but unfortunately, a large percentage of the ones I read didn’t give me anything, and I regretted spending time on them. The most disappointing part was that I didn’t like any of the books from our book club at work. However, I am happy to report that I learned to drop the books I didn’t like without any guilt. Here are the last several books I read at the end of the year:

The Tipping Point. The full title of this book is The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. Published 25 years ago, it’s considered a classic, and I think it’s a must-read for anyone who wants to understand how ideas are spread in society, and what can be done to promote progressive ideas or desired behavior. I didn’t read this book before, but I saw an advertisement about the next book, Revenge of the Tipping Point, and figured I needed to read the original one first.

Revenge is even more interesting; it explores social engineering, its faults, and offers a new perspective on the COVID pandemic and opioid crisis, among many other topics.

What we can know – A dystopia, the most interesting part of which is, in my opinion, how much the digital trace of our lives will reveal about the true us to our distant descendants.

Careless People – an explosive book, which I am glad I read. I am not disagreeing with those who say that the book is extremely subjective, and I can see the point of those who say that the author was not as naive as she presents herself, but still, I believe it. And somehow, it does not surprise me.

It’s Still Just The Beginning Of The Year

Spending the first day of the year sitting at home and crossing off overdue tasks from my list was not the most exciting thing, though it did bring some satisfaction. But I had lots of hopes for January 2. It was the first workday of the year, and the weather was supposed to be great (and it was). I went to the office not because I had to, but because I had ambitious plans.

My plan was to go skating after lunch, then, after work, to go to the Chicago Architectural Center to finally see two already-not-so-new exhibits, and then go to the Siskel Center to see Mistress Disspeller. All of the above activities belonged to the category “I want to do this, but I chronically have no time for it.”

Skating became problematic since last season, when Millennium Park cut the skating season short. Instead of having the skating rink operating until mid-March, they close it on February 9, and this year, the last day will be February 1. Since I will be out of the country from January 16 to 29th, I have only two weeks left! And you can’t go skating when it’s raining or when it’s really cold, which limits the options even further. All of the above was a long explanation of why I headed to the skating rink on Friday. I knew it could be a mistake, because it would still be a winter break day, which would mean a big crowd, but the reality surpassed my wildest expectations.

When I arrived four minutes before the start of the session, expecting to show my pass on my phone and put on the skates, I saw a line circling half the rink, and I was told it was for those who had already purchased tickets online! I wanted to turn around and go back to the office, but the sun was shining, the weather was perfect, and I had already paid for a session, so I decided to stay. It took me ten minutes to check in, and when I finally put the skates on, there was barely any space left on the rink. I think there were actually these hypothetical one hundred people there! And at least a third of them couldn’t or almost couldn’t skate.

I made an effort :). I navigated around the people who were moving rather erratically, but after twenty minutes, I gave up.

While this portion of my plan could be considered at least a partial success, the other two failed completely.

I checked the CAC schedule on their website the day before, and the schedule said they are open until 7 PM both Friday and Saturday. I thought that finally, I would go there not to purchase a gift, but to see exhibits. When I arrived at five minutes to five, I saw several people standing puzzled by the CAC door, and when I came closed, I saw a sign, which said that there are “winter hours” in effect, and the Center will be only open until 4 PM on the days it will be open (and it will be closed Tue-Wed, but that was not important at the moment). I felt crushed and decided that I could comfort myself by having dinner at Lea’s Cafe instead of eating a vegan sandwich from work, which was in my backpack.

Lea’s Cafe didn’t fail me :). It was a perfect comfort food, and I even took half a baguette home, because it was a lot.

But after that, there was a huge disappointment at the Siskel Center. I read about this documentary, and it looked interesting, so I was looking forward to seeing it, but it was nothing like what I thought. I honestly could not figure out what the idea behind it was, and how people could act the way they did. It is possible that, at least in part, it was a language and cultural problem combined. The documentary was in Mandarin with English subtitles, and the melody of the language is very different from any other languages I know or know how they sound. I was reading the subtitles, and could not map the words to the emotions projected on the screen. It felt rushed; maybe Mandarin words are too short for translation, I don’t know. Or maybe, it was something wrong with me. At some point, I thought of leaving, but then decided to stay to the end and see whether something would change my mind.

I hope that this day of disappointment won’t represent the rest of 2026, and that my delights won’t be solely culinary!

The Question I am Asking Myself…

… since this morning, when I first heard about the news. The question is: how would I react if the person snatched would be another dictator?…

The Beginning Of 2026

On December 31, I was working. Even though I worked from home, it was a pretty intense workday. I was hoping to start early and finish early, and make a nice meal to bring to my mom to celebrate the New Year with her, but “early” didn’t happen.

Most times, Igor is around for this early celebration, and then he brings my mom to my place, but since he went to celebrate with Anna’s family (which is definitely more fun), I figured I can’t/don’t want to make a trip to my mom’s house twice, and decided to make it simple and bring all the food to her place.

I prepared myself to sit and nod to everything she would say, which is the only way to keep things calm these days, and that’s exactly how it went. The events and facts she does and does not remember anymore are pretty random. Somehow, many people believe that when older people forget things, they forget the most recent events and remember their past really well. I don’t know what to tell you about others, but that’s definitely not the case with my mom. If there is anything she remembers, it’s repetitive things that she does every day. As for the past, even when she thinks she remembers some events, in reality, she does not remember them clearly, and I can see a difference between how she described them ten years ago and now.

It’s really sad to see, and I can imagine who scared she should be feeling that the world around her is becoming an unknown and dangerous place.

I didn’t plan to go to the Chicago River for the fireworks; not because Igor was not here; I am perfectly fine to go anywhere on my own. It was relatively cold, and also, I had too many things I needed to do before next Monday. On my way back from Armenia, I was making plans for the upcoming week (till January 5), and I was debating with myself whether I should do some fun activities, like going to the Navy Pier, or whether I should focus on catching up with life. By the end of the day December 31, the answer was clear!

I went to bed before midnight, and missed all the Happy New Year texts 🙂

On January first, it was even colder that on December 31, and also cloudy, which made it a perfect weather to be inside and focus on different aspects of community work. Also, I went to my mom one more time, to change her bedding and take her laundry to wash, and since I also took her shower curtain to wash, I returned one more time to put it back :).

The highlights of the day were several conversations with people with whom i do not talk often, and finally catching up on emails with friends, so I guess, the day was not entirely hopeless, and also, I finished some of my ong-overdue-tasks. Still, I hope that January 1 didn’t define the rest of 2026 :).

Find My

Everyone knows I love the Find My app! In fact, I do not know how I would survive without it! Recently, I’ve added several more AirTags, and I feel quite protected.

When I was in Armenia, I told my hosts about this app and demonstrated how I have everything displayed there and how I can check the status of the items I left at home. When it was time for me to leave for the airport, they asked me whether I had checked my room for forgotten stuff. I told them I did, and that everything except for my phone and passport is not important.

I got into a cab, and about ten minutes after the ride started, I saw a message from the Find My app: the AirPods left behind! Yep, a white case on a white windowsill…I reached the driver: How far along are we?

It was great that, because of the severe weather conditions, my host insisted I leave an hour earlier than needed! I messaged them, they found the AirPods case and brought it down.

I guess, thank you, Apple?

Political News

So, Trump said officially that he is going to “leave Chicago” (and the other three Democratic cities) “for now,” although he is threatening to “come back if…”

I want to put it in writing in my journal today, when we have no way to know how it will play out later. That being said, I might be wrong, but today I want to say: we resist and we can achieve something. Long live Federalism! 😀

On The Way Back

Finishing the post I started three days ago.

I didn’t upgrade my return flights because I didn’t need to sleep on the long flight back, and I figured I could purchase the lounge access separately. What surprised me at Yerevan’s Zvartnots airport was that they had a 24/7 duty-free store and a 24/7 business lounge.

I bought some (a lot of) chocolate, chocolate-covered dried fruit (and the only reason I didn’t buy dried fruit without chocolate was that I had three bags from my host), some flavored coffee, a bottle of pomegranate wine, and a set of three miniature Armenian brandy bottles. I really wanted to buy a bottle of Akhtamar, the best local brandy, to give it to Vlad, but there were no medium-size bottles, and my purchase was already heavy and bulky enough, and I still had to squizz everything in my carry on (not like they won’t allow an extra duty free bag, but I didn’t want to have an extra bag heavier than my luggage :).

The business lounge in Zvartnots was … strange, and they were surprised I was willing to pay for it rather than claim my credit card holder benefits, but having that the flight was forty minutes delayed, and that, due to many flights departing in the early hours of the morning, the international terminal looked like a Soviet Union era railway station, I believe I made a right decision.

I also paid for lounge access in Frankfurt, and everything there was as expected. I charged all my devices for the long daytime flight, and spent the time productively answering tons of unanswered emails and documenting my trip.

I’ve already mentioned that the arrival process had become exceptionally easy after the new passports were introduced, but this time was a record, especially because I didn’t have checked luggage. Thirty-five minutes after the aircraft stopped taxing, I was already on the Blue Line train (that includes the airport transfer to another terminal), and two hours and fifteen minutes later, I was already at home (yes, I took the L again, and it is becoming more and more acceptable, especially without the heavy luggage)