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.

I Think I Found The Limit

… of how much I can squeeze in one unit of time. Namely, I can’t do something for what I need five days into two and a half days.

That’s what was going on. I confirmed with my friend Lena, who comes every year in December to help me with cookies that she is coming for Dec 6-8, and then I launched my usual cookie advertisement. Two weeks later, Lena told me she wouldn’t be able to make it. It was 100% not her fault; she had an unexpected personal situation, but the fact was that I was on my own. And also, although at least five people told me they would come and help decorate, nobody showed up. On top of it, I had only one weekend instead of two due to the late Thanksgiving, and Vlad going to be in town on the second weekend.

At least I was smart enough to take Friday off (I planned it anyway), but it didn’t help much. Before I had a chance to get to baking:

  • Unpacked and shelved Amazon Fresh deliver
  • Had a call – somebody wanted to connect with me professionally, and that was the first option available, 45 min
  • A visit from a social worker from mom’s insurance (1.5 hours, including walking)
  • going through my baking supplies, finding mice dropping, cleaning the whole pantry, throwing away damaged goods
  • another professional call was scheduled for Friday for the same reason: “I am at home anyway.”
  • Going to the Night Ministry office to drop the presents (the last items I ordered arrived on Thursday, and I couldn’t fit this trip into any other day before the deadline) – two hours

That way, I started baking at 3-30 PM and baked until pretty late. My phone was showing a very low battery, but since I knew I would plug it in for the night, I thought it was not a big deal for it to run out of power. It was already 11-30 PM, and suddenly, the screen went black. I plugged the phone in and waited, but nothing happened, and no buttons could wake it up. I tried three different plugs and waited, and it didn’t even show the battery picture. Finally, i went to bed and left it plugged, and then I woke up at 3-30 AM and saw that the screen was still dead.

To be continued:)

Starbucks Roastery Reserve

Last time I wanted to go to the Starbucks Roastery I found it closed, and was very disappointed, especially because the weather was awful, and I would never thing about walking in such weather if not for holiday martinis.

On Thursday it occurred to me that it was possibly the last opportunity in 2024 to get to the Roastery. I was going to a CSO concert in the evening, and also I had a ticket to the Art Institute lecture right before that, but I could still fit an eggnog martini before that!.

I ended up leaving work a little bit later than I hoped, and then waited for martini a little bit longer than I thought it would take, and then I went to the second floor to get food. After I finally set down I realized that if I still wanted to get to the lecture I would have to hurry up and would still be a little bit delayed. Having how the week was progressing, and having that I had something to celebrate (the PG Day Chicago website was finally up) I decided not to rush!

Continue reading “Starbucks Roastery Reserve” →

Christkindle Market

Yesterday, I went to Christkindle Market for the first time this season. I dragged one of my co-workers (who didn’t mind), saying we were “doing work-life balance.”

Later that day, when I went to the musical with my neighbor and told her that I was at the market, she asked: why do you like it? What is in it for you?

I know that not everyone loves Christmas markets (like Boris sacrifices himself for my Christmas passions), but I am one of the people who love them! I ran around greeting the vendors whom I knew from the past years and showed “the best of” to my co-worker. We toured the ornaments shops and the chocolate shop and browsed the food offerings. I already went there one more time today, and bought a package of Christmas tea that I put my eye (and nose) on the day before. And I will go there again.

& Juliet

I saw this musical yesterday, and somehow, it left me non-engaged. Everything was perfect on the surface: great dialogs, cultural references; the audience laughed where expected (sometimes too loud). Still, it didn’t click, and I do not think it was because I was tired. Just something didn’t work.

Official photos below:

Continue reading “& Juliet” →

Life Is Happening

Once again, a million things at the same time!

One hand is doing work, another hand is testing the website for PGDay Chicago, another hand is making sure we have all things we need for Prairie Postgres, another hand is packing presents. Some other hands are submitting Amazon Fresh orders for the remaining cookie ingredients and booking three different hotels for three different trips.

Presents for Secret Santa, presents for the Night Ministry, Amazon returns, returning boots which turned out to be too tight even though the size is right. Work. Going to Chriskindlmarket, buying roasted nuts and chocolate. Finding time for meetings with friends and out-ouf town peers. Boxes for cookies. Christmas bubble mailers. Tissue paper. Work. Going to the show. Finding the right presents for half of the family who are still without presents. New Christmas tree stand.

Work. PGDay Chicago new Volunteer form. Checking the dates on the form. FInding cost allocations to close the support ticket. Schedule an email to my mom for 10-30 PM saying we are going home from the show.

And it’s actually time to go, just need to refresh my makeup!

Riding In A Holiday Train (Not The “Real” Holiday Train)

After Thanksgiving

Boris nearly missed his flight: there was a traffic jam at the ORD entrance, and it took Uber 50 minutes to get to the terminal. I believe the better strategy would be to Uber to Cumberland and take the L to ORD. But it is what it is. I am sad about such a stressful ending to a very good week we had.

As it always happens, I have more things not done than done, just because I have all holiday things, plus work, plus the conference, plus our NFP, plus conferences where I submitted some proposals. Plus twenty different professional projects I want to start. Oh, and plus, it became sharply cold and my body didn’t have enough time to adjust.

Nevertheless, we had a very good time together and did many things around the house. Boris repaired a bookcase that started to fall apart after I returned from my last trip, and then he moved bookcases around as we planned several months ago but never did. We took down the flower baskets, covered all the balcony furniture for winter, and put up Christmas decorations.
I feared that because of how busy I was this year, I wouldn’t feel as joyful decorating the house as I usually feel, but this fear was unfounded. Everything except for the tree is up, and Christmas is in the air 🙂

Books

Just a short list of what I recently read so that I won’t postpone it for three months again.

The Song of Achilles. This was our workplace book club reading, and I loved this book! Maybe it partially helped that I read it while I was in Greece, but I think I would love it regardless.

She-Wolves: The Untold History of Women on Wall Street. This book was recommended by a co-worker. OK. Not bad, but less exciting than I thought it would be

Skin and Bones. Very good! I didn’t expect it to be so captivating—I kept listening whenever I had a minute to spare. I can’t recall which recommendation list it came from, but I am so glad I read it!

“Blue” at Lyric

I thought that “Blue” was a very recent opera – it sounded like it emerged from the Black Lives matter movement, but when I looked it up, it turned out that it was written almost ten years ago. That means that nothing changed in these last ten years – nothing!

What you hear from the stage is extremely painful and way closer to reality than any opera should be. The Father focused on keeping his black son alive, not knowing how to protect him:

run/do not run/look at their faces/do not look straight at their faces/keep your hands out of your pockets/take off this hoody/pull up your pants…

Each word is a pain. Each word strikes home.

And it’s just opera. People will clap and go home. And will look suspiciously at the black teen on the train.

Thanksgiving

I never know what to write about Thanksgiving. We made it :). Actually, the cooking time was the least effort I remember. It took me more time cleaning up, doing the dishes, and packing the food to go, but I am done with that, or with most of that. Boris helped me a lot (probably more than ever), and I am also very thankful for that. I am tired, but also, since Boris and I were chatting all the time while I was cooking and he was helping, I got a lot of new Postgres ideas that I want to try 🙂

I know I am hopeless:)

My son-in-law said I have a secret extra day of the week – I wish!!!

One thing we always have for Thanksgiving are pies from Vanille:)