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.

House Repairs

It was supposed to be very cold in Palatine the week I was away (and it was!) So, I left all faucets dripping to prevent the pipes from freezing. Two weeks before that, I examined all the sinks in the house, and I thought that I fixed everything leaking.

That is, until Wednesday morning when my cleaning lady came and texted me: Hettie, you have water on the floor! Both upstairs sins are leaking. It was not the end of the world but still, very unpleasant news.

When I returned, I realized that not two, but all three of the sinks, had water under them. I shrugged and decided that I am not trying to fix things by myself anymore :).

It was Friday, and I didn’t start searching for plumbers till Monday morning. When I went to the NextDoor, I found that the plumbers I used a long time ago are still in business and have good reviews. Very soon, however, I remembered why I stopped using them. Even though they did good work, they often didn’t respond to the calls and didn’t call back. After they didn’t show up at the scheduled time, didn’t call, and didn’t respond to calls and voicemails for three hours, I decided to go with another contractor I found on the NextDoor, who responded right away.

They suggested replacing pretty much everything, and I didn’t argue because I didn’t replace pipes and faucets since I moved in (except for a couple of small repairs). It was a pricy job, but everything is finally in place now. Since there are high chances I will be moving later this year, I asked them to pick the simplest faucets, just to have them there. And I decided not to fix the cabinets.

Because I wasted time waiting for the first contractors, the new one didn’t come till late on Wednesday, and then, I had to postpone everything till the girls leave. That was the right decision because they had to turn the water off for 1.5 hours, and the total time the contractor spent in my house was about six hours. When he was finished, I asked him which was the most difficult, and he said – the one on the first floor, because everything is too close to the wall, and the place is small. Now I feel much better because if a professional had trouble with this one, no wonder it was difficult for me as well!

Lots Of Happy News

I just learned that the staff and clients of the Night Ministry are vaccinated as a part of phase 1B, and many of them have received their first dose already. The volunteer coordinator emailed us that we should expect the update soon. I hope that this means that we won’t have to wait till the end of March to resume in-person volunteering. I can’t wait to make “Mama’s soup” in the ODS:).

For the past week, I was jealously looking at my Europen friends’ Instagram posts with the first early spring flowers emerging, with the first patches of green grass and lots of sunshine.

It looks like finally, we see the end of winter here, in Illinois. It was 46F today and lots of sunshine.
On top of this happy news, the Lakefront space will be open soon, almost a year after it was closed. The playgrounds and indoor swimming are also starting to reopen.

Next week, I am planning to go to the rt Institute first time after the last closure in the fall, and also, I am going to do escorting for the first time in a while. That’s mostly because I do not tolerate the cold weather well enough to escort during the freezing temperature, not because of any restrictions.

Overall, it really feels like a new beginning:)

Chicago Street Car January 1939

www.instagram.com/p/CLkfBovhkX3/

Chicago Street Car January 1939

Here I Am In My Childhood Apartment in 1965

My greataunt used to say that we had four different heating systems in that apartment. The only one who was working at the time of my childhood was the central radiator heating, where warm water from various industrial cooling systems was recycled for heating purposes. We didn’t control when the heating is turned on or off and what was the desired temperature.

The non-functioning heating systems were two masonry heaters; one of them looked almost exactly like the one on the picture, and another one rectangular-shaped and covered with tiles.

There was a huge fireplace in the largest room, and sometimes, when my cousin had a gathering with his friends, they would start the fire in the fireplace, and everything worked as expected:). Lastly, some heating system inside the walls was using hot water running through and heating the spaces. My greataunt called it the Amos heating, but I can’t find any references for this name anywhere.

We had only cold running water. In the bathroom, we used a small gas water heater. Each time you needed warm water, you had to lift the level, start the pilot with the match. Then, you would turn the water on, and this would turn on the heating.

There was another, even smaller gas water heater in the kitchen, but it was seldom used for some reason.
Bit overall, the kitchen was a fascinating place, with many objects to explore. I remember an iron nade of cast iron and brass mortar and pestle and a non-electrical coffee percolator.

And I remember the morning sun in the kitchen window and a thin water jet running from the small brass kitchen faucet, and me standing on the large rectangular wooden stool by the kitchen sink washing my hands in the morning.

My historical posts are being published in random order. Please refer to the page Hettie’s timeline to find where exactly each post belongs and what was before and after.

Family Time

My daughter and my granddaughters are my guests for the past three days, and today my son-in-law joined them.

it’s a very busy time, with lot’s of cooking and cleaning, and it’s the most wonderful time spending time together, talking, reading books and drawing pictures, sledding and having fun the snow. these day, I do ot have to do sledding in the wee hours of the morning, when nobody can see me. I am a grandma with my granddaughter, and we can go sledding as all other people with children.

People are making sledding trains out of multiple sleds, and most of the time theey would turn upside down, but everybody would have fun anyway 🙂

Today, Anna made scones for breakfast, as she always does. This time it was a new recipe, and it was super-delicious. Also, she made them with dry lingonberries, which I brought from Finland, and that made them even better 🙂

Matter Does Not Disappear

It’s just that sometimes ot takes forever!

This Christmas season, I complained about the postal services a lot! However, mostly it was about the postcards, all my parcels had arrived surprisingly on time. But there were two parcels which I knew were shipped on time, and which didn’t arrive. 

One was my traditional Dim Reschikov calendar, which was shipped from Moscow on November 19 by International Express. Another one was a box of Christmas cookies from my friend in Germany. For both of these parcels, it took three months to arrive! 

I mean, I am delighted to receive them finally, but what was going on for three months?!

Yet Another Article

Yet another article about the post-pandemic “return to normal.” I disagree with almost everything in this article except for one statement: we should not return “back to normal” in the sense that its” normal to come to work sick and not to wear the mask, either for the reason that you do not have enough sick days, or you need money, or that it’s a way to demonstrate your loyalty to the company.

About School Closures and Openings

Last week, Anna sent me a link to one article in the Y TImes, which talked about the schools in Rhode Island: the only Democratic state where schools stayed in-person thought the whole time of the pandemic. 

I wanted to write in-depth about this article, but it is massive, and I feel that I will never have time to write about it in detail. 

I still feel that I should say something about it, especially in connection with the Chicago Public Schools situation, which just got resolved (at least we hope so!) after many weeks of the standoff. 

Here is the link to the article. It re-iterates that every day the child is not in school does some damage and that all efforts should be made to keep the schools open. On the other hand, it does not mean that kids in schools do not pose any risk, and most of the article is dedicated to how the damage can be mitigated. No sugarcoating, very balanced, and very thoughtful analysis. And a must-read for those who what to understand the situation with in-person learning

Too Much Of Everything

Too much of work, roo muchof life, too much of everything!

I will be back:)

Chicago Under The Weather :)

Seriously, why it is that with the same or less snow and with the same or less cold, the resulting conditions in Chicago are so much different from Helsinki? Why nobody declares the state of emergency in Finland, as our governor just declared in Illinois?

I had to come to the city today, because I could not do it on any other day of this week…

Continue reading “Chicago Under The Weather :)” →