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.

BA Customer Service

I meant to write this post at least three weeks ago when the actual events happened. I consider it my personal achievement because I won the battle with customer support.

Here is what happened. When I learned that my talk was accepted for PG Day UK, I wanted to book the flight immediately, but I had to wait for almost a month because our firm was switching to the new reservation system. The next day after the switch happened, I found out that I needed to book it on my own because it wouldn’t be reimbursed anyway, but the best prices were not available anymore. I rushed to book whatever was available, and since I used the BA website, I forgot to switch to the Finnair Plus loyalty program. As it turned out, it was impossible to do it in the “Manage reservation” menu, so I had to call customer support.

The first time, I called immediately after I made this reservation and realized the mistake I had made, but after waiting for forty minutes, I decided to give it another try. I made a second attempt two days later and, once again, gave up after almost an hour of waiting. Meanwhile, I have activated Avios transfer between BA and Finnair, but I still wanted to get points from my preferred program, especially because my anniversary is on September 30. I decided to make the third and final effort during the Labor Day weekend.

First, I spent almost an hour waiting. Finally, somebody picked up and then went on hold, verifying my trip locator, and finally disconnected. I was determined to follow through, so I dialed again and waited for another forty minutes. This time, finally, everything worked. Not only was my loyalty program updated, but they also listed all the extra bonuses I had with Finnair Plus. In the end, it was worth it, spending all this time, but I was ready to give up at least ten times!

It felt like the greatest achievement!

Life In Not “Going On”, It’s RUNNING!

The last three days were a non-stop sequence of events! I had an almost disastrous flight to London, then a very good conference in London, and another great day there, and now I am in Amsterdam, ready to give another talk tomorrow. I have a little bit of details on Instagram, and I hope I will fill in the blanks here in a couple of days!

Doing Things WIth My Mom

I tried to do a couple of things with my mom last weekend. I always try to take her to places because I believe it’s at least stimulating and, sometimes, gives her positive emotions. On Saturday, I took her to the Art Institutes – the Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit will be closing soon, and I never took her there. I was hoping she would like it, even though she never heard about Georgia O’Keeffe.

This went really well. First, she didn’t want to listen to me, like literally tuning herself off, and when I asked her why, she said that “she won’t remember it all anyway.” I told her I just wanted to give her a perspective on time and place, and then she listened, and then she actually liked the paintings.

After we saw an exhibit, I took her to the members’ lounge, and we had coffee and sandwiches. It was the first time for me to get some food there rather than just free coffee. I loved the prosciutto and pear toast!

Then I walked my mom down by the Bridgeway, and we stopped at the Bean:

And then I walked her home. The total time for me was almost five hours, almost twice as much as I planned but I do not regret it: it was a positive experience.

On Sunday, I took her to the Glenwood Street Market. That was something I wanted to do it for a while since they give coupons for Link Cards, and they double the amount. So I was hoping that she will finally stop saying “everything is so expensive” and get something for herself.

We achieved a moderate success, because as it turned out, her assistive device can’t move on the cobblestone surface, and without it, she can’t take a lot with her. But at least I convinced her to exchange $100 in EDBT card for $200 coupons to be used at the market, and we were able to spend some of them! When I stopped by on Monday, she didn’t try any of the produce we bought, because “she had something she bough earlier.” I hope that it won’t go to waste at the end! Again, this whole outing took twice more time than I planned, but again, I thing it was worth it.

What I Was Saying…

From Chicago Sun-Times:

Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration spent $814,000 on a giant fence as part of an effort to shut down one of the city’s largest and most visible homeless encampments ahead of the Democratic National Convention, City Hall records show.

The massive barrier was part of an “emergency” effort to permanently lock out unhoused people from the location near the United Center, where the convention was held, the records obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times show.

The Johnson administration had refused to say how much taxpayer money went toward blocking off the green strip of land between the 1100 block of South Desplaines Street and the Dan Ryan Expressway just north of Roosevelt Road, until after the nationally televised gathering was over. The Sun-Times has been asking for those records, which should be public under state law, since July, when that tent city was cleared of its residents, the tents and the items they left behind.

Just A Note…

Time Magazine about the danger of caffeine: the side effect of caffeine is that it’s harder to fall and stay asleep. Isn’t it why we drink caffeinated beverages? Isn’t it an effect, not a side effect???

The article. I still don’t understand why one should quit it!

Continue reading “Just A Note…” →

“Never Better” Musical

Theo Ubique Cabaret just opened the season with the new musical Never Better by Preston Max Allen. Today was a preview and only the second run of the show. I am so impressed! It’s different from anything I saw at Theo before. It’s a very tragic story, not even pretending to be funny, and the acting is just stunning! Each character is so true to life, and for all of the two hours, it’s so real that you forget you’re in the theater, and you worry about the characters and what will happen next.

The show runs for five more weeks, so if you are around, come and watch it!

My Summer Recap

Summer is over. It was still very warm during the week: I spent some time at the beach on Thursday evening, and it was 82F, and the lake was warm. And today was the first fall-like day: it was only 55F in the morning and very windy. I still went for a semi-log bike ride, but even though I switched to the warmer biking jacket and put on the gloves, it was not exactly enjoyable.

The Labor Day weekend went great. I didn’t go on any trip; instead, everything I’ve done during these three and a half days was a good combination of picking up loose ends, finishing things I didn’t have time to finish before, and doing many things I love doing.

On Friday, I went to a Howard -Evanston CC End-of-Summer event (being on a Community Board there is a new thing I started in 2024 to make a difference close to home). It was a lunchtime event; I worked from home for a change and took a half-day off. Then I returned home and spent time with a friend who lives on the other side of the world in Oak Park. We planned her visit for months, and then had to reschedule because she was afraid to travel during the DNC.

On Saturday, I went escorting for the early morning shift, and I had a private yoga class with my teacher and made a plum cake

Sunday was Bike the Drive, and I had coffee with my mom, and on Monday, I went to Fort Sheridan.

I talked to Boris for about an hour every day of this long weekend. Every day, I visited my mom. Every day, I was at the beach. I watched three movies that required some concentration: Atlantis, Nuremberg, and Filmmakers for Prosecution. I finally changed the light bulbs in both bathrooms (it was not like I was sitting in the dark, in both cases, one of two bulbs was burned, but it is the whole project to change them). I won two battles on the phone with two customer services (more details to come – maybe!), and I finalized my conference presentation.

I feel like all these activities represent an accurate wrap-up of what I was doing this whole summer. Summer was very busy, but not like I was too busy to enjoy life. I had life and a lot of it!

Filmmakers For Prosecution

I finally finished watching both movies: Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today and Filmmakers for the Prosecution. The first one is a 2009 digital restoration of the film produced in 1948 by brothers Budd and Stuart Schulberg. In this film, they collected the evidence that would be used to convict the Nazy criminals at the Nuremberg Trail. The footage they collected was only partially included in the impressive documentary, and the second film included some footage that had never been seen before. However, a more disturbing fact is that even the original movie (without these extras) was intentionally hidden from the public by the US government.

Jean-Christophe Klotz, who directed the second movie, interviewed many of the creators of the original “Nuremberg” film or their surviving relatives and friends. He also talks about the Russian documentary by Roman Carmen and about the race between the filmmakers on which country will be the first one to tell the world about Nazi atrocities. Apparently, the main reason for the “Nuremberg” movie to disappear from the public view was that Russians were portrayed as US allies (actually, the film does not include the secret pact and Russian annexation of parts of Poland). That being said, by 1948, the US government didn’t want any mention of being allies with the Soviet Union during WWII, which shelved the movie for seventy-five years.

But that was not it. In addition, it was presumed that the wide release of a film indicting Germany on war crimes might impede political and public acceptance of the plan to rebuild Germany’s economy, a vital plank in the Marshall Plan’s approach to European recovery. So apparently, the film was viewed as anti-German, at least to the same degree as anti-Nazi.

More valuable information is available on the project website, which also reveals the search for evidence in the propaganda films made by the Nazis themselves. If any of my readers are interested, I encourage them to explore this website.

It Was A Good Summer

Possibly the last Riverwalk gelato of the season

Ninotchka

Siskel Center started a new lecture series, “Propaganda and Counterculture.” The program is incredibly interesting. However, I can hardly attend any because most of my Tuesdays are already scheduled. Because of that, I made a point to see “Nonotchka” last Tuesday.

The auditorium was packed with students who stayed for a class after the screening. I am curious to know their impressions! The movie is funny. Even with the obligatory dose of “cranberry trees,” it still captures some utterly funny details that are pretty close to reality.

Now that I think about it, maybe “funny” is exactly what feels slightly disturbing. One may say that we are not afraid of things we can laugh about, but at the same time, that exact feeling that “things are not too scary” prompts the viewers to believe that the communist regime was not so bad…