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.

Don Carlos

For some reason, I thought we’d been to the Lyric Opera with Boris. He says it was his first time, but I still think it’s not true. Maybe I will recall it later :).

Anyway – I asked whether he would like to go to the Opera on Friday or Saturday, and he said he wanted to go to Don Carlos. Since we won’t see each other for Christmas, I decided to make a big night out of it, and it went perfectly!

I got seats in the front section of the main floor – I had never been so close to the stage at Lyric. I ordered pre-concert dinner at Florian and dessert during the intermission. The opera is almost four hours long, so I scheduled an Uber ride. But then I realized that it would be faster to take Metra and canceled it.

Everything went perfectly. The singers were extraordinary. I can’t recall any other show at Lyric when I won’t be comparing singers and deciding on “the best one.” Everybody was “the best” in that show.

And the food and the desserts – just what you need to keep yourself awake for four hours 🙂

And One Paragraph To Describe a Perfect Thanksgiving

Five dishwasher loads. Eighteen-pound turkey. For pies from Vanille Chicago. Eleven people at the table. Still the full fridge after 🙂

Just One Sentence To Describe Today’s Day…

… my fridge can’t hold all of the Thanksgiving supplies for the party of ten!

At The Start Of The Season

We are officially in the holiday season. I am trying to book/purchase/reserve as much as possible in advance and see as many people as possible, especially those I haven’t seen for a long time.

In addition, somehow, several doctor’s appointments, both mine and mom’s, ended up in December, so I need to schedule this as well, and pretty much each and every single day in late November – December is already planned. I do not have Christmas presents for anybody, but I hope to work something out!

So far, here is what we have. Boris flew in on Sunday, and surprisingly, the same BA flight, which was so late for me, landed on time, and Boris even managed to get a cab, which is always a struggle for him:). (I didn’t want to go to the airport because the arrival was late, and I didn’t want to sit in the airport for potentially three hours).

Anna and her family are coming tomorrow. I ordered a turkey from the CSA, and this bird is nothing like anything I had before. I have lots of vegetables from both of my CSAs, and I ordered pies from Vanille. And we have plans with Boris for all the rest of the days until he leaves Sunday night.

After November 27, I have something going on every day. The highlights are my cookie-baking days, which will be December 3,4, 10, and 11. On the 10th, we have a corporate party, so it will be only a half-day cookies. I ordered a Christmas tree with delivery and installation from Gethsemani for December 9th. First time in my life, I ordered both delivery and installation, but if I want a tree as big as I had last year (and I want it!) I’d better not try bringing it up myself.

And now I am taking a deep breath and getting ready for the cooking marathon!

Here is my super-muscled turkey!

The Shostakovich’s Fifth

Yesterday, I took mom to the CSO – one of my subscription series was Sunday matinee so that I could take her. And after last week’s success with taking the L to the Atr Institute, she was excited to return to resume more cultural activities.

But that’s not about mom; it’s about the program. It was an all-Russian program, and I believe the hit of it was intended to be the “Dairy of a Madman” by Lera Auerbach. I liked the piece; however, the Shostakovich Fith Symphony was the one that impressed me the most.

Interestingly, I vividly remember when I hear it for the first time. It was in Leningrad State Philarmonic. I was fourteen or fifteen, and I even remember where approximately mom and I sat. I also remember that it was performed after the intermission and that I understood nothing about it! I remember thinking – what all these random parts could mean together?! 

After that first time, I listened to this symphony at different concerts at least three times, but it was yesterday that I felt I heard it for the first time. At first sounds, I thought: is it really the same piece?! I can’t remember it sounding like that! 

And then I listened as if for the first time, and I could not believe what I was hearing. On my way back, I even looked it up to check what critics were saying and how this symphony is usually interpreted. Because the question I had was – how it was ever allowed to be performed in the Soviet Union?! 

Yes, Shostakovich is a hooligan in most of his works (and that’s what I love about his music). But how could anybody ever believe that this piece was “glorifying the Soviet achievements?! This bitter irony, these twists of the “heroic” themes, such a distinct picture of violence which follows “the hero” – how could it be possible that nobody noticed it?! Or is it that those who noticed were silent? When I asked Boris just this: how this piece was allowed to be performed in the Soviet Union, Boris told me that once he was present at the musical lecture at the Composers’ association, and the lecturer told them that “there is a lot of mystery in this piece.” Well… 🙂

Done With The Mice. For Now

Hopefully, the latest season of “mice and me” is over. After two weeks of being unable to schedule and miscommunications, a person who was going to take care of the mice hole in my kitchen was here!

Originally, it was supposed to be a big project. For a while, exterminators who came to my apartment said they did not know where the hole was. Then, in summer, an inspector said it looked like the hole was behind the kitchen cabinets. That sounded terrifying because I have granite countertops, and there was no easy way to disassemble them.

We discussed it with our building handyman several times and finally agreed to cut the back of the cabinets and try to locate the hole. But when another guy who takes work from him arrived, he said – how about we open the boards on the bottom of the cabinets? And he did, and then he was able to locate the hole and stuff it without any cabinets cutting!

My only question is, why the inspectors, whose job is to identify where mice are coming from, could not figure this out, and this person could? Oh, and he cleaned behind the stove where we set a new trap, and after he had left, he called me to say that if I see a mouse, I should call him, and he would come for free.

So why we have our biannual mice inspection in the building and most importantly, why we pay for it?!

The Locust At the GIft Theater

On Friday, I went to see a show in The Gift Theater. It was the first time I went there after the pandemic. I love this theater, I used to go to all of their performances and to “meet the cast” events, and I donated to them, and then it all stopped during the pandemic, plus I moved, and they moved 🙂
I finally made it to their new show because first, this show runs relatively close to where I live, and second – I wanted to take out my old friend, who is very much into the theater.
Both of us were impressed! The play is a thriller, and that’s not what I usually like. An FBI agent comes to her hometown to help the local police capture a serial killer, and she returns to her home and relives her past. But it is not about the plot but how the artists represent their characters, human feelings, and relationaships. The acting was superb! It is sad that so far, due to the COVID precautions, the actors do not come to meet the audience after the show. But OMG, what a pleasure!

Home Improvements

I could write a long saga of my kitchen lights, of which some didn’t work from the day I moved in. And to be precise, more light fixtures in this apartment did not work than did :). Same regarding the ceiling fans. 

I made one attempt to fix them in June 2021, which was only partially successful because the people who started fixing them went out of business. 

Recently, two more kitchen light fixtures stopped working, and I had to resume my search. There were several unsuccessful attempts, plus three no-shows, so basically, I went through the complete list of NextDoor recommendations.  

Finally, I scheduled an inspection from a bigger electrical company, which was a success. Although they said it would be a consultation only, the guy fixed all the kitchen lights (I never had them all working!) and turned on the jacuzzi (the actual switch still should be fixed, but at least I can plug/unplug it). And now they are going to fix all the non-working ceiling fans. The latter will cost close to 1K, but during my multiple attempts to fix them, I got a feeling that it would be something around that, even before inflation hit. I had money set aside back when this first company was going to fix them; it just never materialized. 

Now finally, my whole move-in list will be completed, although I already know what appliances I am ready to replace 🙂

Chicago PUG Meetup

On Tuesday, I hosted the second live meetup after the pandemic. I should have felt less anxious, but I didn’t. It was the first time I had invited speakers, and not even locals – people traveled, they made an effort to represent their company. Also, although I had a lot of RSVPs, the whole even was in danger because it was the day of the first snow, and nobody in Chicago wants to be out on the first day of snow unless they really need to be out.

Since most people have an option of working remotely, I was afraid that I will end up with zero participants. Fortunately, people came, although only half of those who RSVPed, but I was happy and thankful to everybody who came!

What Can You Do With So Many Apples?!

A lot of things, and I finally tried this new recipe I wanted to bake for a while – it has apples, and it can be served for breakfast 🙂