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.

Post Roe/Wade Landscape

Today’s escorting was tiresome. It’s not that there were more antis than usual, and not that they were especially aggressive, but they behaved the way that demonstrated their confidence. One of them (I have a history with him and hate him with a burning passion) gave me an evil smile: how many states are left where abortion is still allowed? They act as if they are masters of the land.
I, together with another escort, guarded the side entrance. There were two antis, but they left soon. Shortly before that, a van with contractors stopped by – they were looking for the manager of the next-door Japanese restaurant. They were shocked by the scene they saw and said that they thought it was some rally, and they didn’t want to believe me when I told them that we have it every Saturday!

Oh, and also these protesters announced that they “love Ukraine!” I am speechless!

There was a counter-protest against the March for Life, which was going to “celebrate” a Roe/Wade overturn. Our goal was to silence the speakers on the opposite side of the street. On the one hand, we dominated. I remember many marches with tons of antis and just a few of us. This time, there were more of us, way more! And we were indeed louder than them. But on the other hand, I almost cried all the time marching because we lost no matter how loud we were. We lost when Roe/Wade was overturned, and it will take years and years to fix it. Meanwhile, people need help right now.

Continue reading “Post Roe/Wade Landscape” →

Annoyed

I am sure I blogged about it a couple of times, but one more time… 

Why the second question to me should be, “where are you from?” It does not define me! It’s not the first, second, or third thing that defines me! Sometimes I am inclined to play a game that my friend Lena often plays when asked the same question. She moved around quite a bit, so she would say: I am local. And then people ask her: but where did you live previously? she would say: in Chicago. And before that? – In London. And before that? – in Albany… you got it. 

Often, I do not have time for this game, and instead, I ask: you mean where my accent is from? 

I understand a general curiosity, but really – you are in a professional environment, or you are volunteering together for a common cause, and the second question is, “what’s your ethnical background?!”

Trust me; there are more fun facts about me! 

My Fair Lady

I went to see a new production of My Fair Lady on Thursday. This was an outing I planned to do with mom (with hopes that she still remembers the plot she knew!) It turned out that she only remembered the name, not the plot, but it was still good, because it is a beautiful show, and I wanted her to experience the atmosphere of a great classic musical. So at least that worked 🙂

Broken Ties – Andrey Loshak’s Movie

Highly recommend watching this movie to all my friends who ask me “how Russian people feel about what’s going on”. There are English subtitles

Swiss PG Day And Me

I asked one of my colleagues to take pictures of me while I will be presenting. And they turned out very well! I cropped myself on most of them – and here they are:

Highland Park

Yesterday, Igor went to see the scene of the shooting and took a lot of pictures, which can be seen here.

The ones that actually gave me chills are those with the abandoned folding chairs, which were left behind when people ran in panic. And the sight of a completely empty downtown…

Central/1st - southeast corner
Central and 1st - northeast corner
IMG_3277

Pictures From The Swiss PG Day (English Track)

Stefan Keller
Pavlo Golub
Franck Pachot
Laetitia Avrot
Magnus Hagander
Ads Scherbaum
Vik Fearing
Hettie Dombrovskaya
All speakers from both tracks

Just FYI…

I didn’t have the internet on my flight back, so I drafted several posts and didn’t actually post them; and yes, then that happened – another shooting, so close to home… and I do not know what to say…

Smells Can’t Be Captured

Since early May, I meant to blog about the smells which follow me on my bike rides in Chicago, how the lilacs were heavenly, and how now they are gone and everything smells with linden. In Helsinki, lilacs were still in bloom when I arrived, but in the past two days they were almost gone and the strong smell of jasmine started to dominate. It’s one of my childhood smells, strongly associated with July. That’s how the second session of the pioneer camp smelled :).

More Helsinki

What else is there in summer? The strawberries that can’t be matched, forty flavors of ice cream, pride festivities, 86F weather for two weeks in a row.

Oodi deck – it’s almost impossible to stay there at 87F!

And also – Helsinki’s IKEA.

IKEA always gives me a sense of stability and an “all is right” feeling. Now, it is almost impossible for me to go to the Schaumburg IKEA, so most of my orders are online (which means, that IKEA food is out of reach for me). We decided to go to IKEA “just for window shopping,” but then we found these coffee cups of that perfect pale turquoise which was gone several years ago. The cups were not rectangular as Boris likes them, but they were still near perfect. We didn’t buy them because I wanted to check online first, and for some reason, my internet went down. When I checked at home, it turned out that 1) this was a new product and 2) this color was sold out in all of the IKEA stores in the US!

The next day, when I was at the Swiss PG Day, Boris went there again and got two boxes of coffee cups with saucers, and a box of espresso cups. I only managed to get one box in my luggage, and he should bring the other two when he comes to Chicago next time.