.. is still not photogenic (i.e., still not repaired after the flood), traditional birthday gym pictures were taken in the living room.
Our Building Gym …
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.
All I Want For My Birthday…
… is still the same – Victory for Ukraine. The last several days didn’t provide any hope here. There is a lot of grief and lots of casualties.
My birthday is technically already here:). I am sixty now. And there will be a birthday party which Vlad and Anna are putting together. I already know that some people I wanted to see won’t be able to make it, but I still hope to see lots of my friends.
And also… I shared a list of my favorite charities on most of my social media, but to be honest, the one that feels the most important now is the defense of Ukraine.
Field Museum Exhibit
On Sunday, Boris and I went to the Field Museum to see a relatively new exhibit, Death: Life’s Greatest Mystery
I wanted to go to this exhibit with Boris because the subject of the exhibit is uncomfortable to many people, and I knew for sure that it won’t be uncomfortable for him, and that our views on the subject of the exhibit are similar.
Did I see what I expected to see? Yes and no. I expected a little more comparison of different cultures, rituals, and religious views. It was all present, but less than I expected. On the other hand, more emphasis was on “what do you think?”
***
Several posts in drafts and too many things going on. Just this one thought I wanted to post today. I am shocked not only by the Dnipro horrible war crime but also by the reactions of many people in Russia. There was only one person who messaged me with a normal (at least what I believe is normal) reaction. And I know there are several other people who think the same way, even though they didn’t message me. But these people are inminority.
Technology
Whatever you say, technology makes life easier. Sometime around Christmas, I received a notification about an unauthorized charge on my Visa. Not for the first time, and as usual, the card was blocked, and a new one was issued immediately. What surprised me, though, was how painless the credit card replacement happened. Previously, the change in the credit card number would result in going through a dozen and dozen automated payments and websites, and you would still forget to change it somewhere and miss a payment. This time, the card in my apple wallet was replaced automatically. For most of the online and/or scheduled payments, I didn’t need to do anything – the card number was automatically updated! I was shocked – my life didn’t get disrupted at all.
An even bigger surprise happened with my iPhone upgrade – that was the first time in my life that I didn’t have to call customer support and didn’t need to resubmit any passwords or anything – the switch happened with zero hassle. The only thing I had to confirm was adding my credit cards to my Apple wallet, but again, no numbers to punch, just a confirmation.
I even didn’t need to reconnect my AirPods! Probably the only thing I needed to add was my FaceId :).
Narva-Joesuu, part 2
Turned out, I have a lot of pictures from my last pre-school summer, although it looks like they cover just two or three days – as usual, when somebody with the camera was around.
From WBEZ: Ice Watching
Such a beautiful piece! And it so resonates with me and with my relationships with the Lake! Here
Today’s War News
That’s how my morning was: the first thing I saw on my phone was, “Soledar is taken by Russians.” Then – “According to Ukraine, the fight is still going on.” And then the news about the tanks. I am so hopeful that this will finally happen – that the tank will reach the front. If it takes the Soledar standoff to make it a reality, I would say it was not for nothing. At least something is coming.
Since the day Biden announced that we are giving tanks to Ukraine, I kept asking Boris how the tanks would get to Ukraine and how long it could take. But it’s not even a question of “how long,” because I do not think something happened since they were promised.
That’s where I am, between hope and despair. And meanwhile, everything in my life is going great. So good, that even with my boundless optimism, I am starting to worry about how long the universe is going to treat me so well. I thank the universe for everything every day, grateful that I am able to support so many people and causes, but how much I wish I would not have to support that cause!
A Book I Am Excited About
I am finishing the Berlin Dairy by Willian Shirer. What an amazing book! I can’t believe I knew nothing about it until I saw a recommendation from a friend. William Shirer was a CBS broadcaster who worked in Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1941. He wrote several books about the history of WWII and the history of Nazism, and now I want to read them all!
I think that it is a combination of two factors that make this book so amazing: first, he was an outstanding journalist with an extraordinary analytical mind who knew both how to get access to information and how to interpret it. And second – that it is an actual diary, so the readers follow events in “real-time.” When he wrote something in his journal, he did not know what would happen next or the implications of the events he had just recorded. It’s something like: I can’t believe Molotov and Ribbentrop are meeting! How can they negotiate when Russia is the most fierce critic of Nazism. How is it possible that they could reach any agreement?! They did?!
It turned out there were lots of historical facts I didn’t know. Take the Winter War – I thought I knew everything as much as I could, visiting Finland several times a year. Still, I had no idea that it started with the air raid shelling Helsinki – I thought that all the war events happened at the frontline.
This book has way too many parallels with the current war in Ukraine, like when the author explains how Germans have “no morals.” A German is lamenting about “bad Finns who fight against Russians, and why they are doing such a horrible thing as resisting? When Shirer says that Finns are fighting for their independence and asks won’t the Germans do the same if they were invaded, the response it: but that’s different! Russians are our friends!
Or when he cites a conversation with a German waitress about the British air raids: why are they bombarding us? – Well, because you are bombarding London! – But we only shell military objects, and they through bombs on our civilian objects? – Why do you think that Germans only bombard military objects? – That’s what our newspapers say!
Sounds familiar, right?! Way too familiar!
I almost finished this book, and I have three other books in queue, but I am urged to drop them all and read all the rest of the books by Willian Shirer(which will definitely take a while!)
Mom’S Birthday
Mom turned eighty-eight on Tuesday. Since she always refused to celebrate her birthday before the actual birthday (the superstition that you can die not reaching it in this case), and since next weekend didn’t work either, Igor and I took her out on the day of her birthday.
Fortunately, since Igor discovered Eurasia cafe, we can always go there for the food that mom likes. We ordered several different Russian dishes, and gave her our presents, and everything was good. At leat, she seemed happy and thanked us. Although for the next two days, when I talk to her on the phone it sounds like she found some reason to be unhappy, but I am pretending I do not notice:).
Hettie's Reflections 