On family history, parenting, education, social issues and more
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.
Knowing that I was born in January 1963, you might think that my first Christmas was on December 25, 1953. But in fact, my first Christmas happened only in 1996, keep reading to find out why – this is going to be the longest post you ever read in my journal.
Before the October revolution of 1917, Orthodox Christianity was an official religion of the Russian Empire. The Julian Calendar which is two weeks behind the Julian Calendar, was used both in Church and in civic life.
After the revolution, the Church was separated from the state. Several months later, by a decree of the Revolutionary government, the country was switched to the Julian calendar. Christmas was denounced, along with all religious holidays, and Christmas trees were forbidden. That situation lasted until early 1930 were when the government decided to allow some of the fun to come back. Granted, there…
In December 1996, Vlad and Anna went on their first winter break at Gray Sanborn School. For me, it meant them being in the Children’s World for the whole day, but I believe it was included in their tuition. At least, I do not remember paying more in December.
I didn’t know anything about what they were doing at school. The parent-teacher conferences happened before Thanksgiving, and they started school right after. I could not understand what school assignments meant. It’s difficult to explain: I understood the words, but I didn’t know how the Kindergarten curriculum is organized. It was very different from Russian schools, and Vlad and Anna used to say that they “played” at school, listened to the teacher reading a book. Sometimes they would bring some drawings home.
It was a real shock for me when they brought home a newsletter for the parents from their teacher, Mrs. Kramers, when on the last day of school. The letter said: if your child does not know the alphabet, it’s time to catch up. If your child can’t count to one-hundred, it’s time. What-when-how?! How come I didn’t know?! I did not know that when they connected the numbered dots to make a Santa’s face, they were learning numbers.
I wish I could go back in time and ask their teacher how they were adjusting, how they were learning, how they communicated with other kids. I have three pictures from that winter from school, and I am not sure who made them.
In the last picture, they are sitting together with their friend Chris. Chris was in the same class with them and in the Children’s World. Actually, his family lived in the same building, as wem but we didn’t know. Chris didn’t take a bus to school; I think his mom, Janet, dropped him off, and then his parents picked him up from the Children’s World at a different time.
We learned that they are our neighbors accidentally. It happened when Pam arrived at our apartment at 8 AM one Sunday, realized that we do not have TV service on, and started to call our neighbors to find out what cable company serves our building.
Chris was Vlad’s and Anna’s best friend for the longest time, and Janet was my best friend for the longest time.
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.
I already shred these news with my friends earlier today, but the news are worth to be broadcasted.
You know that Santa Claus does not live in Alaska, right? And you know where he lives? He lives in Lanpland, which is the most Northern part of Finland. And this morning, the Finnish news agencies broadcasted Santa’s departure from his house in Lapland to deliver gifts to the children all over the world!
You can watch it here, and if you are not in the Christmas spirit yet, you definitely should watch it!
Also, the Ministry of Foreign affairs of Finland announced that although the border is closed, the sleigh drawn by reindeers will be allowed to pass through. So all is good, and Christmas is happening 🙂
I married Igor (Igor’s dad) thirty-six years ago, on December 22, 1984. Igor was twenty-two, and I was a month short of being twenty-two.
The was not too young by then-standards to get married. I’d say most young people would get married around that age, either right before graduating from college or right after. I talked about this situation briefly here.
I hope that I will tell the whole story of our relationships at some point, but the short outline looks like this. We started dating in September (I can’t recall the date, though I might find it). Igor proposed to me about six weeks into our relationship, and I said yes. Then we went to register to get married in a complete secret because first, we were afraid of gossips in the university, and second, we knew that his parents wouldn’t be thrilled. We went to register at the local Bureau of Registration of Igor’s district. The usual waiting time was three months, but somehow they told us that we could get married on December 22, which was only six weeks ahead, and we gladly accepted.
Igor told his parents four weeks before the wedding day, there was a scene, but then things calmed down. Then both of us announced to my mom and all my relatives with whom we lived together, and they were very happy and congratulated us, and it was all like it was supposed to be on a happy occasion.
We arranged for our parents to meet and get to know each other, and then the only thing we were trying to do was to minimize the attempts of Igor’s parents to have a big celebration. We wanted nothing of it. Okey, it is possible that Igor wanted, but I didn’t, and at that point, he would d what I wanted :).
His mother used this occasion to order a good suit for him, and I asked my friend’s mother to make a velvet skirt and vest for me. I didn’t want a white dress, anything that I would wear just once. We didn’t have any extra money; we didn’t have money, period, and we didn’t want our parents to give us money.
For me, it was just the beginning of the relationship; I knew that being in love does not mean you can build a family together, but there was no option to find it out except for getting married.
The pictures below are the only pictures ai have from our wedding. A standard set; we got an album, and the parents got a set of printed photos, and that was it.
Our witnesses, Igor’s friend Sasha and my friend Lena, were the only people, except for our immediate relatives, who knew that we were getting married, and we asked them to keep the information to themselves.
On Igor’s side, it’s his mother and his stepfather, and I do not remember why his father was not invited.
I have to repeat one more time: our book and Christmas do not go well together. Even wrapping the presents and finishing a relatively small chapter – that’s what I was trying to do today – resulted in not completing either. Twenty other small things were not even started.
However, when I thanked our reviewer for returning the last chapter and added: I should have asked you for your postal address to send you some cookies; well, next year then, he emailed me his address immediately :). That being said, package number 19 is ready to be shipped.
I took Mom to the nail spa, and we both did our nails, and I left a small bag of cookies for each of the staff (these days, you can’t bring a cookie tray to any business).
The weather was nice and sunny, and I biked to the forest preserve on both Saturday and Sunday.
The country (at least, the State of Illinois) is experiencing the Christmas supplies crisis. All stores I visited over the weekend have close to nothing of Christmas decorations, lights, or packaging. I didn’t want to buy any extra wrapping/packaging until I figured out what I needed, and when I figured it out, it was too late. Now, I had to improvise with what I have.
I do not know who does not feel like Christmas – I certainly do 🙂
“Everything” means the book and the rest of Christmas. With the book, after two or three extremely nervous weeks, I feel a little bit better. We are done with the first twelve chapters, meaning we already received the reviewer’s feedback and replied and/or made changes. We are making final edits on Chapter 13, and we have both Chapter 8 and 14 more than half-done. (We realized that we missed something after we were already on Chapter 11, that’s why it is out of order).
After those two will be completed, we will only have Chapter 15 and a Conclusion left; those two are small and do not require new examples (examples being the most time-consuming part). It is still a lot, plus we need at least one Appendix and a Glossary, and some pictures clean-up. So, it is still a lot.
Christmas. On Thursday, I finished decorating sugar cookies, partially in the morning before work, and the rest – in the evening.
Today, I baked one more batch of Russian Tea Cakes because I suddenly ran out of them, although I baked two batches at the very beginning of the cookies marathon. Also, I tried one more time to bake pumpkin and dates cookies. Last year, I didn’t like the results, but though it might be because I used my own pumpkin puree instead of the canned one, and I thought that the problem could be in the wrong consistency. This yeat, I used preserves, but I am still not sure whether I like the outcome. I mailed the last batch of parcels on Wednesday; all the rest will be hand-delivered. And I am very glad that almost half of the parcels had already reached their destinations.
774 cookies. 118 sugar cookies decorated. 18 parcels sent. 15 boxes of cookies hand-delivered so far (or ready to be delivered), plus one giant box for the youth shelter. … Now, it’s time to start packing the non-cookie presents 🙂
On Tuesday, I went to Chicago, mostly to deliver cookies for several people in the city. I was surprised and delighted to see that they put up a Christmas tree inside the Palatine train station.
There is way less people n the train that in was in October, but still more than in March and April.
During the Christmas season, I try to ship my domestic parcels in the USPS kiosk, and I try to do it late at night when there is no line (they are open 24X7).
I planned to do it on Saturday, but since I didn’t have access to my car, I could no do it, and Vlad came only on Sunday afternoon, and after all the other things I had to address, I when to the post office late at night on Sunday.
Unfortunately, the outcome was expected: by that time, there were so many parcels left in the course of the weekend that the loading door won’t open. I thought that I could at least print the labels, but the kiosk screen was also stuck in the “Please wait” mode!
i did not want to stay in the line on Monday, so I finally learned how to use Click&Ship, and printed all the labels at home, and paid online :). I could even arrange a pickup at home, but I didn’t want to wait for another day, so I drove to the post office to drop them off.
It all happened on Saturday. For a start, I knocked off a cup full of coffee when reaching out for my Karl Fazer Advent calendar. I had to change my jeans and clean the kitchen floor.
Next, I reached out to the plant, which I temporarily moved from the stand to the top of the bookshelf. I move it every Christmas season, each time when I put up a Christmas tree, and move one of the plants stands away. And it was never a problem for the past twenty years. But this Saturday, the pot falls, and the wet soil is everywhere. Let me tell you, it’s not that easy to clean the wet soil from the floor and the walls!
Next, the garage door won’t close and was making all these weird noises. I decided to leave it open, and since Vlad was planning to come the next day, I called him and asked whether he will take a look (he installed this garage opener a while ago).
On my way from the garage to my house, I thought that I should text my neighbor because she will worry when she sees my garage door opened. But it turned out that they returned thirty seconds after I left the parking lot, and they saw my door opened and thought I forgot to close it and tried to close… after which, the door got stuck in the middle, so I could not get the car out! And that was not it! Next, when I was baking my last batch of sugar cookies, I left the last portion in the oven, which was turned off, but still hot, and the cookies were completely burned. Ok, just ten, but still!
And the very last thing: I need to bake another portion of kolacki, and I accidentally set the oven temperature to 400F instead of 350F! They were not completely ruined, but still got some tan 🙂
On Friday, I finally got my Christmas tree. Since I got my new car (it is not new anymore, but anyway), I can’t bring a tree home without external help. And this year, I was hesitant to ask anybody. Actually, I asked Vlad a long time ago, and he said he would come to help, but then it turned out he mixed up the days. I already planned to take a day off, and I also knew that there will be rain in the afternoon and for the whole day on Saturday. Long story short, my co-worker who lives close to me told me that he could help. I went to the place where I go every year; there is a family farm in Wisconsin, they come every year, and I am getting trees from them for over twenty years. Guess what happened this year! By the time I came, then ran out of Fraiser fir! I still can’t believe it! I got a Canaan fir, a cross between Balsamic and Fraiser, and I didn’t have much choice – there were just four or five left! I guess I should feel lucky 🙂 My co-worker helped me to install the tree, and then I spend a couple of hours decorating. This year, I made sure that all my special ornaments are on the tree, and I left many others in the box. And I nearly forgot to hang the chocolate ornaments, but now everything is in place.
I feel way more content when the tree is up and decorated, and the whole house in decorated, too!
Hettie's Reflections 