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.

Art Institute

Since mom started to have difficulties climbing the stairs and walking, I stopped taking her to any cultural activities. I knew this was not the ideal situation, and I was trying to find a way to resume them. Mom said that taking a bus to the Loop would be worse because the bus takes longer, she would have to sit for longer, and it would be even harder for her to get up. I started to contemplate how I could convince her to take Uber, but then she said she wanted to try to climb the stair at Morse CTA.

One thing I knew won’t be working anymore – she won’t be able to take CTA by herself and meet me in the Loop, so whenever we would go for any cultural activities, I would have to be a weekend so that I could pick her up from home.

This Saturday, I planned to go to the Art Institute with her – there are three exhibits that I still didn’t have a chance to see, and two of them are closing in January.

Overall it was a success. Mom was so tired of sitting at home that she didn’t have time to complain about anything during our field trip. She said I ordered too much gelato for her at Amorino, but then she finished everything :).

Here are the exhibits we saw:

David Hockney

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1969-1970

It was my last year before school. When we returned from Loo, I started to attend the “preparatory group” in my detskiy sad, which would be the equivalent of Kindergarten in the US, only it was more rigorous.

All the children who turned six and would start the first grade in the fall had two “lessons” a day. We sat at desks that looked a lot like school desks (two kids at one desk), and we did a lot of counting and other math exercises, speech development, and so on. We had to “tell the story looking at the picture” (which I hated with a burning passion). But overall, we were enormously proud to be “almost schoolchildren,” and I liked to wear a navy blue corduroy dress with a white lace collar resembling the school uniform (it was way before I started to hate school uniforms!).

Also, I started to take figure skating classes. They were free and were run by a local enthusiast, so nobody thought a big deal about them. Unlike the famous Soviet “sports schools,” there was no selection of future champions, and we just had fun and tried our best.

We didn’t have an option of skating indoors, so in the fall, we had PE in the local school gym for two evenings a week, and it was also enormous fun.

In some of the photos below, I show the exercises we learned during these classes.

IN the kitchen, sometime in fall 1969 with my favorite stuffy named Boska
Mom
Continue reading “1969-1970” →

A Week In Review

In addition to all the things I am doing at work:

  • My next live meetup is next week, and I have guest speakers, and I can’t believe things are getting back to normal.
  • PG Day Chicago website is coming up next week as well, and we have the dates and the talks selection committee,
  • While doing actual work, I fixed a bug in my DIFF open source project and figured out how to create partitioned bitemporal tables (this means nothing for 99% of the readers, but what is important is that my work allows me to contribute to the open source projects)
  • And I hope to write a couple of professional blog posts during the weekend
  • And I am not behind on holiday planning!

One More CSO Concert

Yesterday’s concert was even better than last week’s. I know I am saying it for the third time in a row, but that’s true! 

I learned about this concert almost at the last minute and hurried to get tickets (my neighbor joined me). We still got very decent seats and had a great experience. 

Here is what the CSO website says about this concert:

Dancers from Chicago’s world-renowned Joffrey Ballet invigorate the Symphony Center stage with two newly commissioned choreographies set to Siegfried Idyll, Wagner’s glowing birthday gift to his wife, and Rameau’s vivid ballet, composed for a royal wedding at the Palace of Versailles. Ravel evokes Baroque dance in Le tombeau de Couperin, with each movement becoming a touching tribute to friends who died in World War I. The program opens with the beguiling elegance of Mozart’s Symphony No. 34. 

How could you describe a dance? Especially Joffrey Ballet! I sat all the time, holding my breath with my eyes wide open. I can’t say which one I liked better – both are gems. Probably, Rameau was more unexpected.

Unfortunately, there are no official videos, at least could not find them.

Actually, I take it back – I found one in the news, click here.

Apple Watch Ultra

This time, I got a new model almost immediately after it appeared – I only waited until my fall travels were over. The moment I saw the ads, I realized that it has all I was dreaming about: a much better screen and a long battery life. It was so annoying that I had to charge the watch midday, and consequently had to carry a charger with me everywhere.

Well, it exceeded expectations! No matter what I do, it stays charged for at least two days, and it’s far from being completely discharged by that time. I think it could easily live for three days!

A Revelation

I came home after visiting my mom, deep in thought. I think I understood something about her that I didn’t realize before.

Many things have been going on with her in the past two months. It started with arthritis in her knees, which she rapidly developed. It was a hard hit on her because she used to be able to move around very fast, and she does not like and can’t adjust to the current situation. Then there was a wrist injury, and now I am not even sure what exactly happened with her hands. Still, for a couple of days, she could not do anything with her left hand, and I could not get a doctor’s appointment for her (I could only schedule for the end of November). I was very busy figuring out how to deal with this situation and didn’t even want to write anything about it. I was just trying to make sure she won’t fall inside her apartment or something like that.

At the same time, I had my own local “refugee crisis,” trying to help one family who fled from Russia. They were looking for somebody with whom they could talk in Russian, and I introduced them (actually, just the daughter) to my mom. She (the daughter) was very excited to meet somebody new, and she genuinely liked mom and wanted to help (again, it was in the midst of the disability crisis). When I came to see mom, she told me something like: why is N asking whether she can help me? I can manage. Besides, if she is helping me, I need to pay her something. I was shocked by this suggestion but asked N to stop suggesting help to let mom cool down.

Today, mom told me that “N stopped emailing her, and she knows why.” When I asked her why she thinks it is so, she said: her hours at work were reduced, so she makes less money. She was hoping I would give her some work and would pay her, but when she realized I was not going to, she decided to stop emailing me. I was so shocked that I started to yell at mom, asking why she always thinks badly about people. She replied that she was not implying that the person was bad. And that was it.

I know it sounds unbelievable that I have known my mom for almost sixty years, and only now am I realizing such a fundamental thing about her, but that’s true. It was the first time that I understood that when she says something like “I gave her a thing I didn’t need,” or “I didn’t pay attention to what she said,” or that the store cashier purposely cheated rather than made a genuine mistake – all these times she indeed didn’t think she was saying bad things about people. She truly believes that thinking about their profit is the most natural thing for any human, and everybody should watch up to ensure that nobody takes advantage at their expense.

One of these revelations made you go back and re-evaluate a lot of your past thoughts. Now so many things are making sense! I admit I was wrong in thinking she wanted to hurt people (including me) when she accused others of taking advantage of her. She does not. She indeed believes it’s in human nature and wants to look out for herself.
Remembering my paternal grandfather, I think she took it from him. He had a lot of what is called “the cunning peasant,” somebody who does not believe in charity, altruism, and free stuff.

Well, not like it is going to change anything in what we are doing, but it explains a lot!

Imagine…

The joy of somebody who didn’t know about external monitors and though that they need to purchase a desktop in order to have a bigger screen!…

(especially because I have two external monitors to give away!)

“Swing State” At Goodman

I didn’t look at any theater tickets before all my travels were over, and then I realized that many shows were already sold out! That happened with the Swing State at Goodman. My neighbor told me that she was going to see it last Saturday and said: great, I will use my “whenever Goodman” tickets. And then I saw that all the remaining Friday and Saturday shows were sold out! I found two single (not-together) tickets for Tuesday, so Igor and I could go.  

The show was brilliant, and I was glad I managed to get “the last two tickets.” It was especially good that both of them were very close because the show is set in one room of Peg’s (the main character) house. There are only four characters, so all the scenes are very intimate, and it is great when you can see all the facial expressions and be pretty much “inside the act.”

I was annoyed that people often laughed during the show because the story was tragic, and everything that could sound funny was tragic. Igor said it was a “couping laugh” since many audience members could feel uncomfortable. 

And one thing that touched me personally was that Peg is doing prairie restoration and is shown collecting and sorting the seeds. The way she talks about the prairie is so “mine” that it makes her a real person.

Photos from the Goodman Theater website

Christmas Cards And Christmas Cookies

The holiday season is approaching again, and it’s time for holiday cards and cookies. You know how it works, right? If you would like to receive a holiday card from me – let me know :). If you are anywhere in the US and would like to receive a time of Christmas cookies from me – let me know! If you are anywhere else in the world except for Russia – hurry up – I will send the cookies to the first twelve people who will respond!

And if you are in Chicagoland, maybe you would like to stop by and decorate some cookies with me? Let me know!

On Upcoming Election Day

These are my first elections as a Chicago resident, which means two things: first, the local elections are more predetermined, and although voting is still important, I know that my voice won’t tip the scale. Second, I could use one of the early voting supersites.

For those unfamiliar with them, if you are a Chicago resident, you can vote at these sites no matter where you live: using your address, the correct bulletin will be pulled to your voting screen. Since I traveled when the early voting started and missed two weekends, I was slightly worried about whether I will have time. But with the supersites, I could stop there after work (which I did on Thursday), and it took me fifteen minutes total, including a two-minute wait and two-minute paperwork.

I can’t tell enough how much I am proud of my girls – today, they spent three hours canvassing and hit seventy doors! In Wisconsin, each door matters, so they made a meaningful impact. A group with which I could canvas is one of several things I didn’t find yet since I moved to Rogers Park. I told Anna that I would come to Milwaukee in the fall of 2024 to canvass with them. But seriously, can you believe that these two little girls canvassed for three hours and were really helpful?!