Author: Hettie D.

My name is Henrietta (Hettie) Dombrovskaya. I was born in Saint-Petersburg, Russian (actually, back then – Leningrad, USSR) in 1963, and immigrated to the United States in 1996. I love Saint Petersburg, the city I was born and raised in, and I think it’s one of the most beautiful places in the world. Similarly (but differently) I love Chicago, and can’t imagine myself moving somewhere else in the observable future. I have three children, Igor, Vlad and Anna, all adults living on their own, and one (so far) granddaughter Nadia. I also believe that my children are the best thing that happened in my life. As for my professional life, I am working in the field of Information Technologies. When I was twenty, I’ve declared that the databases are the coolest thing invented and that I want to do them for the rest of my life. Thirty plus years later, I still believe it’s true, and still, believe that the databases are the best. These two statements together imply that I think a person can have it all, and indeed, I think so! Keep reading my journals to find out how I did it.

Last Week’s Activities: Don Giovanni

It was a brilliant performance: amazing voices, set, costumes, and the whole show were impeccable. My neighbor, with whom I attended, was not familiar with the opera, so it was a new discovery for her. I thought that I knew it very well (we even studied it at school), but, as with many other classical operas, I found that in the Soviet Union, we only knew an abridged version. I still do not understand why all the dialogue was cut from all the operas! When you have dialogue, everything starts to make sense! The full-length opera is super long, but we had an amazing time!

Last Week’s Activities: Crime and Punishment In America

I have too much life again; putting life on pause didn’t exactly work, so I’ll briefly mention what else I was doing last week.

On Thursday, I went to the WTTW event, Crime and Punishment in America – A WTTW Screening and Community Conversation. WTTW launched a new series about the history of the American criminal justice system, from the origins of prisons and policing to our continued fascination with crime, and how it influences the media, economics, and politics. Unfortunately (possibly because of a different location of the screening – Malcolm X College), there were not that many people in the audience, and the organizers postponed the start of the event for almost twenty minutes, hoping that more people would come.

It’s honestly too bad that there were so few people, because the topic is significant, and the panel included, along with the producer of the documentary, Lynn Novick and prof. Kevin Boyle, Nicholas Crayton, who was incarcerated at 18 on murder changes and was sentensed to 24 years in prison. For me, him talking about life he lives after being reliased, what are his legal obligations, what he is permanently banned from, was yet another eye -opener. He was previosly featured in the Firsthand: Life After Prison project, and now I want to watch it.

During the event, we watched a 40-min compilation of all four films, and below is a short trailer.

Everything started later, and kept going way after 8PM, so, unfortunately, I had to leave. It was a very long day!

Thursday Escorting

My Thursday started with an early escorting shift. I was away for more than two weeks, and since I was just back and had just started a new job, I was unsure whether I could fit in escorting. But then I learned that I could come to the coworking space (more on that later), which meant I would start my workday at a normal time, and the problem was solved.

It turned out that several unexpected things happened while I was away, including a new brick wall in place of the south exit of Ogilvie Station (if I had known, I would have sent my Starbucks order to the Clinton location), and I was a bit late. By the time I approached the corner of W.Washington and DesPlains, a crowd of antis was already there.

It quickly turned into one of those days when there are way fewer of “us” than “them”, and we have to be very fast to get to the patients’ cars first and make sure we provide protection and have time to notify patients that they can be filmed. And, to be honest, in general, it feels horrible when we are twice outnumbered, and they are so loud and confident. It totally feels like the world is going backward.

They take position very close to the clinic entrance
And they put their people on the other side of the street by the parking lot, to contact patiencts there
And they mounting a camera to film patients
.. but we are out there!

Are You A Teacher?

On Thursday, I was going to an early-morning escorting shift. When I entered the car at Jarvis, an older man sitting diagonally from where I headed asked me something. I have to admit, shamefully, that, given the time (6:05 AM) and the location, I expected him to be one of those folks who spend nights on CTA and thought he would be catching up on sleep, but he was wide awake and asked me something. I turned to him to hear better what he was asking.

— Are you a teacher?

I paused for a brief second. Am I?

— Oh, I used to be a teacher! Not anymore, but you know, once a teacher – forever a teacher.

— I thought so! And what did you teach when you were a teacher?

— Math!

— Mathematics?

— Yes, and later some information technologies.

— Or, so you were a high school math teacher? Calculus and such, not just elementary math!

— Yes!

— And what are you doing now?

That question made me pause for a little bit longer.

— Well, I am still doing information technology. Information management. Databases.

— Oh, so you keep our information safe from all these agents?

— That as well, among other things.

— Nice! I have teachers in my family; that’s why I figured it out right away!

He kept going, but by that time it became really loud in the car, since we started passing a noisy area. I knew he was eager to continue the conversation, but with my limited comprehension of AAVE and the increasing noise, I could only smile and nod, so he wished me well and, after “nice talking to you,” moved back.

The CTA at 6 AM! Who would’ve thought!

Interviewing

To be fair, it was the first time in my life that I was officially without a job and officially made myself available on LinkedIn. Most likely, that was a mistake. Most likely, I should have patiently waited for the first company I started talking to to respond. But as everyone knows, patience is not my virtue :). Also, my wealth manager kept asking me how much I would earn a month from my part-time job, and I couldn’t tell him because my onboarding took forever. Again, I probably shouldn’t have started this part-time, but it is what it is, and now I can’t undo what I started.

As I mentioned, the place where I wanted to be most said that they liked me, but now they need someone “more operational “, which is the theme I get all the time through my life, and most of the time, people indeed come back to me in a month or two, but this time, I didn’t have extra time, and more importantly, I was absolutely sure they needed me immediately:), so I kept talking to them. At the same time, since I made myself available, people started to reach out. There were some calls with unacceptably low pay rates, and some with very high rates from the industry I’d just left. There were several “usual suspects“, some interesting and some not. At some point, as I was in different stages of interviewing with six different companies at the same time, it started to wear me down.

I didn’t get any advantage of not working, because I was constantly in the process of interviewing:) or scheduling interviews. By the beginning of October, three companies remained, including the one I started talking to in August and really liked. Another company appeared later than the others, but it looked extremely interesting. Unfortunately, they were very slow in scheduling. I emailed and asked whether they were still interested in talking to me. They said yes, but scheduled an interview for ten days later. Meanwhile, the third company told me there would be several technical interviews, 75 minutes each, and that they would start scheduling.

At that point, I was extremely tired of the whole process. Fortunately, my favorite company came with an offer, which I happily accepted.

Two days later, another super-interesting company reached out, but it was already too late. Overall, the whole process was very different from what I’d expected after reading LinkedIn for several months :). Granted, there were several recruiters who were asking whether I could program in Python and said that that was one of the requirements. My answer was that I am always happy to learn what’s needed, but if they consider a lack of Python skills a showstopper, that wasn’t the right position for me. However, nobody asked me about AI usage, and each company with which I started the actual process needed my brain, not an artificial one :).

This affirms my belief in progress and the overall sanity of humanity.

Valencia Walking Tour

Monday was the only day we could do a walking tour, and it was rainy! On Sunday, when the forecast didn’t look promising already, we reached out to our guide and asked whether he had a backup plan. His response was: bring umbrellas, but I knew it would depend on how bad the rain would actually be. The tour was scheduled for 9:30, and at 8:30, it was raining really badly. The tour guide messaged me and asked whether we wanted to move the tour for later, and we happily agreed. We ended up meeting at 11:30. It was still raining, but not as bad as in the morning. We kept umbrellas open most of the time, but we could still enjoy the surroundings.

We met at the Central Train Station, looked at the beautiful ceramic wall and ceiling decorations, and got out into the light rain.

Since we walked around so much on Saturday, I didn’t take more pictures of the places we’d already visited. The first “new” stop was the Central Market.

This place is extremely interesting both architecturally and historically. It used to be the actual open-air market for centuries, and and building was erected only a hundred years ago. The market is considered to be the largest fresh produce market in Europe. By local standards, its expensive, althought it’s the best quality produce you can ever find. For us, the prices were low 😂. And before I forget: we asked about the parrot on the top of one of the sreas, and our guide told us that the parrot was a symbol of this market, because people were coming there for gossiping.

Continue reading “Valencia Walking Tour” →

Valencia Cathedral

The Valencia Cathedral was first built in the 13th century, though an earlier church stood on the site, which the Moors ruined and replaced with a mosque. Things are very complicated in Valencia :).

Just from a quick glance at the cathedral, anyone can see that new parts have been added and the old parts have been rebuilt over many centuries, and the building is as eclectic as it could possibly be.

We first visited the Cathedral on Saturday, and on Monday, our tour guide shared more details about it. Among many facts, the entrance that you can see at this picture was supposed to be in the center (of course!), but also, there was no square, and the street that led to the Cathedral was on the left, and the wing on the left was not there first, so the entrance actually was in the center!
Continue reading “Valencia Cathedral” →

Rainy Day And Museums

Both Sunday and Monday were rainy, but Sunday was still more or less OK. These were our only two free days before the conference started, and we initially planned a private tour on Sunday morning, exploring the city on our own in the afternoon, and visiting museums on Monday. Fortunately, the Visit-a-City app knows all the opening hours and told us all museums would be closed on Monday, so we had to rearrange things. Sunday became a museum day.

The first one we visited was the Ceramic Museum. Itis housed in the Palace of the Marqués de Dos Aguas, and the palace living quarters are part of the museum. I saw a no-photo sign near the entrance and didn’t take pictures for the first 30 minutes, but then I realized everyone was taking photos and the museum staff were fine with it, so I started taking pictures too.

Valencia endured several sieges: first by Romans, then by Moors, and then by Christians, and its ceramics reflected different stages of the city’s history.

Unfortunately, the museum had almost no English signage: some palace rooms had flyers in English, but the Ceramic Museum had almost none. I read a little bit later, but I wish I had done it before the museum visit!

Continue reading “Rainy Day And Museums” →

Cards And Cookies

It’s that time of the year again! If I know you, IRL or virtually, this post is for you!

Do you want a Christmas card from me? Please let me know!

Do you want a box of my cookies? – Let me know!

Do you live in Chicagoland and want to bake and decorate with me? I will have an Open Cookie House on December 5 and 6; please come!

You do not have to send me a card or cookies in return unless you want to!

I am ready to share the joy of the season:)

Three Weeks In September

The first three weeks of not working were complicated. Somehow, I felt both relieved and super-stressed at the same time. I reminded myself that for weeks prior to my termination, I thought about stopping working immediately pretty much all the time, and I knew I was happy not to be there anymore. And at the same time, I felt so stressed that some nights I could barely sleep.

In situations like that, I try to identify exactly what worries me and address that concern first. I knew I had enough money to retire; we discussed it with my wealth manager, and I knew 1.5 years earlier wouldn’t make a dramatic difference. One thing was healthcare. I hadn’t planned to retire before I became Medicare-eligible, and now I faced almost a year with no coverage. I felt a little bit better when I realized that even if I had self-pay COBRA for all that time, it would still be manageable because I have no dependents, and that calmed me down for a while. Then I talked to my wealth manager, and he confirmed again that I can retire in January if I want. His calculations on how much I will be able to spend each month sounded very conservative to me, but his plan was for me to leave a fortune after I pass away, which was not in my plans, so I figured that if I do not plan to leave 2 M behind, I can spend pretty much the same as I do now.

Another thing was the void of “doing nothing.” Once again, in the weeks before that, I told myself and others I had so much to do, and the thing I wanted to do least was work, so I wanted to stop working. I knew I wanted to work part-time anyway, so I started working part-time for my good friend and peer, to whom I promised a long time ago I’d do some consulting when I retired. However, onboarding with his client took forever, and I realized I missed the drama of crisis resolution.

At the same time, several other things were developing. Shortly before I left my previous job, three different people reached out to me with some potential job opportunities, and all three were interesting in some way, so I started talking to them, still not being 100% sure whether I wanted to go full-time.

One of these opportunities didn’t work right away; the other two were going, and I strongly felt about one of these two. During the interviews, I felt that that was the right match, and I thought that if this company would make me an offer, I would accept. Then, to my complete disappointment, they said they were going with someone else, but they were planning to open another position soon. At that point, I decided to reveal my availability on LinkedIn. I was still unsure, but I thought that possibly someone I knew would have an interesting project I could do part-time. I made a post as broad as possible, and I can tell right away I didn’t like what followed.