Several different rides on different days.
Not Only The Accidents!
Several different rides on different days.
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.
And One More Accident
Just to complete the list of this week’s horror stories. On Saturday morning, I went on a relatively long bike ride. I had a long to-do list, and my cleaning person was going to come at 8 AM, and another contractor was going to show up at 8-30. I was determined to take advantage of an early sunrise and make it to the Mill and back within an hour or an hour and ten minutes.
Everything was perfect, including the weather. I was on my older bike and was moving very fast (I still need to figure out why the new bike is slower). I made it even a little bit past the Mill and was returning, and almost at the end of the Lakefront Trail, there was a lady suddenly walking with her bike between her legs, bypassing a heap of sand.
Since I had already passed this sand on the way forward, I knew it was fine to bike over it, and I decided to pass this lady on the left (and on the sand), which… didn’t end up well.
I didn’t ever realize at first that I had an injury: I didn’t hit my head at all, and the bike was fine, and then she started to yell at me that I shouldn’t have tried to pass her, and thee was a reason why she was walking and that I need to go to the emergency because I am bleeding.
I thought that it was just a scratch on my knee and waved her off. Only when I mounted on my bike again, I realized that the nail of my left thumb is barely hanging on a thin strip of skin and was bleeding. I tore it off completely (what else could I do?), took a tissue out of my pocket and wrapped it around my thumb, and then continued my ride home.
I didn’t even feel much pain. I came home, parked my bike, went upstairs and watered the flowers on the balcony, and set down to type a short email to Boris. Then suddenly, I felt that I had trouble breathing, and I started sweating, and everything around me went dark. I tried to stand up, and then I realized I needed to lie down on the floor because otherwise, I would fall down. Perhaps, I did fall down anyway because my watch asked me whether I had fallen!
Long story short: it is not fun, but 1) good thing it happened this weekend, not the previous one! 2) Good thing it does not prevent me from typing! 3) it will take a very long to heal, and the surface will continue to be very sensitive for a while 4) but it will grow back eventually!
Request For Evidence Disaster
When my mom passed the citizenship test, and the officer told us that now we just need to collect the evidence that mom didn’t commit any crimes during these past five years, I thought that it would be easy and was internally celebrating.
It turned out that it was anything but easy. Although the paper from USCIS was more than a page long, it didn’t provide any specifics on where and how we should collect that evidence. The office told us that we should go to the “local police department,” and they will know what paper we need.
I called the Palatine police department Department of Records, and their supervisor told me that indeed, she knew what kind of paper I need, and I do not need an appointment, just come during business hours.
Assuming that it would be the same in Rogers Park, I asked Igor to take my mom there, and that turned into a total disaster. They told Igor that they are not doing background checks, and have a document to prove it, and that Igor and my mom should go to the headquarters. They didn’t want to listen or look at the paper Igor tried to show them.
After Igor called me, I called the Police station three times, trying to explain what we needed. Three people hung up on me. I decided to try to reach the headquarters. There was no information on their website, but I found a direct number to call central 311 and pleaded with the office on the other end not to hang up on me!
The office gave me the Department of Records phone number, which turned out to be the right place. Our local police station could not provide the document we needed, but for a different reason than they cited… and why in the world could they not give us the same phone number in the first place?!
Igor took mom to the headquarters because the phone number is nowhere on the internet, only to find out that they were open until 1 PM, and it was too late by that time.
The next day, mom and I went to Palatine, and it was again the same story (they didn’t know whether they could give this paper, and mom was not in their system (and that’s precisely what we needed). They suggested they “call me later,” and I said that we came from Chicago and I was not going anywhere.
Forty minutes later, we finally got the paper and went home.
Then, on Friday, Igor took my mom to the Police headquarters again, and this time, they issued the paper we needed.
I uploaded both documents for consideration, and I hope this will be enough evidence. (BTW, I tried to call the USCIS helpline when the police hung up on me, but they only have an automated service, no humans.
If this is indeed the end of it, I will be very happy, but I still plan to file a complaint!
Maybe Done With Beaurocracy
I could not imagine that obtaining “additional evidence” for mom’s citizenship case would be so dramatic! I didn’t blog about the recent development because it was a little bit more than I could handle, but today I could finally submit all of her documentation, and I sincerely hope that it will be enough! I guess we will be able to tell for sure next week.
I will blog about all the colorful details later, but for now – just this picture of the Lakefront chestnut blossoms for to celebrate!
Book Writing
I finally stopped procrastinating and started to work on the second edition of our optimization book. Before today, I struggled to update two paragraphs from the intro (and I am still unhappy with how they look, but I pushed myself to move forward with the promise to return to the intro later.
Only after I started I realized how much it bothered me that I was not moving! In my defense, all of mom’s immigration stuff which we dealt with this week, was more than enough to completely abandoned other activities. Hopefully, everything will be over tomorrow, and then I will write a complete report.
Another good thing about today was that I finally went to the beach in the evening and dipped myself into the lake, officially opening the swimming season. The water is cold! The way spring was this year, I think it will take a while for a lake to warm up. It’s still such a joy to be by the body of water, that I can’t complain!
More Family Stuff
Back to last week. Mom’s citizenship test was on Tuesday. I worked in the office for the remaining half-day and then took a train to meet Boris at ORD. On Wednesday, I worked from home, took mom to her physical therapy, taught a class online, and tried to cook as much as possible for the upcoming weekend.
I worked in the office on Thursday and then went with Boris and my neighbor to the CSO concert and to the Classic Encounter with Terri Hemmert before that. The program was amazing, although, to be 100% honest, I almost felt that it was too much with everything else I was doing. I planned this outing at least three months ago, and I thought that on Thursday, there would be no wedding-related activities. But then it turned out that Vlad planned something for close friends, and Anna wanted to go. I was trying to figure out how this could work, then Anna said that John would come and stay with the girls, and then at the end, it was that both John and Anna had work crises, and they decided to drive Friday morning (which was not a good idea having that it was a Memorial Day weekend).
Finally, they arrived, and John took me to the nursery to get the remaining plants for my balcony, and then Nadia, Anna, and I went to do nails, and in the evening, I babysat the girls.
Then, there was a family lunch at Acanto on Saturday, and then Boris and I took Nadia to the Field Museum and then brought her to the “Meet the Grooms,” where Vlad asked me why I do not socialize and do not mingle 🤷🏻♀️
On Sunday, we went for a long bike ride, and then I planted everything I had to plant, so the morning was rather quiet. And then there was a wedding which was very loud :). I think, however, that the major reason for me being so tired after these days is not that the music was loud or that I had a full house, but rather the fact that I had to meet a lot of Dylon’s relatives and they are very different family than us.
Oh, and also, somewhere in the middle of that, we completed a couple of house projects!
***
I will post more pictures from the wedding. I am very-very-very tired, both emotionally and physically. And I am very happy for Vlad and Dylon.
The wedding was all about them, which is how it should be, but I was standing there in the crowd and recalling many past moments, starting from the image of this tiny thin baby body with match-like limbs. I with two five-year-olds, exiting the Immigration Office at ORD on October 23, 1996. Our endless conversations, and our conversation “about that.” And Vlad crying on my shoulder on the corner of State and Washington in broad daylight.
And when we returned home, I asked Boris (rhetorically, of course): how could it happen that we did everything wrong, and it turned out so perfect?! It’s scary even to think about how horrible things could turn if I won’t go to the US, fearless out of shire ignorance, having no idea what I am doing. All my decisions I was most criticized for, but especially these two: that I decided to have babies in the most inconvenient moment of my life, the life of my country and history in general, and that I decided to go to America and take my kids with me.
Not calculated, not thought-through, and completely irresponsible…
More Pictures
How many times can it happen to me?! I was sure I posted the pictures yesterday… only to realize that I didn’t!
I just saw it today when I came to add more pictures shared by Igor.
Oh, well… Sorry, friends – I presumed you already saw them, and they were not published:)
Dylon & Vlad – Wedding Day!
There will be more words and more pictures tomorrow, but today was the day!
Dylon&Vlad – Day 1
Hettie's Reflections 